Tag Archives: Devotion

August 14, 2014 · 8:03 AM

An Instrument Of Blessing

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

St. Francis of Asisi

I was reminded of this prayer recently. It’s been a while since I’ve read it. There are so many good things in it that we should pray as well. One of the things I really love about this prayer is that it reminds me to be more concerned with others than myself. It reminds me that I’m not supposed to run from hatred, I’m to sow love into it. I’m not supposed to get away from any of these negative things as a believer. I’m supposed to give what God has given me and plant it in the lives of people and in situations. St. Francis understood that.

He showed in this prayer and in his life that we should be focused on others more than we are on ourselves. When we do things for others, it’s for Christ. When we serve, we are actually leading. When we are helping others, we are really helping ourselves. I am constantly trying to see how Jesus lived and behaved in different situations to see if I’m living that way or behaving that way. Of course I fall short a lot of the time, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try. If He was our ultimate example of how to live, we should model our lives after His.

If He wasn’t afraid to sow love into hatred, then I shouldn’t be either. If it didn’t bother Him to spend time with the lost in an effort to save them, then it shouldn’t bother me. If He humbled Himself to wash the feet of those whom He was leading, then I should be willing to humble myself and serve them too. If His life was about showing love and giving, then mine should be too. It doesn’t matter who we are, we each have the ability to sow seeds into situations and lives. We just have to choose to do it.

What situations are you facing today that need God’s seeds planted in them? Who has God shown you that needs you to meet their needs before you meet your own? Take time today to purposefully give and plant instead of trying to receive. I’ve learned that someone else always has it worse than you do. No matter how bad your life might be, there’s always someone who needs your help. As God uses you to change their situation, more often than not, He changes yours. You just have to be willing to give before you receive.

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August 12, 2014 · 6:45 AM

A Revival Of Love

I’m sure that Robin Williams’ death came as a shock to you as much as it did to me. How could someone so funny and entertaining lose a fight with depression? How could someone who brought so much happiness to others not be able to find happiness himself? These are the questions I asked when I heard the news. The truth is that he, like so many people, fought an unseen enemy in an arena that no one else can enter. He tried to deal with it the best ways he knew how. Most of which probably weren’t healthy or productive. We can sit and judge or we can watch and learn.

When I saw others post their favorite movie quotes of his, the one that came to my mind was fitting for the way he died. In the movie “Patch Adams”, his character, who was a doctor, said, “You treat a disease, you win, you lose. You treat a person, I guarantee you, you’ll win, no matter what the outcome.” So many times we look past the person and only see their disease, their sin or their faults. We spend so much time attacking the defect that we forget we are dealing with a person. We like to say, “Love the sinner. Hate the sin,” but too often we can’t see the sinner for the sin.

It’s hard to love someone when we are so focused on the thing we hate. When I read the way Jesus was in the New Testament, I see someone who had compassion for the individual person. He saw their sickness, their defect and their sin and He had compassion. Instead of pointing out the sin or disease, He looked at the person and showed love. He knew that when it comes to sin, you treat the person, not the sin. He knew that showing hate for the sin did more harm than good in most instances. Yes, He overthrew some tables a couple of times. Those were when He was upset at the very ones acting in His name. You never read where He got angry at a sinner.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t call sin “sin”. I’m saying we should be quicker to show compassion and love for others than we are to point out their sin. We don’t know what they have been through or what they are facing. What we do know is that we serve a God who forgives no matter what we or they have done. The only way they will see that is if we learn to show love to the sinner and treat the person not the sin. What would happen if we acted out the Golden Rule as if we believed it? You and I can’t forgive sin, so why do we try to treat it? We can however love the sinner, so why not do that instead?

So many people in this world need hope. So many are fighting unseen battles. Too many lose those battles without knowing there is someone who loves them and there is a God who can forgive and heal them. They’re afraid to come out because of what others might say or how they might be treated. If they knew that they would be shown love as a person and not treated as the disease or sin they have, they would be more willing to be open about it. They would get to see God through our actions of love and find forgiveness and healing from their sin. We could in essence start a revival through love. It has to start sometime, why not now? It has to start somewhere, why not with you and me?

