June 27, 2026

Mark 10:21

21 And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

This passage can trip people up because Jesus seems to be selling salvation, but Jesus is pulling out the deep idol in this man’s heart. It is as though Jesus said, “If Heaven is what you want, put your treasure there and receive me.” What an exchange! What is the price of following Jesus? Everything. What is the reward of following Jesus? God Himself and Heaven forever.

Tragically, the man walked away sad because he had many possessions. Have you been confronted yet with the idol that may keep you from Jesus? What would hurt most to give up for Him? You could only do it if the love of Jesus was of greater value to you than that thing. Have you opened that treasure chest and stared at the wealth that is God’s love for you?

Prayer prompt: Lord, show me the idols that tempt me away from You.

June 26, 2026

Romans 12:9

9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.

What do we do with evil? That’s a hard word to even use today. Moral certainty has eroded to a great degree under banners like “Don’t judge” and “Find your bliss”. If we Abhor what is evil, literally turn away in horror from things God calls evil, do we end up hidden away like the Amish or riding with swords drawn like the Crusaders?

If Love is genuine, we tap into something certain and empowering. Genuine love, flowing from God to us, has eyes to see good and grab onto it, ears to hear evil and turn away. Genuine love cares enough to pull others away from evil to good with all the firmness and gentle care of a lover. Let your love be Genuine.

Prayer prompt: Lord, keep Your genuine love before me so I will love others in the same way.

June 25, 2026

Jude 3

3 Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

When you go to God’s word, are you preparing for a battle or a feast? Jude wants to enjoy the gospel with the Christians he’s writing to, but instead has to fight to preserve that Gospel. The Word of God is eternal, but the minds of men are slippery. How do we defend the faith from false teachings?

If we are going to defend the gospel, we have to know it intimately so we can immediately detect any distortion or changes. That kind of project begs the question, how do we motivate ourselves to gain that intimate understanding of God’s Word? Jude longs for the Word because he’s been so blessed by it. Do you go to God’s Word like you go to a feast? Build that appetite by studying it today.

Prayer prompt: Lord, bring me to your Word daily so I will find food for my soul and learn the only true faith delivered to us.

June 24, 2026

Exodus 2:24-25

24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.

I feel like my kids are always trying to trap me in a verbal contract. They can’t remember something I’ve told them to do a mere 2 seconds later, but when I agree to do something for them, you better believe they’ll remember. Does God remember His promises to us? Does He see us in our abysmal situation?

In Egypt, God saw His people and He knew. He knew their suffering and he heard their groaning. When the time was right, He sent in His man and rescued them in the grandest fashion. Are you tempted to think He doesn’t see you, that He’s forgotten? Look at history and know, He won’t forget His promises.

Prayer prompt: Lord, I know that You see me. Help me to remember that I never suffer alone.

June 23, 2026

Isaiah 62:5b

5 …and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

It’s nearly impossible to imagine a more exciting moment than when your wife walks down the aisle. I remember feeling a sort of buzzing as the part of my brain that processes emotions was totally overloaded. I remember being really happy and thinking she was gorgeous beyond words. It will always be one of the highest moments in the human experience.

And God chose that experience to describe how He looks at you. Take that slowly, He looks at you like that. When you put your faith in Jesus, He totally cleans up your sins, past, present, and future. Now He can just look at you with all the love in His heart. My heart is small and my wife has to make do with what little love I can produce, but His love is an ocean. Go to Him confident of His love in Christ.

Prayer prompt: Lord, please help me to trust Your acceptance of me.

June 22, 2026

Colossians 1:116-18a

16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church.

Do you ever wonder if you’ll fit in at church? It should be such a welcoming place, and maybe it is, but there can be stress. Who do I talk to? What are the unwritten rules I follow to be accepted? At Hope, our people do a great job of being welcoming, but these fears aren’t always rational.

That’s when you remember that you know the guy in charge. There’s one voice that matters in the church, and He has already spoken. In Christ, you are totally accepted, valued, wanted, and celebrated. Christ is the head and He loves you.

Prayer prompt: Lord, help me to celebrate the acceptance I have in Jesus and enjoy the love I feel from His people.

June 20, 2026

Romans 12:5

5 so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

One of the members of Hope Church works in the miracle-producing world of transplants. They take the eyes of donors who have died and are able to give healthy eyes and sight to those in need. Without the transplant, the recipient can’t see and the eyes die. This helps us correct an awful problem in the Church. Are you part of the Church or are you “doing Christianity” on your own, disconnected from the body?

This verse teaches us about our role in the church, also called the body of Christ. You are a part of that body, like an eye or a foot. You have a use, but it’s only a use that really works in conjunction with the rest of the body. Eyes have incredible value, but only in a body as a means of sight; if they don’t get plugged in, they die. Have you connected to the body?

Prayer prompt: Lord, help me overcome excuses, past hurts, and fear so I can be used in Your body for Your glory.

