Believers are to give God first place in their lives, running life’s race for no other reason than to express their love for Him. In fact, we’re commanded to love God supremely; everythin…

Believers are commanded to love God supremely, and to cast off every weight and sin that besets them. Then, they can run life’s race at top speed, knowing that the finish line will bring them f…

What do you do when you’ve made a bad call, and you have to live with it? The Bible has many examples of this. But how do we make the best of a bad decision? There is hope for us, even if we&rs…

The devil deceived the first woman, and the first man followed suit. We’ve all been listening to the voice of the great liar Satan from the beginning. The results have been catastrophic, and th…

Adam and Eve had no excuse. Their sin brought immediate judgment, but it also brought mercy. God put in motion a plan to redeem mankind from the curse of sin, a plan signified by the clothing God pro…

When Adam and Eve sinned, the paradise of Eden turned sour, and man’s fate was sealed. Life would be hard. Were it not for the grace of a redeeming God, there would have been no hope for our re…

All of us make some bad decisions. The challenge is what to do about them. Is there hope for all of us who have made wrong choices? Let’s learn some lessons from the people of Israel during the…

The Israelites did not believe God when they heard the report of the spies sent to check out the land. As a result, God said they would all die in the desert except for Joshua and Caleb. But there wa…

God judged Israel severely for their unbelief at Kadesh in the desert. All would die except two men. But God did not abandon His people for making a poor choice. Blessing can still come to us even af…

Failing to keep promises is a signal that we’re deficient in character. God says, “It is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it.” Let’s look at the importance…

In the Old Testament, Joshua made a foolish vow. Vows should never be made lightly, especially marriage vows. What we promise to do, we should carry out, as far as it rests with us.

What should you do when you have been tricked into giving your word? That was the problem Joshua faced with the Gibeonites. His response is a model for how we should react when we find out we have ma…

Israel was deceived by the Gibeonites, and Israel vowed not to destroy them. They honored that vow, and as a result, the Gibeonites served Israel for centuries. God can make lemonade from the lemons …

Disobedience in the moral arena has long-term consequences. King David sinned with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite. A story he hoped would stay private became very public. David was in serio…

King David committed adultery with the wife of one of his military officers. To hide his role in the pregnancy which followed, David decided that the officer would be intentionally left to die in bat…

King David made an impulsive, immoral choice regarding Bathsheba, and a child was conceived. Then, he orchestrated a cover-up, in which her husband was killed to hide the sin. But God sees everything…

God gave a command to a prophet, and the prophet took an amazing journey to avoid that obligation. Jonah was told to preach to the people of Nineveh, but he refused. We can learn important lessons by…

Jonah was told by God to preach to people he did not like. His attempt to flee brought him face to face with the God of second chances, the God whose will would ultimately be done.

Jonah ran from God’s command to preach in Nineveh. But he could not outrun God, who appointed some “persuaders” to change Jonah’s mind: a great fish, a plant, a worm, and a sc…

All the webs we weave through deception entangle us in unintended consequences. One good king of God’s people found this out the hard way, and he failed near the finish line, leaving Israel in …

At the end of his reign, King Asa’s long faithfulness to God crumbled. He bribed a nearby King with the temple’s gold and silver. Power and politics can corrupt the best of men, and Asa w…