Tag Archives: Christianity

December 11, 2014 · 7:46 AM

The Promise Of Joy

I’ve often heard that joy is not circumstantial, but happiness is. To many of us, the two are the same. I believe that happiness is an external expression as a result from a feeling. Joy, on the other hand, is what creates hope and optimism even in the face of circumstances that tell you otherwise. Joy is what gives us the strength to put one foot in front of the other, to breathe in and breathe out and to get out of bed when all we want to do is curl up and cry. Joy gives us peace in troubled times.

The Bible speaks a lot about Joy. In one instance, Job had been faced with great loss to his family, finances and health. Things got so bad that his own wife told him, “Curse God and die!” She had let the circumstances steal her Joy. She saw no way out of the situation. She had no hope for the future. She was mad at God, mad at life and mad at her husband. She couldn’t understand why her husband still held onto his faith in God in such trying times. It just didn’t make sense.

I’ve found that a lot of life doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand why things happen the way they do. I don’t pretend to know why God doesn’t answer my prayers the way I pray for Him to. Just because He doesn’t, I shouldn’t stop praying. I shouldn’t grow bitter against Him. I shouldn’t sever our relationship. It’s easy to do those things in the midst of a trial if you don’t have Joy. It’s easy to want to quit, renounce your faith and walk away because you’re mad at God. But Job proved that you can go through unimaginable pain and maintain your Joy. Was he sad? Yes. But even in his sadness, he did the hard thing. He held onto Joy.

I’m sure he began to wonder why he was holding onto it after a while. I’m sure over time the situation, the questions and longevity of his trial began to wear on him. During that time, a friend named Bildad came to encourage him. In Job 8:21, he reminded Job of who God was and what He promised His people. He said, “He (God) will once again fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy.” He reminded Job that the circumstantial sadness was only temporary.

I believe that verse is God’s promise to us today. He will once again return laughter and joy to your life no matter what your circumstances have brought you. I love Psalm 30:5. It’s very familiar to lots of people. You’ve heard it read as, “Weeping may endure for a night, but Joy comes in the morning.” I especially love how the Message puts it. It says, “The nights of crying your eyes out will give way to days of laughter.” Circumstances will tell you those days will never come, but Joy says it’s on its way. That’s a promise from God.

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August 29, 2014 · 5:15 AM

The Chair

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It’s Free Friday! Today is the day you let go of the things in your life that keep you down or hold you back from all God has for you. To celebrate, I’m giving away a copy of “Faith: Back To The Basics” by Tracy M. Sumner. Keep reading to find out how to enter.

I had a friend who took a philosophy class in college. For her final, the professor put a wooden chair on a table and said, “Prove this chair exists.” She sat there wondering what to write. She could see the chair with her eyes, but that wasn’t good enough. She could hear it as it slide onto the table, but that wouldn’t prove it. She could touch it, but he wanted verifiable data. She got close enough to smell the pine wood that it was made from, but that still didn’t prove anything. If she had licked it, she could have tasted the varnish on it, but even that wouldn’t do it. She finally wrote on her paper, “What chair?”

My friend couldn’t prove that chair existed because she went about it the wrong way. I would have sat in it. If I had fallen, it wouldn’t have existed. If it had held me up, it would have been proof of its existence. There are people in this world who try to prove God exists by means of their five senses. You can’t do that. You have to trust in Him and act in faith, just like sitting in that chair before you can really know He exists. You have to put Him to the test.

Faith requires more than your five senses. It requires trust and belief. It requires that you act on it. When you start your car, you are acting in faith that all the moving parts under the hood will simultaneously work together to provide power to move you from point A to point B. Your faith gets exercised and strengthened each time you go to turn it on. Our faith in God is very similar. We can’t use our five senses to prove He exists, but we trust and believe it as much as we believe that car will start because He’s proven Himself to us in the past.

