Curtis Tumicki

In Galatians 5:22-23, the apostle Paul speaks about the fruit of the Spirit.  Out of those fruits mentioned, the one that stands out to me is joy.  If there is one emotion that we are lacking is joy.  How is this the case?  People are finding temporary joy in other things and other people.  Joy comes from God.  The word “joy” has been used as an acronym from time to time.  One of those acronyms is used like this: Jesus, Others, Yourself.  This is important for us to remember because over the course of time, we have been placing ourselves before everyone else.  If we are going to be servants for God, then we need to put aside our egos and quit boosting ourselves up and start thinking about others.  

In today’s passage, the Psalmist is acknowledging how we ought to be more joyful when we are in alignment with Him.  When we follow His instructions and search for Him and seek after Him, we will begin to look at things differently.  The first thing that we need to do is to be in that place of surrender and opening our hearts to inviting Him in and live within us.  

Psalm 119:1-8 (NLT Translation)

Aleph

1 

Joyful are people of integrity,
    who follow the instructions of the Lord.

2 

Joyful are those who obey his laws
    and search for him with all their hearts.

3 

They do not compromise with evil,
    and they walk only in his paths.

4 

You have charged us
    to keep your commandments carefully.

5 

Oh, that my actions would consistently
    reflect your decrees!

6 

Then I will not be ashamed
    when I compare my life with your commands.

7 

As I learn your righteous regulations,
    I will thank you by living as I should!

8 

I will obey your decrees.
    Please don’t give up on me!

Prayer

Dear Heavenly Father, help us to be more joyful in life.  Help us to live in the present rather than always thinking about the past or the future.  We know that there are going to be times where we have to make a change, but help us to not cave into fear but rather embrace what You have in store for us.  You know what is best for us.  Help us to receive Your instructions with an open heart and an open mind.  In Jesus name, amen.  

It seems like people are putting their faith and worshipping those things that are not from God.  For instance, people today are fixated and drawn on the latest piece of technology and some would even making it a priority to make it well known to others.  Personally, technology is a blessing as well as a burden.  In other words, there are pros and cons when it comes to technology.  It is great that we can be informed about a wide variety of information, however, people would begin to lose sight on the little things that we miss out in life.  I have often times said this: it is not what you are doing, it is who you are with.  What this means is that anyone can do the activities, but what makes those activities and those moments special is the people who are there with you.  If we can feel comfortable and confident with people around us, then why can’t we have that same confidence in God?  

In today’s passage, we see the Psalmist explaining how we need to put our full confidence in God and praising Him as long as we have air in our lungs.  The writer also acknowledges that He is just and explaining the different characteristics of God.  It is important that we continually praise God without any doubt or fear.  Those are the kind of things that can hold us back from moving forward in our walk and our relationship with God.  I want to challenge us by not only reading this passage, but also praying and asking God to continuously remind us about how great He is towards us.  

Psalm 146:1-10 (NLT Translation)

1 

Praise the Lord!

Let all that I am praise the Lord.

2 

    I will praise the Lord as long as I live.
    I will sing praises to my God with my dying breath.

3 

Don’t put your confidence in powerful people;
    there is no help for you there.

4 

When they breathe their last, they return to the earth,
    and all their plans die with them.

5 

But joyful are those who have the God of Israel[a] as their helper,
    whose hope is in the Lord their God.

6 

He made heaven and earth,
    the sea, and everything in them.
    He keeps every promise forever.

7 

He gives justice to the oppressed
    and food to the hungry.
The Lord frees the prisoners.

8 

    The Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are weighed down.
    The Lord loves the godly.

9 

The Lord protects the foreigners among us.
    He cares for the orphans and widows,
    but he frustrates the plans of the wicked.

10 

The Lord will reign forever.
    He will be your God, O Jerusalem,[b] throughout the generations.

Praise the Lord!

Prayer

Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for Your great love for us.  Thank You for loving us while we are still sinning against You.  Even when we feel like we are not worthy of being Your son or daughter, You still love us unconditionally.  Let us continuously praise You no matter what season of life we are navigating through.  Help us to turn to You at all times.  Let us not turn towards the substances and the material things of this world, but instead turn towards You.  In Jesus name, amen.  

If there is one blessing that we can take for granted is that we have different senses that help us navigate through life.  Our senses include our smell, our touch, our vision, etc.  Out of those senses I have mentioned, the one that we use most frequently is our vision.  Every minute of every day, we are looking around and examining our surroundings.  Not only that, but we also pay attention to the details and to the people who we see and interact with on a daily basis.  I wear glasses every day for me to see what is in front of me.  I often joke about how I have four eyes because of the fact that I wear glasses.  I use my glasses to help me pay attention to not only to details but also to the people who I see on a daily basis.  Our vision can mislead us based on what we see on the screen or anything else of that nature.  Unfortunately there are times where someone is physically blind.  Not only that, but there have been times where we have been spiritually blind as well.  

