GOD, A FATHER TO ALL - June 25, 2026
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Psalm 34:8 says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” A glimpse of God’s goodness changes us. If He is only slightly stronger than us, why pray? If He has limitations, questions, and hesitations, then you might as well pray to the Wizard of Oz.
Psalm 68:5-6 says that God is “a father to the fatherless. He sets the solitary in families; He brings out those who are bound into prosperity.”
Pray with me! “Dear God. Remind me today that you protect me. Be my father and defender. Defend those who are weak and afraid and feel forgotten. Show up in their lives today. Thank you for giving me a spiritual family that can never be taken away. I pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.”
At any point you’re only a prayer away from help!
Before Amen: The Power of a Simple Prayer
Read more Before Amen: The Power of a Simple Prayer
John 1:1-14
The Message
The Life-Light
1 1-2 The Word was first,
the Word present to God,
God present to the Word.
The Word was God,
in readiness for God from day one.
3-5 Everything was created through him;
nothing—not one thing!—
came into being without him.
What came into existence was Life,
and the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;
the darkness couldn’t put it out.
6-8 There once was a man, his name John, sent by God to point out the way to the Life-Light. He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in. John was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light.
9-13 The Life-Light was the real thing:
Every person entering Life
he brings into Light.
He was in the world,
the world was there through him,
and yet the world didn’t even notice.
He came to his own people,
but they didn’t want him.
But whoever did want him,
who believed he was who he claimed
and would do what he said,
He made to be their true selves,
their child-of-God selves.
These are the God-begotten,
not blood-begotten,
not flesh-begotten,
not sex-begotten.
14 The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
the one-of-a-kind glory,
like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
true from start to finish.
Our daily bread reading and devotion:
The Father’s Open Arms
In you the fatherless find compassion. Hosea 14:3
By Tom Felten
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Hosea 14:1-7, 9
Hosea 14:1-8
The Message
Come Back! Return to Your God!
14 1-3 O Israel, come back! Return to your God!
You’re down but you’re not out.
Prepare your confession
and come back to God.
Pray to him, “Take away our sin,
accept our confession.
Receive as restitution
our repentant prayers.
Assyria won’t save us;
horses won’t get us where we want to go.
We’ll never again say ‘our god’
to something we’ve made or made up.
You’re our last hope. Is it not true
that in you the orphan finds mercy?”
* * *
4-8 “I will heal their waywardness.
I will love them lavishly. My anger is played out.
I will make a fresh start with Israel.
He’ll burst into bloom like a crocus in the spring.
9 If you want to live well,
make sure you understand all of this.
If you know what’s good for you,
you’ll learn this inside and out.
God’s paths get you where you want to go.
Right-living people walk them easily;
wrong-living people are always tripping and stumbling.
He’ll put down deep oak tree roots,
he’ll become a forest of oaks!
He’ll become splendid—like a giant sequoia,
his fragrance like a grove of cedars!
Those who live near him will be blessed by him,
be blessed and prosper like golden grain.
Everyone will be talking about them,
spreading their fame as the vintage children of God.
Ephraim is finished with gods that are no-gods.
From now on I’m the one who answers and satisfies him.
I am like a luxuriant fruit tree.
Everything you need is to be found in me.”
Today's Insights
The book of Hosea begins with a bitter, living picture of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God, lived out in the promiscuous lifestyle of Hosea’s unfaithful wife (1:2). Ultimately Hosea buys her back out of her enslaved condition—a picture of God’s redemption of His wayward people (3:1-5). At the time, Israel faced severe judgment for their sins. The book’s final chapter brings hope and an appeal. The prophet says, “Take words with you and return to the Lord” (14:2). He counsels them, “Say to [God], ‘Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips’ ” (v. 2). Some scholars believe the “fruit of our lips” is a reference to their honest confession before God—a far preferable sacrifice than the empty rituals they’d been performing (6:6). As we share what God has done for us, we invite others to accept the love of our gracious and forgiving Father.
Learn what it means to be a sacrificial servant by reading Who Is Your Neighbor?
Today's Devotion
Mary Slessor’s compassionate heart led her to open her arms to those in need. The Scottish missionary, born in 1848, served among the people of Okoyong in a distant land. Superstition led people of that region to believe that when twins were born, one was good and one was the child of a demon. This often led to both twins dying—being abandoned to starvation or other dangers. Reflecting the loving heart of God, in time Mary helped save hundreds of the at-risk children, adopting nine as her own!
In his inspired words to the rebellious nation of Israel, the prophet Hosea offers a glimpse into God’s caring heart for children. The prophet said of Him, “In you the fatherless find compassion” (14:3). Hosea stated that God cared for His own and desired to “love them freely” (v. 4). But they needed to turn from their defiance of Him and embrace His ways. They were instructed to turn from pagan deities to the true God who cares for the most helpless, the orphans. And if they returned to God, they’d find forgiveness from the one who would “receive [them] graciously” (vv. 1-2).
As we open our arms to those around us, including at-risk children, we reflect the love of God. Let’s embrace His compassionate heart and extend His care to those in need as He helps us.
