But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
Romans 5:8 (NLT)
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Tag Archives: daily devotional
Good Deeds
I love the idea of paying it forward. I always smile when I read a post on Facebook that is thanking an unknown person for buying their coffee or lunch. I think those actions and posts inspire others to do similar things for other people. At work, I challenge new employees to do one thing for someone else each day. It can be as little a gesture as opening a door from them to letting them go first in the check out line to buying their lunch to wherever their mind leads them. The point is to train them to open their eyes to the needs of others.
Human nature has always look inward rather than outward. To break that habit and to begin looking to the needs of others, you have to challenge yourself to look up from your own life. Each of us have enough things going on in our lives that make us too busy, too poor, and too blinded to help others. We have excuses lined up as to why we don’t have the time or resources to help someone out.
The truth is, that simple gestures, like opening the door for someone, cost you no money or time. They are things you can easily do, but make a difference in others. Do you remember the Golden Rule? “Do for others what you want them to do for you” (Matt 7:12 GNB). If it’s a gesture you would appreciate, then do it for someone else first. Pay it forward so that you begin the chain reaction of people doing something good for someone else. The Golden Rule is a simple concept really, but it requires us to think beyond ourselves and to be the initiator in positive actions.
Decades after Jesus taught the Golden Rule, Paul was writing to Titus, a leader in the church, about the behaviors Christians should exhibit. In chapter 3 verse 8 he says, “I want you to give special emphasis to these matters, so that those who believe in God may be concerned with giving their time to doing good deeds, which are good and useful for everyone.” Doing good for others should be part of the DNA of all believers. It should be our concern to find things to do for others that are both good and useful.
So today, be on the lookout for people who you can do a good deed for. You’ll be surprised at how big a small gesture can be to some people. You’ll feel good in the process and who knows, it may even open up a door to share your faith or to pray for someone. Start today. Begin making an effort to look up from your life and you’ll find that opportunities abound for you to do good deeds for others. It’s an easy and effective way to be the hands and feet of Jesus in a world that desperately needs His presence.
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Missing Abilities
Write down clearly on tablets what I reveal to you, so that it can be read at a glance. Put it in writing, because it is not yet time for it to come true. But the time is coming quickly, and what I show you will come true. It may seem slow in coming, but wait for it; it will certainly take place, and it will not be delayed.
Habakkuk 2:2-3 (GNT)
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Let There Be Light (Video)
4 The Word gave life to everything that was created,
and his life brought light to everyone.
5 The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness can never extinguish it.
John 1:4-5 (NLT)
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Quiet Place Of Peace
Have you ever found yourself looking for a quiet place to get away from it all? In today’s connected world, it’s hard to find a quiet place. We are besieged by emails, texts, and phone calls. Social media calls to us constantly begging for our attention. Our jobs hunt us down after hours to find solutions and our families deserve our time as well. It can be hard to find that place where we find peace among the craziness of life, but it does exist.
David looked for it as well. He didn’t have a cell phone ringing or a boss demanding over time. He had people who were hunting him down to kill him. He lived a lot of his life on the run. He was either being chased or was chasing someone. On top of that, add in that he was running a country. He was a very busy person, yet he longed for that quiet place of peace as well. He wanted a place where he could just rest.
In Psalm 27:3, he describes a little bit of his situation and how it makes him feel. He wrote, “When besieged, I’m calm as a baby. When all hell breaks loose, I’m collected and cool” (MSG). For most of us, we can’t identify with those statements. When we are besieged by our todo list, we are not calm as a baby. We are stressed. When everything seems to come apart at once, we aren’t cool and collected. We become frantic at the situation with no solution. How could David be this way in those situations? He found his quiet place of peace.
In the next few verses, David writes, “I’m asking GOD for one thing, only one thing: To live with him in his house my whole life long. I’ll contemplate his beauty; I’ll study at his feet. That’s the only quiet, secure place in a noisy world, The perfect getaway, far from the buzz of traffic.” He knew that prayer was essential in finding that peace in the storm of life. When we pray, we acknowledge God is in control, even when we aren’t.
