Read Luke 4:18-21 (ESV) “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture

Read Mark 8:34-36 (ESV) And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” Reflect How is Jesus’ teaching about service and self-sacrifice counter-cultural? We live in a culture

Read Matthew 16:15-19 (ESV) He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you

Read Malachi 3:1-2 (ESV) “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts, But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. Reflect Have you ever gotten stuck in a spiritual rut? Have you ever wondered if wholehea

Read Zechariah 9:9 (ESV) “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Reflect When you are feeling discouraged, how does setting your sights on the future encourage you to keep going? When I set a personal goal for myself, it is easy for me to get sidelined by everyday distractions and discouragement. If

Read Haggai 2:7-9 (ESV) “And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all the nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the LORD of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the LORD of hosts. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the LORD of hosts.” Reflect Have you ever started something important but failed to finish it? What

Zephaniah 3:15-17 (ESV) The LORD has taken away the judgments against you; he has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst; you shall never again fear evil. On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: “Fear not, O Zion; let not your hands grow weak. The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” Reflect Do you lon

Read Habakkuk 3:17-19 (ESV) Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places. To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. Reflect Do you ever feel discou

Nahum 1:2-3, 7 (ESV) The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries. The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, and the LORD will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet… The LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him. Reflect What can you learn about the attributes of God in today’s verses?

Read Micah 6:8 (ESV) He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Reflect There is no doubt that the world is not as it should be. We see tragedy, corruption, and injustice every single day. Does God notice? Does He care? Will He ever do anything about it? Every day, when I read the news, it’s more of the same. Another politician is accused of corruption or misconduct

Read Jonah 4:10-11 (ESV) “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” Reflect Do you want your enemies to suffer for what they’ve done or repent and turn to God? What does God want our enemies to do? As an American, when

Read Obadiah 1:17-18 (ESV) But in Mount Zion there shall be those who escape, and it shall be holy, and the house of Jacob shall possess their own possessions. The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble; they shall burn them and consume them, and there shall be no survivor for the house of Esau, for the LORD has spoken. Reflect Do you feel like siblings should take responsibility for each other and be each other’s keep

Read Amos 9:11-12 (ESV) “‘In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old, that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name,’ declares the LORD who does this.” Reflect How do people tend to respond when their sins are called out? Is preaching against sin a popular message? It is obvious in our culture today that people do not like to be

Read Joel 2:28, 30-32 (ESV) “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions…. And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who ca

Read Hosea 2:16-20 (ESV) “And in that day, declares the LORD, you will call me ‘My Husband’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ For I will remove the names of Baal from her mouth, and they shall be remembered no more. And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the fields, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety. And I will

Read Daniel 7:13-14 (ESV) “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.” Reflect Have you ever wondered how Christians are to r

Read Ezekiel 37:24-28 (ESV) My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes. They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children’s children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with the

Read Lamentations 3:21-26 (NIV) Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. Reflect How has God proven faithful to you even

Read Jeremiah 7:23-24 (ESV) But this command I gave them: “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.” But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward. Reflect Have you ever had to be the bearer of bad news? How did you feel about being the messenger? How was the message re

Read Isaiah 9:6-7 (ESV) For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do th

Read Song of Solomon 8:6-7 (ESV) Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised. Reflect Why do you think God included a book about romantic love and sex in the Bible? Pop culture has no shortage

Read Ecclesiastes 2:22-25 (ESV) What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity. There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? Reflect Have you ever

Read Proverbs 1:5-7 (ESV) Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance, to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. Reflect What does it mean to fear the LORD? Do you ever wish life came with an instruction manual? Not one focused on theoretical knowledge but one that gives you practical advice for how to l

Read Psalm 42:8-11 (ESV) By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at nights his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. I say to God, my rock: “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?” Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise

Read Job 19:23-27 (ESV) “Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me! Reflect What lessons has God taught you through sufferi

Read Esther 8:3-6 (ESV) Then Esther spoke again to the king. She fell at his feet and wept and pleaded with him to avert the evil plan of Haman the Agagite and the plot that he had devised against the Jews. When the king held out the golden scepter to Esther, Esther rose and stood before the king. And she said, “If it please the king, and if I have found favor in his sight, and if the thing seems right before the king, and I am pleasing in his eyes, let an order be written to

Read Nehemiah 6:15-16 (ESV) So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty-two days. And when all our enemies heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem, for they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God. Reflect How have you seen God work to rebuild Your life? If I asked you to think of a story in the Old Testament involving walls, which one would come to mind? I’m guess

Read Ezra 7:10 (ESV) For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the LORD, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel. Reflect If we long for our relationship with the LORD to be restored and our lives reformed, what do we need to do? What is the standard that dictates how we should live? Pretend you are an Israelite exile for a moment. About 70 years ago, the homeland of your ancestors was conquered by an enemy, Babylon, and the people were deported to a p

Read 2 Chronicles 7:1-3 (ESV) As soon as Solomon finished his prayer, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple. And the priests could not enter the house of the LORD, because the glory of the LORD filled the LORD’s house. When all the people of Israel saw the fire come down and the glory of the LORD on the temple, they bowed down with their faces to the ground on the pavement and worshiped and g

Read 1 Chronicles 17:11-14 (ESV) When your days are fulfilled to walk with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from him who was before you, but I will confirm him in my house and in my kingdom forever, and his throne sh