Thursday Devotional - Worship While Waiting

Are you still waiting for God to fulfill something He’s promised? Or, are you still waiting for an answer from Him about something you’ve prayed about for years? What are you and I doing while we wait?

Let’s see what Abraham did while he waited…

Romans 4:18-21            “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”  Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead – since he was about a hundred years old – and that Sarah’s womb was also dead.  Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.”  Romans 4:18-21

Abraham didn’t pout or wallow in disappointment. He didn’t weaken in faith or waver in unbelief, but was strengthened in his faith while he waited! He didn’t blame God or get angry with God, but gave glory to God!!!

Worshiping God in “bad” times and difficult situations can be hard. The more we are fully persuaded that God is all-powerful and sovereign over everything, the easier it is. God used our wait for children to grow me in this area.

So, when most of our basement flooded last week with water continually coming up through the floor with no where to go (while the sump pump ran non-stop), I was able to stop and praise God. I praised Him for who He is, knowing He is sovereign, in control and has power over everything. I could trust Him to help us, guide us and get us through. I then thanked Him for what I did like about our house 😉 and that we had a roof over our head! God then helped me put things in perspective, realizing it could be a whole lot worse. He also reminded me of some of the things I take for granted.   

How will you and I remember to stop and worship God in good times and bad or while waiting? He’s always worthy of our worship!!!

Alice

How Can I Win Today?

I hear the tumult of the raging seas
    as your waves and surging tides sweep over me.
But each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me,
    and through each night I sing his songs,
    praying to God who gives me life.  Psalm 42:7-8

I have little notes at my desk.  Some are flip cards that I read every day.  Others are notes that I have made to keep me focused on the important things.  One of those notes simply reads, “How can I win today?”  It is a reminder that regardless of how the prior day went, it is over, and I must rise up to meet the challenges of a new day.  This made me think about my relationship with God.  Yes, I am saved, and I know I will spend eternal life with Him.  But have I made a difference in the world?  Have I stayed comfortable or do I continue to challenge my own faith to do better?  What have I done to win for God?

We should be asking questions on how we can better be God’s light in the world each and every day.  I came across today’s verses thinking how David loved God through good times and bad.  In the 42^nd Psalm, he seemed to be dealing with some rough times, but yet, he went to bed singing praises of God.  We should be going into each day thanking God for it.  Along those lines, day offers an opportunity to serve Him and reach newer heights in our faith.  It could be we read a bit more of God’s word, or perhaps we show love for someone who does not know God.  No matter what the we decide to do, we should remember as David did that God “pours His unfailing love upon” us each and every day.  Unfailing is important to note meaning it is a constant that never changes.  As such, we should focus on serving God in new and inspiring ways each and every day.  I say ‘new‘ because if we just do the same old things, we may never grow.

Each day is a gift from God.  Whether we feel great or not, we have an obligation to serve Him as best as we can today for while we are certain in our destination, we are uncertain as to our arrival date.  Thus, we must make a difference in our life and the lives of others each and every day God has gifted us with.  So let us be bold and determined to show the awesomeness of God just as He shows His unfailing love to us.  What plan do you have to make each day the Lord’s Day?  What can you change to grow in Christ? My prayer is that we look to God each and every day asking Him the question, “How do we win today?”  Amen.

Tues Devo: But I

Hello,

It is inevitable. We see opportunity to make an impact for Christ – and then Satan plants that little thought in our mind. The one that describes our inadequacy. The one that points out our failure. The one that implies we may be a hypocrite.

We cannot let that voice win. That voice is right. We have failed, we are not fully adequate, we do things against our better judgement – but instead of that disqualifying us from advancing His kingdom, we need to recognize that He called us knowing our failures. He uses us through our inadequacies.

Don’t let the voice win – trust the redemptive and forgiving work of Jesus to fill in our shortcomings, to be that qualifier for us.

Some verses related to this:

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” (NASB)

2 Corinthians 12:9 “And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weakness, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” (NASB)

2 Corinthians 3:4-6 “Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anthing as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (NASB)

I hope this gives you a renewed strength and hope today,

Will Hill

Temptation

Think about a time that you were so hungry that you just thought for sure you could eat a whole cow or something huge.  Maybe you had to fast for some blood work or for some other reason.  I remember back to when I was in labor.  They don’t allow you to eat anything or have hardly anything to drink because of the chance of needing to have a C-section.  I was STARVING by the time I had my son!

