Solid Joys Daily Devotional

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.

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.

Christians care about all suffering — especially eternal suffering. That’s the greatest danger every city faces.

Not being afraid shows that you treasure God as your generous Shepherd, Father, and King.

The key to joy is faith in God’s future grace — that is, being satisfied in all that God promises to be for us.

Cherish the goodness of the Lord, fear straying from him, flee from every sin, and take refuge in him.

This is the gospel: Even though you have sinned greatly, nevertheless there is a future and a hope. Fear not!

The One with infinite power in the universe reaches down to personally touch and transform us.

Faith in Christ is not just assenting to what God is for us, but also embracing all that he is for us in Christ.

We won’t bear tomorrow’s load on today’s resources. Today’s mercies are for today’s troubles. Tomorrow’s mercies are for tomorrow’s troubles.

Come to God in prayer, to confess your sins, and to accept, as needy little farmyard chicks, the direction of God into the barn of his protection and provision.

God delights in having his name known and honored. The first and most important prayer that can be prayed is, “Hallowed be your name.”

Sheer sowing produces reaping. You must remember this, even when your tears tempt you to give up.

Trust Christ, no matter what. Go with him, no matter where. You cannot lose in the end.

When you are cast into the cellars of affliction, remember that the great King keeps his best wine there.

The biblical criterion for misplaced shame and for well-placed shame is radically God-centered.

It is good not to talk very long about God without talking to God. Frequently interrupt your talking about God by talking to God.

When Christ died and rose again, Satan was defeated. Jesus struck the decisive blow at Calvary.

Don’t just do good things for your enemies. Desire their best, and express those desires in prayer, even when they’re nowhere around.

Jesus is not just alive from the dead, but he is alive as the King who will reign forever — of his kingdom there will be no end.

Salvation is secured for all who are written in the book of life, not because of their deeds, but because Christ was slain for them.

Sometimes God will strengthen your faith directly. But most of the time, he does so through another person.

O God, help us to feel worse about our own shortfalls than the failure of others.

If you live inside the massive promise of Romans 8:28, your life is more solid and stable than Mount Everest.

In the Father, you are under God’s care and protection. In the Son, you are under God’s charge and authority.

Only one thing satisfies the heart whose treasure is in heaven: doing the works of heaven. And heaven is a world of love!

Our perseverance doesn’t rest decisively on the reliability of our own resolve. It rests decisively on God’s work to keep us trusting him.

God will not spare any effort to give you all that Christ died to purchase — all things, all good, and all bad working for your good.

When others abandon you, strengthen your heart with God’s inexorable oath: “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Because Christ rose from the grave, God’s children are forgiven. No one can successfully bring a charge against those who are in Christ.

Never reduce Christianity to a matter of demands and resolutions and willpower. It is a matter of what we love, what we delight in, what tastes good to us.

When we trust Jesus, his presence and promise is so satisfying that we are not dominated by the alluring pleasures of sin.

Hear God say to you in all your troubles, “I will deliver you. You will triumph in the end. You will be more than a conqueror.”

Knowledge doesn’t guarantee godliness. But it seems that ignorance guarantees ungodliness. The power that leads to godliness is given through knowing God.