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Devotional

Bringin’ Humble Back: Matthew 18:4 – “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

As you read through the New Testament, you will begin to realize just how important humility is for us as Christians. Serving others in love (Galatians 5:13), loving your neighbor as yourself (Galatians 5:14), submitting to & sacrificially loving your spouse (Ephesians 5:22-33), following God and being obedient (John 14:15), submitting to God’s authority (Romans 8:6-10). I dare say that these things cannot be accomplished without a humble heart.

In the beginning of Matthew 18, Jesus teaches His disciples about humility because they ask Him which one of them will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Seriously guys?!?! They are traveling around with the Messiah (the Savior of the whole world!) and at this moment with Him, they are more concerned about who will be the Big Dog when they get to heaven.

In response to their question, our Lord set a little child before them, solemnly assuring them that unless they were like little children, they could not enter His kingdom. Children, when very young, do not desire authority, do not regard outward distinctions, are free from malice, are teachable, and willingly dependent on their parents. These are characteristics of children, and Jesus is telling us that we too need to have these characteristics when following Him. Are you teachable or are you set in your ways? Are you willing to follow God, or do you have a white-knuckled death grip on your own selfish ambitions? Are you willing to love and serve others, or are you waiting for others to bow at YOUR feet?

Being humble goes against everything this world is telling us about having the best and most expensive stuff, looking better than everyone around us, and believing in that “it’s all about me” attitude. Remember that we are to follow Jesus. And His example showed us in Matthew 20:26-28, “Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

There are many more passages about humility in the Bible. I encourage you to read them during your personal time with God, asking Him to renew your mind and create in you a humble, loving, and serving heart. You can start with these: John 13:1-17; Matthew 23:11-12; Ephesians 4:1-3; Philippians 2:5-11.

** I encourage you to use these passages from God’s Word as a resource in your daily life. Don’t let this truth just rest on this tag or on this shirt. Use it! Let it become a part of you, let the scripture be written on your heart and move you to live your life in obedience to God out of love. Dive into God’s Word, spend time with Him in prayer, connect with other believers, live for Jesus who died for your sins and rose again! **

FYI – We have a Bible Study on Facebook.com and invite you to join. New scripture is posted daily. If you don’t have a Facebook Account, then you will need to create one to join the Bible Study. So, if you’re interested, sign into your Facebook Account and search “Facebook Bible Study – yes you can join!”

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Devotional

Quick to Listen: James 1:19-25 – “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.”

In this first chapter of James, we have found the thrust of James’s entire letter: calling upon Christians to live with moral urgency, serious holiness, and unconditional obedience to the word of God. You can almost feel the passion coming from James as he urges us to have complete confidence in and reliance upon the grace of God. James is so earnest for moral purity in 1:19-25 because of the theology he has taught in 1:1-18 (great to read, check it out!). It is the thorough purity of God (never tempted, never tempting, never changing) that calls us to holiness; it is the generous giving of God, giving wisdom without finding fault, giving the crown of life, giving every good and perfect gift, that moves us to holiness. Furthermore, going back to the very beginning of James’s message, this pursuit of holiness is not an oppressive burden, but a task of joy because of the great worth of the goal that God’s grace has made possible. God has called Christians to become mature and complete, as firstfruits of all He created.

In James 1:19-25, his recommendation to us as we strive to live a holy life is to listen first, be patient in our speech, and put away anger. Listen to what God has to say to you, then live it out. Do not listen to what God has to say and then go on about your life without Him. Allow God’s Word to penetrate every area of your life and be obedient to His teaching.

** I encourage you to use these passages from God’s Word as a resource in your daily life. Don’t let this truth just rest on this tag or on this shirt. Use it! Let it become a part of you, let the scripture be written on your heart and move you to live your life in obedience to God out of love. Dive into God’s Word, spend time with Him in prayer, connect with other believers, live for Jesus who died for your sins and rose again! **

FYI – We have a Bible Study on Facebook.com and invite you to join. New scripture is posted daily. If you don’t have a Facebook Account, then you will need to create one to join the Bible Study. So, if you’re interested, sign into your Facebook Account and search “Facebook Bible Study – yes you can join!”

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Devotional

Forgiven: Romans 5:8 – “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.”

Jesus died on a cross as a sacrifice for our sins so that we could be forgiven and be reconciled to God.(John 3:16-17) To be reconciled to God means that we are brought back into a relationship with God, our creator. You see, our sin separated us from God; our relationship with Him is broken because of our sin.(Isaiah 59:2) So, if it’s broken, it needs to be fixed, right? But, no matter how hard we try, we cannot correct our relationship with God on our own. We cannot do anything to deserve everlasting life in heaven because our sins makes us deserve hell.(Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23)

But God, in all of His love and grace and mercy, sent Jesus to die for us as a sacrifice for our sins, washing them all away. “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.”(2 Corinthians 5:21) And now, with our sins paid for, we have forgiveness and eternal life through Jesus when we accept Him as our Savior and make Him the Lord of our lives.

