Tag: war

Posted on

Witnesses in Jerusalem

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8 NIV

Easter was a few weeks ago. During the time after Easter, after the resurrection, many people saw Jesus in His glorified form. Not fully glorified because He had not ascended to the Father yet, but glorified none the less. Jesus ascended 40 days after the resurrection and during those last days with His disciples, He was giving them final pieces of instruction.

In this verse Jesus tells them that they will receive power from the Holy Spirit. I can’t imagine what they may have been thinking as they heard that they were going to receive power through a spirit. They knew that Jesus was the Son of God, and they knew that He had given them the power to perform miracles in God’s name because they had done it while they were with Jesus.

In Luke 9:1-6, we read “When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. 3 He told them: “Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt. 4 Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. 5 If people do not welcome you, leave their town and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” 6 So they set out and went from village to village, proclaiming the good news and healing people everywhere.” Luke 9:1-6 NIV

Jesus had empowered His disciples to spread the great news of the Gospel. The difference between what happened in Luke, before the crucifixion and what was happening, after the resurrection, was that Jesus was not going to be with them in person any longer. He did not go with them in Luke when He sent them out, but they were able to come back to Him when they were done. Now He was not going to be physically here on earth with them any longer.

As they traveled with Jesus, they went wherever Jesus went, they did not go alone very often. However, the idea of being witnesses is what was intended all along. Jesus had been preparing them for this very moment, when they would be without Him. He had prepared them for this the entire time they walked with Him. After Jesus was gone, the disciples continued to follow His instructions so they could be the witnesses He wanted them to be.

In Acts chapter 2, the disciples receive the Holy Spirit at what we now call Pentecost. This is the beginning of them spreading across the world, as they knew it, becoming the proclaimers of the great news of Jesus and God’s love. The act of being witnesses for Jesus did not end with the disciples, but continues today with each one of us who have a personal relationship with Jesus. Many people think that you have to be a missionary or a pastor to be a witness for Jesus. That is not true, everyone of us who has that personal relationship with Jesus can witness about what He has done for us in our lives, what He has meant to us and the changes we have made thanks to His indwelling power. Our everyday lives, how we handle situations, the language we use, how we treat others, those are all ways that we are witnessing either for Jesus or for the devil. I pray that it is for Jesus.

Below are some questions for you to think about and answer if you wish. If you want to leave a comment with the question and your answers, I would love to hear from you.

Do you consider yourself a witness for Jesus and what He has done in your life?

In what ways does your witness demonstrate the love of God?

In what ways have you seen the Holy Spirit at work in your life since you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior?

Posted on

Light has dawned

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.” Isaiah 9:2 NIV

Isaiah is talking about the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Even though he wrote this centuries before Jesus came to earth, Isaiah was telling the Israelites that a wonderful Light was coming. A light that was going to shine in the darkness, even the darkness where light has not been for a long time. There is nowhere that this light cannot shine.

It will be up to the people walking in darkness then to decide if they are going to choose to follow the light or remain in darkness. From the teachings that are provided throughout the New Testament, it is evident that not everyone chooses to follow the light when they see it. The important question for each one of us today, knowing that the Light has dawned, is have you chosen to follow the Light or to continue to walk in darkness?

Only you can answer that for yourself, and when you do, remember to be honest with yourself. No one else on earth may know what is in your heart but God knows. He wants you to choose the Light, but He won’t drag you to Himself kicking and screaming, it has to be a voluntary choice to have a relationship with Him.

The Light has dawned, which do you choose……Light or darkness?

Posted on

Acknowledge

“If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God.” 1 John 4:15 NIV

Jesus is the Son of God. I have never heard a truer sentence.

Can you do that? Do you do that?

Acknowledging that Jesus is the Son of God is hard for some people because they are still living with the mindset of wanting to fit in with the world, the people around them. Being a follower of Jesus is something that they hide.

However, Jesus did not hide wanting to help and save ALL of mankind, even the individual who is afraid to acknowledge Jesus is the Son of God out loud. He proudly acknowledged His Father who sent Him and He went to the cross for each one of us.

If you know that Jesus is the Son of God, I pray that you are willing to acknowledge it and acknowledge it out loud to others.

Have a great day!

Posted on

Continue in faith

“if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.” Colossians 1:23 NIV

Paul was writing to the churches in Colossae while he was in prison for proclaiming Christ as the Messiah. He had not met the believers in Colossae but had heard great things about them and was wanting to encourage them to continue to grow in their walk with Christ.

Paul is telling the churches at Colossae that if they are truly committed to Christ then they are to continue to live according to the gospel. The truths they have heard are the foundation that they have built their faith on and that is Christ. They are to not give up hope but to persevere in trials that they will face, including in their everyday life such as not living like the world lives.

What does that look like in today’s world? The idea of continuing in our faith, not moving from the hope we have from the gospel. It looks like living in such a way as to be removed from the ways of the world. Removed from the idea of following our fleshly desires and instead we listen to the Holy Spirit. Wanting to follow what God wants for our lives, staying in communication with God constantly.

