Tag Archives: daily devotion

December 12, 2014 · 5:30 AM

10 Scriptures On Leaving A Godly Heritage

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1. And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. (Deuteronomy 6:5-7 NLT)

2. A good man leaves an inheritance [of moral stability and goodness] to his children’s children. (Proverbs 13:22 AMP)

3. We will not keep them from our children; we will tell the next generation about the Lord ‘s power and his great deeds and the wonderful things he has done. (Psalms 78:4 GNB)

4. Train up a child in the way he should go [and in keeping with his individual gift or bent], and when he is old he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6 AMP)

5. It is the living who praise you, As I praise you now. Parents tell their children how faithful you are. (Isaiah 38:19 GNB)

6. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15 ESV)

7. But no weapon that is formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against you in judgment you shall show to be in the wrong. This [peace, righteousness, security, triumph over opposition] is the heritage of the servants of the Lord [those in whom the ideal Servant of the Lord is reproduced]; this is the righteousness or the vindication which they obtain from Me [this is that which I impart to them as their justification], says the Lord. (Isaiah 54:17 AMP)

8. Children are fortunate if they have a father who is honest and does what is right. (Proverbs 20:7 GNB)

9. I could have no greater joy than to hear that my children are following the truth. (3 John 1:4 NLT)

10. The Lord knows the days of the upright and blameless, and their heritage will abide forever. (Psalm 37:18 AMP)

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September 12, 2014 · 5:19 AM

God’s Megaphone

“Pain insists on being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures , speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pain. It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

C.S. Lewis

Have you ever had pain so badly that it throbbed? I’ve hit my thumb with a hammer before and it felt like my thumb was going to explode. The pain in my thumb was sending signals to my brain, “I’m hurt! Help me!” I held it, sucked on it and then put ice on it until it quit hurting. Whenever I grabbed something for the next few days, I would remember that I hit it because the pain was still deep inside. Eventually it went away and I forgot that my thumb had ever been hit.

When we go through pain and suffering in our lives, it’s a lot like that. Our pain signals us to call out to God, “I’m hurt! Help me!” He then comes to us and helps us in our pain. He speaks to us in those times and shows us things in His Word that we’ve never seen or understood until we were in that kind of pain. As time goes on, the pain goes away and so often, our dependence on God.

When times are good, we tend to forget God. We have no need of Him if we really don’t know Him. He is kind of our 9-1-1 call when we are in trouble. He’s always available, but we don’t call Him until we need Him. When we do call in those times, He does respond, but He wants to be more than your go to guy for an emergency. He wants to be the one you go to in the good times as well. He’s speaking to us in those times as well, but we don’t hear Him because we are too busy enjoying life.

Bad things happen from time to time so that He can renew our relationship. Every time the children of Israel forgot God, He would send the prophets to remind them and to draw them back. When they wouldn’t listen, He would allow them to be taken to captivity until they remembered hat God said in Leviticus 26:3-13. He said if they would listen to Him and obey He would pour out all kinds of blessings on them. He spent the rest of the chapter letting them know that if they forgot Him, He would use pain and calamity to draw them back.

If things are rough in your life right now, chances are that God is shouting to you. He could be trying to get your attention to speak to you. I’m not saying you’ve done something wrong in your life, but maybe God is trying to get your attention. Instead of running from the pain, try stopping, calling out to God for help and then listening. There are things He wants to say to us all the time, but we’re usually not listening until pain is involved. Take time today to listen.

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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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August 27, 2014 · 6:14 AM

A Lover Of God’s Presence

On my last trip to Haiti, our group sang a song by Jesus Culture called “I’m a lover of your presence”. The part in the song that stands out to me says, “I’m a lover of your presence and it’s all I wanna be.” I can still hear our voices calling out into the night sky to God how much we love His presence. It became my prayer then and I still pray it today. I don’t want to live a day without walking in God’s presence. I know it’s possible and that God wants that relationship with us too.

