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.
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.
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.
Going off of the post from last Wednesday, He Knows You, we will look in Isaiah today, which tells us that God created us, formed us, redeemed us and calls us by name. If this statement doesn’t prove He knows us, I’m not sure what does?
Isaiah 43:1 says, “But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.'”
We do not have to be afraid because God knows us by name. He is our Comforter and He cares for us. He is for us and He loves us.
We should fear the Lord because we sin, but because we have been redeemed by Him, we no longer need to be afraid. Jesus fulfilled his promise to buy us back with the payment of His own body. He made up for our sins. He exchanged His life for our salvation! We are His! By grace He chose us! By grace He saved us! By grace He called us back to Himself. By grace He forgave us! We are His, friends!
God, thank you for choosing me! Forgive me of my sins. Remind me daily You call me by name. Help me to never forget of your redemptive love You pour over me daily. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Sorry to miss last Wednesday’s post. I had some things going on, and honestly was just too exhausted to get something up. I missed you all though!
Today’s verse is one I really need to be focusing on right now. In the middle of this crazy thing we call life, this verse is a great reminder. I hope it helps you out in some way too!
“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.” John 10:14-15
I love that Jesus said he knows us just as God the Father knew Him. Think about it…Jesus the Son of God, who was there from the very beginning with God, when God created everything, Jesus was there. When God started to reveal His plan for saving His children, Jesus was there. When God flooded the Earth, Jesus was there. The relationship between Jesus and God is the closest relationship ever possible. We truly can’t even grasp how close the Trinity are together in Their knowledge of one another.
So this statement Jesus makes is such an amazing statement! He is telling you that He knows you intimately. He is telling you that He will always be with you. He is telling you that He understands your problems, and He knows the solution! Wow! Let this fact sink in for a minute!
For me, it’s so refreshing to know that Jesus knows us. He knows when we are going through a rough patch. He knows when we are down. He knows when we are afraid. He knows each one of us intimately!
So we must take all our problems, worries and difficulties to Him in prayer. He is there for us and He has the answers to everything we are going through. Don’t put your trust, faith and hope in anything else, put it in the Great and Almighty God!
God, thank you for knowing me and still loving me. Forgive me for taking this for granted. Pour out your love on me daily. Help me to remember that you know and love me intimately. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Like I wrote in last week’s Wednesday Devotional, Beauty Isn’t Everything. A person’s appearance doesn’t display what’s in their heart! Someone can have the most beautiful body, but the ugliest attitude. Another person might dress like a slob, but have the most amazing personality.
1 Samuel 16:7 says, “But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.'”
In today’s world, we often lift up the most masculine man or the most beautiful woman, but God is telling us these things are meaningless to him. We idolize the strongest, toughest, fastest men there are, but if their heart is not pure, God will reject them. Women look at other women, who have the skinniest, tallest, most tone bodies and strive to look like them, but God does not see us the way we view each other. Self-image consumes men and women of our age.
But God only thinks about our inner beauty! Thank you, Lord! He doesn’t worry about what we look like on the outside; He only cares about whats in our hearts!
Outward appearance will not predict whether or not one will obey the Lord, but the actions from his heart are the only true measures of his obedience to God.
It is natural for us to judge people outwardly, but we need not be so quick to judge them in this flesh.
This week, try to stop judging people so harshly by what we can merely see of them on the outside. Begin to look into their heart before putting them on a platform or pushing them off a cliff. God is the only judge of the heart, so let’s begin to view others as God would view them.
God, thank you for looking at my heart instead of my outward appearance. Forgive me for judging people based on superficial standards. Help me begin to look inward to people’s hearts instead of merely at their outward appearance. Help me to notice the good works you have placed in them and help me to be encouraging. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
If you turn on the television, you are immediately whacked in the face with the world’s view of appearance. From advertisements with skinny women, weight loss products, to how to grow longer eyelashes. You name it, and someone on TV will tell you what you need to do to become a more beautiful you.
However, despite all these ads and other people’s opinions of what beauty really is, deep down we know that beauty isn’t everything. Beauty doesn’t give you a good attitude. It doesn’t make you any less prone to death. It doesn’t save you from hell. Outer beauty is not the same thing as inner beauty.
Beauty is also fleeting, meaning it will not last forever. Watch out because those wrinkles are coming, and like it or not, that body will eventually start sag!
Proverbs 31:30 tells us, “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”
God looks at our inner person, and we need to be doing the same. We need to do the same for ourselves and start looking at the inside of others.
The world tells us to focus on our outward appearance, but we need to spend our time focusing on our innards. We can spend all the time we want to in the gym getting skinny and spending all our money on the most beautiful makeup we can afford, but none of that really matters because one day it will all vanish! We won’t be able to take it to the grave with us. Should we exercise to stay healthy? Sure! Is it okay to wear makeup? Yes! However, God is looking at our heart, not our figure or our made-up face! He is looking for a relationship with us. He already knows what we look like because He created us, but He wants us to know Him more and more! He wants us to seek His face!
Let’s be women who fear the Lord and not women who fear the judgment of others. Let’s make our hearts confident in God. Let’s be content in the body and life that God has given us.
Our faith in God is what makes us beautiful, not some ever changing worldly status. God desires our faith even when we believe no one desires our outward beauty. God thinks we are beautiful because He created us in His image. True beauty comes from running hard after God. So lace up your running shoes of faith and start running hard after God!