Hebrews 11:1 in the Amplified version says, “NOW FAITH is the assurance, the confirmation, the title deed of the things we hope for, being the proof of things we do not see and the conviction of their reality, faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses.” God is not revealed to our senses. He reveals His Spirit to our spirit. He calls out to the deepest part of us. We can choose to ignore it because it can’t be scientifically verified or we can choose to have faith in something we can’t see, but have experienced internally and know to be true.

If God was visible as a being, it wouldn’t require faith to believe He exists. But He isn’t, so it requires faith and that’s what God requires of us. Hebrews 11:6 says, “It is impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that He exists and that He cares enough to respond to those who seek Him.” One version says that he rewards those who seek Him. You can only prove God exists when you put your trust in Him. You will only believe when you let go of your five senses and put your trust in what you can not perceive through them. How do I know? One day I quit asking, “What chair,” and I sat down.

If you’d like to win “Faith: Back To The Basics” by Tracy M. Sumner, then leave a comment on this post of how you’ve found God to be real in your life. Tomorrow, August 30th, 2014, I will randomly choose a winner from one of the people who comments today. If you haven’t done so, be sure to sign up to receive these devotions by email and like my Facebook page here.

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July 11, 2014 · 7:52 AM

Loving God

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It’s Free Friday! Today is the day you let go of the things in your life that keep you down or hold you back from all God has for you. To celebrate, I’m giving away a copy of “CrazyLove: Overwhelmed By A Relentless God” by Francis Chan. Keep reading to find out how to enter.

I’ve lived in and been to parts of the world where marriages are still arranged. Marriages aren’t based on love, but on socio-economic classes. In order for the man to marry the woman, he gets a check list of things he has to do before they are allowed to marry. The thought is that if he can complete a checklist, he can take care of their daughter. Love can happen, but it’s not required for the marriage to work.

As far out as that sounds to us for marriage, we try that in our relationship with God. We think God is concerned with a checklist. Do this. Don’t do that. Thou shalt not… But the reality is that God wants a relationship with us based on love rather than a checklist of do’s and don’t’s. He wants us to fall in love with Him the way that He has fallen in love with us. He wants us to be so deeply in love with Him that everything we do is an outpouring of that love. He wants us to be thinking of Him just like He thinks of us.

If you’ve ever been in love, you know what that feeling is like. Everything you do should be for the betterment of the relationship. Are there times where you mess up and do something wrong? Of course, but that doesn’t mean you don’t love that person. When you mess up, you apologize and make things right so that the relationship can continue. It’s the same way with our relationship with God. We may mess up, but because of our love for Him, we apologize, ask for forgiveness and repair the relationship.

Love does what it takes to make sure the relationship is healthy no matter who is at fault. In our sin, we damaged the relationship with God. Adam hid in the garden and we try to hide still. But God, in His love for us, did what it took to repair the relationship. He extended an olive branch and built a new bridge in place of the one we burned down. He didn’t do it so He could give us a checklist of things to do. He did it because He loves each one of us and wants to have an intimate relationship with us. He gave all He had when we had nothing to give. He came to us when we couldn’t go to Him. He offered forgiveness when all we had done was offend.

God wants each one of us to see how much He loves us and is willing to do for us. He wants us to voluntarily love Him back. He knows that for our relationship with Him to work, we are going to have to love Him rather than fulfill a checklist. Jesus said that he who is forgiven most, loves most. He didn’t say that he who checks off the most boxes will have the greatest relationship. Your life should be lived out of love for Him. Your decisions should be made with love in mind. What can you do today to show God love rather than finding a box to check? When you make that change, you’ll see a deeper walk with Him.

If you would like to win “Crazy Love” by Francis Chan, go to the Devotions By Chris Facebook page here and “like” it. I will randomly pick one person tomorrow (July 12, 2014) who has liked my page. If you have already “liked” my page, you are already entered for this drawing. I would appreciate it if you would invite your friends to like my page so they can receive encouragement from God’s Word too.

