UCB Word For Today

The remora fish has an oval sucking disc on the top of its head that allows it to attach itself to the underside of a shark. Once attached, the remora does not have to worry about food, transportation, or safety. It feeds on the food that falls from the shark’s mouth. Of course, it has the option of swimming on its own, but when it decides to attach to the shark, it goes where the shark goes. It does not attempt to go in a direction contrary to the shark. Protection? It’s a non-issue for one that’s connected to such a powerful creature. The remora is secure, and it knows the shark can take it places it could never go alone. Doesn’t this sound like the relationship God desires His children to have with Him? He wants us to feed on the words that come from His mouth. He wants us to go with Him where He leads and not take off on independent excursions, hoping He will tag along. He wants us to live with the assurance that He will protect not only our lives, but also our relationships and all that pertains to us. Oh, that we would emulate the remora! We would then find ourselves securing our attachment to God on a daily basis through prayer. He is waiting to carry us to places we fear going alone. The prophet Isaiah admonished the Jewish leaders: ‘Cry to God all day and all night for the fulfilment of his promises.’ So the word for today is this – prayer is your connection to God.

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

God has a remarkable memory. The Omniscient One doesn’t just know everything; He also remembers everything. In fact, He remembers it before it happens! Every moment of your life was ordained in God’s imagination before it became a memory – every laugh, every dream, and every sacrifice. The psalmist wrote: ‘You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed’ (Psalm 139:16 NLT). Nothing is lost on God, not even your tears. He doesn’t just remember them; He collects them in a bottle (see Psalm 56:8). There’s only one thing that God can and will forget: confessed sin. So when you confess sin that’s already been confessed, you’re reminding God of something He’s already forgotten (see Isaiah 43:25). The reason we bring it back up is that even though we are forgiven, we don’t feel forgiven. What’s the answer? Don’t give your feelings a voice or a vote, or they will mislead you. Stand in faith, believing what God says in His Word. ‘I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned and by which they have transgressed against Me’ (Jeremiah 33:8 NKJV). The apostle John put it this way: ‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’ (1 John 1:9 NKJV). Maybe you’ve struggled with addiction, or your marriage ended in divorce, or you’re in prison for a crime you committed. What should you do? Repent, renounce your sin, receive God’s mercy, and begin to live free from guilt and condemnation.

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

The English word for new is the Hebrew word hadas. It doesn’t just mean again and again, as amazing as that would be. It’s new, as in different. It means never before experienced. Today’s mercy is different from yesterday’s mercy, or the day before that, or the day before that! Just as the seasonal flu vaccine changes from year to year, God’s mercy changes from day to day. It’s a new strain of mercy. Why? Because you didn’t sin today the way you did yesterday! Try this little exercise: figure out how old you are – not in years but in days. Whatever number you come up with isn’t just your age in days; it doubles as the sum total of different kinds of mercy that you have received life-to-date. By the time you are twenty-one, you have experienced 7,665 unique mercies. When you hit midlife, it numbers about 14,600. And by the time you hit retirement, God has shown mercy to you about 23,725 times! And His mercy for you is a tailored mercy that perfectly fits your sin, your shortcomings, your needs, and your mistakes. His mercy fits like a glove! In Scripture, the word ‘manifold’ means ‘multifaceted’. Mercy and grace are not the same thing. Mercy is not getting what you do deserve, and grace is getting what you don’t deserve. The apostle Peter spoke about ‘the manifold grace of God’ (1 Peter 4:10 NKJV). Like snowflakes, God’s grace never crystallises the same way twice. That’s what makes it so amazing!

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

The Israelites had celebrated the Passover as a way of commemorating their exodus from Egypt. The evening before the exodus, the Israelites were instructed to sacrifice a lamb without defect and to mark their doorframe with its blood. Then, when the Death Angel passed through Egypt, he would pass over their home. Little did Jesus’s disciples know that they were eating the Passover meal with the Passover Lamb. Jesus rebooted their understanding of the bread and the cup, explaining that they represented His body and blood. And because of what He accomplished at Calvary’s cross, we come under the protective custody of the blood of the Lamb. Like the Passover, communion is a commemoration of our exodus from slavery. We were slaves to sin, but Christ set us free. Whenever we go to the Lord’s Table, we make a beeline to the foot of the cross – the place where sin met its match. We remember that our sin is nailed to the cross. Are you having a hard time forgetting your sins and failures? Does the devil keep reminding you of them? Stand on God’s Word and serve him an eviction notice. In the Old Testament, God said: ‘I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.’ In the New Testament, God said: ‘For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more’ (Hebrews 8:12 NKJV). Scripture tells us what God does with our sins: ‘You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea’ (Micah 7:19 NKJV).

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

God forgives and forgets. Amazing, isn’t it? He remembers everything you’ve done right while forgetting everything you’ve done wrong. Yet, while God cannot remember our confessed sin, we have a much harder time forgetting it. We tend to remember our mistakes more readily than our successes. That’s why it’s harder to forgive ourselves than to receive God’s forgiveness. We tend to remember what we should forget while forgetting what we should remember. That inability to forget the sin we’ve confessed is part of our sin nature itself. The fall fractured the image of God in us, including the amygdala. That’s the part of the brain responsible for storing emotional memories. The strength of the memory is dictated by the strength of the emotion. We quickly forget the moments that don’t make a blip on our emotional radar. Strong emotions, such as shame, take sinful snapshots and poster-size them. They get blown out of proportion in the darkroom of the mind. Are you struggling to forget what God has forgiven? Read these Scriptures carefully and prayerfully: ‘I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; and I will not remember your sins’ (Isaiah 43:25 NKJV). ‘I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your transgressions, and like a cloud, your sins. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you’ (Isaiah 44:22 NKJV). ‘For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins…I will remember no more’ (Hebrews 8:12 NKJV). God has forgiven and forgotten your sin – it’s time for you to agree with Him and do the same thing.

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.