Tag Archives: devotions

February 10, 2014 · 7:52 AM

Philemon’s Predicament

I’ve read Paul’s letter to Philemon many times. It’s usually one of the books in the Bible that I skim through and move on. Partly because it’s only one chapter and another because it’s a personal letter asking Philemon for a favor that doesn’t concern me. This last time I read it though, I began to question why this letter was so important that it had to be included in the Bible. Why did God want us to see this personal letter? When I questioned it like that, I began to see why it was so important.

Onesimus was a slave who ran away from Philemon. Through God’s providence, he crossed paths with Paul and accepted Christ. Paul then became his father in the faith and discipled him. Through time, they discovered the connection and Paul encouraged him to return to Philemon. He encouraged Philemon not to look at Onesimus as a slave anymore, but as a brother. He wanted him to forgive Onesimus’ past and to accept him back debt free. I’m sure Philemon must have struggled with this, but ultimately responded positively to the request.

It reminded me of someone I knew in high school. A guy that I didn’t like much. We ran in the same circles, but I didn’t think very highly of him so I didn’t hang out with him. To me, he was a Christian in name only because his actions proved otherwise. After high school, I didn’t hear from him for nearly 20 years until Facebook came along. I accepted the friend request from him and began to Facebook stalk him. I saw that he was in ministry and I scoffed. How could this guy be in ministry? He didn’t deserve it.

As I watched over the next couple of years, every time I saw a post from him that had to do with ministry, I looked for something wrong. I tried to find his angle in messing with people. The more I looked, the more I began to see it was real ministry. I still held out on accepting it because of his past. I knew what was underneath. I knew who he was. I wasn’t going to buy in even if everyone else did. We had a history much like Philemon and Onesimus. It was hard to accept that someone who had done so much wrong in the past could be doing so much right in the present.

One day as I was reading a post and scoffing, God spoke to me. He asked, “Do I hold your past against you?” My heart sunk. I wanted to say, “But I didn’t do the stuff this guy did.” I wanted to make my past better than his because I would somehow be justified in my feelings. But I knew the answer. “No,” I replied. “Then how can you hold his past against him? I have forgiven him and it is gone. He has become a new creation and is being used for my purposes,” God told me. What can you say to that besides, “yes, sir”?

I, like Philemon, had to let go of someone else’s past and accept them as a brother. I had to release my 20 years of contempt and see them as a fellow servant doing God’s work. We all have someone who comes to mind here. Someone who has wronged us. Someone who we’ve held contempt for. Someone who we’ve disliked for a long time. Today, release those feelings and be free. You are not God and don’t have the right to decide who God can and cannot use. If they have wronged you, hand it over to Him and let Him handle it. He’s a better judge than we are and has the ability to change people completely. If you need proof, look in the mirror.

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February 7, 2014 · 8:07 AM

Clear The Mechanism

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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 a copy of “Be Still and Know that I am God Promise Journal”. Keep reading to find out how to enter.

When you think of Kevin Costner and baseball, you probably think of “Field of Dreams”. You probably don’t think of “For Love of the Game”. I think it’s one of his most underrated movies. In it he plays an aging pitcher who is being forced to decide if he should retire or be traded. He’s pitching at an opponents stadium and the crowd is loud. They’re trying to disrupt his concentration while he’s pitching. Before each pitch he says, “Clear the mechanism,” and he shuts out the crowd noise so he can concentrate.

I always thought that was cool and I wanted to be able to do it. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that the ability to do that is necessary when spending time with God. My mind is always working, thinking or solving. It rarely gets a rest. I have sleep apnea and when I don’t have my CPAP or mouth guard, my mind thinks all night long. When I try to get still and spend time reading the Bible or praying, my mind kicks into gear and thinks about everything but spiritual things. It’s aggravating.