Adam walked in God’s presence each night in the garden. Abraham lived in God’s presence according to genesis 24:40. Enoch also walked daily with God. Moses spent so much time in God’s presence that his face became bright. He had to wear a veil because it was too bright for the people to look at him. David loved God’s presence so much they he wanted to build a house for Him to dwell in. Peter spoke of the times of refreshment that come from the presence of The Lord. The Bible is full of examples of people who spent time in God’s presence.

If they can do it, you and I can do it. You may be thinking, “Yeah, but those were saints and holy men in the Bible. I’m just me.” Each of the people I listed above and the many more that you will find in the Bible who spent time in God’s presence were ordinary, flawed people just like you and me. The difference was that they took time to be in God’s presence each day. They knew they were unworthy of it, but they trusted God’s grace enough to enter His presence.

They knew that when they stood before God, in His presence, even their hidden sins would be exposed. Yet they entered it anyway. Why? Because they knew that the only way to get sin out of their life is to expose it to God. They knew that it was a good thing to get it out. But somehow, our minds think that we shouldn’t enter His presence because of our sins. We use that as an excuse to stay away from His presence. We cannot buy into that lie!

That’s just like people I know who won’t go to the doctor. I ask them why they won’t and they answer, “Because every time I go, they find something wrong.” They see it as a negative thing when a doctor finds something wrong. I see it as a good thing. If there’s something wrong in me, I want to find it quickly and have it dealt with. Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. Dealing with it does. Being in God’s presence forces us to deal with what’s wrong in our lives. We should want to have Him find what’s wrong so we can get forgiveness and move into a closer relationship with Him. Find time today to spend in His presence.

If you’d like to listen to the song on YouTube, you can click here.

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August 1, 2014 · 8:00 AM

Grow Down To Grow Up

Have you ever grown a tomato plant? I haven’t since I was younger, but I remember that when the tomatoes started growing we had to brace the plant. Sometimes we drove a stake into the ground and loosely tied the plant to it. Other times we made a round cage from chicken wire and put it around it to help it. While it’s body is strong enough to hold the tomatoes, it’s not firm enough to hold them up. The more it produces, the more help it needs.

The same thing is true in businesses. The larger they get, the more structure they need. If they grow too quickly without the right structure in place, they’ll fail. It can also happen in our spiritual growth. The more we grow in Christ, the more structure and support we need. Colossians 2:7 says, “Let your roots grow down into Him, and let your lives be built on Him. Then your faith will grow strong.” Paul knew that as we grow, we need deeper roots to support us.

If you want to grow in your relationship with God, you have to let your roots go down first. You can’t grow up until you grow down. Your success in your ability to stay strong as you get closer to God depends on your ability to grow your roots. A big tree is easily blown over if it has shallow roots. The top side can be healthy, green and growing, but of it doesn’t have deep roots, it will get pushed over by the first storm that comes along.

The foundation for a skyscraper is a lot different than the foundation for a house. A shallow foundation on a large structure will crumble. Our foundation has to be built on Christ. Colossians 2:2 in the Amplified says, “That they may become progressively more intimately acquainted with and may know more definitely…Christ.” We are to progressively know Him more. We are to continue growing beyond our initial salvation experience. We are to move from milk to meat. The only way we can successfully grow more is to put down deeper roots.

We put them down by progressively spending more time in the Bible and in prayer. Your growth is directly tied to how much time and effort you put into it. I’m talking about after your salvation experience. Christ does that work because we can’t. Our growth comes from actively seeking Him. It comes from putting structure in place to help you grow. It comes from reading books on faith, having people in your life who are stronger in their faith than you so they can help you and from having people around you who are weaker do you can help pull them along. Your roots are key to your growth.

In Ephesians 3:16-17, Paul says that he prays that God would empower us with inner strength through His spirit. Then, after Christ makes His home in our heart, our roots will grow down deep into Gods love and keep us strong. The more we trust on Christ, the deeper our roots will grow. The deeper our roots grow, the closer we can get to Him. If your desire is to grow upwards in Christ, spend time working on your foundation. Do the things that will give you a clearer understand of who God is and build on that foundational knowledge of Him.