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August 11, 2014 · 7:47 AM

Greater Dreams

I recently heard a preacher say, “Our dreams must be greater than our memories.” Immediately that struck a chord with me. As I continued to think on that phrase and ponder it’s implications, I began to think of examples in the Bible where that was true. I thought of several examples, but the one that stood out to me the most came from the book of Exodus. The Israelites had moved to Israel about 400 years earlier to escape the famine, but they never returned to the land God promised Abraham. Now they had become slaves in a land that was not theirs.

In Exodus 6, God spoke to Moses to tell the people that He would deliver them from slavery and would take them to the land He promised Abraham. When Moses told them what God said, they didn’t even listen. Verse 9 says, “They didn’t even hear him – they were that beaten down in spirit (MSG).” The dream of being free had been forgotten, but God wasn’t done. He wanted to revive that dream. He kept at them until they began to dream again. It culminated with them walking out of Egypt and heading for their Promised Land.

It didn’t take long after they were freed for their memories to become greater than their dreams. In Exodus 16, they began to cry out, “Why didn’t God let us die in Egypt where we had lamb stew and all the bread we could eat?” They forgot that dreams require sacrifice. It’s hard work to make a dream become reality. Instead of putting in that hard work to realize the dream, they did something much easier, they remembered how easy it was before. Given the choice of working hard to achieve their dream or to relax and go back into slavery, they would have rather chosen the later.

It’s easy to sit in judgement thousands of years later, but are we really that different? We have each been given unrealized dreams that we are no where near accomplishing. Why? Because it’s easier to sit and talk about the vision for our life than to accomplish it. It’s not hard to dream. It’s hard to make it a reality. As soon as it gets hard, we start remembering how “good” we had it before. The dream we were given by God gets overpowered by our selective memories of the past. We agree to forfeit our freedom for a meal. So we turn back to go the Land of Ease instead of to the Promised Land.

The dream God has given you will not come without sacrifice. It will not bloom unless it is tended to. It requires you to get up from where you are, to take that step of faith you’ve been afraid of and to move in the direction God tells you to go. It won’t be easy, but nothing good ever is. There will be roadblocks along the way, but don’t let them stop you. Keep the dream God has given you at the forefront of your mind. Don’t let the enemy bring up old memories. Keep pushing them back until you’ve arrived at your destination. When you get there, those old memories won’t be the ones that will make you wish you had never left, they will make you glad you did.

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August 8, 2014 · 8:03 AM

Out Of Balance

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 “A Balanced Christian Life” by Watchman Nee. Keep reading to find out how to enter.

I had a car once that when I hit a certain speed, it would start bouncing all around. I took it to the shop to find out what was wrong with it. I was worried that something was really wrong with the car because of how badly it had been shaking. They drove it and came back with a diagnosis. The tires were out of balance. They removed them, added weights and then out them back on. The car drove like a dream after that for a while. When it happened again, I knew whys needed to be done. I had to get it balanced again.

Our lives are like that car. When things are out if balance, life gets shaky. Things start to fall apart and the road gets bumpy. We think there are things that are badly wrong, but the truth is that we are simply out of balance. We have to make corrections in our life that bring balance back to it. We have to stop and move things around so that life can be smooth again. The problem is that so many of us just deal with the bumps because we are afraid of the cost to get it back in balance.

When you look at Jesus’ life, He lived a balanced one. It wasn’t all ministry all the time. He took time to go to weddings, hang out with friends and have dinner with those who invited Him. He spent time ministering in the synagogue, but He also spent time ministering outside of it on the hillside. He poured Himself into thousands at a time and then He also had a small group of close friends He would minister to privately. He found balance in all He did because He knew how hard it is to maintain the necessary relationships on life if you are out of balance.

I am a person who is constantly on the go. It’s difficult for me to slow down or to stop and spend one on one time with people. It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s that I don’t have the time. If you’ve ever said that phrase before, maybe your life is out of balance too. Your the type that will drive life until the wheels fall off. I don’t think that’s really what God expects from us though. He built us to take rest. He built us to slow down and enjoy things because when we don’t, our relationship with Him ends up suffering. We go so busy doing things that we forget to enjoy life. We get so stressed that we can’t sleep. We have so much going on that we miss the things that are really important.

Take time today to see where God wants to bring balance to your life. Ask Him what things you need to let go of and what things you need to pick up. There are things that are ok for you to worry about and things that you need to let Him worry about. He has made His offer to us of swapping burdens. In Matthew 11:28-30 He said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yolk upon you… For my yolk is easy to bear.” It’s time we gave God the things that wear us out and rest. He wants to give us balance, but we have to give Him the things that are keeping us out of balance.

