Day #12

The Blessings of Obedience John 14:15-23 and Matthew 7:21-27 Obedience is a bad word in our world today. Obedience is a negative word, a word that shows weakness, unhappiness, and control. A child cannot be taught to be obedience without the parent or teacher being accused of abuse. A wife cannot be expected to be obedient without being accused of having a controlling or abusive husband. A man cannot be expected to be obedient without being accused of being a weakling, controlled, or being walked over. So when we hear that God expects obedience, how can we expect our world to embrace this teaching? The problem is the understanding of the word 'obedience' in the way God expects it. God is not a controlling God, we would still be living in the Garden of Eden like robots doing and saying exactly what God wanted us to do or say. Or we would not exist. God has so much for us, so much more than any of us can even comprehend. All He wants is for us to Love. Love Him, His Son, each other. I speak to myself when I ask, what is so hard about being obedient to God? The Holy One! The One who created me, you, our world, our existence. Really, what is so hard about that?

Day#11

Surrendered Lives Romans 12:1-2 and 1 John 3:16 The prayer guide tells about people who had a heart for slaves in another country. They felt led to go and share the truth with the slaves. They found out that the slave owners would not allow them to preach the gospel to the slaves. So they devised a plan that they would sell themselves as slaves to live among them and share Christ. The Count wouldn’t allow it saying it was too high a price for them to pay. They insisted it was what God wanted them to do. After prayer they felt led and went only to find they were allowed to share without selling themselves. Isn’t this what we've learned all these years as Christians? This is what we've taught our kids. But do I live it? Really? I have a spoiled comfortable life. Yes I would like to believe I'd do anything for God. And yes I've crept out of my comfort zone before. But now in my aging life I'm settling more and more in my comfort zone. Lord, fill me again with your zest and excitement and urgency to share you with others! Again I pray for your wisdom, knowledge, and guidance along with support, encouragement, and motivation to do your will! I'm yours! Take me! Use me!

Day #10

Revelation 2:1-5 Return to your first Love. It's so easy to get involved with church, volunteer work, helping others, doing what's right. I remember when our children were young and we were so involved in church, that was our life. We ate, breathed, and slept church. And there's nothing wrong with that. In fact I think it's an excellent way to raise a family, especially in this world of ours. Where the problem comes in is when our First Love is lost in all of the involvement, things to do, places to go. Yes, I do admit that saying no sometimes is best. I've learned that listening to God means sometimes saying no. And sometimes, ummm, most of the time, even God's children don't seem to understand when you have to tell them no. I remember one time a member of a church was asked to work in the nursery. This member answered, I'll need to pray about it and I will let you know. The remark was, why would you need to pray about that? We need nursery workers, you were asked, so the answer should be yes. Well, I can't really agree with that, simply because if we are truly in Love with God we will want a relationship with Him. And in a strong loving relationship we will want to do what God's wants of us. Sometimes we know immediately, but sometimes we need to pray and wait for an answer. All this to say, we as God's children, doing God's work, can lose our first love. I guess when we get an attitude about doing God's work we need to return to our First Love!

Day #9

Matthew 5:23-24, Mark 11:25 Reconcile Broken Relationships. So I'm trying to figure out Matthew 5:23, 24 where it says if somebody has anything against you-go take care of it. The devotion says that means if you've wronged anybody go ask for forgiveness and make restitution if needed. And yes, that makes sense. My confusion comes in when somebody has a problem with you even if you've done nothing wrong, or don't know that you've done anything wrong. Falsely accused, or refused to forgive you when you've asked and made restitution. What do you do in that case? I guess the only answer to this is to pray for God to give wisdom, open the eyes to see, and then follow through with asking forgiveness and restitution. I always seem to over think things. I need to just trust in God, open my heart in His presence, and give my all to Him!

Day #8

Luke 24:45-49, Acts 1:1-8, Ephesians 5:18 Be Filled with the Spirit. Goes along with yesterday, in order to be filled with the Spirit you need to be empty of the ugly stuff. I find it interesting for some reason that before Jesus returned to Heaven, he told His followers to wait for the filling of the Holy Spirit. It was 40 days later before they were filled. I don't know why it intrigues me, but they weren't filled immediately, but 40 days later. Another interesting verse I found in this days devotion, 2 Chronicles 16:9 "The eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to show Himself strong for those whose hearts are completely His." Now I just recently read through the entire books of Chronicles and I don't remember this. But that doesn't surprise me a bit. When I read the personal questions in this day's readings I'm to ask myself if I'm empty or not and to ask God to cleanse me and the Spirit to fill me. I want this so bad, but I ashamed to say I do hesitate. Not because I don't want to do Gods work, oh no. I really do, my heart’s desire is to. It's because I'm afraid. I'm afraid that if I open up and expose my heart that I'll be smacked upside the head and then I'll close up and layer another layer of armor over my heart. I say this because it's happened before and I'm just not strong enough to handle the enemy. So I'm taking a huge breath and asking God to take all of me, cleanse me squeaky clean, Overflow me with the Holy Spirit, and then hold on to me tight! Pull me through the smuck, the uglies, over to the other side where it's peaceful, incomparable, and where nothing else matters but your Glory! Be with and in me so I will respond to others in words, actions, attitude, and spirit that's without guilt, swaying, nor second thoughts, but know that it's all from you, not me, not satan, but you! Breathe...thank you Lord! I give you all the praise and Glory!

