Daily Devotional

This week we celebrate President’s Day. Well, maybe we get a day off but I doubt if there is much celebrating. We used to hold these national leaders in high regard, even if we disagreed with their politics. However, in recent decades, the widespread media has exposed us to their failures and foibles. Matters that were always “open and laid bare” before God are now common news to us. Our presidential heroes are sinful humans. No surprise!

However, might I suggest a moratorium (at least temporarily) on reflecting on their sinful lives? I am calling us ponder what some of our very imperfect presidents have said about the very perfect Word of God. Take what they wrote at face value and “follow their lead” in praising God for the Bible…that pierces the deepest parts of ALL of our lives:  

1. George Washington: “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”

2. Andrew Jackson: “That book, sir, is the rock on which our republic stands.”  

3. Abraham Lincoln: “I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to men. All the good from the Savior of the world is communicated to us through this book.”  

4. William McKinley: “The more profoundly we study this wonderful Book, and the more closely we observe its divine precepts, the better citizens we will become and the higher will be our destiny as a nation.”  

5. Theodore Roosevelt: “A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.”  
6.  Woodrow Wilson “The Bible is the Word of Life. I beg that you will read it and find this out for yourselves. Read, not little snatches here and there, but long passages that will be the road to the heart of it . . . . I have a very simple thing toask of you. I ask every man and woman in this audience that from this day on they will realize that part of the destiny of America lies in their daily perusal of this great Book . . . . A man has deprived himself of the best there is in the world who has deprived himself of this (a knowledge of the Bible) . . . There are a good many problems before the American people today, and before me as President, but I expect to find the solution of those problems just in proportion that I am faithful in the study of the Word of God.”  

7. Herbert Hoover: “The study of this Book in your Bible classes is a post-graduate course in the richest library of human experience.”  

8. Dwight D. Eisenhower: “The Bible is endorsed by the ages. Our civilization is built upon its words. In no other book is there such a collection of inspired wisdom, reality and hope.”  

These are certainly presidential quotes we can live by.

New King James Version (NKJV)
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.