Devotions Trust in God- 7/29/21

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I actually got sleep! Wow, who’d have thought it was possible?

Why is it so hard to fully trust God? Just a few months ago I got to experience a lot of amazing stuff that God had done for my life. And yet during times around then I would be filled with a lot of fear kind of like Peter taking his eyes off of Jesus while crossing the ocean.

We might go through a lot in our lives but one thing we must not forget is that there is no reason to not trust in God. He is good and is not out to harm you (“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’” declares the LORD, “’plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11).

My strength is so weak I need God and to be more like Christ every day. And to also trust Him to guide me and forget what is in my life currently is not what I should only “see” or expect.

Sigh, there seems to be so much chaos in my life. The one things driving me forward is that He knows my heart so I shouldn’t fear often as so much is Satan dividing and turning things (or trying to) his way. But the prince of lies is not the victor here. The one who conquers hearts and lifts ones up in help and saving is Jesus. He will be the victory!

Psalms 118 is such a wonderful chapter. It praises God constantly and speaks of how eternal His love is. It also is kind of what I just spoke about. Read below:

The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me? Psalms 118:6

Man can only take me out. God is there to deliver me. I should only trust in God who will help me through whatever craziness in is my life right now that the evil one is shaking up.

Maybe you are going through a lot right now. Did you know God can help you right where you are and change you? He is the one who guides my life and has saved me through the blood of Jesus Christ.

It might seem hard to but to trust in Christ is like a huge burden is gone from your life. You no longer feel like you have the weight of life on your shoulders, it is like a light burden has taken its place. I will leave you with one more bible verse:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. Proverbs 3:5

To trust in the Lord is not some mere “belief.” It is something that drives the very soul. It starts with a relationship, one where the God of love is waiting for you to accept the gift He has waiting for you.

To get that gift you need to know that we all have sin. You have sin and cannot go to heaven by your own effort.

The bible says the “Wages of sin is death” (from Romans 6:23) that means that one who lives by their own effort cannot enter heaven but to die a second death and go to hell.

But there is hope! That is that Jesus Christ died for all the sin of the world. He also took your sin and died in your place so that you might not go to hell. And He rose again giving us the hope that He is coming again one day.

All God wants is to have a relationship with you because He loves you so much. Will you learn to trust in Him?

Pray something like this:

God, I don’t know what is going on with my life right now. I don’t know what to do. I need you God. I know that I cannot have life one day with you in heaven because of my sin. But I have heard that You sent Your son Jesus to die in my place so that no person who knows You may die without You. I want that gift of eternal life and so I trust You in my life today. Thank You for hearing me. Amen.

I have one tidbit for you friend. Want to know the whole verse? While people use the first part of the verse the rest goes like this. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

If you prayed that prayer leave a comment because I want to pray for you in your life with Him. May you experience first hand the “Trust” that is worth it. Amen.

Devotion Strength of Heart and Portion- 7/23/21

God has us in His Will totally and fully. We might not feel He is here at times or struggle in life to the point we feel we don’t know if we are “worthy” as believers but He is there. Always.

It is through His Son that He saved us and we trust in Him for our day to day lives.

We must not think only of the worries of our lives but remember that He is there with us and will help us through everything we are going through. He gives us strength and joy and peace.

He is also praiseworthy. Check out this verse:

My flesh and my heart fail; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalms 73:26 NKJV

We might become so weak in our sin but He is there. We must depend on Him always but to follow Him is much more that that!

I looked up what the bible meant by the writer saying God is his “portion.” It is mentioned not just here but a few other times as well.

Here is what it said:

the writer means that God is the source of his happiness and blessing content with all that the Lord is and provides. partial source: http://www.gotquestions.org Answer to question: “What does it mean to say that God is my portion?”

So the writer’s portion means that God is all that the writer needs and is his joy and happiness. We must reflect that!

Though our hearts get distracted and our flesh leads us to sin we must depend on Him for all of our happiness.

His goodness, His holiness is the way to live. Sure we can have hobbies and even do things that involve passing the time (just to follow God doesn’t mean we must stay in all Christian things at all times) we can do all for the glory of God.

I pray dear reader you continue to or will follow the Lord with all your heart. To be in His love means to have a special one on one time, a spiritual intimacy with God in the relationship.

I’m learning more and more to be like Christ because my heart fails me if I’m not. My flesh does not lead to anything good or to be worth doing.

To be content on what God has given me should be enough. My flesh provides nothing. God amazes me and I am humbled Jesus has guided me all this time. Amen!

God is my portion and He leads me toward His way which is only to be glorified endlessly in this life.

Thank you reader I hope that you are blessed by this.

Devotion 1 John 7/16/21

The angel has as of this moment shown up at least six times now. Time to write that group of blog notes soon. Was so encouraging, thank you Lord!

Anyone else getting sick of their sin? (Raises hand) Hello!

It is not just a humbling thing, it makes me think of what Paul has said about it too.

Romans 7:19 sums up well just how frustrating and seemingly hopeless sin feels. It says: For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.

It paints a picture of things we might do and over time we will hate it and avoid it though we seem to lose the battle to sins.

