Category: Spiritual Growth

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Keep my eyes on the Lord

“I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. I keep my eyes always on the Lord.  With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.” Psalm 16:7-8 NIV

There is not a great deal to be said about these verses because they are straight forward. David was a man and a king who knew that he was only capable of being the king he was and doing the things he did because his focus was on God. David listened to God as God directed him. David had done this from a young age and continued to seek God’s guidance, listen to God’s directives and follow God’s path for him throughout his life. He had placed God first in his life.

In David’s time, as it is now, there were many false gods. The false gods of David’s time were made of precious metals and were actually statues. The false gods of today are less obvious, some of them are the pursuit of fame and the pursuit of money. Just as many in David’s time thought that the false gods could give them direction, many people now believe that if they attain fame and have enough money that they will know how they are to live their lives. As the false gods of today are not as obvious, we have to be very alert as to who we are choosing to seek and follow when we are looking for guidance and direction.

Only the One True God, Who is alive, can give direction when He is sought. David knowing this, writes it in his Psalms so that others could be enlightened. We, today, are also able to benefit from David’s wisdom of seeking the One True God.

David kept his eyes on the Lord, who do we keep our eyes on?

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Sacrifice of praise

“Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.” Hebrews 13:15 NIV

When I studied this seemingly simple verse, I found that it is saying a lot. First there is the idea that the word ‘through’ is talking about how the only way to remove the wall that separates us from God is to acknowledge Jesus as the final and permanent sacrificial offering. Acknowledge that He is the One who came to save the world by removing that wall that separates us from God, giving us the ability to communicate with God.

The next part, “Let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise” is thought to be Paul talking about how, as Christians, we are sacrificing all that we are each and every day in order to follow God’s will for our lives. We know that God’s will is better than ours, but the idea of dying to self is hard at times as our desires are strongly rooted in us. However, the willful submission of them in order to follow God’s plan for our lives is our sacrifice of praise.

The last part, “the fruit of lips that openly profess His name.” conveys that we should be willing to speak out to God. That we should not be only thinking thoughts of praise to God but we should be vocalizing them, in song, poems, reciting of scripture or our own created prayers of praise. We are to be voicing our connection to God and expressing out loud how much thankful we are, how much we love our Lord and how much we want to be like Jesus.

So, as I read this verse, at first glance I didn’t take in all that it has to say about how important our public profession of faith in God is. However, knowing that the Christian path begins with knowing that Jesus is the path by which we are able to communicate with the Father, and the sacrifices of our desires for His desires is how we follow, then the idea of publicly professing our belief in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is the natural conclusion.

If we are willing to give up our desires to follow God’s will for our lives, then we should be willing to say all of that in public for others to hear and possibly decide for themselves if they wish to do the same. This is a way of life that is too good not to share and to important to be kept to ourselves.

Do you openly profess God’s name?

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Keep giving thanks

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Philippians 4:8 NIV

I have written on the 2 verses that precede this verse before. In Philippians 4:6-7, we are instructed by Paul to not worry about anything but with thanksgiving make all of our requests known to God and the peace that surpasses all understanding will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. This verse naturally follows as what we are to think about instead of all of the challenges and problems were are facing.

As we end the week of Thanksgiving, many of us have been thinking about what we are thankful for from the big things in our lives down to the little things that we some times or most time take for granted. Having been focusing on the positive things in life for the last week may have changed the mindset of some. I know it always does me good to focus for a while on the positives and push the negatives far from my mind.

So if we listen to Paul at this time, I pray that we would keep our focus on what is true, what is right, what is pure, what is lovely, what is admirable, what is excellent and what is praiseworthy. By keeping our minds focused on these things, I believe that we keep our minds focused on God, because all good things come from God.

I pray everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that as we move forward to celebrating the birth of Christ, our Lord and Savior, that we continue to give thanks and keep our focus on God. Keep giving thanks!

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Rejoice in all circumstances

“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NIV

This is the second devotion for this verse that I promised when I posted Wednesday’s devotional. I wrote about giving thanks on Wednesday and I want to look at rejoicing always today. The world would have us living life by a set of standards that places us in a mindset of negativity and a lifestyle of complaining. As I said on Wednesday, thankfully we don’t have to live by the world’s standards.

