Ponder the Path

Devotion:  Proverbs 4:25-27

What trips you up?  What makes you fall?  Literally?  Physically?  Metaphorically?  Uneven ground?  Slick sidewalks?  Misshapen stairwells?  Holding too many things in your hands, blocking your view of the path?

I began to ponder the things that cause me to trip.  Recently, I tripped twice coming down the same step.  What?  I had nothing in my hand.  I was holding onto the railing.  Was it the rain boots I was wearing?  It was truly weird.

I was looking straight ahead; however, the third step from the bottom got me both times.  At least I caught myself so I did not fall headlong into the people in front of me.

These verses are referring to the path of our feet.  “God knows the way that we will take.”  Our enemy cannot have our souls, however, if we allow him, he will try his best to trip us up.  He will come to you at your weakest moment trying to make you fall.

Jeremiah 6:16 tells us to find the old paths, the ancient paths, referring to the ones the heroes of the faith and even our Lord walked upon.  How can we find those paths?  By getting into God’s Word and studying it, pouring into it, asking Him, is this the way I should take?

The Bible promises; “If we seek Him, He will let us find Him when we search for Him with our whole heart.”  What is blocking your view of the path God has ordained for you?  Is it sins of omission or commission?  Are you harboring bitterness and anger in your heart?  Ask God to search you and know your heart and see if there is any wicked way in you, to create in you a clean heart and renew a right spirit within you.  He delights to walk with you and talk with you.

As you ponder the path you will take, seek the Lord while He may be found.  Call upon Him while He is near.  Listen for His voice.  Speak Lord, for your servant, is listening.

Prayer in Motion:

Oh God, speak to my heart Lord Jesus.  Speak that my soul may hear.  I long to hear and obey Your voice above all others.  Teach me Your ways.  As I ponder the path You have ordained for me; may I take the one You have chosen for me.  In Jesus Name.  Amen.

 

Shall I Fast and Pray?

Devotion:  Matthew 17:15-21

There are many ways to fast so one can concentrate on prayer.  Daniel fasted food.  Esther fasted food.  Jesus and His disciples fasted food when they were in deep prayer.

I found this article on CBN, (Christian Broadcasting Network)

“First, biblical fasting is going without food. The noun translated “fast” or “a fasting” is tsom in the Hebrew and nesteia in the Greek language. It means the voluntary abstinence from food. The literal Hebrew translation would be “not to eat.” The literal Greek means “no food.”

I know people who say they go without television or movies, and they call these “fasting” times. I’m not opposed to that definition of fasting-fasting does imply that we are giving up one thing in order to replace it with something else, and in the Bible sense, specifically to replace it with prayer. But in the main, I believe fasting has to do with our abstaining from food. Second, biblical fasting is linked with serious seasons of prayer. The more seriously we approach prayer and fasting, the more serious the results we will experience.

I sometimes hear people say, “I’m giving up chocolate” and they regard this as a type of fasting. I think this is a rather frivolous approach. The first and foremost purpose of a biblical or spiritual fast is to get a breakthrough on a particular matter that one lifts up to the Lord in prayer. A spiritual fast involves our hearts and the way in which we relate to and trust God. It relates to discerning and receiving strength to follow through on what God might reveal to us about circumstances in our lives or the direction we are to take.”

Will you consider fasting for at least a twenty-four hour period?  “Seek the Lord while He may be found.”  “Call upon Him while He is near.”  “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted.”   There are changes to be made in all of us that only come about by prayer and fasting.

The beginning of the year is a great time to seek God.  Seek His face.  Know His heart.  Invoke true change in our lives.  Fasting leads to all of these in a deeper, more intimate way.  I love to eat.  We all do.  Our bodies were made to eat but is there anything you for which you need to fast and pray?  Please open your heart and ask God; is there anything or any person for which I need to fast and pray?

Prayer in Motion:

Lord, speak to my heart about a true fast.  Speak that my soul may hear.  Calm every doubt and fear.  Yielded and still.  Seeking Thy will.  Oh, speak to my heart today.  In Jesus Name.  Amen.

 

Listening Closely

Devotion:  Isaiah 50:4

How do we listen more closely for the voice of the One we love?  If He is Emmanuel, God with us, then He is always there; “with us.”  Why would we not always be listening with the ear of a disciple?

He is in every breath that you take.  He is in every thought you think.  He is in every step you take.  He is there.  He is in all places at all times, watching and waiting for us to draw nigh to Him.  He promised if we will draw nigh to Him, He will draw nigh to us.

