Day 333: Walking Away Isn't Easy

1 John 2:19

These people left our churches, but they never really belonged with us; otherwise they would have stayed with us. When they left, it proved that they did not belong with us.

Something that baffles me about people is how easy it is for them to walk away from something or someone they love. Even if it is for the greater good, walking away from something or someone that you are invested in is never easy. This can range from break-ups to walking away from the job that you have had for a very long time. What I’m saying is that walking away is never easy at least eighty percent of the time.

Something else that baffles me is how easy it is for us to walk away from God. I’m not sure if any of you have ever decided to walk away from God for whatever reason it may be, but I have. I remember walking away from God multiple times because the world seemed to offer me more. The world was a bit more enticing than serving God, so I walked away. Knowing that it was wrong, I did not care, I did it anyway. How did I get to that point? How was it so easy for me to walk away from a God that saved me and forgave me and accepted me even when I sinned against Him countless times? How could I walk away from the God that I had claimed to love so much and had surrendered my life to? The only way that walking away could be that easy is if I was never really as invested in the first place. If I wasn’t as committed to God as I thought. I was not committed to God, not really. My life was not surrendered to Him because my desires for the world was still lingering around and could take me whenever they wanted. The moment I walked away from god as if I was just walking away from a vending machine after I got what I needed confirmed that I never really gave my heart to Him in the first place.

When we are truly invested in God we know what is at stake if we decide to walk away from Him. When our hearts are invested in Him, truly invested in Him nothing can tear us away. Some things might try, temptation might come but it will not be able to tear us away from God. mainly because we know what it is like to live with Him, we know the joy and the peace that comes with serving God. The world may look enticing and it may be tempting, but with that looks are deceiving. There is nothing the world has to offer that God cannot freely give and freely give more. When we come to the understanding of who God is and everything He has done for us in our lives we will want to stay near Him for all eternity. Walking away is not an option because we come to the conclusion that walking away from God means walking away from life and that is not something we are willing to give up.

A life with Christ is so much more than just going to church on Sundays and attending a bible study every now and then. That is where many of us go wrong, we base our relationship with Christ on the number of church services we attend, because we think it’s good enough to get by. Going to church alone will not cut it. The reason we find it so easy to walk away from God is because we are not walking away from much. We are walking away from church we are not walking away from a relationship. Our salvation and growth is in having a relationship with God. the more we draw closer to Him the more we will find ourselves wanting to stay with Him.

All this to say, if we do not have a solid relationship with God we will be pushed and pulled in every direction. If we walked away from God we need to reevaluate whether or not we were really committed to Him in the first place.

Reflection

1. Have you ever walked away from God?
2. Are you committed to having a relationship with Him?
3. Why is it so easy to walk away from the things and people we say we love?

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer. Have a conversation with god about what we discussed today. Take the time to talk to God and pour your heart out to Him.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 334!

Day 332: Loving This World

1 John 2: 15-17

15 Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. 16 For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. 17 And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.

Today we are going to continue with the theme of love. Instead today we talking about loving the world and everything we think it has to offer us.  Verse fifteen starts off by telling us exactly that. When we love the world there is no room in our hearts for God. Too many christians live in this gray area where we think that we can love both God and world. We want the best of both worlds. We must come to the realization that the having the best of the world means having something that is temporary and fleeting and at the end of the day can do nothing for us. But having God, the best of our heavenly father, well when we have that we have the best of everything. There is no gray area there is only black and white, either we love the world or we love God, but we cannot do both. Our heart cannot be two places at once. We make the choice, when we choose to love the world we are choosing a life of limitations. There is only so much the world can do for us. But when we choose to love God, we are choosing eternity, we are choosing everything by making one choice to choose God.

Verse sixteen goes on to talk about the craving for physical pleasure, everything we see and pride in our achievements and possessions. The world is very much about the tangible things, and how successful we are. Most times when we talk about physical pleasure we mention sex, while that is very high on the list it is not the only physical pleasure we seek. We crave this idea of luxury. We take pride in the things we have and our possessions. I cannot tell you how long I led a life that all I wanted was success, I craved it. I was a very prideful person and the more i achieved the bigger my head got. My pride had to be constantly fed, I always needs something or someone to validate me or else I didn’t feel like anything or anyone for that matter. The more I had the more secure I felt, and when I lost it all my security went with it. My confidence (pride) went with it. My identity was gone because I put so much of myself and my life into  my earthly possessions and the things the world had to offer that when it was no longer there, neither was I. That’s when I realized that the world gives and takes away, but God’s blessings are here to stay. There is  nothing the world can give that will give me the security that God has given me. Nothing can compare to what I have in Christ. Although that was a very hard discovery to make, it was beautiful!

