Tag: Devotional

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Lay Out Your Fleece

Judges 6:36-40 NIV,

[36] Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised— [37] look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.” [38] And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water. [39] Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew.” [40] That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.

Gideon had received a direct message from the LORD, but his heart was unsure. So, instead of ignoring the LORD, he confirmed it with the LORD twice. He laid out a fleece twice in order to confirm the call the LORD had on his life. God wasn’t angry. He wasn’t impatient. Instead, God simply granted Gideon’s requests and comforted his heart.

God does not change. He if confirmed Gideon’s request and eased his doubt, He will do the same for you. When I’m not sure what to do, I may out two fleece before the LORD. I get very specific as Gideon was. And you know what? The LORD has never not answered. He has never led me in the wrong direction. He has never allowed me to go through something on my own. The LORD is faithful to us. He will never leave us, nor forsake us. He is our helper and our friend.

The LORD’s desire is for our faith to grow. He wants us to walk by faith, not by sight, because sometimes, our sight will destroy our faith. We’ll see giants in the land God promised us our we’ll see an army too strong and large for us to handle. We’ll see ourselves as the enemy wants us to see ourselves, not how God sees us. When you believe you heard from God, but doubt is filling your heart, list out two fleece before the LORD. Be specific in your request and, most importantly, don’t allow doubt to creep in whatsoever. Force yourself to trust that the LORD will hear you and answer you.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Lay Out Your Fleece.

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Walk Like Joseph

33 Now therefore let Pharaoh select a discerning and wise man, and set him over the land of Egypt. 34 Let Pharaoh proceed to appoint overseers over the land and take one-fifth of the produce of the land of Egypt during the seven plentiful years. 35 And let them gather all the food of these good years that are coming and store up grain under the authority of Pharaoh for food in the cities, and let them keep it. 36 That food shall be a reserve for the land against the seven years of famine that are to occur in the land of Egypt, so that the land may not perish through the famine.” ~ Genesis 41:32-36

Joseph was a prisoner; forgotten by the man he had interpreted the dream of for 2 years. Now, he was standing before Pharaoh, and he held all of the cards. He had nothing to lose. Imagine if Joseph told Pharaoh exactly what needs to be done. He very well could have kept that information to himself. A lot of people would have been like, “What’s in it for me?”

They would reason that, “Look, I’m a prisoner, and unless you free me, I’m not telling you anything, neither am I giving you any information. If you put me in charge, then I will help you. Then I will give you my good advice.” But not Joseph. Joseph explained to Pharaoh exactly what must be done with no hesitation at all.

Impressed, Pharaoh took off his signet ring and put it on the finger of Joseph. In so doing, Pharaoh bestowed on Joseph the full power of Egypt. In one day, Joseph went from prisoner to second in command of all Egypt, the superpower of that day.

Joseph embodied honesty. He didn’t try to use his God-given gifts to his own advantage. He didn’t try to make himself great. He simply accepted the hand dealt to him and tried to live for God regardless of whether he was in the house or in the gutter. Why? Because he fully trusted in the LORD. He fully believed that the LORD had him no matter what the enemy tried to do to him. Joseph grew wherever he was planted, and the LORD was faithful to him.

Joseph went from prisoner, living in the jail, to second in command over all of Egypt, answering only to Pharaoh in just one conversation. He was faithful to God, so God was faithful to him. Even if the cupbearer forgot Joseph, the LORD God didn’t.

There might be people that you’ve helped, that you’ve been there for, that you’ve invested into that have been elevated and have forgotten you, but don’t be discouraged, angry, or upset. The LORD God hasn’t forgotten you. He hasn’t abandoned you. If you remain faithful to Him, even when you have every right to be upset and bitter, the LORD will remain faithful to you, and he will elevate you because the LORD elevates the humble.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Walk Like Joseph.

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Better Than

“Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” ~ Acts 3:6

Peter was very clear. He said that he did not have any silver nor did he have any gold, but he had something much better, the authority to heal him and make him able to walk. Why? The signet ring of power and authority was returned to man. But there are those who claim that we do not have authority. They deny that signs and wonders are for all believers as Jesus said they were, but they believe it was only for the Apostles.

