Monday
Help Is Available
Come and listen, all you who fear God, and I will tell you what he did for me. For I cried out to him for help, praising him as I spoke. If I had not confessed the sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But God did listen! He paid attention to my prayer. Praise God, who did not ignore my prayer or withdraw his unfailing love from me (Psalm 66:16-20 NLT).
I am so thankful that God saved me from myself. He will do the same for you. I know there is someone that is reading this that is struggling with addictions. It might be gluttony which I struggled with or you might be struggling with porn or other sexual addictions. Sin is sin, and we have to lay this at the foot of the cross.
Get on your knees and pray for Jesus to come into your heart. Repent of your sins and earnestly pray that He will remove that sin from your life.
Be forewarned that you will be in a spiritual battle between God's will in your life and what the world says is okay. It will get tough at times. But, you now have Jesus on your side; He will never forsake you and will always be there for you. Don't be confused, because it's not gonna be easy. But with Christ, all things are possible.
Lord God, thank You for saving us from ourselves. We pray that we will let You have our hearts and lead us today, tomorrow, and for the rest of our time on earth. Father, help us to decrease so that You will increase. Help us to be more like Jesus today than we were yesterday. In His name, we pray. Amen.
Tuesday
Prayer Time
Open up, ancient gates!
Open up, ancient doors,
and let the King of glory enter (Psalm 24:9 NLT).
What does your prayer life look like? Are you getting quality time with God? Are you getting some "alone" time with Him? Are you coming to Him in praise or just with your wish list? Are you spending a good portion of your time listening for Him to speak? If so, then when God speaks, do you act in obedience?
These are all valid questions that every follower of Christ should ask themselves. We should spend time each day with a time of devotion and prayer. Being a Christian is so much more than going to church on Sundays and bible study on Wednesdays. We must develop that personal relationship, speaking to God and listening for Him to speak. He does hear our prayers. His timing is perfect. We must keep in mind that His timing might not line up with our time table. Many times this will make us rely on our faith, and through our experiences, our faith will grow.
If you want to grow deep in Jesus, then begin or extend your personal prayer time. Bring Him all your needs, no matter how small and be sure to praise Him for answered and also unanswered prayer. It's been said that unanswered prayer is sometimes the best answer that we can receive. God knows the Big Picture, we don't. Trust in Him. Have faith in Him. It's not the size of our faith, but the size of our God.
Lord God, help us to spend more one-on-one time with You. Help us to not only bring You our needs and our wants but help us to be still and listen for You to speak. Lord, help us to have the faith that You hear our every word, even when You are silent. Help us, Lord, as we struggle with the busyness of life. Help us to silence the noise around us, so we might hear Your soft voice. Lord, help us to be obedient when You do speak and help us to be willing to do what You ask. Help us, Lord, we need You. We ask and pray in the mighty and matchless name of our Savior, Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Wednesday
Acceptance and Restoration
This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins (1 John 4:10 NLT).
Wow, it doesn't get any better than being a child of the most high God. We can look near and far but we will never find anyone that loves us more than our God, our creator. He loves us so much that He accepts as we are, but because of that love, He will never leave us as we are.
We praise You, Lord God. We come to you broken and You heal us. We come to You undeserving of Your love. We come to You and You restore us and call us worthy. We come to You in times of blessings and in times of defeat and You open your arms. Lord, You share in our victories and pick us up in our defeats. You are our God who has bestowed your Amazing Grace each of us. Thank You, Lord. We give thanks, praise, and prayer in the powerful name of Jesus. Amen.
Thursday
King of Kings
I look up to the mountains – does my help come from there? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth! He will not let you stumble; the one who watches over you will not slumber. Indeed, he who watches over Israel never slumbers or sleeps. The LORD himself watches over you! The LORD stands beside you as your protective shade. The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon at night. The LORD keeps you from all harm and watches over your life. The LORD keeps watch over you as you come and go, both now and forever (Psalms 121:1-8 NLT).
The Lord is my Keeper, is He yours?
The King of Kings, our God, the creator of all things, loves us and is our protector, savior and Father in Heaven. Let's praise Him and ask Him to bless us, our family, friends and our nation. He is in control, trust in Him and have faith the He is the Great I Am.
Thanks be to God, we praise His holy name. Amen.
Friday
His Glory Covers Our World
But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved) (Ephesians 2:4, 5 NLT).
As we move closer to Easter, let us continually focus on the fact that, by the way of the cross, Jesus conquered the sin of the world. But it's by the glorious resurrection that we are raised to new life. It's our faith in what God did that our hope rests. It's not about anything that we have done but about what God did for us. It's all about Jesus.
Thanks be to God, the Father; God, the Son; and God, the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Saturday
Doers not Sitters
Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.
But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves (James 1:19-22 NLT).
Scripture states in James 1:22, that if we are not doers of the Word, we are only fooling ourselves. Are you claiming to be a Christian and sitting on the fact that you are saved? Becoming a Christian is not just saying the right words. There has to be a heart change and a continued spiritual growth while we listen and follow Jesus' calling for our lives. God has blessed each of us with different abilities and “callings” in our lives. Some people are meant to be evangelists, some are meant to be suppliers of funds for those evangelists. Some are meant to lead small groups, some are meant to be members of a small group, etc. But we are all called to be doers, not sitters.
I challenge each of you, to get up and go “do” for God's kingdom. Serve someone, help someone, love someone, provide a service to someone in need, but go and do. Being Christ's hands and feet to the lost and dying world is what we are called to do, as followers of Jesus Christ.
Lord, we praise Your name, thanks be to You, Lord God, for giving us work to do in Your kingdom. This is not working to be saved, but work that we desire to do because we are saved. We can't out-give You, Father. We praise You and pray in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.
Sunday
Submit – Submit – Submit – Submit
(I could go on and on and on)
Do not be stubborn, as they were, but submit yourselves to the Lord. Come to his Temple, which he has set apart as holy forever. Worship the Lord your God so that his fierce anger will turn away from you (2 Chronicles 30:8).
“Submit to God, and you will have peace; then things will go well for you (Job 22:21).
So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: How long will you refuse to submit to me? Let my people go, so they can worship me (Exodus 10:3).
Submit to God’s royal son, or he will become angry, and you will be destroyed in the midst of all your activities – for his anger flares up in an instant. But what joy for all who take refuge in him (Psalm 2:12).
Why are we such a hard-headed people? We must listen, obey, and submit to God before we can experience His fullness in our lives. He has so much to offer us but we, are stiff-necked children. We tend to always want it our way and do it our way. We should decide to try it God's way!
Lord my God, please help us develop a deeper relationship with you by our submission to Your will for our lives. Lord, we know that you have much more to offer us than what we can do by ourselves. We know this to be true, but we still try to do things on our own without Your guidance. Father God, that usually doesn't work out too well for us.
Lord, we pray for all who are reading these words who don't know You. Father, will You please touch their hearts and minds. Open their eyes, Lord.
We pray that all of us will be convicted on how we need to fall to our knees, accepting You as our King and submitting to Your authority. Father, we also pray for our nation. Lord, have mercy on us. Father God, please save us from ourselves. Lord, Your will; nothing more; nothing less; nothing else. Amen.