Tag: Devotional

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Deny Yourself To Love

13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. ~ John 15:13

Love is setting aside your own desires, your own preservation for the preservation of the one that you love. Love also does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. So, we can then understand that Jesus wasn’t just saying the greatest love is just a physical death or sacrifice for your friend, but a spiritual death or sacrifice for your friend.

24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Galatians 5:24

According to Paul, when you love someone, you will do whatever you have to do so that you can have a relationship with them. Love is when you sacrifice your own desire, your own wants, your own feelings for the desires, wants, and feelings of the one you love. Jesus prayed that He wouldn’t have to go to the cross; nevertheless, the Father’s will would be done. Jesus wasn’t just a little nervous about the cup that He was about to drink; according to Luke’s account, He sweated drops of blood.

Jesus denied His will, His desire to live because He understood that there was only one way to save us. He was and is our only perfect sacrifice. The price he paid on the cross was the epitome of love. This is why we now crucify our flesh and present ourselves as a living sacrifice Holy and pleasing to God according to Romans 12:1 and 1 Peter 2:4-6 because the way we live our lives is the only we can truly love Him.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Deny Yourself To Love.

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Love Your Enemies

34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question to test Him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” ~ Matthew 22:34-40

Jesus died for His enemies. He didn’t have to, but because He saw that there was no other way for us to be with Him other than Him dying on the cross for our sins and taking our punishment upon Himself. He didn’t have to take our sin. He didn’t have to take our punishment, but He did. Jesus set aside His own feelings, desires, and wants so that He could focus on saving us. He followed the will of His Father and gave Himself as the perfect and final sacrifice for our sins.

Jesus stated that the greatest commandment given is to love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. He then says the second greatest is to love your neighbor as yourself. The reason love is the greatest commandment is because love is a sign of unity with God. If God is love, and we are transforming into the image of God, then we would have to bear fruit that is of God.

As Jesus said,

17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.

Mathew 7:17

And the greatest fruit, as we explained in our video The Power of The Holy Spirit under our Nuggets of Truth category, is love. Therefore, we must love everyone, even our enemies.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Love Your Enemies.

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Stand Strong in the LORD

25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. ~ Hebrews 10:25

In other words, Do not forsake the gathering of yourselves together, and even more so, when you see that day approaching. There’s no way you can look at today and not say these are those days. The whole world is turning from Jesus and looking to themselves.

The COVID19 virus has everyone in fear and locked down. The world’s economies are in jeopardy. Lawlessness and sin abound. Don’t care attitude run rampant. Hate and Godlessness are politically encouraged. Strip clubs are opened while churches are shut down. Don’t allow fear to control your lives. Stand strong in the LORD, for He did not give us a spirit of fear but of power, love, and a sound mind.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Stand Strong in the LORD.

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Expel the Garbage

10 And He (Jesus) called the people to Him and said to them, “Hear and understand: 11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” ~ Matthew 15:10-11

We have to watch what we feed our soul and our spirit because what we have stored up in our hearts is what will come out in the unguarded moment. So, if you have filth stored up, filth will come out. But if you have goodness and righteousness stored up, goodness and righteousness will come out.

You don’t draw fresh water and brackish water from the same well.

When computers first came out, they had an acronym called GIGO.

Garbage In Garbage Out.

It is the same with your heart, garbage in garbage out. If you put garbage into your body through your eyes and ears, then garbage will rest in your heart and come out of your mouth when you speak. But if you have goodness and righteousness coming into your heart through your eyes and ears, then goodness and righteousness will come out of your mouth.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Expel the Garbage.

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Be the Salt of the Earth

34 Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? 35 It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. ~ Luke 14:34-35

Jesus says that we are the salt of the earth. So, if we are to be the salt of the earth, we had better know what that means. Wouldn’t you agree?

Because Jesus goes on to say that if salt loses its taste, and we will come back to that later on in this message, so keep a finger there. But, if salt loses its taste, it’s no longer useful either for the soil, or for the manure pile, or in other words, the dunghill.

