Daily Devotionals for September 16, 2026

For Reading and Meditation:     Ecclesiastes 4:7-12

Some people are lonely because of the oppression of others; some because their own competitiveness separates them from friends. In today's passage, however, we come face to face with a man who was lonely because he had no family connections. How does he handle it? He throws himself into an endless round of activity...

We live in a permissive society. Especially in the area of child-training, people listen to the advice of psychologists and sociologists rather than to the teachings of God's Word. Many adults who were brought up by parents who dared to discipline them determine to allow their children freedom and self-expression. What are the results?

Such children grow up with a deep sense of insecurity. They are misfits in society. They find it difficult to cope with problems and troubles, and seek...

WHAT a sweet portion is this for the aged disciples of the Lord Jesus: heart and flesh may fail them, but God will not forsake them. Having begun a good work in them, He will carry it on. His gifts and callings are without repentance. He will be as kind, as tender, and as gracious at last as at the first. He will carry us, The eternal God is our refuge, underneath are the everlasting arms. He will carry us safely through every danger, over every difficulty, into His presence and glory. Aged...

So mighty was the prayer of Moses, that all depended upon it. The petitions of Moses discomfited the enemy more than the fighting of Joshua. Yet both were needed. No, in the soul's conflict, force and fervour, decision and devotion, valour and vehemence, must join their forces, and all will be well. You must wrestle with your sin, but the major part of the wrestling must be done alone in private with God. Prayer, like Moses', holds up the token of the covenant before the Lord. The rod was...

Without doubt the greatest need of the human personality is to experience God Himself. This is because of who God is and who and what man is. God is the essence of intelligent, self-conscious life and man is created in His image. God is love, and man is made for God. God and man exist for each other and neither is satisfied without the other. Though God is self-sufficient He has sovereignly willed to have communion with the being He made in honor next to Himself, and He takes every means to...

What an inconceivable length and breadth, depth and height has every such declaration as this! The whole life-journey of the Christian is a journey into the treasures that he heaped up in this sentence. In it, in fact, are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. After a month of some peculiar experience, let the believer come and look into this verse, and he will find what he never found before. In the avenue commanded by this verse, no two Christians are at exactly the same place; no two...

John 17:15-26

A writer tells of quietly opening the door of his mother's room one day in his boyhood, seeing her on her knees, and hearing her speak his own name in prayer. He quickly and quietly withdrew from the sacred place - but he never forgot that one glimpse of his mother at prayer, nor the prayer for himself, which he heard her speak to God. Well did he know that what he had seen that moment, was but a

Standing at the foot of the cross, we see hands, and feet, and side, all distilling crimson streams of precious blood. It is "precious" because of its redeeming and atoning efficacy. By it the sins of Christ's people are atoned for; they are redeemed from under the law; they are reconciled to God, made one with him. Christ's blood is also "precious" in its cleansing power; it "cleanseth from all sin." "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." Through Jesus' blood...

"And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward." Matthew 10:42

Well, I can do as much as that. I can do a kind act toward the LORD's servant. The LORD knows llove them all and would count it an honor to wash their feet. For the sake of their Master, I love the disciples.

How gracious of the LORD...

God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth" (2 Thess. 2:13).

To be Christ-centered, we must be Spirit-dependent.

"It is basically the belief of the truth; it is not belief of the fruits. The Holy Spirit cannot present to me the fruit He has...

The Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. § The Lord will show who is His and who is holy. § Your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. § There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.Lord, all my desire is before You; and my sighing is not hidden from You....

I said that the causes of religious confusion were four, and I named misunderstanding of the nature of truth as one of them.

The others are lack of love, unbelief and nonobedience.

"Wisdom is a loving spirit," says the Wisdom of Solomon. "He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way" (Psalms 25:9), says David, the father of Solomon, and these set forth a truth which the whole Bible joins to celebrate; namely,...

No one should be shaken by these afflictions; for you yourselves know that we are appointed to this. For, in fact, we told you before when we were with you that we would suffer tribulation. § In Me you … have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness. § The night is far spent, the day is at hand. § He shall be like the light of the morning when the sun rises, a morning without...