“Dear Dick,” a reader writes, “Your Daily Encounter, ‘Living with a Challenge,’ has really inspired me. Less than a week ago the bombshell dropped. My adult son, Jim, has the HIV virus. He was released from the hospital yesterday, but without any kind of counseling help.

“We don’t even know how to begin to cope. He has a teen-age daughter and a seven-year-old son. He is terrified of being rejected even by our family. I think the hardest part is his not wanting to lie to anyone about his illness, but not wanting to share it with anyone because of the terrible stigma attached. Just yesterday with fear and trepidation he asked if he could come and see me to spend a little time together for my birthday. Please could you pray for us?”

Dear Jennifer (not her real name), how incredibly sad for Jim, you, his children, and your entire family. I grieve with you. While we don’t know how Jim contracted this dreaded disease, if it were through immoral behavior, we need to remember what D.L. Moody once said when he saw a drunken skid row alcoholic lying in the gutter, “But for the grace of God there go I.”

Having said that, the words of an old hymn, written many years ago by Frank E. Graeff, come to my mind:

Does Jesus care?

Does Jesus care when my heart is pained

Too deeply for mirth and song;

As the burdens press, and the cares distress,

And the way grows weary and long?

Oh yes he cares;

I know he cares,

His heart is touched with my grief;

When the days are weary, the long nights dreary,

I know my Savior cares.

While we must never condone sin, it is very important that we never reject repentant sinners. Jesus always hated sin because it destroys those whom God loves, but he always loved the sinner. We need to do the same for it is only by the grace of God that we haven’t fallen into destructive sins.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please be with Jim, Jennifer, Jim’s children and the entire family. May they, and all who might be in a similar situation, look to you in their hour of deepest need, and sense your loving presence. No matter what the circumstances, may they know that your grace is sufficient to cover all that has happened in the past, and may they know that you care deeply. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Hebrews 4:15-16 (NIV).

“In December 1985 an enormous sinkhole swallowed a house and carport and forced the evacuation of four homes in a retirement community in Florida. The hole was about the size of a pickup truck when it was discovered. Within three hours it had grown to 30 by 40 feet and had swallowed half of a small house. Two hours later it had expanded to more than 70 feet, and the house with its carport was gone. Authorities were grateful that it finally stopped growing without doing even more damage.

“David discovered that sin is like an ever-expanding sinkhole. As he was walking on the flat roof of his palace, he saw a beautiful woman bathing. Instead of turning away, he stared longingly at her. At this point the sinkhole was small but expanding. When he inquired about who she was, the hole grew larger. And finally, when he sent for her, he soon found himself and those around him swallowed up. What started out as only a look ended in tragedy for all involved.”²

Many people, like David, find themselves falling into the sinkhole of temptation because they leave the door open for temptation to enter.

Temptation works the same for all of us. It’s progressive. It can start with an innocent look, then a thought, and then if we linger longer on the look, the thought progresses to desire, then to becoming blind to reality and fooling ourselves into rationalizing that it won’t hurt, and then to yielding. Following this pathway can quickly lead one into the sinkhole of sin as well as despair.

To overcome temptation we need to realize how vulnerable we are to the pull that temptation has on us. When temptation knocks on your door, ask Jesus to answer the door. Also, as God’s Word says, “Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men [and women] of courage; be strong.”³ And again, “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour”.⁴ “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”⁵

I also find that when tempting thoughts knock on “the door of my mind,” I realize that I need to take control of my thinking and pray, “Help, Jesus, help,” and keep saying, “Jesus Christ is Lord. Jesus Christ is Lord of my life,” until the chain of tempting thoughts is broken.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, may I never forget that I, like David, am just as open to temptation as he was. Please help me to call on you in the hour or even the moment of temptation, and give me the strength to resist the devil so that he will flee from me. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 2 Samuel 11:2-3 (NIV).

2. “Lessons on Living,” Back To the Bible. www.backtothebible.org.

3. 1 Corinthians 16:13 (NIV).

4. 1 Peter 5:8 (NIV).

5. James 4:7 (NIV).

One of my favorite questions to ask seminar participants is: “How many have a difficult time making decisions?”