Salt is good. Therefore, salt is healthy, fit, useful, and serviceable. That is what Jesus wants us to be: Healthy, fit, useable, and serviceable. There are many reasons, I believe, why Jesus chose this analogy for us to be salt of the earth.

Salt is:

    1. Immutable – unchanging
    2. Salt has a high melting point of 801° C and boils at 1413° C
    3. Has very low freezing point of −1.8°C
    4. Salts are good conductors of electricity

Jesus is saying, you are the salt of the earth, and the salt of the earth is organically healthy and useful, but if it, or more precisely, if you, become a fool, how can you get back your influence? Who, or what can make you influential or wise again? Don’t throw away the salt for the fake table salt of the world.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Be the Salt of the Earth.

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Return To The Father

16 For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. ~ John 3:16

God loves everyone, but not everyone returns to the Father to receive their free gift of eternal life. So, His love for us is Eternal. Psalms 136. It’s unconditional. Romans 5:7-8. But His love can only do so much.

His love is what allows us to return to Him and receive salvation, but His love for you won’t save you if you don’t come to Him. Just as the Prodigal Son couldn’t receive food, shelter, water, life without returning to his father, neither can we receive Eternal Life without returning to our Heavenly Father.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Return To The Father.

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Draw Near To the Light

1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. Then he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.” And evening passed and morning came, marking the first day. ~ Genesis 1:1-5NLT

Notice how it says that darkness was over the face of the deep, not that darkness was over all the waters? This is because the Spirit of God hovered over the surface of the waters. Why does that matter? He wasn’t hovering over it all. God’s light was only on the waters above, in Heaven. His presence wasn’t shining over everything. His peace wasn’t shining over everything. His love wasn’t shining over everything. It was only over a specific section of the universe—the Heavenly realm.

God could have easily just left it there that first day and went on creating earth the next, but before He did anything else, He created light. He created a way to Him in the darkness. Not a physical light, because as we know, the sun and moon aren’t created until day four, but a spiritual light. A light that could penetrate the darkness of man’s hearts. He created the wisdom and knowledge of God.

Romans says that His invisible attributes have been made known from the creation of the world. Jesus said that while it’s still day, we have to work because night is coming. This world is becoming filled with more and more darkness, and the knowledge and wisdom of God are dwindling fast. When we look around, we feel almost hopeless because darkness seems to overcome the light. But the Psalms assures us that weeping only lasts the night and joy comes in the morning. The Psalmist isn’t talking about a physical day and night. The psalmist is saying when we encourage ourselves in the LORD, and we remember who He is, and we strive to be with Him, our spiritual night turns to day, and the Joy of the LORD becomes our strength.

So, don’t be discouraged when you feel like the night will never end. Encourage yourself in the LORD as David did. For if we draw near to God, He’ll draw near to us. And if He is near to us, then there is no room for darkness. For He is the light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome Him.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Draw Near To the Light.

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Forgive Each Other’s Debts

14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. ~ Matthew 6:14-15

In Matthew 18, Jesus tells the parable of the Unforgiving Servant. There was a servant who owed his master 10,000 talents, but he could not pay his debt, so he pleaded with his master, and so the master forgave him of his debt. When the servant went out from his master, he found a fellow servant who could not pay him, which was 100 denarii, and he choked the servant. Because the servant could not pay what he owed him, the servant, whose debt was just forgiven, threw him in prison until he could pay what he owed. When his fellow servants saw this, they went to their master and told him what had happened. His master then says that he will be put away until he can pay his debt. Let’s just put this into perspective for a second.

The servant who was forgiven owed 10,000 talents. A talent was worth about 20 years’ wages for labor, whereas the other servant owed the forgiven servant only 100 denarii, which was only a day’s wage. In January 2019, the average wage for a workday was $184.8, so the servant owed the forgiven servant about $18,480. The forgiven servant owed his master about $9,646,560,000. (average day 184.8*100 = 18,480) (average day 184.8*average days in a year 261=48,232.8*20=964,656*10,000=9,646,560,000)

And this is what a lot of us are doing today. We hold on to the pain, hurt, anger from an event caused by someone in our past or in our present, and we refuse to forgive them. We feel entitled to unforgiveness because we were wronged so badly, but yet we expect God to forgive us for all that we have done. We expect God to turn a blind eye to our debt when we can’t turn a blind eye to the debt of others.