In today’s scripture, we see where Jesus had healed two men that have been blind since birth.  When they were sitting on the side of the road and heard Jesus coming, they were asking Him to have mercy on them.  When Jesus asked them what He wanted them to do, they wanted to see.  He touched their eyes and they were healed and they received their sight.  

Scripture: Matthew 20:29-34 (NLT Translation)

29. As Jesus and the disciples left the town of Jericho, a large crowd followed behind. 30 Two blind men were sitting beside the road. When they heard that Jesus was coming that way, they began shouting, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”

31 “Be quiet!” the crowd yelled at them.

But they only shouted louder, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”

32 When Jesus heard them, he stopped and called, “What do you want me to do for you?”

33 “Lord,” they said, “we want to see!” 34 Jesus felt sorry for them and touched their eyes. Instantly they could see! Then they followed him.

Prayer

Dear Heavenly Father, help us to see what You want us to see.  Help our eyes be open to not only Your words that we read throughout the Bible, but also Your words of wisdom.  Let us not be blinded by the events of the world that we miss out on You.  Help us to be tuned into You and Your channel rather than being tuned into the channels of this world.  Help us keep our words and actions aligned with You.  In Jesus name, amen. 

If there is one thing that the world is producing, it is the fact there is evil all around us and people are being sucked into the foolishness and the lies that the world is producing.  I’ve mentioned this before, but people can get twisted and confused about all kinds of different things.  People are looking for the source of truth and they are wanting to find it in other people and even through substances and different things of that nature.  What we need to understand is that we can only find healing from God and Him alone.  He is the only One who knows and supplies our needs rather than giving us our wants.  In other words, God will give us what we need rather than our wants.  He knows what is best of us.  We need to be in that place of receiving His instruction with an open heart as well as an open mind.  

In today’s passage, David writes this psalm as a prayer for deliverance from those who do wicked.  David asks God to listen to him and his prayer for mercy.  How many times have we been in those moments where we believe and feel that God wasn’t listening to us.  When we are in those storms of life, we have the tendency to believe that God doesn’t listen to us, but this is not the case however.  The reality is that God does listen to us.  We cannot treat God like a genie in the bottle just wanting Him to grant us our very wishes.  That is not who He is.  He hears us and will bless us when it is His time.  We need to understand that God has our very best interests.  Only He can lead us through those storms and we need to be in that place of being in tuned with Him.  Once we are in tuned with Him, then He will see us through.  

Scripture Psalm 28:1-9 (NLT Translation)

1 

I pray to you, O Lord, my rock.
    Do not turn a deaf ear to me.
For if you are silent,
    I might as well give up and die.

2 

Listen to my prayer for mercy
    as I cry out to you for help,
    as I lift my hands toward your holy sanctuary.

3 

Do not drag me away with the wicked—
    with those who do evil—
those who speak friendly words to their neighbors
    while planning evil in their hearts.

4 

Give them the punishment they so richly deserve!
    Measure it out in proportion to their wickedness.
Pay them back for all their evil deeds!
    Give them a taste of what they have done to others.

5 

They care nothing for what the Lord has done
    or for what his hands have made.
So he will tear them down,
    and they will never be rebuilt!

6 

Praise the Lord!
    For he has heard my cry for mercy.

7 

The Lord is my strength and shield.
    I trust him with all my heart.
He helps me, and my heart is filled with joy.
    I burst out in songs of thanksgiving.

8 

The Lord gives his people strength.
    He is a safe fortress for his anointed king.

9 

Save your people!
    Bless Israel, your special possession.[a]
Lead them like a shepherd,
    and carry them in your arms forever.

Prayer

Dear Heavenly Father, help us to receive Your instructions with an open heart and an open mind.  When we receive those instructions, help us to not only receive them but help us to obey them.  We cannot grow Your Kingdom unless we obey You.  Help us to do just that.  In Jesus name, amen.  

Yesterday, we learned about the idea of winning the war within.  If there is one thing that is relevant to us today, it is the fact that spiritual warfare is real.  Most of life’s battles are won or lost within our minds and in our brains.  This is where the enemy attacks us the most is within our minds.  What we need to understand is that we need to be paying attention to what is going on so that we do not give the enemy the authorization as well as the clearance to proceed into our minds.  When it comes to our lives, we are always moving in the direction of our strongest thoughts.  If we are always thinking positive thoughts, then we are going to live our lives in a positive way.  If we think negative thoughts, then we are going to live in a negative way.  What we think determines how we are going to live our lives.  