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June 23, 2014 · 6:47 AM

Haiti Day 5: We Said Goodbye

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Instead of going to a traditional church on Sunday, we took church to the Myan orphanage. We sang a couple of songs in English and then did one in Haitian Creole. Some children got up and recited memory verses and others sang a song they had learned. A few members from our team shared scriptures and short messages for each child. We then stood in a large circle around the room and went one by one telling one thing we are thankful to God for. The answers from some of the children were clothes, a bed, food, a beautiful house, someone to wash their clothes and one just thanked Him for everything that’s been done for her.

After we said our tearful goodbyes, we went back to the guesthouse to put our work clothes on. We headed to the Gonaives orphanage to finish the job. The children loved the warm yellow that we painted it. The old gray didn’t have a happy feel to it. It’s amazing how a little paint can transform not just a house, but a child’s outlook on life. Every new orphan that walks through the freshly painted gates will be greeted with a heart to show them love and a beautiful house to welcome them home.

The words “home” and “family” mean so much when you see the world through an orphan’s life. They don’t have a mother or father that they can go to for advice. They don’t have a safe place they can go when it storms. There are no family reunions that they can go to in order to connect with their roots. They aren’t even guaranteed their next meal or clothes when they grow. They miss the chance to be children when they have to grow up so fast in order to survive. That’s why orphan care is so important.

We may not be able to help every orphan in the world, but we can make a difference in the lives of a few. At our nightly devotional, we each shared the name of an orphan who changed our lives or touched our heart. We collectively smiled as each name was called out. It was the smile that says, “I know that kid! They touched my life too.” These team members may not have known the name of an orphan before they came. As we are leaving, I can tell you they don’t just know the name of an orphan, they know one personally.

I often think I would like to have known James in the Bible. He was hard nosed and didn’t pull any punches. His book in the Bible is short, but power packed. In the first chapter verse 27, he said, “Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress.” This week, each member of our team got to experience what pure and genuine religion feels like. My hope is that what was born in Haiti will carry on with each of them for the rest of their lives. May they never stop giving what God has placed in their hands or serving Him faithfully.

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June 18, 2014 · 8:20 AM

Staying Salty

Here we go again. I have been blessed to be a part of multiple missions trips over the past couple of years. Each time I go, I discover more of who God is and who He wants me to be. There’s something special about leaving the normal distractions and pressures of life behind and embracing the opportunities God has available on a mission trip. You experience God is a whole new way when all you are focused on is serving others in His name.

For the next several days, my focus is mainly going to be about experiencing God on a deeper level. I will purposefully look for Him in every conversation, every interaction and in every person I meet. In normal, day to day life, it’s easy to forget to look for God. It’s easy to forget to seek Him because there are so many things on our plates. We live in a fast paced world and it’s necessary to slow things down or to stop so that you can make time for God to move in your life. For me, the best way to do that is on foreign soil. For you, it may be some other way, but it’s imperative that you do it.

God’s design was not for us to live our lives on autopilot. We are to be actively engaged in our relationship with Him. We are to continue experiencing Him beyond our initial conversion. There are multiple warnings in the Bible about becoming complacent. One of the most notable ones is written about in Revelation 3. God says to them, “I know you inside and out, and find little to my liking… You’re stale. You’re stagnant. You make me want to vomit.” Can you imagine God saying that to you? It scares me to think that I can live my life in such a way that it would make God want to throw up.

The only time God speaks that harshly is to those who have let their faith grow stale. When we do nothing with our faith except show it off at church, it makes God sick. He didn’t sacrifice His only Son so we could live comfortably in a church. He did it so that none would perish, but all would have everlasting life. He didn’t die so we could accept the work done on the cross and then keep it. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Let me tell you why you are here. You are to be salt seasoning that brings out the God flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve list your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.” I think He was pretty clear about how He feels about it.

