Daily Devotional 3-10-2022
Mat 6:24 CSB “No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. The impossibility of living for God and for money is stated here in terms of masters and slaves. No one can serve two masters. One will inevitably take precedence in his loyalty and obedience. So it is with God and mammon. They present rival claims and a choice must be made. Either we must put God first and reject the rule of materialism or we must live for temporal things and refuse God’s claim on our lives.
Daily Devotional 11-04-2021
Heb 4:16 Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need. Now the gracious invitation is extended: draw near with confidence to the throne of grace. Our confidence is based on the knowledge that He died to save us and that He lives to keep us. We are assured of a hearty welcome because He has told us to come. The people in OT days could not draw near to Him. Only the high priest could approach Him, and then only on one day of the year. We can go into His presence at any time of the day or night and obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. His mercy covers the things we should not have done, and His grace empowers us to do what we should…
Daily Devotional 10-28-21
Rom 6:12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. The attitude of mind that a believer has died to sin must be translated into action in his experience. Paul commanded, Therefore do not let sin reign as it did before salvation. The present imperative negative can also be translated, “Stop letting sin reign.” When sin reigns in people’s lives and bodies, they obey its evil desires. Sin enslaves, making a person subject to his own desires. Here, in the case of sin, the desires are evil. In your mortal body means that sin manifests itself through one’s physical actions in this body. The Greek here stresses that the body is mortal or dying. Perhaps this suggests the foolishness of giving in to the desires of a body that is transitory and decaying. To give in to a dying master is…
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 10-11-2021
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.
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 10-1-2021
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.
Daily Devotional 9-20-2021
Psa 42:11 Why, my soul, are you so dejected? Why are you in such turmoil? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise him, my Savior and my God. But faith always has the last word. Don’t be discouraged. Don’t be unsettled. Hope in God; you will be delivered from your enemies and from your depression as well. And you’ll praise Him once again as your Savior and your God. As someone has said: The remedy—challenge depression, look up, hope. The Christian life is alertness, upward striving, activity, the running of a race. It is never downcast eyes, folded hands and the acceptance of defeat.
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 9-1-2021
1Pe 5:6-7 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time, (7) casting all your cares on him, because he cares about you. Knowing God’s attitude should cause Christians not only to be subject to others but also to subject themselves deliberately to God’s sovereign rule. The command humble yourselves could be translated “allow yourselves to be humbled.” Those who were suffering persecution for Christ’s sake could be encouraged by the fact that the same mighty hand that let them suffer would one day lift them up. Christ sustains because He cares. A Christian’s confidence rests in the fact that Christ is genuinely concerned for his welfare.