How do we increase our ability to hear Him?  We open up His precious Word.  He is the Word.  It breathes life into our prayers, our ability to listen and our ability to hear His sweet voice.  It brings conviction, repentance, forgiveness, and comfort all at the same time.  No one else, nothing else but the Living Word can accomplish all those things.

As long I live, I want to hear quickly and obey immediately all that my Jesus speaks.  I am certain that will increase our intimacy.  Just think, the quicker we respond to our Lord’s voice, the better we become at growing deeper intimacy with Him.  He then knows we will answer when He calls.  We can, in turn, know He will answer when we call unto Him.  He longs to show us “great and mighty things we know not of.”

Let’s make 2020 the year we are listening closely for our Savior’s voice.  It must be an intentional kind of listening.  Will you listen with greater expectations than ever before?

I pray you will share with many all the times you listened and heard God’s voice in 2020.

Prayer in Motion:

Lord Jesus, thank You for creating in me the desire to hear Your sweet voice above all others.  I want to have greater intimacy with You than ever before.  I love You Jesus!  Amen.

 

 

 

 

Close of the Year

Devotion:  1 Peter 4:7

The end of a year means the beginning of a new one.

I get a little reflective toward the close of every year, thinking back on all the past events, serious as well as funny.  Reflection is not a bad thing; however, we should never get stuck in it.  We just need to make sure we learn from whatever lesson God allowed was for our good and His glory.

My two sons, along with my grandchildren turned a year older.  I did not. Just kidding.  Each year seems to go by faster and faster.  January 1, 2020, is right around the corner.

I think “my one word” will carry over from 2019, “miracle.”  I do believe God still performs them.  I am trusting God to accomplish what concerns my friends who need healing as well as those who need salvation.  Our God who is the same yesterday, today and forever loves to increase our faith and He will work all things together for our good and His glory.

want to grow in my faith and I know you do as well.  As we seek His face, may we know His heart.  He longs to bring many things to pass that are impossible with man.  He wants to prove Himself to us over and over.

Trust, try and prove Me says the Lord our God.  You trusted God for many things in 2019.  For what will you trust Him with, in 2020?  You will be given many opportunities to grow in your faith and in the knowledge of your Lord Jesus Christ.

Prayer in Motion:

Lord Jesus, thank You for always teaching me and training me in righteousness.  I trust You to do great and mighty things I don’t even know of in 2020.  in Jesus name . Amen.

 

Case of Mistaken Identity

Devotion:  Romans 6:6-11

My husband and I are blessed to get to attend my son and daughter in law’s wonderful Italian Christmas Even party.  They have the most fun neighbors and friends whom we’ve grown to love and enjoy being with.

Ben is a full-blown diabetic but so enjoys Lindsey’s homemade baking endeavors and days of hard work.  The trouble is when he eats lots of carbs; He kinda goes into what I call a “sugar coma.”   He cannot help it.  He sits down and goes slap to sleep.

When I say people were laughing and having such a wonderful time, children were running in and out of adult legs.  It was a fun kind of noisy.  There my dear husband sat in a comfortable chair, head back and mouth wide open.  The noise was not bothering him one bit.

Little three-year-old Cora became mesmerized as she watched my husband sleeping.  Standing motionless Cora waited patiently for Ben to wake up.  Several of us women began to giggle and whether Cora’s stares or our laughter woke up this sleeping man I do not know.

Here’s the funny part; the moment Ben opened his eyes; little Cora began to rattle off her Christmas list.  She believed this was Santa taking a nap.  When Ben realized what she was doing; he began to play along with it.  He asked if she had been a good little girl.  He also asked; “Do you have a chimney, because I don’t believe I can fit through it?  She told him no; so he suggested that she leave the front door open. He also told her he preferred chocolate chip cookies with his milk.

It was truly a case of mistaken identity, but it certainly gave all of us including Ben a good laugh.

Has someone ever mistaken you for someone else?  Probably.  I must have a very familiar face.  This happens to me quite often. The most important thing is that people know for certain that you belong to God.

Do I act like a child of the Most High God?  Oh, how I want to display His character and love for others.  As believers, we do not wish to have a case of mistaken identity.

Prayer in Motion:

Lord, help my identity to be totally found in Christ.  In Jesus Name.  Amen.

The Days After Christmas

Devotion:  Luke 2:19-20

The day after Christmas, where are you?  Are you physically at home or visiting someone else’s home?  Are you out shopping for the best after Christmas deals?  Are you quickly tearing down all your Christmas decorations?  What are you doing the day after Christmas?

