Category: Righteous

May Only The Sinless Accuse The Sinful

On By Ed AlgreenIn Acceptance, Righteous, Sin, SincereLeave a comment

THE HOLY BIBLE (New Living Translation – John 8:4-7): 4 “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?” 6 They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. 7 They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” 

THOUGHTS: We are so easy to ridicule others, but yet our own lives are so riddled with sin also. I believe that our pastors’ offices would be very manageable if they truly took the stand of Jesus and posted a sign on their doors that only those who have no sin are allowed in to talk about another member! What if we practiced that in our everyday lives? Don’t you suppose that there would be a whole lot less gossip among so called ‘Christians’? Friends, we can clearly see why Jesus taught this lesson. It totally agrees with everything else He taught about how to treat your Brother. For there were many lessons on love; good works; encouraging one another; lifting up one another; praying for one another. Don’t you know that for Jesus to have taught all these great and positive things, then to turn around and entertain such an accusation from individuals who were practicing sin themselves, would be a very strong contradiction? So is it any different with us today friends? Why do we entertain gossip, and worse still, why do we nod our heads in agreement when one is clearly putting down or accusing another of sin? I had a pastor who encouraged us to not even mention out loud the reason we were asking for prayer for another person, because often the prayer meetings would become a huge gossip center around all that’s wrong with another person. Our God knows way more about the needs of the individual than we could ever attempt to inform Him. Just mention the name, God knows the needs. Let us learn to care for one another and pray for them by name, while allowing God to meet all their needs. Let’s be sure to ask God’s forgiveness for our own shortcomings and sin so that we might come boldly before His throne in prayer. There’s a wonderful own hymn I love to sing “Cleanse Me Oh God and Know my Thoughts I pray, see if there be any wicked way in me”. May this be our prayer today I pray!

PRAYER: Father only You know how truly sinful we are. Yet we have the audacity to come before You with the sin of others. We pester our pastors with accusations about one another. Please Heavenly Father, touch the hearts and lives of Your children today and help us to be more like You in every way. We have a full-time job on our hands trying to keep ourselves in line with Your teachings and following in Your footsteps. Yes, I believe we should care enough to pray for our Brother and our Sister and the many things that beset them, but please help us to not be critical and accusing, but to lovingly pray for their welfare and to seek Your desire for their lives. Lord, may be be so busy about Your work, and have such a desire for the Godly attitudes of Your children that we will have no time to accuse others or point fingers to their shortcomings. I need You each and every hour of each and every day so that I might be more like You, dear God. Please touch the lives of my readers in a similar way, I pray. For I ask these things in the wonderful and precious name of Jesus, my Lord, 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!

Hindrances to Worship

On By Ed AlgreenIn Forgiven, Righteous, WorshipLeave a comment

THE HOLY BIBLE (Easy-To-Read Version – Hebrews 9:13-14): 13 The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a cow were sprinkled on those who were no longer pure enough to enter the place of worship. The blood and ashes made them pure again—but only their bodies. 14 So surely the blood sacrifice of Christ can do much more. Christ offered himself through the eternal Spirit as a perfect sacrifice to God. His blood will make us completely clean from the evil we have done. It will give us clear consciences so that we can worship the living God.

THOUGHTS: I believe that every Bible Teacher or Pastor’s wish would be, that their hearers are getting as much from a lesson as they received when they studied the lesson being taught. I also believe that every Worship Minister would love to know that the folk they are leading in a time of worship were participating from the deepest parts of their heart and receiving a blessing like they receive when leading us. Often we will go to our corporate worship services and while sometimes being totally blessed and pulled into the worship time through full participation, yet at other times we just attend but don’t feel a closeness to our Lord as we worship. These are the times we find fault with the person next to us or behind us, or with the worship leader, or perhaps the volume of the instrumentalists! But friend, if you especially read verse 14, you will notice that as long as we enter God’s house with stained consciences, there just may not be an opportunity for you to connect with God and His Holy Spirit that day. You might remember from God’s Word that God will not be present where sin abounds. I believe that another way of understanding verse 14 might be in the following way: “One cannot worship the Living God without a clear conscience” or unless one has already settled with God concerning their sin. There’s a worship song that has been around for a long time “There’s A Sweet, Sweet Spirit in this Place“. After reading verse 14, I’m not so sure that will even happen for us if we present ourselves for worship with sin in our life. Perhaps we should have a confession service first, then, perhaps, the Spirit of God might find clean hearts and consciences in which He is free to move and to bless. Let’s keep this in mind the next time that we attempt to worship God. Clean hearts will draw close to God, as it is the only way that He will draw close to you and I.