God orchestrated all of this even though we were sinners. God did not send Jesus to die for our sins after we agreed to follow Him. God showed us His extravagant love even though we were separated from Him, living in our sin. Just for a moment, think of the worst thing you have ever done. Jesus died for us even though you did whatever it is you are thinking about right now. While we were the worst person we could possibly be, God gave us the best of His love. He took all of the filth that we once were and washed it clean.

When you are forgiven, you are a new creation in Jesus. The old you is dead and gone; your old sin life has passed away. You are free to begin your new life living for Jesus who died for your sins. (2 Corinthians 5:15-17)

** I encourage you to use these passages from God’s Word as a resource in your daily life. Don’t let this truth just rest on this tag or on this shirt. Use it! Let it become a part of you, let the scripture be written on your heart and move you to live your life in obedience to God out of love. Dive into God’s Word, spend time with Him in prayer, connect with other believers, live for Jesus who died for your sins and rose again! **

FYI – We have a Bible Study on Facebook.com and invite you to join. New scripture is posted daily. If you don’t have a Facebook Account, then you will need to create one to join the Bible Study. So, if you’re interested, sign into your Facebook Account and search “Facebook Bible Study – yes you can join!”

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Devotional

Wholly Surrendered: 2 Corinthians 5:15-21 – “And He [Jesus] died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

I had this football coach in middle school and high school who kept using this single phrase over and over during practices and during our games. “Give It Your All!!!”. He would often insert our last name (Give It Your All Yates!!!), screaming it to encourage and motivate us; something to get our blood pumping. It worked. Playing sports, when you truly buy into the program and believe what the coach is drilling to your head each practice, you will give it your all. You will give your blood, sweat, tears, muscle strains, broken bones, and numerous other injuries all for the chance to be champions.

Think of this passage as Paul’s way of encouraging us and getting our blood pumping so we will live our life “giving it our all” for Jesus. Jesus didn’t die for us so we could go to church on Sundays and live however we want to live during the week. He died for us so we could put to death our old sinful life and live for Him in every corner of our lives. Jesus gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That means Jesus has entrusted us to spread the Gospel around the world so that others may know the love of God and have forgiveness as well. God wants our whole life to be devoted to Him, not just part of it.

** I encourage you to use these passages from God’s Word as a resource in your daily life. Don’t let this truth just rest on this tag or on this shirt. Use it! Let it become a part of you, let the scripture be written on your heart and move you to live your life in obedience to God out of love. Dive into God’s Word, spend time with Him in prayer, connect with other believers, live for Jesus who died for your sins and rose again! **

FYI – We have a Bible Study on Facebook.com and invite you to join. New scripture is posted daily. If you don’t have a Facebook Account, then you will need to create one to join the Bible Study. So, if you’re interested, sign into your Facebook Account and search “Facebook Bible Study – yes you can join!”

Philippians 3:7-9 – “I once thought these things were valuable, but now I
consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with Him. ”

Do you love Jesus so much that everything else in your life feels like trash compared to Him? Think about the trashcan in your kitchen, it always has the messiest, grossest, and most stinky trash (or at least ours does, haha). You come home and you’re hit with this stench from across the room and you hang your head as you realize you put last night’s spaghetti scraps and various refrigerator leftovers in the trash but you forgot to take it outside to the dumpster. It’s been rotting all day, and now you have this vile stink filling your house and making you a little dizzy, but you’ve got to take it outside because the smell just gets worse with time. As you move closer, the smell gains strength and your stomach starts churning. When you close up the trash bag, that little puff of air hits you in the face and you gag and almost hurl your lunch as you tie
it up and race outside bag-in-hand hoping it’s not dripping on the floor. That’s some nasty trash!

Is that how you view all your good deeds and material things when you compare them to Jesus and knowing that He died to offer you salvation from your sins? Are you seeking God’s wisdom and striving to grow closer to Him more each day, or are you wasting time building up riches, trying to impress people with what you wear, what you own, or what you’ve accomplished?

Paul was saying that all the stuff in his life that he thought made him a good person (all of his rule-following and “righteous” deeds and all of the high-ranking positions and accomplishments that he achieved) was worthless compared to knowing Jesus. THAT is love and devotion to God.