In 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, the apostle Paul speaks about how we need to “take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ” (NIV Translation).  In other words, we need to take every negative thought that comes into our minds and reverse engineer it to making it follow the commands of the Lord.  It takes more energy in our body to think and act negatively than it is positively.  He also talks about how we do not wage war as the world wages war.  In other words, the world uses manmade weapons while God’s soldiers use the Bible.  That is the only offensive weapon that we need.  We need to understand that God is always going to be with us no matter what.  While there are waves crashing around us, we need to be focusing on Christ.  Only He can lead us through.  

Scripture 

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 (NLT Translation)

“3. We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do.  4. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock don the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments.  5. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God.  We capture rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.”  

Prayer

Dear Heavenly Father, help us to always be following You no matter what season of life we are going through.  Remind us each and every day that You are for us and is with us always.  Help us to surrender our hearts and minds to You.  Let us come boldly to Your throne without any sense of fear or hesitation.  Let Your love and grace wash over us and let us go out and be Your hands and feet to the world.  In Jesus name, amen. 

I was diagnosed with autism when I was six years old.  Since then, there have been people who have told me that it was impossible for me to achieve my goals and ambitions.  Here I am years later and I am still proving those people wrong.  Every moment I get up, it is a victory because it is another day to prove people wrong.  I count it as a huge win for sure.  “With man, this is impossible.  But with God, all things are possible.  These are not just words, this is a statement that Jesus spoke.  Man thinks that there are impossible things and tasks that we cannot achieve.  The reality is that when we have God by our side, then He has given us the ability to achieve it.  In Philippians 4:13, the apostle Paul writes that we can do all things through Christ who gives us strength.  That doesn’t mean that we can everything.  This means that God has gifted us with different abilities.  Because He has gifted us with those abilities, we ought to be growing in those.  God is along for the ride, meaning that He is always going to be with us on our journeys no matter what.  

In today’s passage, we see Peter mentioning how God has gifted us.  Indeed He has, however, we need to serve within our giftedness.  One reason why people would not serve in church is because they would often be placed in a position where it is not their strengths.  In other words, they are voluntold to be in that position.  Church should be something that we get to do, rather than something that we have to do.  When all the different parts come together, it creates something that is meaningful.  We need to understand that when we serve, it is not about us.  It is about edifying, or the lifting up, the name of Jesus.  We need to remember that whenever we are serving.  

Scripture

1 Peter 4:10-11 NLT- “10. God has given each of you a gift from His great variety of spiritual gifts.  Use them well to serve one another.  11. Do you have the gift of speaking?  Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you.  Do you have the gift of helping others?  Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies.  Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ.  All glory and power to Him forever and ever!  Amen.”  

Prayer

Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for all You do.  Thank You for showing us and revealing things that need to be revealed to us.  Help us to praise You though all seasons of life.  While we recognize that this world is going to bring all kinds of confusion and chaos.  While this is something that we cannot control, help us to turn to You and be tuned into Your channel.  Only You know what it best for us.  Because You have our best interests at heart, give us the strength and courage to keep pursuing You.  In Jesus name, amen.  

One thing about me is that I like crime shows and different things of that nature.  For instance, one of my favorite crime shows is the Law and Order series.  There is this balance of law enforcement and what happens in that realm, and the lawyers and and what happens in that realm.  One of the key players in the courtroom is the judge.  The judge is listening to both sides of the case.  They listen to the evidence brought on by the defense and the prosecution.  Then, they make their ruling based on the evidence.  Either the person is guilty or they are innocent, they must make a fair ruling.  One thing about God is that He always makes a fair ruling.  One of the many names of God is Jehovah-Tsedek, which is Hebrew for “Lord Our Righteousness.”  He is always fair.  

In today’s scripture, the prophet Isaiah speaks about how we ought to learn to do good.  He also mentions that we ought to be helping those around us.  There are people who are struggling, not just in terms of physically, but also in terms of spiritually.  There are people who are struggling with their relationship with God because they are caught in this mess between following God or following their own will.  There is this decision that we all have to make: either life or death.  I want to challenge all of us to choose life.  

Isaiah 1:17 NLT- “Learn to do good.  Seek justice.  Help the oppressed.  Defend the cause of orphans.  Fight for the rights of widows.”  

Prayer

Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for being fair.  No matter what set of circumstances that we face, You give us things that we know we can handle.  Help us to turn towards You at all times.  Forgive us for when we have sinned towards You.  Remind us that we ought to be following You no matter what.  When we start to fall away, help us to get back towards You.  In Jesus name, amen.  

