Devotionals Archives

September 1, 2023August 31, 2023

Love Your Neighbor

¹⁴ When Abram heard that his relative had been taken captive, he called out the 318 trained men born in his household and went in pursuit as far as Dan. ¹⁵ During the night Abram divided his men to attack them and he routed them, pursuing them as far as Hobah, north of Damascus. ¹⁶ He recovered all the goods and brought back his relative Lot and his possessions, together with the women and the other people. ~ Genesis 14:14-16^NIV

Abram wasn’t in any danger. He was safe. His people were safe. His belongings were safe. He was flourishing. All was going well with him, but Lot had found himself taken by the enemy. See, Lot settled in a wicked land. Sodom constantly did what was evil before the eyes of the LORD, but Lot, according to 2 Peter 2:7, was righteous, and his soul, tormented by the wickedness surrounding him, became a victim of that wickedness. So, when Abram heard his nephew was taken, he gathered trained men to go with him to deliver Lot and all that was taken from him.

See, sometimes, as Christians, we go places that we really shouldn’t go. We go to places that have nothing for us. Places that only torment our souls. Places that we don’t belong. We aren’t influencing the community, but the community is affecting us. It’s spiritually attacking us. It’s spiritually oppressing us. It’s bringing us deeper and deeper into spiritual bondage that sometimes we aren’t even aware of.

When Abram, his uncle, saw this happen, he didn’t say Lot should’ve known better than to stay there. He didn’t say Lot got himself into this mess so he can get himself out of this mess. No. Abram not only went after Lot to rescue him Abram got 318 men that he knew were well-trained and that he trusted to help him rescue his nephew.

This is how we should be today. We need to be so prayed up, so in tune with the Spirit of God, that when He tells us someone we love has been spiritually captured by the enemy, we’ll go after them. We’ll do anything it takes to get them, and all the enemy took back from the enemy. We have to be willing to admit that this isn’t something we can do alone, so we reach out for help. Not help from people who don’t know how to spiritually fight but trained seasoned warriors of God. People who have spiritually trained for battle with the enemy through continuous praying, fasting, and worship.

Oftentimes, it’s easier to just say, “They should’ve known better,” and move on, but this isn’t the will of God. We all fall at some point in time. We all make mistakes. We all go places that we shouldn’t go. And when we do, wouldn’t you want someone to come to your rescue? Jesus said to treat others how you want to be treated. Solomon said cast your bread upon the water, and it will return to you in many days. How we treat others and judge others will be how we are treated and judged. Therefore, always act from a place of love, for the entire Law is founded on loving God and loving your neighbor.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Love Your Neighbor.

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A Pleasing Aroma

⁷ Aaron must burn fragrant incense on the altar every morning when he tends the lamps. ⁸ He must burn incense again when he lights the lamps at twilight so incense will burn regularly before the Lord for the generations to come. ~ Exodus 30:7-8^NIV

Throughout his letters to the different churches, Paul references fragrant offerings and pleasing aromas to God. Except, in these cases, he’s not talking about burning physical incense but spiritual incense. How do we do that? Paul explains that we achieve this through our actions.

One instance in particular, Paul says that we are to love others in the same way Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us. This one caught my eye because this isn’t an easy task Paul is calling us to. It’s a difficult task when we really put it into perspective. See, Jesus took verbal abuse and accusations constantly by the very ones He came to save. He didn’t just condemn them to Hell and turn His back on them, though He’d be justified if He had. Instead, Jesus loved them. He taught them. He answered their questions and accusations with wisdom from His Heavenly Father and Holy Spirit. Even while on the cross, having just been beaten almost to death and now being mocked and berated, Jesus still chose love by praying for their forgiveness.

I want you to remember that while on earth, Jesus was still God but didn’t use that to His advantage (Philippians 2:5-8). So, He had to fight the fleshly desire to return evil with evil (Hebrews 4:15). Because Jesus overcame His earthly desires, we can overcome them as well when we go through Him (John 16:33, Romans 8:37, Philippians 4:13).

