Tag Archives: Devotion

March 6, 2014 · 7:55 AM

Plow Of Preparation

When I think of living by faith, I always think of Abraham first. The next person I think of is Elisha. Like Abraham, he was minding his own business doing his own thing when the call came to uproot and move. Elisha was plowing a field when Elijah walked up, threw his cloak over him and walked away. I’m not sure what my reaction would be if someone walked into my place of work and did that, but Elisha’s reaction was to run after Elijah. He didn’t ask what it meant or why he did it. Instead he said, “Let me kiss my father and mother goodbye – then I’ll follow you.”

I believe that God had already spoken to Elisha even though the Bible doesn’t say it. We know God gave Elijah the instructions to find Elisha and to do what he did, but it doesn’t give us any insight to Elisha before this moment. I believe he was a praying man. I believe that as he plowed fields with those oxen, he spent time praying and asking God to use him in mighty ways. Day after day, he plowed waiting for God to tap him on the shoulder and put him into action. I wonder if he had days where he doubted that God would ever move him from plowing fields to doing ministry.

So many who read this are like Elisha. We’re plowing fields day in and day out. We’re waiting on God to come get us and put us into full time ministry. We’re waiting on God to give us the green light. But as we put our hands to the plow each day, it’s easy to begin to wonder if God has forgotten us or if we ever heard Him in the first place. We look at the calendar and wonder, “How much longer, God?” We start thinking the “what if’s” and “how come’s”. Our faith can weaken in the times that it’s intended to grow stronger.

If we aren’t doing the things it takes to grow our faith while we are plowing, how will we ever do it when we aren’t? God uses the times of preparation to grow our faith, to increase our prayer life and to build our trust in Him. He expects us to be people of prayer while we plow. He expects us to plant seeds in people who are already doing ministry. He expects us to be ministering to people around us before he instructs us to minister to the masses. We have to prove to Him that we can be faithful in the little things while we are plowing before He can trust us with more.

If you are plowing today and are waiting for the cloak to be thrown over you, don’t lose heart. This time of plowing and preparation is essential to your growth and necessary for you to be able to perform later. God has not left you in a field and forgotten you. Be a person of prayer while you are plowing. Build up your faith now that when you have to really walk by faith, you have a sufficient amount. Keep your eyes open and be ready for God’s tap to put you in. Be ready to walk away from the plow and to step into that life of faith at any moment. Until then, keep plowing.

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March 5, 2014 · 7:51 AM

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

When I think back to the time in my life when I was hurting inside deeply, I think back to what I did, where I went who I hung out with. I was reeling from a wife who left me for another man, a business that was failing and the possibility of having to file bankruptcy. Instead of finding my strength and help in the church, I turned away. I was ashamed of everything that was happening in my life and I didn’t want to admit to those who knew me what was going on. I was embarrassed at what was happening so I disappeared.

I found myself in a bar each night trying to numb the pain. I found new friends who wouldn’t know who I was and could accept me for who I was just forced to become. People from the church tried to reach out, but I ignored them because now I was floating further from the person I was supposed to be. After a while the calls slowed from the church and they picked up from my bar friends. I sat in the bar each night feeling sorry for myself and for who I was becoming.

There was a plaque on the wall behind the bar that read, “In times of trouble, friends are recognized.” I remembered thinking, these are my real friends. They’re the ones who are here during my time of trouble. I blamed the church for not helping me when I’m the one who left. I’m the one who didn’t return the calls of the few who did try to reach out. I felt like I had been abandoned by the church and embraced by the people in the bar, but I wasn’t being me. I was being the person who was letting my circumstances define me.

I knew life there was hallow and would be temporary, but I enjoyed the anonymity and lack of expectations. The while time, I knew that wasn’t who I was, however I was changing slowly into that person without realizing it. One afternoon, a co-workers husband asked me, “When was the last time you were in church?” I let him know it had been a while. He looked me in the eye and said, “Boy, you need to be where people really love you and can help you. Your church doesn’t care what’s happened. They will love you anyway. You need to be around them so they can help nurse you back to health.”

