It’s just an old pocketknife, worn and tarnished with time. The blade is chipped and the handle notched, but it was one of my father’s treasures, kept in a box on his dresser until he gave it to me. “It’s one of the few things I have from your grandfather,” he told me. My grandfather died when my father was young, and Dad treasured the knife because he treasured his father.
The Bible tells us that God also has an unlikely treasure, something we might not expect. In the Revelation, we see a throne in heaven encircled by “four living creatures” and “twenty-four elders,” bowing before Jesus in worship (chs. 4–5). Each one is holding “golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people” (5:8). In ancient times, incense was something precious, used by kings (think of the gold, frankincense, and myrrh offered to Jesus in Matthew 2:11). Our prayers may not seem like much to us at times, but God wants them lifted before Him always.
Revelation 5 emphasizes the worthiness of Jesus because of His sinless life and loving death for us. Jesus’ worthiness points us to why God values our prayers. Our prayers are precious to God because we are precious to Him. Because He loves us with such selfless, priceless, and merciful love, He longs for us to stay close to Him in prayer.
Moses with horns? That’s the way he’s depicted in Michelangelo’s masterpiece sculpture completed in 1515. Two horns protrude from Moses’s hair just above his forehead.
Michelangelo wasn’t alone—many Renaissance and medieval artists depict Moses that way. Why? It has to do with the Latin translation of the Hebrew Bible available at the time, which described Moses’s radiant face (after being in God’s presence—see Exodus 34:29). The original language uses a word related to “horns” to describe “beams” of light shining from Moses’s face, and the Latin Vulgate Bible translated it literally. Moses was “misread.”
Have you ever misread someone? After a man unable to walk from birth was healed by Peter in Jesus’ name (Acts 3:1–10), the apostle told his fellow Israelites that they had misread Jesus. “You killed the author of life,” he said pointedly, “but God raised him from the dead” (v. 15). He continued, “This is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Messiah would suffer” (v. 18). Peter even said Moses had pointed to Jesus (v. 22).
It was “by faith in the name of Jesus,” a “faith that comes through him,” that the man’s life was transformed (v. 16). No matter how we’ve misunderstood Him or what our past contains, Jesus welcomes us when we turn to Him. The author of life stands ready to write new beginnings for us!
Sometimes I just feel so . . . invisible.” The word hung in the air as Joanie talked to her friend. Her husband had left for another woman, leaving Joanie with young children still at home. “I gave him my best years,” she confided. “And now I don’t know if anyone would really see me or take the time to actually know me.”
“I’m so sorry,” her friend responded. “My dad walked out when I was six, and it was hard for us, especially Mom. But she said this thing when she tucked me in at night that I never forgot: ‘God never closes His eyes.’ When I was older, she explained she was trying to teach me that God loved me and watched over me always, even while I slept.”
The Bible presents words God gave Moses to share with His people during a challenging time, when they were wandering in Sinai’s desert: “The
Even in life’s wildernesses—those places where we wonder if anyone sees us or truly understands—God is faithful. God’s favor—His shining face and enduring love—is always turned toward those who love Him, even when we can’t feel Him because of our pain. No one is invisible to God.
“Did your sin also put Jesus on the cross?” That’s the question Dutch painter Rembrandt seems to be asking in his 1633 masterpiece, The Raising of the Cross. Jesus appears in the center of the picture as His cross is lifted and put in place. Four men are doing the lifting, but one stands out in the light surrounding Jesus. His clothing is different; he’s dressed in the style of Rembrandt’s day, wearing a cap the painter often wore. A closer look at his face reveals that Rembrandt has put himself into the painting, as if to say, “My sins had a part in Jesus’ death.”
But there’s another who also stands out. He’s on horseback, looking directly out of the painting. Some see this as a second self-portrait by Rembrandt, engaging all who observe with a knowing glance that seems to ask, “Aren’t you here too?”
Paul saw himself there, and we may also, because Jesus suffered and died for us as well. In Romans 5:10, he refers to himself and us as “God’s enemies.” But even though our sins caused Jesus’ death, His death reconciles us to God: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
We stand with both Rembrandt and Paul: sinners in need of forgiveness. Through His cross, Jesus offers us what we could never do for ourselves and meets our deepest need: a new beginning with God.
“Sheer encouragement.” That was the phrase J.R.R. Tolkien used to describe the personal support his friend and colleague C.S. Lewis gave him as he wrote the epic The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tolkien’s work on the series had been painstaking and exacting, and he’d personally typed out the lengthy manuscripts more than twice. When he sent them to Lewis, Lewis responded, “All the long years you have spent on it are justified.” Lewis and Tolkien didn’t always agree on literary matters, but their shared faith and mutual intellectual interests served as catalysts for great creative accomplishments in both their lives.