I already shared my own sin problem in an earlier month. I had shared about it being one of my biggest regrets in life.

But believe it or not, this is something that can be overcome with the help of the Lord!

We need to realize just what our hearts if we focus on things we shouldn’t are seen to God.

He doesn’t like it. It offends Him! Maybe that will help us to feel convicted about things that we do that we are better off without.

But have hope that Jesus paid for that sin already, long ago. Isn’t that also a great reason to walk away?

We must come to the “cross” in prayer, confess what we did and also ask God to revive our life to Him.

We should praise God that because of the cross and that Jesus died for our sins and rose again showing power even over death we should no longer have those sins in our lives anymore..!

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I John 1:9 NKJV

To be forgiven by God through Jesus is such a wonderful relief. And to live for His sake is a reason to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit until the day Christ returns. Amen.

Devotions About Mercy 7/14/21

We should almost grieve about our sins. Because God’s love is deep we don’t have to do the things from our old habits.

God’s love is deeper than what we can mostly imagine. We might have the humanistic approach and think that God can only do what we can ask forgiveness for, as if it was our power in the first place.

But God’s love is limitless. It is grand! It is beyond what we know. Read the bible and within all the countless stories you also can somehow find His mercy that was shown.

He gave lands freedom to glorify and worship Him, the peoples grieved about how bad they were and yet there is within that mercy that revealed!

He gave all sinners chance to turn away and repent and believe.

It is amazing just how much He can do. God’s love was first shown to all of us as we believed by just knowing His life He gave up on the cross through Jesus and after He rose we see His impact living in our hearts now. Amen!

We can also forgive others for their faults and mistakes towards us because not just it is a commandment but God can do great things in us that lead us to know to forgive.

It can be reflection from other believers showing mercy towards us, to help restore friendships that have been torn from selfish or other reasons, and maybe to know that we have been given great strength after we have forgiven during past times.

What a relief it is to forgive!

Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Luke 6:36

But we must also search our own hearts and see what we might have in our hearts that needs removing.

Are we seeing right now a potential in our lives to be moved and living within His Will? What can we take out of our lives that might be harmful to our lives and others?

The people of Israel during Nehemiah’s life early on went to seek God. They realized as a group just how bad they were and basically cried out to God, grieved about their sin.

God responded but it needed a small group to help them understand what the scriptures were then and to respond so that God would be glorified.

Nevertheless in Your great mercy You did not utterly consume them nor forsake them; For You are God, gracious and merciful. Nehemiah 9:31

Have you ever been hurt by your past so you cried out to God? Did you realize just how deep His mercy flows like water in your heart? I hope that every day you ask for forgiveness so that you can live life for real like a servant bound to choose to serve Christ.

If you ever have now lived a life worthy of a follower of God may we not forget the mercy we have been shown so we can be merciful and share His grace to others. Praise the Lord!

Devotions Be Love 7/13/21

I am so humbled by this. The miracle I hinted at happening four times before? Happened again just yesterday. Praise God.

What can a Christian do besides witness, bring people to church, pray, and maybe (just maybe, haha) read the bible?

As believers whether Gentiles (that is most of us. I’m a part of that group) or ones who were from the nationality of Judaism to realize that Christ exists for real, the bible describes a lot of times that we must be showing love to one another (and the world around us).

To be love to each other in John 15:12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” 1 John 4:16 “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”

I wanted to share three verses but looked up these ones. They will be mentioned.

We might learn that in the bible the greatest commandment is love. God is love! We should base all things we do if we want to draw people to church or to listen the word on love.

Because:

Let all that you do be done with love. 1 Corinthians 16:14

We must be like Christ, one who will show others love no matter what. We must honor Him in all things that we do also.

In 1 Corinthians 13, it talks a lot about love as well. It seems like a love chapter, haha. Here’s the next important verse I found:

(Love) bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13:7

It mentions the subject (what this article here is about) in the beginning and then also in verse 4 preceding this verse. I had to add context since it was not in the verse itself.

So if love endures all things, what might that say about our lives? Being love isn’t easy. Also in fact, doing acts for love is not what we might think either. If we have to be tough on say a brother that is not living right in the Lord, that won’t feel like love. If we confront someone about their sin, that is not going to be like “easy” love.

Sometimes we feel like we are tested when showing this love. But in all things God does good though it is difficult in circumstances.

Yet through it all He loves all of us in many ways. If we follow Him fully He will encourage us to show that He loves us. It is amazing just how sweet it is to follow Him in our hearts as passionately as possible!

And we can always be glorified in this life by His love and becoming more and more like Him every day.

We can also never say we love Christ or God more than He does us. As the word says:

We love Him because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19

He loved us first. We were loved before we were born. God’s love is amazing, and if you follow Him with all your heart you will see that love in your life, through living in the spirit, and for the people who you care about!

God loves you.

Devotion- 7/3/21

Doing well. Physically I still need to get stuff worked out but…

To believe in the One who has changed you brings amazing changes. Just like to know a friend and you might have certain qualities. Over time, those qualities are like mutual changes: you become like them, they become like you.