For those of you who are in the position I was in, my church did accept me back. They loved me no matter what. The fears that people would talk about me or reject me were unfounded. Those thoughts were used to keep me away from where I needed to be. The truth is that only those who knew the real me had the ability to truly love me. They are the ones who had the power to bring healing. If you’re tired of running, hiding and pretending to be someone you’re not, it’s time to go back to church for healing.

For those of you in the church, when you see those who have left come back, they need your love and acceptance more than you know. They need your unconditional love to nurse them through the pain. Be like the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Instead of asking where they’ve been or what they’ve done, open your arms, run to them, wrap them in love and make them feel welcome. It’s harder than you think to walk back through those doors and face people you think you’ve disappointed. Don’t make it more difficult on them by shunning them or ignoring them. They need a friend, not a judge.

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March 4, 2014 · 7:20 AM

How To Recharge

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As I look at how much my job requires of me, I also look at how much other people’s jobs require of them. I can’t think of any time in my life when I’ve seen people work harder, more hours and put their jobs above their families than now. The consensus seems to be that if you don’t put in the hours and hard work, there are a hundred other people waiting in line to do your job. So we work so hard that days will go by without us ever seeing the sun. We go to work before it comes up and go home after it goes down.

When we get home, we have family to attend to. The kids want your attention and they need help with homework. Your spouse wants to tell you all about their day while you eat dinner from a sack. Once you’re done with dinner, you do a couple of things around the house, put the kids to bed and sit down for the first time. You’re exhausted. You just want a moment to breathe. You just want to be able to hear yourself think, but now it’s time for you to go to bed and start all over again tomorrow.

When I get that way, I like to think of Isaiah 40:30-31. It says, “He (God) energizes those who get tired, gives fresh strength to drop outs. For even young people tire and drop out… But those who wait upon God get fresh strength.” To me, that’s like a breathe of fresh air. God will energize those who get tired. God will give me strength. All I have to do is wait on God. All I have to do is spend some down time for Him by carving out time in my crazy schedule. That may mean that I have to cut out something I really want to do in order to get recharged.

My son has a Leap Pad which he calls his iPad. Every couple of days the batteries die. He gets upset because he thinks it should just keep going. I have to pull the batteries out, put them in the charging station and let them sit there for a while. After some time, they’re back to full strength and he can play once again. We’re a lot like rechargeable batteries. We can only go so long before we run out of strength. God didn’t make us machines. He made us human. He made us to need to be recharged.

When I need to recharge, I simply pull myself out of everything and go spend quiet time with God. I go wait on Him to speak to me. I looked up that word “wait” in the original Hebrew. It means, “to look eagerly for, to wait for, linger for.” God wants us to just linger in His presence without saying a word, without checking our phones and without interruption so we can center our mind on Him instead of everything else that’s going on. When He is at the center, our lives will be centered. When our thoughts are on Him, our problems don’t seem so big. When we wait on Him, we show Him He is first in our lives and we get re energized. If you’re tired today, the way to recharge is to spend time with God.

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March 3, 2014 · 7:52 AM

Rental Gear

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My nephew is into Airsoft wars and invited me to go to one with him. If you’re not sure Airsoft is, it’s a lot like paintball only the guns look real and they shoot plastic BB’s at you. At this Airsoft war, we arrived early. I rented a gun, mask and vest. It wasn’t long before lots of other people started to arrive. Most were dressed in full U.S. Military fatigues or camouflage while I was in blue jeans and tennis shoes. As we were standing there waiting to start, a guy in his 20’s walked up and asked about my nephew’s gun. After talking about it, he started talking about his AK-47 and the history of how they were designed and manufactured. He spoke of how much his Airsoft designed AK-47 mimicked the real one.

As he spoke, I watched other people arrive with Sniper rifles, cargo boxes full of gear, grenades and smoke bombs. I began to look at my rental gear and realize I was out gunned. When the guy finished talking about his gun, I jokingly said, “I’ve got this standard rental issue so look out.” He didn’t think it was funny. Instead he said, “That’s an M4.” He then told me all about my gun. It didn’t make me feel better about my chances in the upcoming battles. I realized I had a gun that had been overused, a mask that had been worn a hundred times before by a hundred different people and no idea of what was coming.

