Category: Joy

Let No Wedge Come Between Us

On By Ed AlgreenIn Hope, Joy, LoveLeave a comment

THE HOLY BIBLE (The Message – Romans 8:31-35): So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture

THOUGHTS: I believe that it is clear in God’s Word that His children, you and I, are very special in His eyes, and that there is nothing that He wouldn’t do to prove His love for us! His protection over us, and His desire to see us succeed in every way, is beyond compare and serves to help us in overcoming life’s challenges as we head towards the prize – eternal life in the presence of the Master! I found the words chosen in about verse 34 very interesting, and eye-opening, as the Word declares that no one will be able to place a wedge between the love Christ has for us! Isn’t it almost ‘a stab in the back’ for us with the Word declaring that we will fail, but there is nothing that can interfere with the love that Jesus declares for us! It is sad to acknowledge that we are so capable of failing, but praise God we are reassured from His Word that in Christ we can do all things, and that there is nothing that He can’t do for us when we ask Him, in faith, believing in His powerful name. So friends, I believe it is incumbent upon us to acknowledge our weaknesses, and for those of us who know Jesus as Lord, we are to surrender to His authority, and accept His help to overcome life’s obstacles and obstructions that tend to interfere and/or weaken our walk with the Lord. It is proven that He can help us, and see us through our worldly desires and fleshly mistakes. We just have to be humble enough to ask for His guidance and His help. We are the weakest link in our love relationship with Christ, but under His authority and awesome power, we can do all things. Let’s be willing to surrender ourselves to Him friend. Let’s tighten up that weakest link with the power of the Almighty God! Perhaps then we can conclude the verse above by not only agreeing that God will prevent a wedge from being placed between His relationship with us, but also assured that the weakness we have surrendered to Him will be buttoned up and secured in our relationship with Him also!

PRAYER: Dear Father, I come before You ashamedly, knowing full well that there is so much in this old world that distracts my walk with You and subsequently affects my love for You. I am super excited to acknowledge Your everlasting love for me and Your assurance that nothing will ever affect that awesome love that You have for me. Based on promises in Your Word, which I know that You cannot break, I now can confidently place my faith and trust in You, believing that You will hear my cry for help in maintaining my love for You also, so that that nothing will divide or interfere with that precious love I have for You. In this life we face many disappointments, and often broken promises will serve to break our joy and our trust in fellow humans. What an encouragement and a joy to know that You, dear Jesus, are constant, and always sincere in what You have promised and in all that You deliver. Thank You for being my Joy, my Peace and my everlasting King! Please reassure my readers with this same reminder today so that they might rise above the fears and disappointments of this world, and look forward to the joy in the life that follows with You! I ask this in the wonderful name of Jesus, AMEN!

 

FOOTNOTE: If you have been challenged to make a decision today after reading this devotional, please speak with a local Bible Teaching pastor, or read through Biblical truths on How To Know Jesus, or contact me at NuggetsFromGodsWord@outlook.com so that we can pray with you and give you help and or encouragement as you begin, or continue your walk with Jesus. Any words underlined above will indicate a link to a song that came to mind as I wrote the devotional. Feel free to click on the link and listen as you continue to read or pray. If this devotional was forwarded to you and you would like to see more, please go to blogger.nuggetsfromgodsword.org and read more, or you may freely subscribe for a daily email conveniently containing each day’s devotional. If you are anywhere near the Highlands County, Florida area and do not have a church home, I would be thrilled to welcome you at Bible Fellowship Church, Sebring, FL! Click the link to check out service times and/or other special activities. God is at work among us! Please consider coming to worship with us!

Business as Usual Won’t Cut It

On By Ed AlgreenIn Forgiveness, Joy, SalvationLeave a comment

THE HOLY BIBLE (The Message – Hebrews 7:11-19): 11-14
If the priesthood of Levi and Aaron, which provided the framework for the giving of the law, could really make people perfect, there wouldn’t have been need for a new priesthood like that of Melchizedek. But since it didn’t get the job done, there was a change of priesthood, which brought with it a radical new kind of law. There is no way of understanding this in terms of the old Levitical priesthood, which is why there is nothing in Jesus’ family tree connecting him with that priestly line.