Dear Heavenly Father, Please help us to be in constant communication with You, so we are able to discern what You want us to do. Help us then to be obedient to Your will. Thank You for Your love and guidance. In Jesus’s name. Amen.

Posted on

Be on guard

“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Do everything in love.” 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 NIV

In 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 Paul has a lot to say. He is encouraging the believers in Corinth on several fronts and that areas he is encouraging them about rely on each other. First he is telling them to be on guard, to be watching around them, knowing what is going on in their community, church and family. Sometimes people like to overlook things so that they don’t have to admit them or address them. Paul is telling the church in Corinth and I believe us as well since we are followers of Christ too, to be alert to our surroundings. The believers in Corinth were going against their culture and customs in some areas and knowing what was happening around them enabled them to not return to those ways using the reasoning of ‘not knowing what was going on’.

The second thing is to stand firm in our faith. This means to not give up. The believers in Corinth were very new to the faith and this way of living. Paul was encouraging them to not lose heart but to remember that Christ was there for them, that their faith was worth dealing with hard times. There are going to be times when things get hard for us as well, and we should expect that because being a follower of Jesus does not give us a guarantee of a life without problems. Actually, it sometimes initiates some problems because not everyone else is a follower of Jesus. No matter what, we are to stand firm in our faith, don’t let life’s problems or hard times, shake our faith that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior. He didn’t let hard times stop Him from standing in His faith that His father in heaven was with Him.

The third thing is to be courageous. As I said, these areas go together, and being courageous is made stronger by remaining firm in our faith, knowing Who we have on our side. In addition to making hard choices in life, being courageous or brave can also mean keeping our word or promises. When we follow through with what we have said we would do or not do in the face of adversary, we are being brave and courageous. This is especially challenging for new believers, which is what the believers in Corinth were dealing with. It is hard because not everyone around them believed what they did and challenged them, probably daily. We go through this same challenge as we begin to develop our walk with God and become courageous.

The fourth is to be strong. Strong, as Paul is talking about here, is not just physical strength, it is also emotional strength. The male population of Paul’s time were not very good at acknowledging emotional needs or strengths. They were better at exercising self-control than admitting that they couldn’t do something. So for us, when we recognize that we can admit when we are wrong, that we can exercise self-control, we are showing that we are being emotionally strong. Again, this can be built on knowing what is happening around us, being willing to remain in our faith and being courageous. By building those areas up in our lives, we are able to admit a weakness and it not destroy us as a person.

The fifth is to do everything in love. Paul writes in a later chapter of this book, that love is the greatest of 3 things, hope, faith and love. Love truly ties everything together. He was letting them know and letting us know that without love that our awareness of what is happening around us is dulled, our ability to stand firm in our faith is weakened, our willingness to be courageous is challenged and our committed to Christ, overall, is not strong.

Paul is reminding all of us that love is the greatest weapon against evil, against our enemy. Without love we are not as powerful as believers in Christ as we can be. Let’s not let our enemy have any kind of upper hand in our lives. Let’s practice and build, each and every one of these areas, each and every day of our lives so that our enemy has no foothold on us.

Heavenly Father, thank You for being our Lord and Savior. Thank You for always giving us what we need to be able to do Your Will, and be the warriors of our faith that You know we are capable of being. Because of You, Lord, we are able stand strong in our faith and show our enemy everyday that we are Your children. Please be with us as we continue to walk out our faith, growing stronger each day. In Your Son’s most precious name, Amen.

Posted on

Ever present help

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging” Psalms 46:1-3

As we begin this new year, I encourage you to keep this idea in the front of your mind……God is always with you, God is your refuge, God will give you the strength to go through anything that He is asking you to go through. As we look at these 3 verses, it is evident who the sons of Korah, who wrote this psalm, were focused on. God is who they were looking to in this time when their nation was facing mounting challenges. This wasn’t written when everything was going great and they were happy with what was happening in their lives, no, it was during struggles.

Just like the writers of this psalm, we can look to God to be with us not only during times of prosperity but also during times of struggle. God is always with us, His children, and we only have to reach out our hand to know that He is there. The challenge is that we move away from Him or don’t remember to reach for Him when we should. I encourage each one of us to be as close to God as we can get. No matter what you or I face this year, I pray that we keep God as close as possible. Remember, God loves each and every one of His children and wants to be there for us, if we let Him.

Posted on

Changes

As of today, January 1, 2025, I will be posting my blog “For His Honor” a few times a week instead of daily. I am not sure how long this will be for and there may come a time when the blog is posted daily again, but at this time I feel led to cut back on the rate at which I was posting my blog. I am struggling with not having enough time to properly study the verse or verses and then write the devotions.

So, here is the devotion for today…

“But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.” Colossians 3:8 NIV

I know that this is an odd verse to start a new year off with, but if you think about a new year as a time when you are able to make changes, begin with a clean slate, then I believe this verse applies. This verse covers many areas, our hearts, our tongues, our minds and our actions. These seem like extreme categories but if we let it sink in for a moment, I believe we can all say that we have some actions that, if not kept under control could begin to fit in these categories. I know we don’t walk around expressing rage or we don’t have malice in our hearts, but we are human and we are not perfect. We may not mean to be saying things about others or using profanity but we all slip at times.

