Tag: Righteousness

Needed–A Pure Heart and A Right Spirit

On By Ed AlgreenIn Cleanse me Oh God, Forgiveness, Heart, Right SpiritLeave a comment

May I encourage you to get your spiritual ‘Nuggets’ to start your day off right? Pretty amazing that our awesome God would consider feeding even us with His Word! Read on and be blessed friend!………

The Bible Text: 10-13 Create in me a pure heart, God, and make my spirit right again. Do not send me away from you or take your Holy Spirit away from me. Give me back the joy of your salvation. Keep me strong by giving me a willing spirit. Then I will teach your ways to those who do wrong, and sinners will turn back to you.
17 The sacrifice God wants is a broken spirit. God, you will not reject a heart that is broken and sorry for sin.
The Bible Reference: Psalm 51:10-13, 17
The Bible Translation: New Century Version (NCV)

My Take Away: Sin is something we do, or say, or think, that is contrary to the command and will of God. David had just committed sin through an unlawful act with Bathsheba, that resulted in the birth of a child, and the child being taken by God as punishment to David and Bathsheba. Now, after just what I’ve written so far, most of us would dismiss any conviction of sin in our lives, because most of us would probably say “thank God, I’ve never done anything quite that bad”. Before you get too pious friend, let’s be reminded again about what sin is. You see, we are quick to compare our acts, thoughts or deeds to the guy next to us, or the lady across the street, or even David, as described in God’s Word. But I must humbly remind you that sin is something against God, so when you go before a righteous and holy God, there is no need to compare yourself to anyone else, and no need to tell God about the provocation by the other person that may have caused you to sin. He only wants to hear how your heart got out of sync with Him, His design and His commands. Getting our hearts right again with God will return a ‘right spirit’ within us and cause us to desire reaching out to teach others the ways of God, so that they may surrender their hearts to God. Verse 17 reiterates that God will not reject a heart that is broken. One that is sad about the sin that has occurred in our lives. There’s a song that is written based on these verses, click here to listen to it as you continue to meditate on this devotional today! I pray that today you will get together with God and ask that He renew a right spirit within you, and that you will be willing to ask Him to cleanse you of any sin that might prevent that ‘right spirit’ within you.

Prayer: Dear God, no matter how hard we try, we will not succeed in sharing Your love and Your forgiveness with others, especially when there is enmity and sin in our hearts. This is not what we want oh God, for we want sin removed and we want the temptation of sin to be taken away from us. Please create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me. Please return to me the joy of my salvation, and may that joy overflow in me so that others might see and believe in You. Its all about You God, but please cleanse my heart so that You can easily and freely use me as Your instrument to reach those around me. I pray the same for me readers today Lord, for the world needs more of You to be seen in more of us. I ask these things of my awesome God, through the name of Your awesome Son, 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 contact me at NuggetsFromGodsWord@outlook.com. Allow someone to pray with you and give you help and/or encouragement as you begin, or continue your walk with Jesus. Words underlined in my blog could 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 to 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, located at 3750 Hammock Rd, Sebring, FL 33872! 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!

2016

Christmas Love

On By Ed AlgreenIn Christmas, Love2 Comments

THE HOLY BIBLE – New International Version (NIV) ~ Psalm 36:5-7 Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep. You, Lord, preserve both people and animals. How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

THOUGHTS: I have a nephew who told my wife that he loved her “to the moon”! The Psalmist also resorted to sharing his love for God in similar measures. This is really amazing when you consider that most people will describe their love in terms of an arm’s length, or similar. I believe there are many times that we are so overwhelmed with God’s love that it may be challenging to describe the extent of our love. Challenging because we live in a world where children become fed up with the arguing and lack of love at home, so they leave with every intent never to return. Think about the broken marriages where one or both of the parties may have felt like the measurement of love for each other had dwindled past zero and gone into a negative measurement. A desperate feeling of hopelessness in consideration of love for each other. Now to the contrary, ponder with me about the love of God. The One who made everything, including you and I, yet when He saw that we were drifting away from Him (in sin), He decided to create the scene that we try to duplicate every year at Christmastime. Through the purity of a virgin girl, God caused His Son Jesus to be born for the purpose of being the ultimate sacrifice that would clear the veil that separates sin from purity; righteousness; faithfulness; justice and unfailing love – God Himself. In fact, this is what our Christmas celebration should be all about! Celebrating the greatest gift ever given for the greatest sacrifice ever imagined. Love beyond any possible measurement or description. Love for the undeserving – you and me. Wouldn’t it be great for us to say in our Christmas card this year that: following in the example of Jesus Christ, we are sending our sacrificial love so that the recipient might enjoy life to the fullest at Christmas time and throughout the New year? I trust that this year we might be able to step back and ponder, like David, how immeasurable the love, faithfulness, righteousness and justice of Jesus has really been to us, and in doing so, look for new ways to appreciate the love of our awesome God that created the Christ of Christmas!

PRAYER: To the God of immeasurable love, we say thank You, for Your love reaches way into the heavens. Lord, may we catch a glimpse of the baby in the manger this Christmas way more than the gifts around the Christmas tree. Gifts come and go, but the baby born to Mary was sent out of love for each of us. I pray that we may not only concentrate on the core reason for our celebration, but that we may express our thanksgiving from the depths of our heart. Lord, I pray that each home celebrating this Christmas will also find ways to return their love to God in appreciations for all that His Son went through for our benefit. Thank You for Your incredible love for us Lord Jesus. May we love and appreciate You in return, is my humble prayer this Christmas, that I ask in the 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 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!