Listen to the Audio

The Bible is full of verses that seem to oppose each other, and it's in the balance and tension of these verses that we can learn so much. Consider the following verses.

Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Matthew 7:13-14 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Here is the way I have always thought of these two verses. Jesus wants to give us rest in our soul, and the things that he asks us to do are usually not overly hard or burdensome. And whatever he asks us to do he provides the grace to walk it out, so we can rest while God does the work. But the path is n...

Listen to the Audio

Here is this week's Yearly Cycle Update.

This time of year is a reminder to stick with the basics of faith and love. Simple childlike faith with a single-minded unwavering focus on God... that he is with us, for us, and nothing is impossible for him. This confident faith allows us to rest and trust in him and it is expressed in love... Loving God, ourselves, and others. 

There might be times of uncertainty and situations when we don't know what to do, and the best thing to do in these times is say... I don't know what to do, but my eyes are on you Lord. 

I am praying for you. 

Daniel

P.S. The new Yearly Cycle Calendar for 2022 is down below.

Listen to the Audio

There are a number of verses in the Bible about God's will for us. One of those verses is 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 which says, "Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus."

This is a very simple verse, but harder to walk in it consistently. I believe it takes keeping our focus on God continually and His help.

In today's communion we are asking for God's help to walk in this continually. 

Today's Workout/Health Tip

In my years of training clients in the gym I noticed that there is a tendency for people to become discouraged about their progress at times. If they weren't making progress as fast as they wanted, hit a sticking point, or had some adversity to deal with it was very important to help keep them encouraged. Encouraging ourselves in the Lord is one of the most important skills we can develop because there will be opportunities to get discouraged. If you ever find yourself gettin...

Listen to the Audio

Philippians 2:6-11 says, "Who(Jesus), existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross.…

Therefore, God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name above all names, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.…"

The other day as I read this verse it got me thinking about the humility that it took for Jesus to do this. To consider who he is and what he was willing to do is amazing. All throughout the Bible there is a pattern that those who humble themselves will be exalted and those that exalt themselves will be humbled, and pride leads to the fall. In Jesus we see the ultimate example o...

Listen to the Audio

Lately we have talked a lot about confidence in God, which is the state where all of the doubts are removed. Confidence and faith are very related.

Philippians 1:6 says, "being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

We can be confident that whatever God has started in our lives he will sustain and carry it through to completion. When we are confident in this we can rest and trust rather than toiling and trying to make it happen in our own strength. 

Today's communion is a time of gratitude that Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith and we are asking God for help to be confident in his sustaining power. 

Today's Workout/Health Tip

There are many times when people have limitations with exercise. Maybe a certain exercise hurts for whatever reason, you have an injury, you don't have time, etc. Whatever the circumstance might be there is always something that can be done.

So, m...

Listen to the Audio

Part of what we pray every day in our communion meditations is that God would help us do what is right and best in his eyes today, but how do we know the best choices to make in our lives. In Philippians 1:9-10 the apostle Paul says, "And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ."

When our love is abounding (increasing greatly) in knowledge and depth of insight it teaches us how to discern what is best. 

In today's communion we are asking God to help our love abound more and more so that we know what is best. 

Today's Workout/Health Tip

Nutrition and exercise are very related, and part of the Daily Communion Workout is eating to perform well in the workouts. Nutrition should be very simple, consistently balanced meals, but the amounts and timing also play a big role. For the amounts or portion sizes it is impor...

Listen to the Audio

In Ephesians 3:7 NIV the apostle Paul says...

I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. NIV

The NLT version says...

By God’s grace and mighty power, I have been given the privilege of serving him by spreading this Good News. NLT

And the MSG version says...

This is my life work: helping people understand and respond to this Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details. 

We don't normally think of becoming someone else's servant as a gift. And this verse got me thinking about the relationship between employers and employees. When we work for a business, we don't usually get paid by the customers or clients. We may collect money from them, but that money goes to the employer or business. It is the business or employer that pays the employee not the customers. In this relationship it takes trust that from the employees that the business will take care of them. 

Listen to the Audio

Galatians 5:25 says, "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

The phrase "keeping in step," makes me think of a dance. God has a beautiful rhythm and timing to everything He does. He is never early or late, but always right on time. Something I have found in my own walk with God is that there were times when I got ahead of him. There were times when I would ask God about certain steps to take but then I wouldn't wait for him to show me, and it resulted in me getting ahead of him. When I got out of his timing and rhythm the grace wasn't there. Matthew 11:30 in the MSG version says there is an unforced rhythm of grace. 

There have also been times when I was late, and these were usually times when I kept having a nudge or prompting to do something, but I failed to take action in a timely manner. I knew what to do but failed to take action. To keep in step with the Spirit is to be right in time with God, and when we do this there is a beauti...

Listen to the Audio

Once I was doing a science experiment with my kids where we turned a nail into a temporary magnet. If you take a magnet and brush the magnet along a nail in only one direction and then repeat this 30,40, or 50 times it will turn the nail into a magnet. Each pass of the magnet begins to align all of the molecules in the nail in the same direction and once alignment is created the nail turns into a magnet, but notice it takes consistent repetition over and over in the same direction. 

The nail will continue to be magnetic until it is shaken, hit, or pressure is put on it which causes the molecules to become disordered and lose their alignment. 

Yesterday we said that faith is confidence, and confidence is the place where all the doubt is removed, and we have everything aligned in the same direction. When we get to the place of confident faith through consistent practice it becomes magnetic and pulls all God has for us into our lives. But, life will try to shake us ...

Listen to the Audio

Here is this week's Yearly Cycle Update.

It seems like every year during February and March God keeps bringing up the topic of confidence.

Hebrews 11:1 NIV says, "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see."

Faith is confidence, not confidence in ourselves, but confidence in God and Jesus. Confident that God is good, and he is a rewarder of those who seek him. Confidence that he will never let us down, leave us, or forsake us. It is also confidence in Jesus, that his sacrifice was perfect, and he makes us right with God and holy. 

Confidence is the place where all of the doubt is removed. Recently in the Daily Communion Workouts I had a big surge of progress and something I noticed was that prior to the surge my confidence in what God could do in the workouts was greatly increased. I had no more doubts that I could execute the current level of the workout easily. It seems like the moment we get to a place of confidence we...