All is summed up in verse seventeen. This world is fleeting, everything will one day be gone. If we want something that is permanent, if we want something that is eternal. I suggest giving God a try. We cannot have a solid foundation in anything that is not temporary. God is eternal and as long as we have a solid foundation in Him we have a life that is eternal as well. We just have to make a choice, do we want pleasure for now or eternity with Christ?

Reflection

1. Do you find yourself living in a gray area?

Prayer Time

Allow your answer to the above question guide your prayer. Take the time to respond in whatever way you feel led. Have a conversation about what we discussed today, and if you are living in the gray area of life make the decision to love God or the world. It’s up to you.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 333!

Day 331: The Truth About Loving God

1 John 2:3-6

3 And we can be sure that we know him if we obey his commandments. 4 If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. 5 But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him. 6 Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.

There’s moment’s in our lives when we need to sometimes check in on ourselves, and see how we’re doing. We need to stop and see if we’re holding up, we have to do a little self-assessment. Sometimes we forget that we need to check in with ourselves to make sure we are okay and everything is okay with us. The word of God is a reminder of that, we need to check in on our spiritual lives constantly, the same way we would check upon ourselves physically. When we find something wrong, we go to a doctor or we do what needs to be done in order to fix the problem. It is the same with our spiritual lives, many times we find that something is wrong and we continue to move forward as if everything is just fine. When we find something wrong with us spiritually we need to take some time with our doctor, Jesus, and make sure that anything that is or has gone wrong is healed and fixed.

There’s nothing like reading the word of God of to make sure your heart is in the right place. Upon reading God’s word we find how to live life but we also find the flaws in our own hearts and the things we need to turn to God for. Many times it is not our intention to lose focus or to disobey God’s command. We are not all walking around trying to deliberately disobey God. Sometimes it just happens and that’s just life. Sometimes life gets the best of us and we don’t really notice things falling until they start crashing down. The question is, what do we do when we start to notice ourselves slipping away? What do we do when we realize we have disobeyed God or went against His word. How do we react when life starts falling apart? We must turn to Him, we must find our hope in Him our strength in Him. If we love God, if we truly love Him we will surrender our lives to Him. We would surrender our hearts to Him. The question is, how do we know we really love God?

I have found myself asking myself this question multiple times on multiple occasions. I’ve heard people say, if you have to ask yourself that, then you don’t really love God. In my opinion that statement is not entirely true. As Christians we sometimes get the idea that we must do more. Sometimes when life gets a little too simple we think that we are falling out of good graces with God, or we are doing something wrong because everything is a bit too easy. However, I do not believe that God wants every minute of our lives to be a fight, or that we are continuously suffering. God gives us a break sometimes. When it comes to the question of our love for God, we must ask ourselves if we are following His commands? That’s what it all comes down to, are we doing what He told us to do? Are we obeying Him? Loving God is less about abstaining from sin and more about obeying His word, there is a difference. When we love God we will obey Him because we love Him, not because we don’t want to be punished or not to stay out of the fiery pits of hell, but because our love for God is more important that our want for sin. Our love for God is greater than our want to not go to hell. Loving God is living in Him. When we love God we will live like Christ. It all comes together when we make the commitment to love God before anything and anyone else.

When I became a Christian the first thing I wanted to do was rid my life of all the sin that was in it. Let go of anything and anyone who would cause me to sin, if you know my story you would know how ironic that statement is. I felt like until I did that  I could not serve God. I felt like I had to start from there, before I could have a relationship with Him I had to be clean. If I kept that attitude I definitely would not be where I am now, writing this devotional. If we want to start anywhere we need to start with love first, and let everything are and aspire to be, be built on that.

Reflection

1. Check in with yourself, how are you doing?
2. Do you love God?
3. Are you following His commands?

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer today. Have a conversation with God about what you discovered today. If you have found yourself slipping or have found that you are not committed to God in the way that you thought, now is the time to submit and surrender. Take the time to pray and surrender everything to Him. However long you need with Him take that time, this is your soul we’re talking about.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 332!

