Category Archives: Daily Devotions

Eyesight

Isaiah 42:18 “Hear, you deaf; And look, you blind, that you may see.

The Bible uses the word blinded many times; many times in an eternal sense of those that are headed to Hell, for their hearts and eyes have not been opened to the Gospel. The god of this world (Satan), has power over them, and he has their focus on all the world has to offer, many live their lives in prosperity by worldly means. Sadly, many of these also claim to be Christians, but will be denied the keys to heavens door when they are before Jesus, (Matthew 7:21-23), he clearly shows them that they never truly knew him in their hearts. They may have professed Him once in their lives, or even lived a life in ministry gaining great accolades for their accomplishments, but never truly understood it was never about them; the saint lives humbly, giving all glory to God.

I see the blind living before me daily; I see many close to me angry with life, I see lives in turmoil over stuff that doesn’t matter; I see a nation in turmoil with the worst leadership of my lifetime from the president down, and those coming on the heels seemingly worse. I see not only a nation, but a world racked in fear; terrorists attacking the innocent in the name of their god, but instilling fear among nations for the wolves among the sheep. I see God withdrawing his hand slightly, for Satan to wreak havoc on our world due to our sin; God is letting evil gain ground both as punishment and a clear calling for repentance, showing us all our need for a Savior. Throughout history God has done this, and he is doing it now. Now is the time to turn from sin, to repent of it, to believe in your need for a Savior, and live your life as his disciple from that moment on. God is raising up leaders, those who are bold, who are true disciples, those that will live and die for the sake of the One who did the same for them.

Are you struggling in life? Are you facing a trial of life, or a persecution, or something that you just don’t understand why it is happening? God has allowed it for many reasons. It may be for you to see your sin, to turn from sin, and to live for Him. It may be to use your life to draw glory to God as others see your faith in him. Your faith may strengthen those who have no faith. 2 Corinthians 4:7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. The greatest model of suffering in the Bible of a saint was Job; he had no idea his tumultuous life was God showing Satan how weak his power was, how great God’s power is, and how God rewards the endurance of the diligent eternally.

Are you blind; do you see the chaos of the world around you; do you recognize the sin in your life; do you feel your need for a Savior that will secure you eternal paradise with Him? This is the week that we celebrate Jesus conquering death; defeating the power of death for those who believe in his power to do that. Jesus will remove life’s struggles from you, for he places a security in the heart of his disciple that Satan cannot waiver. You will not fear death, for it has no power over you as a saint. 1 Corinthians 15:55 “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. If you are feeling the sting of sin, feeling the need to repent of it (even if you have before), confess and turn to Jesus with your whole heart. Live today with a liberty and power that only He can provide. He is wanting to use you for his work in this world for eternal reason. He is wanting to use you to call for repentance of nations, to point to the Salvation that only comes through him to all that he has prepared to hear. He is wanting to use your opened eyes to see the world as he does. He is wanting to use you to help the blind see.

Confusion & Peace

1 Corinthians 14:33 For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.

Paul is writing of keeping order
Of decency in church you see
Of understanding spiritual gifts
And how used they must be.

Of tongues and prophecy
Of interpretation or not
The usefulness of the gifts
That the blessed have begot.

When we want attention of us
To be the center of it you see
A chaos likely begins
Because we are not centered on Thee.

We want to be seen and heard
We want all to know
We have went astray
With gifts to help the church grow.

James wrote “ For where envy and self-seeking exist,
confusion and every evil thing are there.”
The power of Satan in our sin
Brings confusion everywhere.

The peace of God surpasses all understanding
The peace of God is assurance within
The peace of God is evident
The peace of God is free from sin.

The peace of God is in your heart
Sometimes for all to see
The peace of God is in your understanding
Sometimes for only you and Thee.

The decisions you struggle with
Those big ones that leave you confused
When you are clear of direction
The peace of God is used.

Prayer is the key to finding
The peace of God today
The constant pleas of the heart
Lord show me the way.

Just as Paul wrote of order
Paul sealed it with God’s peace
The confusion in your decisions
God’s calm will cause it to cease.

I don’t wanna be a Rock Star

1 Corinthians 12:4-11 There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5 There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. 6 And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. 7 But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: 8 for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.

