August 24 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Devotional

By faith all things are possible, for faith is complete reliance on the power and promises of God.

The saying "All things are possible if you only believe" has so often been abused by religious hucksters that it's hard for us to know what the Bible means by it. "If you believe," these hucksters imply, "all sorts of nice and miraculous things are possible." And then perhaps we feel guilty for not believing strongly enough—after all, if we believed, more of these good things would be happening to us!

It won't help to argue over whether there is something to faith healing. (There is.) Instead, we must listen more closely to the Bible, where "by faith" has an altogether different ring.

The women who received their dead children by resurrection are described in 1 Kings 17 and 2 Kings 4. The prayers of faith were offered first by Elijah and then by Elisha. Those who were tortured and refused to accept release are people whose stories are told in the books of the Maccabees. The jeers, flogging, chains, and imprisonment (v. 36) were endured by a host of Christian people, including Jesus Christ himself. The horrible tortures mentioned in verse 37 were reportedly suffered by the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah.

The Bible reports these examples so that you and I will place our trust in God. We must rely on God so completely that the only fear we could possibly have is the fear of being faithless to him. Those who live by faith .. . live!

This is the story of the power of faith. All things are possible!

But this truth of the power of faith is twisted into a caricature when I first say what I want and then "use God" to get what I want. We must not use biblical phrases to turn a biblical truth into its opposite.

REFLECTIONS

Where in your life—right now and in the immediate future—do you especially need to place all your trust in God?

Andrew Kuyvenhoven's Daylight, a modern devotional classic, was originally published by Paideia Press in 1977. This updated edition is copyright 2009 by Faith Alive Christian Resources. You can order a copy of this revised version of the book directly from the publisher.

A man of many accomplishments, Andrew Kuyvenhoven is probably best known for his contributions to Today (formerly The Family Altar), a widely-used monthly devotional booklet associated with the Back to God Hour. Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations for this updated edition of Daylight are from the Holy Bible: Today's New International Version copyright 2001, 2005 by the International Bible Society.