God, thank you for making me beautifully in Your image! Forgive me for forgetting this fact too often! Radiate your beauty inside me, so it pours out onto others. Help me to notice my beauty every day. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
For another take on this topic check out this link too!
If you missed last week’s Wednesday Devotional, don’t forget to check it out here!
Hi! I am so glad you are joining me for this Wednesday’s Devotional! I am excited about this one because I am doing something a little different today! I hope you enjoy!
Colossians 1:3-8 says, “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing -as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.”
In Colossians, Paul is writing to fellow believers encouraging them to continue to grow in their faith, thanking God for the growth they have and praying growth will continue to happen among them.
So today, I am going to do something a little different, instead of sharing something with you, I am going to share how I am praying in light of reading these verses.
Today, I am praying for you, who is reading this right now, thanking God for you. I am praying that you will understand God has a plan and a purpose for your life.
I am praying for you if you are not a Christian, that you will come to understand who God is, and He will change your life! I am praying you will begin to search for information about this God and Jesus that I am writing about.
I thank God for those of you reading this who already know Him. I thank Him for saving you. I thank Him for your faithfulness to Him. I thank God you are sharing your faith with others. I thank God you are searching out answers to the questions you have about your faith in order to grow stronger in Him.
I thank God that He protects us from false Christianity, and He gives us guidance on Biblical truths.
Thank You God for the people You have placed in each of our lives, who told us about You! Thank You for the people You send all over the world to share Your love with people who would otherwise have no chance of hearing it. Thank You for growing your kingdom because of the bold soles who are faithful to going where You send them.
God, I pray for the many people in Thailand, where I live, that they would be able to hear the Word of God and believe it!
I thank God for heaven! Thank You, God, that we will be able to live with you in heaven for eternity, and we are not forever thrown into an unimaginable, heart wrenching hell that we so deserve! Thank You for Jesus and Your gift of grace.
God, thank you for the many people you have placed in my life. Thank you for those who taught me about the Gospel and those who continue to teach me. Thank you for those you entrust me with to teach the Gospel. Forgive me for not always being intentional in teaching the Gospel to the people You place in my path. You deserve all the credit and thanksgiving for everyone who believe in You. Use me as a tool to share Your love to those You place in my path. Give me the eyes to see the people you put in my path. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Now I want to ask you to join me in praying for those God is laying on your heart right now? Maybe it is a friend? Maybe it is a group of people? Thank God for the people He has placed in your life and for giving you eternity with Him.
This scripture is a tough one, so let’s dive right into it! There is also so much packed into this short passage, so read Luke 6:27-31 below.
“But I say to you who hear, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from the one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.”
These verses start out with a BANG! It starts by saying, I should do good to those who hate me! Wait a minute…I have to be nice to those who HATE me? He is not just saying that I don’t have to hate them back, refuse to retaliate and just ignore them; He is calling us to do GOOD things toward them. Seriously? Yes, seriously, but He doesn’t just stop there…
After He tells us to “do good to those who hate” us, then He tells us to “bless those who curse” us. A blessing is giving God’s favor to another person. But doesn’t it really feel much better for us to ask for God to bless or have favor on a person, rather than heap burning coals on their head? If we really think about it, I think our answer would almost always be “Yes.”
But wait…He is still not done yet…He asks us to pray for those who mistreat us. Pray for them that their attitude would change and they would repent from their sin. Okay, that might be a little easier.
Still He keeps going…if someone slaps you in the face, you should turn to them the other one! Okay, that might be one of the most radical things I have ever been asked to do. If someone slaps me in the face, the last thing I would want to do is turn to the other side and let them do it again! However, Jesus isn’t necessarily talking about a true slap in the face, but in Biblical days, a slap in the face was an act of insulting another person. This illustration is used to tell us if someone insults us, we should not retaliate or insult them back. It is basically saying, if someone insults you, just do not respond. Okay, now that it is broken down in that way, I think I can handle it a little better. Bite my tongue. Got it!
There is still more…He says if someone takes your clothes, give them more. We must give to others even if they are mistreating us. It is hard to give to people who mistreat us, but Jesus is telling us not only to give, but to give even more than what they take from you.
Then, He says give to everyone who asks, and if they take something from you, don’t ask for it back. How do I give to everyone who asks? This scriptures seems to say this, but when we cross reference it with other scriptures, we see that we are to give to those who ask, but not those who do not work for themselves. This passage also shows us to live above worldly standards, so when someone asks for something from you, we should not turn around and ask for something just because we have given something. We should place less value on possessions, so if someone asks for something from us, we would not be so concerned with getting them back.
One final thing these scriptures tell us is to do to others as you would want them to do to you. It’s much more than not doing something if we don’t want someone to do to us. We have to go beyond this thought and do nice things for others as opposed to simply refraining from doing negative things to them. You want to be treated nicely, right? Lovingly? You wouldn’t just settle for someone not treating you negatively, would you? You would want them to care for you and love you instead of just existing in your space not giving any niceness and love back to you. To take it a step further, we are called to make the first move. We cannot just sit back passively waiting for people to “do unto us”. We have to be proactive in doing to others.
This is what Jesus calls us to do-Love God & Love Others. So let’s get busy loving others by doing good to them, praying for others, biting our tongues, giving generously and showing an unmistakable Christ-like love.
God, thank you for loving me. Forgive me for not loving others the way I should. Pour out your love for others through me. Help me to give my love generously to others. Help me to pray for others even when I don’t want to. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
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.
Follow the Dyers 