Tag Archives: christian living

April 30, 2025 · 5:45 AM

Guarantees Of Obedience

Following God’s plan doesn’t always bring immediate victory. In the 1940’s the Ten Boom family saw how the Germans were treating the Jews. They felt like God wanted them to protect any Jew that needed help. They built a hideaway room in their house and over time saved hundreds. However, they were turned in to the authorities, separated and sent to concentration camps themselves. The father died quickly, while his two daughters, Corrie and Betsie, endured the death camps. Betsie died while in one, and Corrie was released later. Their obedience saved hundreds, but cost them dearly.

In Judges 20, the men of a city in the tribe of Benjamin had raped and murdered a Levite’s wife. The other tribes came to bring correction, but the tribe of Benjamin joined forces and decided to fight back. The other tribes prayed and asked God who should lead the battle. He said Judah. They went to battle and lost. They wept and prayed and asked God if they should fight. He told them yes. They went to battle again, but thousands more lost their lives as they lost. They wept, fasted and prayed asking again. God sent them to battle again, but this time they won. They nearly destroyed the entire tribe of Benjamin.

In Isaiah 43:2 God said, “When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you” (NLT). God doesn’t promise everything will always be good or that you’ll never get hurt or always understand. Instead, He promises to be with you as you go through losses and difficulties. Obedience doesn’t guarantee victory, but it does guarantee His presence to be with you. He never abandoned the Ten Boom family, nor the tribes of Israel in their battles. Instead, He stands with us in the fire, seals the door in the flood and comforts us in tragedy. His presence in those times is our victory.

Photo by Vlad Bagacian on Pexels.

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April 24, 2025 · 5:30 AM

The Law Of Favor

If you were to stand on a chair and jump. 100 times out of 100 jumps you would go down. No matter how many times you try it, you will always go down. Why? Because the Law of Gravity is at work. You don’t have to believe in gravity for it to make you go down. You don’t have to see gravity for it to work. Laws work no matter what. You and I would never challenge the Law of Gravity because we’ve seen it at work our entire lives. Isaac Newton simply observed it, tested it and put it into words giving it at name.

God’s laws are no different that the laws of nature that He created. They work 100% of the time whether you believe in God or not. The Bible is full of these laws and they are constantly at work in our lives. For example, you will reap what you sow. If we think of it in the farming context, if you plant corn kernels, you will grow corn. You can’t plant a corn kernel and expect a potato. If you plant kindness in others, you can expect kindness. If you give, it will be given to you in full measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over because this is God’s law.

Another law at work is found in Proverbs 11:25. It says, “Those who live to bless others will have blessings heaped upon them, and the one who pours out his life to pour out blessings will be saturated with favor” (TPT). This law works just like the others. If you will live to bless others and pour your life out, you will find God’s hand of blessing and favor. My wife and I like to say, “Favor ain’t fair,” because it’s in direct proportion to your blessing others. You don’t have to have money to bless someone. Spend time with them, walk through their struggles with them, send an encouraging message, show them unconditional love or anything that reflects Christ. If you do these things, the Law of Favor will go into effect for you.

Photo by Luis Alexander Minchola Jiménez 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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April 23, 2025 · 5:28 AM

Completely Satisfied

Not long after Tom Brady won his first Super Bowl, he was interviewed. They asked him what it was like to achieve a life long dream. He said in the moment it was great, but that feeling went away and he wondered if that was really all there was in life. He was looking for more. In a recent interview with Will Smith, he was asked what it’s like to be worth $350 million. He said, Will Smith “Once you’ve bought everything you want and there’s literally nothing on earth else that you want to buy, I just wish that was a gift that everybody could have because there’s nothing that material can do to satisfy you. You realize none of it can make you happy” (people.com).

Solomon, who was one of the wisest people to ever live, also became one of the wealthiest people too. He had it all: a kingdom, money, fame, women and servants. In the book of Ecclesiastes, he talks about having tried everything he can to give him pleasure, but it was all vanity. He was saying that it’s all fleeting and unsatisfying. In chapter 5 verse 10 he wrote, “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its gain. This too is vanity (emptiness)” (AMP). He, like so many of us, chased and hungered after things of this world in order to fill a hole inside that only God can fill.

