Month: October 2023

When I was first saved years ago, I had no idea what it meant to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. I thought being a Christian meant that I would go to church, pray over meals, listen to the right music, and have fellowship with other Christians. I tried to copy other people who I thought were “good” Christians. To the point that I was even saying what they were saying. I didn’t realize that Jesus wanted it me to know him. Not just know who he was, or is, or will be. But to really know him. Did you go through this? Are you now? You’re not alone if so.

As our walks in our faith progress, we begin to learn  more that our foundation should be built on Jesus.  I don’t just mean the foundation of our faith. I’m talking about the foundations of our lives. Our entire lives. Everything we stand for. Everything we work for. Everything we live for. Everything! When we strive to get to that point, our mission switches from one of self desire to one of serving Jesus. Serving Jesus by serving others.

Our Lord and Savior is the perfect example of what serving others looks like. If you want to be like anyone, it should be Jesus. I love the story about the final night. The night that he bent down to wash feet. Oh what a lesson he was teaching. To truly serve others, we must lower ourselves below them. We must be humble enough to lift them above us. He didn’t wash feet, to simply wash feet. He lowered himself, lifting them up, all with the purpose of teaching them how to truly serve other people. All the while, knowing that tremendous suffering was coming his way. Wow! Let’s copy that. Let’s lower ourselves and lift others up. Through love. And let’s all remember this, God loves us. Always has. Always will.

What is your daily mission? When you wake up, what is your purpose? Where are you going in life? When you are a Christian, Jesus should be your focus and your passion. So each day, your mission and purpose should be to serve him. No matter what it is you do in life. Serving him should be the focus.

God has equipped you with the tools and talents to fulfill your mission. He will show you what it is if you let him. If you ask him. If you pray to him seeking wisdom. He will show you.  If you don’t let God direct you, you will not have a clear sense of what it is you are called to do. Maybe it’s time to use the blessings you have received to better serve others. If you do, think of the testimony that you will have. 

You might question what blessings you have. I think if you look around, you will see them. Doesn’t have to be money. Doesn’t have to be a big house or lots of toys. Your blessings may include those. And that’s fine. But your blessings may also be recovering from an illness. Having a loving family. Overcoming some type of struggles. Addiction. Anxiety. Depression. Etc. We all have different types of blessings if we truly look for them. Then we can turn those into our mission to serve others. Our testimony may be exactly what someone needs to hear or see. Maybe exactly what shows them who Jesus is. May be exactly what leads them to salvation. How awesome would that be! So ask, “What is your mission?”

Today’s devotion is challenging. Maybe even a little convicting. Or a lot convicting. It’s very fitting since we just had a Bible study. Part of it was talking about us becoming dull. Talking about us not growing in our faith. And that’s not good. But here we go. We have faith. We are believers. We pray. We go to church. We sing praise music. We bless our meals. And more. But, when was the last time you did something out of your comfort zone? 

Is there someone that you know that does not know Jesus? I’m sure there is. Probably a family member. Or a close friend. Maybe someone you work with. When was the last time you talked with someone about God? About salvation? Have you ever prayed over someone? Or has it been a while?

I’m sure you get where I’m going with us. But we are called to make disciples. We were saved out of faith. And it doesn’t stop there. Now…it’s our job to share the love of Jesus with others. I’m not saying you need to go stand on the corner and preach. I’m not saying you need to go door-to-door and preach. What I am saying is, find what fits you. Share scripture. Start a Bible study at work. Or maybe a prayer group. Play praise music in the background. Post on social media. Ask God to show you a way to serve others. You can find something. You can be the vessel to show the light to others that don’t know him. You might be the person who can lead someone to salvation. Think of that family member. That friend. That coworker. That person who doesn’t know Jesus. Let’s remember this as well: Sharing Jesus with others, helps keep us from becoming dull. Sharing Jesus with others might be what lights their fires. How awesome would that be!

Ever catch yourself just going, going, going? Moving from one thing to the next without even thinking about it? Just doing it? Sometimes our lives get so busy, we can feel like we’re not doing something correctly if we’re not busy. We can be so caught up in what we are doing, we forget “why” we are doing it. And in this world, that’s easy to do. With our families, jobs, children sports, church, etc., etc., etc. At the end of the day, we remember what we did. But have totally forgotten what the goal or purpose was. Is this you? Does this sound familiar? Fear not! You are not alone.

Maybe it’s time for us to intentionally carve out parts of our day to be with God. To be in his presence. To take time and deliberately be still if only for a few moments. Our relationship with him should be priority one. It should be our main focus. It’s easy to lose sight of that in this busy world. But that’s the truth. It should be our focus. When it is, then we will realize and understand the purpose of why we are doing what we are doing. We will keep our eyes on the end goal. Not on the process alone.

If we’re honest with ourselves, we know that we can find a spot for Jesus in everything that we are doing. Whatever it is that has our attention throughout the day, there is room for him. It may take us the time to try to pinpoint it. But it’s there. There’s always room for him. Actually, it should be the other way around. We should find a way to put “what” we are doing into what God has planned for us. Therefore we keep him the focus. We can find the rest we need. We can be recharged in his presence. Then we can move forward, doing his work, serving others, all the while having Jesus lead us. And that is awesome.

Sometimes the truth hurts. Have you ever heard that before? I know I have. And, sometimes the truth has hurt. For sure. Especially when it’s had me rethink how I have done things. Or when I found out the hard way that I was wrong. Either way, although I didn’t like hearing it, it was good for me to be held accountable. It’s good for us all.

As we go through this life, we are going to make mistakes. Sometimes our best efforts still result in making mistakes. Success does not come easily all the time. Sometimes at all. I’m a firm believer that we can learn from our mistakes. That we can learn from our “failures”. That we can learn from being held accountable by those around us who love us. And if we do learn from them, we can become stronger. Sharper! Iron sharpens iron! 