I wonder if that’s how David felt when he went to meet his brothers on the battle front. Did he look around and see everyone in their military gear and then look at his everyday clothes? Did he look at their weapons for war and compare them to his sling? He didn’t go there to fight. We just wanted to deliver some food for his brothers. When he did decide he was going to fight, the others for sure looked at his clothes and sling as insufficient. Saul gave him rental gear to fight in. We all know it didn’t fit and would have hindered his ability in the battle. David gave up the rental gear for spiritual gear.

He realized that the battle in front of him was more than a physical one. It was a spiritual one. He knew that his physical gear wouldn’t help him in a spiritual battle so he gave back the rental gear. He was out gunned on the physical front, but had all the fire power he needed on the spiritual front. His victory wasn’t due to his slingshot or the stones he picked out at the creek. His victory was due to his ability to recognize when he was in a spiritual battle. He knew that when God is on your side, victory is assured. He knew that physical attributes don’t guarantee spiritual victories.

Are you in a spiritual battle today that is masked as a physical one? Have you felt out gunned as you’ve approached the situation? Don’t get caught up in the physical impossibilities of the situation. Don’t get lost in what the other side has versus what you don’t have. When we look at the physical side of a spiritual battle, it’s easy to give up or to be afraid. When we look at the spiritual side, it’s easy to be brave because if God is for us, who can be against us? We have all the fire power and tactical advantage we need. Give up the rental gear, God has given you all you need to win.

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February 28, 2014 · 8:00 AM

Free To Pay

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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. To celebrate, I’m giving away “Experiencing God Day By Day: The Devotional Journal” by Henry and Richard Blackaby. Keep reading to find out how to enter.

I’ve thought a lot about the law of sowing and reaping lately. Growing up, it was applied to school work. If you want good grades, you have to sow the seeds of studying. In sports, if you want to get better at basketball, you have to sow seeds in practice. In life, if you want to have good kids one day, you better sow seeds of being a good kid today. What you sow now, you will reap when you’re older. I’ve heard it applied to just about everything because it’s as much of a law as gravity.

We all believe in gravity which is why many of us stay away from ledges and refuse to walk under heavy, dangling objects. What if we applied that same belief into the law of sowing and reaping when it came to our relationship with God? What if we really thought that if we sowed time alone with God, we would reap immeasurable spiritual benefits? I’m afraid that most of us live unproductive Christian lives simply because we refuse to make time for God each day. We’re satisfied with the bare minimum.

Each day when I go to work, I drive past a toll lane. As I get closer to it, I begin to reason with myself about the cost of driving in it. This particular toll lane has a fluctuating price that depends on traffic. I’ve seen it as low as $1 and as high as $7. Each day I choose whether I’m going to pay the cost to get to my destination faster or to sit in traffic inching along. I have to determine whether the price is worth it. Most people sit in traffic every day and never consider the toll lane because they don’t want to pay the price.

In the same way, most Christians don’t want to pay the price of getting up early, staying up late or skipping lunch with co-workers in order to spend time with God. As a result, their lives inch along and they get frustrated. They wonder why it takes so long to get to their destination in life. It goes back to that law of sowing and reaping. If you don’t plant the seeds and pay the cost, you will live life in a slow moving traffic jam getting frustrated. You’ll see other speed past you and make excuses that it’s just easy for them or that they are somehow more blessed than you. The truth is that those who excel in their walk with God pay the high cost in secret and God rewards them openly.

Where are you today? Is your life inching along in traffic? Are you frustrated that you haven’t gotten to that next level with God more quickly? Have you bypassed the toll lanes because you weren’t willing to pay the cost then? The great news today is that God won’t keep you in traffic if you start paying the cost today. God will begin to bless you and reward you once you plant the seeds of spending time alone with Him. He will move your life along if you will free yourself of the things that keep you from paying the cost. He will be free to bless you with a productive, vibrant, healthy spiritual life when you start planting the seeds of alone time with Him. I can tell you the cost is always worth the benefit when it comes to God.

If you would like to win the “Experiencing God” devotional and journal by Henry and Richard Blackaby, all you have to do is go to my Facebook page here and “like” it. I will randomly pick one person tomorrow (March 1, 2014) who has liked my page. If you have already liked my page and enjoy reading these daily devotionals, you are already entered. Please invite your friends to like my page so they can receive encouragement from God’s Word too.

