Tag Archives: Devotional

May 23, 2016 · 5:47 AM

Word Choices


I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten in trouble after saying something. The first question to me is usually, “Why would you say that?” My response is, “I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking.” I speak so much that sometimes I forget that I need to pay attention to them before I let them leave my lips. As a result, I’ve said some pretty hurtful things to people. Those words could have been chosen more wisely or better yet, left unsaid. Once words leave our lips, we can’t get them back again or undo the damage they cause.

On the other hand, I’ve had some people speak words to me that have brought healing to some of my deepest wounds. Their words have brought hope into my hopeless situations, lit up my dark paths, and built me up when I’ve been down. Their words were wisely spoken at just the right time. My prayer has been that I would be that type of person. I want to be someone who uses my words to bring healing instead of pain.

I’ve been reading Proverbs since I was a kid. I can tell you that Solomon understood the power of words. Over and over in that book, he tries to get us to see just how powerful they really are. One such example is in Proverbs 12:18. He wrote, “Thoughtless words can wound as deeply as any sword, but wisely spoken words can heal” (GNT). Many of us can attest to how deep someone’s thoughtless words have hurt us. As they echo in our mind, the wound gets deeper and a root of bitterness can easily spring up in that environment.

It’s critical for each one of us to choose our words wisely. Whether we are responding to someone who has hurt us with their words or we are just having a conversation, our word choices matter. We can’t afford to speak without thinking. We can pray each day and ask God to help us to choose our words wisely so that we bring healing instead of pain. The power of life and death truly is in our words. Never take that lightly.

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May 18, 2016 · 12:57 AM

Be Someone Awesome


One of my favorite quotes is from Henry Ford. He said, “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right.” Our thoughts are so powerful that they literally control our ability to accomplish things. It doesn’t matter if everyone tells you that you can’t do it, if your mind says you can, you’ll do it. Conversely, if everyone tells you that you can, but you don’t think you can, you never will. It’s not what others think that makes us believe. It’s what we think.

Solomon understood this principle. In Proverbs 4:23 he wrote, “Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts” (GNT). You and I can control what thoughts we entertain, and what thoughts we dismiss. The ones we replay over and over in our heads and become our reality. They determine whether or not we apply for that job, write that proposal, take that class, put on those running shoes, or you fill in the blank. Think about that for a minute and replay the voices in your head when you tried to do whatever you filled in the blank.

If your whole life is shaped by what you think, wouldn’t it be important to you to think the right things? Changing your thought cycle is difficult, but not impossible. In most cases, you’ve told yourself a certain thing so many times that you actually believe it to be true without question. You say, “I can’t do that because that just who I am.” When you say that, you’re proving Henry Ford right. You don’t think you can, so you don’t. You rationaLIES that it’s just who you are. Yes, I spelled that with “lies” because that’s what those thoughts are.

In order to change the lies, you have to challenge them just like you would challenge anyone else telling you lies. You ask, “Where’s the proof?” When there is no proof (“because I said so” isn’t proof), you then insert what the truth is. You begin to think the new thought over and over (remember “The Little Engine That Could”) until it is true. This is hard work, but you can reshape your life and what you do by what you think. Proverbs 23:7 says, “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he” (AMP). It’s time we quit believing the lies. Whatever you think in your heart and mind is who you will become. Be someone awesome since you get to choose.

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May 17, 2016 · 1:01 AM

1,000th Devotion


It’s hard to believe, but this is my 1,000th post. I started this journey four years ago not knowing what to expect, but having grand ideas in my head. I wanted to learn how to improve my writing, and to have a better understanding of direction, and how to promote my writing so I went to the Re:Write Conference soon after I started. One of the speakers there was Mary DeMuth, who has written over 30 books and has blogged for many years. She said a couple of things that really stood out to me, and I still reflect on them to this day.

The first thing that stuck out to me was that she said she wrote in obscurity for seven years before anyone noticed her. She talked about the struggles of continuing to write when very few are reading. I remember thinking, “That’s not going to be me!” In my mind, I had a message to share and the world wanted to hear it. All I had to do was write, and people would flock to my site. Four years later, I’m still writing in obscurity. I’ve struggled with that because my results haven’t met my expectations.

That leads me to the other thing she said that stood out to me. She said, “Writing is not so we can fill a hole in our heart; it’s so we can give away what God has given us.” That phrase (along with my wife) has kept me grounded throughout these years of writing in obscurity. They both remind me that anything I do for God is not about me. It’s about God. If what I’m doing is about Him, then I need to learn to be ok with obscurity. As my wife tells me, “If what you wrote was for one person and God sent them to read it, you are successful.”

