The 260 Journey

Day 14Today’s Reading: Matthew 14As he awaited his death as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp, the famed theologian, pastor, and Christian martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, wrote a letter about losing people we love. He wrote, in part:There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it. At first...

Day 13Today’s Reading: Matthew 13Every day as you read one chapter of the New Testament, the goal is more than just experiencing a feeling of accomplishment but to grow and become more like Christ. Sometimes when you struggle to find time for God’s Word, it isn’t because you’re busy, it is because you’re experiencing spiritual warfare!This book is a supernatural book and changes people’s lives....

Day 12Today’s Reading: Matthew 12While I am writing today’s devotional, a television show about Jack Ryan, the fictional CIA analyst, is trending online. Some knew him as Harrison Ford; for others, he was Chris Pine; and for us old folks, we knew him as Alec Baldwin. Jack Ryan is Tom Clancy’s creation. And those actors portrayed him in the movie versions of Clancy’s thriller books, such as The...

Day 11Today’s Reading: Matthew 11Conditions or circumstances can affect perspectives. What goes on in our lives can determine our points of view and how we define important things—most seriously, our view and definition of God. Sometimes our circumstances can take us from living an exclamation-mark life to living a question-mark life.Let me give you an example of what I mean. John the Baptist was...

Day 10Today’s Reading: Matthew 10I want to tell you the history of two groups of people who are in the New Testament—the tax collectors and the zealots. The tax collectors were Jews who collected taxes from fellow Jews for the Roman Empire. They made their living by charging an extra amount on top of what everyone owed. Some of them made more than a living. They exacted any amount they could and...

Day 9Today’s Reading: Matthew 9Matthew 9 is a chapter that is spilling over with healing and faith. A paralyzed man is brought to Jesus by his friends in verse 2 and Jesus sees the faith of the friends and the paralyzed man walks. A woman with a twelve-year disease is free in an instant. Jesus says to her, “Your faith has made you well” (verse 22). Two blind men finally see through their eyes...

Day 8Today’s Reading: Matthew 8Her name was Agnes and she was from Albania. In 1928, at age eighteen, she went to Ireland and became a nun. Almost twenty years later, in 1946, she received what she described as a call within the call. As she was riding on a train, her heart heard the Lord tell her to help the most rejected people in society, the poorest of the poor—the throw-away people of...

Day 7Today’s Reading: Matthew 7A concerned husband went to see the family doctor. “I think my wife is deaf,” he said. “She never hears me the first time I say something. In fact, I often have to repeat things over and over.”“Go home tonight,” the doctor suggested. “Stand about fifteen feet from her, and say something. If she doesn’t reply, move about five feet closer and say it again. Keep doing...

Day 6Today’s Reading: Matthew 6In the first part of chapter 6, Jesus spoke about three personal disciplines that are part of every Christian’s life: giving, praying, and fasting.Note that I said, these three disciplines are part of every Christian’s life. If you are a Christian, then they are to be part of your life as well.How do we know they should be part of our lives? Because as Jesus spoke...

Day 5Today’s Reading: Matthew 5Several years ago, the Wall Street Journal reported a story on happiness in different nations around the world. The newspaper’s title gave away the happiness level of people living in the United States: “Richest Country, Saddest People—Any Coincidence?”According to a study jointly conducted by the World Health Organization and Harvard Medical School, and based on...