Matthew 4:1-3

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

When I had my son, it had been about 22 hours without any food.  Hours, not days!  Here Jesus was at 40 days and 40 nights without food!  Jesus was, being tempted to turn the stones into bread.  Could he have done it?  Certainly!  Instead, he responded by saying:

Matthew 4:4

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

As we go through this time of year, known as Lent, I want to have us think about the extraordinary things that Christ did, as an ordinary man.  While we will never measure up to him, we are told to be like Christ.  He came to this earth and faced challenges, just like each of us have.  He has walked a mile in our shoes.  

Today I want you think about what tempts you.  Do you easily give into that temptation or do you stand strong?

Thursday Devotional - Father Abraham

We talked last week about how God credits Christ’s righteousness to those who believe. We don’t earn it. The same was true for Abraham. He wasn’t righteous, but God credited him with Christ’s righteousness.

Paul goes on to explain this further.

Romans 4:9-12   Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. ¹⁰ Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! ¹¹ And he received circumcision as a sign, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. ¹² And he is then also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also follow in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

Abraham was credited with righteousness not because of who he was or what he did, but because of his faith in who God is and what God would do! (As Kent talked about yesterday, God is faithful and can be trusted to do what He says He will do.)

Most of us are not Jews. However, as Paul says, Abraham is the father of all who believe (remember the children’s song “Father Abraham”??).

My chiropractor is a Jew, but I don’t think he is a true son of Abraham, yet. However, yesterday, he was the one who brought up Jesus in our conversation! I continue to pray for God to use me (and now my kids, too) as witnesses for Him. 

Do you view God’s promises as gifts or as standards to attain? 

Are you a son of Abraham?

Those who place their faith and trust in what God has done and what He’s promised to do in the future are true sons of Abraham!

Alice

Great Is Thy Faithfulness

Abraham got up early that morning and hurried out to the place where he had stood in the Lord’s presence.  He looked out across the plain toward Sodom and Gomorrah and watched as columns of smoke rose from the cities like smoke from a furnace.

But God had listened to Abraham’s request and kept Lot safe, removing him from the disaster that engulfed the cities on the plain.  Genesis 19:27-29

We have dealt with a great deal of tragedy this week.  Whether it be our children in fear of their safety or our way of living being challenged and questioned, there is plenty of stress points that impact us.  There was a time where during these moments I would feel like the world was closing in on me all at once.  Yet today, I feel at peace.  Someone reminded me that God is always in control, and thus, nothing happens without His knowing.  Many of us have worries about tomorrow, and simply do not have answers to tragedies.  But I have faith that He will take care of things.  As I continue my journey of faith, I am reminded of God’s faithfulness, and it is in that I carry forward not only with confidence but also with faith that in the end He will help us to make things right.

We should all have surety in God.  As I was reading the book of Genesis, I got a great deal out of the story of Abraham and Lot.  Abraham was of course one of God’s truly faithful servants such that he could request certain things of God.  One was that He protect the city of Sodom if there were righteous people there.  After further reading, we realize that the ‘righteous people’ there were the people connected to Lot, his nephew who Abraham loved like a son.  This was the covenant God made with him.  When it appeared Sodom and Gomorrah could no longer be saved, angels were sent to save Lot and his family.  There are a couple of things we can draw from this story.  First, through prayer we can actually gain favor with God where He will intercede on our behalf.  Second, God is always true to His word.  His promises are without fail.  He is always faithful, and our goal is to trust in this even as things surrounding us may not quite seem under control.

God is always righteous and always right on time.  A hymnal that always keeps me grounded speaks of God in such a way.  It begins simply:

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.

As the hymn says, He is never changing, compassionate, and of course faithful.  Let us move with confidence knowing God is always with us for we have asked Jesus Christ in our lives, and for that, we are truly saved.  What can you draw from Abraham’s faith into your own?  What surety can God provide in your life?  My prayer is that we remember who God is in times of uncertainty and indeed how Great is Thy faithfulness.  Amen.

Tues Devo: Into the mist

Hello,

We have had a ton of heavy fog lately – and it reminds me of a time back in 10^th grade when I was walking to school (uphill, both ways…..) on a very foggy morning. I kept looking at the fog as I was approaching it, wondering what it would be like to cross into this fog….but it never happened. I stopped, looked behind me and realized that I was already in this fog. I was so focused on what was coming next, I didn’t realize where I was now.

How true of this in our walk with Jesus also. We can get too focused on what is next, that we don’t take a moment to see where we are right now and look for the opportunities in that moment.

Now, there is nothing wrong with planning -in fact we are encouraged to plan as believers. But if all we are focused on is the future, and not right now-  we will be missing out.

Colossians 3:17 “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.” (NASB)

Have a blessed day,

Will Hill

Thursday Devotional - Faith and Righteousness

Did any of you take AP (advanced placement) classes in high school and then get college credit for it? You didn’t have to take or pay for the class in college, but were given the credits as if you had!