Day #7

2Corinthians 13:5, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Galatians 5:19-25 What is the evidence? Hmmm. Test myself to see if I am in the faith...The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality...no, impurity and debauchery...no, idolatry and witchcraft...no, hatred...mmmm...no not really, aggravated, disappointed maybe, frustrated, but not hatred, discord...mmm...sometimes, jealousy...mmm...at times, fits of rage...ummm...once in a great moon, selfish ambition...uuuu...might think about it, but dismiss it, dissensions...ouch...more than I want to admit, factions...no, and envy...uuuuh...like jealousy...at times; drunkenness...nope, orgies...nope, and the like...no. So these are the things of the flesh. I'm embarrassed to have to admit to some of this. I wish I could say I don't do any of it, but unfortunately there is some of this inside of me. These fleshly things need to be replaced with the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. The thing is, we as humans cannot replace our fleshly acts with these spiritual fruits by ourselves. We must be a child of God, living in the Spirit allowing the Holy Spirit to cleanse us and replace our fleshly acts with these fruits of the Spirit. Too many times I think we are told that we need to replace these ourselves. I think that is so dangerous because of many reasons. One, we just can't do it and we will fail and fall into depression. Two, we may be able to pull it off for a time and become prideful and conceited before we fall even harder bringer others with us. Three, we fail to depend on God and let God take us, use us, hold us. Well, I kind of went out on a limb on this blog with some personal ideas and opinions. But most importantly, if you are reading this and you do not know Jesus as your personal savior, pray right now to receive Him. He loves you as you are. You don't have to be good enough for Jesus, because, well, none of us are. God sent His Son on this earth to live as a man, suffer, die, and then come back to life. He did that for you and me. He did that because we messed up and He Loves us so much He's given us another chance to live eternity with Him. It's this simple, we all die. There is a Heaven and a hell. When we die we go to one of the two places. We all are doomed to hell because of our sin, Adam and Eve being kicked out of the Garden of Eden, the perfect place given to us from the start but then we, mankind, Adam and Eve messed everything up. So yes, we are all doomed to go hell. But, because of God's Love for us, He has given us another chance, Jesus! We have a choice, God doesn't make us choose. And God doesn't doom us to hell, we do that all by ourselves! Oh boy am I on a soap box tonight! Well, I'll call it quits for now. If I've totally confused you, just comment. I'd be glad to answer any questions I can, if I can.

Day #6

Proverbs 28:13 Confession I find that one of the hardest things to do is to ask God to show me my blind spots. To show me the un-confessed sin in my heart. I hate it because inevitably there is sin, even if I don't want to admit it. Take for instance, road rage...:/ I consider myself a pretty calm, easy going, laid back sort of person. It usually takes quite a bit to upset me, or just the right button to push. I remember one time I was on my way to work. I was listening to the Christian Radio Station, enjoying, worshiping, singing God's praises. Yes, I said praising God, when all of the sudden somebody cut me off. Boy I tell you out of my "Heavenly Worship Mood" came an ugly attitude shouting what are you doing stupid? I surprised myself with the outburst. God used that moment to teach me how ugly my insides are, without Him. This morning after my quiet time I grudgingly prayed the prayer of God to reveal to me my un-confessed sin. He showed me my pride, as I didn't want to do a simple polite thing. My rotten attitude, again during traffic when a car pulled out in front of me. Actually, this morning twice did I have a road type of testing. The first was a taxi behind me honking his horn at me to make a right on red, when the sign clearly says no right turn on red. I held my cool, pointed to the sign and jestered (a friendly one at that.) I couldn't turn. My attitude was cool to moderate, and no name calling or anger. I was feeling pretty prideful, there it is pride! Yes, it wasn't a few blocks later that I was making a left on a green left arrow when a car pulled out in front of me making a right on red. (Isn't God clever?) Well, my anger rose to the top of my head and I laid on the horn, pressed the gas, giving the other driver a look of "I dare you!" Yes, some Christian attitude hugh? So yes, I confess my pride and ask God to forgive me and cleanse me of it, filling me with the Holy Spirit that I be made pure and give God the Glory in everything. That I remember to keep my eyes on Jesus always!