The Best Of The Word For Today Vol 1 is the first in a series of volumes of biblical references and reflections from Bob Gass giving you 365 days worth of help to change your life. Bob was born on 15 January 1944, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. His father died when he was 12, and his mother was left to rear him, his brother, Neil, and sister, Ruth, on a government pension. Debby co-authored the daily devotions in The Word for Today, and Bob’s sister, Ruth, serves as a research assistant. Together, they have written a decade’s worth of devotionals ready for future publications of The Word for Today. Millions of people throughout the world receive The Word for Today quarterly — and testimonies flood in, demonstrating how many lives are blessed by it. In 1981 he resigned from pastoring and spent the next 15 years travelling across the U.S. and the world, as a popular guest speaker and evangelist. He also hosted his own television program called "The Breakfast Club."

Bob realised then that one of the most read parts of a daily newspaper is often the horoscope section. He wrote, ‘Thank God we don’t need horoscopes, but I realised that by reading them, people want guidance, encouragement and they want answers. So I said to Ian and his team, “I’ll write a daily devotional for you. I’ll provide Scripture and thoughts for each day. You can give it out at conferences, set up a table and say to people, ‘would you like a free devotional?’”’ Other versions used are: Amplified Bible, Bible in Basic English, Contemporary English Version, English Standard Version, Good News Translation, God’s Word Translation, New American Standard Version, New Century Version, New International Version, New Living Translation, New Revised Standard Version, J.B. Phillips translation, The Living Bible, Today’s English Version. When will I receive the devotional?A wedding day message from God: ‘You will reach more people through your writing, than you will in all the years of your preaching.’ When you bask in His love, you experience a wellspring of joy bubbling up in your heart. And since the world didn’t give you this joy—the world can’t take it away.

Wise people never make important decisions when they are in a tense emotional state. When Elijah found out that Queen Jezebel was after him, he was ready to give up his role as a prophet and die. So, God gave him forty days of rest, prayer, and recovery, before he decided what his next steps would be. He was now ready to decide on the basis of his faith in God, and not his fear of Jezebel. And his decision was very different at the end of forty days of rest than it would have been before he rested. Astounded by the response in the United States, Bob offered his devotional readings to UCB in the United Kingdom. Three-and-a-half years after Bob and Debby received that prophetic word on their wedding day, The Word For Today was printed for the first time. It was just 3,500 copies and only in the UK. 25 years later it has grown to reach millions worldwide including hundreds of thousands of people in Australia (the Australian edition was also first published in 1994).Bob Gass - cherished author of The Word For You Today, evangelist, pastor, and teacher - died peacefully in his home on June, 5th. He was 75. The Word For Today is freely given to anyone who asks! We are able to do this through the generous donations of other readers, who desire you and others to receive the devotional for free. Two years later, after hearing of its growing popularity in the UK, New Zealand and Australia began publishing it for their supporters.

He continued saying, “Bob had a huge heart for ministry and wanted to ensure that when he finally did go to be with the Lord, the work would continue.” Several years ago Bob and his team went on an extended writing project ensuring that UCB Word for Todaywould continue long after he passed away. He was fortunate as a teenager to have Gordon Magee as his mentor. When he moved from Ireland to the United States, Magee offered to pay for Bob’s passage to America. By the time Bob was 12, his heroes were not movie stars or sports celebrities but men and women of God. At this time, he gave his life to Christ. Bob’s vision for The Word for Today is ‘to whet your appetite so much that you’ll say, ‘Wow! I didn’t know that was in the Bible! Maybe I’d better go and read it for myself.”’Bob was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. His father died when he was 12 and Bob’s mother raised Bob and his two siblings as a single parent. We frequently receive letters which say, ‘this was just the right word at the right time in my life.’ And people ask how ‘I’ do it. I believe with all my heart that without God’s spirit, I don’t have anything to say, but when God’s spirit touches God’s Word, something ignites and something comes to life. I am reminded of Paul who said, ‘not that we are sufficient of ourselves … but our sufficiency is of God’ (2 Corinthians 3:5 KJV). It’s His Word and all I do is distribute what God says. In 1991, Bob and Debby were married and their pastor gave Bob a prophecy before the wedding ceremony. He said, "You will reach more people through your writing, than you have in all the years of your preaching." At that moment, Bob had never written anything and had no idea how this would happen. Bob wrote, ‘I never did get to go to Bible school, but I had a one-on-one teacher in the form of my pastor friend. He taught me so much; to memorise Scripture, how to speak, how to behave in people’s homes. He held my feet to the fire and kept me accountable. So in my heart, I have always been called to the ministry, but while the calling has never changed, the method has.’ In the early days, Bob was an itinerant preacher and also had a TV show in the US, but he did not think of himself as a writer. However, on his wedding day in 1991, he and Debby were given a prophecy and were told that Bob’s writing would reach more people than his preaching ever would. Sometime later, The Word for Today became a written reality and from a small print run of 3,500 copies initially in the UK, it now has a global reach through print and digital platforms of over 7.6 million per quarter at the end of 2018. In Australia, we send it and the partner youth edition (in print copy alone) to over 150,000 people every quarter.