But this is a completely different kind of relationship: You change for the better and God stays the same. But you have every moment to be newer to be “better” than you were before.

And this “Friend” just wants the best for you.

The opening verse is from Romans, possibly my favorite writer in the bible:

Do not be conformed to this world… but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Romans 12:2

From ‘whichever version I use.’ No one could guess it, haha. Just kidding it’s from the NKJV, the New King James Version.

Note that I separated it a little. That was not a separation in the text but it is important.

We must not be like the people in this world. There are people so stuck in sin they might need someone to talk to at the very least, while this world it is hard sometimes to even fake interest!

There are many though in the opposite spectrum who do care, but is there anyone who can tell them just what changed their lives? More importantly is there a Godly Person who has completely turned them around, or might they equate their experience in life as “I just changed my attitude…” and that’s the end of their personal story?

I hate being stuck in my own sin. It’s no fun. I shared that before, how I was feeling like I was being dragged through my old life and it would not let me go..!

I don’t want anyone to not know there is a love in something that will be like the shackles of sin have been removed and a love moves the heart and will change their life in a way that they couldn’t have imagined!

Because by the grace of Jesus I was shown there was a life that was worth living for my own self.

We must also know that His yoke is easy His burden is light:

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ‘For my yoke is easy and My burden is light.'” Matthew 11:28-30

Jesus had amazing words to share to the people He loved dearly who He wanted them just to have a close relationship with His Father.

He guided them and knew that what the Father wanted was what He grew up learning about and He knew they needed for their persnal lives too.

We need to remember that His way is perfect (Psalms 18:30). We must shine like stars in the sky (Philippians 2:15) if we want to really live for goodness. Sure if you “fall” there is mercy to speak to Christ and be picked back up, there is such wondrous grace in Jesus that it is worth telling in this awful disease-spotlighted world.

How worth it is to tell of this wonderful transforming grace? It’s worth everything!

Devotion 2 Corinthians and Faith 7/1/21

This site has now reached 50 followers (or “follows”) now. Thank you so much everyone!

What does it mean to have faith? Is it okay to have a faith in some higher power or is it okay to have faith in yourself? Can a person who is a Christian who hopes to only live alone be in great faith in the Lord?

Can God make a way where a believer is a completely different person from what they were before, through Christ?

Hmm, I think most of these are great questions. One reflects more of the world in wondering but if you yourself are a believer you may know that there is a difference (hopefully).

Here is the key verse for today:

For we walk by faith not by sight.

II Corinthians 5:7 NKJV

What does this mean?

Is there an “I” in faith? Yes literally, haha, but in a rather expressive sense, the only thing a believer should do is depend on the Lord and not in self.

It might be hard but even those who claim to be strong (or who say they might be stronger than others) will have this “I” attitude. Even saying that only caring about what God wants and not giving a crap about being with other believers is like having an “I” attitude.

I myself used to think that the church wasn’t important to me. There was a time I thought a church was just a “place” to go to not a body of believers. But it is a time to fellowship to lean on each other and help each other be lifted up emotionally, depending on each other through the love of Jesus.

It’s sad many Christians today now see themselves important over people they should share the gospel to, a strange newer attitude like an “I” one where own goals own drawing from the word is the only thing they think that they themselves should focus on in life.

Though we have the tendency to focus on ourselves, one should not come into a church and think that way. People who do that will probably come in, not talk to people and leave as soon as the “credits” roll, err I mean, when the service has ended.

Are we to act like we are in a movie theater or a body of ones who have learned to be love to one another?

We must have genuine love and also through a unified faith in Christ, we can help guide each other in God-honoring love that is deeper than the world would ever understand.

Also we must know that if we want to live in and for Christ, God can do amazing things in our lives!

I can only boast of the power of and transforming grace of Jesus because He has done things in my life that were not my effort, these in my old life would be impossible.

To keep faith in Jesus and be close to His Word as one walks day to day they will experience change.

And that is because of something that is what Paul mentions later in Second Corinthians about being “new” because of Christ’s blood and revealed love, to be changed by His grace.

In verse 17 of chapter 5, the writer describes being a new creation. It says that if one is in Christ they are a “new creation” and the “old things” have gone as behold by the power of God all things have become new!

When Christ died on the cross the sin of the world was being paid for as He was the lamb of God the sacrifice for all sin.

When Jesus shed His blood it was for the alcoholics, ones with the heart of Saul, people recklessly and hopelessly stuck in sin, people who don’t know any better than what their family taught them, the thieves, the liars, the ones who struggle every day yet feel their sin is not “savable” or can be loved by God, all of the world’s so-called “life,” torn apart by the awful stink of sin.

So if you have wondered what the faith is all about, I hope you one day will know and experience this life yourself.

One can only tell you what the life in Christ is because you would one day have to believe to really understand. It will not be an easy journey but it will be worth it. I sincerely hope you do have it happen in your life, today or maybe soon but all I know is God knows the way your heart really is, believe in something! Maybe you’ll learn to believe in God sooner or later, just don’t let it be too late!