June 19, 2026

John 15:1-2

1 I am the true vine and my Father is the vinedresser.  2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch in me that does bear fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

I love summer time. Flowers bloom and fruit trees become heavy with fruit. Think about the importance of the vines, stems, or trunks of those plants? We appreciate the flowers, fruits, and vegetables, but those can only come from a healthy plant. Our spiritual life functions the same way.

Our spiritual health and fruit come when we abide in Jesus. Just as an expert gardener knows to cut off the dead branches and to prune the healthy ones, God equips us to thrive spiritually and then prunes us so that we may bear more spiritual fruit. Today, knit your heart to Jesus by thinking about, praying to, and feeling love from Him.

Prayer prompt: Lord Jesus, it is impossible to be spiritually healthy apart from knowing and loving You. Help me to love You and to bear fruit for my family, friends, and the growth of Your Kingdom.

June 18, 2026

Jude 2

2 May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.

Charles Dickens painted a compelling scene in Oliver Twist. A little orphan asks for a second serving of dinner, “Please, sir, may I have another?” Do you pray like that? Do you think God is as tightfisted and as unloving as the people who run the workhouse? Please God, just a little, a crumb more of Your help?

That’s not how the Kingdom works. God doesn’t give a little, He overwhelms. Jesus doesn’t give just enough food for the multitude, there are baskets and baskets left over. Mercy, peace, and love don’t just drip down to us, they bounce around, overflow, and multiply. It seems we get so little only because we ask so infrequently. We discount what God has done and don’t look for Him to do much more. But remember Jesus gave His own body and blood for you to be freed forever! Pray, today, for mercy, peace, and love to multiply.

Prayer prompt: Lord, thank you for providing for me in ways that multiply exponentially!

June 17, 2026

1 Kings 19:11-12

11 And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.” … 12 And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper.

I am desperate for God to win. I want Him to tear up mountains and destroy His enemies with fire and lightning. I want everyone in the world to fall to their knees and embrace the one true God. Yet we keep toiling in little whispers, little conversations, little blogs, little sermons heard by such a small percentage of our city.

In the story above, Elijah the prophet had just seen a dominant display of God’s power over His enemies. Elijah was sure God finally won, but the King and Queen still rejected God. Then God took Elijah and showed him a cyclone, an earthquake, and a monstrous fire, but God was in the whisper. God can work through it all, in it all. The next time your obedience seems like a whisper, remember God is working even then.

Prayer prompt: Lord, please remind me of all the work You are doing all the time.

June 16, 2026

Matthew 4:3-4

3 And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4 But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

If you’ve ever felt real hunger, take a moment to understand Jesus in this story. The man had not eaten a bite in 40 days. After that length of time, Jesus must have felt a kind of hunger only felt by those about to starve. Yet when tempted He said He had something better than food.

When Christians fast, we put ourselves in a position to enjoy God’s grace in a physical way. When you give up food for some amount of time to enjoy God, you make something spiritual more real to you. When we take the Lord’s Supper or baptize someone, we make a physical experience out of a spiritual reality. Is God’s goodness worth more than life for you? How about lunch?

Prayer prompt: Lord, teach me to remember the way you saved me so I will trust that you still love me.

June 15, 2026

1 Corinthians 15:10a

10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain.

Do you ever wish you were someone else in God’s Kingdom? I think everyone does almost all the time. If you have a position of honor, you also have a mountain of responsibilities and uncertainty. You can feel like an imposter who mishandles your responsibilities. If you have a position that people don’t necessarily line up for it’s easy to feel forgotten or hard done by.

Paul wasn’t one of the 12 and wasn’t as eloquent as Apollo, but God’s work in him and through him was not pointless. It’s hard to imagine a Christian that has been more useful to the Kingdom, and yet Paul had the same kind of jealousy to fight. By the grace of God, we are who we are and His grace is never in vain.

Prayer prompt: Lord, I am glad to be what You have made me. I trust Your work will never be in vain.

June 13, 2026

Romans 12:3

3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

When I was a kid, my grandparents kept a peacock and I can tell you, peacocks are jerks. It’s fun to pick up some of the long interesting looking feathers they drop. But don’t get close or you’ll be sorry. Have you ever heard the phrase “Proud as a Peacock”? Ostentatious and down right mean, peacocks are a great symbol for pride.

When we regard ourselves more highly than we ought, we step outside God’s definition of who we are and try to create something better. By grace, God has called us His adopted children. He plans to bless us with every blessing, not even withholding His own Son. Why would we ever think we could beat that?

Prayer prompt: Lord, teach me to be forever satisfied with who You say I am.

June 12, 2026

Philippians 1:9-10

9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,

There is a silly kind of love that doesn’t have much knowledge. Pop stars have millions of fans who love them, but it’s a shallow love because they’ve never even met. There is a cold kind of approval that knows what is good, but doesn’t do much. Looking down from an ivory tower, some people know what is good, but there isn’t a fire-in-the-belly conviction that stirs that person to action.

