Lukewarm Christianity is like a very limp handshake…it’s there, but not very effective. The Lord has some harsh words about lukewarm Christians…He’d rather have us totally cold towards the Gospel, than to ruin it with our mediocrity. Sometimes it just takes remembering our first love, to reignite that zeal and spiritual fervor we once had to serve Him.
Category: Daily Inspirational Devotional
Esther 4:14 ” And who knows but that you have come to Royal position for such a time as this? “
Queen Esther was exactly where God wanted her to be, at exactly the right time, to save the entire Jewish nation. We never know when the Lord will place us in just the right spot to serve Him…even sometimes being totally oblivious to the fact that He is using us at all… until much later. But the point to remember is that God will accomplish His purpose on His terms, not ours…and He will and can use anything, and any person to do it.
Acts 15:11 “No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved just as they are.”
The most wondrous thing about coming to Jesus is that we don’t have to do anything but accept His unearned and unmerited grace. We don’t have to get to a certain point of “goodness” in our lives, or do a certain amount of “good works” before He’ll accept us…No, rather, as the old familiar hymn goes, “Just as I am, I come.” It is truly by grace we have been saved…the only thing we have to do is say…Yes.
I Samuel 15:22 ” But Samuel replied: ‘Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice and to heed is better than the fat of rams.’ “
The Old Testament Prophet Samuel had told King Saul that God wanted the Israelites to go to battle against the Amalekites and completely destroy and annihilate them and everything they owned…but Saul and his men disobeyed and brought back the best livestock, which Saul tried to justify, by saying they were going to “sacrifice them to the Lord”. God’s reasoning behind the total destruction of a people group and everything they owned was, first… obedience, and secondly, to remove the lure towards idolatry by decimating the source. What the Lord wants more than anything from us is a relationship with Him…not a religious act.
Hebrews 1:3 ” The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful Word.”
Another beautiful word for radiance is effulgence…God’s splendor was emitted through Jesus, showing us a perfect expression of God’s Divine essence. In John this is spoken about…Jesus said, “Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father.” And John wrote, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The Lord came to uphold all things by the strength of His spoken Word. Jesus was fully divine…and fully human, giving us just a glimpse at what our Heavenly Father was like.
Proverbs 21:9 ” Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.”
Elsewhere in Proverbs it’s written, ” The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.” Constant angry nagging, strife and conscientiousness will wear anyone down to the point they just need some peace and quiet…and maybe the writer of this Proverb found it on the roof! But it doesn’t say much for the wife left down below to simmer in her wrath. And it surely doesn’t say much about the home-life for children who have to grown up in that type of toxic environment.
Numbers 22:23 ” When the donkey saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the road with a drawn sword in His hand , she turned off the road into a field.”
Balaam was a Pagan Prophet, whose name meant devourer or glutton, who God chose to use. As he traveled on donkey-back, three times the Angel of the Lord stood in the middle of the road with a drawn sword, and three times his trusty little donkey turned away from the oncoming danger…and each time Balaam beat her for what he perceived was misbehavior. It wasn’t until she just lay down in the road that Balaam went berserk, beating her with his staff. At that moment, the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth and she spoke, reminding him that she had never behaved like this before…and then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he finally saw what she had been protecting him from all along. The Angel of the Lord said to Balaam, “If she had not turned away, I would have certainly killed you by now, but I would have spared her.” It’s hilarious to think that the little donkey was far more righteous than Balaam in God’s eyes!
Exodus 20: 17 ” You shall not covet.”
The final Commandment talks about covetousness…the excessive, uncontrolled, and selfish desire or greed for something. When we covet something or someone it’s usually forbidden or unrighteous in God’s eyes…and we have forsaken Him to satisfy our desires. Jesus spoke of this in Luke 12:15 when He said, ” Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” In other words, we need to be content with what we have…not in what we think we must have.
Exodus 20: 16 ” You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.”
The ninth Commandment deals with slander…giving a false statement maliciously that damages a person’s reputation. But this Commandment can also include something as insidious as a simple bit of gossip that gets out of hand and smears someone’s good name and reputation in the process. The Lord would want all our dealings with friends and associates to be above-board and without fabrication. Rebuilding a reputation after it’s been maligned falsely is sometimes almost an impossible task.
Exodus 20:15 “You shall not steal.”
The eighth Commandment states that we must not dishonestly take another person’s property without right or permission. There are many variations when it comes to stealing…from swindling, to embezzling, misappropriating, extorting, or defrauding. But stealing can also be as simple as using office supplies at work for personal use, or shoplifting an item in a store. One of the biggest reasons someone will take something that doesn’t belong to them is that they justify and rationalize that they deserve it, or that it won’t be missed, or that the company owes them. But making up excuses in our minds still won’t change the fact that we’re stealing.
Safetypinlove 