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February 27, 2014 · 8:00 AM

Disoriented Faith

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On one of my very first days of living in Cairo, Egypt, the youth pastor took me and three others,who were interns as well, to lunch. After lunch, she took us outside and got in a taxi. As we started to get in with her, she handed us a piece of paper with her address on it. She said, “Y’all get another taxi and have them take you here.” With that, her taxi took off and we were left standing on the side of the road in a foreign country. At that moment, I realized I knew absolutely nothing in Arabic.

I couldn’t say, “yes” or “no” even. As we looked at license plates, I noticed that I couldn’t even recognize the numbers. How were we going to communicate with the taxi driver? After we got in the taxi, we told him the address. He asked if we spoke Arabic. We shook our heads no. We quickly figured out that he was not from this part of town. He drove around aimlessly and stopped for directions a few times. We began to get scared because we had no idea where we were, where we were going or how to get there if we could communicate. We were completely disoriented.

In the process, we saw most of the town where we would be living for the next year, we bonded with each other and laughed about it later, much later. It reminded me of what God does with us sometimes. He gives us instructions that don’t make sense, puts us in situations that we don’t understand and asks us to do the impossible with very little instructions. It can be disorienting and scary. It can be stressful for us as well because we can’t see where He’s leading. We have families to feed, people who depend on us and safety nets that we’ve built. Why does God move us out of those comfortable situations?

I heard the answer in our Bible study. The author said, “God will sometimes disorient us in order to re-orient us. We can become too dependent on the things we’ve built for our own security and that causes us to trust God less. Jesus constantly said and did things that disoriented His disciples. He took men who were used to being on the water and gave them land legs. He taught in people’s homes instead of always doing it in the synagogue. He referred to God as “Father” instead of Yahweh. He hung out with sinners instead of the righteous. He challenged their entire way of life so He could re-orient them into the life He wanted them to live.

What’s happening in your life right now that doesn’t make sense to you? Where has God moved you that is away from the comfort zone you built? God has not left you and isn’t allowing things to happen to you randomly. He is re-orienting your life to a deeper trust in Him. He is re-orienting your faith to give you a stronger trust in Him. He is redirecting your life to the path He wants you on so you can accomplish all He has for you. Trust that He sees the whole map of your life and knows when you need to be re-oriented. Feeling lost temporarily can bring a greater direction to your life. Trust what God is doing.

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February 26, 2014 · 7:39 AM

Believing Is Seeing

I was recently asked the question, “Do you believe what you see or do you see what you believe?” I know you may have to read that again to catch it. It took me a minute. When I see a wall, I believe what I see so I don’t walk into it. It’s usually strong enough that I can’t walk through it. When I see an impossible situation, I have to be careful not to use my physical eyes to look at it because it’s actually spiritual. When the doctors say it’s a 99% chance that something is cancerous, I use my spiritual eyes to see what I believe. They just gave God one percent to work with. I’ve seen Him do more with less.

Each of us have a choice in how we see things. We can choose to look at physical situations like that and believe what we see or we can see what we believe. I have to constantly check myself and ask God, “Am I looking at this situation through the right eyes? How do you see this?” I want to make sure I’m on God’s side and that I see what He does. I want to make sure that if there is a chance for Him to act, I give it to Him. The last thing I want to do is act on what I see because I believe it. Does God believe it?

In Joshua 9, the Israelites were going through the Promised Land and fighting against every city. They were moving in and kicking the others out as God commanded. God spoke to Joshua and gave him battle strategies. Joshua would consult Him for everything. When the other army out numbered him, he chose to see what he believed and it led to victory each time. The people of nearby Gibeon heard what the Israelites were doing and wanted to make peace in order to live. They knew that the Israelites were not making treaties with anyone so they decided to trick them.

They sent a convoy of people with stale bread, old wine and worn out clothes. They asked for peace and the Israelites asked, “How do we know you aren’t from around here?” They pointed to the bread, wine and clothes and said they were all fresh and new when they left. Verse 14 says, “The men of Israel looked them over and accepted the evidence. But they didn’t ask God about it.” They looked with their physical eyes and believed what they saw. Had they asked God, they would have seen what it really was. They would have seen what they believed and acted accordingly.