The way we keep our saltiness is to keep our relationship with Him fresh. You have to figure out how you can make that happen in your life. Each person is different in how they do it. One way that it is the same though is that it only happens when we sacrifice our time and get away from the distractions that prevent it. Today, make a commitment to God to find time to work on your saltiness. Find a way to keep from getting stale in your relationship with Him. There’s nothing worse than for God to think you’re useless or to make Him want to vomit. Only you can prevent it. Only you can make the time. He won’t force you to do it, but He’ll be waiting with open arms when you’re ready.

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June 17, 2014 · 7:06 AM

Shifting The Prism

One of my regular prayers is that God would shift the prism through which I see Him and others. I see almost everything in black and white. I was raised in an unbroken home and at the same church my whole life. There hasn’t been a whole lot of shifting where I change my perspective of who He is and how I see Him. Over time and with life experience, I have shifted and changed. I see God differently because of what I’ve seen Him do in my life and in the lives of others. I just don’t want to get complacent with where I am or how I see Him. I don’t want to box Him in to what I think He should be.

The early church went through a lot of shifting. In Acts 10, Peter was praying on the balcony while he was waiting for lunch. God gave him a vision of a blanket being lowered down with religiously unclean animals in it. God told Peter to kill and eat, but he refused because he had never touched food that wasn’t Kosher. God came back and said, “Don’t call unclean what I have called clean.” It was then that he was awakened by his vision from visitors knocking. A man named Cornelius was told by an angel to get Peter so he could hear what he had to say.

Peter traveled the next day to Cornelius’ house with the group that came for him. When he spoke to the people who had gathered, they were filled with Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues. Peter was shocked. How could non-Jews have received God’s gift? He turned to the Jews who had traveled with them and said, “Do I hear any objections to baptizing these friends with water? They’ve received the Holy Spirit exactly as we did.” That event created a fundamental shift in how they saw God. They now saw that God’s plan of salvation was for Jews and non-Jews alike. It changed their ministry.

My prayer is that God would radically change me so that I see deeper into His Word than I do now. I pray that He shifts my focus so that I can connect things that I’ve never seen or understood in it. When I understand what He says, then I can know Him more. When I know Him more, my life is forever altered. I cannot accept that I know God as much as I will ever know Him. I cannot believe that I know everything that I will ever know about Scripture. I have to put myself in position to be shifted. I have to spend time in prayer so He can show me. I have to be willing to go with strangers to see what God is doing.

What about you? Are you willing to allow God to reveal more of Himself to you? Are you open to Him showing things that will fundamentally alter how you see Him? What can you do to put yourself in position to be shifted so you see Him in a different light? My prayer is that God would radically change us in the Church who have become complacent with our view of Him. I pray that He would reveal Himself to us like we’ve never seen. We don’t need to fix the Church. It’s not our responsibility. We need to fix our relationship with Him and that will change the Church. We need to change the prism through which we view God and that will change the world.

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June 12, 2014 · 7:56 AM

Learning Through Relationships

When is the last time you looked back over your life to see the people God placed in it at just the right time? I’ve been reflecting this week on my entire life as an exercise in faith. I spent time looking back thinking about the people who have mentored me in the faith. I’ve also spent some time thinking about the people who were brought into my life for a brief period and then were gone again. As I’ve done this exercise, I have been able to see God’s hand on the relationships He’s brought to me. It has also built my faith in trusting Him with the relationships He has given me right now.

Sometimes we don’t understand why God has brought certain people into our lives. Some rub us the wrong way. Some push us out of our comfort zone. Some challenge everything we say. Some make us want to run away. As I’ve mentioned those, you’ve probably put some names to those people in your life right now. We all have people in our lives that we are grateful for. At the same time, we also have people in our lives where we wonder what God is thinking! We’d rather that they not be in our lives. In looking back, I’ve found that those people shaped me as well. The ones who rubbed me the wrong way actually acted like sand paper and smoothed out some of my rough edges.

