Read Isaiah 60—62 I, the LORD, love justice; I hate robbery and iniquity. In my faithfulness I will reward them and make an everlasting covenant with them. Isaiah 61:8 Every seven years, the Jews were to observe a “sabbatical year” and allow the land to rest. After seven sabbaticals, they...
Read Ecclesiastes 3:9–22 That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. Ecclesiastes 3:13 When the well-known British Methodist preacher William Sangster learned that he had progressive muscular atrophy and could not get well, he made four resolutions and kept them...
Read 1 Corinthians 2:6–10 “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him”—but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. 1 Corinthians 2:9–10 Salvation involves all three persons in the Godhead. No one can be saved...
Read 2 Corinthians 12:7–8 To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 2 Corinthians 12:7 When God permits suffering to come into people’s lives, there are several ways they can...
Read 1 Corinthians 15:29–58 Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:57 The heavenly kingdom is not made for the kind of bodies we now have: bodies of flesh and blood. So when Jesus returns, the bodies of living believers will...
Read Ecclesiastes 5:1–7 Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong. Ecclesiastes 5:1 Solomon had visited the courtroom, the marketplace, the highway, and the palace. Now he...
Read 2 Corinthians 1:8–24 In our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 2 Corinthians 1:9 In Greek language, there are ten basic words for suffering, and Paul used five of them in...
Read Colossians 1:6–8 All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth. Colossians 1:6 The Word of God is seed (Luke 8:11). This means the Word...
Read 1 Peter 1:1–2 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God’s elect, strangers in the world … Grace and peace be yours in abundance. 1 Peter 1:1–2 The three themes of suffering, grace, and glory in 1 Peter unite to form an encouraging message for believers experiencing times of...
Read 2 Corinthians 4:7–18 We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this allsurpassing power is from God and not from us. 2 Corinthians 4:7 Sometimes God permits our vessels to be jarred so that some of the treasure will spill out and enrich others. Suffering reveals...