What situation are you faced with today? What eyes have you been looking at it with? I want to encourage you to pray and ask God to open your spiritual eyes to see it as He does. Ask Him to help you see what you believe rather than to believe what you see. There is no situation that is impossible for God. There’s nothing you are going to face today that He can’t make a way out of. There’s no report that can be given to you that He can’t refute or change. It’s all in how you choose to see it. So I now ask you, “Do you believe what you see or do you see what you believe?”

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February 20, 2014 · 7:44 AM

The Pathless Journey

I’m on a journey right now. I know my destination. I know what God has called me to do. I’ve known for a while now. After running from it for years, I decided to embrace it. I told God I was ready to step into my calling. All of a sudden things started happening quickly. Faster than I could keep up with. I began to make life changing plans to accommodate where I was going. Confirmations that I was on the right path were coming left and right. I knew I was on my way to my destiny. My calling was sure. My path was clear.

One night, my pastor pulled me aside to talk about it. He saw the changes happening and God spoke to him about it. Prophetically he told me, “Be patient on your journey.” Almost immediately the trail went cold. The path disappeared. The confirmations quit rolling in. I can still see where I’m going, but not the path. I still believe in what God has called me to do, but I can’t see how to get there from here. That was two years ago that he spoke those words to me. I’ve had two years of asking God, “Where did you go? Why did you quit leading me? Why is the path hidden? What’s my next step?”

I’ve traced the cold path back to that night. I’ve blamed the lack of progress on those words. I’ve looked for excuses and other paths that will lead me to where I’m going, but have had no luck. I’ve struggled with God as He’s had me at the point for a while. I’ve listened to His voice and waited for His direction, but I’m still sitting here. I’m still waiting. I’m still hoping. I’m still believing. Each day that I wait, the desire to do what He has called me to grows. Each day I become more restless and fed up with where I am. I’m a doer, not a sitter. I’m a go getter, not a watcher. That’s my personality. Sitting still is hard for me.

God used Mark Batterson’s words to help me in this limbo. One of the things he said is, “The longer you wait, the more you appreciate.” That hit my soul. He also said, “God wants you to get where you are going more than you want to get where you’re going.” Then He must really want it! Then he hit me between the eyes. He said, “God is more concerned with who you become in the journey than with getting you to the destination.” That changed my thoughts. If God is more concerned with who I become on this journey, so should I. This is the training ground before I step into my calling. He is molding me and shaping me into the person He needs me to be so I can completely fulfill His calling.

Then there were the words of reassurance to calm me down. He said, “God knows how to get you to become who He wants you to become in the process of the journey.” All of a sudden my pastor’s prophetic words made sense. Change takes time. It takes pressure. It takes faith to trust God and to keep going when you can’t see the path. It takes patience. I want things now. I want them to happen in my time. I want to be in control of how God moves my life. On the journey I’ve learned to trust His timing. I’ve learned that I shouldn’t take matters into my own hands and try to force the calling to come to a reality. I should be patient and be faithful in the process of becoming who He wants me to be on this journey.

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February 19, 2014 · 7:53 AM

Miracle In The Making

I saw God do the impossible last week. A friend called me to get prayer for his wife. She was wanting to go on a mission trip to a country that required a Visa. He told me, “If that Visa doesn’t leave the embassy in Washington, D.C. today, it won’t get here in time for her trip. The embassy is closed because they’re under several inches of snow and it’s not stopping. We know God wants her to go on this trip, but it’s not looking good.” I immediately thought of Jesus’ words, “With man, things are impossible, but with God, all things are possible to him that believes.” We prayed right then for a miracle.

The next day he told me that they called all day and no one answered. She was supposed to leave in the morning and they were still having trouble. I told him the story of my in laws. A couple of years ago they were headed to Mexico. On the way, their truck broke down. They stopped in San Antonio and got it repaired. They continued on their journey only to have the same issue. They stopped and had it repaired again. They crossed the border and the truck started doing it again. The check engine light was on, the truck was sputtering as it had before and they were concerned about going deeper into Mexico.

