 Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways know Him and He will make your paths straight.” ~CSB
When it comes to the action of ‘understanding’ we must be aware that in situations that dictate, we need to be on one side of understanding and not the other. This sometimes varies on which side we should be on. For example, there are some people who have been conditioned by the world to reject pain and suffering. They disregard what Paul says when he tells us to ‘embrace’ those emotions. These individuals do not understand the purpose of our trials. So instead of enduring, they reject it all together. This causes them to reject the understanding of ‘God’s purpose in trial’ along with their failure to understand Him. In this case we need to be on the side of ‘understanding’ in learning more about trials. Trusting in what we do not see. The Word tells us that we may not know the path of the wind, but we know the wind is there. We may not know how the body is formed in a mother’s womb but we all witness life in people. We may not understand these things but we do know that the results we do witness are the work of God, (Ecclesiastes 11:5). He is the maker of all things. We must pray for the wisdom needed to understand in what we cannot see and trust in God, who sees all. On the other hand, there are things that go on in this world that we should try not to understand. For instance, In my line of work I have had to venture into some dark places. I have to interact with some dark individuals in these situations. In my law enforcement career I have learned that some situations need to be prayed for instead of understood. One of the reasons for this is that sometimes venturing to seek understanding about ungodly, dark situations, may cause our flesh to get confused and begin to take on some of those dark qualities. We do not want this. This is why we must lean on God, instead of our own ‘understanding’. We must put more effort into understanding and building a relationship with Jesus Christ rather than following curiously about areas in this world that we don’t even need to be a part of. God has insight for us. He has a purpose He wants to work through us. Let us leave room in our hearts for divine understanding and allow God to strengthen us spiritually so that He can help us discern what is good and useful for us on our journey. The Word says we must trust God, “...in all our ways know Him, and He will make our paths straight.” Amen
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Psalm 139:1-4 “Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I stand up; you understand my thoughts from far away. You observe my travels and my rest; you are aware of all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you know all about it, Lord.” ~CSB
In our younger days we remember ‘acting up’, (as my mother used to call it). We did this when our parents weren’t around. In other words our best behavior was only reserved for them. In school we would talk and joke with our friends and it didn’t matter how many times the teacher said, ‘Be quiet!’. But take those same days in the classroom and insert our mother or father in that room, our innermost thoughts to our teachers were, ‘Please don’t tell my parents what I do in your class!’ As grown men and women in Christ we should still experience this feeling. We do not become aware of this same ‘hiding’ situation until our spirits show us that there is no hiding from God. When we know this, we must become more cautious when it comes to doing the right thing. Hiding what we do is totally different with God than with our parents. They cannot see or hear everything we do. But our heavenly Father knows all. We cannot hide from Him. We cannot deceive Him like we used to do with our mothers and earthly fathers. It is God who created us, blew breath in our bodies and searched our hearts and minds. He knows us. There is nowhere we can hide when we choose to give in to the flesh and do things that are not pleasing to Him. So why do we stray and fall to the desires of the flesh? That is the question that separates life and death. If we know that God knows every move we make; from sitting down and standing up, to the words formed in our spirit before they come out of our mouths when we know He knows; then why do we still hold on to ungodly actions? God is like that parent standing in the classroom watching their children. And if that child chooses to be disrespectful and disruptive in front of their mother or father, the measure of disrespect for that parent from the child can be unmeasurable. It is the same unlimited measurement of disrespect to God. When we know God is there, watching over us to protect and provide for us, doing anything short of righteous actions should be further from our agenda. We must search ourselves and figure out what is more important, pleasing ourselves or pleasing God. For me and my house God comes first. All of us should wake up every morning hopping out of bed embracing the righteous acts we will perform throughout the day. Do this for God and all those he is going to bless through you as you continue your journey in Jesus’ name. Amen  Psalm 55:22 “Cast your burden on the Lord, and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.” ~CSB
