UCB Word For Today

James wrote: ‘My brethren, take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, as an example of suffering and patience. Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord – that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful’ (James 5:10-11 NKJV). Here we are reminded to look back and be challenged and encouraged by those who wen...

Here are three reasons you need to partake of Holy Communion: 1) To make you grace-minded. No one will ever stand in heaven and say, ‘Look what Jesus and I have accomplished.’ If you had to pay one penny of your debt of sin, it would make you a co-redeemer with Christ. What an offence to the cross! (See Ephesians 2:8-9.) Hymnist Horatio Spafford wrote: ‘My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious though...

Neuroscientists tell us that every sound, every experience, every conscious thought, and every subconscious dream is recorded and literally engraved on our external hard drive, the cerebral cortex. Now juxtapose that with this: ‘Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus’ (Philippians 2:5 NKJV). Simply put: the mind of Christ is the Word of God. After all, Jesus is ‘the Word’ (John 1:1...

Jimmy Wayne never knew his father, and his mother spent more time in prison than out. When Jimmy was twelve, his mother was released from jail and took up with a troublemaker. They loaded him into the back seat of their car, and for a year that was his home. Then one day, they dumped him at a Pensacola, Florida, bus station and drove off. He had no home, no future, and no provision. While wanderin...

In the early days of America, a stranger asked how he might identify George Washington among those present at Congress. He was told, ‘You can easily distinguish him when Congress goes to prayer. Washington is the gentleman who kneels down.’ Washington was known as a man who prayed. When the fate of the new nation hung in the balance at Valley Forge, he frequently found rest and relief in prayer. O...

From the beginning of the Bible to its conclusion we see absolute evidence that God answers prayer. Things that we think are impossible, God does when people pray! When we pray, we align ourselves with the purposes of God and tap into the power of the Almighty. Because we pray, God works through us in ways He wouldn’t otherwise. God has made certain things dependent upon prayer, things that will n...

In Western culture, we think of a day beginning when the sun comes up. But the creation account says: ‘The evening and the morning were the first day’ (Genesis 1:5 NKJV). Each day began with evening. Author Eugene Peterson noted that in this way, the biblical writers help us to remember: ‘Everything doesn’t depend on me. I go to sleep; God goes to work. It’s His day. The world keeps spinning, tide...

Patience, from the biblical perspective, embodies these four things: 1) Confidence in God’s unfailing love and faithfulness to us: ‘His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness’ (Lamentations 3:22-23 NKJV). 2) Confidence that He will keep His promises to us: ‘There has not failed one word…which He promised’ (1 Kings 8:56 NKJV). 3) Confidence that He has everythi...

Here are three things you should be clear about before you commit to a lifetime relationship in marriage (if you’re not in this situation yourself, perhaps you could use these points to guide your prayers for others): 1) Does your partner have a strong relationship with Christ? ‘Can two people walk together without agreeing on the direction?’ (Amos 3:3 NLT). To stay together, you must walk in step...

Some of the world’s greatest achievers went through life with physical disabilities and overcame incredible adversities. Sir Walter Scott was disabled. John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim’s Progress, was imprisoned. George Washington, America’s first president, almost froze and starved to death in the snows of Valley Forge. Abraham Lincoln played a critical part in ending the scourge of slavery in...

The contemplative pathway. If you relate to God best through the contemplative pathway, you love large blocks of quietness and uninterrupted time alone. It is very likely that when you were a child, your parents would tell you to go outside and play with other kids more. Reflection comes naturally to you. You often feel like an observer in life. Here are some Scriptures you easily identify with: ‘...

The activist pathway. When you’re on this spiritual pathway, you have a high level of energy. This may be one of your favourite Scriptures: ‘Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might.’ But one of the dangers of relating to God best through the activist pathway is that a big chunk of your motivation can be self-fulfilment and self-satisfaction. Hence Paul wrote: ‘Since you are so eager...

