DAILY BREAD READING* (Published Daily by Our Daily Bread Ministries)
SEPTEMBER 2, 2026
READ: 2 Corinthians 4: (Focus vs. 7-18)
MEMORY VERSE
“Therefore, we do not lose heart.” 2 Corinthians 4:16
BACKGROUND
Before our trip to Switzerland, my mental snapshot was of snowy Alps, goats grazing, and mountain farmers blowing alpine horns. However, as we drove south from Zurich, the landscape was the same drab tangle of highways we saw in any city.
When we got close to our lodging, we had to drive up a precarious one-lane dirt road. At our rental place, we hauled our suitcases up steep stone stairways. Exhausted and disappointed, we finally made our way onto the patio.
And there, opening up before us, stretched an extraordinary vista: the Alps rising up majestically over the blue expanse of Lake Lucerne, with small towns glittering like fireflies below us. The ordeal was worth it.
I recalled the verse, “Therefore we do not lose heart” (2 Corinthians 4:16).
The apostle Paul writes of his own struggles: “We are hard pressed on every side, but . . . not in despair” (v. 8). He reveals his positive outlook: “Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (v. 17). He advises us to “fix our eyes . . . on what is unseen” (v. 18), to hope for that eternal landscape.
Sometimes our journey is drab and difficult. But in Christ, we’re assured that we’ll witness the ultimate snapshot. The ordeal will be worth it: His eternal glory far surpasses anything we can imagine.
Kenneth Petersen
INSIGHT
The encouragement about suffering that the apostle Paul expresses in 2 Corinthians 4:7-18 is similarly noted in Romans 8: “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (v. 18).
How encouraging it is to know that as believers in Jesus in a fallen world, we’ve been given God’s Spirit (v. 23) to be with us as we traverse life’s pleasant and unpleasant territory.
When we face trials, the Bible reminds us that they’re “achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Corinthians 4:17).
Arthur Jackson
APPLICATION
What are the difficult roads in your life these days? What does “eternal glory” mean to you?
PR’s (Pastor Richard) RE-EMPHASIS (From Today’s Post)
“Sometimes our journey is drab and difficult. But in Christ, we’re assured that we’ll witness the ultimate snapshot. The ordeal will be worth it: His eternal glory far surpasses anything we can imagine.”
PR’s TAKE
“I would not give one moment of heaven for all the joy and riches of the world.’’ Martin Luther
If the Seven Wonders of the world are still a puzzle to mankind, then everything in Heaven will be a puzzle because everything there is a WONDER. Pr
PRAYER
“Loving God, I need encouragement through this tough journey. I pray for assurance of Your eternal glory.”
TODAY’S HYMN/WORSHIP/PRAISE/GOSPEL SONG
“THE SURPASSING GLORY OF GOD”
Since o’er Thy footstool here below
Such radiant gems are strown,
O what magnificence must glow,
Great God, about Thy throne!
So brilliant here these drops of light—
There the full ocean rolls—how bright!
If night’s blue curtain of the sky—
With thousand stars inwrought,
Hung like a royal canopy
With glittering diamonds fraught—
Be, Lord, Thy temple’s outer veil,
What splendor at the shrine must dwell!
The dazzling sun, at noon-day hour—
Forth from his flaming vase
Flinging o’er earth the golden shower
Till vale and mountain blaze—
But shows, O Lord, one beam of Thine:
What, then, the day where thou dost shine?
O how shall these dim eyes endure
That noon of living rays!
Or how our spirits so impure,
Upon thy glory gaze!—
Anoint, O Lord, anoint our sight,
And fit us for that world of light.