Day 330: We Have An Advocate

1 John 2:1-2

“He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world.”
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Advocate-a person who pleads for or in behalf of another; intercessor.

We all want someone to be on our side. We all look for someone at some point in our lives to be an advocate for us to intercede for us and speak up for us when no one else is listening to us. It feels good to have someone fighting for us and pleading on our behalf. It feels even better to have someone on our side or in our corner even when we’re wrong. It’s always nice to have someone rooting for us and having our back through our darkest times in our lives. An advocate is someone who fights for you, someone who pleads and prays to God on your behalf. We all have one.  Someone is fighting for us, someone is in heaven sitting at the right hand of God pleading our case. Interceding on our behalf, repairing our relationship with God.  That someone is Jesus. We have an advocate that died for us, and rose again. We have an advocate that continues to plead our case. How great it is to have an advocate that not only fights for us and intercedes for us in wrong, but He calls us to repentance to right those wrongs. Jesus doesn’t walk away from us in fact He is the one praying for another chance. He is the one that made it possible for us to have another chance.

Sometimes walking through this life all we want is someone to understand, or sometimes all we want is someone to pray for us and help through whatever it is we are going through. I cannot count how many time I have had encounters with people who have said, “If people only knew what I was going through…” There have been so many times in my life when all I wanted was someone to pray for me, because I felt like I couldn’t do it myself. There’s two things I’d like to point out here. Jesus understands. Jesus knows what we are going through, He knows how are and taxing life can be sometimes. He also has faith in His people, He knows that we will get it right. Jesus has more faith in us than we have in ourselves, sometimes we give up on ourselves. We give up trying to do what is right because we continue to fall. But Jesus is picking us up every time and putting us back on our feet. Jesus is in God’s ear advocating for us every second of the day, we are like His cause. He carried a cross to calvary and was nailed to it, so that we can live. He always had us and still has us in His heart. One thing I know for sure is that Jesus will not give up on us.

Second, we have to learn to be advocates for one another. We must learn how to pray for one another, and intercede on someone else’s behalf. Sometimes all someone needs is to be prayed for, not told that they need prayer, but to be prayed for. One thing I know for sure is that the power of prayer can change things, it can make things happen. If we just take the time to pray for that someone who is struggling, pray for that person who is continuously falling into sin. If we just take the time to pray for them, God will work a miracle in them that we never saw coming. We live in the generation of tweeting out prayers, #PrayFor… or sending out a tweet to someone in need and saying “you are in my prayers”. We get these tags trending but how many of us are actually praying how many of us are taking the time to pray for our brothers and sisters. I can tell you right now that I can do more and I am going to do more. The point that I want to make here is that sometimes we have to plead someone else’s case. Sometimes we have to sit ourselves aside and go to God on behalf of someone else. That’s how this “love your neighbor as yourself” thing works. It’s what Jesus would do.

All this to say, we have an advocate in Jesus, and we have to be an advocate for someone else.

Reflection

1. Have you ever had an experience where you knew that Jesus was up there in heaven interceding for you?
2. How many times have you been an advocate for someone else?
3. What more can you do to love your neighbor as yourself?

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer. Take the time to thank Jesus that He is an advocate for us all. Take the time to pray for someone, if there is someone you need to pray for do so, and if you feel led to reach out and pray with them do that as well.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 331!

Day 329: Recap!

Day 323: All In A Day's Work

Today we talked about how God does so much in a day that in our eyes in would amount up to a thousand years. We talked about how God is constantly moving and even though we may have to wait a bit longer His timing is nothing less than perfect. We focused on 2 Peter 3:8.

"It’s really God that’s giving us the means to take care of ourselves. We have to set ourselves aside to see and understand how the glory of God is constantly being played out in our lives."

Day 324: God Wants the Best For Us

Today we talked about how God only wants the best for us. We talked about the common misperception that God is some mean old man in the sky that wants us all to perish. Spoiler alert, it's not true. We focused on 2 Peter 3:9.

"He calls us to repentance so that anything blocking us from Him can be removed and we can have freedom to dwell in His presence."

Day 325: Patience My Love

Today we talked about seasons inspired by the Hillsong Worship song 'Seasons" off their later album. We focused on the lyric, "If you are not done working, then God I'm not done waiting." We focused on Psalms 27:14.

"Sometimes we act as if God is only making us wait because He can, we act as of God is making us wait for no reason at all. But have we ever considered that the reason we are still waiting is because God is not done working?"