There is no doubt in my mind that we Christians are living way below our potential. We have the authority, and we have the power, but we are living as if we do not, mainly because we are told that we do not.

The believers, not just the Apostles, but the believers like Philip the Evangelist were all walking in the power and working in miracles and performing signs and wonders all in the Name of Jesus.

After Peter and John healed the lame man, the rulers and elders, and scribes and all the family of the high priest called them in and questioned them, “… ‘By what power or by what name have you done this?’ (Acts 4:7b).” They realized that it was a great power that the disciples had performed that great miracle, but like today, they refused to believe or accept that it was by the power of Jesus’ name.

Dear LORD, please forgive me for every time I was ungrateful for what You have given me. Thank You for all of Your many blessings upon me. Thank You for loving me and keeping me. I pray LORD that You would open my eyes to all that You have for me. Please don’t allow me to make anything You have for me null and void. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Touching Jesus

17 And He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of His disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, 18 who came to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19 And all the crowd sought to touch Him, for power came out from Him and healed them all ~ Luke 6:17-19

Jesus spent the night before praying all night long. Then the next morning, He chose from among His disciples the twelve apostles. After choosing them, He came down off of the mountain to a level place where a great crowd of His disciples and a multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon had all come out to hear Him preach and to be healed of their diseases. The Spirit of God was so strong in the place that power was coming out of Jesus and healing the people. Unclean spirits were being cast out, and the people were jostling each other to get to Him so that they might touch Him so that they too might be healed.

Maybe this is where the woman with the issue of blood got the idea. Maybe she said to herself, if it worked for those people, it will work for me. So, if I can just touch the hem of His garment, I will be healed. She kept encouraging herself with those words and reminding herself that it happened once, it can happen again for her.

There is a song that we used to sing entitled Touching Jesus. The chorus goes like this:

Touching Jesus is all that matters
Then your life will never be the same;
There is only one way to touch Him,
Just believe when you call on His name.

We can no longer touch Jesus physically, but we can still touch Him spiritually. When we reach out by faith and touch just the hem of His garment, we will get what we need. Whether it is healing from our diseases, or peace of mind, or freedom from tormenting spirits. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He will never change, and He will never leave us forsaken. So, reach out and touch Jesus today through faith and be healed.

Heavenly Father, teach me to touch Your Son, Jesus Christ, through faith. Teach me Your ways so that I might know You more intimately. Thank you, LORD Jesus, that You never change. Right now, I claim my healing by faith in the mighty and powerful Name of Jesus, the Son of the Living God. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Bombard

James 1:6-8 NIV

[6] But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. [7] That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. [8] Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

So, I have a 5 year old Siberian Husky. Anytime she hears me with food, she comes running and sits there staring at me as I eat, just waiting for me to share some of my food with her. I can tell her no a thousand times. I can refuse to give her any of my food and a thousand times, and she will still come back expecting food that one thousand and one time. It doesn’t matter how many times I say no, she will always come back expecting to receive something, even if it’s just a tiny taste. This is how we Christians should be. We should be like my dog.

Jesus told the Parable of the woman who beat the king down and refused to give him peace until she received her justice. He compared praying to this. We aren’t supposed to just say one prayer and expect God to immediately move. We are to bombard heaven with our prayers. We are to send up so many prayers that nothing could silence them.

This life is a spiritual war. We have an actual adversary working towards our destruction. We should never be passive in this life, and when we don’t hear from God, we should keep going. Imagine if Daniel stopped seeking God after one day or even after twenty days. Daniel would have never gotten his answer. He was like my doggie begging for some of the food that I’m eating, expecting to receive an answer. When we pray, we must pray expecting God to hear us and expecting God to answer us. Otherwise, why pray? We must pray with faith and then walk in action. Our actions should correlate with our prayers of faith. Otherwise, our spirit and our soul are not on the same page.

Therefore, bombard heaven expecting to receive exactly what we have asked for. Refusing to allow silence to keep us from continuing our prayers. We pray in faith, and we act as if we have received the answer.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Bombard.