The worship pathway. When you’re on the worship pathway, you resonate with the psalmist: ‘I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go into the house of the LORD.”’ Something deep inside you feels released when praise is given. Your heart opens up and you come alive. You find yourself in tears, sometimes in moments of deep joy, because God seems so close. But here are two cautions if you’re on this...

The serving pathway. On the serving pathway, you find God’s presence seems most tangible when you’re helping others. You identify with the words of Jesus: ‘Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these…you did it to Me’ (Matthew 25:40 NKJV). And you may find that you are uncomfortable in a setting where you don’t have a role to play or a service to perform. An example of this would be Dorcas...

The relational pathway. People who follow the relational pathway find that they have a deep sense of God’s presence when they are involved in significant relationships. Jesus’ words, ‘For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them’ (Matthew 18:20 NKJV), makes perfect sense to the relational type. If you are on the relational pathway, you may feel guilty wh...

The relational pathway. People who follow the relational pathway find that they have a deep sense of God’s presence when they are involved in significant relationships. Jesus’ words, ‘For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them’ (Matthew 18:20 NKJV), makes perfect sense to the relational type. If you are on the relational pathway, you may feel guilty wh...

A spiritual pathway has to do with the way you most naturally sense God’s presence and experience spiritual growth. We all have at least one pathway that comes most easily to us. And there’s enormous freedom in identifying and embracing your spiritual pathway. It means you can focus on relating to God in that way. For the next few days, let’s look at some different spiritual pathways and see which...

God can deliver you from anything in a single day, but you’ve got to back it up with daily discipline. If you don’t practise spiritual discipline day in and day out, your deliverance will be short-lived. You’ll fall back into whatever it was that God delivered you from. Anybody can set a life goal; the hard part is going after it every day. You get into shape one workout at a time. You get out of...

Much could be said about Rahab without mentioning her profession. She was a Canaanite. She provided cover for the spies of Joshua. She came to believe in the God of Abraham before she ever met the children of Abraham. She was spared in the destruction of her city. She married a contemporary of Joshua’s, bore a son named Boaz, had a great-grandson named Jesse, a great-great-grandson named David, an...

In his classic book called Prayer, Dr O. Hallesby wrote: ‘Prayer and helplessness are inseparable. Only those who are helpless can truly pray…Prayer therefore consists simply in telling God day by day in what ways we feel helpless. We are moved to pray every time the Spirit of God…emphasises anew to us our helplessness, and we realise how impotent we are by nature to believe, to love, to hope, to...

After David killed Goliath, four other men, including his nephew Jonathan, killed giants that rose up against the Israelites. ‘In still another battle, which took place at Gath, there was a huge man with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot – twenty-four in all. He was also descended from Rapha. When he taunted Israel, Jonathan son of Shimeah, David’s brother, killed him’ (2 Samuel 2...

In 1985 Tim Burke saw his boyhood dream come true when the Montreal Expos baseball team took him on as a pitcher, giving him an annual salary of $600,000. (Back then, that was big money for a player.) After four years in the minor leagues, he was finally given a chance to play in the big leagues. And he quickly proved his worth by setting a record for the most relief appearances by any rookie pitc...

The Bible likens the Christian life to a marathon. The writer of the book of Hebrews said: ‘Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured’ (Hebrews 12:1-2 NKJV). Paul wrote to the Philippian believers: ‘The...

God is the giver of dreams. ‘For God does speak…in a dream, in a vision…when deep sleep falls on people’ (vv. 14-15 NIV). Unless you want to spend the rest of your life being unfulfilled and uninspired, take your dream out of the closet and blow the dust off. It’s easy to get caught up in the ‘have tos’ of life – working; caring for children, spouses, and ageing parents; taking care of homes, etc....

Marcial Losada is an organisational psychologist who studies the power of positivity. He argues that we need a negative feedback loop to survive. Without midcourse corrections, we mindlessly make the same mistakes. But if you want to thrive, you also need a positive feedback loop. His studies have produced what is known as the Losada ratio: it’s the ratio of positive feedback to negative feedback...