With God’s righteousness, we won’t ever meet His standards. However, for those who place their faith in His work on their behalf, He credits with Christ’s righteousness. He treats us as if we were righteous and have met His standards.

Romans 4:1-8     What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, discovered in this matter? ² If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. ³ What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

⁴ Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. ⁵ However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness. ⁶ David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the one to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:

⁷ “Blessed are those
    whose transgressions are forgiven,
    whose sins are covered.
⁸ Blessed is the one
    whose sin the Lord will never count against them.”

For believers, our sin is treated as if the punishment has been paid. We didn’t pay for it, but Jesus did on our behalf. He paid our punishment and we get His righteousness!!! Fair, huh?! No. What love, grace and mercy!!!

Alice

Love, Love, Love!

Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate?  Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose.

Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.  Philippians 2:1-5

It’s St. Valentine’s Day, and of course, love is in the air.  One might think it is stating the obvious that I would write about the topic of love.  Well, there were many topics that I thought of writing about.  I thought about how humble it is to be . . . loved by God.  Then I thought about how my wonderful wife is such a shining example of . . . God’s love for me.  Then I reminded myself that I must be true to God’s word because . . . I love Him.  And to be funny, God decided to instill one of my favorite Beatles song in my head, “All You Need Is Love.”  No matter how I tried to get around it, I found myself back at love.  So here I am choosing to talk about the obvious: love.  What could I possibly say about love that is not already known?  Nothing really, but I can remind us of what God’s love is all about.  It is a gift to be given much like the candy boxes and red roses today.  It is not shallow or something you say in passing.  It is a feeling that can be overwhelming and the greatest you can ever experience.  So today, I want to share this reminder on Valentine’s Day.  Love is a verb.  Not a noun.

Godly love is an attitude that goes beyond just the words.  Someone once told me that they loved me because God commands us to love each other as we love ourselves.  I agreed that is true, but that is not what Godly love is.  Today’s verses give insight as to what Godly love truly is.  You cannot have love for your brother or sister unless you know them.  Yes, you can love people, but God did not intend for us to love others like a check mark on our ‘Being A Good Christian’ checklist.  Godly love forces us to do better.  It requires an attitude that says, “I will love on someone today as if they are my brother or sister.”  Now I am not going to hug strangers as if they are my oldest brother.  I will, however, make a deliberate and sincere effort to get to know them.  We must learn to dig beyond just the surface and get to know people beyond just a simple hello.  Godly love requires that we be involved in the discussion, and share in others’ successes and failures.  It is not easy, but since when did anything worthwhile ever become easy?  Now before someone says there are some things that comes easy to them that they enjoy, I would then say God expects much more of you.  Godly love is in a way is like spiritual growth.  It stretches beyond the boundaries of what we ourselves normally could reach, and expands our ability to be more like Christ.

We should always be encouraged by the love Jesus Christ has for us.  Whether you have a significant other to celebrate today with or not, know that He said, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13)  Jesus calls us friend even as we are not always His.   That’s special and should be celebrated on a day like today.  So let us make an effort to truly love others as He, who sacrificed His life, first showed love for us.  Who can you show greater love to?  How will you commit to displaying more Godly love to others?  My prayer is that we embrace the spirit of today, and from a more Godly (and Beatles) perspective, be all about love, love, love!  Amen!

Tues Devo: Just a little bit

Matthew 16:1-6 “The Pharisees and Sadducees came up, and testing Jesus, they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven. But He replied to them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times? An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah.” And He left them and went away. And the disciples came to the other side of the sea, but they had forgotten to bring any bread. And Jesus said to them, ‘Watch out and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.’” (NASB)

Hello,

I was reading through Matthew 16 this weekend, and had trouble paying attention to the end of the chapter after reading verse 6. Jesus is with His disciples after 2 events: 1) feeding over 4,000 people with seven loaves of fish and a few small fish (chapter 5) and 2) being tested here in the first bit of chapter 6 by the religious leaders.

Coming from the miraculous work with bread, a leaven comment is not out of place.

Leaven, or yeast as the modern day equivalent, is a strong ingredient. It doesn’t take much, and it spreads through the dough to have it rise. Without the leaven, the bread dough doesn’t change as much as with the leaven. But notice that the comment wasn’t directed at having an absence of leaven, but rather which leaven we are folding in.

It doesn’t take much mis-aligned teaching to sway and impact our choices – we have to watch and be careful of our sources. I think we see this a lot today from a culture perspective. We allow a cultural or political opinion (left or right – either direction) to start to drive our view of God and Scripture. We need to really put a guard up for our sources of influence, and vet them against Scripture – not our feelings or opinions.

Have a blessed day,

Will Hill