Inspirational
John 5:24
24 “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.
Faith
Romans 4:20-21
20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.
Matthew 21:22
22 If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.
1 Chronicles 29:12
How Does God Define Wealth?
Both riches and honor come from You, and You reign over all. Your hand is power and might; in Your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. 1 Chronicles 29:12
David offered a prayer of thanksgiving and blessing for the temple in 1 Chronicles 29:10-19. Today’s verse is a key part of David’s prayer, in which he acknowledges God as the true source of wealth and honor. Maybe you are asking why you are not “blessed” with great riches from God. Our verse today reminds us that true riches are not found in what we possess, but who possesses us!
Since riches and honor come from God and you are a child of God, he has given you what is best for you! We humans tend to measure riches by how much we accumulate – if we haven’t amassed a great deal of material goods, we think we are not blessed with riches. But we must adopt the biblical measurement of true riches. Knowing the Giver of every good and perfect gift is of far greater value than possessing the gifts that come from Him! David rejoiced, not simply because he could invest in God’s work, but because his real joy came from being intimate with the God he served!
There are many things in life you can possess. They may be wonderful things that bring you joy. But you must remember that everything in this life that you possess can be taken from you. There is only one thing that cannot be taken from you – and that is the most valuable thing, the pearl of great price. It is the one thing that should cause you to rejoice more than anything, and that one thing is knowing Jesus Christ intimately, personally, eternally. The richest people in this life are those who have as their Father the Giver of every good and perfect gift.
Lord, may I remember that I am rich because You are my Father and You own everything. Knowing You is the greatest honor and richest blessing I could ever hope for in this life. As people all around me stockpile things that will one day rust and decay, may I seek to share with them the true riches of life – You. Lord, it is such as honor to share You with others. Thank You for giving me that opportunity. You have enriched my life with so many people and things, but the greatest of all is knowing You. Amen.
Thank you… Craig Bowers, Locust Grove, GA
Share Your Faith
Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Mark 16:15
Jesus holds every believer accountable for fulfilling the command in this verse. Preach means "to proclaim or share." Every person who knows Jesus Christ has a moral obligation to share the gospel, which is simply the Good News of salvation in Christ. Who are we to share the Good News with? "Every creature" certainly includes every single living person.
Christ instructs us to carry this out in in the context of our daily lives. The Greek word translated as go in this verse could be translated, "as you are going." We are a "going" group of people - we live busy lives. Today we will have many things that will demand our attention, and in the midst of that busyness, we can miss our purpose. God gives us the opportunity to meet people in order to share the gospel we know as your encounter people today, look for divine appointments.
We are commanded by our Lord to share the gospel with every living person. Faithfulness to Him means fulfilling His commandment. God's commission is very simple: as your go through each day, take advantage of opportunities to share the Good News of salvation in Christ with every person you encounter. Some people will be very hardened to the gospel, but there are others who will have a soft heart toward it. Sow seeds, and the Lord will honor you and His Word.
Lord, make my heart sensitive to the opportunities around me to share the gospel with others. May I not only see the opportunities but also have the courage to seize them. I pray that the demands and distrations of this day will not prevent me from doing that which is most important. May I be faithful to fulfill my responsibility to You. I pray that my eyes would see how precious each and every person I encounter is to You. In Your matchless name, Amen.
Thank you… Craig Bowers, Locust Grove, GA
Being Accountable
Being Accountable
Each of us shall give account of himself to God. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother’s way. Romans 14:12, 13
After my friend had major surgery, he went through physical therapy and conditioning to regain his strength and range of movement. He was fortunate to have a great trainer to work with him, who pushed him to achieve more then he thought possible. But on the very first day of training, he didn’t feel that way.
During the initial session, his trainer told him to do pull-ups. My friend said, “You want me to what?” He couldn’t believe his ears. He said, “You know I had surgery not too long ago, right? They cut right through the muscles in my back! Have you seen my scar? I don’t know if I can do this. It’s gonna hurt! Seriously, I don’t think I have the strength. How about curls instead of pull-ups?” His trainer responded with, “Pull up, and quit your whining.” And with that, my friend reached up and gripped the bar, prayed he wouldn’t cry in front of his workout partners, closed his eyes, and started his ascent. As his feet came off the ground, the trainer placed his shoulder under the back of my friend’s legs, pushing him up to achieve what he thought was impossible. His chin quickly passed over the bar again and again. The pain in his back was overwhelmed by the sense of accomplishment he felt inside. My friend recounts, “The unachievable became reality with the help of a friend; he shared his strength to increase mine.”
