My Favorite Daily Devotion by Ray Stedman

A DAILY DEVOTION FOR FEBRUARY 14TH

Who Is In Charge?
When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future. Ecclesiastes 7:14

Prosperity and adversity both come from God's hands; a wise Father's heart has given them to you. In the words of the hymn,

Day by day and with each passing moment,
Strength I find to meet my trials here;
Trusting in my Father's wise bestowment,
I've no cause for worry or for fear.

God has given all events to us, the Searcher declares. We must then learn to accept and understand that God has chosen these for us out of love and wisdom. They have a special purpose. God has designed life to be full of the unexpected so that we might realize that we do not control our future.

We are not in charge of life. The great satanic lie that subtly comes at us a thousand times a day is that we are gods, we are in charge, we can plan, we can direct, we can control. Because within the freedom of will that God has granted us there appears some truth to that, we easily believe the rest--that we are in ultimate control of everything. But the lesson of the Scripture, driven home again and again, is that that is not true. God is in charge. What He sends us is always designed to benefit. This is the clear teaching of the Scripture, both in the Old and the New Testament alike. Even though adversity may have painful aspects, we are to understand that it comes from a loving God and be grateful for it. An unknown poet has written,

When God wants to drill a man,
And thrill a man,
And skill a man;
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part,
When he yearns with all his heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Watch his methods, watch his ways—

How he ruthlessly perfects
Whom he royally elects.
How he hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows, converts him
Into trial shapes of clay
Which only God understands.

While his tortured heart is crying,
And he lifts beseeching hands.
How he bends but never breaks
When his good he undertakes.
How he uses Whom he chooses,
And with every purpose, fuses him,
By every act, induces him
To try his splendor out.
God knows what he's about.

Father, I see that all things come from Your hand. Thank You that I can trust that even when I feel hammered and hurt, You are shaping me into a vessel of beauty and honor.

Life Application
Life is full of the adversity. Does this make us anxious or fearful? Have we discovered and trusted God's wisdom and love or do we try to control our future?

Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.

A DAILY DEVOTION FOR FEBRUARY 16TH

Looking For Love
I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a trap and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare. Ecclesiastes 7:26

Verse 26 states a remarkable revelation of what a keenly intelligent and resourceful man found out about life. We must remember, Solomon is honestly recording his own experience.

He found that he was trapped by sexual seductions. Many men or women can echo what he is saying; He went looking for love and thought he would find it in a relationship with a woman. He went looking for that which would support him, strengthen him, and make him feel life was worth living, but what he found was nothing but a fleeting thrill. He found himself involved with a woman who did not give him what he was looking for at all; he still felt the same empty loneliness as before.

I read an article by a young woman who told about how she sought the answer to the hungers of her life in one relationship after another with men. She said she woke up one morning lying in bed with a man she had met just the night before. As she looked at this male sleeping beside her, she said she felt the most intense loneliness she had ever experienced. She realized then that her lifestyle was compounding, not solving, the emptiness and loneliness of her life. She went on to talk about how she found a relationship with God through the Lord Jesus and became a Christian and testified to the fullness she found in that relationship. What a confirmation her record is of what we have here in this passage.

The Searcher also honestly records the way of escape: The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare (Ecclesiastes 7:26b). We must remember that this is the man who had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines; he was involved with one thousand women. In all that experience, he found nothing to satisfy the searchings of his heart. But he did come to realize that the person who fears God, who understands God, whose eyes are opened and whose heart is taught by the Word of God, would escape this.

One of the most important lessons we must learn about life is that sex outside of marriage arrests the mutual process of discovery. I have seen this happen many times with young couples who were obviously growing in the Lord, who began to know one another, to love one another, to discover things they liked and disliked, and then suddenly the relationship soured, a weirdness set in, things went wrong, and they began to quarrel and fight. Invariably it turned out that they gave way to their temptations, canceling out every attempt to discover who the other one was.