I want to concentrate on God and what He’s saying, but the very moment that I get quiet, something pops in. Sometimes it’s a song. Sometimes it’s the to do list for my day. Sometimes it’s about how I’m going to resolve an issue. Five, ten or more minutes go by and I realize that I haven’t been praying or reading. I get back at it and it’s not long before I’m off on a rabbit trail. I know I’m not the only one who deals with this. I think we all do in some way. I’ve learned and trained myself to clear the mechanism in my own way. It’s not 100% effective, but it works most of the time.

When a thought pops in during my quiet time, I’ve learned to do one of two things. The first thing I do is challenge the thought. When it threatens to distract me, I challenge it and push it back out. If I can’t push it out, I write it down or save it in my phone for after. That way, I can control the thought by setting myself free that I’ll address it when I’m done. I’m then free to concentrate on what matters. I’m open to hear from God and study His Word in depth. I’ve found that when I clear the mechanism, I’m free to receive. My quiet time has become growth time.

What are some things you do to clear the mechanism in your quiet time? I’m always looking to grow and when we each share what we do, we help others who haven’t found a way to clear theirs.

If you would like to win the “Be Still and Know that I am God Promise Journal”, all you have to do is go to my Facebook page here and “like” it. I will randomly pick one person tomorrow (February 8, 2014) who has liked my page. If you have already liked my page and enjoy reading these daily devotionals, please invite your friends to like my page so they can receive encouragement from God’s Word too.

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February 5, 2014 · 7:47 AM

The Widow’s Prayer

I’ve always been fascinated with the story of Elijah in I Kings 17. After he prophesied there would be a drought, God said, “Get out of here, and fast. Head east and hide out at Kerith Ravine on the other side of the Jordan River. You can drink fresh water from the brook; I’ve commanded the ravens to feed you.” It wasn’t long though before the brook dried up because of the drought. Then God told him to go to a certain city and live there. He told him that he had instructed a widow woman to feed him.

My question has always been, “Why did God allow the brook to dry up?” After all, he went to the place of God’s provision. Why did he have to leave that place? He was where he was supposed to be. Then I looked at the story from the other side. Think about the widow. She knew she was about to run out of flour and oil. She knew there was nothing more she could do. She knew that when her flour ran out, she and her son would die. Knowing that, I can imagine her calling out to God in desperation for help. I can hear her crying each night wondering when God would answer her prayers.

Then, one day, God speaks to her. He said, “I’m going to send a prophet to you. Prepare him a meal and you will get your answer.” As each day passed, she looked for the prophet. Each day that passed without his arrival the flour and oil went down. Finally she was down to her last bit of flour and oil. Death was around the corner. She had quit looking for the prophet and was looking for sticks to burn in order to prepare her last meal. As she was scouring the ground for firewood, a voice came from behind her, “Please, would you bring me a little water in a jug?” She barely looked up and nodded. As she headed to the well, he called out, “And while you’re at it, would you bring me something to eat?”

I’m sure her eyes lit up and she whipped around. “Could this be the prophet,” she thought. Only one way to find out. “I have a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a bottle; you found me scratching together just enough firewood to make a last meal for my sin and me. After we eat it, we’ll die,” she said. Any stranger would let her eat her last meal, but the prophet would still ask for it. She had to make sure so she could be obedient if it was him. Elijah told her not to worry. He said, “Make a small biscuit for me and bring it back here. Then go and make a meal from what’s left.” The oil and flour didn’t empty until the drought was over.

We rarely know why God moves us from a place of provision or causes the brook of blessings to dry up. In this case, I believe it was to answer the widow’s prayer. God needed Elijah to move so he cut off his source. For the widow, she had to wait until she was down to her last meal. She was then asked to give it up in order to be blessed. Both had to trust God. Both had to be obedient or both would have died. God asked both to give up what they had for the other. What has God asked you to give up? It may be all you have, but it will be the gateway to miracles. Where is God trying to move you to? You may not understand now, but your obedience will lead you to another place of provision. Obedience is always required before the blessing.

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February 4, 2014 · 7:46 AM

Where’s Jesus?