See, every act of love is a sacrifice to God because you have to crucify your flesh in order to succeed. You have to deny your own feelings, emotions, and pain in order to truly love people. Why? Because people aren’t perfect. We make mistakes. We lash out. We ridicule and mock. Hurt people, hurt people. And we’re all hurt in some form or another. But through Jesus, we can overcome evil with good.

From morning to morning and from night to night, let go of any hurt or pain you have from someone in your past doing you wrong. Let it go as it happens. Don’t hold on to it. Let a pleasing aroma of love be sacrificed on the altar of incense before the LORD, burning always through your actions of love. Because the more we love, the more God can use us. Therefore, let Him use you to be a pleasing aroma to the world. To be a light in this here present darkness. For they will know us by our love.

Dear Heavenly Father, help me to be a pleasing aroma to You. Help me to let go of the past and the hurts and pains of yesterday so that I might walk in love. So that I might be a reflection of You to the world. Help me not to be held down and tormented within my own soul by another’s actions. Help me to only be affected by You and Your love towards me, for I am perfected in Your perfect love. Please fill me with Your peace and cleanse me from all unrighteousness. Help me to follow You all the days of my life. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Focus On Your Call

¹ At that time, Judah left his brothers and went down to stay with a man of Adullam named Hirah. ~ Genesis 38:1^NIV

Judah’s envy of his brother Joseph led him to sin against him. It was Judah who convinced his brothers to sell him into slavery. Now, after seeing the effect it had on his father, he left his brothers and went to stay with a friend in another city. See, envy will lead us to do evil and wicked things. It’ll convince us to sin against another person at all costs in order to achieve whatever it is saying that person has that we want. The problem is that you’ll never be happy. Joseph was gone, yet Judah wasn’t loved by his father more. In fact, he was loved by his father even less. He refused to be comforted. He went into a deep depression that no one could rescue him from. Now that envy had taken so much from him, it quieted and made room for shame to enter and take what was left of him. His family.

Just as Joseph wasn’t with his father all of those years, neither was Judah. Judah stayed in Chezib until his children were grown and could have children. He most likely never left until he had to because of the severity of the famine. That which he took from Joseph was also taken from him. He reaped what he sowed almost immediately. This wasn’t the outcome that he expected.

Envy will lie and deceive and egg you on all in order to convince you to ruin yourself by trying to ruin someone else. God has called each one of us to a specific purpose. We’re all loved and treasured by Him. Your call on your life isn’t the same as someone else’s call on their life. If Judah knew that the Messiah, God Himself, would one day come through His line, I highly doubt that he would’ve been so envious of Joseph being his father’s favorite. We never know what God has in store for us, so we have to be careful not to focus on others. We have to simply focus on our own call from God.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Focus On Your Call.

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Do Hard Things

¹² The two men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, ¹³ because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the Lord against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.” ¹⁴ So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the Lord is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking. ~ Genesis 19:12-14^NIV

When you constantly dwell amongst wickedness, wickedness slowly finds a way into your life. Lot was a righteous man, yet he chose two unrighteous men to marry his two daughters. They weren’t upstanding men of God. They were amongst the men banging on Lot’s door in order to rape the two angels that came in human form to destroy the city.

Today, we are no different. We are like Lot, living in a wicked and evil world. Sin is everywhere, from porn being passed as adult entertainment to demonic symbolism, teachings, and plots being passed as children’s entertainment. Everything around us is saturated in debauchery and idolatry. Yet, we must live in the world but not be a part of the world.

We have to raise our children knowing the difference between right and wrong. Good and Evil. Sin and righteousness. We have to raise them up in the way they should go so that when they are old, they may not stray from it. We have to make sure that we aren’t allowing the world to influence them but the things of God. That we aren’t bringing in and introducing wickedness into their lives because of convenience or lack of understanding. We have to make sure that we are immersed in the Word of God so that we can influence the world around us and not the other way around.

Lot could have sent to get good, righteous men for his daughters, like Abraham did with Isaac. Instead, Lot’s daughters were betrothed to men who were a part of the wickedness that drenched Sodom. Never allow convenience and ease to influence your discernment of right and wrong. The right thing to do is usually never the easy thing to do, but it is always the only way to please God. Therefore, you must pick up your cross and follow Jesus in every aspect of your life, lest you be influenced by the world and miss out on eternity with Him.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Do Hard Things.