To sustain means to ‘bear the weight of’. This is what God is telling us. He is saying that He will do this for us when we allow Him to. When it comes to the trials and tests we go through, the journey of endurance that continues throughout our lives is necessary because it is what is needed for us to become stronger in God’s purpose. But the necessary struggle in our lives, will sometimes be infected by obstacles of 'stress' that have nothing to do with God's main purpose. For example, moments that require our attention at work involving co-workers. Differences involving our family members. Even dealing with finances, wondering how we will pay our mortgage. All of these situations engage our spirits in order to strengthen us in our faith and purpose for God. These struggles, as the Word says, should be embraced as training for our upcoming blessings. But the distractions of stress and worry sometimes cloud our focus and weaken our faith in God’s power when it comes to believing in Him delivering us. These emotions are considered ‘burdens’ and should be taken off our shoulders and discarded. This is why God wants us to ‘...cast those burdens…’ on Him. He knows we have our hands full when going through our trials. There is no need for us to add to our spiritual struggle with the pain of ‘stress and worry’. These are emotions and feelings we do not need in our spiritual growth and should not be considered tools in our suffering. God is telling us we do not need to worry because He will bear the weight of the things that cause us this stress. He will take the burden that we lay at the altar so that we do not have to carry that weight of worry any longer. He will not let His righteous children be shaken by the fears produced by the world. Instead He wants us to focus on Him. He is our protector, provider and sustainer. With Him, nothing will keep us from His purpose and power in our lives. His purpose of victory, through His Son Jesus Christ. May this devotional keep you covered, guided and protected in Jesus' name. Amen  John 10:10 “A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.” (CSB)
In the past, my life had its ups and downs. Back then, sometimes everything was great. Then a few days after the ‘great’, things would drop to ‘not-so-great’. I used to wonder ‘why’ this happened. When my relationship with God became strong, I understood those times better. My ‘ups’ back then were from the victories I acquired under my own power. Or at least I thought that was the case. I realize that the ‘world’ allowed me that happiness. It did that because it knew I wasn’t strong enough, by myself, to keep the world from taking that happiness away from me. In other words, the world could always beat me under my own power. Then as a Christian I learned that the world cannot beat God’s power. God created us and equipped us to conquer this. Knowing that the world was stronger than us, God created in us the tools that He would use when we allowed Him to. This allowance comes from us when we seek the relationship with Him so that He can give us His ‘peace’ and ‘joy’. These two gifts are everlasting and will help us to endure our trials. The world may allow us happiness. But the gifts from the world always have an expiration date. This is where the ‘downs’ come from in our ‘ups’. There is no expiration date on God’s gifts. How do we receive these gifts? We find it in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In John Chapter 10, Jesus has a conversation with His disciples about a shepherd and his sheep. Jesus tells His disciples that the sheep hear the shepherd’s voice and follow his voice only. All others who come for the sheep are thieves. Jesus says that He is our Shepherd, and all who come to Him will have everything they need. The world, the devil, or thief, (however we may make reference), may be able to steal our happiness, because under our own power we can only go so far in protecting ourselves. But with our ‘Shepherd’s’ power of protection and provision, we will have victory. Inside that victory is everything we will ever need. The scripture above gives us the warning about staying close to Jesus. Because as sheep we cannot stray away from the Protector. Outside of this powerful protection, the world only comes to steal our faith. The devil only comes to kill our hope. And the thief only comes to destroy our relationship with God. But if we keep that hope in our hearts strong, and believe our Savior when He says in scripture, “...I have come…” so that we may have, “...life and have it in abundance.” We realize the thief cannot steal from God. And he cannot steal from God’s children. God, through His Son Jesus Christ, has given us everything we need to keep the thief from being successful in his attempts at the destruction in our lives. God’s peace and joy are everlasting as we continue to walk in our strong relationship with The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit. Amen  Mark 9:23 (CSB) “Jesus said to him, “If you can? Everything is possible for the one who believes.”
This beautiful story of a miracle of Jesus Christ starts at verse 14. Jesus has approached a crowd where a man has brought his son to be healed. The man runs to Jesus and tells Him that his son is possessed by a demon. And this demon host has attempted to kill the son it possessed many times. In this text, the man says two specific things. One: he says, “...if you can do anything, have compassion and help us…” In response, Jesus repeats the man’s request. Like a teacher demonstrating how the ‘student’s’ action looks. He says, “...If you can?” Here the ‘Teacher’ demonstrates that there is no belief in the man's request for his son. Oftentimes we come to Jesus with an ‘IF’ in our prayers. It is like we second guess, or we are not sure if God can do what He says He can do. Or we may think that God will bless others, but when it comes to our own prayers, we may not be worthy. Jesus cuts this short by continuing the verse with, “...Everything is possible for the one who believes.” The next thing the father of the possessed son said is, “...I do believe; help my unbelief.” This is a good prayer. The world has shown us so much of its ugliness. The world has taken us through so much suffering and pain that it is sometimes hard to fight the emotions of fear and doubt that our flesh brings to our attention. But we must lean on the strength of our spirits in order to maintain and strengthen our belief. When those hard times come and test our belief systems, pray to God, “Help me with my unbelief, Lord!” In our story, Jesus went on to rebuke the demon from the man’s son and heal him. God’s power and love will do the same for us when we believe in that love and power. In verse 29, Jesus tells His disciples that some situations can only be worked out by nothing but prayer. Allow that prayer we pray to be in 'thanksgiving', like we have already received from God, for the deliverance of what we are going through. Trust God by knowing that ‘He can and He will’ deliver us and protect us. May God continue to keep you healed, protected and loved as we journey in Jesus’ name. Amen  Philippians 2:5 “Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus…” ~CSB
