Category: Daily Prayers

 

Be still, and know that I am God.
Psalm 46:10

A number of years ago, a submarine being tested had to be submerged for several hours. Upon returning to harbor, the captain was asked, “How did that terrible storm last night affect you?” Surprised, the captain exclaimed, “Storm? We didn’t even know there was one!” Their submarine had been so far beneath the surface that it had reached what sailors refer to as “the cushion of the sea”—a depth in the ocean where the waters below are never stirred despite any commotion on the surface.

In our fast-paced world, it is a challenge to slow down and remember that God is in control. We are a society of “do-everything,” “go-everywhere,” “get-it-done” people who mistakenly believe we can handle everything if we just keep going. In reality, we need to become so submerged in God’s peace that no matter what’s happening in our life, we are able to remain as calm as “the cushion of the sea.”

If you feel overwhelmed, bogged down, or burnt out, add one more activity to your daily schedule: Spend time with Almighty God. It is the only way to reach the depth needed to find true calm in the midst of any storm.

 

Acts 6:3.  Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; 

Acts 7:54-56   When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth.   But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,  and said, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”

Have you ever noticed how life’s distractions and temptations can change your spirit?

Think about it. You go into work in the morning with a smile on your face and a song in your heart, only to overhear a coworker denigrating your abilities in front of your boss. How do you react?

Later you have an opportunity to work your way out of a difficult situation by bending the truth to fit your needs and cover your back. How do you react now?

Finally, you see an accounting error that could add some extra money to your paycheck if you simply stay quiet and do nothing. With all of these frustrations and temptations piling up, you probably would not be feeling overly spiritual at that point.

The fact of the matter is that in our fast-paced society, with so many different distractions around every corner, it is easy to be filled with a worldly mindset and not be filled with the Holy Spirit. That, however, is no excuse.

Frankly, we are commanded to be filled with the Holy Spirit. What does this mean? It means that you are to be under the total influence of the Holy Spirit—God, dwelling in you, ordering your steps.

Stephen, the first Christian martyr in the Scriptures, provides a beautiful picture of someone who is filled with the Holy Spirit, especially when compared to the Sanhedrin (religious/political leaders of the day). Acts 6:3 and 7:54-8:1 offer a few key characteristics of a man who was facing the cold reality of death at the hands of an angry mob.

1. Be of Good Report

First, someone who is filled with the Holy Spirit is of good report (Acts 6:3). It is not that having good report—being known by others as virtuous and pure—fills you with the Holy Spirit, but it is the Holy Spirit that allows you to have this trait. The members of the Sanhedrin were the opposite of this. They were called murderers, betrayers, stubborn, and disobedient (Acts 7:51–53).

2. Welcome the Truth

Second, unlike the Sanhedrin, those who are filled with the Holy Spirit welcome the truth (Acts 7:55–56). Stephen sees Christ standing at the right hand of God, and he was glad to commit his spirit to God. Conversely, those who were not filled with the Spirit began to “cry out in a loud voice” because they heard the truth and wanted to drown it out by their own words (Acts 7:57). They also covered their ears, trying to prevent the truth from affecting them.

3. Intercede for Others

Finally, those who are filled with the Holy Spirit will intercede for others (Acts 7:60). Stephen was falsely accused, falsely arrested, and was about to be stoned, and yet he prayed for those who were about to murder him. What compassion! The only way Stephen could do this was because he was filled with the Holy Spirit.

Eternity Is at Stake

Like Stephen, being filled with the Holy Spirit needs to be a way of life for us. Too often we only want to be filled with the Spirit on Sundays, and as soon as we leave our church service, we return to our worldly routines of mundane tasks, acceptable temptations or angry confrontations.

However, a Holy Spirit-filled life has a lot to do with your effectiveness as an evangelist for the cause of Christ. If you are someone who truly wants to reach the lost (a motivation all believers should share), you need to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. If you have been witnessing to a friend from work, but live a sinful life indistinguishable from the nonbelievers around you, you are likely doing more harm than good for the Kingdom of God.

Conversely, if you take the distractions, frustrations, and temptations of this world and handle them with the purity, truth and compassion of the Holy Spirit, others will want to know what it is that makes you tick. They will want to know what is missing in their life that is present in yours.

My friends, be filled with the Holy Spirit. Eternity is at stake.

Are you living a life that is pleasing to God, or are you following your own path? Perhaps now is the time to return to Him.