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Have you ever looked through any of the “Where’s Waldo” books by Martin Handford? I have always loved those books. I’ve spent countless hours as a kid, and an adult, looking for the guy in red and white. I’ve scoured beaches, mountain sides, city squares, circuses and more trying to find him. Sometimes I find him quickly and other times it takes me a while, but I always find him. Why? Because I don’t give up when I don’t see him right away. I keep looking. Sometimes I think I’ve found him, but it’s just someone drew into the picture in similar clothes to keep me off the trail.

We can use the same principles of finding Waldo to find Jesus. The first thing we have to do is start looking. We have to be willing to look through every square inch of what’s around us in order to find Him. We have to be willing to see some crazy things, some funny things and some mundane things if we’re going to find Him. We have to be willing to spend some time seeking Him out. He’s able to be found, but it requires that we spend some time doing it. We can’t give up when we don’t find Him right away.

Sometimes when I need to find Him, He’s easy to point out. I can get my answer and move on with life. Other times, it takes hours, days, months, even years to find Him. During those longer periods, it’s tough to keep going. When we aren’t rewarded quickly for our diligence, we get discouraged. We feel like failures and want to give up. I get it. You feel like you’re living in a barren wasteland while you look. You wonder if God has forgotten you and begin to think He must get pleasure from hiding from you. I can tell you that He wants to be found. He just wants to know how far you will go to get what you want.

In Jeremiah 29:13-14 God says, “When you come looking for me, you’ll find me. Yes, when you get serious about find me and want it more than anything else, I’ll make sure you won’t be disappointed (MSG).” We have to be serious about finding Him. It can’t be a half hearted glance. We need to really seek Him out when we must have an answer. He also said we have to want to find Him more than anything else. More than food. More than our job. More than oxygen. More than our next heartbeat. When we seek Him with that kind of intensity, we won’t be disappointed.

Have you been half-heartedly seeking Him or have you been on your knees desperately seeking Him? Have you turned over ever rock looking for Him? Jesus promised that if we would seek, we would find. If we ask, we’ll be given. If we knock, it’ll be opened. Finding Jesus usually doesn’t come easy. It requires us to do work. It requires us to make serious sacrifices. Don’t give up in your search for Him. He’s wanting you to find Him for the answer you’ve been waiting on. He just needs you to spend more time, give a stronger effort and to look harder than you ever have. I promise He’s there in front of you. Block out the look a likes and all the crazy distractions and you’ll see Him.

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February 3, 2014 · 8:01 AM

Choose To Be Chosen

One year in High School, each music class was tasked with writing a Christmas song for the school play. I remember sitting there thinking that every Christmas song had already been written. They continued to push us to write one every day. In my mind, I began to think, “What if we wrote a song that would become a Christmas Classic?” Of course it didn’t become one. In fact, it wasn’t even a Christmas song! We wrote a song based off the scripture that says, “For many are called, but few are chosen (Matthew 22:14).” We titled it “Choose to be chosen”.

I haven’t thought about that song in nearly twenty years. This morning as I was reading in the first few chapters of John, I noticed something. Once John the Baptist baptized Jesus and announced Him as the Messiah, many people chose to follow Jesus. Soon even the ones who followed John the Baptist started following Him. As crowds chose to follow Jesus, He went around and chose 12 to follow Him. Out of thousands, only twelve had been chosen to follow.

That old song we wrote came back into my head as I chewed on that. I could imagine Nathaniel sitting under that fig tree when Philip ran up to him. Philip shouted, “We’ve found Him! We’ve found the Messiah!” Nathaniel pops up expectantly, “You found Him? You found the One?” “Yes! It’s Jesus, son of Joseph from Nazareth! Can you believe it?” I then imagine Nathaniel leaning back up against the tree, his expectant look gone and saying, “Nazareth!?! Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

After some convincing, Nathaniel chose to go see Jesus. When he got there, Jesus called out, “Now there’s a genuine son of Israel – a man of complete integrity.” After their conversation, Nathaniel chose to follow Jesus. He could have stayed under that fig tree. He could have blown off what Philip had told him. He was comfortable where he was. Remember, he was relaxing in the shade of a tree on a warm Spring day. He didn’t have to leave that place. He could have waited for Jesus to pass by and find him there. But he chose to go and see and his life was forever changed.

