Tag Archives: love

Pride- Quick Quip- 3/26/24

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Photo by Matthias Zomer on Pexels.com

Hello. I actually was hospitalized recently. Had not had that happen again in a long while!

Pride I feel is the deadliest of all sins. Might even be more than the fellow ones with this considered those deeply evil sins. It affects politics, public events, movies, television, newspapers, daily life especially ones who feel that they “know it all.”

It affects people who say they are atheist. Ask a non-believer “When did you stop believing in God?” and there is a chance they might tell you. And a lot of times that thought is “If God is so loving He wouldn’t–” fill in the blank. They still believe but they want to turn from Him.

An atheist a lot of times is like a father and child. The child being the subject here.

As this person they might be mad at something they know is wrong and told so and turn away from their dad. They might even be upset that what they need to do is different from what they want to do! And in all of this, they could become prideful and want to hurt the father who has nothing but love for them and say, “I have no father.”

Pride does more than just make a person think they have no father. It forsakes the heart, makes self-intelligence more important than truth from the word the Bible. It makes people believers who should iron and iron each other shaping each other for the truth and the one person in the supposed discussion says “Well this is true to me. That’s all I have to say.” Then the talking is over. The End.

I believe it can make a person go to a church, think they are a real believer, then be so sure that they would die for the truth. Then they pass away and they end up in the trial of the White Throne judgment.

Because “all they did” was claim that their truth that they were demanding was the real truth!

Sad quip but true.

Devotion II Thessalonians- 8/6/21

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To think of God’s faithfulness is amazing. To think He is perfect, He is apart from evil, and He brings people into His world in heaven from His son Jesus Christ is amazing. He could have not given us the chance at eternal life to live for Him and to spend with Him in heaven which we would have deserved because of our sin but He still wanted us with Him.

He is faithful to His word in letting an ultimate “lamb of God” come to earth one without blemish to die for our sin which we could have died and been a part of God’s wrath. He then put that wrath on His Son, His only Son, to die and go in our place!

I can’t fathom what God the Father would dwell on when He looked at His son and saw the world’s sin and turned away. He was seen as sin to God because every sin was laid on Him.

He bled and then died taking our punishment and rose again, bodily and is one day coming again!

To think He has done so much in people’s lives in the bible and in our lives as well, how great is God’s faithfulness!

I keep falling short of Him. I must realize though also because I keep depending on my strength that even if I am faithful it is God’s glory I should depend on because I still can’t make things “right” with Him. I still have sin no matter what I do but I can sin less because there are things I can avoid as I know what is right and wrong.

I must remember what He has taught me up to this point in my life and to resist the devil’s plans which is to avoid living for God.

But the Lord is faithful, who will establish you and guard you from the evil one. II Thessalonians 3:3

I should use my body as a living sacrifice to God.

To have my body to be to serve Him totally and fully. And treat it like it is an instrument of “righteousness” to God like when Paul encouraged the people He wrote to which we find in Romans 6:13.

I miss the intimacy that I used to have with relationship to God and I want to return to that because it is what He desires of all of us, to be close to Him.

God may we all see how awesome it is to live for You. Thank You Lord for Your faithfulness and may we be established in Your will and keep guard so You can keep us from the evil one Satan. Amen.

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

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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.

Devotions Strength- 7/19/21

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Thank You Lord for Your mercies every day

To have strength, what could that mean when it comes to the bible?

Does it mean “we’ve got this” in every situation?

Or does it mean we have to draw strength and show that He is in control of our lives?

It is unreal how prideful we can be. To boast about self or to treat living for God including “I” in the statement like Moses thinking that he and God were equal is a dangerous attitude to have in life!

We are weak without and with God. To credit self in the equation is like giving partial credit to God’s glory but all great things that have happened in our lives is ALL God’s glory, it’s not us. As in it is not in us alone. Think of your sin, then think of God. We need God in order to be glorified. It is God changing us, we don’t factor in what makes God great!

He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak Isaiah 40:29

He increases our endurance, our love when we feel like hating, our joy when things get tougher, He is what gives us the strength though we are weak!

To be weary, what does that mean though?