Whenever a dull blade is sharpened, not only is it more sharp, it is shiny and beautiful. And whenever someone tries to sharpen us, it might hurt some, but we will also become more beautiful. We will shine. Like a transformation. We can be transformed for Christ. We can be more sharp for Christ. Therefore, we can better serve others for Christ. But that requires us to open our hearts to the accountability that others hold us to. And that will help us make our hearts pure. And that is awesome!

Recently, one of our board members/volunteers has given the message at a couple of our events. This is definitely something out of his comfort zone. But God was telling him to do this. And if God is convicting you of something, he’s not going to quit until you do it. So Brandon prayed over what he was going to say. And he did it. We could tell he was a little bit anxious and nervous. But regardless, what he had to say was spot on because it came right out of the Bible. He quoted many verses. With the whole point of his message being that we can overcome fear if we have Jesus in our life. That we can overcome anything if we have Jesus in our life. Sometimes the ending is not what we hope or wish for. But we can get through it, with Jesus in our life. 

As he was talking, we mentioned that all the answers to life’s questions are in the Bible. Because the Bible is the Word of God. And the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit. Have you ever been struggling with something and opened up the Bible right to a verse that speaks to you? Or how about reading a parable or a Bible story that has motivated you to do something? 

The Bible is not simply a collection of people’s thoughts. It is our template to life. It has instructed people for hundreds and hundreds of years. It gives us the tools we need to live according to God‘s will. A simple way of looking at it is this: the Bible is the instruction manual to our lives. As we read it more, we realize that God‘s word is alive. But to hear him, we must first turn our hearts and our minds to God. We must accept him into our hearts. Remember he loves you. He knows your thoughts. He longs for you to love him and experience what he has for you. The Bible will direct you. But you must first call on Jesus, our Lord and Savior, and let him lead you. And if you do this, I can promise you…you will feel the peace like never before. A love like never before. A hope like never before.

This time of year, many of those that I know, including myself, head out early in the mornings to deer blinds. To try to get set up before the deer start to move for the day. There’s a Bible verse that is very fitting for what we are talking about here. John 1:5 says, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.” And I find that very fitting due to the blind being pitch black before the sun comes up. Very dark.

As the morning is going to come alive, the light from the sun is going to brighten the area that we are hunting. Makes me think about this, Jesus is the light in our lives. And that includes in times of darkness in our lives. No matter how hard things are, how difficult things become, how “dark” our lives become, Jesus is there. The love that he has for us, brings a light into our lives that no darkness can black out. 

What he brings to our lives is a light and love that we will never comprehend. It is beyond our comprehension. What he brings into our lives is a peace and hope that we will never comprehend. It’s beyond our comprehension. What he brings into our lives is a promise for eternity that we will only be able to understand until we get there. It’s beyond our comprehension on here on earth. So no matter how dark things become, his light will prevail. It cannot be extinguished by outside forces. No matter how hard things become, his peace will prevail. His love will prevail. Because once he is in us, he will stay as long as we allow him. It’s up to us to ask him in. When we do that, he’ll be on our hearts forever.

In the Bible we read, “God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God.” What does that mean about they will see God? Does that mean at the moment that their hearts are pure? Does that mean when they move on to heaven? What does it mean? Such a great question. Actually, such great questions. And here’s my answer: I don’t know.

What I do know is this. God blesses us every day. Every single day! When you wake up, you are blessed. When you step out into the creation, you are blessed. Eating. Breathing. Talking with others. Going to work. Having children or grandchildren. The list goes on, and on, and on. He blesses us: Every! Single! Day! 

He does so because he loves us. Not because we deserve it. No way. We don’t deserve anything. We especially don’t deserve the fact that Jesus died for us on the cross. None of us deserve that. We can’t even earn it. That sacrifice was made because he loves us. But in order to see him, we need to have pure hearts. To be in his presence, we need to have pure hearts. Maybe it’s time to take a moment and pray to God. Let him know your thoughts. Let him know your struggles. Let him know what you are going through. And ask him to make your heart pure. And he will. Being saved is the key to eternity. And maybe, just maybe, being saved means you need to have a pure heart. I know you will struggle with that. I do too. But I do not struggle with knowing that our Lord and Savior loves us. And he wants us to see him. And for that I am thankful.

Many of us plan our days well in advance. We plan what we’re doing on certain nights of the week several weeks ahead of when they happen. We wake up each day knowing what the schedule looks like. Knowing where we are going. When we are going. What we are doing when we get there. Any change to the routine or the schedule can throw us into a whirlwind. Can really send our emotions spiraling out of control. Which is a bad thing for those of us who love to be in control. Please let me explain. 

Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with a schedule. There’s nothing wrong with having plans in place. Not at all. I stated earlier, humans love to be in control. We love plan our lives in detail. But the pressure to plan everything perfectly can lead to anxiety. Because our lives can bring havoc and confuse our plans. One moment you think you have it all neatly arranged, and a moment later, it is all up in the air. Your plans have changed. But no matter what happens, there is a constant that never changes. That is God. 

We can trust that he will always be there. Always be the same. Never wavering. And always ready to welcome us in. We can place our lives, including our daily lives, in his hands. If we allow him to, God will accomplish his goals in our lives. He will do with us as he sees fits. And that is fine, because he knows what is best for us. Sometimes the end result is not what we think it’s going to be. Sometimes the end result is not what we hoped. But that is fine. Let’s remember this: God knows what you want. God knows what you need. Sometimes what he gives us is a lot. Sometimes what he gives us is a little. But no matter what, whatever he gives us will always be enough. And it will always be what we need.