Category: Devotional

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Happy New Year!

For January 1, 2020

At 12:00 AM, January 1, 2020 of the Gregorian Calendar, we celebrate two thousand and twenty years since the birth of Jesus Christ.1, and thereby acknowledge the birth of the most influential person in human history.

It is also a time when many of us begin the New Year resolving to improve our circumstances by accomplishing identified personal and professional goals we call New Year’s Resolutions.

Exercise, rest, diet, write a book, seek professional advancement, take a trip to an exotic location, spend more time with family and loved ones, are all positive resolution ideas. I feel however, our greatest personal or professional goal is God-centered as Moses observed as he charged Ancient Israel in Deuteronomy 10:12-13 (NLT):

What does the LORD your God require of you? He requires only that you fear the LORD your God, and live in a way that pleases him, and love him and serve him with all your heart and soul. And you must always obey the LORD’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good.

In our own strength, ultimately we  fail since we have live in sin-tainted bodies that move us think, speak, and act—often without provocation—in ways detrimental to others (including God) and ourselves. This, our governing disposition, needs to change before we can experience oneness with God.

The good news is God changes our governing disposition through the Born Again experience or Regeneration, which is the wonderful act of God when He changes the governing disposition of the soul, making it holy and turns the soul to Himself.2

A computer that has been contaminated by a virus may still functions, but not at optimum capacity. However, once the virus is removed, the hard drive is reformatted, and new software installed; the machine can function at an optimum capacity—according to its original design.

Much like this computer illustration, sin contaminated us, and we need God’s spiritual reformatting made available to us through faith in Jesus Christ. His death and resurrection secured our moral and spiritual transformation as well as our eternal reconciliation to God.

Here, by faith we acknowledge our contamination by confessing our sin before God. Then we turn from the continual practice of sinful behavior through repentance. We place our full trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, who installs the spirit-directed software, which enables us to function according to our original design—at full capacity!

With a new, transformed appreciation for God, we can no longer express indifference and ambivalence about our church involvement because we are driven to present a sincere, reverent, intentional Christ-centered way of living that involves our deliberate participation.

Our new life reflects the Spirit’s work within us and our desire to grow closer to God in all phases of our lives. Much like a compass needle that points north because of the magnetic forces, our freedom in Christ points others to the Christ who lives in and works through us.

We also develop a strong sense of piety and reverence toward God while craving a deeper intimacy level in our fellowship with Him. Each day, it becomes easier to invite Him to reign in every area of our lives so that we can reflect His holiness.

God is a life-changing Spirit whose incredible majesty and splendor compel us to revere Him with a sober view of His eternal being. This helps us pursue His moral and spiritual perfection with all sincerity and dedication.

With this Spirit-driven, distinguishable lifestyle, we now can keep our word, speak the truth in love, and ask for help when we need it. Confiding in a pastor, a trusted, mature Christian friend, or a qualified professional can be invaluable to us as we seek to attain spiritual and moral balance.3

In this New Year, let’s live our lives this decade—full of faith—in spiritual, emotional, and psychological harmony with God and others as we grow “in wisdom, stature, and favor with God and others” as did our Lord according to Luke 2:52. Then we can live stellar lives, never resorting to blaming others or using flimsy excuses to escape accountability.

Instead, we ask God for forgiveness, we reconcile with the offended person (or persons), and we practice an improved moral and spiritual lifestyle, just as God intended us to live. Why not begin at 12:00 AM today!

 

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Happy Birthday Jesus!

For December 25, 2019
We desire to be with loved ones on special occasions. This is especially true during the Holiday Season as reflected in a recent Transportation Security Administration (or TSA) report of record numbers of travelers during this past Thanksgiving Holiday. For instance, on December 1, 2019, more than 2.8 million travelers were screened at TSA checkpoints nationwide, marking its busiest day on record.1

Our Loving, Holy and Eternal God, who created the Heavens and the Earth, was deeply motivated by a yearning to restore the fellowship He Had with a fallen humanity—like He shared with Adam and Eve, our ancestors in the beginning.