Perhaps Scripture’s best-known encourager was Joseph from Cyprus, better known as Barnabas (meaning “son of encouragement”), the name the apostles gave him (Acts 4:36). It was Barnabas who advocated for Paul to the apostles (9:27). Later, when non-Jewish believers began to place their faith in Jesus, Luke tells us Barnabas “was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts.” Luke describes him as “a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith,” adding that because of him, “a great number of people were brought to the Lord” (11:23–24).
The worth of encouraging words cannot be measured. As we offer words of faith and love to others, God—who gives “eternal encouragement” (2 Thessalonians 2:16)—may move through what we share to transform someone’s life forever. May He help us to offer “sheer encouragement” to someone today!
Two friends were shopping for a laptop in an electronics store when they ran into basketball great Shaquille O’Neal. Aware that O’Neal recently suffered the loss of his sister and a former teammate, they empathetically offered their condolences. After the two men returned to their shopping, Shaq approached them and told them to pick out the nicest laptop they could find. He then bought it for them, simply because they saw him as a person going through a difficult time and was moved by their kindness.
Millenia before that encounter, Solomon wrote, “Those who are kind benefit themselves” (Proverbs 11:17). When we consider others’ needs and do what we can to help and encourage them, we are rewarded ourselves. It may not be with a laptop or material things, but God has ways of blessing us that this world cannot measure. As Solomon explained just two verses earlier in the same chapter, “A kindhearted woman gains honor, but ruthless men gain only wealth” (v. 16). There are blessings that are worth far more than money, and God measures them generously in His perfect wisdom and way.
Kindness and generosity are part of God’s character, and He loves to see them expressed in our own hearts and lives. Solomon summed up the matter well: “Whoever refreshes others will be refreshed” (v. 25).
“God has been so good to us! I want to thank Him for our anniversary.” Terry’s voice was steady, and the tears in her eye showed her sincerity. Those in our small group were deeply moved. We knew what past years had held for Terry and her husband. Though a believer, Robert suffered from the sudden onset of severe mental illness and had taken the life of their four-year-old daughter. He would be institutionalized for decades, but Terry visited him, and God did a beautiful healing work, helping her forgive. Despite profound heartache, their love for each other grew.
Love and forgiveness like that could only come from one source. David writes about God this way, “He does not treat us as our sins deserve . . . . As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:10, 12).
The mercy God shows us comes through His expansive love: “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love” for us (v. 11). Love so profound compelled Him to go to the depths of the cross and grave to take away our sins so that He could bring all who “receive Him” (John 1:12) home to Himself.
Terry was right. “God has been so good to us!” His love and forgiveness reach beyond unthinkable boundaries and offer us life that never ends.
“I can’t believe what I’m seeing!” My wife, Cari, called me to the window and pointed out an adult doe in the woods just outside our fence, bounding from one end of our yard to the other. Keeping pace beside her inside the fence were our large dogs, but they weren’t barking. Back and forth they went, for nearly an hour. When the doe paused and faced them, the dogs stopped also, straightening their front legs and crouching back on their haunches, ready to run again. This wasn’t predator and prey behavior; the doe and the dogs were playing together, enjoying each other’s company!
To Cari and me, their morning romp provided a picture of the coming kingdom of God. The prophet Isaiah proclaims God’s promise of that kingdom with the words, “See, I will create new heavens and a new earth” (Isaiah 65:17). He goes on to say that “the wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox” (v. 25). No more predator, no more prey. Just friends.
Isaiah’s words seem to show us that there will be animals in God’s eternal kingdom; they also point to what God is preparing for His creation, especially “for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). What a beautiful place that will be! As we trust in Him by faith, God lifts our eyes to the reality that’s coming: peace and safety in His presence forever!
I didn’t do it!” It was a lie, and I almost got away with it, until God stopped me. When I was in middle school, I was part of a group shooting spitballs in the back of our band during a performance. Our director was an ex-marine and famous for discipline, and I was terrified of him. So when my partners in crime implicated me, I lied to him about it. Then I lied to my father also.
But God wouldn’t allow the lie to go on. He gave me a very guilty conscience about it. After resisting for weeks, I relented. I asked God and my dad for forgiveness. A while later, I went to my director’s house and tearfully confessed. Thankfully, he was kind and forgiving.
I’ll never forget how good it felt to have that burden lifted. I was free from the weight of guilt and happy for the first time in weeks. David describes a time of conviction and confession in his life too. He tells God, “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away . . . . For day and night your hand was heavy on me.” He continues, “Then I acknowledged my sin to you” (Psalm 32:3-5).
Authenticity matters to God. He wants us to confess our sins to Him and also to ask forgiveness of those we’ve wronged. “You forgave the guilt of my sin,” David proclaims (v. 5). How good it is to know the freedom of God’s forgiveness!