They prayed and decided to turn around and go back to the border. The moment that they did the U-Turn, the check engine light went off and the truck began to run smoothly. When they got back to the border, they believed that was God telling them not to go on their trip. My mother in law remembered she had gone to the doctor in that town several months before on a previous trip, but had never heard back. She went to the doctor that day and found that he had tried to reach her. Her test had come back that she had early stages of cancer. They were able to get her treatment and kill the cancer.

My message to him, and now you, is that God will speak to us through a donkey (ask Balaam Numbers 22:28), a Chevy or an embassy. If God says, “No,” it’s as good as if God says, “Yes.” Either way, it’s His will. We aren’t to get worked up when things are happening and stop signs get in our way. We are to trust that He sees what we can’t. I told my friend we will keep praying that if she was to go,that God would make it happen. If she wasn’t to go, then He would stop the Visa from getting here. Of course, at that point, it was too late to get it here.

An hour or so later I got a text from him. It said, “God just might be cranking up the miracle machine.” I replied, “Of course He is.” The snow had stopped, they had returned to work, the Visa had been approved and was sitting on the consulates desk. They were missing the UPS envelope to return it to her so it was just sitting there. They couldn’t go get an envelope and UPS refused to take one. My friend called FedEx and they were willing to take one to the consulate. They were able to get the Visa over nighted to the airport first thing Saturday morning so they could pick it up on their way to the gate. She got on the flight and made the trip even though it had been impossible for man.

Whatever impossible situation you’re facing today, God sees it. It may seem impossible to you, but we serve a God who specializes in the impossible. He is not bound by the things that make it impossible for us. He does not panic when things look dim. What He does is crank up his miracle machine and sets things in motion so that we get our miracles at just the right time. When He sets up road blocks or tries to stop us, He knows what lies ahead and the miracle is that He prevents us from walking into a trap by any means possible. His “yes” is as good as His “no”.

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February 17, 2014 · 7:59 AM

Face To Face With Your Past

What happens when your past catches up to you? How do you handle facing the music? Our past mistakes have consequences that we wish we didn’t have to face, especially when we’ve learned our lesson. Jacob, in Genesis 32, was about to come face to face with his past. He was about to meet his twin brother whom he had cheated and knew that the time had come to quit running. He was afraid, paranoid and stressed out. He tried to think of every solution he could to minimize the price he’d have to pay.

Since they were born, he had cheated his brother. In fact, his mom named him Jacob which meant supplanter. thefreedictionary.com defines supplanter as, “One who wrongfully or illegally seizes and holds the place of another.” He lived up to that definition and now he had to face the music. He sent gifts ahead to his brother whom he would meet the next day. He separated all his belongings in case his brother attacked. That way one group would survive. He separated his kids and his wives. But that night, he spent alone because he wanted to beg God for mercy.

He stayed on the opposite side of the Jabbok River from his family. Jabbok interestingly means, “emptying”. I believe that night he emptied himself of all his past sins and begged God for forgiveness and for mercy. While he was praying, an angel met him and they began to wrestle. They wrestled all night long until the morning’s first light. When the angel realized that he couldn’t beat Jacob, he popped his hip out of socket. Jacob still didn’t give up. He knew what would happen if he did. The angel asked to be released and Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you declare a blessing on me.”

The angel asked for his name. He replied, “Jacob [supplanter, schemer, trickster, swindler]!” He told the angel not only his name, but how he had lived up to that name. He had let his name and his past define him. The angel’s blessing was that he would no longer be defined by a past that tricked people. He would now be called Israel [contender with God]. The angel said, “For you have contended and have power with God and with men and have prevailed.” He went from being a deceiver to a person of confidence and strength. He went from a person who hid from his past to a person who had God’s attention.

I asked in the beginning of this devotion what happens when your past catches up to you. For Jacob, it was the start of a new life. He no longer wanted to be the man he was or to be defined by the things he had done. He wanted a fresh start, a clean slate. He emptied himself of everything he had been and God filled him with who He wanted him to be. Today, if your past is haunting you or looming over you, empty yourself of the person who caused all of that. Ask God to bless you and to change who you are. When He does, your future will change too. You will be defined by who God says you are.

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