In Matthew 5:6, Jesus said, “Blessed [joyful, nourished by God’s goodness] are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness [those who actively seek right standing with God], for they will be [completely] satisfied.” There’s nothing in this world that can bring true fulfillment to your life. The hunger you have can only be satisfied by a relationship with God. We’ve all thought, “If only I had this or accomplished that, then…” You’ll find like Tom Brady and Will Smith did that it won’t bring what you think it will. True satisfaction is found in actively pursuing God because those who seek Him find Him. We were created by Him and for Him. Until we find our identity and worth in Him, everything else is empty.

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April 22, 2025 · 5:40 AM

Spiritual Effectiveness

One of the draws for Peloton stationary bikes and some treadmills is the screen in front of it. You can choose a city, a trail or woods to bike or run through. As you’re exercising, you can watch the screen and feel like you’re in that environment covering a lot of ground. However, the truth is that you never went anywhere and you’re wore out. That’s about the same thing that happens to us when we try to be spiritually effective in our own strength and abilities. Our effectiveness only comes through our relationship with Jesus. When we fail to spend time with Jesus, our busyness for Him wears us out and is ineffective. It can feel like we’re going places and making a difference, but it’s only an illusion.

In John 15, Jesus was giving some final instructions to the disciples before His crucifixion. In verse 5 He said, “I am the Vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him bears much fruit, for [otherwise] apart from Me [that is, cut off from vital union with Me] you can do nothing” (AMP). He used the example of a branch on a vine. We can only Produce fruit when we’re connected to the vine. Once we’re disconnected, we might appear green for a while, but we’re not receiving the nutrients we need to produce anything. His encouragement to them and to us is to stay connected to Him through prayer and intimacy if we want to be spiritually effective. Otherwise our efforts are in vain.

Philippians 2:13 says, “For it is [not your strength, but it is] God who is effectively at work in you, both to will and to work [that is, strengthening, energizing, and creating in you the longing and the ability to fulfill your purpose] for His good pleasure.” Have you been so busy for God that you’ve sacrificed your time with Him? It happens to all of us from time to time. That is a recipe for burn out and spiritual ineffectiveness. When we spend time with Him each day, He refills us, strengthens us and makes us produce fruit. God doesn’t call us to do things in our own strength because apart from Him we have none. He is who makes us spiritually effective in our work for Him.

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April 21, 2025 · 5:48 AM

Obedience Through Action

One of the great missionary stories I remember learning about from my childhood was the story of Jim Elliot. He and his wife felt the call of God to take the Gospel to an unreached people in Ecuador. In 1956, Jim and four other men went in to tell the Huaorani people about Jesus. They were killed by the tribe. After two years passed, Jim’s wife felt like God wanted her to go to that same tribe and try again. She, their daughter and the sister of one of the slain men went back to the Huaorani tribe and shared the Gospel. Many people gave their heart to the Lord, including some who killed her husband.

In Joshua 5, the Israelites had crossed the Jordan and were headed toward Jericho for their first battle in the Promised Land. As Joshua was getting near the town, he saw a man with a sword in his hand. Joshua asked Him, “Are you with us or against us. He replied, “‘Neither one,’ he replied. ‘I am the commander of the Lord’s army.’ At this, Joshua fell with his face to the ground in reverence. ‘I am at your command,’ Joshua said. ‘What do you want your servant to do?’” (NLT) He then tells Joshua to march around the city for seven days. On the seventh day, they needed to march around it seven times and then shout. If they obeyed, the walls would come down. It might not have seemed like it would work, but God was looking for obedience through action in order to give the victory.

Isaiah 1:9 says, “If you have a willing heart to let me help you, and if you will obey me, you will feast on the blessings of an abundant harvest” (TPT). What God asks us to do doesn’t always make sense. We must remember that His ways are higher than ours, and His thoughts are higher too. He sees what we can’t. Obedience is an act of trust, especially when we don’t understand. However, when we do trust and obey, His blessings follow. I wish we could have an experience with an angel like Joshua, but most of us will be like Elisabeth Elliott and need to obey having only heard God speak to our heart. Are you willing to be obedient even when it doesn’t make sense? Are you willing to trust God for to bring down walls using His strategy rather than yours? If so, your obedience through action will yield the results only God can give.

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April 16, 2025 · 5:36 AM

The Garden Of Surrender

After God had created everything, He planted the Garden of Eden, where He chose to place Adam. Everything Adam could want was there, including the Tree of Life and also the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. God gave Adam a helper in Eve as well. Yet in this paradise the serpent came to temp them. He had them question the truth of what God said. They ate the fruit in disobedience to God. In this garden, that started off representing abundance, sin and death entered the world because they chose their will over His.