It’s interesting to see how many hands are raised. The most common reason is a fear of making a wrong decision. Unfortunately, many opportunities are lost because of a failure to make a decision—which is itself a decision; that is, a decision not to make a decision! That can be a bad decision because, as a general rule, “Opportunities come to pass—not to pause.”

One man said to me not so long ago, “I don’t know where I’m going [with my life], but I’m in a hurry to get there.” His problem seems to be his fear or reluctance to make decisions. So at the moment he appears to be going nowhere fast.

Some times I joke by saying that I wish God was on e-mail so I could get his leading real fast. Knowing that is not being realistic, every day I commit and trust my life and way to God, asking for his guidance in all that I do, and trust him to guide me and I act accordingly.

I like what Abraham’s servant said when he was sent to find a bride for Isaac: “I being in the way the Lord led me.”² That is, as the servant did his part, God did his.

I can’t recall God ever leading me when I sat back and did nothing. When I trust God and act on the information I have (as little as that may be), he always opens the door to the next step—for me it’s usually just one step at a time. Maybe, just maybe, if I saw God’s entire plan ahead of time, I may be too afraid to take the first step. But I can trust God and handle one step at a time. When I first thought about writing a book, it seemed like an impossible task. A friend suggested I think of writing just one page at a time. I knew I could handle that. All we need to do is make the decision to take the first step. As another has said, “Beginning is half-done.”

And as another has suggested, use the PAT method for making decisions; that is, Pray–Act–Trust!

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please give me the insight to discern your leading and step out in faith trusting you to guide me one step at a time. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Genesis 24:27 (NKJV).

2. Genesis 24:27 (KJV).

Terry tells how she “was in the habit of praying very specifically for what she wanted. She told God in great detail about the kind of job, the kind of husband, the kind of life that she envisioned for herself. And Terry was frequently frustrated. But one day, Terry’s friend suggested that she try a different tack. ‘Give God a blank sheet of paper,’ the friend suggested, ‘and let God give you his list for your life.’

“Not long afterwards, Terry went back to school—something she hadn’t anticipated doing. And she met a wonderful new man, whom she eventually married. He didn’t fit the criteria of her earlier lists, but he was everything she wanted in a husband. When Terry turned her life over to God’s will, God provided for her needs in ways she couldn’t have imagined.”²

Suggested Prayer: “Dear God, in light of all that you have done for me, what can I do for you today? Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Philippians 4:6 (NKJV).

2. Terry Fitzgerald Sieck, found in Stories of God’s Abundance for a More Joyful Life (Lancaster, PA: Starburst Publishers, 1999), pp. 196-198.

Not so long ago a school district here in the United States was ordered by a judge to remove stickers from biology text books that said that evolution was a theory, not a fact.

How interesting in this so-called day of diversity that we allow evolution to be taught as fact but are not allowed to teach that there might be another way to look at life—including Intelligent Design—even if not God!

Even Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, said a century and a half ago, “To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.”

And as Chuck Colson said, “And Darwin didn’t know nearly as much as we do about the sophistication of the signal processing from the eye and the nose.”³ Not to mention the miracle of birth and millions of other miracles that we live with every day of our life. Even our little dog that is so bright and so loving absolutely amazes me.

In life we pretty much hear what we want to hear and turn a deaf ear to what we don’t want to hear. We also see what we want to see and turn a blind eye to what we don’t want to see. Belief is basically the same and not based on rational thinking. It’s based on choice. Generally speaking, we believe what we want to believe, what we are most comfortable with, and what we choose to believe.

True, none of us has ever seen God and many use this as an excuse not to believe in him. I can’t see electrons either, but every time I turn on my light switch, I see the evidence of electrons in action. I can’t see radio waves either, or TV signals that come from satellites, or the wind, but I see and hear the evidence of their existence continually.

The fact is if we want to “see” God, we will because the evidence of his existence is everywhere we look. But if we don’t want to see him, we won’t.

Again, it is choice, not chance, that not only determines our belief in God but also our eternal destiny. So choose wisely. Your life depends on it. Eternity awaits us all.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please open my eyes to ‘see’ you in all that surrounds me. Give me listening ears to hear your call when you ‘speak’ to me. And give me a willing heart so that I will always choose to follow you in all that I am and do. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Psalm 19:1 (NIV).

