May 23, 2025 · 5:56 AM

Stand Strong In Faith

There’s an encouragement throughput the Bible that comes God, friends and church leaders. It’s simply for us to stand strong in our faith when things are hard. Sometimes our faith is what takes a hit when things aren’t going the way we think they should. Instead of letting it falter or questioning it, we should bolster it and stand strong on it. Look for God’s promises in Scripture and stand on them. Read stories where God did the impossible so you can be encouraged. Don’t let hard times knock you down. When they come in like a flood, the Lord will lift up a standard against them so you can stand strong.

Here are Bible verses on standing strong in the faith:

1. Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble in dread before them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not fail you or abandon you.

Deuteronomy 31:6 AMP

2. Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle you will still be standing firm.

Ephesians 6:13 NLT

3. Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are.

1 Peter 5:9 NLT

4. Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong.

I Corinthians 16:13 NKJV

5. Jonathan went to find David and encouraged him to stay strong in his faith in God.

1 Samuel 23:16 NLT

Photo credit Unsplash.

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May 22, 2025 · 5:30 AM

Wait Patiently

Have you ever prayed for patience? If you haven’t, don’t try it! I’m kidding. It turns out that when you pray for patience, God typically doesn’t just give it to you. Instead, you will earn patience through a series of events that will try your patience. I don’t really have patience when I see things that need to be done. I start doing the work to get it done whether it’s the right time or not. There are times when my wife has to make me stop and wait to do things. I’d rather do them right then and get the satisfaction of completing the task than to wait. I’m also competitive, and with that comes comparison. If someone else is doing more, working harder, completing tasks or succeeding where I think I should be, it drives me to push forward without rest. I easily lose sight of the bigger picture, and I forget that patience and steadiness bring success and blessings.

I don’t think Abraham and Sarah were very patient either. When God made the promise that he would be the father of many nations, Abram was 75 years old. When his wife didn’t immediately get pregnant, I’m sure He doubted God, or did what we do when we run out of patience, and took matters into his own hands. Because they didn’t wait for the promise, Abraham got another woman pregnant thinking that he was doing God a favor or enacting His plan for Him. It was 25 years after the promise that he had Isaac through his wife. If he thought he was too old to have kids at 75, imagine what he was thinking as he approached 100. Yet, because God told him to wait for the promise, he did.

Psalm 37:7 says, “Be patient and wait for the Lord to act; don’t be worried about those who prosper or those who succeed in their evil plans” (GNT). I love that this verse speaks to our focus. Quit looking at what other people are accomplishing, and thinking about how you wish you were farther along at this point in your life. Be patient and wait for God’s timing. There’s a greater blessing for us when we do. Put your focus back on being faithful where you are, doing the little things, and God will reward you in due season. I know how hard that is, but it is the right thing to do. Even though you may be able to act now, be patient. God is using this time to prepare you for the blessings that are coming so that when His time is right, you won’t squander what He gives you.

Photo by Serkan Göktay on Pexels.

Throwback Thursday is a feature I’m using to help build some margin into my schedule to pursue other ventures. Each Thursday I’ll be bringing you a previously written devotional that still speaks encouragement to us from God’s Word.

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May 21, 2025 · 5:37 AM

Provision And Protection

I love reading stories of George Muller. He was a German man who helped over 10,000 orphans. He lived completely by faith. One morning he knew the pantry was empty, but the kids needed to eat. He sat them all down at their tables for breakfast and prayed to thank God for their food. Not long after saying, “Amen,” there was a knock on the door. A baker said the Lord woke him up in the middle of the night to bake bread for the kids. He handed over enough bread for them to eat. Then there was another knock on the door. A milk delivery wagon got stuck and offered them all their milk. God provided for their need.

In 1 Samuel 21, Saul was trying to kill David out of jealousy. Jonathan warned him and he fled to the town of Nob, which was the spiritual center of Israel at the time. He was hungry and tired from his journey as he entered the tabernacle. The priest saw him and wanted to know why he was there. David told him he was on a mission, but needed food. The on,y thing available was the bread reserved for priests. Verse 6 says, “Since there was no other food available, the priest gave him the holy bread—the Bread of the Presence that was placed before the Lord in the Tabernacle. It had just been replaced that day with fresh bread” (NLT). This bread represented God provision and protection for Israel. Ahimelech, the priest, understood God’s compassion and provided the bread to David.

