Category: Devotionals

Roots are one of the most important parts of a tree. A tree’s roots are what anchor it in the soil, keeping the tree from falling during extreme weather. The roots keep the tree straight and give it stability. Water found in the soil is absorbed into the tree through its roots. And the nutrients and chemicals that are necessary for the health of the tree, for its growth and development, are taken from the soil through the tree’s roots. Without roots growing down into the soil, a tree cannot survive.

In order for our faith to survive, we need divine roots. And our roots need to grow into divine soil. That divine soil is Jesus Christ. When we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior and begin to follow Him, we need to allow our roots to grow down into Him, we need to allow our lives to be built on Him. When our roots grow into Jesus’ divine soil, our faith will not just survive, but it will also grow strong in His truth. The result will be thankfulness that will overflow from us (Colossians 2:6-7).

When we allow our roots to grow in Jesus, we are anchored in Him. And when we are anchored in Him, no storm of life will be able to make us fall. We will be like the wise builder whom Jesus taught about, building our lives on His firm foundation (Luke 6:48). When we allow our roots to grow in Jesus, we will trust in Him and allow Him to keep our paths straight and give our lives stability (Proverbs 3:5-6). And, just as a tree’s roots take from the soil the nutrients and water that the tree needs to survive, when we are rooted in Christ, He gives us all that we need to survive. Jesus is the Bread of Life and, when we come to Him and allow our roots to grow deep in Him, we will never be hungry and will never thirst (John 6:35).

On October 3, 1789, in the City of New York, a proclamation was issued by our first president, George Washington. The purpose of this proclamation was to set aside a Thursday in November as a day of service to God, a day of thanksgiving and prayer that should be observed by “acknowledging with grateful hearts the many favors of Almighty God.” The proclamation began by pointing out that it is “the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits.”

As Americans, we still set apart that one Thursday in November to be a day on which we give thanks to God for all He has done for us individually and as a nation. As believers and children of God, every day of our lives should be set apart as a day of thanksgiving. Thankfulness should be a way of life for us, and our hearts should always be filled with gratitude for all that God has done for us. We should be thankful not only every day, but in all circumstances in which we find ourselves, good and bad, for this is the will of God for all of us (1 Thessalonians 5:18). It is God’s will that, through His Son, Jesus Christ, we be a people with an attitude of gratitude.

There is so much that we should be thankful for. Every good gift and every perfect gift comes to us from our heavenly Father (James 1:17), from the food we eat to our very breath. For those things, we should be thankful. Scripture tells us that not only is God a good God, but the love He has for us, His steadfast, faithful love for us, will endure not just for a day, not for a week, a month, or a year, but forever. And for that, we should give Him thanks (1 Chronicle 16:34). And, of course, we should be thankful for His Son, Jesus Christ, whom God gave as a ransom for our sins so that, by believing in Him, we will not perish but will have eternal life (John 3:16). And that is something to be truly thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Have you ever wondered why, in the United States military forces, there are commissioned officers and non-commissioned officers? What does it mean to be commissioned? The word commission refers to an instruction, a duty, or a command that is given to a person or group of people. In the military, an officer who is commissioned is one who holds a commission from the highest authority in the country, the President of the United States. That commission allows the officer to command all of the military personnel under him or her. A non-commissioned officer, on the other hand, receives orders from commissioned officers and assigns tasks to lower-ranking personnel.

A believer receives his or her commission from the highest authority there is, from God. Throughout Scripture, God gave commissions to His people. The first commission, given to mankind through Adam and Eve, was to multiply, fill the earth, and have dominion over all living creatures (Genesis 1:28). Later, when mankind’s evil caused God to bring a flood to wipe out what He had created, God selected one man and his family to survive and then gave them a similar commission to the one given to Adam and Eve, be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth (Genesis 9:1).

Before He ascended into heaven, Jesus gave a commission to His disciples, a commission that is for each and every person who believes in and follows Him. Just as Adam and Eve and Noah and his family were commissioned to go out into the earth, we as believers are commissioned to do the same. Jesus told His disciples to go to Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And just as Adam and Eve and Noah and his family were to be fruitful and multiply, we are also commissioned to be fruitful and multiply, but not in exactly the same way.