“Weary” means- being exhausted in strength, endurance, vigor, or freshness. Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary website (quoted online)

That is not like just working out all day and being tired. That means living out God’s will and then after a long time coming home and feeling like you can’t move anymore. Being so worn out that you feel spiritually exhausted too!

We must never give up hope. Whether we have not really lived for Christ or we feel worn out and discouraged we must not be afraid in life and live it out.

I believe God blesses so much things we do for Him. He wants us to be servants and witnesses as we have been saved, cleansed, and changed by the blood of Christ. To live after realizing Christ died for us and our old selves were on that cross, we must know how He then sees us.

We must be strong in Him. And be strong in Him and by nothing else and not to claim we were strong in our own strength by us.

God is the strength of my heart Psalms 73:26

In Him there is glory. We have nothing without Him. Thank You Lord for Your strength, Amen.

Devotion 1 John 7/16/21

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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.

Devotion Hebrews-7/15/21

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Had a restful night last night. What a relief to actually get sleep! I have an off day with work today; I guess not being stressed about having to do so much the next day helps…

Why do we always desire more? We might have a place to live, a family and/or neighbors that may care about us, things that we already own. And yet it seems like it’s not enough!

When people make a lot of money it seems to be a response to the life of a sinner: they will be happy with just a little more. To “make more money” seems to be the person’s life dream!

We should be glad of what blessings God already has for us though. Believe me, I know what it is like to keep wanting extra in life. But the ones being encouraged in the book of Hebrews are reminded of what one has can be enough:

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5 NIV

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see.” Those were the words of the author of the Book of Hebrews. The temptation was strong amongst the Jews that they keep their faith, that they hold on to the traditions and rituals of their fathers. .. Source: owlcation.com Quote excerpt from search engine

Mainly I learned that it wasn’t exactly they were trying to keep up with tradition, there was more to that (I kind of feel like I put up a not so reliable source above)!

The main parts of this book of the bible from the New Testament was to state the supremacy of Christ and also to persevere even in tough times (like persecution).

That again would be going on a tangent (maybe I will cover this book entirely sometime!) so I will end with these thoughts.

Living a life in general means you will have aimless goals and might even be very successful. Living a life for God might entail a lot of roads to travel and try out before knowing what really is important.

But what we must realize is to be content. Why? Because God gave us the things we have. To desire “more” as in a lot more may take our eyes off of our goals for God. We have to stay focused and keep our hearts untainted by greed to see what God truly has for us!

Devotions About Mercy 7/14/21

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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!

Quick Quip- Freedom from Love 7/11/21

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Have to do a quick one. Think of this as a part devotion, part something I wnat to explore more in the future…!

If we are free from the punishment of sin we are free to do His will and live for Him. We are also free to love each other in Christ’s love. As a church body works, we have much to do on our own but we must also love each other:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

In my version of 1 Corinthians 13:4-5 it says in the last part love “thinks no evil.”

God loves us so much we are no longer accountable to our sin, which means we won’t get what we once deserved for it (hell). But that does not mean we are free to dabble in what we once were saved from. That is a dangerous thought!

It’s treachery to the Holy Spirit and there are always consequences to sin, especially if we are doing it recklessly or without thinking it as a big deal.

That is why we must stay focused on what Jesus wants in our lives. Here’s a final verse:

“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” Galatians 5:13

We must serve one another not get stuck in reckless sin. We must love and not guide each other towards evil and make each other fall.

We must keep our eyes on the One to guide us. The Holy Spirit and His word will let us know what we should do! This is freedom directly from the love of Jesus. By His death we live so let’s spend time helping and showing kindness towards one another as a group of believers.

We should do what we’re made to do (or do what we should be called to do if we have become a new creation!).

Devotions Light- 6/30/21

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I’m almost groaning as much as the other time. Rebelliousness is awful. God, may I remember what You’ve taught me because I cannot “live” in any other way…!

Do you prefer to live in seeming darkness? Have you ever been afraid of your deeds to be exposed by the “light?”

I know that no one likes their sin to be known to all, even if they might be proud of it. Or there at has been one time where they have this feeling of shame about it. At least one moment!