As a Christian, we have a different set of standards to live by, the ones put in place by Jesus. His idea of how to live is usually the exact opposite of what the world views as the way to live. The world will tell you that you should only feel and express the emotion that fits with the circumstance you are in. For example, if you are in a disagreement with another person, then you should feel angry or hurt by the situation and therefore you should express anger or sadness, possibly even entertain the idea of revenge. The way that Jesus instructs His followers to face that situation, is to have the emotion of anger or sadness, but to then give it to God, and choose to express love for the other person or show forgiveness for their part in the situation. See, the exact opposite.

The reason that Christians can choose to express joy at any time is because our joy is not determined by our situation, but by the fact that we are God’s children. If we rely on our situations to be joyful, then we are only joyful when the situation calls for it. Situations change which means our emotion changes per the world, but God doesn’t and since we are to base our joy in Him, our joy does not have to change. Even in some of the most difficult times in Christians’ lives, joy can be found.

As a Christian, an expression of joy in a difficult time doesn’t mean that we don’t experience other emotions such as sadness. Jesus isn’t saying we should not feel our emotions, we should, we are not robots. The difference is what we are choosing to do with our emotions at that moment. The world would say we are to remain in the sadness, where Jesus is telling us that we are to focus on Him and remain in the joy that we have because we are connected to Him. We are connected to Him because Jesus is always with us. As a child of God we can remember that situations change but God doesn’t change, we can count on Him remaining the same.

Are you able to rejoice in all things?

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Thanksgiving

“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” Colossians 2:6-7 NIV

I know that I have written about these verses before, however, I purposely did not write about the last section of them during that post. I wanted to save this portion of the verse for today, Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving has always been a special holiday for me. I have always loved the food that is associated with this day. I have always loved the idea of having people gather and celebrate what we are thankful for in our daily lives.

When I still lived at home, my mother would invite her friends and people she worked with to Thanksgiving dinner, especially if she knew that they didn’t have family locally. Over the years, my husband and I have developed a tradition of opening our home up to our extended family’s friends for any occasion. Today is not going to be any different. We are blessed today to have several people outside of our immediate family join us to celebrate Thanksgiving.

I am thankful for the ability to be able to share what the Lord has blessed me and my husband with. I am thankful that the Lord brought me and my husband together and that my husband is such a giving person. I am thankful for the many blessings the Lord has given me and my family such as heat, clothes, food, a home, jobs, relationships, love and most importantly eternal salvation.

If you would like, please leave a comment about what you are thankful for, what you have been graciously blessed with. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

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The Truth

“Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32 NIV

What truth is John telling us about? Earlier in the 8th chapter of John, he is recounting the interaction between Jesus and some Jewish leaders. They were trying to test Jesus, hoping that He would make a mistake so that they would have cause to have Him arrested. However, as they usually did, they were not able to accomplish what they set out to do and as Jesus usually did, He used this interaction as a moment to teach them about their sins, Himself, and what the Son of Man came to earth to do, save mankind.

When Jesus tells them that when they know the truth, it will set them free, they became upset stating that they were not in need of being freed from anything. They could not see that they needed freed from their sin. Unrepented sin keeps us in bondage to that sin. The truth Jesus is speaking of is the spiritual truth of how sin is separating us from God and how believing in Jesus as the Son of God leads us to forgiveness, which is the way to bring us closer to God. Believing in Jesus, repenting of our sins and accepting the gift of forgiveness enables us to move closer to God.

By asking for forgiveness for our sins, we are acknowledging them and bringing them out of the darkness and into the light. The devil wants to keep our sins in the dark because when we keep our sins in the dark, we stay focused on hiding the sin from others and sometimes ourselves. When we bring our sin into the light and talk with Jesus about them, they lose the level of control that they can have on us. As darkness has to flee when light enters a room, the devil flees when we move closer to our Light, Jesus.

Knowing the truth, which is that Jesus is God and came to save us, all of us, and that we can be released from the bondage of sin, is true freedom. I pray that you have that freedom, that you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior and that you are now a co-heir with Christ.

Have a beautiful day!