Tag Archives: what does the bible say about

July 31, 2018 · 5:49 AM

Whose Life Is It?

Have you ever had to borrow someone’s car that was nicer than yours? How did you drive it? For me, I had my hands at 10 and 2 the whole time. I took extra caution because I didn’t want to wreck it. If it had been my car I was driving, I would have just used one hand on the wheel and been less cautious when driving. Why is that? I think it’s more to do with the ownership of it than the familiarity. If I wreck it, then it was mine to wreck. It’s a whole different story if I wreck something that belongs to someone else.

Now think about the decisions you make regarding your life. For many of us, we treat them like we do driving our own car. It’s our life and our decisions, so if I mess it up, at least it was my life that I messed up. With that kind of thinking, we tend to make quick decisions with less thought than we would if we were giving that advice to someone regarding their life. Can I challenge that link of thinking for a minute? Your life is not your own. You were bought with a price, so it is no longer your life you live, but Christ’s. Sound familiar? Check out 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 if not.

Thinking about that, let’s look at Proverbs 28:25. It says, “To make rash, hasty decisions shows that you are not trusting the Lord. But when you rely totally on God, you will still act carefully and prudently” (TPT). Are you trusting the Lord with your life? Do you believe that it belongs to Him? Then we need to take our time with the decisions we make regarding it and seek His wisdom. It’s time we started treating our lives like they belong to someone else. God created you with a purpose and has a plan for you and your life. Today, instead of making decisions like it’s your life, ask God what His plan is for you.

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July 27, 2018 · 5:52 AM

Encourage Someone

I was sharing my story with someone and they made a remark about the encouragement I received from the people around me during that time. I agreed and told him I wouldn’t be around if it hadn’t been for those people who showed up and helped me through those times. We never know how important it is to someone when we show up in their time of need or say the right words when they need to hear them most. Those things provide the fuel people need to keep going when they’re ready to give up.

If you Google The word “encourage”, it means, “to give support, confidence or hope to someone.” You and I are told many times to encourage other believers and people around us. God knows that each one of us need words of encouragement to help us get through life. It doesn’t take a lot of effort or time to give encouragement to someone, and it can make a world of difference. Look around you today and offer encouragement to someone even if you’re not sure they need it. Doing it will brighten someone’s day and show them God’s love.

Here are some Bible verses on encouraging others.

1. A soothing tongue [speaking words that build up and encourage] is a tree of life.

PROVERBS 15:4 AMP

2. And so encourage one another and help one another, just as you are now doing.

1 Thessalonians 5:11 GNT

3. The words of the godly encourage many, but fools are destroyed by their lack of common sense.

Proverbs 10:21 NLT

4. Our counsel is that you warn the freeloaders to get a move on. Gently encourage the stragglers, and reach out for the exhausted, pulling them to their feet. Be patient with each person, attentive to individual needs. And be careful that when you get on each other’s nerves you don’t snap at each other. Look for the best in each other, and always do your best to bring it out.

1 Thessalonians 5:13-15 MSG

5. Discover creative ways to encourage others and to motivate them toward acts of compassion, doing beautiful works as expressions of love.

Hebrews 10:24 TPT

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July 26, 2018 · 5:34 AM

Reopen The Wells

Throwback Thursday is a new feature I’m using to help build some margin into my schedule to pursue other writing ventures. Each Thursday I’ll be bringing you a previously written devotional that still speaks encouragement to us from God’s Word.

How do you respond to road blocks and set backs? Do you believe the non-scriptural platitudes that say, “God doesn’t close a door without opening a window”? Do you give up and just sit there? Maybe you look for another route and roll with the punches. Each of us respond in different ways when we’ve done the ground work for things in our lives only to have it stopped suddenly. I believe how we respond matters.

In Genesis 26, Abraham had already died and his son Isaac was a full grown man. Isaac planted crops and God blessed them. Whatever he did, God put His hand on it and made him successful. With that success came jealousy from others who were not as blessed. The Philistines went around and filled his wells with dirt, and their king made him uproot his family and move because of their jealousy.