I know only a few people who are living their lives in the center of God’s will and gift for their lives. They prayerfully seek his will each day, they seek to be used by him with a knowledge that they may be drawn to hard tasks, sometimes by worldly standards menial tasks, but they know that God has a plan for their lives. They are seeking to abide for the day, just for the day with him, and prayerfully being where he wants them. Sometimes when God begins to reveal himself in us, through us, our inner pride wants to elevation of ourselves. We may seek a little more attention, look for a leadership role, an accolade, just a pat on the back maybe for a job well done. We might in our pride distance ourselves from our gift that began in humility of the realization that God was using us. He will open our mind through our heart and remind us it is him, and not us doing any great work. It is him, and not us, that receives any glory for any good work. How many pastors began to look like gods to us? How many pastors likely start out in the center of God’s gift of teaching, and elevate themselves to rock stars only seeking to be worshipped under the false pretense of our Lord? They may unknowingly not realize the level of their pride, some many be totally drowning in it. We all can be drug away by Satan in it.

God has given you the greatest gift next to salvation by his Son, when he gives you a piece of himself to abide in you. You must at some point understand the gift of the Holy Spirit of God living inside of you; GOD living inside of you! GOD living inside of you! Jesus told his disciples that it was better for them if he were to leave them. John 16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. Can you image walking with Jesus every day, and him telling you life gets better for you when he leaves? Who is this helper that he is talking about? What could be better than Jesus in front of them? Jesus living inside of them. Jesus taking part in your inner being; your conscious, your thought life, your actions, decisions, your every day walk. Life takes on new meaning when you realize why you cannot hide anything from him; he is there all the time, even in your thought life.

As part of the gift of the Holy Spirit, comes a spiritual gift to each of us. There are all sorts of tools to help you discover what it is, but if you are wholeheartedly pursuing God, you already know what it is. You have likely seen evidence of it at work in your life. You have seen God work before you, others maybe unknowingly, but you know it was only God that did that. Take that spiritual gift and pursue it with vigor. Don’t seek any attention for yourself, just use it to draw glory to God. If he chooses to do great things through you, daily pray for a humble heart to not become a rock star. It is not about you, but all about him.

Drink & Drunk

1 Corinthians 8:4-6 Therefore concerning the eating of things offered to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but one. 5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords), 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live.

Do you really care what others think? That simple question’s answer carries immeasurable weight in our lives. You can worry so much about others opinions that we live our lives to please or impress others that truly don’t care for us. We can care so little about others opinions that we bulldoze our paths with a wake of destruction and pain behind us. There is a happy medium found biblically to those that seek to please God with their lives. We must understand that when we claim to be Christians, when those in our circle of influence view us as such, we are placed in a microscope of how we live. We are either pointing them to Jesus with our lives, or turning them away in our hypocrisy. We are all going to be judged by Jesus one day on how we lived the remainder of our lives after we claimed to know Him. God will ask us what we did with the knowledge of his Son.

Paul is writing to the brethren in Corinth, writing about how they are being viewed in their conduct, especially in their eating to idols. Paul understands how we are under the microscope as Christians. He makes it clear that the liberty that comes in Christ is not to be a stumbling block to those who do not have that knowledge of him; I love how he puts it that true love will make it clear, not pride. 1 Now concerning things offered to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. 2 And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. Those who truly understood what Jesus had accomplished, and the freedom that obtained in that faith, they knew food carried no condemnation. This however might really confuse someone watching them closely, eating something un-sacred, so why do it unless clearly explaining through love the freedom found in Christ! Look today at how clearly the Christian drinks and may get drunk with other believers or non-believers. One of today’s greatest hypocrisies just as 2000 years ago when Paul wrote this epistle. The Bible does not condemn drinking, but clearly condemns getting drunk. Ephesians 5:18 And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit. Your excuse to drink is between you and God, and yes you will answer for it before Him. He will know every time you drink, became drunk, and who in your circle of influence was effected eternally. I truly believe that someone who is abiding in Jesus Christ has no urge to drink whatsoever. The desire is gone completely, and that eliminates the need to decide the difference between drink and drunk biblically.