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July 31, 2014 · 8:01 AM

A Blank Check

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If someone wrote you a blank check, how much would you write it out for? Would you write it out for millions of dollars so you wouldn’t have a care in the world? Would you write it out to cover your basic needs so you wouldn’t be “greedy”? Would you keep all the money or give some away to others in need? Maybe you would write it all out to an organization that is near to your heart. It’s an interesting question I think. I’ve never been given a blank check nor have I written one. I think it would be cool either way to be a part of something like that.

I’ve been reading “Good to Great in God’s Eyes” by Chip Ingram and in the chapter “Make Great Sacrifices”, he challenges the reader to write a blank check to God with our lives. It seems easy to do at first, but then you start to think about that blank. Will God cash that in for everything you have? Will He just ask for what He needs in this moment? What will it cost you ultimately? With the questions comes fear and fear keeps us from leaving that check blank. It either causes us to put an amount in there, limitations on it or stipulations.

Didn’t jesus tell us that God was a good father? Didn’t He say that if earthly fathers could give good gifts, how much more so our Heavenly Father? Then why are we so afraid to write that check out? Are we afraid He will make us destitute? Psalms 37:5 says, “I have never seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging for bread.” So that’s not it. Is it that we think He will send us to some remote part of the world that we’ll hate? I don’t think He’d do that either. He knows that you need to be happy to thrive and do His work.

The truth is that we see our lives as our own and not His. That’s not easy to write and I’m sure it’s not easy to hear. If we truly believed I Corinthians 6:19-20 that’s says, “You are not your own, you were bought with a price”, we’d be willing to write that check out to God. If we truly believed it when we say, “Everything I have belongs to God,” we’d be more willing to give up our possessions for the Kingdom. We would ask God how much He wants us to give instead of just giving Him 10%. We would be willing to relocate wherever He needed us, give up that lucrative salary and do whatever He asked.

As it is, most of us live good Christian lives instead of great ones because we aren’t willing to let go of the temporary things for the eternal things. We aren’t willing to give up our sight so we can walk by faith. I believe the early church turned the world upside down as Acts 17:6 says because they understood what it meant to offer themselves as living sacrifices (living blank checks). They got it that their lives weren’t their own. What if we started living like that? How different would the world be if we wrote God a blank check with our lives? How different would your life be?

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July 28, 2014 · 7:49 AM

The Rock Of Help

When I get overwhelmed by circumstances and things going on in my life, I do an exercise in faith. Before I panic, I force myself to remember times when God has come through for me. I try to think of all the times before when things have been hopeless and at the last minute, He answered. Doing that reminds me that God answers at just the right time, that He sees my situation and that He’s been faithful in the past. When I begin to take my focus off of how impossible my situation is and remind myself of how capable God is, my attitude starts to change.

The Israelites were at Mizpah offering sacrifices to God for their sin. I Samuel 7 tells us that all of Israel was there repenting. While they were gathered for offerings, the Philistines decided to attack them. The Israelites were scared, confused and began to panic. Samuel cried out to God on their behalf as he made a sacrifice. Verse 10 says that as he was making the sacrifice, the Philistines showed up for battle. God spoke from Heaven in loud claps of thunder that threw the enemy into confusion. After Israel routed the Philistines that day, Samuel set up a rock and named it “Ebenezer” which means rock of help.

Anytime that Israel was in distress, they simply had to look at that rock and remember that God came through in an impossible situation. It was a reminder that if He did it before, He’ll do it again. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. David knew that too. I wonder how many times he passed by Ebenezer and called out to God. In Psalm 61:2, he wrote, “When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” He wanted to be led to God, but also to that memory that God saves us just in time.

