Solid Joys Daily Devotional

Not only are spiritual gifts a work of God’s free grace in our lives, but so also is the very faith with which we use those gifts.

In order to live the radical lives Christ calls us to live, we must embrace him as the only one who can truly satisfy our souls.

Our hearts exploit our minds to justify what our hearts want. Our deepest desires incline our minds to perceive and think in a way that will make our desires look right.

If we recognize our sin, fight it, and cling to the cross of Christ as our hope, then God will hear us and answer our prayers.

Worship is all the acts of the heart and mind and body that intentionally express the infinite worth of God.

The faith that justifies and the faith that sanctifies are not two different kinds of faith.

The best news in all the world is that our alienation from God is ended. We have been reconciled to the Judge of the universe.

Be devoted to glorifying the dependability of God. Lives of faith are the great mirror of his faithful love and provision.

Open your eyes to the better country, the city of God that he has prepared for us, and let yourself desire it with all your heart. God will not be ashamed to be called your God.

Faith glorifies God because it is a future-oriented confidence in God’s integrity and power and wisdom to follow through on all his promises.

We don’t become heirs of Abraham’s promises by working for God but by being confident that God works for us.

Why does faith not nullify the grace of God? Because faith calls all attention to grace and magnifies it, rather than nullifies it.

The worship of daily obedience is not at bottom a burdensome giving to God, but a joyful getting from God. That is the true service that God demands.

Faith nullifies boasting and glorifies grace. Wherever faith looks, it sees grace behind every praiseworthy act. So it cannot boast, except in the Lord.

God has wise and holy purposes when he does not answer our prayers as we want. Trust him. He knows what he is doing.

The sovereign grace of God can turn the unplanned place and the unplanned pace into the happiest ending imaginable.

We can know that our sins are taken away and that we will be safe in the judgment, if we trust Christ in such a way that it makes us eager for his coming.

Patience is indeed a fruit of the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit empowers us (with all his fruit) through hearing with faith.

What feels to us like a waste is what God plans. He works through the most hopeless circumstances.

Our election is unconditional in the strictest sense. Neither our faith nor our obedience is the basis of it. It is free and utterly undeserved.

When we sit down to calculate the cost of following Jesus — when we weigh the “worst” and the “best” — he is worth it. Abundantly worth it.

Jesus knows all his sheep by name; that is, he knows them individually and intimately.

God is so eager to work for us that he goes around looking for more work to do for people who will trust him.

When you love Christ, you don’t take much thought for your life in this world. Rather, you live for the glory of God’s grace.

What makes the whole Trinity rejoice together? The free, electing love of God to hide the true spiritual identity of Christ from the intellectual elite and to reveal it to babes.

Don’t replace Christ this summer with trifles. Seek the things that are above. Flight from Christ into Christless leisure makes the soul parched.

Consider these five digital dangers and some accompanying resolutions to avoid and redeem them.

God’s electing love is absolutely free. It is the gracious overflow of his boundless happiness guided by his infinite wisdom.

Trust God. Commit your way to him. Roll onto him your anxieties, frustrations, and plans — indeed, your very life.

Hope and love do not come from nowhere. They grow out of ideas — views of reality — revealed in the Scriptures.

How did you come to be a Christian? Join Charles Spurgeon and joyfully confess, “I ascribe my change wholly to God!”

When God becomes our treasure, we treat our adversaries out of our own fullness with the all-satisfying glory of God.

You have heard echoes of God’s glory everywhere; tune your heart to the original music. The best place to get your heart tuned is at the cross of Jesus Christ.

God is pursuing with omnipotent delight a worldwide purpose of gathering a people for his name from every tribe and language and nation.

This is the essence of what it means to love God: to be satisfied in him — not just his gifts, but God himself, as the glorious person that he is.

Faith overcomes our inborn hostility to God and his will, and frees us to keep his commandments.

God will gladly receive anything from us that shows our dependence and his all-sufficiency. Therefore, we can gladly cast all our anxieties on him.

The only joy that reflects the worth of God and overflows in God-glorifying love is rooted in true knowledge of God.

Joy comes from the Holy Spirit, not our own efforts or imagination or family upbringing. Therefore, the call to joy is a call to earnest prayer.

Gratitude looks back to past grace received and feels thankful. Faith looks forward to future grace promised and feels hopeful.

Praying for forgiveness should be based not only on an appeal to God’s mercy, but also on an appeal to his justice in crediting the worth of his Son’s obedience.

The goal of everything God takes us through is hope. He wants us to feel unwaveringly hopeful through all tribulations. He wants us to know he loves us.

God requires good works not as the ground of our justification (which is the righteousness of Christ alone), but as an evidence of it.

In this life of sin and pain, how shall we fight for joy? Here are fifteen ways.

The age of sin and misery and death is almost spent. The day of righteousness and peace and total joy is dawning.

Our sins are laid on Christ and his righteousness is laid on us. That is the great exchange — and it becomes ours not by works but by faith.

It could not be otherwise but that Christianity be a singing faith. The founder sang. We are a singing people because we are the children of a singing God.

When we speak of being a God-centered people, remember, this is because we are joining God in his God-centeredness.

The point of Paul’s conversion happening the way it did is to make Christ’s incredible patience vivid for you.

When we live by faith, rooted in God’s forgiveness, we are freed from the lingering, paralyzing effects even of shame we deserve to feel.