We will never know the size of our universe since the more we explore the more galaxies we yet discover. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA reports that beyond our own galaxy lies billions of galaxies.2

Nevertheless, in the fullness of time, our Living God easily bridged this vast expanse so that He could demonstrate His matchless love for us in an unmistakable way about two thousand years ago. Luke 2:8-14 (NKJV) describes this event:

Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”

Jesus’ birth facilitated a new human relationship paradigm between God and humanity based on His peace and goodwill. Here, all God’s promises concerning the forgiveness of sin, reconciliation, peace, and forgiveness that were directed towards His Chosen People (vis-à-vis the Jews) exclusively, as conveyed through the prophets, priests, the Holy Scriptures, and through sacred family traditions and customs were now available to all of us—men, women, boys, and girls everywhere—by faith.

In other words, all of us now have the opportunity to acknowledge Jesus as Lord and as Savior in order to receive the promise of abundant life in this world leading to eternal life with Him in the next as Philippians 2:5-11(NLT) attests:

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross. Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Either in this life or in the next, every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess Jesus Christ as Lord to the glory of God the Father. There is a far better outcome for us if it happens in this life out of our free will motivated by our love for Him. Then the result is eternal, loving fellowship. In the next life, the outcome is far more severe since it is by compulsion as we succumb to His omnipotence and invincibility before being relegated to spending eternity in a tormenting Hell.

Yes! We can celebrate the birth of this wonderful Baby Boy, Jesus Christ, on Christmas Day realizing His physical life began privately in a Bethlehem manger, but it will end publically on Calvary’s Cross.

Yet, when He rose from the dead, as our Redeemer, He won us back to God so that we could have fellowship with Him forever. What a Wonderful Savior!

 

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In Darkness, The Human Race Awaits

For December 15, 2019
Seven-hundred years before the birth of Jesus Christ, Isaiah observed:

For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.   Isaiah 9:6 (NKJV)

These prophetic words earmarked a new day for those of us who did not know the Covenant God of Israel. We droped in darkness—without God’s grace—doomed to spend an eternity separated from God’s eternal presence.

People in Jesus Christ’s day were unaware of and oblivious to His lowly birth in a Bethlehem manger. This was because the shepherds’ testimony of the Heavenly Host declaring: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” (Luke 2:14 NKJV), was not reported in the local news.

Just as the people did two-thousand years ago, today we see the tragic outcomes of sin in a world that seems to grow more and more deficient of consciousness and civility by the moment. Leaving us to wonder how people—even as young children—can perform violent acts and vicious murder.

We never consider how our sin produces evil acts, and that our sin is a byproduct of the fallen nature we’ve obtained at birth and that by nature, we demonstrate the following tendencies consistently:

    • We are proud, selfish, and dishonest in our interactions with others and God
    • We are disobedient, rebellious, and ungodly by nature
    • Since our reality is based on what we can empirically see, feel, touch, taste, and smell, we only understand those things that only “make sense” to us
    • We have a darkened mind that conjures up evil actions

Yet today in darkness, the human race awaits the grace of God, manifested in Jesus Christ, the Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, who reconciles us to God as Son of God, Lamb of God, and sin-less substitute before God.

Only through Jesus Christ, we can be redeemed recipients of God’s grace through faith. Now we can act differently from the world because:

    • Our sins are washed away and completely forgiven (no longer held captive by sin)
    • His Holy Spirit, living inside us produces holy fruit of noble character and conduct
    • His mind dominates out thinking influencing our Godly thoughts and speech

Because of this wonderful First Christmas Gift, we can be new creatures. God’s grace alters us drastically, so that we are no longer of this world as we conform to the moral and spiritual image of Jesus Christ.

As benefactor of God’s wonderful gift, Jesus makes us suitable to spend our present and future lives with the Lord and know Him as our God, Friend, and Keeper. What a Wonderful Savior!