Day 326: Thanksgiving!

So today was thanksgiving in America, so we talked about taking the time out not to ask for anything but to thank God. We talked about how important it is to sometimes just stop and thank God for all the wonderful things He has done and He is doing. We focused on Psalms 28:7 and Psalms 30:12. 

"There is something beautiful about acknowledging what He has done and what He continues to do."

Day 327: Ride It Out 

Today we talked about waves and surfing, and what that means is we talked about how living life can sometimes feel like trying to surf a storm without falling off your board. We talked about how sometimes the storm can be very strong but we have to ride it out. We focused on Hebrews 10:32-36. 

"Life is scary, sometimes those waves are bigger than we thought, but even in those moments of fear we have to ride them out. God knows what we can take and we cannot just walk away because we are afraid, but we must endure, we must endure because we know what’s on the other side, we know what it will all be worth in the end."

Day 328: It Makes No Sense

Today we talked about walking in the light, and how if we are going to walk in the light with Christ we cannot have an ounce of darkness in us. We talked about how we sometimes hold on to darkness because for the longest time it was all we knew. We focused on 1 John 1:5-7.

"It makes no sense for us to claim that we walk in light when we are still living in darkness. We must let go of anything keeping us in the dark and know that God is taking us on a beautiful journey and we cannot get to where we are going in we cannot see, spiritually and physically."

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone, go back and read your favorite devo from this week. Make sure to come back tomorrow for Day 330!

Day 328: It Makes No Sense

1 John 1:5-7
“This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.”
How many times have we devoted our lives to Christ or rededicated our lives to Him and went back into our same old ways? How many times have we decided that we are going to “live right” but couldn’t seem to let go of the very thing keeping us from living right? We all want a shot to get things right and we all know that Jesus is the way but unless we are willing to set our lives down and pick up our crosses and walk with Him how are we going to get that chance to get it right. What I’m saying is that we are often verbally committed to walking in the line while actively committed to the darkness. We have things that we are holding on to that will not allow us to walk completely in the light with Jesus Christ. This is what John means when He says spiritual darkness there is something holding us back from God, something only we can point out. Why is it so hard to give it up? Sometimes we are in the dark so long that it begins to alter our vision. We begin to adjust to living in darkness. If you’re in a dark room, in the beginning everything is pitch black and you can’t see anything, but after a while your eyes will start to adjust to The point where you cannot see clearly but you can see figures, you know if something or someone has moved. We spend our whole lives in darkness and the moment the light hits it will either frighten us or excite us.
Jesus came as a light to a world that was living in darkness He literally came to change the world, to bring people out of darkness and into the light. As we know darkness is the absence of light, meaning that where there is no light, Jesus is not there. To walk with Christ all the days of our lives is to walk in the light or live right.
All this to say, if we are going to walk with Christ we must do it full out and wholeheartedly. It makes no sense for us to claim that we walk in light when we are still living in darkness. We must let go of anything keeping us in the dark and know that God is taking us on a beautiful journey and we cannot get to where we are going in we cannot see, spiritually and physically.
Response/ Prayer Time
Today was very short and sweet but take the time to reread the passage and talk to God about what we discussed today. Search your heart, open your heart to God and allow His light to push out any darkness in your life.
I love you so much and I hope you have an amazing Day or Evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 329!

Day 327: Ride it Out!

Hebrews 10:32-36

32 Think back on those early days when you first learned about Christ. Remember how you remained faithful even though it meant terrible suffering. 33 Sometimes you were exposed to public ridicule and were beaten, and sometimes you helped others who were suffering the same things. 34 You suffered along with those who were thrown into jail, and when all you owned was taken from you, you accepted it with joy. You knew there were better things waiting for you that will last forever. 35 So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you! 36 Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised.