In our world, I’ve learned that God defines success differently than we do. We think of book deals, thousands of followers, and fame as being successful. But God defines it as our obedience to Him. In this journey of writing, I’ve learned that it’s not the quantity of lives that I touch that makes me successful or gives me worth: it’s the quality with which I touch lives. If I’m doing what God has called me to whether it is for one person or one thousand, then I am successful in His eyes and those are the only ones that matter.

For those of you who have been on this journey with me, I’d like to say, “Thank you.” For those of you who have let me know that a particular post has touched your life and been exactly what you needed at that moment, you will never know what that has done for me. Your words have encouraged me as I’ve struggled in obscurity and reminded me that I’m being successful in God’s eyes even when I don’t feel like I’m being successful.

I hope that with this post, you can look at your life and see where you’ve defined success differently than God has. I hope that you can see that your success doesn’t depend on how many people you reach. It simply depends on your obedience to what God has called you to do. If you’re struggling with not feeling successful in what God has called you to, take heart. If you’re being obedient, you are successful in God’s eyes, and He’s the one who ultimately matters.

Roll your works upon the Lord [commit and trust them wholly to Him; He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will, and] so shall your plans be established and succeed.

‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭16:3‬ ‭AMP‬‬

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May 16, 2016 · 2:09 AM

Come Back Tomorrow


Have you ever had a craving, drove across town to get to the restaurant, walk in, and have them tell you the kitchen us closed? I hate it when that happens. It’s worse if you’ve pulled into the parking lot, are walking up to the door, and they flip the sign to “closed” while looking at you. You just want one thing. It won’t take long, but they tell you to come back tomorrow. How does that make you feel? Angry? Disappointed? Frustrated? Sad? Lots of emotions come to mind.

The problem is, that person had the ability to satisfy your craving, but not the will. They could have gone above and beyond for a good customer like yourself, and just let you run in and get it. But they didn’t. They withheld it from you and you have to wait. When that happens, I almost want to do a personal boycott because I let my emotions get the better of me. But at the be of the day, it was just a food item I wanted. It wasn’t life or death. It won’t make or break me if I don’t get it.

Imagine someone who needs something that really will make or break them. Imagine that they need this thing to keep afloat, and you have what they need. Imagine you told them to come back tomorrow because you were busy. This isn’t a craving they’re trying to get a fix for. This is a real life, make or break situation, and you were as aloof to them as that person who looked at you and flipped the sign to close. Remember how you were feeling when they did that for a craving? Multiply that feeling for that person.

God puts people in our path each day who desperately need our help, but we are too busy to see them or too nonchalant to care. We have the opportunity daily to be God’s hands, but we rarely open them. Proverbs 3:27-28 says, “Do not withhold good from those who deserve it when it’s in your power to help them. If you can help your neighbor now, don’t say, ‘Come back tomorrow, and then I’ll help you’” (NLT). God’s desire is that we keep our sign turned to “open” when it comes to helping others.

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May 13, 2016 · 5:30 AM

Your Guide to Life


If you were to look up “Guide” in the dictionary, it would tell you that it’s a person who advises or shows the way to others. Throughout history God has given us things to show the way to Him and to direct our lives on how to live. God knows that we all feel lost in this world, are looking for answers, and have no sense of direction. When we follow anything other than something or someone God has given us as a guide, it’s the blind leading the blind.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve opened my Bible when I’ve needed direction and found my path. There have been times that I’ve prayed for an answer and God placed someone in my path to give it to me. Then have also been times when the Holy Spirit has caused me to remember something from the Bible just when I needed it. God didn’t leave us fumbling around in the darkness. He gave us guides to show us the way.

Here are several verses from the Bible that talk about the Guides He has given us.

1. Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.

Psalms 119:105 NLT

2. And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them.

Isaiah 42:16 ESV

3. For the Lamb Who is in the midst of the throne will be their Shepherd, and He will guide them to the springs of the waters of life; and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Revelation 7:17 AMP

4. We beg you, our friends, to pay proper respect to those who work among you, who guide and instruct you in the Christian life.