2. From BreakPoint by Chuck Colson, November 19, 2004.

3. Ibid.

A few years ago a dear friend was diagnosed with cancer. It was not an encouraging diagnosis. In the months ahead even when she was going through chemo therapy treatment and was very sick, she always had a positive outlook and often said, “I’m living with cancer, not dying of cancer.”

Sad to say, in due course the cancer took her. However, her positive outlook made her final days much brighter because of her upbeat attitude.

I have a close family member who is bi-polar, which caused him many struggles in the past. He felt this was a problem that made life discouraging. My goal was to encourage him to change his thinking from, “I’m living with a problem” to “I’m living with a challenge.”

If we change our attitude it can change our life. The reality is that we eventually become what we think about. If I keep thinking I have a problem that is holding me back, I will end up believing this and act accordingly.

No wonder the Bible teaches us to guard our heart, which applies to our thinking, our feelings, and our actions. If my thoughts are constantly negative, my emotions will become negative, and my actions will be self-defeating. As the King James Version of the Bible advises: “Keep your heart with all diligence.”

So … if you have a problem—one that you have to live with—think of it this way, “I’m living with a challenge … and with God’s help I will overcome.”

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you for the principles you teach in your Word. Please help me to apply them to my life and help me to turn my challenge into something that will be a blessing and help to others. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Proverbs 4:23 (NLT).

It may surprise some to realize that God isn’t into religion. He’s into relationships. He’s not into morality either. He’s into reality. And his goal isn’t to make us good for goodness sake. God’s goal is to make us whole for only to the degree that we are made whole will our lifestyle, our actions, our behavior, and our relationships be whole-some.

Becoming whole begins with wholesome relationships both with God through Jesus Christ* and with other loving Christians. As someone has said, “To be is to be in relationships.” We don’t grow in isolation. This is one reason we need to belong to a loving, accepting, non-judgmental, and non-legalistic church and within a smaller group in relationship with likeminded Christians. We only grow and become the person God wants us to be as we are in such relationships. We’re not talking about “head to head” but rather “heart to heart” relationships that are open, authentic and real.

Selwyn Hughes pointed out that “the Christian movement began in relationships.” As today’s Scripture stated, “He [Jesus] appointed twelve…that they might be with him.” If Jesus needed to be in relationship with others, how much more do we?

God’s goal for the Christian is not for him/her to do good or even to be good. It is to be in relationship with Christ and become whole. It is out of being with him and being made whole that our desire to be good and to do good will come. This will be a natural expression of who we have become. As Hughes put it, “Trying to be good without that relationship [with Christ] is like trying to get a stream without a spring, or sunlight without the sun.”²

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to develop a healthy, maturing, and loving relationship with you as well as being in relationship with at least one or two other loving, open, honest and real Christians, so that I will become the person you want me to be, and do what you would have me to do. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Mark 3:14 (NIV).

2. Adapted from Selwyn Hughes in the daily devotional, Every Day with Jesus, November 1989.

* Note: To ensure that you are in a right relationship with God, be sure to read the article, “How to Be Sure You’re a Real Christian” at: https://learning.actsweb.org/christian

A seminary student turned in his copy of a sermon he had written to his preaching professor for grading. At a later conference the professor told the student how impressed he was with his sermon, how well it was written but that he was giving him a D. Confused the student asked, “Why a D if it’s as good as you say it is?”

“It’s because of your title,” the professor remarked. “Nobody will want to hear a sermon entitled: ‘The Pericopes of Jesus in Relationship to the Eschatology of the Apostle Paul.’ I tell you what I’ll do. You see if you can come up with a better sermon title and I’ll reconsider the grade. What you want is a title that will reach out and grab people by the heart. Imagine that title on the sign in front of a church making such an impact that if a bus stopped in front of the church and the people on the bus saw the sign, it would be so powerful it would motivate them to immediately get off the bus and run into the church.”

The student said that he would give it his best shot and returned with the title, “Your bus has a bomb on it!”²

Whew … from one extreme to another. When seeking to be a witness for Jesus, the words we say (or don’t say) are very important; but of far greater importance and impact is the message that comes from our heart, which is an expression of who we are. This message speaks so much louder than what we say. “People don’t care how much we know but rather how much do we care?” Do we communicate the love of Jesus? If not, our words, no matter how eloquent, may have a boomerang effect and do more to drive people away from Jesus rather than draw them to him.

