Latest Thoughts of the Day

Daniel 2:6

8/31/2025

But if you tell me the dream and explain it, you will receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. So tell me the dream and interpret it for me.

The king can’t remember his dream and he wants his wise me to tell him what it was. And it is not a matter of lay-offs and firings—the employees who cannot perform in this way will be considered traitors and will be killed. Daniel will not hear about this until the soldiers come to take him away to be killed, but when he hears he does not panic. He asks his close friends to pray for him and he comes before the king. God undertakes, Daniel and his friends are exalted, and God’s purposes for Babylon while the Jews are there unfold. God works in all things as He directs history to the coming of Jesus.

Ezekiel 1:27

8/30/2025

I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him.

Six hundred years before the coming of Christ into the world, Ezekiel is given a glimpse of the throne of God outside the realm of time and existing as it does in eternity. Daniel is given a similar glimpse about the same time as Ezekiel, Isaiah had seen it two hundred years before, and John on the island of Patmos is given a glimpse about six hundred years after Ezekiel. Time does not matter. What does Eternity have to say to us is the real question. And Ezekiel is eager to hear. Speak to us, Lord. We stand in awe of Your glory; we see in it the Person of our Savior, Jesus.

Lamentations 2:5

8/29/2025

The Lord is like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation for the daughter of Judah.

One image after another comes to mind in response to the utter destruction of Jerusalem. What has happened in no way looks like discipline, but only like a kind of hateful destruction—as if brought about by an enemy who delights in random wasting of a foe. Jeremiah’s heart goes out to see the dreadful grief not just redoubled, but multiplied not just to the men who can take it, but to the children who are utterly overwhelmed by it all. The “daughters of Jerusalem” should be seen as a crown of gentleness and dignity, but they are crying out in pain and grief. Lord, this is what we deserve. We take refuge in Jesus.

Jeremiah 2:8

8/28/2025

The priests did not ask, "Where is the Lord?" Those who deal with the law did not know me; the leaders rebelled against me. The prophets prophesied by Baal, following worthless idols.

Ministry experts have completely taken over the religious life of Israel and no one in leadership knows God. The truth that Jeremiah speaks is regarded as outdated and irrelevant. He grieves to see the whole nation given over to idolatry and wickedness. God is preparing judgment and the day of judgment moves steadily closer. We know the rest of the story for the people of Jeremiah’s day. No repentance as a nation, and no forgiveness. Complete disaster. Yet hope for those individuals who did repent and trust in God’s mercy. Like them, our hope is fixed in the Deliverer God provides. The rest of the story is that God will deliver us through His Son, Jesus.

Isaiah 1:27

8/27/2025

Zion will be redeemed with justice, her penitent ones with righteousness.

Isaiah spoke as the Lord instructed him, but he could not possibly have understood his own words at this point. We know that God’s people were redeemed by a Substitute who lived a perfect life on their behalf and who paid in full the penalty for their sin. It was just for God to forgive them, seeing what Jesus did. Those who have turned from their sin and believed on Jesus have been granted His perfect righteousness, and God treats them as if they had never sinned. The demands of Justice are met in the Savior. The righteousness He earned has been given to them as a gift. Very much of what God is doing will be revealed by Isaiah, but the essence is here in this early verse. Through Isaiah, God is revealing to us Jesus.

Song of Songs 2:10

8/26/2025

My lover spoke and said to me, "Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me."

If we are born-again Christians we have begun to be beautiful. God has begun a work that already shows itself to those that know Jesus. There is a gentleness, a taking God seriously and a real desire to know and love Him. And He Himself wants us to get aside and talk. If there is a secret to being fully what Jesus wants us to be, its power lies in close fellowship with Him. The hymn says, “And He walks with me and He talks with me and He tells me I am His own. And the joy we share as we tarry there none other has ever known.” Make us beautiful with Your likeness, and draw us near, Lord. No one else matters to us more than Jesus.

Ecclesiastes 2:9

8/25/2025

I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.

God was pleased with Solomon’s desire for wisdom to do what God had called him to, and promised to prosper him in many other ways. Solomon is discovering and exploring the many blessings God is working into his life. He is intent on exploring every delight and every opportunity God presents him with, but he remains concerned not to let them all go to his head. In effect, he experiences the pleasures but retains sound judgement concerning how much they are really worth. Lord, you have granted us many pleasures and many opportunities. May they not go to our head! Grant and preserve in us sound judgment. Whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, may all be done to the glory of our Lord and Savior Jesus.

Proverbs 1:27

8/24/2025

...when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and troubles overwhelm you.

This is a dreadful warning from the God of mercy and grace responding to those who have been determined to reject His offers of forgiveness and help. The day of grace will be over for them, and their terrible calamity will draw forth the scorn and ridicule it deserves. They will call, but He will not hear; they will appeal and He will not rescue them. Now and again we encounter someone showing off with his rebellion to God, not afraid of His wrath, not shaken by His warnings. How their own words will mock them throughout eternity! Such were some of us, but You have granted us repentance! May Your dreadful warnings shake the souls of some proud sinners this day, and bring them to Jesus!