The 260 Journey

Day 170Today’s Reading: Ephesians 2I love the bumper sticker that says, “No Jesus, no peace. Know Jesus, know peace.”Ephesians 2 reminds us what real peace is and the source of it. “Peace is not the absence of problems but the presence of God in the midst of our problems.” Paul tells us that in verses 13-17:"Now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of...

Day 169Today’s Reading: Ephesians 1Today people use a lot of hyperbole. From their social-media posts to their arguments with their families, people say words like every, never, and always to “prove” their points.Hyperbole is exaggerated statements. It sounds like this:You never pick up your dirty laundry.Every time we talk you never listen.You do this to me every time.You always make us...

Day 168Today’s Reading: Galatians 6Hu Jen-chuan was two years old when he fell from a table and went into a coma. When he woke after six days, he was unable to talk or move. Like any parent, his mother, Liu Kuei-lan, was terribly distressed. Yet her distress was multiplied by the fact that she could not afford to place him in medical care or any type of rehab. Instead she has cared for him...

Day 167Today’s Reading: Galatians 5Karl Wallenda, the great tightrope walker, fell to his death in 1978 from a seventy-five-foot high wire in downtown San Juan, Puerto Rico. Here’s what his wife, Helen, said about the fall:All Karl thought about for three straight months prior to it was falling. It was the first time he’d ever thought about that, and it seemed to me that he put all his energies...

Day 166Today’s Reading: Galatians 4In his autobiography, Buck O’Neil tells what it was like being a black man who played professional baseball before African-Americans were allowed to play in the all-white major leagues. By the time the color barrier was broken in 1947, O’Neil was considered too old to play in the big leagues, as were most of his teammates. Many of his friends grew bitter about...

Day 165Today’s Reading: Galatians 3The letter to the Galatians is a call back to reintroducing the simplicity of the gospel message. It’s so simple that the formula has not been changed for five thousand years. And Galatians 3 tells us something epic and answers a question I have been asked many times: how did the Old Testament people become believers or Christians?How did those in Genesis...

Day 164Today’s Reading: Galatians 2Barnabas was not even his real name; it was a nickname given to him by the people in the early church. His real name was Joseph. In Acts 4 we read that Joseph was so positive in his conversations that people nicknamed him Barnabas, because everything he said made them feel great. His journey starts in Acts 4, and the last verse we get about him is in Galatians...

Day 163Today’s Reading: Galatians 1A biography always ends with a person, their story, and what they did. A testimony is different. A testimony ends with what God did. God is the star of a testimony. A person is the star of a biography.The old saints used to say, “No test? Then no testimony.” The test is what gives us the testimony and the story. I grew up always hearing the word testimony. We...

Day 162Today’s Reading: 2 Corinthians 13Charles Schwab’s CEO, Walt Bettinger, opened the vault to the Schwab test he uses for potential high-level hires. He told the New York Times that we can discover a person’s character by the ways they respond during times of great pressure and distress. So before each new hire, to test out the job candidate to see how they react when things don’t go...

Day 161Today’s Reading: 2 Corinthians 12In today’s chapter we see a set of red letters, which come alive in a place that we don’t expect. Do you know what I mean when I say red letters? For those of us who grew up in the church when KJV was just about our only option of Bible translation, we know that all of Jesus’ words were in red letters to distinguish them from all other letters. We knew...