PRAYER: How dare us attempt to enter Your presence in sin, Oh God, especially thinking that we can block the hindrances (our sin) while we attempt to worship You. It’s not enough for us to conjure up a time of ‘worship’ Lord Jesus, for we want to be where You are, and we want to worship You in sincerity of heart, soul and mind. Please forgive us for attempting to worship You, the One who never sinned, yet with sin in our hearts. Please cleanse me of all unrighteousness, so that as I approach Your throne I can do so with a clear conscience and without sin. Please touch the hearts of my readers Lord, so that they too might be enlightened of any sin that not only separates them from You, but also blocks their true worship of You. Lord, may You rule and reign in every aspect of our lives and especially prepare us for frequent times of worship to You. I love you Lord, and I lift my voice and heart in worship to You alone. My prayer is offered in and through the name of Jesus, the only one worthy of my worship and praise, 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 www.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!

Obedience Results in Rewards

On By Ed AlgreenIn Forgiveness, Giving, Prayer, Rewards, RighteousLeave a comment

THE HOLY BIBLE (New Living Translation – Matthew 6:4; 6; 14-15; 17-18; 33): 4 Give your gifts in private, and your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.| 6 But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you. | 14 “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. 15 But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins. | 17 But when you fast, comb your hair and wash your face. 18 Then no one will notice that you are fasting, except your Father, who knows what you do in private. And your Father, who sees everything, will reward you. | 33 Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

THOUGHTS: I found a common theme in reading Matthew 6. God had some awesome teachings, and He emphasized, or stood behind His teaching so strongly that He added rewards after each area of His teachings. Beginning in verse 4, on the subject of Christian based giving, I believe that if I am led to give to a person in need, God uses me to respond to the prayers of that needy person. While I might be eternally grateful for the opportunity to respond in giving, the act of me giving from my overflow of blessings is not intended for me to boast, but instead to allow praises for answered prayer from the recipient, so that God might be magnified. Then on the subject of prayer, we are taught to pray in private. Imagine the irreverence in telling our spouse everything, intimate or not, in a public setting? We are to have an intimate relationship with our Savior, so we are to pray to Him in private. In verse 6 we are promised that God will then reward us, or grant our sincere desires, as they fit within His perfect will for us. I included verse 14 because I wanted us to be reminded that God is not a push-over, or a Santa Claus just waiting to reward us no matter how we act or respond to His goodness. He tells us that He will forgive us based on our degree of forgiving one another. We must be willing to ask, pray and forgive in a manner pleasing to God, not for our own selfish reasons. Our submission to fasting is another example for us to show our humility to the God that we serve, and to reveal the honesty in the very reason for which we are fasting. When we do this in the right spirit and for the right purpose, God says that He will once again reward us. Friends, when we seek the Kingdom of God more than everything else, and when we live righteously before a righteous God, He promised that He will give us everything we need! Are you there yet? If you are not being rewarded in one of these areas mentioned above, then perhaps there are self-inflicted roadblocks preventing God’s outpouring of His rich blessings that He would really like to shower on us. Friends, let’s clear the path to blessings! God wants to bless His children, I believe. We just need to do our part to be vessels worthy of His blessings!

PRAYER: Father, please forgive us for our littleness, our selfishness and our desire to please and promote self, instead of You. It is evident that You have such awesome rewards in store for Your children. Now if only we can learn to be humble and obedient servants so that You may freely pour out Your blessings on us. You alone are worthy oh Lord, and we cannot do this thing called ‘life’ without You. We are fully dependent on You, yet Satan is so determined to distract us from all the rich blessings You have in store for us. Please forgive us for our desire for independence, and help us instead to be totally dependent on the God who can do all things. We’re at Your mercy dear Lord. Please fill us with more of You and Your promised rewards. I humbly ask all this in the strong and powerful name of the only One worthy and able to intercede for us, Jesus my Lord, 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 www.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!

