And set your minds and keep them set on what is above (the higher things), not on the things that are on the earth.
Colossians 3:2 (AMP)
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Tag Archives: daily devotion
10 Scriptures On Friendship
1. As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend. (Proverbs 27:17 NLT)
2. Friends love through all kinds of weather, and families stick together in all kinds of trouble. (Proverbs 17:17 MSG)
3. If you want people to like you, forgive them when they wrong you. Remembering wrongs can break up a friendship. (Proverbs 17:9 GNB)
4. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:13 NLT)
5. Don’t leave your friends or your parents’ friends and run home to your family when things get rough; Better a nearby friend than a distant family. (Proverbs 27:10 MSG)
6. Oil and perfume rejoice the heart; so does the sweetness of a friend’s counsel that comes from the heart. (Proverbs 27:9 AMP)
7. Friends mean well, even when they hurt you. But when an enemy puts an arm round your shoulder — watch out! (Proverbs 27:6 GNB)
8. Friends come and friends go, but a true friend sticks by you like family. (Proverbs 18:24 MSG)
9. When you please the Lord, you can make your enemies into friends. (Proverbs 16:7 GNB)
10. Reliable friends who do what they say are like cool drinks in sweltering heat—refreshing! (Proverbs 25:13 MSG)
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Throwback Thursday In The Bible
I always love “Throwback Thursday” on social media. Lots of people post pictures of themselves in the past. People laugh and comment about the clothes, hair or where they were. It brings back good memories of a time gone by, but it also is a reminder that we aren’t who we used to be. Times change and so do we. It’s so gradual and slow that we hardly notice it until we do something like a “Throwback Thursday”. When we do that, it becomes very clear how much we have changed and how far we’ve come.
I believe it’s also a good practice to do a Spiritual Throwback Thursday. It’s important to look back and see all the great things God has done for us and to see what He’s brought us through. Times of reflection help us to remember where we once were. They help us to relive the pain and hopelessness of the moment just before God came through. They build our faith so that we can face even harder times in the future. God is faithful. What He’s done in the past, He will do today and in the future.
In Lamentations 3:19-32, Jeremiah reflects on where he had been. He wrote, “I’ll never forget the trouble, the utter lost mess, the taste of ashes, the poison I’ve swallowed. I remember it all – oh how well I remember – the feeling of hitting bottom. (MSG)” In his time of sorrow, he took time to think back to how he felt in those times of despair he had already faced. He didn’t do it to make himself feel worse in his current condition. He did it so he could have hope.
In verses 21 and 22, he said, “Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: the faithful love of the Lord never ends! (NLT)” No matter how bad life gets, you can still dare to have hope because God is faithful. Things may look worse than you’ve ever seen them. The sky may be darker than it has ever been. You may be facing the most hopeless situation, but one thing remains: the faithful love of the Lord never ends. You can hold on to His faithfulness no matter how bleak things might seem.
The writer then spends the next several verses reminding himself of the lessons he’s learned in trusting God. He gives himself a pep talk and says in verses 31 and 32, “For no one is abandoned by the Lord forever. Though He brings grief, He also shows great compassion because of the greatness of His unfailing love.” Sometimes we have to give ourselves a pep talk too. David did it when he asked himself, “Why so downcast, o my soul? Put your hope in God.” If doing a Spiritual Throwback Thursday was good enough for Jeremiah and David, it’s good enough for us. It’ll help you to remember the faithful love of the Lord.
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Be Ordinary
We are raised hearing stories about great men and women of history. We have movies that encapsulate their lives in just a few hours. There are thousands of books that tell of their struggles. We also create Superheroes to further train our brains that we must be super or great in order to accomplish anything in history. While that may be mostly true according to this world’s standards, it’s not by God’s standard. He’s ok with you being ordinary. He doesn’t need you to be Super or great in order to change the world.
In Acts 4, Peter and John spent the night in jail for healing a crippled man and preaching that Jesus was the way to Heaven. The next morning, they were brought before the High Priest and the religious council. Knowing the answer, they asked the question, “By what power, or in whose name, have you done this?” Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, stood up and boldly spoke to them about Jesus. Verse 13 says, “The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures.”
