Wednesday Devotional: Authority

Well, folks, it is less than 1 week before Election Day in America, and if you are like most, you think both candidates are a stinky choice for authority!

So let’s talk today about authority. We, as Christians, have to remember that God has ordained all the authorities put in place, including our government, our president, our church leaders, our pastor, our families, our parents, our husbands, our bosses and anyone else who is the authority in our life.

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.” Romans 13:1-2

Boy, is this a heavy topic. I feel like our American culture has surely drifted away from respecting authority. We see it everywhere-the police, our parents, our bosses-everywhere. It is all about “me” and not many people are respecting the authority figures placed above them.

So back to the election…No matter what the outcome of this election, God is the one that put them in that place. (Remind me to reread this after the results are announced!) But seriously, we must remember that God’s plan is perfect, and He always works out every scenario in order to glorify Himself! Crazy to think that one of our Presidential candidates will be used to glorify God, right? But remember Pilate? He was placed in a position of authority, and God still received glory from his leadership.  He was the one that crucified Jesus-glory to God!

So let’s put our faith in God and not in people, and remember that even through this election, God is in control!

God, thank you for the authorities you have placed in my life. Forgive me for not trusting in your sovereignty. Help me to trust in the leaders you have placed in my country, my home and all aspects of my life. Help me be faithful to pray for the authorities over me. In Jesus’ Name, Amen. 

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Wednesday Devotional: Outdoing Others

 

Do you like competition…to outdo others? If you don’t know me very well, one thing I should mention here is that I am HIGHLY competitive. I mean, I refuse to let my husband win in a card game of speed, I fight till the end of a ping pong match and I may have slammed my tennis racquet down too many times to count losing an infinite amount of tennis matches against my husband.

Paul suggests a friendly game of “One Uping” each other in honor. However, I think we as Christians often forget this friendly competition and take is as a suggestion, rather than a declaration of what at true Christian looks like.

In Romans 12:10, Pauls says, “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.”

To honor someone means to pay attention to them, celebrate their successes, acknowledge and build up their confidence and give them credit for the accomplishments in their life. Praise them when they do good, recognize their hard work, build up their reputation, notice when they are trying and let them know they are dear to you.

These are ways you can tell a Christian from a non-Christian. If you are a Christian, you are called to treat others-all others-in this way. Even if you are at odds with a person, you should treat them this way. You will be astonished at the change of your mindset if you start treating those you have disliked in this way. Begin to put into action your Christian morals by noticing the good in others, telling them you are proud of them and telling others about it too.

Are you ready to accept the challenge?

God, thank you for each and every person in my life. Forgive me for being focused on negative things in others’ lives. Help me to honor others’ lives and celebrate the people you have placed in my life. Help me to build up others’ confidence instead of tearing it down. Help me to notice only the good in their lives. In Jesus’ name, Amen. 

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Wednesday Devotional: God’s Love

What is your view of God? Is He a God of wrath? Or is He a God of love?

Ephesians 2:4-7 gives us a picture of who God is. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved-and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in  Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

Sure, God is a God of wrath. If we are not His child, we are His enemy, but if we follow Him, He loves us and pours out His mercy on us. We cannot do anything to deserve His love, but He chooses to save us by grace through Jesus Christ! Thank you, Lord!

We do deserve God’s wrath, “But God” sends us Jesus, so that we can be united with God again in Heaven! The verses above tell us we are raised up and seated with Jesus in the heavenly places. This verse means we are citizens of heaven when we become a Christian! That is so amazing! So if we know we are citizens of of heaven, then we must live like it each and every day. We must live like we are living in heaven today.

Friends, it will take us all of eternity to understand just how much God loves us, and then, I’m not sure we will even be able to fully understand! This is how much He loves us!

If you are a Christian, and you see God as a wrathful God and not a loving God, search God’s Word for His promises for His children and see if you view changes.

God, thank you for loving me. Forgive me for not living a life like You love me. Radiate Your love through me. Help me to love others as you love me, and help me to always remember how much you love me. Thank you for saving me, God. In Jesus’ Name, Amen. 

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Wednesday Devotional: Brotherly Love

Welcome to this week’s Wednesday Devotional! I’m glad your here! Today, we will look at Romans 12:9-10. 

“Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.”

What does brotherly affection mean? Let’s take a closer look at it. Affection means to

• It is attaching oneself like family
• It is the emotion of giving one’s love to another above all else
• It is an intentional act of serving others
• It is emotionally giving to others spiritually
• It is having hope and faith in others
• It is fervently praying for others 
• And it is sharing what you have with those who need it

We are to love one another like we are family and pour out our emotions both mentally and spiritually all over each other. We are to serve others and hope the best for them. We are to be praying for our brothers and sisters in Christ and sharing what we have with them when they are in need. 

Think about how you love your family. Do you love them based on conditions? No, you love them because you are family. When a family member messes up, you still love them. You aren’t surprised when they disappoint you, so you keep on loving. We realize our family will likely let us down now and again, but we love them through those times. However, we tend not to view our Christian brothers and sisters as we view our biological brothers and sisters. We get all caught up in our emotions and write off our spiritual brothers and sisters as quick as we can turn around after they hurt or disappoint us forgetting we are all a part of the family of Christ. We all have our weak spots, and we will all stumble from time to time because we are not perfect, but we have to turn the other cheek like we do when our family member falls short of the expectations we place on them. 

In these moments, when we are let down, we need to pick up our brothers and sisters instead of cutting them out. We need to serve them and show them a Christlike and brotherly attitude as opposed to writing them off as unworthy and not worth the fight. We are a family, and we should be building each other up spiritually as opposed to running in the other direction abandoning our relationships with one another. 

