Thursday Devotional - Rainbow Revelation

We live in an area where many people deny even the existence of God.  They suppress the truth.  However, God has revealed Himself to all people through creation.  Without having or knowing God’s Word, we can still see His existence, creativity, intelligence, and power.

Romans 1:18-20            “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.  For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” 

Romans 1:18-20 

A few weeks ago, after one of our rain storms, the kids and I went outside to play frisbee. As we were playing, I looked up and saw a full rainbow! It was beautiful! We all stopped and looked at it for a while. James, the most active one, stopped and looked at the rainbow the longest. While Sarah and I resumed playing frisbee, I overheard James spontaneously say “Thank you, Jesus, for making the rainbow!”

Later that night, Sarah thanked God for the rainbow during her prayer before bed. It’s such a blessing to watch James and Sarah recognize God through His creation and then thank Him for it! 

How has the truth of God been revealed to you this week? Are you looking for it?

How did you respond?

Did you keep the truth to yourself, or have you shared it with those around you?

Let’s look for God’s power around us, praise Him for it and share it with others!

Alice

Detour

“Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord!  And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”  Joshua 24:14-15 (NIV)

We try our best to make good decisions.  Some of them are very simple like getting up from bed and taking a shower before work.  Others might be a bit more challenging like wearing the right clothes for an interview or deciding on which washer and dryer set to get from the appliance store (Yes, my wife and I did that once).  However there are some decisions where we tend to overcomplicate things.  Some of these can lead to dangerous results.  For example, a gambler will risk his mortgage payment trying to make up for losses earlier in the day.  Their thought?  I need to make up for the money I lost.  But why would one risk their home just because they lost earlier?  I never have gambled, but I’ve heard the ugly stories when someone did.  It’s always the impulse of ‘I can win this time!’  When conflicted with what God expects and my own wants, I have to avoid focusing on temporary and impulsive happiness in exchange for long term spiritual growth and abundance of joy God offers.  Of course the latter is better, but I must discipline myself not to fall for an immediately gratifying but unfulfilling detour.

We should always maintain our focus on God’s long term plan toward joy rather than our own temporary pathway to short-term fulfillment.  I saw today’s verse pop up on my Bible app today.  Normally, I write something God inspires me to throughout the week.  However, I realized I had never written on these verses albeit one of my favorites.  A Christian song that I love to hear speaks of it saying, “As for me and my house, we will serve you Lord.”  In reading the verses, it feels like one of those arguments where you are willing to listen to discussion, but you already know what your answer is.  For example when Jesus is being tempted in the wilderness after 40 days and nights of fasting, the devil tries to tempt Jesus, but we already know how Jesus was going to respond, right?  “People do not live by bread alone,” and “You must not test the Lord your God.” (Matthew 4:6b, 7b)  Like God said to the people in Joshua, we can all grow comfortable in our surroundings, but we must always remember the God we serve; the one who carries us when we are weak and was always there for the Israelites from Abraham through Moses and Joshua.

God is always on our side.  We not only have plenty of stories throughout the Bible but also our own experiences when God displayed His faithfulness pulling us through crisis after crisis.  We will always have to deal with temptation to take what may seemingly appear to be an easy way out, but we know the right choice as God laid out to Israel in today’s verses.  Don’t take the easy route!  Trust in God’s long term plan for your life.  What is tempting you to divert from God’s long term plans for you?  How can you stay on course when temptation hits at your time of stress?  My prayer is that we are able to seek the long term joy God has in store for our lives and not fall prey to the short term detour.  Amen.

Tues Devo: To risk or give

 Hello,

This past Sunday in church the Pastor during communion made the comment that Jesus didn’t risk His life – He gave it. That really stuck with me. What is our mindset when we think about doing things for God in our lives? Do we think about what the risk is, or just do what we should out of love back to Him? You see thinking about risk has a natural selfish component to it – we balance the possible good outcome against what could happen to us. If Jesus would have come to risk His life, He would have played it safer and tried to mitigate the pain to Himself to try and achieve the same outcome. But His focus was not on Him – it was on us. We know from His prayer in the garden that He wasn’t looking forward to it – He asked the Father one more time if there was another way – but He put all of that aside and out of love gave Himself fully for us and our redemption.

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (NASB)

What in our lives do we need to stop risking for the God, and start giving?

Will Hill