Sometimes walking with Christ can feel like trying to swim or surf through a storm. It can feel like all you want is to stay afloat and not drown. I’m talking about those moments in life when the waves are crashing down on you and the winds blowing you all over the place, and you seem to have lost all control. Sometimes that’s what life feels like. It can be rough and sometimes because we walk with Christ things are a bit harder. One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned was from swimming lessons. I grew up very afraid of water and whenever someone tried to teach me how to swim I would freak out when it was time to go into the deep end, even when my dad was holding me in his arms, telling me it was going to be okay, that he wouldn’t let anything happen to me. They would always tell me to stay calm. When I finally agreed to go to swimming lessons, my teacher would hold me up unto a certain point and then she let me go and told me to stay calm as I began to be afraid. She said, the more afraid you are the harder it is to learn. Freaking out wasn’t helping me in fact it was hurting, it made me sink faster. When I was too afraid to do things she wouldn’t let me get out of the pool, because she knew what I was capable of and she knew that I could handle it. I tell this story because sometimes this life is scary, sometimes those waves are bigger than we thought, but even in those moments of fear we have to ride them out. God knows what we can take and we cannot just walk away because we are afraid, but we must endure, we must endure because we know what’s on the other side, we know what it will all be worth in the end.

Verses thirty five through thirty six encapsulates everything that I want say, ”So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you! Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised.” God has brought us this far, even when the storms are throwing us every which way, He was the one that made sure that the storm never overtook us. I thrive off of faith in the Lord, not abandoning that trust because it has gotten me to where I am at this moment in my life.

All this to say, life vn feel like you're riding the roughest wave. But even if you can barely stand, ride it out. God’s got you, you’re going to make it out just fine, trust Him and know that He is holding you up.

Reflection

1. Have you gone through or are you going through a time in your life where you feel like the storm of life is throwing you all over the place?
2. What have you noticed about submitting to God as opposed to submitting to fear?

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer, have a conversation with God about what we discussed. Whatever you feel led to pray about today, pour your heart out to Him.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 328!

Day 326: Thanksgiving!

Psalms 28:7

The Lord is my strength and my shield; My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped; Therefore my heart exults, And with my song I shall thank Him.

Psalms 30:12

That my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!

So today is thanksgiving in America and as an old tradition that I’m sure just isn’t in my family, let’s call to mind what we are thankful. Let’s say how thankful we are for God, I want us to be reminded of how great God is. Bringing our attention to His goodness and thanking Him. I know that we thank God everyday, and we should be reminded of His goodness daily. But I just want you all, even if celebrating the holiday isn’t part of your tradition. Take the time to thank God and show your gratitude towards Him.

In everything we do we should glorify God, and I know our lives show how grateful we are. But there is something different about taking the time to thank God. There is something beautiful about acknowledging what He has done and what He continues to do. Some of my favorite moments are when I can just take in the goodness of God and just say thank you. Not with an empty heart but with a heart full of gratitude because I know that His hand is always on me. I know that He is the one who gets me through every moment of every day. We thank God because He has done so much for us, and just because a million thank you s would never be enough to thank Him for all He does, that doesn’t mean that we omit it. We are often caught up in asking God for things that we forget to thank Him. So, in honor of this American holiday, let’s do exactly that. Let’s take the time, not to ask for anything or push our own agendas let’s just take the time to thank Him.
With everything going on in this world it is important that we come together and be thankful for the wonderful things God has done. It’s so easy to pay ettentiin to the negative and see everything wrong. But I choose to see the goodness of God in all the craziness and evil this world has to offer. There’s so much to be thankful for. Let’s point that out today.

Response/Prayer Time

Take the time to pray and thank God. Whatever that looks like for you do it. Open your heart to Him and show Him how grateful you are.
I love you and I hope you all have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 327!

