How in the world do I even begin to try to encapsulate a portion of my father’s teachings into a 30-day devotional? For the sake of newer partners of Feed the Hunger, this ministry was founded by my parents 50 years ago. Throughout his time at the helm of what was then New Directions and until his heaven-going, my dad was a gifted teacher, preacher, and author.
As we both mourn and celebrate his recent passing, and as this year is the ministry’s 50th anniversary, perhaps there is no better occasion than now to share several of his teachings in this concise format. This task was no small order though. Countless thousands of words on each topic had to be reduced to a single page.
My dad was thorough to a fault, you see. He believed he was cheating his audience if he didn’t use as many points and Scripture references as possible. It was not unusual for him to preach a ten-point sermon (all points starting with the same letter, of course) or put out an extensive study guide or book on both normal topics and more obscure ones.
For those of you who have read his writings, you know that every sentence was important in his eyes. How this manifested was that each sentence had some combination of boldfaced, italicized, quoted, or underlined material. He also loved punctuation like dashes, ellipses (. . .), and exclamation points. “The message was so important!” For the sake of maintaining a conversational style in this devotional, these elements have been modified. I’m convinced you will, however, still hear my dad’s voice clearly in the words you read and the lessons you learn.
If you can hear my father’s voice speaking to you, it means I have achieved my goal of sharing the essence of the message he wanted to convey. But more importantly, I pray you will hear our heavenly Father’s voice speaking to you through the Biblical Principles for Living found in this study. This was the name my dad gave to his collection of teachings, so it seems only appropriate that the devotional go by the same name.
If my father could speak in this moment from heaven, I believe he would quote the following two verses. They capture what he would say to me, and what in turn he would want conveyed through this devotional:
You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses
entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.
2 Timothy 2:1–2
As you begin this month-long journey, may it draw you closer to the Savior, encourage you in your walk, and embolden you in your testimony. God bless you.
Joseph Williams | CEO
