A wedding ring is a sacred symbol. It has special significance – not only to the one wearing it, but for others as well. It communicates a message of commitment, a relationship of intimacy, and a promise of purity. A wedding ring is more than simply jewelry; it is a sacred symbol.

A divine appointment is when a seeking soul crosses the path of a willing witness and experiences the forgiveness of a gracious God. If you’ve experienced one, you know how miraculous and life-changing it is! There’s nothing else like the thrill that you feel when God is at work in and through you. The unique effect of a divine appointment is the way in which God works.

The Book of Acts is one of my favorite books in the Bible. It is full of miracles as the Holy Spirit moved on the hearts of people, radically transforming their lives! Here’s such a story of life change. It began with an official from the government of Ethiopia coming to Jerusalem to worship at the Temple in a quest for God. But he left as empty as he came.

John recognized Jesus as the Lamb of God who came to save us from our sins! He didn’t feel qualified to baptize the Son of God! Instead, he asked Jesus to baptize him. Can you imagine the scene? Why would Jesus want John to baptize Him?

Just before His ascension, Jesus told His followers that He was going back to the Father and would ask the Father to send the gift of the Holy Spirit. In Acts 1:4 (NIV), Jesus said, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift My Father promised, which you have heard Me speak about.”

Jesus explained the cross to a religious leader named Nicodemus in a way that he would understand, comparing it with an Old Testament story found in Numbers 21. It was a story Nicodemus know doubt had taught before. What he didn’t know was just how this story foreshadowed the power of the cross.

Rene Lacoste was the world’s greatest tennis player in the late 1920s, and he won seven major titles including Wimbledon, the US Open, the French Open. This Frenchman was called Le Crocodile by his friends to describe his aggressive style of championship tennis play. Lacoste loved the nickname, and so he started embroidering crocodiles on his tennis clothes. Then he started a line of shirts with a crocodile on them. People started calling them alligator shirts. The rest is history.

You’ve heard the expression, “Fake it till you make it!” Maybe, like me, you’ve done that as well. It’s when we put on a pretense and hide what we’re really feeling inside. We act bold on the outside but inside we’re feeling insecure and afraid. We pretend to be in agreement with our boss to gain favor or avoid the consequences we think would inevitably happen if we were honest. This reeks of hypocrisy and leaves us feeling weak.

How resilient are you? When you fall, do you land like a basketball or a bowling ball? Proverbs says that, even, righteous people fall. In Ecclesiastes the Bible says, “Not a single person on earth is always good and never sins.”

Jeremiah had been arrested for giving messages from the Lord to a king that did not want to hear them! He didn’t want to hear the truth. Zedekiah would be the final King before Judah fell to the Babylonians, and Jeremiah was warning him to turn back to God while there was still time. Rather than returning to the Lord, Zedekiah decided to silence the messenger. Sound familiar?