While You Wait

On By Ed AlgreenIn Holy, Peace, Righteous, Without BlemishLeave a comment

HE HOLY BIBLE (God’s Word Translation – 2 Peter 3:11-14): 11 …. So think of the kind of holy and godly lives you must live 12 as you look forward to the day of God and eagerly wait for it to come….. When that day comes, heaven will be on fire and will be destroyed. Everything that makes up the universe will burn and melt. 13 But we look forward to what God has promised—a new heaven and a new earth—a place where everything that has God’s approval lives. 14 Therefore, dear friends, with this to look forward to, make every effort to have him find you at peace, without (spiritual) stains or blemishes. 

THOUGHTS: Many business places have now introduced televisions in their lobbies, because they have found that if they could distract customers’ attention to a TV screen, they would not be as likely to notice how long they have been standing in line, and therefore lash out on the clerk who will eventually serve them. Our all knowing God, realized that this would be the case with His children here on earth, in regards to His second coming. For those who have never accepted Christ, a delayed return may help to confirm their Satan influenced idea that there is no God, and of course, even if He did exist, they would never see or hear from Him here on this earth, so there is nothing to worry about. For those of us that call Him Savior, Lord, Friend, Jesus, etc, God knows that without proper guidance, we may actually wonder if we made a good decision and wonder the same as the unsaved, whether there really is a God. Our minds wonder and often Satan will fill our minds with doubt. God knew forehand that things like this might occur, so in addition to the many promises we find in His Word, the miracles that we read about and witness in our own lives, and the overwhelming anticipation we have of one day uniting with Jesus and His Father, we find in this scripture, instructions how we are to live while we wait. Friends, we do pretty good at dressing and acting like the boss wants while at work, and as we represent our employer in our community. We do good at being ‘perfect’ Christians while inside our church walls, and/or while trying to impress others, but from the standpoint of God, where He knows our very thoughts, hearts, minds and intentions, are we really reflecting on the outside what we are on the inside? Verse 14 sums up what God expects of us: That we live at peace with God, and everyone else that He placed all around us, and that we live without allowing the world to stain our Christian lives or blemish us in any way. My pastor said in his sermon last week that we are to be protective of the world polluting our Christian walk with sin! Friends, many marriages end in divorce because couples make the commitment, but don’t follow through in unselfishly living the talk out to prove their commitment to their spouse. We classify folk as ‘Christian’ when they make a public profession of faith. Only God knows what’s on the inside of that person and how committed they are to Him. So individually, we must commit to following the will and word of the Lord, in faith, knowing that His return to take us on to glory is nearer now that it has ever been in the history of mankind. Live in peace Brothers and Sisters and constantly seek the strong hand of Jesus to protect you from the (sin) pollution of this world in which we are temporarily living while we wait!

PRAYER: Thank You Lord, for saving my soul, thank You Lord, for making me whole…. Often we think of our salvation as our ticket into heaven, and I suppose it is Lord, but I believe Your Word is clear about our responsibility while still here on this earth. Thank You for this reminder through Your servant Peter. May we be blessed with power from above today so that we might truly live as Your representatives, in peace and without blemish, so that You may be lifted up, praised and worshipped. May the unsaved see Jesus in and through Your servants. Please use us, Your children, as Your instruments of light in this dark world and give us Your power to remain at peace and without the stains of this cruel and ungodly world. You are God of ALL, so I ask all this in the precious name of Your Son, our redeemer, 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!

God’s In Control of The Just and the Unjust

On By Ed AlgreenIn Just, Righteous, Salvation, Surrender, UnjustLeave a comment

THE HOLY BIBLE (The Contemporary English Version – 2 Peter 2:7-10): 7-8 Lot lived right and was greatly troubled by the terrible way those wicked people were living. He was a good man, and day after day he suffered because of the evil things he saw and heard. So the Lord rescued him. 9 This shows that the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their sufferings and to punish evil people while they wait for the day of judgment. 10 The Lord is especially hard on people who disobey him and don’t think of anything except their own filthy desires. They are reckless and proud and are not afraid of cursing the glorious beings in heaven.