When we get overwhelmed, our prayer shouldn’t be one of panic. It should be that we are led to the rock that is higher than we are. When the enemy comes in like a flood, we need to run to that rock for safety. When we can’t see tomorrow because of all the trouble today holds, we need to remember the God we serve. We need to call to mind the great things He has done in the past and remind ourselves that we are not forgotten. We have not been abandoned. He will come just in the nick of time as He always has.

Don’t make your decisions based on fear. Make them based on the faith that God hears us. Make them based on how He has responded in your life in the past. Your situation may seem hopeless. You may be outnumbered, out gunned and surrounded, but you serve a God who is able. He is able to deliver you from whatever you are facing today. It’s not too late. You’re not too engulfed. You’re not finished. When you’re overwhelmed, run to the Rock of Help. He’s there for you in your time of need.

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July 17, 2014 · 6:43 AM

Living A Significant Life

I’ve never met anyone who said, “I don’t care if my life doesn’t matter.” Each of us in some way want our lives to matter. We want to live significant lives. We want to make a difference. When we die, we want the world to be different because we were here. I believe that’s how most of us, if not all of us think about our lives. When we feel like we are making a difference, we are riding high. We feel most insignificant when we don’t think anyone notices us or that we aren’t making a difference. We feel worthless when we aren’t appreciated. Our feelings are tied to how significant we think our lives are.

If we want to live significant lives, we should see what God says about it. James 4:10 says, “Humble yourselves (feeling very insignificant) in the sight of The Lord, and He will exalt you (He will lift you up and make your lives significant) (AMP).” So the way to really live a significant life is to feel insignificant in the sight of The Lord. It’s when we humble ourselves before God that He can begin to do something significant with us. Until then, we are out seeking to live a significant live to get the glory ourselves.

When we humble ourselves, we let God know that we understand we are nothing without Him. We show Him that we recognize that all we have is given to us by Him. Being humble in His sight is understanding that our talents, our jobs, our income, our skills are all a gift from Him. It’s not because of anything we’ve done. It’s not because we are self made people. Our lives can only become eternally significant when we stop and recognize that He is the source of everything we have. When we recognize that, we won’t be out seeking glory for ourselves. We’ll be doing things for His glory.

It’s hard for us to think that way because it’s the opposite of what we know in this world. Our culture says that we should promote ourselves, get all the praise we can, get recognized at every opportunity in order to feel significant. But God says it’s not until we feel insignificant that we can be significant. He says if we seek out praise for ourselves, we have our reward. We then have to choose, are we after a temporary praise from people or are we after the eternal praise from God? The significance of your life rests in how you answer that question. Charles Studd wrote, “Only one life, ’twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.”

If you’re living your life to be significant so people will know your name, your memory will be gone not long after you die. If you’re living your life so people will know His name, what you do will be remembered for eternity. Our search for living significant lives begins and ends with being humble in the sight of The Lord. He can’t lift us up until we’ve recognized our lowly estate. If you truly want to leave the world different than when you came, do everything for God’s glory, not your own. Seek to make Him known instead of yourself. That’s how you live a significant life.

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July 16, 2014 · 7:45 AM

Mercy And Restoration

Every time I read about King David in the Bible, I come away with a deeper respect for him. In II Samuel, life was going good for David. He was king and had just brought his son, Absalom, home to set aside their differences. Instead of being grateful, Absalom stole the hearts of Israel, betrayed his father and took the kingdom away from him. David had to flee his beloved Jerusalem to keep from being killed. As he was taking one last look from the summit of the Mount of Olives, he was met by the servant of Mephibosheth.

Mephibosheth was Jonathon’s son and King Saul’s grandson. David had taken him in and let him eat from his table. When David asked the servant where he was, the servant said, “He stayed behind to reclaim his grandfather’s kingdom.” I’m sure that hurt David after all he had done for him. David said, “In that case, you get everything he owns.” As David turned to continue on his exile, another man related to Saul started yelling curses at David and throwing rocks at him. He yelled out, “Get out of here you murderer, you scoundrel! The Lord is paying you back. You stole his (Saul’s) throne.”