The gospel gives us both knowledge and passion. We aren’t drones who follow a preset path without any understanding. God wants us to see why things are good or evil, to discern one from the other. Yet, we have a love that bounces around and grows, filling us up, spilling over. We aren’t content to have knowledge without passion. Today, take your own temperature. Do you feel that love?

Prayer prompt: Lord, help me to love You with a deep love that knows You.

June 11, 2026

Acts 17:6

6 And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also,

Jesus came to bring about an upside down kingdom. In His new order the greatest has to be the servant of everyone, tax collectors and prostitutes are valued members and the religious leaders are way off track. In His kingdom the mourners, meek, and even persecuted are blessed. In our world, His Kingdom is upside down.

That message of God’s Kingdom spread around the ancient world through the new Christians’ lives and teaching. We may think it wouldn’t survive as people would see it as upside down and weird. But it turned the world upside down, or better said, right side up. When you get quiet because your Christian beliefs seem so strange in our world remember, it has seemed strange before. But the world hasn’t changed Christianity, Christianity has changed the world.

Prayer prompt: Lord, thank you for making me part of turning the world around.

June 10, 2026

Galatians 4:9

9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?

Imagine a prisoner. He is filthy, in a cramped, lightless place with stale air and awful smells. Hopeless and chained, he only gets the miserable company of the bugs that live on him. Then the sound of the lid being pulled away, light blinds, and gentle hands pull him up to clean, feed and free him. What is the one place on the planet that guy is never voluntarily returning to?

In the same way, you and I are freed by God from the way we used to live. It was enslaving, destructive, and ultimately deadly. If you can see that, even when it seems so tempting, you can walk away. It will be as easy as doing what you want to do. Use your imagination to see sin the way that God does.

Prayer prompt: Lord, please keep me from returning to what will hurt me, even when it is hard.

June 9, 2026

Psalm 1:1-2

1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

You can do whatever you want, but are you free to want what you want? There are very few commands in the ads we see everyday. Usually, ads show you how much fun, happiness, health, friends, and fitness you would have if you buy. We are constantly being led around by our desires.

The opening of the whole Psalter, all 150 of them, is this clear either/or: if you delight in God’s ways rather than in the ways of the world, you will be blessed. But if you walk, stand, and sit with those who don’t delight in God’s ways, you won’t be blessed. It’s that simple, and that difficult. What have you allowed your heart to long for? Do you delight in God’s ways?

Prayer prompt: Lord, Your ways lead to life, pleasure and joy. Help convince my heart to delight in what is lovely.

June 8, 2026

Acts 2:2-3

2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.

What does it mean to say God is with you? If you’re a Christian, and God promised not to leave you or forsake you, where is He now? It is so hard to be faithful to God in a real struggle when He’s just absent. The disciples had Jesus, where is God with us?

You and I need these verses. When Jesus left to go back to heaven, He said the Comforter would come. Then we get this description of what it looks like to have the Holy Spirit. A mighty rushing wind came and filled each of them with fire. God’s real presence, His voice-from-the-whirlwind, fire-on-Sinai presence is in you. If God is with us, who can stand against us?

Prayer prompt: Lord, teach me to remember the way you saved me so I will trust that you still love me.

June 6, 2026

Romans 12:10

10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

What does being part of the church look like? Some people see church as a contest to see who can seem the most put together. They really work to seem like Godly people with surface-level stuff like how good their kids act for 65 minutes, how snappy their outfit is, and how broad their smile can be. It becomes a battle between proud people who compete with the next more-put-together-than-you person. Who wants that?

Paul is describing a church where the opposite takes place. A family that has true affection for each other, where each member delights to see the other lifted up. Imagine a place where people were ecstatic to see you do well, to jump on your success and celebrate them with true joy and to sit by you in your failures with genuine care and affection. That’s what God’s love does in a place. Love each other with brotherly affection.

Prayer prompt: Lord, help me to be so aware of Your love that I can show honor to others without all the competition.

June 5, 2026

Philippians 3:20

20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

A great phrase for understanding the bible, and our place in the bible’s promises is “Already, but not yet”. Jesus came to bring us salvation, true forgiveness from sin and death, to really bring us back to God. And yet, I’m not able to see Him. I already have forgiveness, God’s love, the Holy Spirit’s presence, but I’m not yet in Heaven.

That’s when verses like this put steel in our backbones. You can just imagine how often Paul thought about this and it kept him going. This world is terrible, but it’s not my home. Jesus came to save me, and I love Him, but I haven’t touched Him like Thomas. But I will. He’s coming. And when He comes, as Tolkein said, “All the sad things will come untrue”. Await Him with Hope!

Prayer prompt: Lord, I know the blessings I now feel are just a beginning. Help me to see what will be and rejoice in hope!