Isaiah 55:1 says, “Is anyone thirsty? Come and drink— even if you have no money! Come, take your choice of wine or milk— it’s all free!” God’s blessings and provision are freely given to us. They can’t be earned. He’s looking for those who are spiritually hungry and thirst to come to the place of His presence. He’s waiting for those who come to the place where they realize they can’t do everything on their own and must live by faith. When we come to that place, He offers provision and protection for us. When we realize we have nothing but what He offers is when we realize we have everything. What God offers can only be bought with desire, humility and surrender. It can be scary to stand there with nothing the way George Muller and David did, but they both trusted God to provide and He did.

Photo by Skyler Ewing on Unsplash

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May 20, 2025 · 5:35 AM

God’s Training Ground

One of the things God does is shape us in unseen moments. I talk to so many people who share wisdom with me that fought battles in obscurity. One person recently shared how her mom abandoned she and her brother when she was a teen. She raised him like she was a single mom as she put herself through college and taught Sunday school. Her husband told me that he found out about that while dating her. He realized the character she had because she had and knew that was shaping her to be a great mother and wife. She had men who wouldn’t date her because she was raising her brother. Now they have grown children of their own and decades of marriage behind them.

In 1 Samuel 17, Goliath was taunting the army of Israel and defying God. All of their untested and untrained warriors fled in fear. For forty days he came out twice a day challenging them, but no one rose to the occasion until David showed up. In verses 34-36 David told Saul, “When a lion or a bear comes to steal a lamb from the flock, I go after it with a club and rescue the lamb from its mouth. If the animal turns on me, I catch it by the jaw and club it to death. I have done this to both lions and bears, and I’ll do it to this pagan Philistine, too, for he has defied the armies of the living God!” (NLT) David’s confidence came from private victories in battles where he learned to trust God. He knew God would show up and defeat the giant.

1 Peter 5:6 says, “So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor.” We often want greater exposure without having through God’s training ground of obscurity. We want public victories without winning private battles. However, we must remain humble and learn to trust God in the dark before He shines the light on us. Obscurity is not abandonment. David’s years of watching sheep even after he had been anointed king, were used to grow and prepare him. He had more private battles to face before he could lead the nation’s army. God will lift you up at the right time. Until then, learn and grow as much as you can in God’s training ground.

Photo by André Eusébio on Unsplash

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May 19, 2025 · 5:55 AM

Having Self Control

When you hear “self control”, do you think if it being will power? I’ve been in trainings where we were taught to wear a rubber band around our wrist. Each time we exhibited a negative behavior, we were to pull it back and snap it. The pain was to tell our brain to associate that behavior with pain and thereby help our self control in that area. However, Biblically self control isn’t about our willpower alone. It’s about being empowered by the Spirit of God within us to deny our flesh and to say yes to what God is asking of us. Jesus warned us that the flesh is weak, but the Spirit is willing. Self control helps us live by the Spirit.

Saul, Israel’s first king, was a person who lacked self control. In 1 Samuel 13, he was waiting for Samuel to show up and sacrifice to God for victory over the Philistines. The longer Samuel took, the more the opposing army grew. His men began to get disheartened and started leaving. Finally he offered the sacrifices himself. As he finished, Samuel showed up and pronounced judgement on him. Then his lack of self control got him further in trouble when he didn’t kill all the animals, nor King Agag of the Amalekites. He was more worried about what people thought than what God said. He followed his flesh rather than having the self control to trust God. Because of that, the kingdom was torn from him and given to David.

Proverbs 16:32 says, “Better to be patient than powerful; better to have self-control than to conquer a city” (NLT). I’m sure King David taught this lesson to Solomon. We can’t prioritize public success over private discipline. We must learn to produce the Fruits of the Spirit in our life, including self control. In fact, self control is what enables us to produce the other fruits mentioned. Without it, we can’t consistently produce the other fruits. We must be willing to obey God’s voice over our flesh. We must be led by the Holy Spirit in our lives. Our flesh truly is weak, but it’s better to have self control and listen to Him. True success comes from that.