Day 325: Patience My Love

Psalms 27:14
Wait for the LORD; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the LORD.
This past Sunday at church we talked about seasons, and sang a song called seasons. One of the main lyrics that stood out to me in this song was, “If you’re not done working, then God I’m not done waiting.” This struck a chord with me because it gave me a new perspective on waiting on God. When we are waiting on God we often wait as if we are waiting for our health. We wait because we sometimes think that God just wants to see how faithful we can be while we wait, and that is part of it. But sometimes we act as if God is only making us wait because He can, we act as of God is making us wait for no reason at all. But have we ever considered that the reason we are still waiting is because God is not done working? I must say that this never crossed my mind until this pat Sunday night when I heard this song. We often act as if we are only waiting on God to hand us a blessing when He is good and ready. But when God is done working that’s when it becomes ready.
I love the declaration that this song makes, “If you are not done working, then God I’m not done waiting.” That is to say, God as long as you are working on me and with me, I’ll be waiting. As long as you need to work I will be here patiently waiting for you to finish. Our problem is we want things prematurely, we want God to bless us when it’s not time or it not ready. We want God to use and send us before He’s done working on us. There is so much truth in the statement, “Good things come to those who wait.” I am taken back to the story of the prodigal son who did not want to wait for His inheritance but sought after and got it prematurely. He was not ready for such a blessing yet and we see that as he goes out and squanders all of his money. He comes back to His father with nothing but a lesson. He comes back knowing his mistakes. How many of us have tried to push God’s hand? How many times have we done something before we were ready. God is building us and molding us into the person He wants to be. He’s making us into the person He needs us to be in order to receive what He has for us. God loves us some much that even though He wants to bless us He wants to prepare us to be able to hold and sustain the blessings and riches He will hail upon our lives. It’s like He’s standing there saying, “Patience my love. I’m still working. Sometimes we're like little kids who want things that moment and we don’t want to wait but it’s like God is saying, “Patience, my child. I’m still working.” We just have to wait it out and receive what God is doing in us and for us in the meantime. We get so impatient with God sometimes because things don’t go how we think they should in the time frame we want them to be done. But I don’t know how many times I can say and stress that God’s timing is perfect! He has never been off, not even by a millisecond. He knows what He’s doing. Just trust the process.

All this to say, If God is not done working then we should not be done waiting!

Reflection
1. Have you ever been impatient with God?
2. Have you ever tried to push God’s hand?
3. Have you ever done something you weren’t ready for? If so what was the outcome?

Prayer Time
Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer today. Talk to God about patience and ask Him to help you with it.
I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 326!

Day 324: God Wants the Best for Us

2 Peter 3:9 
“The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.”
‭‭There is a common misconception that God want us all to perish. That God made hell for us “sinners”. That holds no truth whatsoever. It is not God’s will that any of us should perish. I remember a pastor saying to the congregation, “God does not send us to hell, we send ourselves there.” When we decide that we want to live in sin and not walk with God according to His word, we condemn ourselves. We do that ourselves, that’s not the work of God.  If God wanted us to perish and die in our sin why would He provide a way for us to be freed from the life of sin. It’s says right there in John 3:16 that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. That’s the God we serve. A God who wants the best for His people. We serve a God who does not delight in punishing us but delights in blessing us and drawing us near to Him.
I think sometimes when we read the Bible and we see that there is punishment for our sins we interpret that as God just wanting to punish us. We tend to see God as this mean old grandpa in the sky casting damnation upon everyone. When in truth He is a loving father who only wants the best for us. He is a caring father who will correct us when we are wrong. He will put on the right path when we go astray. He is not sitting on a throne judging and condemning us, but the exact opposite. He is sitting on a throne with Jesus at His right hand loving and leading us. God calls us to repentance not to point out our sin and judge us for it but He brings us to repentance so that we may have a relationship with Him. He calls us to repentance so that anything blocking us from Him can be removed and we can have freedom to dwell in His presence. God could condemn us, He could smite us for all of our wrong. But He doesn’t because His Love for us is so much greater than His anger. His love covers our sin. It is His love that gives us grace.
God wants us to have a good life. He wants us to enjoy our lives with Him. Sometimes we think that sin is fun, but that fun only lasts a moment. God wants to give us eternity. He wants to shower us with His love.
All this to say, God wants only the best for us. When we decide that we want to live apart from God we are throwing ourselves into the lake of fire. God wants to save us, He is not like satan walking among the Earth to see who he can destroy. But God sents His son to walk the Earth to save us from destruction and damnation.
Reflection
1. Have you ever vied God as a mean old grandpa?
2. Do you think that it is God’s will for us to perish?
3. How has God changed how you view who He is?

Prayer Time 
Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer today. Have a conversation with God about what we discussed today. Whatever is on your heart talk to Him about it. Take the time to dedicate your heart and life to Him.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 325!

Day 323: All in a Day's Work

2 Peter 3:8

But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day.

I remember when I first heard and read this scripture I was so discouraged. I was discouraged because what I took from it was, that I would be waiting all my life to receive a blessing from God. I thought that I would have to wait until I was nearly dead. However that is not the case, yes we have to patiently wait for God and trust in His timing and sometimes that means waiting longer than expected. One thing we must know is that God’s plan and timing are perfect.