When I look at the story of Joseph in Genesis 37, I see the relationships God put in his life. The first relationships you see are with his dad and brothers. His dad loved him, but his brothers didn’t. When his brothers sold him to the Ishmaelites, God put Potiphar in his life. Potiphar was the captain of the palace guard for Pharaoh. When Joseph did well for him, he made him his personal assistant. Joseph got to see the inner working of Egypt. He got to see how to act in the presence of a king. He learned how to be an effective administrator which he would need later.

After being wrongfully put in prison, Joseph used the skills he learned from Potiphar to run the prison. He leveraged the relationship with the guards and eventually the warden to be put in such a position that he was over all the other prisoners. It was then that he met two prisoners who worked in the Pharaoh’s court. He was able to interpret their dreams putting him in direct relationship with someone who had Pharaoh’s ear. When Pharaoh had a dream no one could interpret, the released prisoner mentioned Joseph. He was then able to be put in a position to save his father and brothers.

You may not understand the relationships you have right now, but God is using them to get you where He needs you. Joseph could have sulked that he was a slave or a prisoner and spent his life being bitter. Instead, he took bad situations and forged relationships he wouldn’t have made any other way. He looked for opportunity instead of excuses. He built relationships instead of resentment. Looking back it’s easy to see what God was doing. I’m sure Joseph didn’t understand why he had those relationships at the time. He accepted the people that God placed in his life, learned from them and moved on.

Who is God trying to use in your life right now?
Have you been building resentment toward them or relationships them?
What do you need to do to learn from each relationship?

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June 5, 2014 · 7:43 AM

Transformations And Renovations

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I watch a lot of home improvement shows on the weekends. It seems my tuner is locked on HGTV when Saturday rolls around. I like watching how they transform spaces. Some require major work where they tear everything out and others are mainly painting and getting the right furniture in the right place. Before moving walls though, they always check to see if it is a load bearing wall. Some walls run perpendicular to the boards that hold up your roof and some run in the same line. If you take out the perpendicular ones (load bearing) that section of the roof can cave in.

When I think about my life, I’ve got a lot of walls up. I’ve got some in place to separate portions of my life from the other portions. I’ve got some up because I’ve been hurt and I don’t want that pain again. I’ve got some up where I hide all the junk I have in my life as well. Each of us have walls up in our lives whether we like to admit it or not. We build them to keep people and even God out of portions of our lives. We let them in certain rooms, but we don’t like yo let them into our junk closet.

Just like in a real house, some of those walls are load bearing and some are not. I’ve been thinking about what walls I’ve let God take down when He’s tried to do a remodel. I’ve given Him access to certain things and haven’t given Him permission to do others. I’ve let Him take out some of the non load bearing walls in my life. But like in a renovation, sometimes those walls have to come down in order to do what the master designer wants to do. The more permissions or access they grant the hosts on those TV shows, the greater the outcome of the renovation.

In my own life, I want the amazing transformation that renovation can bring. I want to be stunned when I open my eyes and see what God has done with my life. In order for that to happen, I’ve got to give Him permission to tear down my load bearing walls. I’ve got to give Him access to every part of my house. I can’t keep anything hidden from Him. Our walls really don’t keep God out of those areas of our life and He really doesn’t need our permission to do things in our lives. I’ve learned that it helps my attitude in the renovation when I give those things to Him. It prepares me for the changes that are coming.

What walls have you put up to keep others or God out? Have you only given Him permission to knock down the non load bearing walls? What kind of transformation or renovation would you like? The greater one you want, the greater permission you need to give to Him. Just like at the end of those shows where people drop to their knees in awe of what has been done to their house, God can make that kind of renovation with your life. He can move walls, take out the mold of sin, repurpose your past and create something beautiful out of your life if you let Him.