Maybe you’re comfortable where you are today. Your income has made you be able to relax at this point in life. Or maybe your walk with God has become so routine that you can follow Jesus without even trying. You’re like Nathaniel just chilling under a tree happy with where you are. All along, the One, Jesus, the Messiah, is passing by wondering if you’re going to choose to be chosen to do greater things. Are you going to give up life in the shade tree for a life of work in the vineyard? Jesus is looking for laborers today. Will you get up from your place of comfort and choose to be chosen for the work at hand?

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January 28, 2014 · 6:31 AM

The Feast of Shelters

I was reading recently in II Chronicles 7 where Solomon was dedicating the temple. During the celebration, they celebrated the Feast of Shelters. I wasn’t as familiar with that feast as Pentecost, Jubilee, Rosh Hashanah or others. I looked it up to find out more about it and found something interesting. To help Israel remember how their ancestors wandered the desert for 40 years as nomads, they would live in temporary shelters for seven days. Some would sleep on the porch of their homes, others would camp out, some would build lean to shelters and some would build temporary booths.

The shelter they stayed in needed to make sure they were exposed to the elements. If it got cold, they shivered. If it rained, they got wet. If it was hot, they sweat. All of this to remember that their ancestors didn’t have permanent dwellings like they did. It was meant as a link to their past, but for me, it’s a link to our future. These bodies we live in are our temporary shelters. We live like nomads in them moving around all over the world. We think they’re our permanent home, but like the Israelites, we look forward to going to the Promised Land and getting our permanent homes.

II Corinthians 5:1 says, “For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in Heaven, an eternal body made for us by God Himself…” Paul referred to our bodies as tents which is what the people of Israel lived in while they wandered the desert. It’s a temporary home. The problem is that we have lived this way for so long that we’ve forgotten it’s temporary and have made ourselves comfortable in them. We are only wandering here making our way to our permanent home.

These tents we live in have us exposed to the elements of life. They don’t really protect us from tragedy, problems, storms or outside forces. We feel the full force of things and hurt deeply. When we get our new bodies, our permanent ones, we will have shelter from those things. In fact, Scripture says we won’t even shed a tear in Heaven. There will be no more death either. Those permanent homes won’t be susceptible to the things that these temporary ones are. We will look back at these bodies and thank God we’re not in them anymore.

Instead of looking back at the past and reliving the hurt and exposure to life’s elements, look forward to a time when we won’t have to worry about such things. Yes, we are still living in these tents and are still being exposed to the problems here, but looking forward can help us endure the elements. Knowing that a day is coming when we’ll have protection against such things should give you strength and courage to move forward instead of being stick in the past. God wants each one of us to move forward and to think about the future He has for us. He told us about such a time because He knew it would give us hope, and hope is a powerful thing in a temporary storm.

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January 27, 2014 · 6:39 AM

You Are Not Out Of The Fight

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Last night I got to watch “Lone Survivor”. It was a moving experience like I haven’t had in a movie in a long time. When the movie was over, everyone just sat in their seats in silence. You could hear the sniffles from people crying. No one said a word as they exited. It was a very humbling thing to experience that movie. The mental and physical toughness that it took to survive was incredible. Marcus Luttrell, the lone survivor, left me with one phrase from the movie: You are not out of the fight.

I think that’s something each of us can adopt. We are each faced with hardships in our lives. Some are physical, some are mental and some are relational. We reach our breaking point because of our situation. We get pushed to our limits and feel like we can’t go on. We question if we really should, if it’s even worth it. Our faith falls through our hands like sand and we wonder where God is in our problems. We cling to what little hope we can find to survive the next go around. Just when we think we’re free, we start getting hammered again.