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Rely On The Manuscripts

John 15:18

18 If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.

Matthew 24:9

9 Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake.

1 John 3:13

13 Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.

Jesus said that we would be hated for the sake of His name. It’s very easy to miss all that Jesus was saying in this statement. For instance, He wasn’t just talking about persecution in the physical sense, but also the world being against all associated with His name. This isn’t just about us living here today, but about those of the past as well. That would include the authors of the Bible.

The Bible, especially the New Testament, is the best preserved ancient text in existence. The New Testament alone has over 25,000 manuscripts compared to Homer’s Illiad having 1,800 and Plato’s The Republic having 7. These two historical documents aren’t ever put into question whether they’ve been changed, doctored, or if they’re even reliable. In fact, they’re studied in schools and universities. But the New Testament, with 25,000 manuscripts is seen as unreliable.

Let that sink in. We have the best preserved ancient historical manuscript in existence but the world deems it unreliable. You’re laughed at and mocked if you even believe it. Why is that? Because the world hates Truth. The world hates the Light. It wants to remain in darkness. It wants to reject the Light. So, it deems the source of Truth, the Word of God, unreliable. It deems it untrustworthy and corrupted.

The enemy will lie, deceive, and manipulate in order to destroy the souls of humanity, but one thing he cannot do is destroy the Word of God. It’s still here. We still have the words of Christ as He Himself said them. Why is this important? Because, as Peter stated,

Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.

John 6:68-69

The Words of our LORD and Savior have not been lost. They haven’t been altered. They haven’t been corrupted or destroyed. They are still here. They are still the words of eternal life. They are still living, breathing, and sharper than any double-edged sword.

So, be encouraged by this. Let your faith grow as you can be assured in confidence that the Word of the LORD has not been changed.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Rely On The Manuscripts.

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A Dangerous Disguise

2 Corinthians 11:14

[14] And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

When Paul describes Satan as someone who disguises himself into an angel of light, he doesn’t only mean literally. He isn’t just going around appearing to people as a literal angel of light. Sometimes, its just a quick, simple thought that is thrown into your mind as an innocent idea. Here’s what I mean. One of the ways I’ve started making money is by reselling. I buy storage units, and I resell the contents for a profit.

When I was cleaning out a storage unit the other week, I came across a well-known narcotic, oxycodone. It was a prescription bottle with a good little handful of pills left in it. As I read what the bottle, a thought entered my mind “I wonder how much these things go for?” Immediately, I was like, absolutely not. I audibly voiced “nope” from mouth and immediately opened the bottle and poured out the contents in to the trash bag filled with dirt, mouse droppings, and other disgusting contents I cleaned out of the unit.

The thought didn’t come maliciously. It didn’t come in an evil way. It came gently and softly in the form of “You know we got bills to pay.” It was a very evil thought posed and delivered very innocently. This is how Satan gets you.

He doesn’t come dressed up as evil incarnate. He comes dressed up as an innocent thought. A rational, innocent thought that is posed as being in your best interest. This is how Satan works and has always worked. He didn’t tell Eve to break God’s rule. He simply questioned what God actually said. This is the importance of being spiritually on guard.

Satan is a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. He isn’t a defeated foe. He isn’t a toothless lion. He is actively seeking a victim. He is actively seeking someone to devour. This is why we have to know the Word of God. So that when Satan comes along whispering in our ear, we can see the lies and the deception coming out of his mouth.

Dear LORD, please forgive me for every time I gave into the enemy’s lies and believed the deception. Thank you, LORD, for every time you have shown me the deceptions and given me an escape. Please help me to see past the deceit and the lies so that I can see the Truth. Give me a spirit of discernment as You fill me with Your Holy Spirit so that I might overcome in the day of testing. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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What’s Your Foundation?

Acts 17:10-11NIV

[10] As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. [11] Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

Lately, one of my favorite things to do is debate different topics with ChatGPT. I’ll ask it a question, it’ll respond, and we’ll go back and forth. One of the main reasons I genuinely enjoy doing this is because it helps me remember things I have learned, as well as helping me better express and defend my own beliefs. Peter tells us to always have a defense for our faith and why we believe what we do.