My prayer is to be so in love with God and so devoted to Him that everything in my life stinks like the kitchen trashcan when compared to Jesus. Will you join me in that prayer? Compared to knowing Jesus, everything else just fades away.

Related Text:
John 17:3
“And this is the real and eternal life: that they know you, the one and only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent.”

Matthew 5:9
“Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.”

Jesus didn’t say “blessed are the peace-lovers”, because everyone enjoys peace. Nor did He say, “blessed are the peaceable who are easy going and never let anything bother them”. Being a peacemaker is different than being a person who doesn’t let anything bother them or someone who enjoys peace. Peacemakers are rare because peace-making is hard work. But it’s worth the effort.

Relationships are always worth restoring. God wants us to value our relationships instead of discarding them every time there’s a problem. Paul wrote, “Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate? Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose.” (Philippians 2:1-2)

The ability to get along well with other believers is a mark of spiritual maturity. God wants His family to be known for their love of each other. Broken relationships hurt our witness and our testimony to others. Paul, in his letter to the church in Corinth, was upset with the way the people were separating inside the church and breaking into warring factions. He was shocked that no one had the spiritual maturity to resolve the conflicts peaceably. Where ever you are, as long as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. And, even when it’s difficult, ask for God’s wisdom to become a peacemaker.

Related Text:
1 Corinthians 1:10
“I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with each other. Let there be no divisions in the church. Rather, be of one mind, united in thought and purpose.”

Romans 12:2
“Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”

If you are wrestling with a certain problem, thinking “If I could just get through this, everything will be alright”, then you may find this as bad news. In all likely hood, when you conquer this particular problem, God will reveal something new that needs to be dealt with. God will always be working on us, aiding us in our journey to spiritual maturity; becoming all that He wants us to be.

Real change doesn’t come through frustration, self-rejection, guilt, or white-knuckled human effort. Real change comes as a result of having our mind renewed daily by the Word of God (that means our daily reading and study of our Bibles). As we agree with God, believing what He says is true, change will occur. We start to think differently, then talk differently, and finally act differently. As plainly as I can say it, when you spend time with God reading your Bible, it will change you.

But what so often happens is that we become complacent with our lives and routines. We become a run-down version of our formers selves, cracking under the pressure of our daily responsibilities. Often, the first thing that get’s squeezed out of our day is time with God. Then, before we know it, we have no joy, no peace, we begin to feel hopeless, and we wonder what’s happened to us. We think, act, and live no differently than the people around us who don’t know Jesus. GET BACK INTO HIS WORD!

Related Text:
Deuteronomy 11:18-20
“Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates”

SATURATE YOUR LIFE WITH THE HOLY SCRIPTURES FROM GOD’S WORD

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Devotional

Don’t Hit Reset: John 16:33 – “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Do you have one of those bad tempers when it comes to video games? C’mon, be honest! Have you ever thrown your controller at the TV? What about dying over and Over and OVER on the SAME LEVEL every time you get there?!?! Have you ever gotten crazy angry to the point where you swear off that “stupid game” forever, only to return 10 minutes later because it’s just driving you nuts that you can’t beat it? Have you ever made it near the end of a game only to be surrounded by too many villains and you’re convinced that you don’t have enough lives to finish it out? You’ve worked so hard to get there, but the “reset” button is only inches away. It calls to you to push it, and all your worries will disappear. You can start over, gather up more lives, and use a cheat code here or there to inflict more devastation on your enemies, all in hopes to beat the game before 2am? . . . I just described my life during years 8-16.

I was reading John 16:33, 1 John 4:4, Matthew 10:22 and John 15:18-21, and for some reason video games came into my mind. I can remember hitting the “reset” button when playing a video game felt like giving up. It’s like I was saying, “I just can’t win. I can’t beat this level. This is too hard for me to do. I’m worn out, I’ll try tomorrow.”

These verses tell us that during our lives, there will be people persecuting us and hating us and that there will be forces against us all because we are followers of Jesus Christ. Jesus didn’t say that our lives as Christians would be easy; in fact, He said we may get run out of town for what we believe. But, God’s Word assures us that we have victory over all that opposes us, and that victory is found in Jesus Christ. When Jesus died for us, rose from the grave, and ascended into heaven, He forever defeated sin and the power that death and hell had over us.

So, no matter what struggles we have in our lives, no matter how difficult it may get, no matter how oppressed or persecuted we may be, no matter how many “villains” try to take us out, WE HAVE ALREADY WON, AND VICTORY HAS COME IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD! So, whatever trials or hardships come your way, don’t give up, never quit, don’t even think about throwing in the towel, and whatever you do, don’t hit the reset button. Jesus is greater and stronger than anything this world can throw at you!