If you are breathing, you are not out of the fight. You have the ability to survive. God placed in you a spirit of power, love and a sound mind. You’ll need all three to make sure you are not out of the fight. You need power to stand when that’s all you can do. You need power to push forward when everything in life is trying to pull you backwards. God’s strength is made perfect in your weakness. When you realize you can’t do this on your own, His power, His strength will come in to help you make it.

You need love to give you a reason to live. There are things left in this life for you to experience. There is a new life out there waiting for you and it will only happen if you make it through. Going through hard times helps us to know what’s important in life. All the fluff, the temporary things and the things that don’t matter seem to disappear when hard times come. When all the things that don’t really matter in life are gone, you’re left with those who love you and you can start fresh with things that matter.

Finally, you need a sound mind to stay in the fight. Mental toughness and the will to survive are required. You must win the battle of the mind. That’s why God gives you a sound mind. Control the thoughts that come in and want to talk you into giving in. Bring every thought captive. Put God’s Word in so you have something to meditate on rather than everything that’s going on. If you look at the battle with your own eyes and mind, you’ll give up. If you look at it with the sound mind God gives, you’ll never be out of the fight.

On a side note, I’d like to say, “Thank you” to each of you who have served, are serving or have family in the military. I know thank you will never be enough, but it carries deep weight.

If you’d like to check out the review my friend Wade Bearden wrote on “Lone Survivor” for “Christianity Today”, click here.

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January 22, 2014 · 7:54 AM

Tips For Rebuilding

Rebuilding is hard work even when you have help. As Nehemiah worked to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, there were many who opposed him. People came along and taunted him, “If a fox climbed that wall, it would fall to pieces under his weight.” Others planned to attack them as they built. They didn’t want the wall rebuilt and the people living in safety. There were internal distractions from arguments among the workers too. It seemed that everything and everyone was against the rebuilding of the wall, but Nehemiah kept at it. He prayed and encouraged those daily who we’re rebuilding. He kept their focus on the job at hand.

Each one of us have times of rebuilding in our lives. Sometimes that rebuilding is more like a remodel. Sometimes it’s repairing holes in our wall that were created from bad decisions. Other times the whole wall around our lives lies in ruins. Everything we had or worked hard to build crumbled and fell right in front of us. It makes you feel lost, unprotected and vulnerable. There’s so much work to do to rebuild that you don’t know where to start. You want to just give up and live in the ruins. You try to rebuild one part of your life and another falls down. It’s hopeless.

I think that’s how he people of Jerusalem were in the book of Nehemiah. They had gotten used to living in the ruble and had quit trying to rebuild. Their lives were sad. They had no joy or sense of protection. They had to rely on others to protect them and were treated poorly. It wasn’t until Nehemiah came along and got them excited about rebuilding that they began to change back into who they were made to be. He encouraged them daily, prayed over them and helped them rebuild the walls. He helped them protect themselves against attacks and rebuilt their confidence with the building of the wall.

Yes, there were distractions, times where the work slowed down and people who tried to hold them back. There will be the same things in your life when you try to repair or rebuild your life. There will be people who try to hold you down, pull you backwards or taunt you. Nehemiah didn’t get down off the wall or stop working though. Instead, he set up people at the breaches in the wall to stand guard. He had the workers rebuild with one hand and hold a sword in their other.

You will need to ask people to stand in the gaps for you where you’re most vulnerable. You’ll need to stay in the Bible constantly as it is your weapon. Ephesians 6 says, “Take the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.” The Message calls it an “indispensable weapon”. There will be those who oppose you. Stay constant in prayer so that you hear God’s voice above theirs. Above all, never give up. Keep working. Keep building. Don’t get used to living in the ruins. God’s desire is that you rebuild. Find someone who will encourage you daily to keep building and who will pray for you. Before you know it, the walls will be repaired and new life can begin.

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January 21, 2014 · 7:42 AM

A Fresh Start

I was reading in Psalm 51 where he wrote about being confronted by the prophet Nathan. David had an adulterous affair, got the woman pregnant, had her husband killed and married her to cover it up. The prophet came and let him know that God saw everything. David broke down and repented. He wrote this Psalm to describe his need for forgiveness from God and what he needed to start over. God forgave him and David continued to be a man after God’s own heart.