When Isaac moved away to other places he had taken his flocks before, he realized what they had done. Isaac and his father had dug many wells throughout the land to give water to their family and flocks. Now, all those years of work had been undone. He could have looked for other wells that didn’t belong to him, but that wasn’t right. Genesis 26:18 says, “He reopened the wells his father had dug, which the Philistines had filled in after Abraham’s death. Isaac also restored the names Abraham had given them” (NLT).

When what you’ve worked for gets destroyed by someone else, don’t just walk away or give up. Put the work back into it and re-dig your wells. It’s going to take work. It’s going to take determination. Your desire to be successful and blessed has to be stronger than your desire to give up. Isaac didn’t quit or look for God to open a new well. He grabbed a shovel, started digging, and restored what the enemy had closed. That’s the response we should give to set backs and roadblocks in our lives.

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July 20, 2018 · 5:36 AM

Good Habits

Habits are behaviors in our lives that have developed over time. We get them from repeating a behavior, and many times we we do them effortlessly. Habits can be good or bad, and we all have them. We usually know what habits we have, but some of them are in our blind spot and are very obvious to others. The great news for you and I is that if it can be learned, it can be unlearned. We don’t have to keep the habits we have, and we can create new habits in our lives over time.

As Christians, there are certain habits that we should avoid, and there are others that we need to adopt. It’s never easy to create or break ourselves of a habit. I believe that when we invite Jesus to be Lord of our life, He helps us to make those changes in our lives. Even though He lives in us, our flesh is still alive and wants us to do things its way instead. It’s a constant struggle for us to break old habits and to develop new godly ones, but it’s something each of us must work on and do.

Here are some Bible verses regarding habits.

1. For God sees everything you do and his eyes are wide open as he observes every single habit you have.

Proverbs 5:21 TPT

2. So get rid of every filthy habit and all wicked conduct. Submit to God and accept the word that he plants in your hearts, which is able to save you.

James 1:21 GNT

3. Do not be deceived: “Evil company corrupts good habits.”

I Corinthians 15:33 NKJV

4. Let us not give up the habit of meeting together, as some are doing. Instead, let us encourage one another all the more, since you see that the Day of the Lord is coming nearer.

Hebrews 10:25 GNT

5. Everyone sees it. God’s work is the talk of the town. Be glad, good people! Fly to GOD! Good-hearted people, make praise your habit.

Psalm 64:9-10 MSG

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July 19, 2018 · 5:00 AM

Loving Others

Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.

1 John 4:7-12 NLT

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Throwback Thursday is a new feature I’m using to help build some margin into my schedule to pursue other writing ventures. Each Thursday I’ll be bringing you a previously written devotional that still speaks encouragement to us from God’s Word.

 

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July 18, 2018 · 6:01 AM

Trusting Our Anchor

One of the things I enjoy doing in my spare time is fishing. There’s something therapeutic about sitting on a boat and casting a line. Many times fish are under brush near shore. After we get the boat close enough, we drop an anchor in the water. When larger boats come cruising through, it creates large waves which can push our boat into the brush hanging over the water, or worse, it can run us into shallow water where there are stumps. While the waves may rock the boat and create some uneasiness, the anchor holds us in place and protects us from more damage.

In the same way, you and I have our hope in God. Life is full of uncertainties and our boat is often tossed about by the waves. There are times where we feel like the boat is going to flip over or that we will run aground. That’s why we need to trust in our anchor of hope. It is our lifeline that connects us to God. It is designed to hold us in place when all these things come through our lives and try to rock our faith. We must learn to trust it more than the waves because waves come and go, but our anchor is firm.

