Strength in the Lord- 7/31/21

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To “seek His face always” is good advice. I must do that!

Where does strength greater than us come from? Isn’t it too easy to only seek the Lord after certain things?

I know that I have done that time and time again. Too often I don’t think of talking to Him at nearly all times, it seems only after I fail do I seek Him in many cases.

It is good to look to Him afterwards but shouldn’t we seek Him always with all our hearts?

After all He has done so much for us and impacted our lives in amazing ways we should have a commune with Him and talk to Him in prayer and listen to what He wants for us by reading His word.

He wants us to draw strength from Him so that He can impact our lives.

He wants us to look to Him so that He is glorified should we need to stand up for Him or share the gospel so that more come to be family in Christ. But we mustn’t forget that to live for Him is no once a week thing, we must be like Christ 24/7, always and in Him at all times. Like I’ve said before that doesn’t mean we should give up every day hobbies like drawing or writing (just examples) but we must be tapped in to His glory to reflect the servant of Jesus.

We must remember what the Lord is for us and also to know who He is.

The LORD is my strength and my shield: my heart trusts in him and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him. Psalm 28:7

What praiseworthy statements! To be defended by Him to trust Him and be helped by Him. May we remember the joy He gives and praise Him.

The Lord Jesus is worthy to be praised always, no matter how the circumstances turn out in life.

I had something disappointing happen in my life recently but I pray that I not walk away from Him concerning it or be tempted to fall back on things.

Sometimes we think we are sure of a “future.” And then those things don’t seem to pan out.

But I trust in Jesus to guide me in the way of everlasting though things seem unsure or like I don’t know what could happen either way.

I remember the things I used to do about this kind of thing. I’d feel lost and then fall into depression.

Yet I don’t see to do that now. I can only pray for the person and not do things that are immature and seek Him more instead. I don’t know what that is right now in a way but I will look to His will.

But I must seek His face, how often?:

Look to the Lord and His strength; seek His face always. 1 Chronicles 16:11

We should seek His face always! “Always?”

You mean we shouldn’t look to Jesus only after we sin?

We must do our most for God with what time we have left because He is worth it.

Not because He gives us strength but because He is Lord of Lords. Ones we should worship and live for because we are meant to do so.

Strength is nothing when it is not dependent on God. Let’s live our lives in the only way God wants so that we can be blessed and see our lives the way He really sees us. Amen.

Note: I re-edited this to keep from being too personal in a certain way to avoid being unfair talking about another person who might not be able to defend themselves. I write this in love and hoping no one could feel hurt by this.

Devotions Life like Light 7/9/21

Had a nice dream last night. At least that was good, haha. Seemed to do something to do with me being a servant of God.

Sometimes the hardest things to do are the very things that go against our nature, the things we are used to doing!

To live for goodness that is in God through His Son Jesus is like a struggle with our sin. At least I have many times felt this way, where we know now what we had done before was wrong but it just seems too tempting to not give in to it again.

Even if we avoid what we were once used to doing though we still sin! There is something about our nature since the fall of Adam that which we still have the sinner’s life but in the case of following Jesus we just won’t do the old stuff it seems anymore.

And that is a blessing to live in the holy Spirit of the Father. But life in Christ will also involve leading others towards the life of Christ.

And some of those things involve forgiving people who have done wrong to you.

Yes it is tough but it seems that though it is something we won’t want to do in our stubbornness while happening to be in the walk in Christ, it is an action we must do!

In the last part of Luke 6:37 it says “Forgive and you will be forgiven.”

While that verse mentions many things involved in the ones who want to follow God (I hope to reference this in more depth some other time hopefully!) I want to focus on this part.

It seems with people I know it is a huge carnal idea to not forgive.

People don’t like it. I used to struggle with it, especially with people I apparently thought were not as good as myself, which was wrong. “But they did that to me, why should I forgive them..?!”

But forgiveness is something God wants us to do. Maybe one day those people will see the change in us and want to follow Christ. Would you want to see people you think might never know the Lord to one day do that? That is my hope too!

Proverbs 3 also describes something that reflects something we must not do though we could be used to the latter: To trust in what we may not “see.”

Proverbs 3:5 states: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding”

That means putting complete and total trust in what we might not notice or see. We must trust and depend on what He wants us to do. Not only that, we must be sensitive to the holy spirit.

We must as we live and have fun in life think of what in our hearts is what we should do for Him. We must be “in tune” to God’s will and seek what He would want over what we might expect in life, say working endlessly to one day get a huge house and be extremely rich.

Do you follow God? I hope to live well but I don’t know or want to imagine having a ton of money like upper-class rich people. I bet I would do nothing but worry about how much I have every week for the rest of my life, haha!

Nope, I don’t think I’d want that. My opinion though.

It’s okay if you one day live well. But if you want to follow the Lord are you giving things and taking time for others to be a servant for Christ? Do you care about who you know over how much is left in your accounts at the bank?

Live for His goodness.

We must also tell of Christ and His impact in our lives. Proverbs continues on with a second sentence closely linked to the first by a semicolon. Proverbs 3:6:

In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.

So should we credit Him for the amazing things that have happened in our lives? Do you have an amazing story that only Jesus could have done within it all in your life?

We should acknowledge Him as He will be known and glorified and we will continue to seek out His will as others want to find out what this life is all about.

We need Christ to direct our way through life, otherwise there are some very bad ways, directions to go.

Jesus also told His first followers about the important aspects of life for God, His Father.

Jesus (told) his followers that they will be the ones to carry his light forth into the dark places of the world and the human heart. Source: connectusfund.org

(Sorry, I do a lot of internet searching. Usually though it’s not a full piece of the source, hope this one is part of something good!)

This is describing context to what Jesus was doing when He shared this which was told in the book of Matthew:

You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Matthew 5:14

Do you see your life in all of these aspects of following Christ? You might not want to do all of this stuff right away but know that God does life-changing things in people who simply follow His commands.

And He will bless our lives in ways we might never see coming! All because of grace and living in tune to God’s will through His Son. Amen.

Devotions A Quick One- 6/18/21

It’s easy to lean on the old self, by going back to ways one is used to and also feeling like there is no other “way” Psalm 73:26. But that would not be right in the Lord! Though the flesh is weak Paul has said in the New Testament that we should not be like our old selves just because we can be forgiven; we should always seek His wisdom before thinking the ways that were once “normal” to us. Since that way was paid by Christ’s blood, we have no reason to keep following that way.

Sinning by, for example, “looking” at things that aren’t right is not right in the eyes of the Lord. Which is why we must trust fully and totally in something that has been living in us all this time but also follow and trust He will guide us through all things as well. To follow the Lord and see him as the defense and strength to our lives brings so many great things to our lives including the joy to be strong but in His power and also to be able to carry on (Psalm 28:7).

We also must remember just what He has done in our lives, stop thinking of ourselves, and pray for others and help them. To actually care wholeheartedly is easy to claim we do but it might not be something one actually does. It is easy to say that one cares but then only pursue one’s own personal goals. But if you’ve seen miracles in your personal life or have heard the amazing things other people have gone through we should have the hope to be like nurses or people who deeply and genuinely care. Be like Christ but think of what He does where He “heals” and helps tend to “wounds” for others which He is. He is compassionate (Psalm 147:3). So of all these things, what can we do for Him….?