He also mentioned meditating on God’s beauty was as well. It’s not enough to just pray. We have to keep our mind on God throughout the day in order to stay in that place. The other thing he did was to study at God’s feet. He made the time to study God’s Word. Knowing what God says and understanding how it applies to your life is critical in finding that place of peace. Stress comes from not being able to balance everything on our plate and losing control of our life. Peace comes from knowing God is in control and then leaving the outcome to Him.
David ends this Psalm with the a way to find confidence in God that comes from the faith that knows God is in control of your life. “I’m sure now I’ll see God’s goodness in the exuberant earth. Stay with GOD! Take heart. Don’t quit. I’ll say it again: Stay with GOD.” He gives himself a reminder in the chaos. He wants his mind to stay with God instead of wandering away to all the what if’s. He also reminds himself not to quit or give up. He knows that if we stick with God in every situation, we will find that quiet place of peace.
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God Sees Your Tears
Crying is something that each one of does at some point in our life. Sometimes the tears come from a heart that is broken and sad. I’ve seen them flow when our heart is so full of joy and pride that it couldn’t be expressed enough in a smile. Other times, anger can bring them out. In any case, tears are something that God has given us as an overflow of emotion. Below, you’ll find several verses in the Bible that give us some examples of these emotional overflows and God’s responses to them.
1. You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.
Psalm 56:8 NLT
2. My tears will pour out in a ceaseless stream Until the Lord looks down from heaven and sees us.
Lamentations 3:49-50 GNB
3. Ah, GOD, listen to my prayer, my cry—open your ears. Don’t be callous; just look at these tears of mine. I’m a stranger here. I don’t know my way— a migrant like my whole family. Give me a break, cut me some slack before it’s too late and I’m out of here.
Psalm 39:12-13 MSG
4. Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will add to your life fifteen years.
Isaiah 38:5 AMP
5. Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy.
Psalm 126:5 NLT
6. The Lord saved me from death; he stopped my tears and kept me from defeat.
Psalm 116:8 GNB
7. My eyes are blinded by my tears. Each day I beg for your help, O LORD; I lift my hands to you for mercy.
Psalm 88:9 NLT
8. He who goes forth bearing seed and weeping [at needing his precious supply of grain for sowing] shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
Psalm 126:6 AMP
9. In his life on earth Jesus made his prayers and requests with loud cries and tears to God, who could save him from death. Because he was humble and devoted, God heard him.
Hebrews 5:7 GNB
10. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.
Revelation 21:4 NLT
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Being An Uplifter
In my job, I work with both management and their employees. Something I see more and more often is employees who take very little responsibility in situations and shift the blame to leadership. If something goes wrong, it’s management’s fault. They don’t take the initiative to repair the situation themselves. They offer malicious obedience so that when they fail, they have a scapegoat. Maybe you’ve seen this too. The is a problem in our churches too and, all of us are guilty of doing it. When things aren’t being done the way we think they should be done, we blame the pastor or leadership instead of doing things ourselves.
One of the most memorable stories in the Bible that captures this attitude comes from Exodus 17. The children of Israel had left Egypt and were wandering in the desert. They were hot and thirsty. Instead of looking to resolve the problem, they complained and blamed Moses. They said, “Why did YOU bring us out of Egypt? To kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” (GNB) They took no responsibility themselves. Ultimately, God spoke to Moses to travel to strike a rock with his staff, and water would come out of it. God did it as a favor to Moses rather than as a reward to the people.
In the following verses of that chapter, we see the characteristics we should display instead. While there in the desert, they were attacked by the Amalekites. Moses commanded Joshua to get some men and to go fight. He then went with Aaron and Hur to the top of a hill to watch the battle while holding his staff in the air. While his arms were up, the Israelites prevailed; when his arms were down, they began to lose. The problem was that holding up the staff for a long period became tiring and soon he could no longer hold up his arms.