 

 

Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

–Matthew 7:15

The word philosophy comes from two Greek words: phileo, which means “love,” and sophia, which means “wisdom.” Philosophy is the love of wisdom. What’s wrong with that? Isn’t wisdom a good thing? After all, Proverbs 4:5 says, “Acquire wisdom! Acquire understanding!”

Yes, wisdom is a good thing–as long as it’s the right kind of wisdom. There are two kinds of wisdom in the world. One kind of wisdom places God at the center of the universe. Psalm 111:10 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

But there is another kind of wisdom that places humans at the center of the universe. This wisdom says humans are basically good, that all our problems are the result of what other people have done to us, and that the solutions to all of humanity’s problems are found within ourselves. That is human wisdom, and it is the basis of every false philosophy and false religion in the world.

Paul said philosophy based on human wisdom is “empty deception” (Colossians 2:8). It looks appealing and promises to satisfy your deepest needs, but ultimately it’s bankrupt to provide real answers. Instead, human philosophy can lead to destruction. That’s why Paul warned, “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception” (v. 8). Satan is trying to take captive as many people as he can, and many times he uses human philosophy to do so. He lures non-Christians to eternal death, but he also lures Christians away from God. If you are a genuine Christian, you can’t lose your salvation, but chasing after human philosophy can rob you of the riches that belong to you in Christ Jesus.

Sometimes Christians and non-Christians are lured away by overt cults and false religions. Other times, people are lured away by more subtle philosophies–they may have a Christian wrapping, yet at the core, they’re nothing but human wisdom. In 1 Timothy 4:1, Paul warned about the “doctrines of demons.” All false religions and false philosophies are demonic because they lead people away from the true God. But Satan is clever–he doesn’t want people to see these philosophies for what they really are, so he masks them in attractive disguises.

In Matthew 7:15, Jesus said, “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” We must be grounded in our faith so we are not lured away by human philosophy.

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I would be very thankful if you would email me where you have witnessed or seen false  empty deceptions luring or attempting to lure people away from God.

 

1 Corinthians 3:7.  So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase

Arrogance and pride should never come near us as ministers of the good news of Jesus Christ. And make no mistake, the ministry of the gospel isn’t limited to a select few. God has entrusted it to each believer. Have you recounted God’s marvelous works to unbelieving friends or encouraged a despondent co-worker with biblical truth? Or are you quietly serving behind the scenes at your church? In these ways and countless more, believers are ministers of the gospel of grace.

The apostle Paul warns us that if a man or woman is proud, they have truly forgotten who they are in the kingdom. The minister of God is to be the least in preference. Unfortunately, and un-scripturally, many elevate one or two above all others. Believer, beware—this is a mark of carnality.

God’s reminder to us is that we are to maintain the garden while He adds the fruit. Some of us will plant seeds while others will water, but only God gives life and increase. Think about this for a moment. The seed has been loaned to us, we borrowed the water from heaven’s supply, and its fruition has nothing to do with us. So then, where is our ground for glorying? Certainly not among any work that God has graciously involved us in!

There is no room for pride as we go about God’s business, but we can have tremendous confidence. Because “neither is he who plants anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.”

 

For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Hebrews 13:5

Everyone has done it—gone to bed with the weight of the world on our shoulders over a sin committed during the day. It’s certainly destined to be a long night if we didn’t settle accounts with God and others quickly (Ephesians 4:26). But even if we confessed our sin to God (1 John 1:9) and received His forgiveness, there is the discouragement factor. No one likes to disappoint a good friend, especially that Good Friend. How could we have been so                            (arrogant, foolish, disobedient)? How can we face the Lord Jesus in the morning after failing to be loyal to Him today? Feeling like Peter on the night of his three betrayals of Christ (Matthew 26), we toss and turn through a fitful night with minimal sleep.

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Our rest is often subject to thoughts, actions, and events that come into our lives and our reactions to them. Many times our reactions are not in line with God’s Word. Grace, mercy, love, hope, trust, faith, reliance, patience, etc…. are all forgotten and we are consumed with the opposite. While laying our head on our pillow and as our mind starts to calm down, the whispers of the Holy Spirit begin to find their way into our minds.

Our thoughts and actions playback and the Word of God, through the Holy Spirit, convicts our hearts. There will be no release from this conviction without repentance. The fact that God loves you so much that He wants to be your Heavenly Father and wants to be in communion with you is proven by the Holy Spirit convictions of your heart.