Peter and John were fishermen before they followed Jesus. That was the low wage, manual labor of their time. Their job required long, hard hours, not an education. People were always surprised when they spoke because no one expects greatness from ordinary. It was the same in Acts 2 when they were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in other tongues. Acts 2:7-8 says, “And they were all beside themselves in amazement, saying, “Are not all these who are talking Galileans? Then how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own particular dialect to which we were born? (AMP)” No one expected these Galilean fisherman to know anything about the Scriptures, much less to be able to speak another language correctly.
When our lives are controlled by the Holy Spirit, our lives become great. We get a boldness to do things we’ve never been able to do. We speak like we’ve never spoken before. The Holy Spirit can make an ordinary life an extraordinary life. Don’t hold yourself back from ministering to others because you don’t have the education. Don’t be afraid to stand up for your faith because you don’t think you know enough about the Bible. Peter and John were in your shoes yet they spoke with boldness through the Holy Spirit.
God chose these uneducated men and women to turn the world upside down. If He can do that, He can use you. It’s ok to be ordinary because God uses ordinary people everyday. Don’t preclude yourself from God’s plan because you don’t think He can do anything with you. He can use your brokenness to heal someone else. He can use your simplicity to confound the wise. He can take what little you think you have to offer and do great things. It just takes you being willing to get past your excuses and to allow God to do His work through you. Let Him take your ordinary and do extraordinary things.
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MLK Do It Well (Video)
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Spiritual Discipline
I was visiting a friend recently who was working on a LEGO project with his kids. They had hundreds of LEGO pieces neatly arranged on their table and a step by step guide. I watched as they looked at each step, found the pieces, decided where they went, put them on there and moved on to the next step. Each step took a while because you had to find the right pieces in the right color and then look at a cartoon drawing of where they went to help them place them.
After watching them build for about twenty minutes, I began to get curious. What were they building? I couldn’t tell from where they were in the project. They showed me the picture on the box so I could see the final outcome. I looked at it and where they were and quickly realized this was going to take days to build. It was not your average LEGO building project. It was going to take multiple steps to get through it along with time and dedication. It reminded me of the spiritual discipline it takes to walk by faith.
For many of us, God has put a dream in our heart or has given us a promise of where He wants to take us. In essence, He’s shown us the picture on the box. We then have a series of steps to go through in order to achieve that picture. Each step takes time. First we have to get the courage to take the next step. Then we have to find the pieces of that step and find where they go. Once we get them in place, it can be a while before God shows us the next step. When He does, the process starts over.
After a while of following the steps God has laid out for us, we can begin to see what He is doing and how those parts fit into the overall picture. In the beginning though, it’s tough to see how any of it relates to what God is doing, but these are the foundational pieces. If we don’t get these in the right place, the rest will not work. It takes spiritual discipline to follow the steps God gives us. That discipline produces the patience and endurance needed to get us where we’re going because it’s easy to want to quit along the way.
If you’re looking at your life and wondering what God is doing, ask to see the box. Let God remind you of the final outcome. To make something incredible, it requires a lot of small steps and intricate details. Don’t get so lost in the steps He has given you that you lose sight of what He wants to do in and with your life. Also don’t worry about the next step until you’ve completed this step. God will reveal each step in His time not yours. Psalm 37:23 says, “The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their life.” God knows the details of each step of your life. Trust Him and follow where He leads.
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Spiritual Adjustment
Every once in a while, my body gets out of alignment. My back hurts, my neck gets tight and I get headaches. I try laying on the floor to pop my back myself. When that doesn’t work, I have my wife stand on it to try to pop it. When all else fails, I visit a chiropractor to give me an alignment. He hooks me up to a machine that sends electric pulses to the muscles and places warm blankets on top. He then comes in and begins to pop my back and put everything back into alignment. It’s not fun, but when I walk out of there, I feel a lot better.
