Tag: Devotionals

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A Mother’s Love Corrects

24 Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him. ~ Proverbs 13:24

A mother corrects and disciplines her children. Mothers, you cannot see your children in blatant error and say nothing. You cannot accept something your child has done when you know it is against the law of God.

There is no such thing as God understands when it comes to breaking His laws. You must correct it, even if you yourself were guilty of the same error in your younger days. That is not who you are now, hopefully. We are talking about eternity here. Correct your children.

When you love someone, you correct them so that they are saved from trouble.

13 Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. 14 If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.

Proverbs 23:13–14

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Fear of the Unknown

14 For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this? ~ Esther 4:14

Sometimes the road that God puts us on looks daunting and impossible. We often look at ourselves from the way the world sees us instead of the way God sees us. David was just a shepherd boy, but God saw a mighty king. Moses was just a man with a speech problem, yet God saw a bold Man of God leading His people. The reason God’s plan for our lives seems so impossible or unrealistic, is because we’re looking at it based on our own strength. Based on our own wisdom.

God’s plan isn’t for us to just do little things but to do great things through us, and many of us miss our opportunities because of fear. Because we don’t feel good enough. But here’s the thing, we don’t have to be good enough because God is enough. We’re not fulfilling our own call based on our own strength and power; we’re fulfilling our own call based on God’s strength and power in us.

Here’s the rough part, if we don’t fulfill our call, God will send someone else to do it. When Moses didn’t want to speak for God, God sent Aaron to speak on His behalf instead of Moses. When Esther was given the chance to save her people from destruction, her uncle, Mordecai, warned if she didn’t do it, someone else would. We miss every single hit we don’t swing at. We can’t allow the fear of the unknown to keep us from doing great and mighty things for God because if we do, He’ll just raise up someone else to do it, and we would’ve missed our blessing.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Fulfill Your Call With God.

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Make a Choice

9 If anyone turns a deaf ear to my instruction, even their prayers are detestable. ~ Proverbs 28:9NIV

When we don’t listen and obey the Word of God, we become detestable to God. Even our prayers are detestable to Him. Why? Because when we don’t live according to God’s instruction, then we are living according to sin. And if we are living according to sin, then we are slaves to sin. And if we are slaves to sin, then sin is our god.

We can’t serve both God and sin. We have to choose. Life and death are set before each of us. How we live our lives will determine which one we choose. God is a jealous God; we can’t sleep with the enemy every day and then pray and act holy on Sunday. We have to make a choice.

What if you’ve made the wrong choice? God is a jealous God, but He is also a loving and merciful God. Therefore, if you repent, God will forgive you. You don’t have to clean yourself off. He will clean you like only He can do.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Make a Choice.

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Remember the Persecuted Church

32 But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, 33 sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. 34 For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. ~ Hebrews 10:32-34ESV

The writer said, not only do you remember the joy you had after Salvation, but the compassion you had on those in prison. Here in the free world, it’s easy to forget that there’s persecution and torture that the underground Church is going through today. It’s easy to turn a blind eye to them because we don’t see them. Pastors don’t really highlight them. We’ve got our own stuff going on right here right now, nevertheless, how can we turn our eyes away from our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ?

We are called to love one another and pray for one another, yet oftentimes we don’t pray for the strength of God to fill the body of Christ. We don’t pray for the strength of the Church in the free world. And since we don’t have physical persecution here in the free world, we need to be willing to partner with those who are being persecuted and who are suffering for the name.

There are 100’s of thousands, maybe millions of Christians around the world, who suffer beatings, torture, killings, and even being an outcast in their families. All they ask is for us to pray for them and send them the tools they need to win souls: Bibles, bicycles, and Gospel literature. Let’s partner with our persecuted brothers and sisters and make a difference in their lives and communities.

Heavenly Father, we lift up our brothers and sisters who suffer daily for your name. They pay the ultimate price for being your witness. We pray for their safety and that they will have great success. Watch over the families whose husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, daughters, and sons are imprisoned for preaching the Gospel. In Jesus’ name, we pray, amen.

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Remember the Former Days

32 But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, 33 sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. 34 For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. ~ Hebrews 10:32-34ESV

The writer said, remember when you first got saved, how happy and joyful you were. You were even willing to suffer insult for His name. That’s where we Christians today need to get back to. We need to get to the place where Jesus is the most important person/thing in our life so that He takes priority. So, that when we’re attacked for our faith, we don’t get offended and angry at our persecutors or God, but instead we rejoice and praise God that we were counted worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus.

Persecution of the Church is already happening all over the eastern world, and it will soon be all throughout the free world, here in the west, as well. We have to spiritually prepare ourselves so that we won’t be angry or fall away when persecution comes, but instead, we will rejoice and hold on to our faith so that we will hold on to the hope of eternity with our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ.