Instead of complaining about leadership’s responsibility in the battle, Aaron and Hur found a rock for Moses to sit on. They then held his arms up for him as long as was needed until the Israelites had won. They recognized it wasn’t Moses’ job alone to lead the battle. They saw what needed to be done, without being asked, and they did it for their nation. In doing so, they provide for us a great example of how our lives should be. We can choose to be complainers, or we can choose to be uplifters. We can either blame, or we can be the solution. It’s up to each one of us to do our part in the church so that the body as a whole is successful. Will you be a complainer or will you be an uplifter?
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To Know God
In Matthew 9, Jesus is at the home of Matthew eating with some unsavory people. The top religious leaders saw him dining with them and asked, “Why does your teacher eat with such scum?” (NLT) They asked it loud enough that Jesus heard them, which meant that Matthew and his friends heard. Jesus said, “Heathy people don’t need a doctor – sick people do.” Then he challenged them to go and find the meaning of the scripture that says, “I desire mercy [that is, readiness to help those in trouble] and not sacrifice and sacrificial victims. For I came not to call and invite [to repentance] the righteous (those who are upright and in right standing with God), but sinners (the erring ones and all those not free from sin)” (AMP).
I figured if Jesus wanted them to find the meaning, He probably wanted us to find the meaning as well. The original passage is found in Hosea 6:6. It says, “I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices. I would rather have my people know me than burn offerings to me” (GNB). The first thing God wants from any of us is an unconditional, constant love. A couple of verses back, He says His children’s love vanishes as quickly as the morning dew. The kind of love that irritates God is the conditional kind that depends on what He does.
God loves you no matter what you do, and He expects the same. Jesus was upset with the Pharisees who asked about His eating with sinners because they were the same ones who were astonished at His miracles and His teachings. When His actions didn’t meet up with their expectations, their love waned. What Jesus was pointing out to them in the Scripture He sent them to was that they really didn’t know God, and He would rather they know Him instead of knowing the Law.
We have to be careful of the same trap. We cannot let our love for God depend on expectations we have of Him when we don’t fully know Him. God knows that the more we know Him, the more we love Him. The more we love Him, the more we will have a readiness to help those in spiritual danger. They are the ones who need our help the most. Jesus knew it, and He wanted us to know it too. The heart of God beats for the lost, and He’ll do what it takes to reach them, even if it doesn’t make sense to others. When we truly know Him, our heart beat for the lost like His.
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Labor Day Verses
Since Labor Day is coming up, I thought it would be good to explore what the Bible says about work. I believe work means something different to each one of us. I want you to think of what you do or consider as your work as you read each of these verses. Think of them in a personal light and let God speak directly to you through them.
1. I have glorified You down here on the earth by completing the work that You gave Me to do.
John 17:4 AMP
2. Work with enthusiasm, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.
Ephesians 6:7 NLT
3. The diligent find freedom in their work; the lazy are oppressed by work.
Proverbs 12:24 MSG
4. Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.
Colossians 3:23 NLT
5. Do all your work in love.
1 Corinthians 16:14 GNB
6. Even while we were with you, we gave you this command: “Those unwilling to work will not get to eat.”
2 Thessalonians 3:10 NLT
7. You have six days in which to do your work, but the seventh day is a day of rest dedicated to me. On that day no one is to work — neither you, your children, your slaves, your animals, nor the foreigners who live in your country.
Exodus 20:9-10 GNB
8. Put GOD in charge of your work, then what you’ve planned will take place.
Proverbs 16:3 MSG
9. Slack habits and sloppy work are as bad as vandalism.
Proverbs 18:9 MSG
10. So I saw that there is nothing better for people than to be happy in their work. That is our lot in life. And no one can bring us back to see what happens after we die.
Ecclesiastes 3:22 NLT
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Devotions by Chris Hendrix 