1 Thessalonians 5:12 GNT

5. I write this, dear children, to guide you out of sin. But if anyone does sin, we have a Priest-Friend in the presence of the Father: Jesus Christ, righteous Jesus. When he served as a sacrifice for our sins, he solved the sin problem for good—not only ours, but the whole world’s. I write this, dear children, to guide you out of sin. But if anyone does sin, we have a Priest-Friend in the presence of the Father: Jesus Christ, righteous Jesus. When he served as a sacrifice for our sins, he solved the sin problem for good—not only ours, but the whole world’s. Here’s how we can be sure that we know God in the right way: Keep his commandments.

1 John 2:1-2 MSG

6. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future.

John 16:13 NLT

7. So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves.

Galatians 5:16 NLT

8. You in Your mercy and loving-kindness have led forth the people whom You have redeemed; You have guided them in Your strength to Your holy habitation.

Exodus 15:13 AMP

9. The peace that Christ gives is to guide you in the decisions you make; for it is to this peace that God has called you together in the one body. And be thankful.

Colossians 3:15 GNT

10. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.

Isaiah 58:11 ESV

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May 11, 2016 · 5:56 AM

The Pursuit Of Happiness


The Declaration of Independence of The United States says that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are among our inalienable rights as humans given to us by God. We all have the desire to live, to be free, and to be happy. So many of us have spent a lifetime in the pursuit of happiness. We think of we have more money, we’ll be happy. We think of we had a better job, a better house, a faster car, more friends, a bigger church, more toys, or (fill in the blank), we’ll be happy so we pursue those things.

The inalienable right granted to us was the pursuit of happiness, not the pursuit of things though. Yes, God wants you to be happy, but He wants you to find it in Him. If you’ve pursued things to make you happy, you can attest that once you had those things, your happiness faded. They fulfilled you for a short while, but then you wanted a better whatever it was that you pursued. When you pursue things for your happiness, you’ll never be satisfied. You will always want more. That’s why we have the phrase, “Money doesn’t buy happiness.”

The pursuit of happiness is different than the pursuit of things to make you happy. You can still desire those other things, but you have to understand that’s not what’s going to fulfill your longing to be happy. Psalm 37:4 says, “Seek your happiness in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desire” (GNT). When we pursue our happiness in God, a funny thing happens. He begins to give us the things we desire. It’s a matter of priorities.

Jesus said it this way in Matthew 6:33, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (ESV). It’s when we seek Him, His Kingdom, and His desires that we will find our happiness. All the other things are a side note to life. Yes, it’s ok to want them and to even have them, but we have to understand that if they are what we are pursuing to make us happy, we I’ll be disappointed. If we will seek our happiness in Him, we will be truly happy and He will bless us with things that will enhance our happiness.

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May 9, 2016 · 5:30 AM

God Listens


Have you ever been talking to someone only to figure out they were looking at you, but not listening? It’s frustrating. You’re going through the emotions that you feel, describing each detail to them, and they aren’t even paying attention. Would you go back to that person the next time you needed the support of a listening ear? No! You wanted someone to listen and to help you, and they weren’t even giving you the respect of listening.

Have you ever felt like God was that way? Have you felt like you poured out your heart to Him in prayer, but it was like He wasn’t listening? It’s frustrating to be in prayer and to feel like your prayers aren’t escaping the room you’re in. Maybe you’ve tried praying louder or just sat there weeping in that place crying out to God for mercy. In any case, God is not like us. He does not have selective hearing. He hears every prayer, even those that seem to fall flat on the floor.

In Psalm 116:1-2, the Psalmist wrote, “I love the Lord, because he hears me; he listens to my prayers. He listens to me every time I call to him” (GNT). God hears every prayer you’ve ever prayed from the silent ones that you could barely muster the energy to say to the loud “can you hear me” prayers. When you and I pour out our heart before God, we have a guarantee that He hears us and listens to us.

We are not guaranteed to have every prayer answered, but we are guaranteed an audience with God every time we pray. Since He gives us an audience and hears us, we should have confidence and approach His throne where we will find mercy and grace to help us just when we need it (Hebrews 4:16). We don’t have to leave prayer frustrated because we know He hears us, and if He hears us, He will give us the grace and mercy we need for whatever our situation holds.

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May 3, 2016 · 5:30 AM

Doctor’s Visit


Imagine you had a medical issue that worried you. The first thing you would do is visit your doctor and ask them to examine you thoroughly. You’d want them to run tests to find the problem, then to tell you what the solution would be to bring healing to your body. We would want the doctor to be honest with us about the problem and the treatment, and we would be willing to endure just about anything to be cured.