One of David’s men grabbed his sword and asked permission to cut off his head. David screamed, “No! Who asked your opinion?” He then told them that his own son is trying to kill him. Why shouldn’t a member of Saul’s family have even more reason to? Instead of killing the man who was taunting him, throwing rocks at him and made him weary, he let him be. He showed mercy. He showed great restraint in dealing with everything that was going wrong.

We each have people in our life who have betrayed us. We have people who use words like daggers and stab us in the back. We have people who get under our skin and wear us out. It’s nothing new. It’s been happening for millennia. David showed us a different way to handle them. He showed us that there is another option. In II Samuel 16:12, David said, “Perhaps The Lord will see that I’m being wronged and will bless me.” He knew that if he lashed out in anger, he removed the chance of blessing. He wanted to leave the door open for God to help him.

How do you respond to the people who won’t leave you alone? Do you fight back? Do you get into endless arguments? Proverbs 15:1 says, “A soft answer turns away wrath, but harsh words stir up anger.” It could be that your response is keeping you in that perpetual cycle. If you want to change the circumstance, change your response to it. Show mercy instead of anger. Have patience instead of lashing out. Open the door for God to bless you instead of slamming it shut. Show love instead of hate. Give back blessings instead of curses and watch what God does. It may take a while, but God will restore you like he did David.

By the way, David did get his kingdom back. It turned out Mephibosheth’s servant was lying. David took half of the belongings back and gave them to Mephibosheth. He then let him continue to live in the palace. The man who cursed him, apologized and was forgiven. All of this was done because David did not sin when he was losing everything. Keep your head up. God sees what you’re going through. He sees the attacks and has not forgotten you. He will restore you.

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July 15, 2014 · 7:37 AM

Restoring Your Connection

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A lot of the work I do for my employer is away from the office. In order to be able to connect to our intranet, I use a virtual private network (VPN). I have to plug in a special code along with my log in codes after I connect to the internet. Once that happens the VPN goes to work and I get a message that says, “Connection has been restored.” At that moment, my emails begin to download and I can access all the information on our severs that I need. I can start working again

Peter described us as aliens or sojourners here on this earth. Our real home is in Heaven. We are away from where we belong, yet we still have to connect with God. He tells us that we are to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against our souls. We must stay connected with God while we are here on earth so that we can receive His messages to us. We must stay in constant communication with Him so that we have everything we need in order to fulfill what He has called us to do.

So many Christians live their lives without being truly connected to God. They don’t read their Bible, they don’t pray or seek His face. It’s not that they don’t want to. It’s that everything else in their life seems to eat up all of their time. I know what that’s like because I’ve lived a lot of my Christian life like that. When times got tough, I wasn’t connected and I was overcome by my situation. It wasn’t until that point that I truly cried out to God for help. I had no way out. I was desperate. I asked for forgiveness and my connection with Him was restored.

From that time on, I have had to fight with my schedule to make sure I stay connected. I have to carve out time that won’t be interrupted. If we don’t make God a priority in our lives, we will lose that all important connection with Him. We will wander through this life without direction or purpose. We will be busy all the time yet have nothing to show for our busyness. It’s in stating connected to God that we find our purpose. It’s in that quality time that we spend in His Word that we receive His messages to us. It’s in prayer that we cast our cares on Him and take on His burden.

We are all sojourners. We are travelers through this world. It’s the responsibility of each one of us to find ways to connect with God while we are here. Don’t get so caught up in living on the road that you fail to pray and get into His Word. The things of this world are temporary. If we aren’t connecting with our Heavenly Father, we get deceived into thinking they are the things that matter for eternity. Ultimately, it’s our relationship with Him that decides our eternity. It should have the highest importance in our lives. If you’ve lost that connection with Him, there’s no time like the present to get on your knees and restore it. The power is in your hands.

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