THOUGHTS: I found it interesting how, within a few verses, God shows us that He cares for, and will protect and rescue those who claim His Son as Savior of their lives, yet He will be especially hard on people who disobey Him and are unjust. I found verse 9 as the most promising verse this morning, as it plainly comforts the Christian who is serious about their relationship with their Savior, by reassuring us that God is ever present with us, even in our suffering. This is reassuring friends, because although we can easily praise God during the good times of our lives, it is especially challenging to recognize God when we are suffering. In fact, in most cases we tend to think quite the opposite – it feels like God has abandoned us. So what about evil folk you might ask? Friends, even in the same verse (9) the scripture goes on to explain that God will punish evil people while they wait for the Day of Judgment. Only you and God know where you stand in your relationship with God, but friend I believe that there are only two types of individuals who would have read down this far in this devotional: 1). You have a personal, living, dedicated relationship with your Savior, or 2). God is dealing in your life and has directed you to read this devotional in light of something that He is ordering me to share with you. Whichever of these two groups you fall into, I believe that it would be very wrong for you to ignore the Word of the Lord, or take it lightly. My God loves us so much that He gave up His one and only Son to provide the means of rescue for us from this sinful world and the Day of Judgment that is promised to all. Please don’t trifle with this gift of God, for I would hate for any of us to face the fury of God that is referred to in verse 9. The critical thing that I really want to emphasize to you today is that, when we reach the age of understanding and hear the Word of the Lord and we refuse His invitation to accept His Son as our Savior, by default, we are headed towards Hell and stand subject to God’s punishment mentioned in verse 9. The only way to change your destination and/or eternal damnation, is to accept the free gift of salvation that God calls us to, and has provided the vehicle by which we are saved. So friend, I believe the path is clear, and I believe you can easily deduce that only you can make the decision and choose the path that You will follow today that will result in your final destination in eternity. If there is personal doubt as to where you stand, I would encourage you to read, and follow through with the tips in my Footnote, to reassure yourself of your final destination. It is THE most important decision you can make today!

PRAYER: Lord God, You have made it very clear in Your Word the importance of deciding today, and following through with open communication with You, so that our final destination in life can be guaranteed. If we book a flight today, we want to see our final destination on the ticket, nothing else. Yet in life we tend to think that our destination will change depending on how good, or bad we are, or some other irrelevant aspect of our lives. Your Word is very clear, and our study today is very clear. May we be obedient to Your call on our lives, so that our final destination will be guaranteed, and secured. Thank You Father for loving us enough to care about us during this lifetime and in the world to come after we depart this old earth. Please tender the hearts of my readers so that they may read, listen and obey, so that you may be lifted up and praised. I ask all this in the precious name of Your only Son, Jesus my Savior, 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!

Who’s In Control?

On By Ed AlgreenIn Commitment, Holy, RighteousLeave a comment

THE HOLY BIBLE (The Good News Translation – James 1:19-22; 26-27): 19Remember this, my dear brothers and sisters! Everyone must be quick to listen, but slow to speak and slow to become angry. 20Human anger does not achieve God’s righteous purpose. 21So get rid of every filthy habit and all wicked conduct. Submit to God and accept the word that he plants in your hearts, which is able to save you. 22Do not deceive yourselves by just listening to his word; instead, put it into practice.
26Do any of you think you are religious? If you do not control your tongue, your religion is worthless and you deceive yourselves. 27What God the Father considers to be pure and genuine religion is this: to take care of orphans and widows in their suffering and to keep oneself from being corrupted by the world.

 THOUGHTS: Bankers must follow the rules, regulations and sometimes even the desires of their regulators, in order to stay in their good graces and know that they are doing what they understand the law requires of them. I believe this is pretty prevalent in many things that we do in life, but being especially concerned in this blog with what I interpret from the Bible that God requires of us, I want to remind us of exactly what God said through His servant James, in the highlighted verses today. God’s ultimate desire, I believe, is that we be as much like Him as possible. Particularly, that we be righteous, even as He is righteous. I believe it is evident from these verses, and God’s Word in general, that we will never attain righteousness as long as we allow Satan a foothold in our lives. So how do we know when this is occurring? When we do those things, and act in ways that do not represent what we know about God. We are reminded in the scripture today that self-control is very important. In other words, way too often we allow our anger to get the better part of us and we react way too quickly, based on our own opinions, rather than listening a little longer. The only way we can listen longer, is the speak less. When we do this we avoid jumping to our conclusions prematurely, and instead hearing the full story from the heart of the one speaking. Think about it friend, while God desires peace and goodwill towards our fellow man, Satan desires just the opposite to God. So when we speak prematurely and cause an argument or hard feelings in the other person, we are pleasing what Satan wants from us, not God. I am so amazed and always blessed by God’s Word, because whenever we read about God’s demands or His ‘thou shall not’s’, we can often read on and see what it is that He desires from us instead. Look at verse 27, and notice what God wants us to do with our time, instead of being Satan’s vehicle to stir up trouble and discontent. If we desire to help, and practice helping those who cannot help themselves and love them like Jesus would, don’t you see that we will be overwhelmed in appreciation of all that God has blessed us with, rather than letting Satan use us to tear down and destroy others – which is his main goal? Friends, please remember that if we have surrendered our lives to Jesus Christ, our actions are driven by God, otherwise we are naturally driven to please Satan. Strictly based on your actions, who’s driving you?