Confess and repent of what you have been convicted of.  Choose to trust, rest, and rely on God’s forgiveness and sleep in this holy peace.

 

 

Peter was therefore kept in prison, but constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church.
Acts 12:5

How would you have felt if you had been Peter? King Herod began a persecution of the church in Jerusalem, highlighting it with the murder of the apostle James, the brother of John. When he saw that this pleased the Jewish leaders, he seized Peter also and put him in jail. If you had been Peter, wouldn’t you have thought that Herod planned to murder you as well? How alone would you have felt?

The church prayed diligently that night for Peter who was chained to two Roman soldiers, and there were guards at the doors of the jail too. Talk about lonely! Bound in chains through the night with the prospect of meeting a sword in the morning. But suddenly the church’s prayers were answered as an angel appeared to Peter and set him free. When Peter realized that God had appeared, he said, “Now I know for certain that the Lord…has delivered me” (Acts 12:11). You may not find yourself chained and condemned to die for Jesus. (Or you might.) But whatever your predicament, if you will wait, God will come to you with peace, protection, or a promise.

It is not a question of whether God will appear when you are in trouble, but how.

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I read this devotion and wonder how easy it is right now to live neglecting God’s Word, giving no thought to the things of God, being lukewarm, and thinking God is there when I am in trouble but I give Him little to no thought when things are going well.

When Paul tells us though we ought to be teachers we are babies in need of being taught. Living in the busyness of life without the preeminence of God being our purpose, will not grow us to a faith that understands peace, rest, joy, hope, or promises of God. This neglectful living and lukewarm approach will only weaken our trust, faith, and reliance.

God is not mocked, what we sow we will reap. If our lives are sowing seeds of what this world has to offer, we will reap fruits from them. This fruit is pleasing to the eyes and seems to give purpose and satisfaction, but in reality, it is not.

Faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word of God. There is no maturing and growth in the lives of those being filled with what the world deems important.

There is a bright light to the soul found in the Word of God. It illuminates the differences between truth and false, good and bad, wisdom and foolishness, light and dark, faith and unbelief, love and hate, peace and anger, hope and dread, heavenly and worldly, godly and fleshly, etc….  The Word of God cannot be neglected without it affecting the heart, mind, and soul. Something is going to fill the void.

I fear Satan’s false light is becoming brighter and brighter in the hearts and minds of those who should know better due to neglect of God’s Word.  It is our intentional choice to want to grow in our understanding and knowledge of God. It is also our intentional choice to neglect God’s Word. Just because this is the way of many “Christians” does not make it right. This world will offer many reasons to neglect God’s Word, none of which will benefit your soul or bring honor and glory to Jesus Christ in our of our thoughts, words, and actions.

 

 

 

He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.

–John 3:36

The primary evidence that you are a Christian is not your profession of faith; it is your obedience to God. Walking in Christ proves that you belong to Christ.

In John 14:15, Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” And in John 3:36, He said, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (emphasis mine). If you believe in Christ, you’re going to have a desire to follow Christ.

The corollary of that is sobering: if your life is no different from that of the average non-Christian, then you may be in church every Sunday, but you are not in Christ Jesus. In 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul said, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” That doesn’t mean the change happens the minute you’re saved. But the process of sanctification–that is, becoming more like Christ–is always moving forward in a true believer’s life.

To illustrate the growth that should be occurring in our relationship with Christ, Paul used an illustration from agriculture: “Walk in Him, having been firmly rooted” (Colossians 2:6–7). The tense of “having been firmly rooted” denotes an action that was completed at a point in time. Paul was referring to salvation. You were saved at a point in time, just as a seed is planted at a point in time.

If Paul had written Colossians for his English class, he would have flunked for mixing metaphors. Notice his switch from agriculture to architecture:  “Walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith” (vv. 6–7). The phrase “being built up” could be translated as “continuing to be built up.” Being planted in the faith is a once-for-all action; being built up in the faith is an ongoing construction project.

Several years ago, our church completed the construction of a brand-new campus. When we finished the foundation, we didn’t have a giant ribbon-cutting celebration. It was a milestone event, but it was simply the beginning of an even greater process. It is the same way in our Christian lives. So many Christians make salvation the end event in their spiritual lives. Yes, receiving Christ is a milestone event, but it’s just the beginning of your relationship with God. God’s plan for you is to be continually built up in the faith.