It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I grasps true clarity of this scripture.  When I took my eyes off myself and put them on Christ I gained an understanding that wa beyond me. God does so much in a day that it’s like a thousand years. That’s mind blowing when you think of it. God does so much in a day that it can be spread out over the span of a thousand years. Crazy! The saying, “God is working or God is busy.” has a new meaning. He is literally always working and doing things, He’s keeping the earth in it’s place. To start things off there’s approximately seven billion people on the Earth, 7,000,000,000. That’s a big number, He wakes us all up every morning. God wakes approximately seven billion people up every morning. Different regions, continents, time zones. It’s mind blowing! Let’s think about this, how many battles has God defeated before they even got to us. How many times has He spared us and we didn’t even know. Stopped attacks from reaching us that we never even knew about. God is fighting battles for us that we never see. His walking before us and defeating enemies we didn’t even know we had, and that’s just the supernatural.

God is constantly moving in our lives and we see that everyday, He is answering our prayers, listening to them, and blessing us all at the same time. He always has His eyes on us, God is always watching out for us.  He knows every move we will make before we make it. He knows where each of us are going at every moment.  

This is one of the most humbling scriptures I have ever read. Sometimes we can get so busy and so tired and exhausted and start to complain. Yes we are human and the more stress we put on ourselves and our bodies, the more exhausted we will be. Sometimes we have to just thank God for everything He’s done. Even in our exhaustion and even in our times of stress, we cannot automatically fall into this world of complaints because God is so much greater than it all. We also get to points in our lives when we are so proud and excited for the things that we do for ourselves that we tend to forget that it’s really God doing and the doing. It’s really God that’s giving us the means to take care of ourselves. We have to set ourselves aside to see and understand how the glory of God is constantly being played out in our lives. All of this goes to show just how great God is. We will never understand the magnitude of His greatness. We can never completely wrap our minds around His glory.

All of this to say, God does so much for us, more than we can ever imagine and it’s all explained to us in this small verse. God is great.

Response/Prayer Time

Take the time to respond to what we discussed today. Rest with this scripture, meditate on it and just take the time to thank God for who He is and all He’s done, is doing, and will continue to do in our lives.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening!  Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 324!

Day 322: Recap!

Day 316: This Beautiful Romance 


Today we talked about having a relationship with God and how it is a special kind of relationship. We talked about how it is similar to a marriage, and how God is committed to us. We also touched a bit on our commitment to God. We focused on Ephesians 5:25-27 and Isaiah 62:5.

" God doesn’t want a casual relationship with us, He wants a marriage, He wants us to be with Him for all eternity."

Day 317: Knowing God for Ourselves

Today we continued the theme of having a relationship with God, but today we talked about getting to know God for ourselves. We talked about when it comes to entering into a relationship with God and giving our lives to Him, that decision is completely on us. We talked about how we cannot depend on anyone to grasp salvation for us, we must receive it for ourselves. We focused on John 14:6.

"We have to come to know God for who He is, we must profess our own faith. We must repent for our own sins. Our parents, our mentors, our pastors, no one can do that for us."

Day 318: Light Up My World

Today we talked about how the word of God lights up our lives, how it livens our spirits and our world. We talked about how the word of God is like a lamp on dark path and it guides and instructs us through life. We focused on 2 Peter 1:18-21

"The word of God has provided us with a way to sustain while here on earth, it has instructed us to live while we are still here but to look forward to what is to come."

Day 319: So Will I

Today was inspired by Hillsong United's song, 'So Will I' we talked about how all creation reveals the glory of God. We focused on Psalms 19:1-4. We talked about how if the earth worships God we will also, and of Jesus gladly chose surrender so will we. 

"Everything reveals a bit more about who God is, it tells us a little more about His love for creation and humanity."

Day 320: When God Blocks

Today we talked about how sometimes God is the one blocking our paths and closing doors. We often blame it on the enemy but sometimes God stands in the way of what we are trying to do because it is not what He wants or has planned for us. We focused on Numbers 22:21-34. 

"Everything is not the devil’s work, God works a million times more than satan."

Day 321: Half Empty or Half Full

Today we talked about perspective we talked about being content with we are and where God has us in our lives. We talked about how sometimes we are so focused on having the glass full that we miss what God is doing right in front of us because we're too busy looking at the glass as half empty. Therefore constantly trying to fill it. We focused on, 1 Timothy 6:6 and Philippians 4:11.

"Sometimes we are so focused on getting to next place and getting more than we already have that we miss God. We are overlooking what God is doing right now because we are so concerned with what He is going to do or what we want to do."

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 323!