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Bring All To The Light

¹³And no creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. ~ Hebrews 4:13

We’re only deceiving ourselves to think that we can get away with our secret vices, and thus, we make it worse for ourselves. Why? Because when no one knows, no one can help. When no one knows, no one can point us in the right direction. When no one knows, no one can help fix our aim to get us back on target again.

You see, if two walk together, they can help each other. If two walk together, they encourage each other. If two walk together, they watch out for each other. If two walk together, they can keep each other accountable. But the one who walks alone is left to his or her own devices. We are to be our brother’s keeper. And believe me, we all need our brother’s keeper.

But instead, we hide, we lie, and we deceive to keep our secret sins hidden. We even condemn those who are doing publicly what we are doing privately, but there is no difference between the two.

We call them out and demand that they repent to our own deception. Like the idiom from the poem by Sir Walter Scott says, “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” Why? Because the God who judges does not slumber nor does He sleep, but He keeps an accurate account and record of all that is done and all that is said.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Bring All To The Light.

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A Root of Unanswered Prayers

⁸The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. ⁹He will not always chide, nor will He keep His anger forever. ¹⁰He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. ¹¹For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him; ¹²as far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us. ¹³As a father shows compassion to His children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear Him. ¹⁴For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust. ~ Psalms 103:8-14

This Psalm states that the LORD is a merciful and gracious God, abounding in steadfast love. He is not willing that any should perish, so much so that He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities, but has great compassion for us.

He wants us to all come to repentance and forsake our sins, and leave off our iniquities, not keep them hidden as secret sins. If we do that and keep our sins hidden, how can we find forgiveness? Not only that, but it could cause us not to be heard by God.

Ever wonder why your prayers are not being answered in a timely manner? The short answer is possible secret sins. How did I come to this conclusion? The Psalmist is saying that if he saw iniquity in his own heart and did nothing about it, it would hinder his prayers, but because he did not do that, he cleared his conscience before God, and therefore, God listened to his prayer and answered him. And that is true of all of us.

Maybe, we don’t see more of our prayers answered because of secret sins. Maybe the answer is we have cherished iniquity in our own hearts. In other words, we have entertained sins that we should be casting out and building up strongholds we should be tearing down. We are to do what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 10:5, “…take every thought captive to obey Christ.”

Dear LORD, please help me to tear down every stronghold. Help me to remove every secret sin from my life. Help me to remain in Your love. Teach me to overcome evil with good. Strengthen me to cast down every evil and wicked thought that enters my mind. Teach me to walk in Your ways and cling to Your Word. Help me to run the race set before me with great endurance so that I might finish strong. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Be Not Offended By Jesus

¹⁵ Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. ¹⁶ You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? ¹⁷ So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. ¹⁸ A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. ¹⁹ Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰ Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. ~ Matthew 7:15-20

In today’s Church, we’re afraid to say anything that may offend someone. I was recently at a Church where the pastor from the platform was explaining his childhood. Specifically, the legalism of the Oneness Holiness Pentecostal Church he got saved in and the dead catholic church he grew up in. There was really no critiquing of the churches. Simply that, one was legalistic and the other dead. He then quickly defended himself with, ‘There’s good people in both churches. I’m not trying to critique anyone. I just want to tell you my experience.’

Why has the Church become like this? Why are we so afraid to offend people by speaking Truth? Sin isn’t to be tolerated. It’s not to be overlooked. Its feelings aren’t to be taken care of. It’s to be called out. It’s to be corrected. There’s not a time when we should try to protect the feelings of sin by quieting the Truth. No. Jesus said blessed are those who are not offended by Him. Jesus is Truth. We can’t quiet the Truth in order to make sin feel more comfortable.

We’re the body of Christ. The Temple of the Living God. Sin should never be comfortable around us. Sin should never feel safe around us. In the Spirit should be a big sign that reads “No Safe Zone Here” right over our heads. That’s what we should drive for. God’s Spirit should be so strong within us that sin flees from our presence because it’s afraid to be in the presence of God shining through us.

