Insight for Today
A Daily Devotional by Pastor Chuck Swindoll

Most people I know look forward to payday. You do too, right? For a week, or perhaps a two-week period, you give time and effort to your job. When payday arrives, you receive a hard-earned, well-deserved paycheck.

My plea is that we not limit grace to Christ. We, too, can learn to be just as gracious as He. And since we can, we must, not only in our words and in great acts of compassion and understanding but in small ways as well.

We use grace to describe many things in life: a well-coordinated athlete or dancer; good manners and being considerate of others; beautiful, well-chosen words; consideration and care for other people; various expressions of kindness and mercy.

What exactly is grace? And is it limited to Jesus' life and ministry? You may be surprised to know that Jesus never used the word itself. He just taught it and, equally important, He lived it. Furthermore, the Bible never gives us a one-statement definition.

Candidly, I know of nothing that has the power to change us from within like the freedom that comes through grace. It's so amazing it will change not only our hearts but also our faces. And goodness knows, some of us are overdue for a face change!

This day—this very moment—millions are living their lives in shame, fear, and intimidation who should be free, productive individuals. The tragedy is they think it is the way they should be. They have never known the truth that could set them free.

How could Joseph forgive his brothers who had mistreated him so badly? We saw it yesterday: plain and simple, he left all vengeance to the Lord. To use our terms, Joseph rested and relaxed, trusting in His God.

Throughout the past few devotionals, we've concentrated our attention on the value of allowing our bodies sufficient time to rest. As important as that is, there is another rest that is equally important—resting our minds.

"I like that, Dad." I remember those words. It's like they were said to me yesterday. Actually, they take me all the way back to the late 1970s. In '71, Cynthia and I moved our family (four children, ages 1 through 10) . . . to rapidly growing Orange County in Southern California.

Before time began, God had in His mind's eye a masterpiece—a beautiful picture of grace that His beloved Son, the second person of the Trinity, would illustrate with His life.

Christmas comes each year to draw people in from the cold. Like tiny frightened sparrows, shivering in the winter cold, many live their lives on the barren branches of heartbreak, disappointment, and loneliness, lost in thoughts of shame, self-pity, guilt, or failure.

Thanks to Moses's father-in-law, Jethro, the great leader was able to confront a long-standing habit, which was wearing him down. Working so hard that you never have a break will wear anyone down, as we saw in a previous devotional.

Most likely this year, you've already poured a lot of energy and effort into changing unhealthy habits. Because we're all creatures of habit, we find ourselves having to face the hard truth that many of those habits we have formed were not good for us.

Solomon left us many statements about the value of joy in his book of Proverbs. Yesterday we read: "A joyful heart is good medicine, / But a broken spirit dries up the bones" (Proverbs 17:22). Take a quick look at a couple more.

If I had two words of advice to give to people today, those words would be, "Lighten up!" Teenagers only need one word to say the same thing, "Chill!" One of the sad byproducts of an uptight lifestyle is the absence of fun and laughter.

The venerable preacher, Vance Havner, used to look over the top of his glasses and say to his congregation, "If you don't come apart, you will come apart." While not all stress is bad for us, too much of it over too long a period of time can be a killer. Literally.

As we saw yesterday, domestic nutrition in the home lands squarely on the shoulders of the husband and father. The apostle Paul used the Greek term ektrepho to urge, first of all, every husband to "nourish" his wife (Ephesians 5:25).

If you look up the word nutrition in the dictionary, you'll find that its primary and most popular meaning is, "the act or process of nourishing." A closer examination of the word reveals a much more complex meaning.

As we are thinking about nutrition, we must keep in mind that while certain foods may be good for us and necessary for our health, some are neither. And no two people are exactly alike. Speaking of that, it is an interesting study to check out what was eaten by many of the people who lived back in biblical days.

Yesterday we read the words of the prophet Amos who predicted a famine—not one of hunger for literal food or for fresh water. Amos foresaw a famine for hearing God's truth proclaimed. Read the prophet's words again.