Hebrews 6:19 says, “We have this hope as an anchor for our lives. It is safe and sure, and goes through the curtain of the heavenly temple into the inner sanctuary” (GNT). Think about that image. Our anchor is a direct line to the very presence of God. When it is in use, it is unseen. It is not phased by what’s happening on the surface. When we trust in our anchor, we can have peace in the chaos and uncertainty of life. That hope grounds us in what is true and is eternal, and we will not be moved. If your boat is being rocked right now, grab ahold of that line that is connected to God’s presence and trust Him to hold you until the waters calm down.

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July 16, 2018 · 5:54 AM

Trusting His Plan

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told my son to get ready, and then, before he gets ready, he asks, “Where are we going?” I usually tell him, “It doesn’t matter. I said to get ready, so get ready.” Instead of quickly obeying, he constantly wants to know all the info before doing anything. As a parent, it can be frustrating. There are things he needs to know, and there are things he doesn’t need to know. I simply want him to obey when asked to do something instead of questioning everything I tell him to do.

Even though I know these frustrations as a parent, when the shoe is on the other foot, I act the same way. How many times had God told me to get ready or to go somewhere, and I want to know all the details before I do anything? There’s also those times where I know where He’s leading me, but I want to know all the steps first. It’s like I’m my own child when God is the father telling me to do things. I wonder how frustrated He gets at our questioning and inactivity while He’s waiting for our obedience.

Proverbs 20:24 says, “The Lord directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way?” (NLT) As children of God, we need to understand there are things we need to know, and things we don’t. God knows everything we are about to do, and how He wants it done. Since the beginning of time, all He has asked is that we would simply trust Him. He’s looking for our obedience without having to understand everything. We need to have enough faith to trust His will, His plan and His directions without questioning them. Simple obedience yields eternal benefits. Just like the old song says, “Trust and obey for there’s no other way.”

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July 13, 2018 · 5:43 AM

Looking Within

A couple of years ago I went to become a certified John Maxwell trainer, speaker and coach. During the coaching certification, one of the exercises was to coach someone to be able to juggle. As many of us were failing at helping someone juggle (because we didn’t know the first thing about juggling), the certified got up and said, “It is within you, but you have to learn to draw it out.” Before you knew it, people were juggling all over the room. All of us had to put aside our self limiting thoughts, and believe that God had placed everything we need within us.

I’ll never forget that moment because it taught me that God has put so much inside of me, but it was up to me to draw it out. Our mind functions on knowledge, but our spirit has a connection to the all knowing creator. He has given each of us all we need, but we as individuals must learn to draw it out like water from a deep well. We must trust that our creator has equipped us for every good work. We just have to look inside to find it.

Here are some Bible verses about things God has put in us.

1. Though good advice lies deep within the heart, a person with understanding will draw it out.

Proverbs 20:5 NLT

2. “No one will say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’; because the Kingdom of God is within you.”

Luke 17:21 GNT

3. I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My ordinances and do them.

EZEKIEL 36:27 AMP

4. What I’m getting at, friends, is that you should simply keep on doing what you’ve done from the beginning. When I was living among you, you lived in responsive obedience. Now that I’m separated from you, keep it up. Better yet, redouble your efforts. Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God. That energy is God’s energy, an energy deep within you, God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure.

Philippians 2:12-13 MSG

5. Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you, [that special endowment] which was intentionally bestowed on you [by the Holy Spirit] through prophetic utterance when the elders laid their hands on you [at your ordination].

1 TIMOTHY 4:14 AMP

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July 12, 2018 · 5:26 AM

The Prince Of Wholeness

Throwback Thursday is a new feature I’m using to help build some margin into my schedule to pursue other writing ventures. Each Thursday I’ll be bringing you a previously written devotional that still speaks encouragement to us from God’s Word.

One of the names of God that I love is Jehovah Shalom. I began to dig deeper into the word “Shalom” to see what all it means. I know it means “peace” and that it is often used as a greeting in Israel, but one of the other meanings for the word is “completeness” or “whole”. I found that very interesting. So I went back to Isaiah 9:6 where it says Jesus will be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace. I switched to the Message version of the Bible and there it called Him the Prince of Wholeness.