Heavenly Father, help us to hold to Your promises. Fill us with Your everlasting love that we may love those who hate us and pray for those who persecute us. Fill us with Your Holy Spirit that we might be strengthened for the time of persecution coming. Teach us how to be as the first Church was. In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen.

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Move For God

14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. ~ 2 Chronicles 7:14

Oftentimes, we expect God to move for us, but we don’t want to move for Him. We can’t expect God to hear and answer our prayers if we don’t spend time with Him, or we live in sin. We have to have a relationship with God, if we expect Him to move on our behalf. We can’t go weeks without spending time with Him, and then when something goes wrong expect Him to fix it.

But, if we humble ourselves, pray, seek Him, and turn from our sin, then He will forgive us and answer our prayers. God doesn’t move unless we move first.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Move For God.

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Don’t Return To Your Vomit

22b The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire. ~ 2 Peter 2:22

Peter compares returning to our sin as a dog returning to its vomit and a sow (female pig) returning to mire (muck). If this is what returning to sin is like, why do we do it? Could it be because we’ve allowed ourselves to be deceived? According to Paul (2 Corinthians 11:14), Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore we can assume that he disguises sin as well.

See, we often get caught up in the things of this world, and we stop spending time with God. We stop reading our Bible, praying, worshiping, etc. We become spiritually blind to the tactics of the enemy. Even though Jesus has just purged us of our sin, when Satan comes around with our vomit (past sins) in a new dish, we gorge ourselves because of our spiritual blindness.

We have to stay spiritually alert so that we won’t give any opportunity to the Devil. We have to spend time with Jesus every day, lest we fall away and return to our filth He cleansed us from.

LORD God, please open our eyes that we may be spiritually awake, testing and discerning the spirits around us. Give us wisdom that we might see sin for what it truly is. Guide us, LORD God, as we run this race set before us. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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All Are Special In His Sight

15 And He said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved,” ~ Mark 16:15-16b

Before Jesus ascended into Heaven, He sent His disciples into all the world to proclaim the gospel. He didn’t exclude anyone. He didn’t tell them to avoid any areas or peoples. Jesus sent His disciples to all of the world. To the whole creation.

God doesn’t cherry-pick humans. Instead, He calls us all to Himself. He gives each of us the opportunity to choose Him. To choose life. Because no matter where we’re from. No matter what we’ve done wrong, God will always want us. As a potter reworks His broken clay in His hands, God molds us into a new creation.

LORD God, please soften my heart to You. Help me to feel Your gentle tug on my heart. Help me to forgive myself as You have forgiven me. Help me to see that I am special in Your eyes. Help me to see my worth, oh God. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Stoke The Flame

5 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. 6 And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. 7 Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. ~ Deuteronomy 6:5-7NLT

God said we are to constantly talk about the things of God. The Romans picked up on that with their proverb “repetitio mater studiorum,” or “repetition is the mother of all learning.” We have to keep God at our center so that He can be our anchor in the storm. When our minds are constantly on other things, the fire within us dwindles. God isn’t going to stoke the fire for us. It’s our job to keep that fire in us burning through prayer, reading our bibles, worship, fasting, meditating on His Word, and discussing the Scripture.

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. We can’t understand everything on our own; otherwise, we’d be the entire body of Christ. It takes discussion and learning from each other to grow. Iron sharpens iron.

I’m not saying you can’t enjoy talking about something other than the Bible, but we can’t let the secular stomp out the spiritual. Our heart and our mind should always be set on God so that we won’t stumble. So that our fire won’t dwindle.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Stoke The Flame.

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Ignite Your Faith

17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. ~ Romans 10:17

So many of us in the Church today lack one of the most important foundational blocks, faith. We no longer operate in faith. When we try for a goal, we expect failure, and we defend this by calling ourselves a realist. But is that what we are? Realists? Or are we really just doubters? What’s happened to the Church? Why are we filled with so much doubt and so little faith?

In today’s world, we have so many different distracters fighting our attention. It’s hard to find time for God. It’s especially hard to find time to read our Bibles. Most of us make time to pray at least once a day (our bedtime prayer), but we don’t make time to read our Bibles. Why? Why is it so hard to bring ourselves to read the Word of God?

I believe it’s because the enemy knows that faith comes through the Word of God, so he does everything he can to stop us from reading our Bibles because he knows that without faith, no amount of prayer matters. We are in an ongoing war for our souls. We have to fight. We can’t allow ourselves to become so spiritually drained that we don’t even realize that we’ve fallen asleep. As Christians, we have to make the conscientious decision every day to make time for God to speak to us through His Word.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Ignite Your Faith.

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