Romans 1:24 speaks of God giving people over to what they insist on pursuing. It is not God throwing people away. It is God letting a rebellious crowd walk the road they chose so the road itself can teach them it does not satisfy. Ray Stedman helps us see how this plays out in real life. When a culture trades worship of the Creator for worship of created things, the first cracks often show up in how we treat our bodies and each other. The deeper issue is not just behavior. The deeper issue is misplaced worship and empty hearts.

John 17:6 says that the Father gave a people to Jesus. Oswald Chambers presses this tender reality into everyday life. A disciple is not a spiritual showpiece. A disciple belongs to Jesus, learns His heart by the Holy Spirit, and is sent in His life and love. This is not about climbing a ladder to God. It is about trusting union with the One who calls us His own.

Mark 6 shows Jesus inviting tired friends to step aside with Him to a quiet place for a short rest. That scene is tender. It feels like a hand on the shoulder and a kind voice saying, pause with Me. Today’s reading from A. B. Simpson points me back to that simple invitation. Growth is not a race of frantic activity. It is the fruit of staying close to Jesus, letting the Holy Spirit be the source across an ordinary day.

David keeps pointing us to a word that carries the weight of grace in the Old Testament, lovingkindness. It is God’s loyal mercy and daily goodness poured out on those who belong to Him. Bob Hoekstra highlights how David does not lean on resolve or mood. He leans on the Lord’s lovingkindness, asking God to continue it, counting it better than life, and seeking to hear it in the morning.

Ephesians 6:11 calls me to put on the whole armor of God so I can stand against the schemes that tug at my mind and pace. Today’s reading in Abide Above reminds me that my Father reigns, and even what the enemy intends for harm cannot outrun the Father’s boundary or purpose. This is not a call to argue about why hard things come. It is an invitation to rest in who holds me, and to stand in what Jesus has already won.

“Our Father in the heavens” begins with a family word, not a formula. Today’s reading from Witness Lee reminds me that the first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer turn my attention to the Father’s name set apart, the Son’s kingdom, and the Spirit’s will shaping life on earth as it is in heaven. I am grateful for how Lee points us to this upward posture, then brings it right down into daily steps.

Revelation 1:17 to 18 records John falling at the feet of the risen Jesus, then being lifted by His reassuring hand. Today’s reading in His Victorious Indwelling gathers words from Jonathan Edwards and Jeanne Guyon that echo that same kindness. Edwards describes being overcome by the excellence of the Son of God. Guyon speaks of deep peace when every desire settles in God. Nick Harrison’s curation points our attention to the Living One who steadies trembling hearts and realigns the will in love.

Colossians 3:2 calls me to set my mind on things above, not on earthly things. T. Austin-Sparks reminds us that believers drift when our inner gravity settles on what is passing. The early church kept a living sense of heaven’s call. That vision moved ordinary people to live from Jesus, not from the narrowing pull of this world.

I’ve never been comfortable with the phrase “dying to self.” It’s common in Christian circles, but when you look closely at Scripture, it doesn’t quite line up with what God has already done for us in Jesus. The Bible gives us a far richer and more liberating picture: we don’t keep dying to self. We recognize that the old man has already been crucified, and we deny the self-life (the flesh) as our source.

E. Stanley Jones reminds us that the mind of Jesus was one of complete self-surrender. Philippians 2:5-11 outlines the path of Jesus, who emptied Himself, humbled Himself, and became obedient to death on a cross. From that deepest place of renunciation, the Father exalted Him, giving Him the name above every name. Jones makes clear that when we take on the mind of Jesus, we find our truest self not by clinging to our own importance but by letting go. In losing ourselves, we discover who we were created to be.

T. Austin-Sparks draws our eyes to a breathtaking truth from Ephesians: Jesus was raised from the dead and seated at the right hand of the Father, and we, by grace, have been raised up and seated with Him. This is not a distant promise but a present reality that the Holy Spirit longs to make alive in our hearts. It is one thing to read the words, but another to have the eyes of our hearts enlightened so that this reality becomes the lens through which we live. Sparks reminds us that this revelation is what frees and sustains us.

Ray Stedman takes us into Romans 1:18 to 20 and shows why life caves in when we push God to the edges. The trouble behind our troubles is not simply bad behavior. It is godlessness, living as if God is not present or active. From that root, hurtful choices grow. When we disregard God, we suppress truth, and when truth is pressed down, darkness spreads in our thinking and our living.

Bob Hoekstra draws our hearts today to the comfort David found in confessing God as his refuge. Life is often stormy. Sometimes it feels as if the floods of trouble are rising, and dangers are waiting around every corner. Like David, we long for shelter, a place where the chaos cannot touch us. Hoekstra reminds us that our refuge is not a place but a Person. God Himself is our hiding place, the One who surrounds us with songs of deliverance.

Numbers 16:9 is a tender reminder that God Himself has drawn us near. He has set us apart for relationship, not for rules that crush. The Levites were reminded that their nearness to God was the gift. They did not need to search elsewhere for satisfaction. This truth touches a struggle many know well: the impulse to turn to food for comfort when the soul aches.

Numbers 16 reminds us that God drew the Levites near, not to burden them, but to bless them with nearness and service. A. B. Simpson helps us see that true separation is not grim distance from the world, it is joyful closeness to God. He uses the picture of something kept clean though surrounded by grime, and says the issue is not the world itself, but the love of the world. That is where Jesus gently changes our desires.

Oswald Chambers challenges us with a piercing truth: the blessings of God were never meant to be clutched tightly for our own satisfaction. Using David’s story of refusing to drink the precious water brought by his men, Chambers points us to a life where gifts, friendships, love, and provision are meant to be poured back out to the Lord in gratitude and surrender. If we cling to them, they turn sour. If we release them, they become channels of living water flowing outward to others.

The line that steadies today is simple. The law is not of faith. Miles Stanford invites us to stand on grace as our everyday ground, not on rule keeping as our rule of life. He points out how easy it is to drift into religious systems that look impressive but quietly nudge us back to self effort. Stanford thanks the Lord for giving the Holy Spirit as our Guide in the present, so we are not dragged backward into yesterday’s patterns or pushed ahead into systems that belong to a future age.

God’s fatherly discipline is not payback. It is purposeful training. Today’s eManna reading draws that line with care, and I am grateful for Witness Lee’s clear voice here. Hebrews 12 says discipline rarely feels pleasant in the moment, yet afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness. That is the Father’s aim. He is not dealing with us as criminals who must be penalized, but as beloved sons and daughters who are already His in Jesus.

God’s people sing because God speaks. Psalm 33 opens by inviting the upright to lift a fresh song with skill and joy. This is not noise or hype, it is a fitting response to a God whose word is right and whose works are faithful. Praise is the overflow of trust in a Voice that never errs.

The Grace and Truth Study Bible shows Hosea drawing a clear line between the family story of Jacob and the national story of Israel. Jacob’s early years were marked by grasping and deceit. In Hosea’s day, the northern kingdom repeated that pattern with wind-chasing treaties and double talk, reaching for safety in Assyria and Egypt while standing in covenant with God. Judah also walked out of step. The point is not to shame the family history, but to expose a pattern that has reappeared among God’s people.