I went to pick up a couple of children’s books on Christmas Eve.  I looked a woman in the eyes and said Merry Christmas to her.  She said back to me; “I’ll just be glad when it’s over.”  So sad.

I’m guessing your cooking and baking have stopped. The frantic shopping has definitely stopped.  The oh no, I forgot to get him or her a gift has stopped.   When Christmas is over you can almost be overwhelmed with a major “let down feeling”.  What if we chose to be like Mary and ponder all the sweet times we had with our family and friends?  What if we pondered the real meaning of Christmas, our Savior’s birth?  Attitudes would be so much higher and brighter, not just wishing it to be over.

What if we did like the shepherds and began to glorify and praise God for all we saw and heard?  Wouldn’t that dispel the after Christmas blues?  It certainly would encourage our spirits versus discouraging them or bringing on depression.

How I pray we will ponder the joy of our Savior all year through.  May we remember why He came and ponder the fulfillment of the promise of God sending His only Son to die for us.

The day after our worldwide most celebrated holiday will we still be singing “Noel, Noel”?  Noel definitely has it’s root in Christianity.

1. Noël is “Christmas” in French. Joyeux Noël is French for “Merry Christmas.”

2. Noel can also mean good news, coming from the French phrase bonnes nouvelles (“good news”).

3. Noel can even mean birthday. The French noël comes from the Latin natalis, meaning birthday.

4. Finally, noel can also refer to a Christmas carol.

The best news for every person in the world is Christ is born!  The Savior of the World was born!  Let’s celebrate Him all the days after Christmas time.

Prayer in Motion:

Lord Jesus, thank You for all the days of our lives, before and after Christmas.  Each one is designed by You for us.  I am Your child, forever held in Your hands.  You will accomplish what concerns me even in the days after Christmas.  I love You Jesus!  Amen.

 

Glory to God in the Highest!

Devotion:  Luke 2:8-14

Our beloved Christmas story is found in these seven verses.  Seven is the number of completion.  Completion came for the world.  All the hope this world would ever need, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger.

This little Carpenter boy, fully God and fully man, born for you and for me.  Kings and shepherds traveled for days following one star created for the very purpose of finding the Christ child.  This star led royalty, as well as the lowest of the low, to find the Savior of the world.

Christ was born!  The Bible says: “He came unto His own and His own received Him not.”  Oh, what a Savior.  Isn’t He wonderful?  We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

The shepherds and the kings joined a heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the Highest…peace on earth, goodwill to men.”  How often do I practice this peace that surpasses all understanding?  Amazing love, how can it be?  He was born to die for me!

I know you, my dear reader must love Him so!  I also know you are eternally thankful for Him and are celebrating His birth on this day!  “Glory to God in the Highest!”  All of heaven rejoices and how I pray you and I will take a moment to lift our heads to see our redemption draw nigh.

Emmanuel, God is with us.  “Praise the Lord!  Praise the Lord!  Let the earth hear His voice.  Praise the Lord!  Praise the Lord!  Let the people rejoice!”  “Go tell it on the mountain.  Over the hills and everywhere.  Go tell it on the mountain, that Jesus Christ is born.”

                             Glory to God in the highest!

Prayer in Motion:

Lord Jesus, I glorify Your Name on earth today as it is glorified in heaven.  I worship You in Spirit and in truth!  You are so worthy to receive all glory and honor and blessing!  Praise Your Holy Name.  “Thank You, Lord, for saving my soul.  Thank You, Lord, for making me whole.  Thank You Lord for giving to me, Thy great salvation so rich and free.”  In Your precious Name, I offer up this prayer.  Amen.

Fall Short

Devotion:  Romans 3:23

On December 20, I invited a couple of young girls over to make a from-scratch gluten-free Ginger Bread House.   Maddie came in the back door saying she had the blues and this gingerbread house was a recipe for disaster.  Trying to keep a positive attitude, I said please don’t speak that over our gingerbread house.

We actually videotaped the whole fiasco.  The only salvation was this:  “We laughed a lot!  I had made soup and salad for us to eat before we started the merrymaking.  The dough tasted delicious!

Here was our downfall.  It was a recipe for GF ginger cookies.  The keyword is (cookies) not gingerbread house.  I’m naturally the oldest of this team of the women’s version of the three stooges.  Argh! I should have known better.