Repent….in love

1 Corinthians 13:1-3 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Do you love someone enough to tell them the truth? Do you love someone enough to call them out on their sin, even if you are accused on being judgmental or even condescending? Are you willing to sacrifice what others think of you, because God laid on your heart a ministry of repentance? Many times we might answer yes at first, until the deeper probing questions are asked. It may be easy for us to sit in judgement, but how will we be judged? The Bible tells us we are judged as we judge. Luke 6:37 “Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. 38 Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” There is so much depth in those words of Jesus; so much to how we treat and view others; even as kids we are taught the parable of how we are to treat others as though we wish to be treated. These words of Jesus in Luke’s gospel are probing matters of the heart.

Our minds are so wrecked with sin, judgment seems to almost be an unconscious act on our part. We walk about in public forming opinions on those we see, seemingly casting judgment without even so much as many times speaking a word. We hide our judgment, hate, racism, lust, fear, any emotion that we judge in our thoughts, but we have cast judgment. I do not know at what point this level of sin, hidden sin, is cast aside by the love of God that indwells our hearts. In my humble “opinion,” it is a work of sanctification that God does for the remainder of our lives. I can only look within myself, and confess to my own struggles, but by God’s grace he has bestowed upon me a level of love for my fellow man I did not possess before. That doesn’t mean I still think the same thoughts as you do, have the same struggles as you, and consistently repent of all the same thoughts and sins as you do. James 4:7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

God may call you like me to an uncomfortable ministry, where repentance is foundational. I know he called me to those of us that proclaim Christianity, but are headed to hell from living a lie. He called me to challenge the Christian, to ask the tough questions that nobody wants to ask. How are you living as a result of proclaiming Christ? How will you answer that question at his feet, and what will be his judgment of your life? Repent, believe, and live your life with the evidence of your decision. Go therefore and make disciples, after you have become one yourself.

Someone very special to me, sent this to me this morning. Those close to me have heard me say, “I am tired” many times recently. The level of spiritual warfare has been relentless, and life has just come at me hard. The Lord is letting me go down tough roads to do a work in me, for a reason or outcome I don’t know, or maybe would even understand. I know personally what this devotional means to me, and if you are tired also, I hope it brings you hope also. Pray, and ask those close to you to pray for you also. Many times it is hard to pray for ourselves.

Experiencing God Day by Day
Restoration from the Shepherd
Daily Devotional for Sunday, February 28th, 2016
He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake. Psalms 23:3
Your Shepherd knows your every need. He knows you will grow weary in your pilgrimage with Him. He knows there are times when you need rest. Your Shepherd knows just what you need to be refreshed. At times you need to lie in lush meadows or beside quiet streams. Sometimes you need to be held by your Shepherd. At other times you need to enjoy the pleasures the Shepherd provides. The Shepherd will not always replenish you in the same way; His response to you will always perfectly correspond to your present need.
As you follow your Shepherd there will be times when your soul becomes exhausted, perhaps because of trials you are experiencing or temptations you are resisting. The persecution you face or the burdens you are carrying for others may be wearing you down. You may be weary from the discipline the Shepherd has brought upon you. There will be times when you feel you can go no further in your Christian pilgrimage. Your Shepherd knows when you have reached this point, and He always has a remedy! There are many ways He can strengthen you: through His word, through others, or through your circumstances. He knows what you need even better than you do.
Have you grown weary? Does your soul need to be refreshed? Don’t attempt to recover on your own. Only God knows how to heal and rejuvenate a soul (Isa. 40:28-31; Matt. 11:28-30). He will do it perfectly, sometimes in surprising ways. Ask Him to restore you, and then be prepared to respond to what He does next.

Who do you tell?

1 Peter 5:6-9 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, 7 casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. 8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. 9 Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.

Who do you tell? Who do you go to with your struggles; not your cares of this world, but your deep, dark, struggles with life? Is it your spouse, your pastor, your best friend? Is there someone who truly knows your heart, not the facade that you adorn for the day? You may help others, you may even fool others, but God knows your deepest struggles with life and the anxieties and depressions of it. In the pride of my life, I shelter my deepest struggles from those closest to me. I choose not to place my weights upon their shoulders, but I cannot hide them from God. He has either designed or allowed every battle that I face; He is the only one I am open with in prayer regarding the lows of life. That is what Peter is writing here, to cast our cares upon God.