Now imagine you went to God in prayer and asked Him to examine your life, your thoughts, and your heart to find anything wrong. Why did the thought of that make you uncomfortable, but the thought of asking a doctor the same thing didn’t? For some reason, we think we can hide things from God. Adam and Eve tried it in the garden, and we’ve been trying it ever since. We think of we don’t invite God into those areas, we can keep doing things our own way.

Since God knows everything, He already sees the areas of our lives we try to keep hidden. He knows the thoughts we think and the attitude of our heart too. So do we not ask Him to examine us because we don’t want to hear what He will tell us? Imagine if you used that same logic with the doctor. If we wouldn’t do that with our physical body, why would we with our spiritual life? If you pretend there’s not a problem, it doesn’t mean it’s not there. It just means you’re not addressing it.

In Psalm 139:23-24 David prayed one of the toughest prayers. He prayed, “Examine me, O God, and know my mind; test me, and discover my thoughts. Find out if there is any evil in me and guide me in the everlasting way” (GNT). He knew the only way to get better spiritually is to ask God for an examine. He wanted God to dig into the dark, hidden places of his life so that God could lead him in the everlasting way. If we want God to do the same for us, it’s time we gave Him permission to examine us and to give us the cure.

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April 29, 2016 · 5:43 AM

God Is Merciful


There was a time when David sinned that God let him choose his own punishment. God gave him three options: 1) Three years of famine 2) Three months of running from his enemies or 3) Three days of a severe plague. That’s a tough choice, but David thought about it and made a wise decision. He said, “They’re all terrible! But I’d rather be punished by GOD, whose mercy is great, than fall into human hands” (MSG)

David recognized that God is a lot more merciful than we are. He took his chances with a plague betting on God’s mercy and it paid off. Just as the angel bringing the plague was about to destroy Jerusalem, God stopped him because His mercy was greater than His desire to punish. God is a merciful God, yet someone how so many of us view Him as a punishing judge rather than a merciful father.

To help us see Him as merciful, here are some verses that talk about His mercy.

1. GOD is all mercy and grace— not quick to anger, is rich in love.

Psalm 145:8 MSG

2. Let us have confidence, then, and approach God’s throne, where there is grace. There we will receive mercy and find grace to help us just when we need it.

Hebrews 4:16 GNT

3. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

Ephesians 2:4-5 ESV

4. But you, O Lord, are a God of compassion and mercy, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.

Psalms 86:15 NLT

5. All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort.

2 Corinthians 1:3 NLT

6. But GOD ’s not finished. He’s waiting around to be gracious to you. He’s gathering strength to show mercy to you. GOD takes the time to do everything right—everything. Those who wait around for him are the lucky ones.

Isaiah 30:18 MSG

7. O GIVE thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever.

Psalm 136:1 AMP

8. And he also wanted to reveal his abundant glory, which was poured out on us who are the objects of his mercy, those of us whom he has prepared to receive his glory.

Romans 9:23 GNT

9. How kind the LORD is! How good he is! So merciful, this God of ours!

Psalms 116:5 NLT

10. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23 ESV

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April 26, 2016 · 5:30 AM

Letting Go


Tug of war is a great game we learned to play as kids. You can have one on one tug of war or team versus team. Either way, it’s a battle of strength and will. Each of us has played with that person who just lets go of the rope. Your body was used to keeping the tension by pulling against the weight of the other side, and when they release that tension, you go flying backwards. Now, any time you hold any weight with tension, you’re afraid you’ll fall down if that happens again.

Just like our body gets used to keeping the tension in tug of war, our mind can get used to the tension of carrying a burden. There’s a struggle. There’s tension. There’s the fear of what it’ll do to you if that tension is cut. You don’t feel like you can let go of the burden for fear of flying backwards and being made to look like a fool. Fear keeps you holding on to the weights you should’ve let go of long ago even after God has told you to let go.

You may not know it, but God gave you a promise in Psalm 55:22 about letting go of those burdens. It says, “Cast your burden on the Lord [releasing the weight of it] and He will sustain you; He will never allow the [consistently] righteous to be moved (made to slip, fall, or fail)” (AMP). If you will release the weight of your burden, He will catch you. He won’t let you fall and look like a fool. His desire is that you let go of that heaviness and hand it over to Him.

Just like in tug of war, it’s a trust exercise. You’re going to have to be the one to let go though. You’re going to have to be the one who releases the tension and says, “God, I’m letting go of this burden. You can have it.” God cares about your mental, physical, and spiritual health. Carrying a burden affects all three. That’s why He said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28NLT). You’ll be more productive, happier, and better rested when you let Him do the heavy lifting. 

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