My mind raced, “How had I missed that?” I’m not sure how I’ve read that a hundred times and have heard the word shalom over and over and never saw that He is the Prince of Wholeness. We all need peace in our lives so much that we focus on that part of “shalom”, but rarely go deeper into its meaning. We don’t look beyond the surface, but we need to. We need to dig deeper to find something like this because we all need it.

I’ve had my life shattered and broken. When I look back at that period in my life, I see myself laying on a foundation in the pouring rain. There is debris of what was my life laying all around. There is nothing that is salvageable. That is there is nothing I can salvage. But here, in this scripture, I see a God who can take the broken pieces of my life and make me whole again. I see a Prince who is not content with leaving me broken and unprotected. He wants me to be whole.

He wants you to be whole too. When you’re broken like that, you think that all is lost. You feel that no one cares and the world is dark all around you. You can’t see the future because you can’t imagine a future you’d want to be in. There is no light of hope to guide you. You take each breath as it comes. Each second of the clock ticks in slow motion, and survival is your only instinct. You aren’t worried about tomorrow because you’re focused on surviving today. Yes, even in that moment of your life, He is the Prince of Wholeness.

God is able to take you from that broken place in your life to a place of Wholeness. Completeness. Rebuilding. Becoming stronger and better. He is the God of creation and He can create a new beginning for you. It’s not something that happens over night. A masterpiece is not painted in a day. A mansion is not built over night. Your life is more complex and worth more to Him than anything else in all of creation. You may struggle with feelings of unworthiness or worthlessness, but you are worthy and you are priceless. You are worth rebuilding to Him. You are worth being made whole. Don’t give up. Invite the Prince of Wholeness to come in today and to complete the work which He began in you.

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May 11, 2018 · 6:08 AM

Unselfish Generosity

Organizations, teams, relationships and people groups function best when people look out for each other as much or more than themselves. Problems arise when people are selfish and trying to get their own instead of helping others succeed. A culture of selfishness breeds greed, distrust, back stabbing and division. It’s unhealthy and stunts growth. I believe that’s why one of the characteristics God desires for Christians to have is selflessness. It promotes growth, healing, unity and trust.

God’s desire for you and I is to help others in our journey through life. If you look around you, there are people in your life every day that need a word of encouragement, a helping hand, someone to share their burdens with or your time. If you haven’t seen them, you’re too busy being focused on your own needs. God gave us His selfless love and wants us to show selfless love to others so that we can point them to Him. If you struggle in this area, ask God to open your eyes to the needs of others and to help you show His love. If you pray that way, you’ll not only change the life of others, your life will change too.

Here are some Bible verses on unselfish generosity.

1. So I, the prisoner for the Lord, appeal to you to live a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called [that is, to live a life that exhibits godly character, moral courage, personal integrity, and mature behavior–a life that expresses gratitude to God for your salvation], with all humility [forsaking self-righteousness], and gentleness [maintaining self-control], with patience, bearing with one another in [unselfish] love.

EPHESIANS 4:1-2 AMP

2. And God, who supplies seed for the sower and bread to eat, will also supply you with all the seed you need and will make it grow and produce a rich harvest from your generosity.

2 Corinthians 9:10 GNT

3. But generous people plan to do what is generous, and they stand firm in their generosity.

Isaiah 32:8 NLT

4. Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults—unless, of course, you want the same treatment. Don’t condemn those who are down; that hardness can boomerang. Be easy on people; you’ll find life a lot easier. Give away your life; you’ll find life given back, but not merely given back—given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity.

Luke 6:37-38 MSG

5. But the fruit of the Spirit [the result of His presence within us] is love [unselfish concern for others], joy, [inner] peace, patience [not the ability to wait, but how we act while waiting], kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.

GALATIANS 5:22-23 AMP

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