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May 21, 2014 · 7:25 AM

Prayer Of Trust

Lord,

You’re holy and I’m unworthy of your daily presence in my life. Who am I that you should choose to call me your own, much less your child? I don’t know that I’ll ever understand why you choose to continually pour out blessings on me. I can’t comprehend the love you have for me. I can feel it and I can see it, but I know I don’t deserve it. In your grace, you have chosen not to give my what I deserve of have earned, but what you desire to give your children. You have given me peace, comfort, security and salvation. You have blessed me beyond words and I say, “Thank you!”

Thank you for not giving up on me when I most deserved it. Thank you for not turning your back on me when I have turned my back on you. You have remained true to II Timothy 2:13 that says even when we are unfaithful, you remain faithful. You cannot deny who you are. You are the steady constant in my life. You are my rock, my fortress, my hiding place and my deliverer. I trust you and run to you when things come at me faster than I can handle. I hide behind your shield when it feels like everyone is against me.

In those moments, you have never failed me. You have never left me out alone to face my battles. You have always stood with me, right beside me in the hardest of times. When others have left, you stayed. When others said that I got what I deserved, you put me back on me feet and showed me the path you wanted me on. You have always been my guide even though I haven’t always listened. You have pointed me to greener pastures, but I’ve procrastinated because I’ve been complacent with where I am. Continue to show patience towards me as you guide and direct me.

Give me the courage to leave those familiar fields to go where you would lead me. Give me peace as I walk away from the things I’ve known. Forgive me for finding my security in them instead of in you. Help me to trust you more and my surroundings less. Show me the greater plan you have for my life and nudge me when I stray from it. I ask for wisdom to recognize the time and seasons of change and for strength to bear the load you’ve given me. Thank you again for all you’ve done in my life and all you’re going to do. Thank you that I haven’t gone beyond the point of being used by you. I love you.

In Jesus name,

Amen

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May 20, 2014 · 7:50 AM

Umbrella Of Praise

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Have you ever just allowed your mind to worry? I’m sure you’ve been there where your every thought is consumed by all the possibilities. You replay the scenario in your mind over and over again until you can’t think of any good outcomes. Your heart rate goes up. Your stress increases. You get that feeling in the middle of your chest that something’s not right. Your sleep then gets affected and your exhausted because you’re mentally drained. It happens to the best of us, but it doesn’t have to. We don’t have to let worry consume our mind and lives. There’s a better way.

Philippians 4:6-7 says, “Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers…Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.” Worry takes a lot of energy. It takes a lot of time and effort too. God would rather we spend that time, energy and effort in prayer. That’s what David did when he worried. He spent a lot of time in dark caves hiding from people who wanted to kill him. His mind would wander in the darkness and worry would creep in.

It was in the darkness of those caves in the stress of worry that he wrote so many Psalms. We like to think of him as the giant slayer, but he was also a worrier. Writing the Psalms helped him channel that worry into prayer and praise. When we worry, we take control of the situation that we have no control over. When we pray, we give God control of the situation that He already knows the outcome of. If we can learn to hand that off on prayer, we can displace a lot of worry in our life and use the energy for productive things.

The scripture also said to let petitions and praise shape our worries into prayers. I’ve found that when I’m most stressed, most worried and most consumed with a problem that I need to break away and spend time listening to Praise and Worship music. When I begin to praise God and worship Him, I invite His presence into my situation. I invoke all of Heaven’s authority to come stand by my side and fight on my behalf. I’m then surrounded by God’s peaceful presence because He dwells in the praises of His people. When that peace comes over me, I begin to see the battle is not mine, but His.

Worry doesn’t change my situation, prayer does because it moves the hand of God. Worry leaves me empty and broken, but God’s presence makes me whole. Worry sees every negative outcome in a situation, but praise sees everything working together for my good. The choice is ours. I personally like the outcome of prayer and praise than worry and fret. If you’re caught in that storm of negative thoughts, put up an umbrella of prayer and praise today and let the peace of God that passes all understanding come and rule in your heart and mind. Leave worry behind. Give it to the One who already knows what’s going to happen and is in control. It’s a wonderful feeling when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

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