On Thursday night of Holy Week, Jesus and the disciples entered into the Garden of Gethsemane. It was an olive tree grove with a name that means the place of pressing. The trees are dark and wiry. It looked nothing like paradise. As Jesus went off to pray, He told the disciples to watch and pray so they wouldn’t enter into temptation. Jesus felt the pressure of the enemy in this garden too. He sweat drops of blood as He agonized over what was ahead, yet He submitted to God’s will instead of His own. Gethsemane represented pressure and struggling, but it became the place of surrender and redemption.

In Luke 22:42, Jesus prayed, “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine” (NLT). Jesus taught us how to surrender to God’s will instead of our own. He chose surrender rather than selfishness. There are times I pray very specifically for things because I desperately want them. However, I add that I ultimately want His will to be done instead of mine. I also ask God to conform my will to His when what I want differs from what He wants. Each of us must learn the discipline of surrender that Jesus demonstrated in the garden. Romans 5:19 sums it up. It says, “Because one person disobeyed God, many became sinners. But because one other person obeyed God, many will be made righteous.” We have life and righteousness because Jesus chose to surrender and obey.

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April 14, 2025 · 5:30 AM

Divine Interruptions

I didn’t grow up in a church that taught any of the reflective practices of Lent, so when my first ministry job was at a church that did, I had some learning to do. As we approached Easter, I had the opportunity to travel to Israel. I remember making it a point to walk down the Via Dolorosa and stopping at the different stations of the cross before finishing at the Garden Tomb. At Station Five, I came across a man I knew little about. His name was Simon of Cyrene. Mark 15:21 says, “A passerby named Simon, who was from Cyrene, was coming in from the countryside just then, and the soldiers forced him to carry Jesus’ cross. (Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus)” (NLT). He was coming in to celebrate the Passover, and through divine interference, he was forced to carry Jesus’ cross, which changed the trajectory of his family. Paul and Luke mention Simon’s sons listed here in their letters to the Early Church.

Take a moment to look back at your life when things seemed to go off the rails. Can you now see God’s hand in those moments? Simon didn’t know it, but when he was forced to carry the cross, he was able to see the Son of God up close. Like the Roman guard, he must have had a moment when he realized who Jesus really was. While he was on his way to sacrifice a Passover lamb, he came face to face with the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world. I can see him rejoining his sons at the foot of Calvary, exhausted from the journey. I wonder if he stood near John and Mary as Jesus spoke to them. Did he cry as Jesus said, “It is finished”? I don’t know any of these answers, but I do know that he was chosen by God for this moment. It was no accident that he was the person the guards grabbed.

This story has me reflecting on divine interruptions in my life. In the moment, they take me off schedule, mess up my day, and wreck my plans. Divine interruptions can be frustrating in the moment, but I’ve learned that divine interruptions are where transformation begins. Proverbs 19:21 says, “You can make many plans, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail” (NLT). His purposes often conflict with my plans. When I start to complain, I’ve learned to stop and ask, “Lord, is this You?” I’ve been divinely interrupted enough to know to be grateful when He does interrupt me. I want His transformation and purposes to prevail in my life. Without those intersections, I would simply stay on my current trajectory. What about you? Are you willing to invite God to divinely interrupt your plans in this season of Lent?

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April 10, 2025 · 5:30 AM

Learning Through Pain

One of the mantras that I’ve heard for a while is, “Change before you have to.” I wasn’t always sure what that meant, but I’ve found out a few times in my life and wished I had. Many times the Holy Spirit has sounded the warning alarms in my life, and many of those times I’ve hit the snooze button. His warnings are letting us know that if we continue on the path we’re on, we’re headed for trouble. When I’ve disregarded them, I’ve fallen flat on my face and gone through some painful times as a result of my sin. Sometimes I’m so hard headed and want to do things my own way that the only way I’ll listen or make the necessary changes in my life are to go through a painful time so that next time I’ll listen. God is more concerned with our holiness than our comfort.