Reflect & Pray
How has God’s loving example led you to care for those in need? How does it encourage you to know that in Him “the fatherless find compassion”?
Compassionate God, please open my heart and my arms to children and others who are in need around me.
Receiving Yourself in the Fires of Sorrow
BY OSWALD CHAMBERS
Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? “Father, save me from this hour”? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. — John 12:27
As a child of God, my attitude toward sorrow and difficulty shouldn’t be one of wishing they didn’t exist, nor of asking God to prevent them. I should be asking that, in every fire of sorrow, I receive the self God created me to be. Our Lord wasn’t saved from the hour, but out of it. He received himself in the fires of sorrow, fulfilling the purpose God had ordained for him.
We say that there shouldn’t be any sorrow, but there is sorrow. If we try to avoid it, if we refuse to take it into account, we are being foolish. Sorrow is one of the biggest facts of life; it’s no use saying that it shouldn’t exist. Sin and sorrow and suffering are. It isn’t for us to say that God has made a mistake in allowing them.
Sorrow burns up a great amount of our shallowness, but it doesn’t always make us better. Suffering either gives us to ourselves or destroys us. We can’t find ourselves in success; success makes us lose our heads. We can’t find ourselves in times of calm and monotony; they make us bored. The only way we can receive ourselves is in the fires of sorrow. This is true in both Scripture and human experience.
Have I received my self—the self God created me to be—in the fires of sorrow? It’s always easy to identify people who have. They are the people you know you can trust, the people you turn to in moments of trouble and find that they have plenty of time for you. Those who haven’t received themselves are likely to be irritated and contemptuous when you ask for their help; they have no time for you and your troubles. Only those who have received themselves are able to give with open hearts.
Receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, and God will make you nourishment for others.
Job 3-4; Acts 7:44-60
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally.
The Moral Foundations of Life, 721 R
Parents Afraid - #10294
By Ron Hutchcraft
Scripture: 2 Timothy 1:7
My wife and I were staying in this apartment at the Jersey shore for a weekend. We were going to save some money by cooking for ourselves. But, there was one small problem with the kitchen. We discovered it the first morning. We had this English muffin in the toaster. Suddenly I hear this high-pitched alarm in the kitchen. I went running out there. The smoke detector had gone off. Problem: There was no smoke, just a little English muffin cooking. It was just a little heat coming from across the room from the toaster. Oh, we got to hear that smoke alarm again several times while we were there. It was a very sensitive alarm. And the problem is because it would go off so often, guess what? Pretty soon you don’t take it seriously any more.
I’m Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “Parents Afraid.”
Our word for today from the Word of God is a great verse for anyone, but especially for parents in times like these. 2 Timothy 1:7 - “God did not give us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power and love and a sound mind.” You’re not supposed to have a spirit of fear. See, fear-based decisions usually don’t take us down the right road. Fear-based parenting usually backfires.
If you’re a parent today, there are a lot of things you could be afraid of for your children. They could be physically hurt, they could be spiritually hurt, or they can be infected by the moral pollution that’s everywhere. They could lose their faith, they could rebel, or they could mess up sexually. Our kids can choose the wrong friends; they can make a romantic mistake. They can believe a sophisticated lie.
Raising children in this kind of world, you could find yourself letting fear take over; especially if you see a warning sign in your son or daughter. But God hasn’t given us a spirit of fear. He wants you to parent with a spirit of power and love and a sound mind. He wants you to parent positively, not with criticism and nagging and worrying and put downs or being overly possessive or protective. Those approaches usually help produce the very rebellion we were afraid of.
When we parent out of fear, our alarm keeps going off all the time. Every incident, every negative comment from our child becomes a battleground. Maybe you see signs that you’re becoming like that smoke detector; you’re going off on everything. If you do, eventually you won’t be taken seriously anymore, probably at just the point in your child’s life when you really need to be taken seriously. You just can’t afford to have your son or daughter saying, “The alarm, again?”
Parents whose fear or negativism or perfectionism makes them sound off all the time tend to create rebels, because we create an immunity to a parental voice. And a child who is immune to mom or dad’s voice is like an unguided missile. If you sense that your alarm’s been going off too often, it’s time to turn that around.
It begins with an apology - asking your child to forgive you because of the nagging and the negative. Be honest with them about some of your fears for them. Tell them how much you believe in their potential and in their gifts and that you hate anything that might keep them from becoming all they were created to be. Be willing to be vulnerable with them. Be willing to need forgiving. You might be amazed how many walls that can bring down.
Then choose your battlegrounds. Learn to analyze a conflict or a concern, and put them in one of two categories: major battle or minor battle. And then save your ammunition for the battles that really matter. Bite your tongue on the others. Before you talk to your child, talk to God about your child. Bring your fear and your anger and your frustration to God so you don’t always have to dump it on your son or daughter. Give God time to work it out, and then jump in only as He prompts you to.
Because of Christ in your life, you can parent with confidence, with authority and restraint. And then when your parent alarm goes off, your kids will respond. Just wait until there’s real smoke from a real fire.