God does not like sin. He doesn’t even like anyone’s sin! He either will punish the ones who have not been redeemed or will give consequences to believers who continue to go in the way they act that they might claim they only know how.

But there is hope in the midst of people who feel they only know sin. We need a church to help guide us the right way. A real bible-believing church!

Whether we know that or not we need reassurance through fellowship and to seek His goodness.

We need to be inside of Christ’s words if we don’t read the bible. Also there is need to go out of our way to give time to Him to read His word also.

Speaking of His word:

The Lord is my light and my salvation. Psalm 27:1

Like a guiding light we should depend a little more every day on Him and also know and remember who saved us from that sin!

If we continue on in our old life, we might become seemingly hopeless. I have had such depth to my own sin I had terrible sad emotions after a while.

But if we know our strength is in the Lord then we can realize that we have hope. There is always a reason to move on and press on, even if a way through life even seems impossible!

Or maybe you haven’t learned about true life in Jesus.

From what I went through I experienced life from knowing Christ. He is real. I can only say that to you at the very least but I pray and hope that you get to experience Him too!

As we close out this time, this month that is well-known I want to share just how proud I am that Christ did so much to change me!

When I wasn’t listening to what He was telling me, I found a hope eventually that was a great comfort. And that was only by being as faithful as I could be.

In these trying times, I found a true path by looking for what else God had in store for me.

Thought the relationship didn’t work out at the time, I still prayed and tried to be faithful to Him in the midst of not knowing who God would send me.

I found that woman after waiting on the Lord. To see just how amazing living a life for Christ can be it is true we have to know that we have sin and cannot know God because of it.

We have sin. An example can be a man who has slept with alot of women. That is wrong, right?

If you think that is okay because he might be an adult it is bad because one day he will be accountable to God.

We all have sin. If we don’t know a good that can save us from it we could be lost and without Christ. And spend eternity in a place called hell.

If we have no hope from God’s Son we have no hope, no matter what the world may say!

It is a sad truth that this world has fallen to sin long ago. Adam choosing to sin was so great that the bible doesn’t even claim that Eve helped do it. It is said that Adam had a responsibility and because he instead of walking with and living for God in close intimacy he chose to eat that fruit in the garden of Eden the bible says, “sin entered the world through one man.” (part of Romans 5:12)

But surely if sin is so vast we can find a way to save ourselves right? Nope.

But God made a way because He sees something in you and wants you to know how much He loves you.

In the bible John 3:16 it says “For God so loved the world that He gave His only son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

You might not be going to heaven but God made a way so that would not be your destiny today.

God gave us Jesus not because He deserved to die but because He was perfect and without evil in his heart. He loved the Lord and we should at the very least want Him in our lives to be like Him.

He is described as the “Lamb of God” because He was without blemish (He was perfect!) and to stop sin from prevailing in the hearts of all people He had to die in their place.

Christ took the world’s sin. He perished for everyone’s sin. He also died for both your sin and mine!

He faced horrible punishment for your sin, was bled by whipping and was tortured on the cross because his blood needed to be spilled for man’s penalty.

The bible says, “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” (Hebrews 9:22)

Then Christ passed away on the cross. His dead body was laid in a tomb. But then after three days, Jesus Christ rose again!

Like a light of the world He can live on in people’s hearts who want to live for Him but first they must want a relationship with the Lord of our lives.

We might want to live on in our sin but God made a way where no one would have to.

That is why to not be in “darkness” is an awful place to dwell in so it is better to see how God sees us and experience the truth of His great love.

We don’t deserve Jesus but yet here we are, finding out about Him!

If you feel led pray this prayer:

God I found out that I can have no hope without what I thought was you. I have sin and it is sin that is undoable by my own actions. I don’t want to end up in a bad place because I heard that you really did send Your Son Jesus Christ to die for my sin. I am grateful that He paid that penalty, I am also glad that He was able to show He had power over death. I want to live a life where I can live forever in Your Son Jesus. To live a relationship I want to start living for Him. Thank you for hearing me. You are my true love in this life. Change me as I follow Your ways.

Now one more verse:

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. Isaiah 60:1

May you live for a glory that will send you on a journey of life and through love that you are amazed by. Have a blessed day reader.