Photo by Bernd 📷 Dittrich on Unsplash

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May 16, 2025 · 6:04 AM

Bringing Peace

In a world full of chaos, restlessness and division, we can choose to stir up those things or we can choose to bring peace. The easier choice is to let our emotions control us and match the emotions of others. However, when we have the Holy Spirit in us, one of the fruits that we are to have evident in our life is peace, not strife. The words we choose, the attitude we have and the posture we take in situations should be one of peace. There is enough chaos in this world. What we need more of is the peace that only Jesus can give. Our lives should bring His peace into every situation.

Here are some Bible verses on bringing peace:

1. How joyful you are when you make peace! For then you will be recognized as a true child of God.

Matthew 5:9 TPT

2. Deceit fills hearts that are plotting evil; joy fills hearts that are planning peace!

Proverbs 12:20 NLT

3. When a man’s ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.

Proverbs 16:7 AMP

4. Hot tempers cause arguments, but patience brings peace.

Proverbs 15:18 GNT

5. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

James 3:18 NKJV

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May 15, 2025 · 5:30 AM

A Conditional Mindset

Have you ever told God, “I’ll go wherever you want me to go, except…”? Or you might have said, “I’ll do anything you want me to, except…” it’s crazy how we sometimes put conditions on our obedience. The truth is that we’ve got a mindset that we’ve adopted on earth that makes us think we can do that. For some reason we’ve bought the lie that we get to pick and choose what we want to obey. You can’t say, “God, I’ll honor you, but I’m not going to honor my spouse or my parents.” To dishonor them is to dishonor God and the commandment He’s given. The mindset that tells God what we are and are not going to do is wrong.

Take Jonah for example. God told him where to go and what to say. He didn’t say anything back to God. He went down to the shore, bought a ticket like he was going and boarded a ship in the opposite direction. His mindset was the kind that said, “I’ll go wherever you want except Nineveh.” God wasn’t pleased with Jonah, nor is He pleased with us when we adopt the same mindset. He might not send a great fish to swallow you so you’ll get an attitude adjustment and a mindset change, but He will try to get your attention so you’ll follow and say what the Spirit leads you to do and say. We can’t forget that He is the potter and we are the clay.

Romans 8:7 puts it plainly what’s happening when we do this to God. It says, “In fact, the mind-set focused on the flesh fights God’s plan and refuses to submit to his direction, because it cannot!” (TPT) When we refuse to submit to God’s direction for our lives, we’ve adopted a flesh driven mindset rather than a Spirit led one. It’s a visible sign of rebellion because of a lack of submission to God. To live by the Spirit is to live in obedience and without conditions to what God says on how to live, where to go and what to say. It’s the way God has asked you and I to live. The next time you find yourself putting conditions on obeying, stop the sentence, repent and say, “I’m your servant. I’ll do whatever you want.” It may not be easy, but that’s what a Spirit led life looks like.

Photo by Aravind Vijayan on Unsplash

Throwback Thursday is a feature I’m using to help build some margin into my schedule to pursue other ventures. Each Thursday I’ll be bringing you a previously written devotional that still speaks encouragement to us from God’s Word.

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May 14, 2025 · 5:26 AM

Extraordinary Destiny

Christine Caine was living a normal life in Australia as a youth leader in her church. One year she took her youth group on a mission trip to Greece. While there, they stopped at a store to buy snacks and necessities. It was in that ordinary moment that everything changed. As she was in line to pay, she saw some missing persons posters for kids. God lit a fire in her heart for people who are being trafficked. She started A21, an international anti human trafficking organization that has brought the issue to light, saved countless people and become a well known Bible teacher.

In 1 Samuel 8, the people of Israel rebelled against God and Samuel by asking for a king. Samuel warned them what that would do, but they insisted. In 1 Samuel 9, some donkeys belonging to man named Kish escaped and ran away. He sent his son Saul after them. As he was searching for them, doing an ordinary and mundane task, he encountered Samuel. Before they even met, God had told Samuel that the first king of Israel was coming. Saul’s life changed in a moment while doing a chore for his dad. He was unaware that God was using an ordinary circumstance for divine purposes.