15–19 But the Melchizedek story provides a perfect analogy: Jesus, a priest like Melchizedek, not by genealogical descent but by the sheer force of resurrection life—he lives!—”priest forever in the royal order of Melchizedek.” The former way of doing things, a system of commandments that never worked out the way it was supposed to, was set aside; the law brought nothing to maturity. Another way—Jesus!—a way that does work, that brings us right into the presence of God, is put in its place.

THOUGHTS: This appears to be a complex passage for a layperson to try and explain to anyone, or give you the theological meaning of, so I won’t try to do that!! However, I am a firm believer that God’s Word is in place for us to meditate on and allow God’s Holy Spirit to minister to our hearts so that we may be drawn to a closer relationship with the Father. Here’s how this impacted me: I was reminded recently that to understand a passage, try and picture the audience for whom it was written, the time in which it was written and by whom it was written. So for a brief moment, let’s think about the audience, a people who had been used to the leadership of Levitical priests. Then came this new priesthood of Melchizedek, who was radically different to anything the people were used to – a perfect analogy of the ‘priesthood’ of Jesus Christ, the One known as our great High Priest; our spiritual leader; our mediator with God the Father! I believe that God prompted me to share that we must be careful about allowing anything or anyone to be our sole leadership spiritually. Not the church – no matter how much we love our church; and not the pastor/priest/bishop/etc – no matter how much we respect and love them. For, although we should take the teachings of the church and our leaders to heart, what really matters is our personal relationship with the Son of God – Jesus Christ. To have a relationship with Jesus, we must go before Him in reverence and fear, Admit that we have sinned and desperately need a Savior; Believe that Jesus is God’s Son and only He who can forgive us of our sin; and Confess that we can do nothing to save ourselves, short of accepting Him as Lord and Savior. Yes, confess our unworthiness, but seek after His righteousness. Friends, we are told in God’s Word, that no tradition taught by our ancestors could facilitate our righteousness or relationship with Jesus Christ, it is only through us personally Admitting; Believing and Confessing of our sins that we totally surrender ourselves to the lordship of Jesus Christ. Yes, this may be very radical for some who have followed various traditions over the years, like the Israelites did with the Levitical priests, but let me challenge you to examine the Word of God and validate this for yourself, then take the appropriate action to sure up your eternal salvation. Jesus loves us dearly, sacrificially and wholeheartedly. There is nothing greater He would desire of us than to know that we have accepted His great love for us. Do it today friend, before it is eternally too late.

PRAYER: Thank You Fathpossibility for us. As with the Levitical priests back in the day, and with our various denominational beliefs and practices today, they attract us to follow their various twists on what they understand from Your Word, however You clearly made a way for us to come straight to the source – the only Biblical way for us to be saved from our own sinful selves. Thank You for Jesus. Thank You for the cross, but thank You even more that Jesus arose – an expression of the true life that we have in You when we become one with You. Please help us to be a people of the Book, so that we may be led to be servants of Your Son Jesus, who will lead us to all Truth with lives pleasing to You in every way. Our churches and our pastors/leaders are excellent resources for us to grow in our relationship with You, but continue to impress upon us that our true strength comes from You, and it’s You that we should live for every day of our lives. Thank You Father, and I ask that You hear my cry, increase my joy, and answer all my requests today so that I and my readers may be drawn closer to You now, and throughout eternity! AMEN!

 

FOOTNOTE: If you have been challenged to make a decision today after reading this devotional, please speak with a local Bible Teaching pastor, or contact me at NuggetsFromGodsWord@outlook.com so that we can pray with you and give you help and or encouragement as you begin, or continue your walk with Jesus. Any words underlined above will indicate a link to a song that came to mind as I wrote the devotional. Feel free to click on the link and listen as you continue to read or pray. If this devotional was forwarded to you and you would like to see more, please go to blogger.nuggetsfromgodsword.org and read more, or you may freely subscribe for a daily email conveniently containing each day’s devotional. If you are anywhere near the Highlands County, Florida area and do not have a church home, I would be thrilled to welcome you at Bible Fellowship Church, Sebring, FL! Click the link to check out service times and/or other special activities. God is at work among us! Please consider coming to worship with us!