Dear LORD, please shine through me. Help me to remove all sorts of fear from me. Fill me with Your Holy Spirit so that I might be a mighty vessel for You to use for Your Kingdom. Fill me with a Spirit of Discernment so that I might discern between right and wrong. My thoughts and Your thoughts. Darkness and Light. Teach me Your ways and fill me with strength and courage. In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen.

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See The Poison

⁶ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. ~ Genesis 3:6

Something we don’t often talk about in the Church is how inviting the darkness is. We talk about how evil it is. We talk about how deceitful it is, but we don’t really talk about the why. Why is the darkness so deceitful? It’s not because it’s simply calling good evil and evil good. That’s not very deceiving unless you know how, when, where, and who to call evil good and good evil to.

See, we often talk about Satan in the Church as our defeated enemy, that’s a toothless lion. Someone that’s kind of stupid and dumb. When actuality, he’s quite smart and crafty. See, Satan doesn’t just attack to attack. He’s patient, and his timing is impeccable. He’ll wait for the perfect time when his prey is in the perfect storm to attack.

See, darkness is so deceitful because Satan uses our weaknesses to his advantage. He knows our weaknesses, oftentimes, better than we do ourselves. He doesn’t tempt us out of left field. No, he uses things that he knows will be tricky. Things he knows will cause us to take that second look.

This is why we have to remain on guard. Our enemy is still in this war. He’s still fighting us day and night. He’s still luring us in with forbidden fruit at just the right time. He’s still testing our pride of life, lust of the flesh, and lust of the eyes. So what do we do? We get on our knees, and we pray. We put our flesh into submission by fasting. We seek the face of God with all that is within us so that when we are tempted with that forbidden fruit, we’ll see straight through to the poison within and refuse to bite.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and See The Poison.

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A Thankful Heart

²⁹ When you sacrifice a thank offering to the Lord, sacrifice it in such a way that it will be accepted on your behalf. ~ Leviticus 22:29

It is said that the LORD loves a cheerful giver. During the season of Thanksgiving, it’s easier to remember to be thankful for what we have, but when the season of Thanksgiving has passed, it gets harder. The problem is that if we’re only thankful during that one week, then the LORD won’t be too happy with us. Our thanksgiving is like bringing an offering to God. And in return, our God will bless us. Why? Because our sacrifice of thanksgiving brings joy to the LORD. Just as we feel more obligated to bless a thankful person, so does God.

Even our bodies react differently to our own thanksgiving. We begin to see the world differently. Our hearts become softer. Our love begins to grow. Our hope begins to grow. To be thankful isn’t just for God or others; it’s also for us.

Thank you, LORD, for all You’ve given me. Thank you for Your many blessings. Help me to always be grateful in all situations. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Cry Out Until You Receive

²⁹ As Jesus and His disciples were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed Him. ³⁰ Two blind men were sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was going by, they shouted, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!” ³¹ The crowd rebuked them and told them to be quiet, but they shouted all the louder, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!” ~ Matthew 20:29-31

During the time of Jesus, the people tried to silence those who cried out to Jesus. They didn’t feel they were worthy of Jesus healing them. They didn’t see their worth. Today’s crowd is even more selfish, for they don’t even want Jesus to come into their city. But the two blind men were not intimidated nor discouraged. They shouted even louder, and Jesus heard them and granted them their heart’s desire. If they had caved under the abusive words of the crowd or decided to wait for a more opportune time, they would have missed their miracle.

Don’t wait, don’t be intimidated, don’t hesitate, and DO NOT BE DENIED; Jesus is passing by; this is your day and your miracle. Just reach out and touch Him, and your life will never be the same.

LORD, turn Your ear to my cry of faith today. Tough my heart, mind, soul, spirit, and body. Grant liberation to me as I cry out to You. Deliver me from all of my bondage and sin. Restore my mind and cleanse me of all evil thoughts and desires. Come to my rescue and help me to become worthy of Your love. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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