Tag Archive for: Devotional

Thank you!

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I thank my God every time I remember you. (Philippians 1:3)

I want to take a moment to be honest with you today.  The truth is I don’t feel like writing a devotional.  I feel very worn out emotionally.  On Monday, I watched my brother swear into the Army.  I have been thinking about him ever since.  I watched my little brother become a man on Monday and it’s really been weighing on my heart.  The decision he made changed his life.

In fact, I came home through the Atlanta airport on Tuesday and I saw a man dressed in an Army uniform.  My eyes immediately started to water, as I thought about my brother at his first day of training.  I have to say I will never look at another soldier in the same way again.  Now I look at soldiers and see the face of my brother.  The face of someone’s son, the face of someone’s spouse, the face of someone’s father or mother, and so much more.  Read more

iWill

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Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. (Matthew 5:6)

Today we live in a society that’s all about gratifying the individual.  It’s an “all about me” world.  The world is teaching us to look out for number one and these days number one is not God.  Number one has become me.  One look at the company Apple and we can see how much we have bought into this little idea.  Have you heard of the iPhone, iTouch, and iPad.  These are just a few of the products Apple has to offer.  I’m not saying the products in and of themselves are bad.  (In fact, we own a couple.)  I just want us to look at the name.  Every name starts with “I”.

It’s important that we understand the attitude of this world and that we learn to overcome it.  In fact, Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount to help us see what our lives should like.  There is nothing in there that talks about what this world can do for me.  A lot of it does have to do with me, but it begins with me changing.  It begins with me embracing the Truth of God and allowing it to shape me.  It begins with me saying, “Okay, even if I want to shake the other person and help them understand that they can’t do certain things…  I can’t!  I can only work on me!”

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Too Big for your Britches

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One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. (Luke 6:12)

This is another opportunity for us to stop and examine how Jesus handled big decisions.  We see here in this passage of Scripture that Jesus stopped to pray and that He prayed all night long.  What could be so important that He had to pray all night long?  What was He seeking God’s guidance on?  Well, the passage of Scripture goes on to say that Jesus chose His twelve disciples on the following morning, from a larger group.  I would say that was a very big decision.

I enjoy reading this passage of Scripture because it once again reminds me that Jesus was human.  He needed God’s guidance just like I do.  He went to God to seek the direction on who should be the twelve disciples that would follow Him for the next three years.  Jesus never made a decision without prayer.  He always went to God.  He showed us how important it is to seek God on every major decision.

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Immediate Reaction

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Hold on to instruction, do not let it go; guard it well, for it is your life. (Proverbs 4:13)

From the looks of it, instruction must be very important and we must hold on to it very tightly.  God has called us to guard instruction well because it’s our life line.  The Hebrew word for instruction is discipline.  We are to be disciplined in the things of Christ and to walk in His ways.  Let’s look at four people who were called to follow the Lord’s instruction.  The most important thing I want you to see is their response.  Let’s see if we can follow in their footsteps with a response of readiness!

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Steps of Wisdom

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By wisdom the Lord laid the earth’s foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place; by his knowledge the deeps were divided, and the clouds let drop the dew. (Proverbs 3:19-20)

I absolutely love this above passage.  It portrays a depth of God that we will never fully comprehend.  It’s saying that God used wisdom to lay the foundations of the earth.  He did not merely lay them down.  He didn’t just say let the water be here and the grass here and the sky here and oh while I’m at it, let me create some animals and maybe some human beings.  No, he thought through what He was doing.  He knew beforehand every single tree He would create, every animal, every fish of the sea, every fruit, every thing that we see, God took time to think through His creation.  It wasn’t happenstance!  God cared so much about us before we were even here that He took His time placing what we would enjoy on this earth.  That’s truly amazing!  I’ll never be able to comprehend that!  Especially when I tend to take it for granted more often than not.

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