Daily Devotional 10-10-2021
Deu 32:46-47 he said to them, “Take to heart all these words I am giving as a warning to you today, so that you may command your children to follow all the words of this law carefully. (47) For they are not meaningless words to you but they are your life, and by them you will live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.” After reciting all the words of the song, Moses told the people to consider seriously (take to heart) the words of the song. If they would meditate on the certainty and severity of the judgment that the Lord would send on them for their apostasy, the Song of Moses could serve as a powerful deterrent to future rebellion. The threat of the Lord’s retributive justice was given for their spiritual health. A healthy fear of the judgment set forth in the song…
Daily Devotional 10-8-2021
Jas 1:19 My dear brothers and sisters, understand this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger, Another element of effective communication is to listen carefully to what others are saying. Knowing this is not our nature. Good listening is particularly important for a peacemaker. It improves your ability to understand others, it shows that you realize you do not have all the answers, and it tells the other person that you value his or her thoughts and opinions. Even if you cannot agree with everything others say or do, your willingness to listen demonstrates respect and shows that you are trying to understand their perspective. This can help create an atmosphere of mutual respect that will improve communication. With God’s help you can develop listening skills.
Daily Devotional 10-8-2021
Col 3:12 Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, When we need to talk with others about their faults, we should ask for God’s help to resist our tendency to hammer people into submission by dwelling on their failures. Of course, we sometimes need to show them where they have sinned and fallen short of God’s ways. But that should not be the primary focus of our words, because judgment inevitably discourages. With God’s help we can instead offer hope by drawing attention to the wonderful news that God has forgiven our sins through Christ and is eager to help us change our ways.
Daily Devotional 10-7-2021
Jas 4:2-3 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. (3) When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. The sad fact is that there are wars and fights among Christians. To suggest that this paragraph does not apply to believers is unrealistic, and it robs the passage of all its value for us. What causes all this fighting? It arises from the strong desires within us which are constantly struggling to be satisfied. There is the lust to accumulate material possessions. There is the drive for prestige. There is the craving for pleasure, for the gratification of bodily appetites. These powerful forces are at work within us. We are…
Daily Devotional 10-6-2021
Joh 16:21-22 When a woman is in labor, she has pain because her time has come. But when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the suffering because of the joy that a person has been born into the world. (22) So you also have sorrow now. But I will see you again. Your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy from you. Jesus illustrated the truth of pain replaced by joy by the pain of childbirth followed by the joy of new life when a child is born. The disciples were entering the process of pain (your time of grief), but the light of joy was just ahead. When they saw Him after His resurrection, their joy erupted – joy that will never end since He died to sin once but now lives forever.
Daily Devotional 10-5-2021
Exo 34:6 The LORD passed in front of him and proclaimed: The LORD—the LORD is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, The words merciful and gracious convey the idea of “overwhelmingly gracious.” long-suffering: The idea of the Hebrew idiom is that God is very slow to anger. In our idiom, we would say He has “a very long fuse.” The Hebrew word for goodness means “loyal love”; the word for truth means “faithfulness,” “truth,” and “constancy.”
Daily Devotional 10-4-2021
Psa 37:4 Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you your heart’s desires. But suppose you have had great desires to carry on a certain ministry for the Lord. You feel confident that He has been leading you, and your only desire is to glorify Him. Yet a powerful adversary has opposed, blocked, and thwarted you at every bend in the road. What do you do in a case like this? The answer is that you delight yourself also in the LORD, knowing that in His own time He shall give you the desires of your heart. It is not necessary for you to fight back. “The battle is not yours, but God’s. “The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace”.
Daily Devotional 10-3-2021
Isa 64:4 From ancient times no one has heard, no one has listened to, no eye has seen any God except you who acts on behalf of the one who waits for him. The remnant implores God to rend the heavens and come down in fury on His adversaries. They recall previous interventions of God, unique manifestations of the only true God who acts for the one who waits for Him. They remember that God shows favor to those who delight in practical righteousness, but they have incurred His anger by their long-continued sins, and wonder if there is any hope for people like them to be saved.
Daily Devotional 10-2-2021
2Co 10:8 For if I boast a little too much about our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for tearing you down, I will not be put to shame. As an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul had been given authority in connection with the churches he established. The aim of this authority was to build up the saints in their most holy faith. The false teachers, on the other hand, were exercising an authority among the Corinthians which they had never received from the Lord. Not only so, but they were exercising this authority in a manner to tear down the saints rather than build them up. So Paul says that even if he boasted more abundantly in the authority, which the Lord gave him, he would not be put to shame for it. His claims would eventually prove to be true.
Daily Devotional 10-1-2021
2Co 9:8 And God is able to make every grace overflow to you, so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work. Ultimately Christians can dispense only what they have received, whether material or spiritual. The good work is done through God’s enabling. Regardless of how desperate one’s circumstances, a person who wants to give can do so in dependence on God. Once again Paul sounded the note that man’s inability, by contrast, showcases God’s work. This verse is full of words indicating inclusiveness in God’s enabling: all grace… in all things at all times, having all that you need… in every good work.