Category: Devotions

  • A Favorite Game

    One of the most sinister strategies for justifying wrongful behaviors is a mental game that is prompted by the question, Who’s on top? The game board resembles a ladder. Every position on this ladderlike structure is relative to every other position. You can rise above another player’s position, or you can find yourself on a…

  • How We View Others

    Both ways of being—at peace and at war—cast broad shadows on the way we view others. When I relate to another individual with a heart that is at peace, I see that person in a way similar to the way I see myself. I see him or her as a human being who has hopes,…

  • The Need to Justify

    In Eden, before sin changed everything, Adam and Eve knew only one heart condition. Their hearts were always and only at peace with the Creator. They also were at peace with his creation, and with each other. In absolute terms, everything was right in those relationships. God provided for their every need. They lacked nothing…

  • The Seeds of Conflict

    This is about the time when most of us, dear reader, get up on our high horses in protest to challenge the notion that there may be something wrong with wanting something—with dreaming big. After all, in one way or another, we each subscribe to the concept of the great American dream. Disney built an…

  • Trust and Mistrust

    Mistrust ignites more conflict than any other cause. Even when there are other mitigating origins for a conflict, suspicion is frequently hiding in the background. At some level, all serious conflict is about the truth and how people interpret it. And as a general rule of thumb, most individuals assume their enemies are completely lacking…

  • The Conflict Within

    A very real conflict is still going on in each one of us between our old Adam and our new man in Christ. The battle is being waged all the time. This is a good reason for being careful about picking our battles. A noble cause is certainly worth going to war over. Jesus fought…

  • 5-Minute Bible Studies: For Teens – Letter From the Editor

    Dear brothers in the ministry, The teenage years are challenging years for many—spiritually challenging. How often don’t pastors wistfully scan the assembled worshipers with an ache in their hearts because of the absence of many recent confirmands. How many parents don’t cautiously encourage their high school students to include time in their busy schedules for…

  • God Our Refuge: Letter From the Editor

    Dear brothers in the ministry, After spending over a quarter century serving as an editor at Northwestern Publishing House, I can safely say that there are few NPH and WELS publications—present as well as past—that I’m unfamiliar with. With this letter to you, I’m calling attention to one publication that had completely escaped my attention…