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Quite Dissimilar

December 7, 2019
In today’s cynical world of so called “no absolutes,” people still want to experience truth, meaning, and purpose for themselves and their loved ones. Here, we still want to know God’s plan for our lives, and when someone “speaks truth” into our lives, we want to be sure God is speaking through him or her.

Our Lord Jesus Christ confirmed His role as God’s representative in John 10:11-15 (NIV):

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.

Throughout His entire earthly ministry, the Lord demonstrates how as The Good Shepherd, He cares for His Sheep as He healed the sick, fed the hungry, raised the dead, and comforted the distressed. Even more telling was how He taught timeless, irrefutable truths, and He secured our reconciliation with God by dying on Calvary’s cross to pay our sin debt.

Unlike the hired hand, who is not committed to caring for the Lord’s Sheep—nor can he save the Lord’s Sheep—The Good Shepherd shows His great love and commitment to His Sheep by providing us access to an unbreakable union with God that begins on earth and continues in Heaven.

The Lord Jesus Christ is unlike any other person who represented God in all human history. No person ever predicted His death and resurrection as the Lord did. In addition, no one has ascended into Heaven, intercedes for us before God, gives us His Spirit, and will return to establish His eternal Kingdom as He has and will do as well.

In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus contrasts the life and works of true and false prophets (or hirelings):

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.  By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. Matthew 7:15-20 (NIV)

The Lord Jesus Christ is quite dissimilar from any other person livng or dead, and His is still the only name under Heaven given unto us whereby we must be saved, just as Acts 4:12 teaches.

Likewise, we the Lord’s Sheep are quite dissimilar as well. Jesus taught that we love Him and will keep His commandments.1 Thus, we will always seek to reflect a compelling Christ-likeness. Not perfect, but ever striving to reach perfection Christ.

What a wonderful Savior!

 

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We Can Praise God and Give Thanks

For November 30, 2019
Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem when He encountered ten men who were lepers.1

Because of the contagious nature of their condition, and that they were regarded as a health risk, the men remained isolated from the public. Scripture is silent about their individual family situations, and of how long they had been suffering. However, the Bible does tell us that when Jesus arrived, all of them stood at a distance yelling for His attention and assistance: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

While looking at them intently, Jesus told the ten men to go show themselves to the priests. As they went their way to the priests, they were completely healed of their leprosy, and their skin was cleared and restored.

Luke 17:15-19 (NLT) tells what happens next:

One of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back to Jesus, shouting, “Praise God!” He fell to the ground at Jesus’ feet, thanking him for what he had done. This man was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, “Didn’t I heal ten men? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” And Jesus said to the man, “Stand up and go. Your faith has healed you.”

No one can tell whether the nine others felt entitled as if they “deserved” God’s special attention and assistance. Yet the fact remains, only one of the ten lepers returned to Jesus to thank Him.

Only one would return to praise God and thank the Lord Jesus Christ for His wonderful intervention in his life. Truly, the man took to heart that he was a recipient of God’s loving kindness and tender mercy as demonstrated in the restoring of his health and well-being. He also understood that his life was now transformed from isolation to community—now having the opportunity to resume connections with family, friends, and loved ones.

Ultimately, he came to experience a loving, caring, living, personal, God who anxiously desires to intervene positively in our lives for (His glory and) our benefit.

Many of us today seem a bit shortsighted because we take the Lord’s blessings for granted. For example, we tend to forget how we are privileged to live in a country where we can freely worship, express our opinions without censorship, and travel where we want when we want without restrictions so that we can share a Thanksgiving meal with family and friends

Even more, we can thank God for sending us His Son to die for our sins, and to be raised for our justification. And we can thank the Lord for His Spirit, who is our “security deposit” towards our glorious, eternal, Heavenly home He prepared for all of us who love His appearing as 2 Timothy 4:8 teaches us.

During this time of reflection and celebration, let us praise God by giving thanks for His loving kindness and tender mercies.  What a Wonderful Savior!

 

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