Peter is addressing leaders in the church here in his epistle; he is addressing those that carry the weights of their flock upon their shoulders. Sometimes, they would feel prideful because of their position, and their facade would harden their hearts towards God. Peter is reminding them to remain humble in all things, for God knows all things, and they should be open and cast their struggles upon the shoulders of the One who can carry them. He is reminding them of the importance of their hearts for God (be sober, be vigilant); he is telling all of us to seek him continually with our hearts, minds, body, and soul. I like the MSG translation, for it seems to address the anxieties of a mind not focused on God, but on the anxiety. 8 Keep a cool head. Stay alert. The Devil is poised to pounce, and would like nothing better than to catch you napping.

It is not of coincidence, not for a vivid picture, but an accurate portrayal of how Satan prowls like a lion as Peter writes. Lions don’t attack the strongest of the herd, they attack those weakened or distracted. That is why Peter writes, “ be prepared and pay attention.” Satan many times comes on the heels of a spiritual high, when we are distracted, prideful, and unprepared for the attack; many times it is through someone close to us. Satan preys on us when we are weak, for this is the easiest prey, for we are not prepared. We fall victim to his attacks, and he continues the assault weakening us as he drags us off God’s path. We must fight him with God’s Word! Peter did not write to flee, he commanded us to fight! How did Jesus fight when Satan tempted him? He fought with quotes from God’s Word. The fight, your ability to resist the devil is only found in your heartfelt knowledge of God’s Word. If you are unprepared to fight off an attack, who will you turn to? Who will you tell your deepest struggles to? Will you go to God? He is waiting to carry the weight of your world, your worries, for you is you will humble yourself and ask.

Let Me Show You Something Today

1 Corinthians 2:13 These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

I know I offend; I know I carry many labels spoken of me in secret among those that know me. I know my testimony before Christ may weaken their faith in Christ, but sadly those are the lost that do not understand grace, and many are eternally lost in religion. When you truly don’t understand sin, and the forgiveness of it, you don’t understand what Jesus did for us. I grew up in religion, and still today see the hypocrisy of the religious as likely Satan’s greatest victory in the war for eternal souls. Many of us who call ourselves Christians live two lives; one for all this world can give us, and one put a false hope in a label of Christianity because we prayed a prayer and returned to sin. Regardless of my inability or desire to judge, regardless of your viewpoint, we ALL will bow before the same One who will set our eternity upon the decisions and actions of this life. Philippians 2:10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The fix for the heart, the truth for the hypocrite, the security for eternity that your heart desire is the Word of God available to you. It is not a life of Sundays put together; it is not a life counting of a heavenly scale of good and evil; it is not once prayer and never returning to God again; it is ALL in your hearts desire to draw closer to God through prayer and his Word (the Bible). If you want to live as a Christian, if you want your life to change, true change begins with Jesus, and sanctification begins in his Word. Jesus gives you his Holy Spirit that will bring new meaning to the Bible you once read. Teachers will enlighten scriptures you have already been given understanding to by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is who teaches you about God, through any medium he chooses, but it is ALWAYS confirmed in God’s Word. If you hear or feel led to something that you cannot find is true, or even worse confirm that it is false, that is Satan disguised as an angel of light seeking to deceive you. There are many wolves in sheep’s clothing in grand pulpits among us today.

Paul writes in the second chapter of Corinthians of a heart that seeks God; of someone who sees the simplicity in Jesus, not the eloquence of the Pharisee. Paul was highly educated and could have by his words persuaded anyone, yet he rested on what Jesus had completed, and the simplicity of those that will seek him with all their heart. He wrote of the gift and work of the Holy Spirit to a generation that did not even have the New Testament. We are blessed by so much of God’s work through Jesus Christ now in written form. The Spirit has so much to reveal to those that seek him; why do we not seek him daily with the blessing that lies in our homes? You cannot imagine how your life will change when the Bible becomes alive to you. You will not care about what people think, only what Jesus thinks. You will have an expectancy of hearing from him each morning that will pull you out of bed. You can’t wait to hear from God, and that tug you feel is him saying, “Good morning. Let me show you something today.”

It is not complicated

John 9:25-27 He answered and said, “Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see.” 26 Then they said to him again, “What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?” 27 He answered them, “I told you already, and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become His disciples?”