Live In Constant Joy!

On By Ed AlgreenIn Joy, Thanksgiving2 Comments

The Holy Bible  (The Message – 1 Thessalonians 5:16-22): 16–18 Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live. 19–22 Don’t suppress the Spirit, and don’t stifle those who have a word from the Master. On the other hand, don’t be gullible. Check out everything, and keep only what’s good. Throw out anything tainted with evil.

Thoughts:  I know that the subject sounds inviting, but I want us to be reminded that ‘Joy’ results from a happy heart – a heart filled with love for the Lord and from a heart stayed on constant prayer before the Master of this universe. This scripture reminds us to thank God in ALL things, I believe that this will result in an everlasting ‘Joy’ to bless us every day. Friends, I want to encourage you to always find something to thank God for. You may have a broken arm, but praise to the Almighty, you have a healthy arm to enjoy and help you through your day! Just last night I heard a brother praise God for allowing him to serve in the military many years ago. In spite of many who may have been hurt through their service, he was able to find reasons to praise God for his time in the service. May I encourage you to find reasons to praise God every day? Please let there be a word of praise always present on your lips and in your heart, that you are ready to praise God for, and bless another person with! I found it interesting to also note Paul’s explanation that showing a heart of thanksgiving is actually a responsibility of the Christian, in other words, it pleases God! Paul went on to remind us that we are not to quench, or suppress the Holy Spirit. Friends let’s think of the Holy Spirit as being a fire that burns. Paul is telling us to be careful not to throw cold water on that fire. The work of God, and His Holy Spirit is of utmost importance in the life of a Christian. When we feel Him tugging at us to do a certain work, or teach a certain class, or give witness to a certain work that the Spirit has performed in our lives, we wind up quenching the Spirit if we don’t follow through with what we felt He was leading us to do. Now for those of us who are very gullible, Paul teaches that we test and examine what we believe that the Spirit is instructing us to do. My advice is to: 1). Test it against the Word of God. For if it is Biblical, then you can be assured that it is God’s will; 2). If another believer (proven to be genuine over time) shares with you something similar to what you felt God leading you to do, then I believe that God is reaffirming His word to you; and 3). If confirmation comes through a sermon, or a Bible reading, then I believe that this is another indicator from God to reaffirm His word to you. Paul teaches that we are to act on the proven, and throw out the rest. Friends, as we witness God at work in our lives, we can be filled with the joy of the Lord to a degree that others will also be blessed by our words and by our actions, all for the glory of the only Master – Jesus our Lord!

Prayer:  Heavenly Father, our eternal Joy and Peace, my heart is filled to overflowing, knowing that in spite of my inadequacies and failures, yet the King of all kings loves me enough to bless me with pure, unadulterated love and joy! I am eternally thankful for this! I pray that as You bless me with these qualities, that I will be a conduit for others to receive that same joy, and that they will search for a closer walk with You. For my family and friends that do not know You, I pray that this everlasting joy in me will be so evident to them that they will have a deep desire to know my Savior. Please use this devotional to bless the hearts of those who struggle to find joy every day, for I believe that it becomes extremely challenging for a non-believer to see Jesus in the life of one who claims Him, but displays no evidence of the joy that relationship brings. Bless us today in ways that will force us to rejoice in You, and express that joy to others who need it! I ask all this in the precious and holy name of Jesus, my Lord, with thanksgiving, AMEN!

FOOTNOTE:  If you have been challenged to make a decision today after reading this devotional, please speak with a local Bible Teaching pastor, or contact me at NuggetsFromGodsWord@outlook.com so that we can pray with you and give you help and or encouragement as you begin, or continue your walk with Jesus. Any words underlined above will indicate a link to a song that came to mind as I wrote the devotional. Feel free to click on the link and listen as you continue to read or pray. If this devotional was forwarded to you and you would like to see more, please go to blogger.nuggetsfromgodsword.org and read more, or you may freely subscribe for a daily email conveniently containing each day’s devotional. If you are anywhere near the Highlands County, Florida area and do not have a church home, I would be thrilled to welcome you at Bible Fellowship Church, Sebring, FL! Click the link to check out service times and/or other special activities. God is at work among us! Please consider coming to worship with us!