If there is one thing that we cannot take for granted, it is family.  I love my family to pieces.  Even though they may drive me a little bit crazy, but I love them anyway.  Family is there for us when we are feeling down and depressed.  Whether they are our blood relatives or our spiritual relatives, family is there for us.  In Philippians 3:20, it speaks about how we are citizens of heaven.  In other words, we are part of God’s family.  When we are in a relationship with God, we are part of His family.  We cannot take that for granted.  Family is family.  We are supposed to be there for each other, however, there are some people who may not see it that way.  Some may see a family as doing different things and expecting something in return.  That is not a family.  Not by a long shot.  A family is when we come together and support each other.  When we are in His family, that is who we are: a family.  Despite our differences, God looks at our differences as unique and special.  

In today’s passage, we see the apostle Paul addressing the church in Rome saying that we have not received the spirit of slavery, but rather a spirit of adoption.  There are times where fear can boil inside us and can take over.  Because God adopted us and brought us into His family, this means that He has not given a spirit of fear.  In 2 Timothy 1:7, it talks about how God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and discipline.  Because God has not given us that spirit of fear, there is no reason why we should be fearful.  I believe that we are fearful because we give Satan the clearance and the authorization to come in our thoughts and our minds.  Here’s the thing: we cannot give him neither of those things.  We cannot and should not give him the authorization as well as the clearance.  He is denied by the help of the Holy Spirit.  We need to be stronger than he is.  We are strong because He made us strong.  

Scripture

Romans 8:15 NLT- “So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves.  Instead, you received God’s Spirit when He adopted you as His own children.  Now we call Him, ‘ABBA, Father.’”  

Prayer

Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for adopting us into Your family.  Continue to remind us how unique and special we are in Your eyes.  Help us to look past our differences and embrace our brothers and sisters in Your family.  Help us to not take family for granted.  Help Your family come together as one.  You have called us to come together as one, and let us be one.  Help us to feel more accepted by You.  In Jesus name, amen.  

Today is a bit of a challenging because Hurricane Milton makes its landfall.  People are either bunkering down or they are getting out of dodge.  Either way, it is going to be a long day.  After going through Hurricane Helene, there are people not only in Florida but also in Georgia as well as North Carolina that are still working to restore their homes, businesses, and their communities.  Despite all the turbulence that these storms have caused or will cause, God is still going to provide what we need.  One of the names of God is Jehovah-Jireh, which is Hebrew for “Our Provider.”  

In today’s passage, the apostle Paul is writing to the church in Corinth by saying that God will meet our needs.  A lot of us have a lot of wants, but God provides us with our needs.  There is a huge difference between a need and a want.  There are times where we do not think about those needs provided by God because we are busy doing other things.  We need to understand that God knows what is best for us.  He has our best interest at heart.  He knows the plans (Jeremiah 29:11).  We can make many plans as we want, but His plans are far more higher than our own plans (Proverbs 19:21).  Not only that, but He will direct our steps (Proverbs 16:9).  In other words, He’s got you.  He’s got us.  

Scripture 

2 Corinthians 9:8 NLT- “And God will generously provide all you need.  Then you will always have everything you need and plenty to share with others.”  

Prayer

Dear Heavenly Father, help us to pay attention to what You’re revealing to us.  Continue to provide for us our needs rather than our wants.  You know what is best for us.  Help us to be true recipients of Your mercy, grace, forgiveness, and Your everlasting love.  Help us to put our full faith and full trust in You and You alone.  In Jesus name, amen.  

I don’t know about some people, but I tend to get stressed out.  Perhaps one reason is because I am anticipating what is coming up or being unsure about any future plans.  Regardless, stress is not a good thing whatsoever.  No one likes to be stressed, but I know someone who can bring your stress down: God.  One of the many names of God is Jehovah-Shalom which is Hebrew for “God, Our Peace.”  What we need to do is to be in that place of peace.  How can we find peace when there are a million things I got to do?  In Psalm 46:10, David writes that we need to be still and know that He is God.  In other words, we need to be in that place of stillness so that we can acknowledge God and let Him do what only He can do.  

In today’s passage, the apostle Paul is speaking to the church in Galatia about the idea that there are no labels.  What do I mean by labels?  I mean that when we are in the family of God, we do not need to be labeled as a certain denomination or ethnicity or religion or anything else of that nature.  Paul wrote to the church in Philippi saying that we are citizens of heaven (Philippians 3:20).  Because we are citizens of heaven, we are no longer labeled as part of a denomination but rather we are brothers and sisters in Christ.  In our passage today, Paul concludes by saying that we are all one in Christ Jesus.  In other words, we are one body when we are in Christ.  We need to understand that we may have our external differences, but we are part of the family of God.  

Scripture 

Galatians 3:28 NLT- “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female.  For you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  

Prayer

Dear Heavenly Father, thank You that I am in Your family.  Thank You for accepting us for who we are.  You say that we are valuable in Your eyes.  Help us to see that each and every day.  Continue to remind us about how important we are to You.  No matter what circumstances we are facing, help us to draw closer to You each and every day.  In Jesus name, amen.