Foursquare Gospel Church Igbosere (Chapel of Blessing)

OUR DAILY BREAD August 9, Sunday  TIME-TRAVELING LETTERS Amy Peterson The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.  1 John 1:2 1 John 1:1–8 Psalms 77–78; Romans 10 More than a million young people take part in the International Letter-Writing Competition each year. In 2018, the theme of the competition was this: “Imagine you are a letter traveling through time. What message do you want to convey to your readers?” In the Bible, we have a collection of letters that—thanks to the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit—have made their way through time to us. As the Christian church grew, Jesus’ disciples wrote to local churches across Europe and Asia Minor to help the people understand their new life in Christ; many of those letters were collected in the Bible we read today. What did these letter-writers want to convey to readers? John explains, in his first letter, that h...

OUR DAILY BREAD August 8, Saturday HIS DEATH BRINGS LIFE Bill Crowder If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!  2 Corinthians 5:17 2 Corinthians 5:14–21 Psalms 74–76; Romans 9:16–33 During her ministry to men incarcerated in South Africa’s most violent prison, Joanna Flanders-Thomas witnessed the power of Christ to transform hearts. In  Vanishing Grace,  Philip Yancey describes her experience: “Joanna started visiting prisoners daily, bringing them a simple gospel message of forgiveness and reconciliation. She earned their trust, got them to talk about their abusive childhoods, and showed them a better way of resolving conflicts. The year before her visits began, the prison recorded 279 acts of violence against inmates and guards; the next year there were two.” The apostle Paul wrote, “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). While we may not always see that ne...

OUR DAILY BREAD August 7, Friday LETTING GO Cindy Hess Kasper Precious in the sight of the  Lord  is the death of his faithful servants.  Psalm 116:15 John 11:21–36 Psalms 72–73; Romans 9:1–15 “Your father is actively dying,” said the hospice nurse. “Actively dying” refers to the final phase of the dying process and was a new term to me, one that felt strangely like traveling down a lonely one-way street. On my dad’s last day, not knowing if he could still hear us, my sister and I sat by his bed. We kissed the top of his beautiful bald head. We whispered God’s promises to him. We sang “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” and quoted the 23rd Psalm. We told him we loved him and thanked him for being our dad. We knew his heart longed to be with Jesus, and we told him he could go. Speaking those words was the first painful step in letting go. A few minutes later, our dad was joyously welcomed into his eternal home. The final release of a loved one is painful. Even Jesus’ tears fl...

OUR DAILY BREAD August 6, Thursday IN THE FATHER’S WAYS John Blase They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice.  1 Samuel 8:3 1 Samuel 8:1–9 Psalms 70–71; Romans 8:22–39 In the 1960s, the bustling community of North Lawndale, on Chicago’s West Side, was a pilot community for interracial living. A handful of middle-class African Americans bought homes there on “contract”—that combined the responsibilities of home ownership with the disadvantages of renting. In a contract sale, the buyer accrued no equity, and if he missed a single payment, he would immediately lose his down payment, all his monthly payments, and the property itself. Unscrupulous sellers sold at inflated prices, then the families were evicted when they missed a payment. Another family would buy on contract, and the cycle fueled by greed just kept going. Samuel appointed his sons judges over Israel, and they were driven by greed. His sons “did not follow his ways” (1...

OUR DAILY BREAD August 5 Wednesday LOVED, BEAUTIFUL, GIFTED Sheridan Voysey The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.  Romans 8:16 Romans 8:15–17 Psalms 68–69; Romans 8:1–21 Malcolm appeared confident as a teenager. But this confidence was a mask. In truth, a turbulent home left him fearful, desperate for approval, and feeling falsely responsible for his family’s problems. “For as far back as I remember,” he says, “every morning I would go into the bathroom, look in the mirror, and say out loud to myself, ‘You are stupid, you are ugly, and it’s your fault.’” Malcolm’s self-loathing continued until he was twenty-one, when he had a divine revelation of his identity in Jesus. “I realized that God loved me unconditionally and nothing would ever change that,” he recalls. “I could never embarrass God, and He would never reject me.” In time, Malcolm looked in the mirror and spoke to himself differently. “You are loved, you are beautiful, you are gifted,” he ...

OUR DAILY BREAD August 4, Tuesday GOD’S MERCY AT WORK Xochitl Dixon May the  Lord  judge between you and me.  1 Samuel 24:12 1 Samuel 24:1–10 Psalms 66–67; Romans  7 My anger percolated when a woman mistreated me, blamed me, and gossiped about me. I wanted everyone to know what she’d done—wanted her to suffer as I’d suffered because of her behavior. I steamed with resentment until a headache pierced my temples. But as I began praying for my pain to go away, the Holy Spirit convicted me. How could I plot revenge while begging God for relief? If I believed He would care for me, why wouldn’t I trust Him to handle this situation? Knowing that people who are hurting often hurt other people, I asked God to help me forgive the woman and work toward reconciliation. The psalmist David understood the difficulty of trusting God while enduring unfair treatment. Though David did his best to be a loving servant, King Saul succumbed to jealousy and wanted to murder him (1 Samu...

OUR DAILY BREAD August 3 THE BATTLE’S OVER. REALLY. Winn Collier We were . . . buried with him.  Romans 6:4 Romans 6:1–11 Psalms 63–65; Romans 6 For twenty-nine years after World War II ended, Hiroo Onoda hid in the jungle, refusing to believe his country had surrendered. Japanese military leaders had dispatched Onoda to a remote island in the Philippines (Lubang) with orders to spy on the Allied forces. Long after a peace treaty had been signed and hostilities ceased, Onoda remained in the wilderness. In 1974, Onoda’s commanding officer traveled to the island to find him and convince him the war was over. For three decades, Onoda lived a meager, isolated existence, because he refused to surrender—refused to believe the conflict was done. We can make a similar mistake. Paul proclaims the stunning truth that “all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death” (Romans 6:3). On the cross, in a powerful, mysterious way, Jesus put to death Satan’s lies, death’s ...