Featured Devotionals

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ODJ: no other gods

Jason is dead serious about his studies. He’s striving to gain an overseas scholarship that will allow him to pursue a doctorate degree in mathematics. So he makes sure that he does well in all his required classes. He’s also gone beyond the basics to take higher level classes. He eats, drinks and sleeps maths!

Has education become his god? It’s hard to tell. Any responsible stu

ODJ: away in a manger

According to a recent Poll, “Away in a Manger” was voted the second most popular carol. Although some of what we sing isn’t mentioned in the Bible (for example, cattle present at Jesus’ birth or Jesus not crying), the carol affirms some deep theological truths.

We’re told that “[Mary] gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and

ODJ: Christmas kindness

My son spent his first decade of life in a warm East African climate. For his 10th birthday I used frequent flier miles and took him to the western part of America to experience snow.

Friends graciously opened their home to us while they were away for the Christmas holidays. When my son and I arrived we had just a garage door opener code to get in, but a fluke power outage prevente

ODJ: what to do?

You might be in one of those times in life where you’re not sure what to do. Do I go to school? Do I get a job or pursue another career? In his book The Way I Was Made, songwriter Chris Tomlin writes, “Right now, the God who made you knows your heart, knows your desires, your strengths, your limitations . . . and this God has only good in mind for your future.” Chris points

ODJ: love does

The news came on Christmas Eve. My wife put down the phone, walked into the bedroom and burst into tears. We were living in Australia then and had been visiting family in Brisbane, but after the call we decided we needed some time alone. So we packed our bags and started the 12 hour drive home to Sydney. That phone call put an exclamation point on a 2010 full of broken dreams.

We with

ODJ: humbly His

Only a handful of people know who wrote the book Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God’s Everything. The writer, who published the book under the name “Anonymous”, is a well established author who is living out the main point of his (or her) message. According to Anonymous, the book is “a call to stop imitating the world’s formula for success and instead follow

ODJ: leaving church

Poised at the door of the church auditorium, I hesitated. Why? I realised that I didn’t want to go to church. It’s not that I didn’t want to go to any church at all. I simply no longer wanted to go to this church. My wife felt the same way. A few weeks later, after 20 years as members, we made the agonisingly painful decision to leave. But leaving is not the same

ODJ: front to back

At the start of the film Walk the Line, young Johnny Cash is talking with his older brother Jack who is hoping to become a preacher. Johnny is sad because he doesn’t know the Bible like his brother, who said, “If I’m going to be a preacher one day, I gotta know the Bible front to back. I mean, you can’t help nobody if you can’t tell them the right story.”

Trag

ODJ: laying claim

My mother has developed a habit of occasionally asking us what items we would want once she leaves this earthly existence. Responding with lighthearted humour to her musings on death, my sister and I tell her not to hide any money in the house because we plan on selling it fully furnished when she dies. When I realised the other day that she still had a grapevine wreath my dad and I had made mor