From time to time, you and I can get spiritually misaligned. We lack interest to go to church, we quit reading the Bible and we barely pray. We tell others that we need to get back to those things, but nothing ever happens. We keep going until something bad happens and we go back to church for a spiritual alignment. It’s a cycle that a lot of us go through. When times are good, we forget we need God. When things go wrong, we suddenly remember He is our help in times of need.
Since the beginning of time, that’s the story of the human race. We are constantly in need of spiritual adjustment. We walk out of church feeling great and have a renewed purpose. We do great for a little while, but slowly we begin to fade. We hit to the snooze button instead of getting up to pray. We fall asleep before we crack open the Bible. We tell ourselves, “Tomorrow I’ll read. Tomorrow I’ll pray.” Tomorrow becomes a week, a week a month and so on. It’s the cycle I’ve been on too many times. So how do we stay spiritually aligned?
It’s much like any relationship. It takes work, time and effort. We need to be adjusted when we begin to look at the things needed to maintain the relationship as a checklist. When we look at them like a checklist, they become chores and no one likes chores. God isn’t into making us do chores. He wants us to love Him the way He loves us. He wants us to want to do the things that keep our relationship fresh. He wants us to want to spend time with Him. He doesn’t want us to feel as though we have to.
Ephesians 4:23 gives us the answer. It says, “Be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind, having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude. (AMP)” We have to constantly find ways to keep our mind and spirit renewed. We have to switch things up. Read a different version of the Bible to gain fresh perspective. Change the time and place you pray. Sit in a different seat at church. Get out of your routine and find a fresh love for God. That’s how you get your spiritual adjustment. Stay out of a rut and constantly renew your mental and spiritual attitude.
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Heavy Lifting
Have you ever tried to carry something that was too heavy for you? I’m not talking about something you couldn’t lift. I’m talking about something that you could hold, but not for very long. You struggle to lift it, with each step you exhale trying to manage the weight and size of the object. You can only go a few feet before you have to set it down, take a breather, look at how much further you have to go and then try again. You repeat the process over and over until you finally reach your destination. It’s exhausting and can give you medical problems if it’s too heavy or too far.
Imagine carrying that same object and a friend comes over. They see you struggle and instead of offering help, they offer suggestions on how to carry it better. “Lift with your legs, not your back,” they say. How does that make you feel? Clearly they see you struggling, but they are doing nothing to help you. It gets frustrating. How about if instead of helping you they cheered you on? How would that make you feel? “Come on! I know you can do it! You’ve got this.” While it might help morally, it still doesn’t help with the problem.
What you really want when you’re struggling like that is for them to say, “Hey, let me give you a hand.” When they grab the other side, the weight is halved. Suddenly it’s more bearable than it was. You may be able to go a little bit further before you have to set it down. Their physically helping you with the object is a lot more useful than telling you how to do it or encouraging you to do it. Would you agree? Then why do we do the first two when we see someone struggling with heavy burdens?
I once heard a person say, “With a friend, joy is doubled and pain is halved.” I could also add burdens are halved. Galatians 6:2 says, “Help to carry one another’s burdens, and in this way you will obey the law of Christ.” It didn’t tell us just to encourage someone who is carrying a burden or to tell them how to carry it. We are told to help them carry it. When someone is carrying a burden, it’s a lot like that large object. They may only be able to take a few steps before they’re exhausted. They may not feel like they’re making progress. While words of encouragement are nice, helping them with the heavy lifting is what’s needed.
Think of a time when you’ve had a heavy burden. What is it that you wished people had done for you? Go and do that for someone else. When I see others who are going through something I’ve been through, my first thoughts are, “What did people do that made me mad? What did I wish people had done.” I then go and try to do the second instead of the first. It’s important that we look around us today to see which friends are struggling. While a word of encouragement is nice and a few tips on how to bear the burden is great, I’m sure they’d love some help with the heavy lifting.
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2014: A Look Back
Thank you for an amazing 2014. Devotions By Chris had three times more visits than it did in 2013. I will be making some changes in 2015 that will continue to help more believers grow in their faith and find encouragement in God’s Word. Be sure to let me know what you think.
