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Christian Devotional – May 17, 2026
The Roman Road, Day 2 Step 2: We have earned death. Read Romans 6:23. My daughter recently changed jobs, and while it wasn’t the entire reason, part of the reason why she changed is she moved to a job that pays her more money. Her wages have increased. The new job believes the value that she brings is higher, so they are paying her more. Often we like to think of things in terms of what we are owed. We feel that we are entitled or have earned certain things like a specific amount of salary or a certain amount of benefits. What we need to understand is that we…
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Christian Devotional – May 16, 2026
The Roman Road, Day 1 Step 1: we are all sinners. Read Romans 3:23. For the next 5 days, we’re gonna walk through a message that has been referred to as the Roman road. In praying about where we should study next, I was struck by the importance of the gospel message. We all need to have a strong understanding of exactly what is the gospel? Why did Jesus come, and why does it matter? While many different evangelism tools have been created through the years, one of the first methods that I learned in order to share my faith was the “Roman Road.” The Roman Road is a grouping…
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Christian Devotional – May 14, 2026
The Reluctant Follower, Day 20 Choose Your Ending. Read Jonah 4:11. Have you ever gotten to the end of a book or a movie and felt like they left issues unresolved? Have you been left wondering, “Wait? What happened next? How did it turn out?” Often, that’s how I feel when I read the end of the book of Jonah. We leave with God asking Jonah a question, and we never get Jonah’s answer. God has been using this time with Jonah to help him understand just how much God values people. God is their creator and he desires to see everyone understand who he is and the glory due…
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Christian Devotional – May 13, 2026
The Reluctant Follower, Day 19 Taking ownership. Read Jonah 4:10. One of the key lessons I strive to teach my kids is about the idea of taking ownership and maintaining accountability for something that they are responsible for. If they have something that they have helped to create or put together, then they have ownership over that and there’s a level of responsibility that they should feel toward it. There’s also a level of accountability that they should have with regard to that whatever that is. Where Jonah got mixed up is that he was taking ownership for something that he didn’t do and didn’t have any part of. He…
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Christian Devotional – May 11, 2026
The Reluctant Follower, Day 18 The foot stomp. Read Jonah 4:9. If you’ve ever seen a young child be upset about something, you’ve seen the foot stomp. There’s that moment when the parent or some other adult wants a child to do something, but the child doesn’t want to do it. So often, they cross their arms, make a face, and inevitably stomp their foot on the ground as if to emphatically say, “Absolutely not. I won’t do it!” Something about that foot stomp is supposed to convey their complete and total frustration and anger at whatever the situation is. Here, we see Jonah’s foot stomp. God has confronted him…
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Christian Devotional – May 10, 2026
The Reluctant Follower, Day 17 God’s provision. Read Jonah 4:6-8. We speak a lot about the provision of God. We know that God is a God who provides. We enjoy praying prayers and singing songs thanking God for his provision. But, are we willing to acknowledge everything that is a provision of God? As we come into these final few days in the book of Jonah, we see that everything that has happened has been a provision of God. Jonah is in a place that he’s not supposed to be, doing something he’s not supposed to be doing, and even still God provides for him. In today’s reading, God provides…
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Christian Devotional – May 9, 2026
The Reluctant Follower, Day 17 Be where you are supposed to be. Read Jonah 4:5. As a child growing up, my parents were very strict about making sure that they knew were I was at all times. They didn’t want a situation where we would be at a store and I would wander off from them. They wanted to make sure that I was where I was supposed to be. Jonah has delivered his message to Nineveh. He fulfilled all that God had told him to do. But yet, Jonah didn’t head home. He stayed there. More than that, he stayed there with a negative motive because he wanted to…
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Christian Devotional – May 8, 2026
The Reluctant Follower, Day 16 Check yourself. Read Jonah 4:4. Let’s recap this story so far. God gives Jonah a message. Jonah runs away. God gets Jonah’s attention when he is swallowed by a giant fish. Jonah repents. God forgives Jonah. God gives Jonah a message again. Jonah goes and delivers the message. The people repent and God chooses mercy over judgment. Jonah gets angry that God is merciful. Jonah seems to be forgetting just how merciful God has been to him. I mean, God did save him from his disobedience. But Jonah is still really unhappy and God challenges Jonah by asking him if he has a right to…
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Christian Devotional – May 7, 2026
The Reluctant Follower, Day 15 Not sharing. Read Jonah 4:2-3. You’ve seen the kids that get the nice toy and then absolutely refuse to share with anybody else. They have no problem showing the toy to others and bragging that they have it, but they have no interest in sharing it. Nobody else gets the opportunity to enjoy it. That’s what Jonah reminds me of in our passage today. We saw yesterday that Jonah was really angry that God chose to forgive and show mercy to the people of Ninevah. Today, Jonah prays his prayer to God explaining just exactly why he is angry. Jonah knows God. Jonah is an…
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Christian Devotional – May 6, 2026
The Reluctant Follower, Day 14 Who should determine what is right and what is wrong? Read Jonah 4:1. We have rules and laws that are set in place in order to help determine what is considered right and what is considered wrong. We see laws from the Bible as well as God was seeking to help people have a standard measure of what we see as right and wrong. However, the issue becomes when we start to think that we made the list of what is right, or that we can alter or adjust what is right. Or, even when we don’t think that God has the right to determine…