I am talking to myself as much as I am talking to anyone else. I get angry, and in moments of frustration I have said things that I don’t want to say and don’t mean to say, but I have said them. I have asked for forgiveness, and I know that God has forgiven me. However, I don’t want that way of thinking or that way of expressing myself to be how I interact with others. It is not who I am and I don’t want to become that person. I don’t believe I can direct others to Christ acting in that manner, and that is my chief goal, to direct others to Jesus. We can all do that through how we show the love to other people that He has shown us.

As this new year begins, I am going to focus my prayers on making sure I am listening to God’s voice and following His direction in regards to any changes He feels I need to make in my life. I encourage you that if you want to make changes as the new year begins, to take this time, pray and ask God to direct you in any changes He feels need to be made in your life. Then, relying on Him, join me in doing our best to make the changes as this new year begins.

Posted on

Reasons

“But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,” 1 Peter 3:15 NIV

Peter, in this letter, is encouraging the followers of Jesus who are being persecuted. The followers were having to answer about their new beliefs to their families, neighbors and communities who were steeped in tradition of Mosaic Law. What Jesus taught was removed enough from the ways of old that His teachings were not widely or easily accepted by elders within the communities where He taught them. Therefore after His ascension, the early Christians were persecuted for their beliefs. That is if they didn’t keep it a secret.

We are not to keep our belief in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior a secret. We are to be telling others the wonderful news of forgiveness, grace, mercy and love that comes from God. Paul is saying in this verse that the early Christians were to always be prepared to give an answer to someone who asked them about their faith. That is good advice for us today as well.

At this time of year there is a lot of focus on the secular way of celebrating Christmas and the secular reason for celebrating Christmas. It is wonderful to be generous and give each other presents to show our affections for each other. It is wonderful to get together with family and celebrate each other and our relationships. However, as Christians, we have an additional reason to celebrate Christmas and that is the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We have additional ways of celebrating that event as well. This additional reason and way of celebrating sometimes brings questions from others within our families and from some of our friends about why we are doing things the way we do them.

The enemy is sneaky and will place people in our lives who will ask us questions, especially at this time of year, that may begin to make us question our faith and the reason that we believe what we believe. By being grounded in the Bible, reading and studying God’s Word, we can have the answers to the questions we are asked about the faith we have, the hope we have, the reason we celebrate Jesus.

I encourage everyone to pray and ask God to help them have an answer ready for those who ask about our faith. We never know if the answer we give may lead someone to follow Jesus.

Posted on

Choices

“As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters have done. “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.” Ezekiel 16:48-50 NIV

In this chapter of Ezekiel, God is addressing the Jewish nation and how they have been treating Him. In these verses He is comparing them to the city of Sodom, where sin and disregard for God were plenty. The Jewish nation had done worse things than the occupants of Sodom and God rained down fire on the city of Sodom as punishment.

In the city of Sodom, the ground was fertile and this resulted in the residents being very successful in the area of agriculture. They residents of the city who were involved in the wealth of the agricultural business had an abundance of everything, the city was an independent city, not needing assistance from other areas. However, there were some among them that had little and those who could share their abundance, did not. The people of Sodom did not worship to the One True God, they worshipped many idols.

The Jewish nation is being accused of worse things than not providing for their poor and needy, which God takes very seriously. As the chosen people of God, the Jewish people knew God and what He expected, the laws that they were to keep. The crime that they committed was to see what the citizens of Sodom were doing, know it was wrong, but do it as well.

God counted this against them, essentially twice. First, when they committed the same wrong acts as the citizens of Sodom. Second, that they knew what was right and what was wrong and chose to follow their fleshly desires and go down the wrong path anyway.

As we draw closer to Christmas and then to the beginning of a new year, I encourage everyone to take some time today and think about the choices you have made over the past week, month and year. Are they the choices you wish to continue making or are they choices you wish you could go back and change? Either way, I pray that you would allow God to be part of your decision making process because He wants to be there with you each step of the way. Have a great day.

Posted on

No difference

“For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him” Romans 10:12 NIV

Paul informs the church in Roman that there is no difference to God if a person was a Jew or Gentile, if they called on Him, He blessed them. That is wonderful to hear, that our Lord does not discriminate. He loves everyone no matter what our nationality is, what our skin color is, what our political views are, what our age is, what our gender is, what our physical or mental disabilities are.

It does not matter to Him, if we call on Him, He is there. What matters is what is in our heart towards Him. If we love Him, seek Him, He blesses us and if we listen to Him, follow His lead, He blesses us. This was difficult for some of the followers of Jesus to understand and accept because they had been taught for so long the laws and rituals that needed to occur to be accepted by God. This idea of loving Him and seeking Him and being able to communicate with Him even if they were not a certain nationality or religion took some time to be accepted.

Do you know that God loves you no matter who you are, where you come from, how old you are, what your physical condition is, what your language is or what your religious background is? He loves each and every one of us, you included.

Call on Him today and start a relationship with the Creator of the universe because He loves you and He wants a relationship with you.