The 260 Journey

Day 122Today’s Reading: Romans 5In today’s reading, we land on Romans 5 and see a different kind of praise. Praise that I don’t think is done in the church. It’s a new kind of praise for your repertoire.God gives us to much to praise. In Romans 5:1-2, Paul reminds us of the greatest thing to thank God for: “Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,...

Day 121Today’s Reading: Romans 4Romans 4 is just as much a faith chapter as is Hebrews 11, which gets called the hall of faith. Romans 4 gives us a ground level look of the steps of faith of the father of faith, Abraham. Paul shows us a specific situation Abraham had to walk out in faith and how he did it. And then Paul encourages us to “follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham”...

Day 120Today’s Reading: Romans 3Rabbi Joseph Telushkin lectures throughout the United States on the positive and negative impacts of words. He often asks audiences if they could go twenty-four hours without saying any unkind words to, or about, another person. More often than not, only a few people raise their hands. He tells everyone else,All of you who can’t answer "yes" . . . must recognize...

Day 119Today’s Reading: Romans 2Haddon Robinson tells the story of a lumber business settlement in the West, during the American frontier days. As the town grew, the citizens wanted a church, so they built a building and called a minister.One afternoon the preacher spotted some of his parishioners dragging logs that had floated down the river from another village onto the bank. The owner’s stamp...

Day 118Today’s Reading: Romans 1"What about the people in other countries who have never heard the gospel? Will they go to hell?” This was a question one of our worship band members asked me. I was finishing up a late meeting at the church, and he was finishing practice. We met each other in the lobby when he dropped that question. More specifically, he said, “We preach the gospel here, but what...

Day 117Today’s Reading: Acts 28In today’s reading, we look at the last chapter of Acts, chapter 28. We are going to discover real friends today—forty-three-mile friends.When talking about friendship, John Churton Collins said, “In prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends.” In Acts 28, Paul is in adversity. He is in Rome where he will meet death. However, something happens...

Day 116Today’s Reading: Acts 27Today, we'll take a boat ride on some rough waters in Acts 27. This boat has 276 on board, most of them prisoners. The apostle Paul is below deck in shackles and on his way to Rome. At one point the most famous prisoner on the boat tells the professional seafarers, “I wouldn’t go that direction.” And his advice is rejected vehemently:Paul began to admonish them, and...

Day 115Today’s Reading: Acts 26In today’s reading, the apostle Paul is about to make his defense before king Agrippa before leaving for Rome. It is so powerful that at the end of his speech, the king says to Paul, “In a short time you will persuade me to become a Christian.”What was so powerful about this speech Paul made? He told his conversion experience (this is the third time he tells it in...

Day 114Today’s Reading: Acts 25There are two ways to view yourself—from a photo or in a mirror. Photos are how we wished we looked. Mirrors are how we really look. One is fantasy, the other reality. We can fix our hair and our make-up for a photograph. But when we look into a mirror, that is the real us staring back. Until we see and acknowledge our real selves, we never understand our need for...

Day 113Today’s Reading: Acts 24Recently I read a quote about being good stewards of our time and made me sit back and really think about what I do with the time God has given me:Each new day brings us 24 hours, 1440 minutes, 86,400 seconds, each moment a precious gift from God . . . each calling for us to be good stewards, mindful that one day we must give an account for how we spent the time God...