You are held accountable for the opportunities God provides for you to add your strength to someone else’s. What God has given you to share will be enough to help others achieve what they believe was impossible before you put your heart into their life. When you get the opportunity either to lift them up or help them down, consider sharing this message from Isaiah 40:29-31, “He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increase strength. Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
Lord, I humble myself before You and ask You to use me to serve and help someone else. Give me a spirit of love and concern. Father, I ask You to hold me accountable to what You have called me to be and to do. Use me for Your honor and glory. Amen.
Alex Himaya, Broken Arrow, OK
Proverbs 11:9 NCV
With words an evil person can destroy a neighbor, but a good person will escape by being smart.
Romans 14:1-23
1 Accept those whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. 2 One person’s faith allows them to eat everything, but another person, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3 The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted that person. 4 Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master they stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.
5 Some consider one day more sacred than another; others consider every day alike. Everyone should be fully convinced in their own mind. 6 Those who regard one day as special do so to the Lord. Those who eat meat do so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and those who abstain do so to the Lord and give thanks to God. 7 For we do not live to ourselves alone and we do not die to ourselves alone. 8 If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. 9 For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.
10 You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat your brother or sister with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. 11 It is written: “ ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.’ ”
12 So then, we will all give an account of ourselves to God.
13 Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister. 14 I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean. 15 If your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother or sister for whom Christ died. 16 Therefore do not let what you know is good be spoken of as evil. 17 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, 18 because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval.
19 Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. 20 Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. 21 It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall.
22 So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed are those who do not condemn themselves by what they approve. 23 But those who have doubts are condemned if they eat, because their eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.
Soul Detox
Really great plan that I completed via YouVersion Bible on my iPhone. Loved the message and the ease of being able to read the verses and the devotions daily right on my phone. Loved it.
Looking Around
Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”
Galatians 4:6
Watched the 2nd week of The Comparison Trap - http://www.northpoint.org/messages/comparison-trap
Genesis 39:1-23
1 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there.
2 The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. 5 From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. 6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate. Now Joseph was well-built and handsome,
7 and after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!”
8 But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. 9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” 10 And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.
11 One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. 12 She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.
13 When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, 14 she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. 15 When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”
16 She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. 17 Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. 18 But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”
19 When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger. 20 Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined. But while Joseph was there in the prison,
21 the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. 22 So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. 23 The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.
Matthew 16:21-28
Matthew 16 shows us that one way to manage toxic relationships is to set healthy boundaries in the way Jesus did with Peter. You might need to tell that person that you won't let them talk to you or treat you in a toxic way, or you may simply need to tell them that you are just not going to go to a toxic place in your relationship with them.
21 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for you to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul? Or what can you give in exchange for your soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward everyone according to what they have done.
28 “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
1 John 3:1-24
There are three common types of toxic relationships: negative, controlling, and the tempters. Chances are you have experienced all three of these toxic relationships in your life. Chances are that you have been toxic to someone else in one of these three ways. Do as God's Word says and don't let yourself be deceived and led astray by toxic relationships. More importantly, don't be toxic to others because you will lead them astray.
1 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
4 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. 5 But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. 6 No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
7 Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8 The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. 9 Those who are born of God will not continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. 10 This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Those who do not do what is right are not God’s children; nor are those who do not love their brothers and sisters.
11 For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15 Anyone who hates a fellow believer is a murderer, and you know that no murderers have eternal life in them.
16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for one another. 17 If any one of you has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in you? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
19 This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: 20 If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24 Those who keep his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
1 Corinthians 15:33, 34
"Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.” Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God—I say this to your shame."
2 Timothy 2:14-26
The right people will build you up and lead you towards Christ, but if you are around the wrong people they can be very toxic. They can hurt your soul. They can hurt your relationships. They can lead you into temptation. They can drag you down. They can very easily take you away from God's best.
14 Keep reminding God’s people of these things. Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen. 15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. 16 Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly. 17 Their teaching will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, 18 who have departed from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some. 19 Nevertheless, God’s solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.”
20 In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for disposal of refuse. 21 Those who cleanse themselves from the latter will be instruments for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.
22 Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. 23 Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. 24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. 25 Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.
Psalm 24:1-6
1 The earth is the Lord ’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it;
2 for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters.
3 Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place?
4 Those who have clean hands and a pure heart, who do not put their trust in an idol or swear by a false god.
5 They will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God their Savior.
6 Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face, God of Jacob. ,