PRAYER: Dear God, thank You for showing us the way to righteousness and thank You for being ‘the way‘ to righteousness. You are the One that directed what You want from us, and You provided us with the means to accomplish that. Thank You for Jesus, and the life that He lived here on earth, in order that we might learn how to live righteously like He did. Father, in a life totally committed to being like You, I need Your hand upon my every thought, my every action and my every word, so that I might follow Your way, Your desire, and Your will for my life. May I be so committed to this kind of life that Satan will find no room to tempt or use me in any way for his dirty work. Lord, I believe that my friends reading this devotional may have similar temptations today, so I pray that You might impact their lives in such a way that they may commit to giving You full control of their life and experience a total transformation. May You have Your will and way in our lives so that we may be obedient, holy, and righteous, as You intended. I ask all this in the precious 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!

The Originators of Evil and Good

On By Ed AlgreenIn Evil, Good, RighteousLeave a comment

THE HOLY BIBLE (The Living Bible – James 1:13-17): 13 And remember, when someone wants to do wrong it is never God who is tempting him, for God never wants to do wrong and never tempts anyone else to do it. 14 Temptation is the pull of man’s own evil thoughts and wishes. 15 These evil thoughts lead to evil actions and afterwards to the death penalty from God. 16 So don’t be misled, dear brothers. 17 But whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God, the Creator of all light, and he shines forever without change or shadow.

 THOUGHTS: Less Christians believe that all things that happen in their lives after conversion derives from God, James found it important to clarify this. It served as a great reminder to me, so I wanted to share this with my blog audience today also. Just in case we ever feel like God might be tempting us to prove our faith in Him, or tempting us for whatever reason, James clarified this in verses 13 and 14. Friends, it is unfortunate, but the reason why it is so important to stay closely attuned to God through Bible Study, Prayer, Worship and Fellowship with like believers, is because as long as we are here on this earth, Satan will be a constant pain in our side. Always tempting, prodding and making every attempt to have us turn aside from, what he believes to be, a stupid decision to follow Jesus. Of course, as soon as we come to our senses we know that verse 17 is a perfect sermon for us, because while the verse is telling us where everything good and perfect comes from, we can naturally reason that the opposite must come from Satan. So I believe that our lesson in this scripture today is to remind us that when we feel temptation; when we feel evil overtaking us and when we feel like nothing good is happening to us, we must quickly come to our senses and ask God to forgive us for the evil that we have allowed to enter our lives. Ask Him to build a great hedge of protection around us. Send a true messenger of His to encourage us, and to make His presence very obvious to us, Friends, when we find ourselves slipping away from God, I believe you will always find that it is not God who is letting go of our hand, but rather us who wants to try and do things our way. It is then that we become very vulnerable to Satan. Always remember: anything good, loving and worthwhile comes from God. Anything else is caused by our weakened spiritual condition that has allowed Satan access into our lives. We can protect our righteous lives by staying closely attached and attuned to the only Righteous One, Jesus Christ. Try realigning yourself with the King of Glory today friend, and let God be God in your life!

 PRAYER: Until we are reminded of all that You have done for us, and continue to do for us dear Lord, we tend to forget and even minimize Your love for us. We know that we should stay in the Word, and we know that we should revere our relationship with You oh God, but it is so unfortunate that often it will take a disaster or major event in our lives to realign our relationship with You. Please forgive us for being so weakened to sin, and so weak in our relationship with You that we would allow Satan access to our lives so easily. We are the temple of the Lord, and God cannot reign where Satan resides. Please help us to stay closely aligned to You dear God, through saturation of Your Word, through frequent prayer and through an unwavering commitment and determination to give You full reign over us. Please forgive us Lord, and be our constant Lord, Master and Ruler over all things in our lives. For I ask this in the precious 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!