If you would like to win “A Balanced Christian Lifr” by Watchman Nee, go to the Devotions By Chris Facebook page and “like” it. I will randomly pick one person tomorrow (August 9, 2014) who has liked my page. If you have already “liked” my page, you are already entered for this drawing. I would appreciate it if you would invite your friends to like my page so they can receive encouragement from God’s Word too.

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August 7, 2014 · 7:49 AM

The Valley Of Blessing

In II Chronicles 20, several armies declared war against King Jehoshaphat at the same time. It says he was terrified when he heard the news. He immediately began to beg The Lord for guidance and asked everyone to fast and pray with him. The people came to Jerusalem to pray with him and to be ready to fight this vast army that had risen up against them. While they were praying, a man spoke up and said, “Don’t be afraid! The battle is not yours, but God’s.” He also told the people they were to march out to the battlefield, but that they wouldn’t even have to fight.

When they showed up to the battlefield, the other armies had been fighting each other and not one was left alive. The Israelites walked through the valley and gathered up all the spoils. It took them three days to collect it all. On the fourth day, they decided to call that place the Valley of Blessing. After that, no other armies wanted to face Israel and the story ends with, “Jehoshaphat’s kingdom was at peace, for his God had given him rest on every side.” Not only had God fought his battle and given him the spoils, He gave him peace and rest.

When I think of valleys, I don’t think of blessings. I think of difficult times, dark times, hard times, wandering aimlessly, and pain. What I see in this story is that God can take our valleys and turn them into blessings. We don’t have to be terrified of them because the battles that we face there are not ours, but God’s. He is the one who goes before us. He’s the one who fights on our behalf. We look at the odds and think, “There’s no way.” God looks at the odds and think, “Nothing is impossible for me.”

I like that King Jehoshaphat had the people meet him in Jerusalem. The very name of that city means “God will see to it”. They were reminded of that while they were praying and fasting about what to do in the valley. They knew they were out numbered. They knew there was no way for them to win the battle. Fear had taken over. In the middle of all that anxiety, God reminded them that He would see to it. All they had to do was show up ready to fight. When they acted in obedience to the Word of God, their enemies were defeated and they gathered the spoils. What should have been a valley of defeat turned into a valley of blessing.

You don’t have to be afraid of whatever valley you’re facing today. God sees that the odds are against you. He sees the impossibility of your situation. He wants you to turn to Him in prayer so He can remind you that He will see to it. He will be the one who goes before you. He will be the one who says, “This is my battle not yours. Show up for the fight and watch what I do.” As verse 20 says, “Believe in The Lord your God and you will be able to stand firm.” No matter what enemy rises up against you, God will see to it that the place you are afraid of will be turned into a valley of blessing.

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August 6, 2014 · 7:44 AM

Be In The Moment

On my last trip to Haiti, there was a young lady on the team who brought a video camera. She wanted to film the different things we did on the trip and would then make a video for us. Throughout the trip, I would tell her, “Get your camera ready. You’re going to want to get this! Sit in this side of the truck, the view will be better.” Then at some of the places we were, I’d look at her and she wouldn’t have her camera out. I’d go up to her and say, “Can you get this? I think this would be great for the video.” She would oblige most of the time.

After one such incident where I noticed she didn’t have the camera out, I asked her after, “What’s going on? You’re missing some key moments of this trip.” She simply responded, “I’ve learned that it’s ok to just be in the moment sometimes. I don’t have to capture everything. Some moments should just be shared among us and not with everyone else.” In those few sentences, I’ve learned so much because I’m a go, go, go kind of person. I rarely stop and smell the roses. I hardly stop and celebrate success.

I think it’s part of today’s culture to be that way. When we do something good at work, instead of celebrating, our leaders say, “Nice. Now prove it wasn’t a fluke by doing it again. This time do better.” In our lives, we are off to work first thing, we power through lunch taking calls, after work we grab the kids, eat fast food, take them to practice, run home, bathe, homework and get to bed just so we can do it again tomorrow. We’ve forgotten how to be in the moment. We’ve forgotten that’s it’s ok to breathe and relax sometimes. We’ve forgotten how to have fun.