Ariana had to leave for a meeting right as we were beginning to construct our house.  It smelled good, tasted good.  The texture was just as the recipe had declared, hard on the outside with a soft chewy inside.  Great for cookies, not good for constructing a house.

Maddie put a layer of icing on our crystal pedestal cake plate.  First wall up.  My husband Ben had measured and drawn out the walls and roof so it would stand up. We cut around these forms placed on the rolled out cookie dough, with a knife, before we placed it in the oven.

Maddie stood up wall number one.  It almost saluted her.  The second wall grabbed onto the icing as if it were concrete.  We began to struggle about the third wall as it began to lean it.  So Maddie declared she had a light bulb moment.  At her suggestion; we got out my husband’s graham crackers to use as reinforcements.  In theory that was the solution.  We plastered them with icing and placed them inside the walls.  We added the third and fourth walls using our trusty icing for the corners.

Then we added the two halves of the roof and it stood up ….

                           …for about two minutes...

What?  We never even got to make our gingerbread house beautiful!  Boo Hoo!

I want to compare this with the plans of man and the plans of God. We have our human ideas and sometimes they line up with God’s and there are times they do not.   The Bible says we all sin and fall short of the glory of God.  No truer statement has ever been made.  This is why Jesus came into this world because He knew we all fall short of God’s glory.

So thankful God made a way.  We confess when we sin and we learn from our mistakes.  Next year we will make a gingerbread house with regular flour or hey, maybe we will buy a premade- gingerbread kit.

 Prayer in Motion:

Lord Jesus, I am forever grateful for the gift of life eternal in Christ.  When we fall short, headed toward collapse, You are there for us to accomplish what concerns us.  Thank You Lord Jesus.  It’s in His name I pray.  Amen.

 

So Glad We Say Merry Christmas

Devotion:  Isaiah 9:6

As I was shopping, I heard a store clerk say, I’m so glad we are free to say Merry Christmas.  Do you remember a year or so ago when store clerks were admonished to not say Merry Christmas rather say Happy Holidays, so as not to offend anyone?  Oh my goodness, how weird was that?

You can’t stop the Christ in Christmas.  Many have tried over the years since He was died and went to heaven but they could not.  Not then, not now.  Never can the Name of Christ be squelched.  His Name means life to the world.  He is Light and Hope to the most desperate of the desperate.

Jesus Christ is unstoppable.  His precious Holy Spirit is moving and acting on behalf of the saved and the unsaved as Christians spread the good news of the gospel.

I was thinking about Mary did she know or understand Who she carried in her womb?  She was so young.  She had said to the angel of the Lord, in Luke 1:38…”… Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.”

This precious young woman deemed worthy of carrying God’s Son under her heart, did not know what she would experience in the next thirty-three years.  So many hearts would be made merry from healings that would transpire.  So many transformations of broken lives restored.

Why in the world would we want to say Happy Holidays versus Merry Christmas?  So much done for us through this fully God and fully man Jesus Christ.

Prayer in Motion:

Lord Jesus, I just love You so much and thank You for the privilege to say Merry Christmas!  In Jesus Name.  Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

The Gift that Keeps on Giving

Devotion:  2 Corinthians 9:15

So many children across the world are so excited at Christmas time, for the gifts they will receive.  The closer December 25 comes, they have a hard time going to sleep.  Whatever they wanted, they are dreaming of having.

Other children know they only get empty stockings. If only someone would tell them about our Jesus.  His love never leaves us empty.  Our hearts are filled with His love and the gift of eternal life.

Have you shared with someone you didn’t know this year?  The person on the street corner, the missionary, a person in hospice or who has been diagnosed with cancer, anyone who is downcast and downtrodden?    Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

What Christ has given is beyond any gift we could give or receive.  We are unable to comprehend the height, the depth and the breadth of His great love for us.

Some families bring home an orphan for Christmas.  What a blessing for that child.  We are all orphans until we ask Jesus in our hearts.  The Bible calls us strangers and aliens in this world, forever lost until we confess we need a Savior.  Then we are grafted into His family.  What a gift God has given, the gift of eternal life.

A person can forever have Emmanuel, God with them, His presence over a present.  Who will I give this opportunity to receive the gift of eternal life?  Although it’s not wrapped in paper with a big red bow on top; it’s wrapped with eternal life which keeps on giving now and forever.

Prayer in Motion:

Lord Jesus, thank You for giving Yourself in place of my sin.  What a gift You have left me, Lord!  I shall never get over it as long as I shall live.  In Jesus Name.  Amen.