The entire ninth chapter of the gospel of John is about the simplicity found in pointing people to Jesus; the Bible has the simplicity of God’s redemptive story for a broken creation found throughout it, from the Old Testament to the New, in pointing people to Jesus. We can get so led astray in doctrinal woes, so led astray in religions laws, so led astray in trying to accomplish a false salvation by any means of our own works; we complicate the simplicity found in Jesus alone. In this chapter of John’s gospel, the Pharisees ask the one healed, and his parents at least five times who and how he was healed. They begin to point out the breaking of the Sabbath Law and begin to accuse the One who laid the law on Moses’ heart to begin with. All the laws that they failed in following, pointed to the need in their failure for a Savior; and now He walked among them while they accused him of being even an angel of Satan. Their pride condemned them; they viewed themselves righteous to perfection, and their pride condemned them eternally, if they did not recognize their sin of it, and repent and believe in Jesus alone.

You life is simple: You live in sin before Christ, you repent of sin to Christ, you live as disciple for Christ. Your testimony of the power of God through that transformation is the life you lead as his disciple until you die. All through the New Testament is how people are drawn to Jesus; they are drawn because God draws them first, and they respond to that tug. Somewhere deep in your heart, you recognize your need for Jesus; you either spend your life denying it, or you respond to in and let him become your Savior and Lord. John 8:31 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. 32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” I promise you there is a freedom in Jesus Christ; you will know when you are truly saved, and you will not be able to contain what you now possess in him. You will have no problem in changing your life to live sacrificially for him as his disciple. All throughout John’s gospel is the word abide; a state of being in Christ, and those that are truly in Christ produce heavenly fruit because they seek to be in God’s will each and every day.

Preachers and teachers just really point you to the need for Jesus, point to your need to become a disciple if they are teaching truth. Becoming a disciple is through a work of the sanctification of God for the rest of your life. It begins by spending daily time with him in prayer and his Word. If you are not doing that, are you really a Christian in his eyes? If you abide in him, you are living your life for him, and you do that daily. If you are not, in your heart you likely still question your salvation. You know the answer just as the blind man; “I don’t know the how, but I know the Who!” The simplicity of Jesus is living your life for the one who died to give you life. The simplicity is found in the heart that truly seeks him each and every, single, day. Everything you need in life, every question answered, lies in a humble heart seeking to abide in Jesus through prayer and his Word every day. It is not complicated…..

India

Matthew 9:37-38 Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. 38 Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”

How Can I Not Go?

The past two nights I have been awakened with India heavily on my mind. An anxiety filled my mind the last, but tonight winds blew heavily on our door and awakened me at 3am. Again, I found India front and center in my first thoughts. I tried to deny, tried to go back to sleep, but the winds kept beating against the door, yet Dana slept on. After about thirty minutes I finally gave in and got up, knowing that this time of the morning, however hard it may be, is a time you hear from God clearly, so I arose to seek him expectantly. India, all my friends, all that encompasses that country surrounded me; even in my Facebook feed there Pastor Malik was, first thing in my feed. I knew, and I confess reluctantly, that it was time to really start praying about possibly returning to India. I have said before, after all I experienced in those two weeks; “I would never go back, and I can’t imagine not going back.”

I sat down at my desk, ready to pray, and felt led to get my India Bible from the basement where I had left it from OneSimpleChurch. I retrieved it and entered into the presence of the Lord in humble prayer regarding what I knew he was laying on my heart. That wind began to howl, and I felt an intense presence of the Holy Spirit. I also felt an attack of doubt by the enemy, but it was short lived, for the presence of Light dis-spells darkness. As I pled my heart in question, wanting confirmation of what I was feeling, God spoke in my spirit to me, “You know.” So crystal clear, I began to weep, for I knew I had heard from God. You cannot be in the presence of the Lord and not be in tears, that I can assure you my friends. I was so incredibly moved by the mercy and grace he has shown me, especially in recent days, I simply pled for “why me?” It is times like this that I am leveled by the love that God bestows upon us; even in the midst of daily failures, he never gives up on hearts that seek him, even when it doesn’t seem so.

I have no clue what lies next, no different from the last trip, just being obedient to what God has clearly laid on my heart. Scared, you bet. Excited to see heavenly brothers and sisters and the power of God at work, at a level you can’t imagine. The level of the power of prayer last time sustained and provided on heavenly realms. I am thankful that this year, I have felt that call earlier, to allow and more time for prayerful preparation. I ask you to join me in seeking God’s will for this trip, and the laborers he calls into this harvest with us.