It’s hard to put some things in perspective as you read the Bible. In some books, you may cover hundreds of years of history. I keep thinking, “How did they mess up again so quickly? Why won’t they learn?” Yet, their track record is better than mine a lot of the times. In Deuteronomy 30:19 God said He sets before us life and death, blessings and cursing, and that the choice is ours. He wants us to choose life, but when we don’t, their are painful consequences to help us to turn back to Him and to remind us not to go down that path again. It works for a while, but our brains are bent toward trying to do things our way instead of His. Pain is often one of the best motivators for our brain, and it can condition it to not repeat mistakes.

God knows you and I aren’t perfect. He knows we’re going to mess up. Thankfully He doesn’t wipe His hands clean of us and give up. His grace is greater than our biggest mistakes and His offer of forgiveness is open to us. God will do whatever it takes to bring us back, even if it means pain, discomfort or embarrassment. Proverbs 20:30 says, “Sometimes it takes a painful experience to make us change our ways” (GNT). He knows there are a lot of stubborn people like myself who need those painful reminders to come back home. The Prodigal Son lasted in his painful experience as long as he could before he finally decided to go back home. You and I have the same opportunity to return to a waiting Father who will run to us, love us and put the family robe and ring back on our finger if only we will return.

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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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April 9, 2025 · 5:43 AM

Obedience Brings Victory

Have you ever felt God leading you to do something that didn’t make sense? I’ve felt that way several times. Once I was facing a serious challenge to my character. My initial strategy was to go on the defensive and then attack. As I mapped out my plans, God had a different strategy in mind. It was to be still and quiet. It was the opposite of what I felt should happen. What I wanted to do made sense, and what God was asking didn’t. I had a choice to make. I could choose to do what made sense or I could obey. I decided to obey. What God asked me to do worked out better than anything I could have done.

In Joshua 6, the Israelites faced their first enemy in the Promised Land. Jericho had thick, intimidating walls. Israel didn’t have siege equipment or battering rams. I’m sure Joshua met with his military leaders to devise a strategy. Then he met the captain of the Lord’s army. He was told to simply march quietly around the walls for seven days. On the seventh trip around the wall on the seventh day, they were to blast trumpets and shout. It didn’t make sense, but Joshua had learned that victory comes through obedience. He followed God’s strategy, rather than his own, and God destroyed what had been impossible and intimidating.

Zechariah 4:6 says, “The angel told me to give Zerubbabel this message from the Lord: ‘You will succeed, not by military might or by your own strength, but by my spirit’” (GNT). So much in life depends on obedience to what God desires for us to do. However, we must first stop and ask what He wants in each situation. I don’t know what intimidating walls you’re facing today, but I do know that His strategy will work better than yours. It may not make sense or seem like the right thing to do in the moment. It might even seem crazy or counterintuitive, but remember that obedience brings victory. Follow His leading and plan, then watch the walls fall before your eyes.

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April 8, 2025 · 5:41 AM

Taking Assessment

I recently retook an assessment that I had taken several years ago. I taught a class on it for a few years, so I know why the assessment is asking the questions it asked. As I took it, I had a thought. I could give answers that made myself look really good, or I could answer truthfully. I wanted to get an accurate assessment of myself more than I wanted to look good for someone else. I answered truthfully and several of my flaws were revealed with red marks on the results. I sat on a coaching call answering questions explaining what was going on inside me when faced with certain situations. I figured the only way to improve is to have an accurate assessment.

Many people in the Bible were assessed by God. Saul’s heart was exposed when he was confronted by Samuel regarding his disobedience. He made excuses as to why he didn’t obey, as he tried to make himself look better. When David was confronted on his disobedience and sin, he admitted it and sought forgiveness. There are places like Psalm 139:23 where he says, “Examine me, O God, and know my mind; test me, and discover my thoughts” (GNT). He understood the need for personal, spiritual and motivational assessment. If you’re going to grow or get better, you must be willing to expose those areas.

In 2 Corinthians 13:5 says, “Put yourselves to the test and judge yourselves, to find out whether you are living in faith.” How strong is your faith and belief? Only when it is tested can you truly know. It’s easy to say what you believe when you’re not being tested. However, being faced with a hard time, or a hard truth, will reveal what’s inside. It’s important to regularly assess where you are in your faith and growth as a Christian. Are you taking steps to be more Christlike? Are your roots growing down deep or are they shallow? The only way to know is to ask God to examine you and put you to the test. Don’t be afraid to ask God to show you areas of growth that are needed. Get an honest assessment, see it as an opportunity to build Christian character and growth, then make changes as necessary.

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