Daily Devotional 07-17-2022
Gen 15:1 CSB After these events, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield; your reward will be very great. After Abram’s rescue of Lot and blessing from Melchizedek, the Lord formally made a covenant with Abram, thereby confirming the promise given earlier. God warned, however, that there would be a long period of enslavement. Before God made the covenant, He set aside Abram’s fear and doubt by a word of assurance: Do not be afraid. I am your Shield. When the Lord promised Abram that his reward would be great, the patriarch immediately asked what he would receive since he was childless. This shows his faith. Abram still had only one hope, the original promise God had given.
Daily Devotional 12-11-2021
Psa 89:3-4 CSB The LORD said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one; I have sworn an oath to David my servant: (4) ‘I will establish your offspring forever and build up your throne for all generations.’” Selah Faith reverently reminds God of the covenant He had made with David. Because David was His chosen servant, He had sworn that he would never lack heirs to sit on his throne and that his kingdom would endure to all generations. An unbroken dynasty sitting on an everlasting throne!
Daily Devotional 11-27-2021
Isa 54:5-6 Indeed, your husband is your Maker—his name is the LORD of Armies—and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of the whole earth. (6) For the LORD has called you, like a wife deserted and wounded in spirit, a wife of one’s youth when she is rejected,” says your God. The Lord will regather Israel the way a man would take back his wife. The nation need have no fear of disgrace, for she will no longer be desolate and helpless like a widow. God, like a husband, will take back Israel, His wife. He is the Lord Almighty… the Holy One of Israel, her Redeemer, and in His uniqueness He is the God of all the earth, that is, its Creator and Sustainer. The Lord had deserted His people for a brief moment. Though not stated here, Isaiah had given the…
Daily Devotional 11-26-2021
Heb 10:28-29 Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. (29) How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? Under the Old Covenant, if an Israelite spurned the Mosaic Law and at least two or three witnesses verified his actions, he was put to death. This being true, the author then argued from the lesser to the greater. If defiance of an inferior covenant could bring such retribution, what about defiance of the New Covenant which, as he had made clear, is far superior? The answer can only be that the punishment would be substantially greater in such a case. In order to show that…
Daily Devotional 9-27-2021
1Jn 4:19 We love because he first loved us. The only reason we love at all is because He first loved us. The Ten Commandments require that a man should love his God and neighbor, but the law could not produce this love. How then could God obtain this love which His righteousness required? He solved the problem by sending His Son to die for us. Such wonderful love draws out our hearts to Him in return. We say, “You have bled and died for me; from now on I will live for You.”
Daily Devotional 9-13-2021
Deu 7:6 For you are a holy people belonging to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be his own possession out of all the peoples on the face of the earth. The basis for the command to destroy the Canaanites lay in God’s election of Israel. The word translated chosen means “to be chosen for a task or a vocation.” God had selected Israel as His means of sanctifying the earth. Thus, they were holy (set apart for God’s special use) and were His treasured possession. Since the Canaanites were polluting the earth, and since they might endanger Israel’s complete subordination to the will of the Lord, they either had to repent or be eliminated. And as stated, for 400 years they had refused to repent.
Daily Devotional 09-08-2021
Rom 15:13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. The description of God as the God of hope relates to hope in to the promises of God recorded in the Scripture which give hope. Paul desired God to fill his readers with all joy and peace. Joy relates to the delight of anticipation in seeing one’s hopes fulfilled. Peace results from the assurance that God will fulfill those hopes. These are experienced as believers trust in Him. As a result, believers overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. The achievement of all God’s purposes for the spiritual welfare of His children comes from the power given by the Spirit of God.
Daily Devotional 8-27-2021
Isa 62:5 For as a young man marries a young woman, so your sons will marry you; and as a groom rejoices over his bride, so your God will rejoice over you. The city’s new relationship with God is compared to the happiness of a marriage. Rather than being called Deserted or Desolate, previous characteristics of the city, Jerusalem will be named Hephzibah (“My delight is in her”) and Beulah (“Married one”). The words so will your sons marry you (Jerusalem) imply that people again will live in Jerusalem and God will be happy about the wonderful state of affairs