Lord You know how easy it is for me to search for love in places that I have no business being. Teach me to heed Your warnings and keep my heart pure.

Life Application
The billion dollar industry of internet pornography is a snare today for many. Devoid of any relationship, it takes one away from the only relationship that truly satisfies.

Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.

A DAILY DEVOTION FOR FEBRUARY 18TH

Can We Trust The Government?
Obey the king's command, I say, because you took an oath before God. Do not be in a hurry to leave the king's presence. Do not stand up for a bad cause, for he will do whatever he pleases. Ecclesiastes 8:2-3

King Solomon himself, head of state of the nation of Israel, is teaching us why we should obey government. It is not always easy to know how to obey or when a citizen should obey. There are many factors that would influence when and how this should be carried out.

The fact that obeying the government is sometimes difficult is also part of God's program. As believers, we ought to understand that it is not always easy to know what God wants because He does not want it to be easy. We are not robots, given orders to go here or there, having no choice at all in the matter. Yet that is really what we are asking for when we say to God, Show me what you want me to do, and I'll do it. In other words, Compel me; give me orders and I'll carry them out. God does not do that because He wants us to struggle and puzzle over what we should do.

Another factor that influences us is found in verse 7: Since no man knows the future, who can tell him what is to come? The results of our obedience to the government can produce uncertainty in our lives. One of the reasons we are not left up to our own devices as to whether we are going to obey the government is that we do not always know what God intends to work out by means of our obedience. He may have blessings for us that will come out of that obedience that we could not foresee.

As a young man in my twenties during World War II, I remember being faced with the very question of registration for the draft. At the time I was working for the railroad industry, which allowed me to be deferred, because that industry was essential to the war.

Eventually, I joined the navy. Although I was unsure whether I was doing the right thing or not, I felt I ought to join. What I did not understand or realize was that the action I took would open a door that gave me what was perhaps the greatest opportunity I have ever had to teach the Scriptures to those who were in desperate need of such teaching. I was stationed at Pearl Harbor, and through that great port there passed from time to time all the sailors of the Pacific Fleet, many of them Christian young men who had won others to Christ aboard their ships. Along with others, I had the opportunity to have great Bible classes, with hundreds of sailors involved. All this was opened up to me because I was a member of the U.S. Navy myself.

Furthermore, I did not know that at the end of the war I would be granted the G.I. Bill of Rights, which would give me enough money to pay for my seminary training. In fact, it was rather remarkable that the time I had served in the navy provided me with exactly the right amount to go through four years of seminary training. I could not foresee all that, but God did. So it is possible that unexpected results will follow from obedience to what God has set before us to do with regard to government.

Lord, I trust that You will work out Your plan for my life as I submit to the people you have placed in authority over me.

Life Application
Obedience is sometimes difficult and produces uncertainty. Does God want us to struggle & puzzle over what we should do? What about trusting the government?

Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.

A DAILY DEVOTION FOR FEBRUARY 20TH

The Gift Of God's Approval
Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do.
Ecclesiastes 9:7

Verse 7 is a most remarkable verse, because there is a statement in it of what we call in the New Testament the New Covenant, God's new provision for living. It is clear from the New Testament that God has given us a gift of approval, of righteousness. Because we already have that by faith, we are freed, and no longer do we have to struggle vainly to try to please God; we live in a way that does please Him because we have already been accepted and approved by Him.

Notice how clearly that is stated here in verse 7: Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do. This is recognition, even in the Old Testament, of a relationship of righteousness that has already been established. It is true that basis was laid in our Lord's coming into this world and in His subsequent death and resurrection. Yet it is applied to all the people in the Old Testament, as well as in the New, who had faith in what God declared, who believed His Word and thus were given the gift of righteousness just as we are. Here the Searcher faces that as the real basis for life. If you want to find significance in your life, if you want to find deep meaning, peace, and contentment, this is the basis of it: Believe what God has given you already, and then, on that basis, live your life to the full. Fill it with all that is of value, reason, and worth.

