When I was growing up in the 1980's we had a rotary dial phone. You put your finger in a numbered spot on a circular dialer which clicked as it returned to its place and registered the 7 or 10 numbers you selected. It took a full 10 to 20 seconds to complete a call and was really annoying if the number had a lot of 8s or 9s! Then came touch-tone phones. You pushed a button, it beeped, and you could make a call in two and a half to three seconds. Back in those days, a phone was simply an instrument to talk with someone voice to voice. Nowadays, phones are "smarter"; they are "smart" phones; and they do everything but make coffee for you in the morning, although soon I think you can program them to start your coffee maker before you wake up. You can send or receive emails, text, Facebook, "Skype", play games, study French, listen to music, record love letters, pay your bills, watch movies...your phone can be the interface for your life, and it is, for many people!
These days when you get a phone -- a "smart phone", the first thing you do is to find the best “apps” for it. Thousands and thousands of apps are available, with more being created every 5 minutes. Your apps define the interface of your life. But I had this thought...
...there's God apps... throughout the Scriptures, and they're FREE -- thousands of them, every one "GUARANTEED" to be a top-level "interface" for your life! Check out the love app! [Matthew 22:37-39] Or the Spiritual Fruit App! [Galatians 5:22-23] Or the Unity App! [Ephesians 4:2-6] The Scriptures are just filled with apps to apply to the interface of your life!
Spend some time in God's free "App Store" today, it's just an opened Bible away! Apply God's apps to your life -- you'll be dialing into His will, purposes, power, and His infinitely interesting universe!
Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy Devotions. This devotional was originally published on Worthy Devotions and was reproduced with permission.
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]Our true value was expressed at the cross of Messiah, where God valued us according to the redemptive work of His only Son. In the light of our identity in Christ our value is inestimable. We are worthy in Him. Much of our spiritual battle, however, is about maintaining and expressing our true identity and worth, day by day.
Recently, Israel announced it was expanding the Pool of Siloam, which they estimated was about an acre and a half in size. The Pool of Siloam is where Jesus sent the blind man to wash [John 9:6-7] and where he regained his sight. Some scholars believe this was where the first 3,000 souls were baptized upon hearing the gospel in Acts 2. [Acts 2:41]
As we enter a New Year, remember the one constant true for everyone, rich or poor, male or female: each of us is given 8,760 hours in a Gregorian calendar year. That is, 1,440 minutes a day, or 525,600 minutes a year. Sounds like a lot, yet have you noticed how time flies these days?
Persecution and serious trials were regular fare for the early followers of Messiah. Apostle Paul who was stoned and left for dead [Acts 14:19] was not exaggerating when he affirmed, "Through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom of God."
Our life, the life of faith, is pervaded by paradox. Life faces us with apparently irreconcilable conditions and realities that we struggle to understand and integrate, sometimes throughout an entire lifetime. The Lord himself exemplifies this reality in his dual identity as the expressed image of God and a fully human male who suffered the worst consequences of sin...without deserving them. We live daily within the paradox of God's perfect holiness and our fundamental human imperfection, constantly needing to accept His grace as we strive toward His perfection.
Throughout the history of the modern state of Israel, there have been accounts of angelic interventions protecting Israeli soldiers in the midst of intense warfare. One instance recounted by an Israeli military historian after the 1973 Yom Kippur war, describes an Israeli soldier in the Sinai taking captive an entire Egyptian column and leading them to where the Israeli troops were. The Egyptian commander was asked why he and his men gave themselves up to the lone Israeli soldier. He responded with surprise, ”One soldier? There were thousands of them.”
During 1941 the United States and Japan were in negotiations to resolve their difference as the rest of the world was at war. The special delegation of Japanese ambassadors, ostensibly sent on this “peace” mission, arrived shortly before the massive surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in which 2,403 Americans were killed, 1143 were wounded, eighteen ships were sunk or grounded, and 300 planes destroyed or damaged. President Franklin Roosevelt called it a “date which will live in infamy.”