The more I do this, the more I realize that many traditional beliefs that I no longer hold to, aren’t rooted in the early Church but are more recently developed than I was led to believe when I was taught these beliefs. When we take peoples word for things, instead of searching and researching for ourselves, we become blind followers. Christ never calls us to be blind followers, yes, we live by faith not by sight, but we aren’t blind followers. Jesus said,

18 Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?

Mark 8:18

We follow Christ with faith, meaning we trust God regardless of how difficult, impossible, hard it may seem. But when it comes to our faith. Our beliefs. What we build our lives on, we are to test those beliefs/teachings against Scripture. We aren’t to just blindly follow. How many of us today can say without a shadow of a doubt that our beliefs are all rooted in the Bible and did not come much later? I’d say, very few of us. Why? Because when a preacher or teacher we like says something we like, we agree with it and hold it as law instead of testing it against thr Scriptures.

So, what should we do? Seek the Truth by putting every belief and idea to the test. We should be in the Word, studying it, meditating on it daily. It should be written on our hearts influencing every aspect of our lives. That’s the goal each of us should have set for ourselves. It should the goal we are each actively pursuing and chasing.

Dear LORD, please forgive me for each time I have believed man without checking Your Word first. Please open my eyes to any false beliefs I have claimed as Truth, no matter how insignificant they may seem. Uproot every lie, deceit, or misunderstanding I have clung to. Open my eyes to Your Truth. Allow Your Word to speak to me, guide me, and direct my path. Help me to build my faith on You and not on the words of man. Teach me to follow You with all that is within me, in Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Know His Nature

1 John 4:8 NIV

[8] Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

John’s statement that “God is love” is often overlooked by Christians and non-Christians alike. This single phrase differentiates Christianity from all other religions. There are approximately 10,000 different religious and spiritual beliefs out there, and not one has ever claimed God is love, except for Christianity.

Our God is not like any other god in all of creation. Our God left the splendor of heaven to save us and redeem us from our sin. He didn’t just leave us up to our own devices. No. He came to us and gave Himself for us. Why? Because God is love.

He doesn’t just do acts of love. He doesn’t just say words of love. This idea of a God whose very nature is love, rather than just one who acts lovingly, separates our God from all other gods. There is no one like Him.

Out of thousands of religious and spiritual belief systems, Christianity alone explicitly states that God is love in an ontological sense—meaning that love is not just something God does, but what He is at His very core. That kind of claim is profound. This idea is so central to Christian theology, shaping everything from the doctrine of the Trinity (a God who is relational within Himself) to the Incarnation (God becoming human out of love) and salvation (offered through sacrificial love).

The uniqueness of this concept really sets Christianity apart in a way that makes you stop and think. Our God is often mocked and ridiculed for being human to die for the world, but in reality it is the single greatest example of His nature. Love.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Know His Nature.

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A Safe Entrance

18 The Lord will rescue me from every evil work and will bring me safely into His heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever! Amen.  ~ 2 Timothy 4:18

Paul was beaten, kicked out of cities and nations. He was stoned and left for dead. Paul had a rough time as a Christian, yet he still stated, “The LORD will rescue me from every evil work.” Let that sink in. When we think about the LORD rescuing us, we believe it should be physically rescued from all oppression and opposition, but that wasn’t how Paul saw it. Paul saw this physical body as just a temporary place for us to dwell until we receive that new body. So, what does that mean?

Paul understood that the world, the devil, the kingdom of darkness could do anything they wanted to his physically body, but the LORD would deliver his soul out of their hands. They couldn’t taint his soul. His soul was safe. It was secure in the hands of the LORD.

Dear LORD, thank You for holding my soul in Your hands. Thank You that I can live with the confidence that You, oh LORD God, have me and no one can separate me from Your love. Thank You, LORD. Help me to never forget this. Help me to never overlook this. Teach me to believe and put Your trust always in You, LORD God. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen. 

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