Proverbs 16:9 says, “A man’s mind plans his way [as he journeys through life], But the Lord directs his steps and establishes them” (AMP). You never know when God is going to show up and change everything in your life. We often look for big moments where the sky opens up and a voice calls down to us, but more often than not, God uses the ordinary to do something extraordinary. He uses a still small voice in the middle of the mundane to touch our heart and reveal our destiny. As you make your way through life today, doing everything on your to do list, be listening for His voice. You never know when God will change your direction and reveal the steps you’re to take.

Photo by Bob Price on Pexels.

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May 13, 2025 · 5:35 AM

The Stone Of Help

Whenever I visit Washington D.C., I make time to stop in at Ebenezer’s Coffeehouse. It’s a few blocks from the Capitol building. Several years ago I read the story of how a church was looking for ways to intersect with the world. There was an abandoned building turned crack house that they wanted to buy. They didn’t have a lot of money and others were bidding on it. After several big prayers and trusting God, they were awarded the building. They created Ebenezer’s. On the coffee sleeves, you’ll find, “SFSG.” It stands for, “So far, so God.” God has helped them along the way, and they keep trusting Him. I go there as a reminder that God answers big prayers and needs.

In 1 Samuel 7, we read the story of when the Philistines returned the Ark to Israel after having taken it in battle. Samuel called all of Israel together to call them to repentance in front of the Ark. the Philistines thought they were gearing up for war and showed up to attack them. They called on God for help and He fought their battle for them. Verse 12 says, “Then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mizpah and Shen, and he named it Ebenezer (stone of help), saying, ‘Thus far the Lord has helped us’” (AMP). That stone became a reminder to the people of Israel that God shows up and helps.

Isaiah 50:7 says, “For the Lord God helps Me, Therefore, I have not been ashamed or humiliated. Therefore, I have made My face like flint, And I know that I shall not be put to shame.” We all need markers in our lives to remind us of times when God showed up and answered a big prayer. Our memories are short and we forget the next time we’re faced with an impossibly. It’s important that we appreciate previous victories from God and also learn to stay dependent on Him for future ones. So far God has helped you. He is an ever present help in our time of need (Psalm 46:1). Revisit the Ebenezers of your life often and keep trusting God to help you.

Photo by Jacob Amson on Unsplash

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May 12, 2025 · 5:35 AM

Seasonal Opportunities

Life is full of seasons. Some only last for a short time, while others seems to go on for years. The writer of Ecclesiastes said there is a time and season for everything. There’s a season to plant, and one to harvest. There’s a season to build and one for tearing down. There’s are seasons of plenty of, and some of scarcity. The writer lists several verses of these seasons in chapter 3. Too many times though, we’re looking to get out of the season we’re in, or we’re simply looking ahead to what’s next. What happens in those cases is that we miss the opportunities God had for us in our current season.

The life of Joseph, found in Genesis 37-50, goes through many seasons in his life. He messed up during the season of being favored by his father. However, he made the most of his season of being a slave in Potiphar’s house. He was promoted because he worked hard during that period. When he was falsely accused and sent to prison for years, he took advantage of that opportunity. He even continued to be faithful after he was forgotten. Eventually the seasons of plenty and famine came. During that time, he took every opportunity available and was reunited with his family.

Proverbs 10:5 says, “He who gathers during summer and takes advantage of his opportunities is a son who acts wisely, But he who sleeps during harvest and ignores the moment of opportunity is a son who acts shamefully” (AMP). I don’t know what season you’re in right now, but I know God has opportunities for you in it. Don’t be so dismayed or in a hurry to get out of it. You may miss what God has for you. Joseph was able to be blessed and promoted in each season he was in because he acted wisely. We never read of him complaining about the seasons he went through. Instead, we can see how God was with him, even in his season of being forgotten. Today, ask God to show you what opportunities He has for you in this season, and ask Him to help you to take advantage of them.

Photo by ELVIS lawrence on Unsplash

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