We have all turned on a faucet to a sink. There are some of us that have even experienced turning on a sink, and when we went to turn it off, the water kept running. This blew our minds because first, we were not expecting that to happen; and second, we were faced with the question, “What do I do now?” Always dependent on that faucet to do the work for us. Let’s take that same scenario and use it when it comes to us during some bad times in our lives. We can all agree that days come when we turn on the ‘anger’ or we turn on the ‘sadness’ and for some reason we cannot turn it off. It is like that faucet on the sink. When those emotions don’t turn off and it begins to affect our spouses, our children, our jobs and our health, we are faced with the same question as we were faced with concerning the faucet. “What do I do now?” The world teaches us to live like this. To lose control and allow the worst in us to continue to flow. We must avoid this by thinking of Christ and who we are in Him. This is the time we need to reflect on God's love for us. We must reach in and remember who exactly we are. We are His children. Instead of letting that energy fuel the thoughts of our anger and sadness, we should allow that same power of thought in everything good. In other words, reflect on verse one that says, “If there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the spirit, if any affection and mercy…” If any of these traits, which are good and from God, rest in our hearts, we must embrace them and let the seeds of their power help us calm our emotional storms. Verse three tells us not to let those dark emotions cause us to do anything, “...out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than…” ourselves. This text gives us the spiritual strength to stand up and take a position of love and determination as we allow God to lead us on the true path He created for us. “Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus…” The One who gave His life for us is the blueprint of unselfishness. The blueprint of putting others first. If our Lord and Savior did that for us, then we can prepare ourselves by turning off our 'faucets' and stopping the negative flow of our anger and sadness. So that we can do for others, as Christ Jesus has done for us. May God bless and keep you as you journey in Jesus’ name. Amen  2 Corinthians 12:9 (NIV) “But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
In this passage, Paul is telling us how he remains humble and why he only boasts about the Lord. He also speaks to us about ‘grace’. In a few verses before verse nine, Paul tells us that, “...in order to keep himself from becoming conceited…” he was given a ‘thorn’ in his flesh. Now, the Word doesn’t necessarily tell us specifically what that ‘thorn’ is. Paul describes it as, “...a messenger of Satan…” that torments him. He even goes on to say that he pleaded with God, not once, but three times to take the ‘thorn’ away. And this is when, in verse nine, God tells him, “...My ‘grace’ is sufficient for you…” In our lives we all suffer from some kind of ‘thorn’ in our flesh. “A messenger of Satan’, if you will, always in our ear. Always pulling on our flesh. Always trying to make us think things or do things that are not of God. Attempting to make us go places God has not led us. When God gave that piece of information to Paul, He is also giving us the same word. The 'grace' of His forgiveness by the sacrifice of His One and Only Son for us, should be sufficient enough. No matter what we have done or said, we are forgiven by the Cross. His grace is sufficient because it also gives us access to God’s power when we accept this over the pain and suffering of our ‘thorns’. God is always present and willing to take care of us. You see the results of our thorns should direct us to understand that this is where we redirect our focus and prayer. Instead of focusing on that pain and suffering of the ‘thorn’, we must look to the Lord for his power in healing, guidance and peace. Paul was leading us when he said, “...in order to keep me from being conceited…” In order for us to receive this power, we must focus on thinking about God and how much He loves us to forgive us. When we do that we allow our spirits access to that power God wants to give us. That thorn can be scary sometimes because it shows us that we can be weak. For many Christians who have been strong all their lives this revelation in weakness can be horrifying. But God is telling us, as we become physically weak in some places, He is allowing us to become spiritually stronger. In His word He tells us, “...for My power is made perfect in weakness…” Allow your 'thorn’ to help you find your strength in the Lord this week. Focus on God, not your problems, and tell the Lord you are ready for his healing, guidance and peace. Because we receive His grace, as sufficient. Amen  2 Timothy 3:16-17 “All Scripture is inspired by God, and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” ~CSB