This world is tough enough to live in with the non-Christians and nominal Christians tearing down our faith. We as a church, worldwide, need to be standing together and having hope and faith in one another. We need to pray for our Christian friends around the world to stand firm to care for each other with an unimaginable brotherly love. 

My point is, we should not be assuming the worst in people. We should grant them the same grace we grant our biological brothers and sisters when they mess up. Let’s begin to give others the benefit of the doubt because wouldn’t we want the same in return?

What would it look like if we began to look at the best in people rather than the worst?

What would it look like if we began to praise others face to face rather than tearing them down behind their back?

What would it look like if we begin to go to others for clarification in a misunderstanding rather than assuming a false (often negative) judgment about them?

What would it look like if we began to bite our tongue instead of letting harsh words come out of our mouths?

What would it look like if we began to think about others feelings and not just our own?

We, as Christians, need to take seriously honor, respect and value for others. If we begin to take this seriously, we will only glorify the beauty of the cross even more. 

God, thank you for the families you have placed us in. Forgive me for taking advantage of my family and the friendships you have provided me with. Pour out your love through me on every relationship in my life. Help me to treat others in the same way I want to be treated. Help me to love others in the same way you love me. Help me to learn to serve others before serving myself. In Jesus’ Name, Amen. 

 

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Wednesday Devotional: Putting Others First

Philippians 2:3-4 says, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” 

Parents have a serious grasp on what it means to be selfless, am I right? We get up in the middle of the night to feed our kids. We rearrange our entire house when they start walking to keep them from bumping into things. We play endless hours of catch because they love it. We risk our own lives to teach them how to drive! We sit for hours at practices and games to watch them play the game they love. We shell out loads of money when they want to go to college. We know selflessness. 

If selflessness with our children comes so easily and naturally, why is it so hard in our other relationships? Why do we raise ourselves up to be higher than others? Why can we not be humble in the God given talents we have been given? Why are we not lifting others up more signifcantly than we are? 

We as Christians are supposed to be making less of us and more of Christ-this is humility. When we pursue Jesus and pursue to be more Christlike, we will become selfless, and we will raise others up above us by thinking more often of others and less often of ourselves. 

We need to start viewing other people as more important than ourselves. We need to look out for their interests rather than simply our own. That’s what Jesus did, right? He died for me and for you! That is the most selfless acts I can think of EVER! 

Do you look out for the interests of others? Do you ask them how they are spiritually? Do you ask them about their marriage? Do you know how things are going at their job? Do you know how to pray for them? Do you want them to succeed?

If we can make these actions happen, what a difference we could make in the world! Think about how different your life would look to others if we simply looked out for the interest of others. 

God, thank you for Jesus’ example of what it looks like to be selfless. Forgive me for putting others above myself. Help me to put others’ interest above my own. Help me to want others to succeed even more than I want myself to succeed. In Jesus’ name, Amen. 

 

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Wednesday Devotional: Petitioning God

In light of all the heavy things going on in the world right now, especially the “Black Lives Matter” vs. “All Lives Matter” vs “Police Lives Matter” vs “{Insert whatever you like} Lives Matter” (which I am not weighing in on), I thought this would be a good verse to look at this week. 

1 Timothy 2:1-2 are great verses to teach us about prayer. Let’s take a look at them before we start. 

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intersessions and thanksgiving be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” ~1 Timothy 1:1-2

I think we should start by looking at some of the keywords in this verse.

Supplication means to ask for something or a petition for something.  

Prayer is being in communication with God.

Intercession refers to making requests on behalf of others. 

Thanksgiving is a way to give gratitude and be grateful to God.

The verses say we should be in communication with asking for our needs, asking for others needs, but not forgetting to be grateful for the things God has already given us. The Bible tells us we should do this for ALL PEOPLE and on behalf of ALL PEOPLE! This is whom we should pray for-all people! It is easy to pray for ourselves, for our family and for our friends, but the Bible is telling us to pray for everyone! This way of prayer includes the people we are in conflict with, people who are different than us and those who are leading us that we wish would just outright go away! We need to be praying for that annoying coworker and that girl that just won’t let go of the situation that happened last year when you accidentally said something you shouldn’t have said, even though you have apologized for it, and she still won’t let it go. 

Yes, it is easy to pray to God to continue to grow up your Christian friends, but what about your non-Christian friends? Are you praying for them? Are you praying fervently for your pastors to lead the church and flee from impure actions that we repeatedly shake our heads about? Are you spending all your time complaining about who the next President of the United States will be or are you praying for the state of our country and praying for whoever comes into office to lead well? Are you praying for the leaders of your country to make moral decisions that benefit the entire country instead of themselves or the elite few?

Let’s not forget to thank God for the people he has placed in our lives also! Take it a step further and thank God for those in our lives that make it difficult. God is sovereign, right? Give thanks for our leaders, even when we don’t agree with them. Thank God for specifically putting them in the position they are in. God knows what He is doing, even when we cannot grasp it. Thank God for the peaceful states our nations are in currently. 

Maybe it is time we step down off of our Christian high horses and do what God has called us to do, myself included. If we change our prayer life to a Biblical praying perspective, it could potentially save lives, churches, communities, our countries and our world. Prayer is powerful because God listens, and He answers our prayers when we believe He will. 

So, I ask you what changes do you need to make in your prayer life?

God, thank you for allowing us to have open communication with you. Forgive me for not using it in the way you have instructed me to do so. Pour out your love to those I pray for. Help me to remember to not only pray for those who are close to me, but to pray for those I often don’t want to pray for. God, I believe You will answer my prayers when I ask you. Thank you for loving me that much. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.