Latest Thoughts of the Day

Proverbs 31:19

3/9/2026

In her hand she holds the distaff and grasps the spindle with her fingers

She has a hands-on approach to meeting the needs of her family, using her own personal skills to weave the cloth that she will use. What is being pictured is her diligence, her ingenuity, her skill in caring for the responsibilities that fall upon her in the family situation. Most women do not have the range of skills this ideal woman has, but the character qualities that she shows may be employed by anyone in responsibility to supply the needs of anyone else. The picture of self-denial to meet the needs of someone else is the thing we are called to admire in this ideal wife and mother. We see this character in God Himself, most especially in the life and ministry on our behalf shown forth in the person of our Lord Jesus.

Psalm 147:19

3/8/2026

He has revealed His word to Jacob, His lawas and decreees to Israel.

As a society, we are entirely accustomed to viewing weather as governed by forces inherent in the elements themselves. Certain manifestations are inevitable, given certain other things that exist in the knowable world around us. Our frustration is that we can’t get all the elements in perfect enough balance to be sure we are correct in our predictions of what will happen. The Biblical view is that God is doing these things with His creation. And this God, who is doing such things, has actually spoken to one people on the face of the earth. The crucial concerns of who God is and how to live for Him have been revealed. All men have the questions. One people have been given the answers. Through that one people, all men everywhere may know and have Jesus.

Job 41:19

3/7/2026

Firebrands stream from his mouth; sparks of fire shoot out.

In God’s confronting of Job at the end of this book, He pictures a huge sea-monster of such power that men must stand in awe. The words could include fire-breathing power far beyond man’s understanding, let alone beyond his power to withstand. Is there, or has there ever been such a creature? If there has been, its astonishing power cowers before the Lord of Heaven and Earth. God frightens us with a picture and assures us of His supremacy over even this. God in no way apologizes for His dealing with Job. It is to Job’s honor that he has been sustained by this great God to endure the wrath and cruelty of Satan and to stand as a champion. God Himself is Job’s reward, and the riches He adds are really superfluous. All glory goes to Jesus.

Esther 9:19

3/6/2026

That is why rural Jews--those living in villages-- observe the fourteenth of the month of Adar as a day of joy and feasting, a day for giving presents to each other.

Not everybody can take three days off to celebrate this great deliverance from destruction, so the rural Jews picked the fourteenth of Adar as the official celebration date. What had been marked out as a day of destruction for Jews in the whole empire had become a time of rejoicing in the deliverance that came with the decree that Mordecai had pushed through. There are no directives from God for celebrating this holiday, since He did not directly ordain that it be observed. It is likely that Jesus celebrated this feast along with all Jews in the time that He lived among us. The hand of God that moved in Esther was the hand of Jesus.

Nehemiah 13:19

3/5/2026

When evening shadows fell on the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I ordered the doors to be shut and not opened again until the Sabbath was over. I stationed some of my own men at the gate so that no load could be brought in on the Sabbath day.

The resistance and the wrangling that was present when Nehemiah tried to implement anything at all makes one think of the kind of thing that goes on today in Washington. Always there is opposition and always it is motivated by a clash that involves money. Human nature has not changed. We are thankful that Nehemiah did not lose his focus and did not simply throw up his hands in exasperation. Standing for the principle was important to God’s purposes in that time and in that place. Are there principles that we must defend to the glory of Jesus?

Ezra 10:19

3/4/2026

(They all gave their hands in pledge to put away their wives, and for their guilt they each presented a ram from the flock as a guilt offering.)

Marrying of foreign wives had brought terrible spiritual declension and even apostasy within Israel, and had led to God’s severe judgment of seventy years of exile for the nation in Babylon. Now some of those who had returned to resettle and rebuild Jerusalem had taken this lightly and were beginning to do the very same thing themselves. Ezra spoke with the strongest words against this, and the Lord had brought about a sincere repentance. This would involve a costly sacrifice being offered to God and a putting away of the foreign wives, along with children that had already been born to them. A necessary refocus had been accomplished, which would ultimately lead to the coming into the world of Jesus.

2 Chronicles 36:19

3/3/2026

They set fire to God's Temple and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, they burned all the palaces and destroyed everything of value there.

Every expression of restraint that Babylon had shown with regard to the leadership in Jerusalem had caused the Jewish leader to solidify their opposition. Finally the breaking-point was reached and Babylon determined utter destruction to the Temple and to every vestige of Jewish control or direction. They left in their wake rubble. For the seventy years ordained by God the city of Jerusalem would lie in waste, until God was pleased to restore His people to His land. All the accoutrements of Temple worship had been carefully catalogued and transported to the treasury in Babylon, but some things of value that could not be transported yet remained. These were systematically destroyed by the invader. We tremble at God’s judgment, and look to Jesus.

1 Chronicles 29:19

3/2/2026

"And give my son Solomon the whole-hearted devotion to keep your commands, requirements and decrees and to do everything to build the palatial structure for which I have provided."

David’s final public prayer for his son Solomon includes David’s two most important personal desires—that his son truly walk with God and that he build the Temple that David has done everything he could to anticipate. God denied David the chance to build the Temple himself, but David had been indefatigable in his determination to provide materials. He had amassed a fortune in gold and silver and building materials and he had devised and laid out plans as to how God wanted the Temple to be built. The project was dear to his heart, but not as dear as the spiritual walk of his son. The most important thing about any of us is closeness to Jesus.