White garments are a symbol in Scripture of practical righteousness, of good deeds being done that flow out of this new relationship that is already true. Oil is always the symbol of the Holy Spirit at work, so don't let oil be lacking on your head. Thus, here is a life filled with the Spirit, full of good works, flowing out of the realization that God already accepts us. That is the new basis for living. That is what Paul is talking about in Romans: For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law [with its demand that you measure up before God will accept you], but under grace [with its marvelous provision of righteousness as a gift] (Romans 6:14). It is yours for the taking though you do not deserve it, and by it you are rendered fully accepted and loved by God.

So right living follows that, and Solomon encourages us to live a normal life. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love all your days. God ordained marriage for that reason, and it is right to enjoy the fullness of marriage. And then enjoy your God-given work. Work is not something we are forced to do in order to keep alive. Work is a blessing. Do it with all your might. Do not just get through it the best you can so you can get home and start enjoying yourself. Many of us live that way, but that is not the biblical way. The biblical approach is that work is given to you as a gift of God, so enjoy it.

Do we live like this? We who are Christians, we who know the reality of the gift of righteousness and have discovered the secret of contentment, of being able to handle even difficult conditions because of the joy that God imparts to us by His presence within, have we begun to live this way?

Teach me to live this way, Lord, allowing You to fill all the empty places of my life and enjoying the many gifts that you give.

Life Application
God's approval is always received and not earned. How many of us struggle to please God? Why is this always a vain attempt on our part?

Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.

My pleasure. You know it's Ray's son that keeps his material accessible to us online and raise memory alive.

A DAILY DEVOTION FOR FEBRUARY 21ST

Who Wins The Race?
I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. Ecclesiastes 9:11

Many of us have had experiences that confirm the truth of this verse. All our carefully laid plans have fallen apart; all our dreams that we had what it took to succeed in some particular area of life crumbled, and we could not understand why. We had to learn, as this text says, the race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong. That is true, even in sports. In the early part of this century Jim Thorpe, the famous Native American athlete, won many gold medals at the Olympic games. He stood before the King of Sweden and was publicly acknowledged as the greatest athlete of his time. Yet all those medals and honors had to be given back when it was learned that as a boy he had played professional baseball for five dollars a season, which rendered him no longer an amateur.

It is not always the strong, the mighty, the able, and the gifted that win in politics. We have seen candidates whom everybody thought a cinch to win public office defeated, unable to fulfill their dreams. The battle [is not always] to the strong, and this principle rings true even for the awards and prizes of the world. The Nobel Prize was given to a little woman in India, Mother Teresa, who ministered fully to the needs of the poor around her. Even in Hollywood the battle is not always won by those with the strength of typical movie glitz and glamour; in 1982, the Academy Award for Best Picture went to the movie Chariots of Fire, the story of Eric Liddell, a Christian Olympic runner who later became a missionary to China. The Searcher clearly tells us that natural gifts of speed, strength, and intellect are never enough to guarantee ultimate triumph.

Other factors really make the difference. Time and chance happen to them all. What does he mean by that? We often say, You have to be the right person, at the right place, at the right time. In other words, there are elements of circumstance that have to fall together even before someone with great abilities can accomplish his or her goals. What the Searcher is saying, of course, is that life is not in our control. The illusion that the secular media presses upon us all the time is that we can handle our life by our choices. It's your life! You can live it the way you please. But the Searcher says it cannot be done that way. Time and chance happen to them all. Just when you think you have something under control, it can all fall apart. Disasters come when we least expect them: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare (Ecclesiastes 9:12). Everything can fall apart. Every one of us has had some experience of that.

Lord, thank You for this reminder that I am not in control; that I do not control the outcome of events, but You do.

Life Application
The sovereignty of God is an important attribute of God to realize and trust. Our own efforts will never trump God's sovereignty. Have we rested in that knowledge?

Listen to Ray's sermon that this daily devotion came from: "The Only Way to Go"

Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.