We often hear people say, “God gave me a sign that I should do this!” “I saw a sign that this is what I’m supposed to do!” Whenever decisions are made as a result of ‘seeing a sign’, those decisions usually fall on the action of ‘guessing’. Let me give you a better example about ‘seeing signs’. My wife has never given me a ‘sign’ when it comes to something that needs to be done. For instance, when we have our monthly budget meetings for our home, we both know how much to spend and how much not to spend. There are no signs for these directives. No room for guessing. This is a successful way of life for us because my wife and I have a strong relationship. We know each other so we do not rely on ‘signs’. We do, because we know. This should be the exact same relationship we have with God. One where we do not have to look for ‘signs’ and ‘guess’ what He wants from us. No, we should know Him enough and follow His commands. His word gives us all we need. It says in 2 Timothy that the word is God's inspiration to us. It will teach us, correct us and train us in righteousness. When we walk this spiritual workout every day, the word will take out the ‘guesswork’ of seeing ‘signs’. God loves us too much to give us hints. He loves us so much that He gives us what we need, when we need it. There is no guessing, but to hear Him we have to know Him. Put the effort in building your relationship with God. Cut out the ‘guesswork’ and embrace the wisdom God gives us daily through His Word. So that we know what He wants from us. God will let us know directly because he wants us to be, “...complete and equipped for every good work.” May the Lord continue to bless and keep you under His healing, guidance and protection in Jesus’ name. Amen  Philippians 4:6 “Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” ~CSB
It is so easy for us to allow situations and ‘happenings’ in this world to affect our thoughts. Especially when it comes to us worrying and doubting our chances in our circumstances. For instance, we may wake up in the morning with God’s promises on our minds. But the first social media post we see about the negativity in this world, we allow the 'fear of failure' in our hearts. Someone or something may remind us of our struggles. Trials such as health, family, or bills that are due. These distractions result in our joy and peace being snatched from us as a result of this ‘fear of failure’ in our hearts. We must not forget that there is a debt, that we ‘were’ accountable for, that we couldn't pay. And we were more accountable for that debt than any we may have established with man. Jesus paid that debt for us. We are saved by grace and mercy by a powerful God Who loves us so much. It is because we are His children that our Father, in heaven, will take care of us. He says it in His word, not to worry about anything. In everything, through prayer to Him, (which includes His will in our situation), God will make a way out of ‘no way’. With the thanksgiving in our hearts for Jesus Christ, we present our requests to God. This request will be the spiritual seeds invested in the harvest of that abundant blessing God already has established for us. When we get rid of worry and increase our prayers in thanksgiving, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:7) May God continue to bless you all under His protection, healing, wisdom and peace as you journey in Jesus' name. Amen  Job 42:10 “After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and doubled his previous possessions.” ~CSB
The Book of Job is impressive in its details of the fight between good and evil for the possession of our souls. The devil roams the earth looking to destroy everything God has created. In this particular story, it concerns a man named Job. Job loved the Lord and had a strong relationship with Him. Job’s loyalty to God could not be broken. The devil thought differently and told God that every man can be broken given the proper struggle. God knew and trusted His servant Job to remain faithful. God allowed the devil to not only take from Job but also to affect his body. God’s only command was that the devil did not kill Job. The devil took away Job’s children and possessions. Then inflicted his body with painful, unattractive boils. The influence of the devil’s work caused three friends of Job to attempt to convince him that what was happening to him was from God. They tried to tell Job that he must have done something against the Lord for him to be going through so much. Although Job did not understand why these things were happening to him, he continued to have faith in God. And because of his strong faith and trust in the Lord, God rewarded him. In our lives we go through things we may not understand. But it is our journey as Christians to wake up and walk our paths in righteousness no matter what the world throws our way. We trust in God that where we are, is the place where He will use us to perform His miracle. To show others through us that He exists. It’s not always about us. It is not always about the devil. It is, however, always about God and what His intentions are. His intent to bring good, grace and mercy to us and those around us. While going through our challenges, Job shows us how to continue to serve by praying for others even when they try to direct us in other unnecessary paths. Look at Job’s friends. God told them that they were leading His loyal servant in the wrong direction. By telling him the wrong information about God and His intentions. God said for this they should be punished. (Job 42:7-8) But because Job prayed for them, God said he would give them a pass. Amazing how Job didn’t think about himself as he was going through his struggle. He loved God and remembered his job was to serve the Lord and others. His actions saved himself and his friends. The Bible says that God blessed Job for his struggles by doubling his possessions. The word says God blessed the last part of Job’s life more than the first. Stay focused on God’s love for you. Don’t let the devil ‘snatch’ you through the chaos of this world. God has His arms wrapped around you. You are protected. May God bless and keep you as you journey in Jesus’ name. Amen |
Authors Billy & YolandaThis is the place where we share our heart through God's Word in faith that will inspire and empower you to live in peace. Archives
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