Insight for Today
A Daily Devotional by Pastor Chuck Swindoll

God calls us to be salt-and-light Christians in a bland, dark society. We need to remember salt must not lose its taste and light must not be hidden. Let me suggest three statements that declare and describe how to fulfill this role.

Last fall one day at the church, I spotted a visiting gentleman who was shaking hands with a half-dozen folks he’d never met before. Then he looked at me, and with a grin and a twinkle, he whipped out his hand.

"Lord, I'm back and I diligently seek you." How many times have we said this? This time stop talking and sit silently. Wait patiently, seek diligently, sit silently. That means you need to pour out your heart and then deliberately be quiet.

"Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph" (Exod. 1:8). Too bad. Tragic, in fact. Seems a shame Joseph had to die at the young age of 110(!), before he had a chance to impact the new king.

The apostle John asks: "If someone who is supposed to be a Christian . . . sees a brother in need, and won't help him—how can God's love be within him?" (1 John 3:17, TLB). True servants are merciful. They care. They get involved.

The children worked long and hard on their little cardboard shack. It was to be a special spot—a clubhouse, where they could meet together, play, and have fun. Since a clubhouse has to have rules, they came up with three.

We must have resembled a family of Gypsies or a scene from Grapes of Wrath as we rambled along the highway. Several layers of redwood forest dust mixed with pine tree sap covered our car.

The heart of the term "cordial" is the word "heart." And the heart of "heart" is kardia, a Greek term that most often refers to the center of our inner life—the source or seat of all the forces and functions of our inner being.

Laurence J. Peter and I are close friends. Although I've never laid eyes on him, I've smiled at his comments and nodded at his conclusions . . . amazed at his remarkable insight into my own life and those around me.

God's Word is filled with examples of those who believed God and "commenced prayer." David certainly did. "I waited patiently for the LORD; And He inclined to me, and heard my cry."

It was in 1968 on an airplane headed for New York—a routine and normally very boring flight. But this time it proved to be otherwise.

Wouldn't you love to live courageously in spite of the odds? Doesn't it sound exciting to be divinely powerful in day-to-day living? Aren't you anxious to become authentic in a day of copy-cat styles and horrendous peer pressure?

Billy Wilder, the great movie producer, openly admitted: "I have a vast and terrible desire never to bore an audience." With tacit agreement Jack Parr once declared: "The greatest sin is to be dull."

"How much does it cost?" "What's it worth?" These two questions may sound alike, but they are different. Very different. "Cost" is the amount of money it takes to complete a purchase . . . the bill, the tab.

Solomon's life reminds me of the swing of a pendulum. Smooth and graceful . . . silent and elegant . . . yet periodically given to extremes. Wisdom, loyalty, diplomacy, and efficiency marked his attitude and acts . . .

People don't want to listen to a recording of some sermon when the bottom drops out. They want a place to cry, a person to care, someone to bind up their wounds, someone to listen, the security of a few close, intimate friends.

The law of supply-and-demand is something we face every day. Because there are those who need, there must also be those who provide. There are employers and employees. There are counselors and counselees.

No hypocrisy, no competition. Wouldn't that be refreshing to live such a life? It all comes to those with a "renewed mind" . . . those who determine they are going to allow the Spirit of God to invade all those walls.

For the next few minutes, imagine this scene: "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up."

It's easy to get confused these days. "Out of control" isn't what we want to be. People who drink too much are said to be "out of control." Those who worry too much become emotionally "out of control."