Our Daily Bread - Water and Life

Our Daily Bread -- Water and Life

November 1, 2015

Read: John 4:1-15
Bible in a Year: Jeremiah 24-26; Titus 2

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.” —John 4:13-14

As Dave Mueller reached down and turned the handle, water rushed from the spigot into a blue bucket. Around him people applauded. They celebrated as they saw fresh, clean water flowing in their community for the first time. Having a clean source of water was about to change the lives of this group of people in Kenya.

Dave and his wife, Joy, work hard to meet people’s needs by bringing them water. But they don’t stop with H2O. As they help bring people clean water, they also tell them about Jesus Christ.

Two thousand years ago, a man named Jesus stood at a Samaritan well and talked with a woman who was there to get clean drinking water for her physical health. But Jesus told her that what she needed even more than that was living water for her spiritual health.

As history has marched on and humanity has become more sophisticated, life still filters down to two truths: Without clean water, we will die. More important, without Jesus Christ, the source of living water, we are already dead in our sins.

Water is essential to our existence—both physically with H2O and spiritually with Jesus. Have you tasted of the water of life that Jesus, the Savior, provides? —Dave Branon

Thank You, Jesus, for being our living water. Thank You for Your willingness to die on the cross and for Your power to rise from the dead in order to provide us that water.

Only Jesus has the living water to quench our spiritual thirst.

INSIGHT: First-century Jews avoided traveling through Samaria. Making the journey from Galilee to Judea meant crossing the Jordan River and following the east side before re-crossing toward Jerusalem to circumvent Samaria. Why? Because Samaritans were seen as ceremonially unclean. Jesus, however, had no such qualms and broke tradition to meet a Samaritan woman in need. Bill Crowder

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Day 1 - Understanding Your Grief

365 daily emails to help you through the grieving process

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Understanding Your Grief
Day 1

Grief is not an enemy or a sign of weakness. It is a sign of being human. Grief is the cost of loving someone.

Since grief comes to everyone, why do some people seem to work through it better than others?

"Some people think that going through the losses or crises of life are the exceptional times," says Dr. H. Norman Wright.

"I see it differently. I see the times of calm as the exceptions. Life really is going through one loss after another, one crisis after another.

"Instead of avoiding talking about these times, let's do our homework. When you know what to expect, you're not thrown by them as much, and you're going to be better able to recover."

Join us each day for the next year as we walk with you on your journey through grief, strengthened and enabled through the Lord Jesus Christ.

"But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint" (Isaiah 40:31).

Lord God, teach me to embrace my grief and not fight it, so that I may experience the true healing that comes from You. Amen.

Through a Season of Grief

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Our Daily Bread -- Repair or Replace?

October 31, 2015

Read: 2 Corinthians 5:14-21
Bible in a Year: Jeremiah 22-23; Titus 1

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. —2 Corinthians 5:17

It was time to fix the trim on the windows of our house. So I scraped, sanded, and applied wood filler to get the aging trim ready for paint. After all of my efforts—including a coat of primer and some too-expensive paint—the trim looks, well, pretty good. But it doesn’t look new. The only way to make the trim look new would be to replace the old wood.

It’s okay to have weather-damaged window trim that looks “pretty good” to our eye. But when it comes to our sin-damaged hearts, it’s not enough to try to fix things up. From God’s point of view, we need all things to become new (2 Cor. 5:17).

That is the beauty of salvation through faith in Jesus. He died on the cross as a sacrifice for our sin and rose from the dead to display His power over sin and death. The result is that in God’s eyes, faith in Christ’s work makes us a “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17) and replaces the old with a “new life” (Acts 5:20). Looking through Jesus and His work on the cross for us, our heavenly Father sees everyone who has put his or her faith in Him as new and unblemished.

Sin has caused great damage. We can’t fix it ourselves. We must trust Jesus as Savior and let Him give us a brand-new life. —Dave Branon

Heavenly Father, I understand that sin has damaged my heart. I put my trust in the Savior’s sacrifice and ask You to wash away my sins and make me a new person. Thank You for what Jesus did for me.

Only Jesus can give you a new life.

INSIGHT: Paul, the author of 2 Corinthians, had founded the church at Corinth during his second missionary journey (Acts 18:1-17) and spent 18 months there in ministry. This was a church that was struggling with a number of problems. Paul had addressed many of those problems in his first letter to them (1 Cor.). Now, some within the assembly—egged on by false apostles—were attacking his authority as an apostle. This letter was written to defend his apostleship and to provide a level of pastoral correction to the continuing problems at Corinth. His defense is most clearly seen in his transparent record of his own suffering for the message of the cross (2 Cor. 11:16-12:10). Bill Crowder

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Our Daily Bread -- The Storms of Life

October 30, 2015

Read: Mark 4:35-5:1
Bible in a Year: Jeremiah 20-21; 2 Timothy 4

You may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith . . . may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. —1 Peter 1:6-7

In the book of Mark we read about a terrible storm. The disciples were with Jesus on a boat crossing the Sea of Galilee. When a “furious squall came up,” the disciples—among them some seasoned fishermen—were afraid for their lives (4:37-38). Did God not care? Weren’t they handpicked by Jesus and closest to Him? Weren’t they obeying Jesus who told them to “go over to the other side”? (v. 35). Why, then, were they going through such a turbulent time?

No one is exempt from the storms of life. But just as the disciples who initially feared the storm later came to revere Christ more, so the storms we face can bring us to a deeper knowledge of God. “Who is this,” the disciples pondered, “even the wind and the waves obey him!” (v. 41). Through our trials we can learn that no storm is big enough to prevent God from accomplishing His will (5:1).

While we may not understand why God allows trials to enter our lives, we thank Him that through them we can come to know who He is. We live to serve Him because He has preserved our lives. —Albert Lee

Lord, I know I don’t need to fear the storms of life around me. Help me to be calm because I stand secure in You.

The storms of life prove the strength of our anchor.

INSIGHT: In Mark 4:35-5:43 the gospel writer tells of four miracles to prove that Jesus is “the Messiah, the Son of God” and therefore has absolute authority over the forces of this physical world (4:35-41), over the powers of the spiritual world (5:1-20), over physical illnesses (5:24-34), and over death (5:35-43). These miracles were designed to answer the question, “Who is this?” (4:41). The first miracle was Jesus calming the storm on Galilee. Because the Sea of Galilee is in a basin about 700 feet below sea level and is surrounded by mountains, sudden and violent storms are common (v. 37). That Jesus was tired and soundly asleep showed that He was fully human (v. 38); that the storm instantly obeyed Him showed He was divine (v. 39). Sim Kay Tee

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Sandara Park

Saturday, October 31, 2015