Devotionals

Daily Reading: 5-25-16

Luke 14:34-35 

If you know me at all, you know I enjoy salty treats: popcorn, tortilla chips, almonds, etc.  Please don’t withhold the salt on these items, because they are just not the same for me! Salt not only preserves food, it gives these treats great flavor. There is a side effect from enjoying salt; it makes me really thirsty.  If I am going to enjoy salt, I know I will need to find something to quench my thirst.  

From our passage, today, we gain the understanding that Jesus enjoys salt, too; salty disciples.

Our reading begins as Jesus is teaching his disciples about the cost of following Him.  He uses salt as a simile.  Why? It is a local example the disciples can understand.  The salt that was used in Palestine was probably from the south end of the Dead Sea.  This salt was in contact with the ground and endured repeated exposure to the rain and sun causing it to lose its effectiveness to flavor or preserve food.  Jesus wants the disciples to realized they could lose their effectiveness to flavor the world with God’s love.  The disciples would need to endure the effects of the world in order to stay salty to the end!  If they lose their saltiness as disciples, they lose their effectiveness for growing the Kingdom. 

Read more

Daily Reading: 5-24-16

Psalm 1 New Living Translation (NLT) 

Yesterday, we read Psalm 1 and considered our life-paths and who will influence us.  Our take away or understanding for commitment should be to follow or obey God’s Word and His Way of Love.  The Word is the foundation for a meaningful and prosperous life.  God knows what is best for us; others may think they do.  We may find ourselves at a crossroad where we need to choose who we will follow.  

Today, we are going to read the same passage we read yesterday, but in another translation, The Voice.  I find it is a great exercise to read in different translations.  Sometimes a passage will be opened up to us in a new way.  You may have your favorite translation and there is nothing wrong with that preference; but allow yourself to be stretched sometimes.  The Word is alive and it speaks spiritual life.  Period.

Read more

Daily Reading: 5-23-16

Psalm 1 New Living Translation (NLT) 

In this world, we will always run into well-meaning people who want to tell us how we should think, feel, and conduct our lives.  Most of the time, human advice is based on how that person lives, as well as his or her own inclinations and personal comfort zones.  There may be wisdom mixed with their advice, but it is possible for the advice to be diluted by their own desires and what satisfies their level of expectation and or conviction.  As Christ followers—followers of Incarnate Love—we must be very careful about who we allow to influence us.  As well, we are responsible for how we influence others.  The Lord watches over the life-path of those who delight in Him.

The Book of Psalms is a songbook that shares stories of praise, as well as the joy a person can find in simply obeying God and His ways of Love.  People who are good influencers will always lead us closer to God and deeper in His Love.  Near them our strength is renewed and our hope refocused on Love.  We sense an inward prospering. God desires that we prosper in all that we do.

Read more

Daily Reading: 5-20-16

Ephesians 4:1-6 New Living Translation (NLT) 

The LORD, our Tree of Life, calls us to come, taste, and see that God is Good (Psalm 34:8).  We gather and grow as we partake of the grace flowing from our Tree. Jesus teaches he is the Vine and we are the branches of this amazing life-giving Tree (John 15:5).  As we stay connected to our Source and one another we become bound (wrapped by grace) as One loving, forgiving, peacemaking and Spirit-led people who extend Hope to the world.  Victory is all about making a “grace connection” to the Tree in the Father’s Vineyard or Garden.  The Apostle Paul urges the Church at Ephesus to remember and apply the power outflowing their connection to God.

Read more

Daily Reading: 5-19-16
Proverbs 3:13-18 New Living Translation (NLT)

Wouldn’t it be amazing if everything we needed in life could be gain by connecting with the wisdom and generosity of one Source? Here is a symbolic image I want to share that best reveals my thinking: a Tree of Life to which we are invited to approach and pick the fruit of Wisdom for supply whenever we needed it. Charles Haddon Spurgeon defined wisdom as the “right use or action of knowledge.” We wouldn’t need to blindly hunt around, steal from others, or go without, we could just go to the one Source, connect, and gain the necessary wisdom for meeting our greatest needs in life. This Tree would be a Source of all other connections. As all of humanity connected at the Tree we would take care of one another with the patterned provision provided by the Source. Everyone loving, working, and serving together under the Tree of Life.

Read more

Daily Reading: 5-18-16

Luke 1:26-38  New Living Translation (NLT)

In our devotional yesterday, we read about how the Spirit reveals God’s goodness; God is a Giver who provides everything we need to live in spiritual victory.  If we lay hold of spiritual victory by welcoming the work of the Spirit, God’s glory will flow into every area of our lives; an inside to outside process.  The Spirit will supernaturally overshadow our human condition and ability.  I don’t know about you, but I confess my great need for the Spirit to overshadow my soul and what I bring to the table of life.  I have a great desire to accomplish or fulfill more than I could ever do on my own.

