Faith is not something I squeeze out of myself like water from a dry sponge. Faith comes from a Person. Today’s reading points my attention to Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, who supplies what He calls me to walk in. Peter’s words in Acts 3 lift the curtain. A lame man stands strong in the presence of all, and Peter explains that it happened through faith in Jesus’ name, and even that faith came through Him.

Faith is not something we manufacture out of grit. It is something Jesus awakens and grows as we keep looking to Him. Bob Hoekstra points us to Hebrews 12:2, where we see Jesus as the author and finisher of our faith. He began this story, and He will bring it along to maturity as we keep turning toward Him.

We walk by faith, not by sight. That is more than a slogan. It is how Jesus carries us from where we are to where He is leading, one step, one quiet yes, at a time. The visible world hums with data and demands, and yet the truest things are often hidden at first glance. Faith learns to lean into what God has said, and into who God is, even when our eyes cannot map the path.

Confidence can slip through our fingers in a long season of waiting. Hebrews 10:35-39 calls us back from the edge. Do not toss away your confidence. You will need endurance. The promise stands, the Coming One will come. This passage steadies us in the simple, lived truth that the righteous live by faith.

Faith is not clutching the corner of our worries and calling it trust. Faith releases the letter into the mailbox, then walks away in confidence that delivery is underway. Today’s thought, inspired by A. B. Simpson’s Days of Heaven, invites us to stop hovering over what we have already given to God and to start resting in His faithful action.

Peter loved Jesus, yet in a moment of human thinking Jesus told him to get behind Him. I am grateful for how A. B. Simpson draws that scene into our everyday life. He reminds us that when the old patterns of the former life whisper, they are not the real us in Christ, and they do not get the last word.

The old patterns do not bend toward God. They resist. Romans 8:7 says the mind set on the flesh is hostile to God, it does not submit to His law, and it cannot. That is why self-improvement projects, no matter how sincere, keep running into a wall. The flesh does not graduate. It only doubles down.

The heart of today’s reading points me to a surprising door into freedom. First, I learn that I am free because of the finished work of the Cross. Then I discover that the same Cross is how that freedom actually operates in daily life. Miles Stanford, with the steady hand of a friend of Jesus, keeps directing my eyes to the Lord’s death as the place where my old life ended and my new life begins.

We all know that moment when need stares back at us and our basket looks thin. In Matthew 14, the disciples do the math and come up short. Five loaves. Two fish. Thousands of hungry people. Witness Lee points us to the simple truth that grace exposes our emptiness, not to shame us, but to move us to place what we have in Jesus’ hands.

The center of the gospel is not my story, my experience, or my favorite theme. The heart is Jesus Himself, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Oswald Chambers points our gaze there, away from narrow slices of ministry, and back to the limitless reach of His atoning work. I am grateful for his steady hand on the compass, calling us to keep the message simple and full, the Lamb who removes sin.

Jesus says all authority in heaven and on earth is His. Oswald Chambers reminds me that this is the ground under my feet. Mission is not me racing to meet needs by my own energy. Mission is Jesus reigning, then sending. I do not invite Him to help my plans. I step under His authority and walk in the work He is already doing.

Moses had zeal, then he had a desert. Oswald Chambers points us to that long middle space where our plans stall and our confidence thins. Moses thought he was ready to deliver his people, then forty years of sand and sheep rewrote his understanding of readiness. When God finally called again from the bush, Moses’ voice trembled. That shaky voice was the doorway to dependence.

Some days are loud with headlines and hurry. Other days are plain and quiet. Oswald Chambers reminds us that the real measure of life with God is found in those quiet, ordinary stretches. The spotlight fades. The crowd goes home. It is just you walking with God in the hallway, the kitchen, the car, the clinic, the waiting room. That is where pace is learned.

Silence can rattle us. We start wondering if we missed something, or if God stepped out of the room. Oswald Chambers reminds us that, in Bethany, Jesus lingered while Lazarus grew worse. The quiet did not signal neglect. It signaled a larger unveiling of the Father’s heart. Time does not pressure God. His silence does not mean absence. It often means intimacy.

We are not dangling on the edge of grace. In the gospel, the Holy Spirit placed us into Jesus, and that position is settled. Miles Stanford reminds us that the Spirit’s baptism united us with the Lord, not as a feeling that comes and goes, but as a fact anchored in the finished work of the Son. I am in Him, and He is in me. That is home.

The heart of today’s reading invites us to see mercy not as an idea, but as the warm nearness of our Father in the very place that hurts. Stanford points out that the daily cross exposes our thin supports and our quick reach for human fixes. When those props give way, the mercy of God does not step back, it draws close. What looks like loss becomes the door by which Jesus meets us as enough, again.

Growth often starts with guidance, then moves into a gentler drawing. That is the heartbeat of today’s reading. The Father leads His children into seasons that feel like wilderness, not to punish, but to speak more closely than the city noise allows. Miles Stanford points to Hosea 2:14, where God allures, brings into the wilderness, and speaks tenderly. The point is not hardship for hardship’s sake. The point is nearness.

There is a sweetness in today’s reading that invites us to come closer, not to work harder. Miles Stanford points us to the center of the Christian life, knowing Jesus and sharing His life, not as a set of ideas, but as a living relationship. He contrasts Martha’s busy serving with Mary’s quiet listening, and he honors the posture that most honors the Lord, a heart that receives from Him before doing for Him.

Evening settled over a hungry crowd. The disciples did the math, then offered a practical solution. Send the people away so they can buy food. Jesus answered with a different economy. They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat. His reply moves us from law to grace, from demand to gift, from self-sourcing to God supplying.

We rush through days full of faces, voices, accents, and opinions. It is easy to sort people by what meets the eye. Paul once did that with Jesus Himself, measuring the Lord by outward markers, and he missed the glory standing before him. Then the Damascus road happened, and everything shifted from flesh to Spirit.