I’ve always been attracted to verse 10 in that particular Psalm. It reads, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” That has been a prayer of mine for as long as I can remember. I want to always have a clean heart before God. I want to have a heart that is sensitive to His Spirit and isn’t too prideful to ask for forgiveness when I fail. David’s prayer here is proof that no matter how badly I mess up, God can forgive me and create a new heart in me.

As I read this chapter again, I started reading it in other versions to see how that verse translated. The Message caught my eye. It says it like this, “God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos in my life.” I have read that over and over because it’s just that good. We all need a fresh start every now and then. We need God to pull us from the mundane and to give us a new look at life. After we’ve sinned, we sometimes have to start over. Even in dealing with the consequences of our sins, God can still give us a fresh start.

The next part of that verse also speaks to me. “Shape a Genesis week from the chaos in my life.” I went back to Genesis 1 and read about that week. The first thing God created was light. When we have sinned or are living in sin, there is no light in our life. We have a dark cloud hanging over us. God will come in and bring light back into our lives and then cause things to grow again. God can take the chaos that dominates your life today and create order, life and peace. All He has to do is speak into it.

If you’re living in that chaos today, invite God to speak into your life and to shape a Genesis week for you. If you have sin in your life you haven’t repented of because you think God won’t forgive you, ask Him to create a new heart in you and to give you a fresh start. God loves new beginnings and He loves to create things. He delights in you and wants to bring light back into your life today. The only thing holding Him back is you. Pray today that God would allow you to start fresh with Him. He will do it. I promise.

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January 20, 2014 · 7:55 AM

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

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Today, as a nation, we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. He is best remembered for his work in the Civil Rights movement and his “I Have a Dream” speech. Having studied his life, his speech and the Civil Rights movement, I’ve learned a lot about him. Just like you and I, he had many flaws, he made some poor choices and at one point lacked direction in his life. His father was a minister and felt like he was supposed to go into the ministry too, but King wanted to be a lawyer or a doctor. As a young man coming out of college, he struggled with his faith and his future.

After thinking about it, he decided that the Bible had many profound truths that he could not escape. He decided to go to seminary in order to become a minister. Those years in seminary helped shape his public speaking and understanding of Scripture. I believe they gave him the ability to say what so many were feeling and didn’t have the ability to express. They gave him the means to energize a people who had been emancipated for a hundred years, yet hadn’t seen a day of freedom since. Because of that decision to go to seminary instead of being a doctor or a lawyer, he changed the course of a nation and a people.

You and I are faced with struggles and difficult life decisions too. You may not think that you will change the course of a nation by the decisions you make today, but you could. I’m sure he didn’t think it mattered as much as it did what he studied as a post graduate. Our decisions have lasting impacts. Sometimes they change us or our family, but they could change our neighborhood, our city, our state or our country. What you do in life matters. The decisions you make shouldn’t be made lightly. Imagine a world where he would have been a doctor. He still would have saved lives, but not nearly as many.

When it came down to it, he made his decisions based on the truths of the Bible. That means he read it for counsel. You and I should be doing the same thing when it comes to our decisions. Instead of finding out what God thinks, we go and ask family and friends what they think. Instead of wondering about the spiritual impact to our lives, we base decisions on the monetary impacts. God’s calling on your life may not make sense at the time, it may take a while to fulfill or even seem so big that you could never accomplish it. That’s ok because He’s not asking you to accomplish what only He can. He is looking for your obedience.

What decision is weighing you down today? Have you looked to God’s Word for help or the wisdom of man? You don’t have to be afraid when you act in obedience to what God told you. Don’t look for others to try to give you every reason why you shouldn’t do what God called you to do. Look to God for guidance on your next step and trust that His decisions for your life are far better than the decisions you could ever make for yourself. Who knows, the decisions you make today regarding your calling could change the nation tomorrow.

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