Our debt to God is so much more than anyone’s debt to us. When we forgive others, God forgives us. He pays our debt for us. Then He takes the weight off of our shoulders so that the pain can no longer hold us down.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Forgive Each Other’s Debts.

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Find the Narrow Road

13 Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. Matthew 7:13-14NIV

If you knew that you only had two roads to choose from in life and you had to choose one to follow, would you like to know about them? How would you go about choosing?

Jesus makes it clear there are only two roads you can travel through this life on, the narrow road and the broad road.  So, what is the difference between these two roads, and how do we get on one or the other? I’m glad you asked.

Look at what Jesus said in v 13: …For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. It seems to me that the broad road is the default road. In other words, it is where everyone starts from. You don’t have to do anything special or different; it’s the default road. It is the most beautiful road. It is the easiest road. It is the biggest road. And contrary to what Texas might believe, bigger is not always better. Yes, it might be easier, you don’t even have to look for it, cause it’s just there, but it’s definitely not better.

For the Broad Road, there are huge lanes you can drive on making it feel good. But Jesus said at the end of it is destruction.

The other gate is small, and the road is narrow; therefore, it makes it unappealing. Not only that, but one has to look for it. Did you see that? It said only a few find it. Therefore, you have to look for it, or you won’t find it. And many are not looking for it. Very few people, if any, can say they just happened to stumble upon the small gate. They either have to be looking, as in the case with Lee Strobel. In his own testimony, he admitted that he was an atheist and set out to prove the Bible wrong and Jesus not who he said he was. But he had a praying wife, and so, the facts lead him to the small gate that leads to the narrow road.

For the Narrow Road, you have to be looking, or searching, or somebody has to be praying really hard for you.

This narrow road, we have to make sure we are on it. We can’t fool around and make a mockery of salvation. It was a heavy price Jesus paid for it. Not only that, we who are saved should and must be telling others about the goodness of God. For He has been faithful to us, now let us be faithful to Him.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Find the Narrow Road.

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Seek the Spirit of God

12 There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. ~ Proverbs 14:12

Something is wrong when a Christian can go for days or even weeks without any type of prayer or any type of worship and feel nothing.

A few weeks ago, we had our granddaughter visiting us, and we were busy doing vacation stuff. Needless to say, I did not have my regular time in prayer. After a few days, I felt like something was terribly wrong. I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach like something dreadful was about to happen.

I had to get out of my bed at 3:30 in the morning and go to my prayer couch and kneel down and spend some time in prayer. It was only after that that the feeling subsided. We should be convicted when we do not spend time with our God.

Something is wrong when Christians can vote for killing innocent babies and fight for rights that are an abomination to God because it is the right of their affiliate political party.

We chose to side with man and offend God because of politics, race, ethnicity, or anything else.

You know something is wrong when a Christian can sit through an hour and a half of nasty, dirty movies without even the slightest bit of uneasiness, much less conviction. They can sit through movies and tv shows that use the name of their God as a cuss word and feel no way about it. Something is wrong.

I saw an interview where some guy went around and asked random people who identified as born-again believers if they had changed the kinds of movies they watched. They had no problem with watching movies with sex scenes, cussing, F-bombs, and using the name of the LORD our God as a cussword. They had no problem with none of it.

They indicated that they had no problem with it and would not change what they watched. Our hearts have grown cold. We’ve lost the discernment of the Holy Spirit. How can we be sure? When we are no longer offended by the things of the world that offend God, then we’ve lost our spiritual discernment.

But if we spend time with God. Read our bible. Make time to pray and worship. Go to church and immerse ourselves in the things of God; we will see that spark begin to light in our lives again. We’ll begin to hear the Spirit of God guiding us again.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Seek the Spirit of God.

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