As another has wisely said, “To win some we need to be winsome.”

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please give me a genuine love for the lost and help me to always communicate your love in some way to every life I touch. And as opportunity arises give me the right words to say at the right time in the right manner so that my life and witness will always draw people to you and never drive them away. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 1 Corinthians 14:8-9 (NIV).

2. Adapted from Illustrations Unlimited. Edited by James S. Hewett 1988. Cited in Encounter magazine, December ’04-January ’05, Australian edition.

As you can well imagine we receive a constant flow of emails in response to Daily Encounter. Most of the responses are very encouraging and appreciated. However, we do receive our share of negative criticisms especially when I write on controversial topics. What is somewhat amusing is that when I criticize something that I believe is wrong, I get criticized by those telling me I shouldn’t criticize or judge others.

Fred (not his real name) recently wrote to me saying, “We Christians are not to judge but to teach love, honor, respect and forgiveness. We believe in God and they believe in their religion. Whatever our and their beliefs are, we are all children of God. The question is, what would Jesus do?”

I especially appreciate Fred’s last question about “what would Jesus do?” In Jesus day when the money changers were misusing the temple, Jesus took a whip with him into the temple and drove the money changers out. And when it came to the hypocrisy of the religious Pharisees, Jesus severely condemned them saying,

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.… You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?”²

Jesus was not soft on evil doers. He didn’t mince words and knew exactly how and when to exercise tough love. We, too, need to take a stand against all evil.

Yes, it is true that God’s Word says that we are not to judge others, but it also says we are to judge all things.³ This means that we are not to be judgmental as persons; that is, not to be a negative, critical person looking for the faults in others. When we do this, it is usually because we are projecting our own unresolved issues onto others. But we are also told in the Bible that while we are to love others, we are to judge wrong and sinful actions—and take a strong stand against these things.⁴

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please give me the insight to know—and the courage to stand for—what you are for and what you are against, and to do this in a spirit of love and not in a negative judgmental attitude. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Luke 6:37 (NIV).

2. Matthew 23:27-28,33 (NIV).

3. 1 Corinthians 2:15(NKJV).

4. 2 Timothy 4:2 (NKJV).

Suggestion: To have a part in standing for what is right you may want to read and sign the Manhatten Declaration at: http://www.manhattandeclaration.org/home.aspx. Or for Australians there is the Canberra Declaration at: http://www.canberradeclaration.org.au/.

D. K., in responding to a Daily Encounter in which I said that we need to be realistic and not underestimate what God can do through us, responded by saying, “The Bible reveals that nothing is impossible with God. If he chooses to do through us things that are far beyond our imagination or faith, he is sovereign and can do those things. So don’t you mean, ‘let’s not underestimate what God WILL do through us?’”

D. K. continues, “But, of course, I understand your point and in this regard I have used an illustration from my years of working in the Great Sahara Desert in North Africa. There are about a half-dozen types of sand there and each affects the driving of a vehicle differently. Power steering is necessary, especially on the larger trucks. If we spot an area of soft sand ahead and need to change the direction of the truck to avoid getting stuck, we can turn the steering wheel with one finger.

“However, it isn’t the power of our finger that changes the direction we are going, but rather it is the power steering. And yet we can’t sit back in the seat of the cab and expect the power steering in and of itself to move the big wheels in the right direction. We need to put forth our hand and grab the wheel and turn it. Similarly, with our lives, we can’t change the direction we are going (even if we see the dangers ahead) by sitting back and expecting God’s ‘power steering’ to alter our course. We must reach out and grab the wheel and turn! But it’s God’s power that alters the course.”

Good point. Of this we can be certain, whenever we fulfill our responsibility and do our part, God will always do his part. Or as George Washington once said to his soldiers who were about the cross the Potomac River, “Trust God but keep your powder [rifles] dry.”

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you for your Holy Spirit which empowers me to live my life in harmony with your will. Help me always to depend on your power and not try to live for or serve you in my own strength. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Luke 1:37 (NIV).