** I encourage you to use these passages from God’s Word as a resource in your daily life. Don’t let this truth just rest on this tag or on this shirt. Use it! Let it become a part of you, let the scripture be written on your heart and move you to live your life in obedience to God out of love. Dive into God’s Word, spend time with Him in prayer, connect with other believers, live for Jesus who died for your sins and rose again! **

FYI – We have a Bible Study on Facebook.com and invite you to join. New scripture is posted daily. If you don’t have a Facebook Account, then you will need to create one to join the Bible Study. So, if you’re interested, sign into your Facebook Account and search “Facebook Bible Study – yes you can join!”

click the shirt to see a larger image…………….

Devotional

Nothing Compares: Philippians 3:7-9 – “I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with Him. ”

Do you love Jesus so much that everything else in your life feels like trash compared to Him? Think about the trashcan in your kitchen, it always has the messiest, grossest, and most stinky trash (or at least ours does, haha). You come home and you’re hit with this stench from across the room and you hang your head as you realize you put last night’s spaghetti scraps and various refrigerator leftovers in the trash but you forgot to take it outside to the dumpster. It’s been rotting all day, and now you have this vile stink filling your house and making you a little dizzy, but you’ve got to take it outside because the smell just gets worse with time. As you move closer, the smell gains strength and your stomach starts churning. When you close up the trash bag, that little puff of air hits you in the face and you gag and almost hurl your lunch as you tie it up and race outside bag-in-hand hoping it’s not dripping on the floor. That’s some nasty trash!

Is that how you view all your good deeds and material things when you compare them to Jesus and knowing that He died to offer you salvation from your sins? Are you seeking God’s wisdom and striving to grow closer to Him more each day, or are you wasting time building up riches, trying to impress people with what you wear, what you own, or what you’ve accomplished?

Paul was saying that all the stuff in his life that he thought made him a good person (all of his rule-following and “righteous” deeds and all of the high-ranking positions and accomplishments that he achieved) was worthless compared to knowing Jesus. THAT is love and devotion to God.

My prayer is to be so in love with God and so devoted to Him that everything in my life stinks like the kitchen trashcan when compared to Jesus. Will you join me in that prayer? Compared to knowing Jesus, everything else just fades away.

** I encourage you to use these passages from God’s Word as a resource in your daily life. Don’t let this truth just rest on this tag or on this shirt. Use it! Let it become a part of you, let the scripture be written on your heart and move you to live your life in obedience to God out of love. Dive into God’s Word, spend time with Him in prayer, connect with other believers, live for Jesus who died for your sins and rose again! **

FYI – We have a Bible Study on Facebook.com and invite you to join. New scripture is posted daily. If you don’t have a Facebook Account, then you will need to create one to join the Bible Study. So, if you’re interested, sign into your Facebook Account and search “Facebook Bible Study – yes you can join!”

click the shirt to see a larger image…………….

Devotional

Quick to Listen: James 1:19-25 – “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.”

In this first chapter of James, we have found the thrust of James’s entire letter: calling upon Christians to live with moral urgency, serious holiness, and unconditional obedience to the word of God. You can almost feel the passion coming from James as he urges us to have complete confidence in and reliance upon the grace of God. James is so earnest for moral purity in 1:19-25 because of the theology he has taught in 1:1-18 (great to read, check it out!). It is the thorough purity of God (never tempted, never tempting, never changing) that calls us to holiness; it is the generous giving of God, giving wisdom without finding fault, giving the crown of life, giving every good and perfect gift, that moves us to holiness. Furthermore, going back to the very beginning of James’s message, this pursuit of holiness is not an oppressive burden, but a task of joy because of the great worth of the goal that God’s grace has made possible. God has called Christians to become mature and complete, as firstfruits of all He created.

In James 1:19-25, his recommendation to us as we strive to live a holy life is to listen first, be patient in our speech, and put away anger. Listen to what God has to say to you, then live it out. Do not listen to what God has to say and then go on about your life without Him. Allow God’s Word to penetrate every area of your life and be obedient to His teaching.

** I encourage you to use these passages from God’s Word as a resource in your daily life. Don’t let this truth just rest on this tag or on this shirt. Use it! Let it become a part of you, let the scripture be written on your heart and move you to live your life in obedience to God out of love. Dive into God’s Word, spend time with Him in prayer, connect with other believers, live for Jesus who died for your sins and rose again! **

FYI – We have a Bible Study on Facebook.com and invite you to join. New scripture is posted daily. If you don’t have a Facebook Account, then you will need to create one to join the Bible Study. So, if you’re interested, sign into your Facebook Account and search “Facebook Bible Study – yes you can join!”