Daily Devotional

A Ministry of the Kerwin Baptist Church

February 27, 2019

by Pastor Hawtree

BIBLE READING: ACTS 26

4 My manner of life from my youth, which was at the first among mine own nation at Jerusalem, know all the Jews;
5 Which knew me from the beginning, if they would testify, that after the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.
6 And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers:

It is really the same story for each of us that know Christ. There is what we were, what we are, and what we will be. What has made the change is “the hope of the promise made of God”.

Before Christ, we had no hope. Even if you were a so-called good person, you had no hope without Christ. Paul said he lived “after the most straitest sect of our religion”. He had been educated, disciplined, dedicated, and accomplished. He had followed the rules, done all the requirements, and yet he still had no hope. It is the same for you and I. We can talk all day about what we were, how good we were, or how bad we were, but either way we had no hope without Christ.

For those of us who are believers in Christ, life changed when we heard and believed a promise. Specifically, a promise from God’s word. The promise that “whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life”. A promise that “whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”. The promise that “He will never leave us nor forsake us”.

The promises of God have changed everything. My hope is placed in Christ. My confidence is built on the fact that I trust the promises that Christ has made. Thank God I’m not what I was. Through Christ I am what I am. Praise God, I know what I am going to be, where I am going to go, and who I am going to be with. AMEN!

* John 14:1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.