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Day 7 - Sabbath - Saturday | Daily Devotions | Connect the Testaments | Morning and Evening: Daily Reading | My Utmost for His Highest | Thoughts for the Quiet Hour |

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  April 11: Curses, the Old Testament, and Freedom Deuteronomy 21:1–22:30 ; 2 Corinthians 5:11–21; Psalm 38:1–22 “And if a man commits a sin punishable by death, and so he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his dead body shall not hang on the tree, but certainly you shall bury him on that day, for cursed by God is being hung” (Deut 21:22–23). Being hung on a tree was a sign of being cursed. Romans 5:12 tells us that the punishment for sin is death; we, as sinners, deserve that curse. If Christ wasn’t cursed for us by being hung on a tree (the cross), then we would still have a debt to pay and a curse to live under. It can be difficult to find significance in the ot, especially in passages that are as harsh as this one. But the ot still holds meaning for us today, and that meaning often reveals our human and individual state. The same is true for those odd laws about crimes and marrying foreigners (Deut 21:1–14). It’s not that we’re supposed to practice these laws; th...
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Day 6 - Friday | Daily Devotions | Connect the Testaments | Morning and Evening: Daily Reading | My Utmost for His Highest | Thoughts for the Quiet Hour |

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  April 10: Tent Making for Eternity Deuteronomy 18:1–20:20; 2 Corinthians 5:1–10 ; Psalm 37:23–40 Paul, the tent maker, knew the temporal nature of human-made structures. For someone who made and probably repaired tents, he knew all their flaws and tendencies for wear. So it’s not a stretch for him to draw the connection from tents to mortality: “For we know that if our earthly house, the tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made by hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor 5:1). Paul is also making a connection to the tabernacle, the tent where the Israelites first regularly experienced God. Like the tents that Paul made, these earthly homes for God would eventually break down and be destroyed. But the Spirit and the heavens, where God actually dwelled, would live on. While temporal tent worship would fall apart, eternal worship in God’s heavenly “building” will remain. Paul contrasts the art of tent-making and the beautiful worship places of Yahweh with ...
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Day 4 - Wednesday | Daily Devotions | Connect the Testaments | Morning and Evening: Daily Reading | My Utmost for His Highest | Thoughts for the Quiet Hour |

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  April 9: The Global Reset Button Deuteronomy 15:1–17:20 ; 2 Corinthians 4:7–18; Psalm 37:1–22 When I was a kid, I loved playing Super Nintendo—especially Donkey Kong. Despite my love for it, it would sometimes make me angry. When I couldn’t handle the way the game was panning out, I would slam down the controller and hit the reset button. I would start fresh. It’s more than a little sad that my entertainment made me act like a caveman. Yet those moments of resetting the entire system felt like another chance at life (albeit a virtual one). With the state of the global economy, it often feels like the world needs a reset. It’s tempting to say something as radical as, “Let’s forgive all debts and start again.” Though this couldn’t happen—and it would be highly problematic, since the statement depends on goodwill, a free economy, and general care for one another—it doesn’t stop us from hoping. God actually created a system for this audacious idea: in the Year of Jubilee, or the ...
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