I love the angel’s prophetic message to Mary.  I am even comforted that she is confused by the Word of the Lord to her heart.  Why?  It means the Spirit is overshadowing her.  When the Spirit is working in our lives, we may not be able to grasp spiritual things until they are revealed in the natural.  That is when our love for God and our faith in the work of the Spirit of Truth must sustain us.

Read more

Daily Reading: 5-17-16

1 Corinthians 2:12-16 New Living Translation (NLT)

God is a Giver!  In fact, God is a Generous (with a capital G) Giver of all that is Good!  We have been given God’s Spirit in order to recognize and see the many other good spiritual things He has given us.  Think about it.  God has given us good gifts in abundance, but we may only recognize them through the work of the Spirit.  The Spirit is the One who opens the spiritual eyes of humans, so we may see the hand of God—our Giver.  Therefore, if we want to see and know spiritual things or understand God’s thoughts and purposes for our lives, we need to welcome the work of the Spirit.

Read more

Daily Reading: 5-16-16

1 Corinthians 2:1-11 New Living Translation (NLT)

Yesterday, we celebrated the coming of the Holy Spirit upon a diverse group of disciples.  Although many of them were from the same area, they were diverse in their soul’s condition before the work of the Spirit; each one struggled with a different sin or inclination that caused a focus on self.  All sin is the same, but we struggle in diverse ways.  Sin is always self-focused and self-exalting; sin rejects God and His eternal love. 

This human yet diverse condition is true of us today; we too must wrestle our selfish flesh down (submit to God and resist the devil) in order to welcome the liberating and bold work of the Spirit.  The Spirit produces spiritual fruit and becomes what we lack in our human condition.  Because they trusted God, the disciples were united as One in the Spirit and given the power to witness to the work of the Living Christ within to bring salvation.  Each disciple had a different story of how the Spirit had set them free to serve God; many were given different languages so they could tell their diverse stories of the One True God.  The Spirit of God is a Gift that is given to help us understand what is truly valuable and eternal; what is from God and what pleases Him. 

The Apostle Paul comes to Christ with the inclination to be a hater.  He spends a lifetime thinking he knows the mind of God; he abuses people to gain control for God.  He welcomes the Spirit and he is then able to identify his wrong spirit, as well as God’s heart. The Spirit humbles him and imparts wisdom.  What does the Apostle Paul value now?  The answer is the work of the Spirit.  Now the Apostle Paul can see the love of God for a struggling and misdirected humanity that has existed from the beginning of time.

Read more

Daily Reading: 5-13-16

Galatians 6:7-10 New Living Translation 

There is an age old saying, “You reap what you sow.” This saying is Truth; the wise in life convincingly testify to it. According to the Apostle Paul, every human being either deliberately or passively plants seeds into the ground of time each day. Once those seeds are released through words or actions, they begin to take root and grow. We may not be able to see the initial growth of the seeds, but the justice of God has placed a law over nature promising that planted seeds produce a harvest of some kind. Let me refresh your memory. 

God promised Noah he would never again curse the ground because of human sin and evil. In His promise, God said, “As long as the earth remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night” (Genesis 8:22). This is a promise that manifests in physical, emotional, and spiritual applications or realms. It’s not just about a farmer planting crops like corn. The lesson is about every individual responsibly taking action to plant something “Good” into the ground of a day that will produce a positive harvest of Goodness for tomorrow. Good grows Goodness. Goodness is not a passive quality; rather it is the deliberate preference of being right with God. Goodness is a fruit of the indwelling Spirit of God. God is Good and His Goodness is seen in Scripture by how He deals with people. Let’s read it together:

Read more

Daily Reading: 5-12-16

Galatians 5:16-25 New Living Translation 

Humans may have the greatest of intentions to accomplish really good things for God and still fall short or fail.  We can accept the work of Christ on the cross and receive his forgiveness and still find ourselves struggling to stay faithful or fruitful.  Sometimes we fail because the things we intend to accomplish are not God’s plan or desire for us.  Because God has given us the ability to choose our path, we may find our personal desires are in conflict with God’s desires for His Kingdom people. The Kingdom of God is a spiritual realm where righteousness, peace and joy have dominion; King Jesus is the Ruler.  Sometimes we fall short of manifesting good things that reveal God’s Kingdom, because we just don’t possess the character endurance to press on when things become more difficult for us.  God understands our dilemma and has provided a way.

We must remember there is a gap that was formed by sin between our natural intentions and manifestation of the Good that pleases God; that gap needs to be filled with spiritual substance and power that comes from outside our own energy and ability.  The Apostle Paul reminds us that Person of substance or Helper with power we need is the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit of God is the perfect One to fill, motivate, and guide believers to accomplish what God desires for our lives; what God determines is Good for us as His children.

Read more