These were the Top 5 posts that were viewed on my site this year. Take a moment to check them out to see what God wants to say to you on this last day of 2014.
1. 2014 New Year Prayer – Thank you for 2013 and all the things that you showed me through it. Thank you for the victories and answers to prayers that you gave. Help me to continue to learn from the defeats I faced and the changes that you made in my life. I may never fully understand why things happened this year that weren’t part of my plan, but were a part of yours. Even when I don’t understand, help me to trust you still. Bring healing to the pain I’ve endured and…[continue reading here]
2. Times Of Transition – Transitions in life are hard. They mean that one part of your life’s story is over and a new one is about to begin. They are the space between where faith is tested and fear fights to creep in. They are a temporary no man’s land that we have to walk through in order to grow. As we walk through them, it’s hard to see what’s coming next. The territory is so unknown to is that we put our attention and focus on…[continue reading here]
3. Called To Do Something – We’ve all been planted in different soil and come from different seeds. Each one of us grow at our own rate, produce different fruit and have our own purpose. When we compare ourselves to others, we lose sight of who God made us to be. We each are called to do something that only we can do. We have been planted where God wants us. It’s up to us to grow and produce what He wants us to. It’s up to us to…[read it here]
4. The Best New Year’s Resolution – I had a Bible teacher in high school who had us write something in the front cover of our Bibles so we would never forget it. I’m glad he had us do it because I haven’t ever forgotten it. He had us write, “This book will keep you from sin. Sin will keep you from this book.” It strikes a chord with me as much now as it did then. In order to lead a successful Christian life…[continue reading here]
5. Worship With Our Lives – Each of us are called to do something. We are called to worship God with our lives. He has given us the tools we need and the people around us to help us accomplish it. We simply need to quit making excuses and hiding in our routines to keep from doing it. Our lives honor Him most when we fulfill what we were made to do. Our lives become worship when…[read it here]
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here's an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 24,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 9 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
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Joseph’s Character
The Bible only gives us a few clues about Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus. He’s only mentioned in a few verses, but from those verses we can tell a lot about him. I think it’s important to remember that even though he wouldn’t have a role in the DNA of Jesus, he was chosen by God to help shape the man jesus would become. God knew that he possessed the qualities He wanted in a man that would raise Jesus as his own and would take care of his family above all. That tells me that he was a man of character.
We know that Joseph received some news that was hard to swallow. His fiancé told him she was pregnant and he knew that it wasn’t his. The story she told him was hard to believe. It went against everything he knew. I wonder if he was furious, angry or just heart broken. No matter what emotions went through him, Matthew 1:19 says, “Joseph was a man who always did what was right, but he did not want to disgrace Mary publicly; so he made plans to break the engagement privately.” He must have struggled with the right thing to do.
His love for Mary overrode the letter of the law. Mary could have been put to death for getting pregnant with someone else’s baby. Remember the story of the adulteress woman? They wanted to stone her. It was custom to put her to death, but Joseph didn’t want to do that. He loved her and valued life. His decision to break the engagement privately spoke again to his character. He had every right to shame her and her family publicly, but he chose a better route because of his character. Doing what’s right isn’t always doing what you’re permitted to do.
As he thought of the consequences of his predicament, an angel visited him in a dream. The angel said, “Do not be afraid to take Mary to be your wife. For it is by the Holy Spirit that she has conceived. She will have a son, and you will name him Jesus – because he will save his people from their sins.” The angel corroborated the story Mary had told him. A few verses later we read that Joseph did what the Angel told him to do. Not only was he a man of character, he was a man of obedience. He obeyed even though it was the hard thing to do.
We know from the story of David being anointed king that God loos at our heart. When He looked at Joseph’s heart, He saw a man of character and a man of obedience. He knew He could trust Him with anything including raising His only son. When God looks at our heart, what does He see? Does He know we will obey even though it is inconvenient? Does He know we will act with integrity even though circumstances may be against us? It’s in the hard times and decisions of life that your character is revealed. Be a person of obedience so God can trust you with anything.
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Devotions by Chris Hendrix 