Daily Devotional 10-20-2021
Mat 6:9 “Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy. Matt 6:9-13 we have what is generally called ”The Lord’s Prayer.” In using this title, however, we should remember that Jesus never prayed it Himself. It was given to His disciples as a model after which they could pattern their prayers. It was not given as the exact words they were to use, because many words repeated by rote memory can become empty phrases. Our Father in heaven. Prayer should be addressed to God the Father in acknowledgment of His sovereignty over the universe. Hallowed be Your name. We should begin our prayers with worship, ascribing praise and honor to Him who is so worthy of it.
Daily Devotional 10-19-2021
Exo 31:3 I have filled him with God’s Spirit, with wisdom, understanding, and ability in every craft God appointed gifted artisans, Bezalel and Aholiab, to construct the tabernacle and all its furniture. They supervised other workers in this holy task. The repetition of “I” in this paragraph shows that with the divine command there is divine enablement. The Lord appoints His workers, endows them with ability and talent, and gives them a work to do for His glory. The work is all the Lord’s, but He accomplishes it through human instrumentality, then rewards His agents.
Daily Devotional 10-18-2021
1Co 1:30 It is from him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom from God for us—our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, This verse emphasizes even further that all we are and have comes from Him—not from philosophy, and that there is therefore no room for human glory. First of all, Christ became for us wisdom. He is the wisdom of God, the One whom God’s wisdom chose as the way of salvation. When we have Him we have a positional wisdom that guarantees our full salvation. Secondly, He is our righteousness. Through faith in Him we are reckoned righteous by a holy God. Thirdly, He is our sanctification. In ourselves we have nothing in the way of personal holiness, but in Him we are positionally sanctified, and by His power we are transformed from one degree of sanctification to another. Finally, He is our redemption, and this doubtless…
Eph 1:4 For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him. This is what is commonly known as election. Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. Notice first the positive fact of election in the words, He chose us. Then there is the positional aspect of the truth, in Him: it is in the Person and work of the Lord Jesus that all God’s purposes for His people are brought to pass. The time of God’s election is indicated by the expression, before the foundation of the world. And the purpose is that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. This purpose will not be completely realized until we are with Him in heaven, but the…
Daily Devotional 10-16-2021
Eph 3:16 I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit, According to the riches of His glory, Paul is going to ask that the saints might be spiritually strengthened. But to what extent? In abundance, consonant to the riches of His glory; not “according to” the narrowness of our hearts. There is a difference between the expressions “out of the riches” and “according to the riches”. A wealthy person might give a trifling amount; it would be out of his riches, but not in proportion to them! Paul asks that God will give strength according to the riches of His perfections. Since the Lord is infinitely rich in glory, let the saints get ready for a deluge! Why should we ask so little of so great a King? When someone asked a…
Daily Devotional 10-15-2021
Rom 15:2-4 Each one of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. (3) For even Christ did not please himself. On the contrary, as it is written, The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me. (4) For whatever was written in the past was written for our instruction, so that we may have hope through endurance and through the encouragement from the Scriptures. Here the principle is this: don’t live to please self. Live to please your neighbor, to do him good, to build him up. This is the Christian approach. This is the example the Lord Jesus Christ left. Even He did not please Himself. He came “to do the will” of the Father who sent Him and to please Him. To support this statement Paul quoted a part of a verse from a messianic psalm. Christ was insulted by…
Daily Devotional 10-14-2021
2Co 1:20 For every one of God’s promises is “Yes” in him. Therefore, through him we also say “Amen” to the glory of God. All the promises of God, no matter how many they are, find their fulfillment in Christ. All who find in Him the fulfillment of God’s promises add their Amen. Open our Bibles at a promise, we look up to God, and God says, “You can have all that through Christ.” Trusting Christ, we say, “Amen” to God. God speaks through Christ, and we believe in Christ; Christ reaches down and faith stretches up, and every promise of God is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. In and through Him we appropriate and take them to ourselves and say, “Yes, Lord; I trust You.” This is the believing yes. All of this is to the glory of God through us. He is glorified when it dawns on human souls…
Daily Devotional 10-13-2021
Col 1:21-22 Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds expressed in your evil actions. (22) But now he has reconciled you by his physical body through his death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him— Reconciliation is necessary because people are alienated (“cut off, estranged”) from life and God. Before conversion the Colossian believers also were enemies or hostile to God in their minds as well as in their behavior, internally and externally. Sin begins in the heart and manifests itself in overt deeds. It pleased the Father by Him (Christ) to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross. In other words, it was not only the Godhead’s good pleasure that all fullness should dwell in Christ, but also that Christ should reconcile all things to Himself. From this, we can see that the expression of God’s Glory in…
Daily Devotional 10-12-2021
Eph 4:17-18 Therefore, I say this and testify in the Lord: You should no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their thoughts. (18) They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them and because of the hardness of their hearts. The Ephesian believers who were Gentiles were not to walk as the Gentiles do, or as implied, as they had once walked. Gentiles walked in the futility of their thinking. The word for “futility” suggests being void of useful aim or goal. Unbelieving Gentiles failed to attain the true purpose of the mind, namely, to receive God’s revelation which would guide them in their conduct. Since their minds could not receive God’s revelation, their understanding was darkened, being separated from the life of God. Their alienation is because of their ignorance of God; and this…
Daily Devotional 10-11-2021
Psa 119:43-45 Never take the word of truth from my mouth, for I hope in your judgments. (44) I will always obey your instruction, forever and ever. (45) I will walk freely in an open place because I study your precepts. May we never be afraid or ashamed to speak the word of truth. If we have hoped in God’s ordinances, He will provide continuing opportunities to witness for Him. Our response to His love and grace should be an inflexible resolve to keep His Word as long as we live. “How can I do less than give Him my best and live for Him completely after all He’s done for me?” Those who are set free by the Son of God are free indeed. The world thinks of the Christian life as a system of bondage. But those who seek His precepts are the ones who enjoy perfect liberty.