Ecclesiastes says there is a time and season for everything. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. I believe there’s even a time to relax and enjoy moments. I believe God set this example in creation. The Bible says that on the seventh day, God rested. I think after all that work, He wanted to take a moment to soak it all in and to enjoy it. When we don’t stop and enjoy moments, we run the risk of getting stressed and burned out. That doesn’t help us or those who are close to us.

I can tell you that things will still go on. Things will still happen even if you take a break, this world has gone on for years before you were here and it will go on for years after you’re gone. Things can still turn out fine even if you take time to just be in the moment every now and then. That video that she produced was amazing. It captured our trip perfectly even though there were moments that didn’t make it into it. Those of us who were in those moments have a certain bond that only we share because we took the time to be in the moment.

If you’d like to watch this 4 minute clip from our trip, you can watch it here.

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August 5, 2014 · 7:54 AM

Connecting With God

In almost every sales class I’ve been in, one of the most important things they teach is to connect. If you can’t connect with the other person, there can be no trust. Without trust, there can be no relationship. There are lots of ways to connect with someone especially when you find common ground. It’s the same way in our relationship with God. He’s looking for a way to connect with each one if us. He’s trying to build common ground because He wants to have a relationship with each of us.

When you read in the Old Testament, the priests were Levites. They were the ones who were set apart to connect with God on behalf of Israel. If you had to atone for sins, you had them sacrifice for you. If you needed an answer from God, you asked them to intercede. Only the High Priest could enter the holiest part of the temple to speak with God. The Levites were a special tribe who had the distinct honor of being priests and connecting Israelites with God.

In Genesis 29, you read the story of Jacob, Rachel and Leah. God saw that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah, so he opened her womb so that she could bear him children. One of those children she named Levi. When you look at the meaning of the name Levi, it means “to connect”. I find it interesting that God chose the children of the tribe whose name meant connect in order to connect with His children. His plan to connect with His people was in place even before Levi was born.

Today, you and I have the ability to connect with God on our own. We don’t need a priest from Levi to offer sacrifices or to inquire with God on our behalf. Since Jesus came to this earth, He made a way for us to connect with God. I Timothy 2:5 says there is only one God and only one mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ. Jesus has taken the place of the Levites in connecting us with God. He has built the trust necessary for us to have a relationship with God. He built the common ground necessary by becoming human.

God knew that it would be difficult for people to connect with Him if He hadn’t walked in our shoes. He sacrificed all He had just so He could empathize with our struggles and build a relationship with us. Just like any relationship, it takes two parties coming together. He’s done His part to connect with us. What are we doing to connect with Him? What are we doing to grow the relationship. If you want a deeper relationship with Him, you’re going to have to do the things that build connections and trust in your relationship.

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August 4, 2014 · 8:06 AM

Unexpected Help

I once heard the story of a town that was about to be flooded. There was a man in that town who prayed that God would save him from the flood. A little while later, the sheriff came and knocked on his door. He told him to evacuate before the flood came. The man replied, “God will save me.” Not long after that, the floods began to rise and water came into his house. He called on God again to save him. By now, he had gotten on his roof because the water was so high. A boat came by and offered to take him to safety, but he replied that God would save him.

The water rose so high that he was standing on the highest gable of his roof to keep from being swept away by the water. He cried out in desperation for God to save him. It wasn’t long before a helicopter flew overhead, saw him and lowered a man down in a basket. The man refused to get in the basket and told them that God would save him. After the helicopter left, the floods swept the man off his roof and he died. When he got to Heaven, he asked God why He didn’t save him. God replied, “I sent the sheriff, a boat and a helicopter. Why didn’t you accept my help?”

We often pass on God’s help because it’s doesn’t come in the packaging we want or expect. We think that God has to act supernaturally in order to truly help us. The fact is that God mainly uses other people to bring about His answers into our lives. He sends people to give us money in our desperation, but our pride won’t let us accept it. He has people offer vehicles, groceries, jobs and other things that we need, but we pass on them because we think God is going to open up the heavens, send a beam of light with harp playing angels to deliver what we need. We miss so many blessings because we refuse the answers God gives through others.

The next time you ask God for help, look around. He may be answering it in a way that you weren’t expecting. He could be using one person to get you to take a step of faith that will open the door for future blessings. I know I’ve seen God be a blessing to my family in desperate times. The answer didn’t always come from where I thought it would. In fact, it has never come from where I thought it would. That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t God. It just means that God has a better plan than I do and I need to accept His help when and how He sends it.

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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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