Chambers' text found here in the original English, and here in the modern English.

The Scripture passage for today is II Timothy 4:2:  Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage-with great patience and careful instruction.

     One of the positive side effects of devotionals is that as you read the intended Bible verse, you get sucked into Scripture and just keep reading.  So not only do you get the intended reminders or lessons, but you get a reminder that real wisdom, real truth, real practical useful direction, comes from the Bible and not the devotionalist. 

     Chambers point for the day-and it's a good one-is when we're saved, we aren't saved to be used as automatons mindlessly droning whatever message God gives us to drone.  No, we're moved from humans without hope to sons and daughters of the King; from poverty to royalty.  Therefore, we are lifted out of the "how-do-I-matter" morass, where life is spent thinking about self, and into a role as ambassadors of hope.

     Enough for one day, if you like: There's great joy in knowing we've been (a) made righteous by having the righteousness of Christ imputed to us; and (b) made heirs to the King, with His love the chief asset. 

     But then, reading on in II Timothy, we see this:   

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of His appearing and His kingdom, I give you this charge:  Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage-with great patience and careful instruction.  For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine.  Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.  They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

     How desperately the world needs the ambassadors of Hope to do their jobs, and how much suffering could be alleviated if we did so!  And yet, we need to be clear: The world isn't going to embrace us, in fact, they'll be embracing people with softer messages and more palatable endorsements of self-obsession and self-absorption.  Life on earth, where redemption is so desperately needed it is Priority 1 for all believers; life on earth is about service and sacrifice, meaning we forego the rights and privileges of our inherited positions in order to bring along as many others as possible and in order to alleviate as much suffering as possible.  So we must willingly defer our rights, privileges and rewards, boldly confident they're all there waiting for us when we reach heaven. 

     Love God? Then serve Him by preaching hope.and learn to love others. 

So-Whats for Work:  Stripped of our yearning for self-glory and willing to defer our rewards, we find ourselves with the focus and power to be creative, selfless, effective and useful.

So-Whats for Home:  When we learn to defer gratification.we teach that lesson to our families at a time in our culture when it's most needed.

CuriousChristian's Favorite Finds for the Day

We've got our best finds gathered in one place right here.  Many are downright amazing.  Got a weblink, picture, article, video, website, project or idea we should share? Send it to us for consideration! We'll add the best to the bottom of our blogs from time to time.