Our commission as believers is to be fruitful by spreading the good news of Jesus Christ, by bringing the gospel to all parts of the earth and to all of its people (Mark 16:15). Our commission is to help bring those with whom we share the gospel into the family of God, to multiply the number of those who have been saved by the redeeming power of the blood of Jesus Christ. Our commission is that of ambassadors for Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20), being His witnesses as we represent Him to the world (Acts 1:8).

My wife’s office recently had a potluck luncheon and I prepared a vegan “chicken” salad for her to take to the luncheon. When the luncheon was over, there was a good amount of the salad left over, so my wife left the office with the leftovers, intending to bring them home. Lunch for the next couple of days! But, on her way home, something happened. As she made her way home, she came upon an old Asian woman who appeared to be homeless. Feeling a nudge from the Holy Spirit, my wife asked her if she was hungry, but the woman spoke no English. My wife took out the bowl of salad and showed it to the woman, who accepted it and smiled. Although my wife could not communicate with this woman verbally, through her act of compassion my wife communicated to the woman the love of Christ. I believe it was a divine appointment.

In Acts 8:26-40, the apostle Philip encountered a divine appointment. He was told by an angel of the Lord to head south on the road that goes from Jerusalem to Gaza. Obediently, Philip got up and went. On the way, he came upon an Ethiopian eunuch, who was an official of the court of the queen of Ethiopia. The eunuch was reading from the prophet Isaiah and not really understanding the meaning of what he read. Philip explained the Scriptures to the eunuch, telling him the good news about Jesus Christ. As a result of this divine appointment, the eunuch accepted Christ and was baptized.

God sometimes gives us divine appointments. He puts people in our paths so that we may show or tell them the love and good news of Jesus. These appointments often come at times and in places where we would least expect it. They sometimes can even seem like an interruption, taking us away from what we were doing in order to do God’s work. God creates these appointments. What we do with them is up to us. We can look at them as inconvenient and even try to ignore them. Or, we can do what the Holy Spirit is nudging us to do and stop to do God’s will. When we do, we become God’s instrument, and our obedience can be the difference between life and death for someone who needs to see or hear the gospel.

Jesus taught us that we must love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind (Matthew 22:37). In other words, we must love Him with all that we are, with our whole person. Loving with our hearts is easy to understand. The heart is the seat of emotion. We need to love God with all of our emotions. Loving with our mind is also easy to understand. Our thoughts must reflect our love for God. But what about our soul? What does it mean to love Him with all our soul?

When we speak of the soul, we are speaking of that part of us that is unique to us. While our bodies all have some differences from those of other people, we all have eyes, noses, ears, and all the other parts that make up our physical being, that make us human. It’s our souls that truly make us different. They make us who we are. Our souls embody our personalities and our wills.

To love God with all of our souls means that we are to love Him with what makes us, well, us. I may be introverted where you may be extroverted. I may be a morning person where you are a night owl. But, whatever I am and whatever you are, we should love God with all of it, with every bit of our unique personalities.

To love God with all of our souls also means to love Him with our wills. Because of His incredible love and grace, God created each and every one of us with free will. We can choose to be what we want to be. We can choose to do what we want to do. And, we can choose to love God or not love Him. But, if we choose to love Him, we must do it fully, with our full will. It should not be when we feel like it, or when we are having a good day. In my opinion, it’s on the days when we don’t feel like it, when things are not so good, that the will really comes into play. It’s then that we really have to exercise our full will and give Him all of the love He deserves.

Love the Lord your God. Love Him with all of your heart, with your deepest emotions. Love Him with all of your mind, with every thought and with your full intellect. And, love Him with your soul, with every part of your personality and with every bit of your will.

If you are a sports fan, a word that may be near and dear to your heart is the word victory. The word “victory” means success in defeating an opponent. It means winning the game or the championship. Victory is sweet when it’s your team that has won. In warfare, it means winning the battle or the war against an enemy. In 1 Corinthians 15:57, Paul speaks about a victory. He gives thanks to God, to the One who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

But what is this victory that we have won, why was it necessary, and how did we win it? The victory that Paul refers to in that verse is the victory over sin and death. It’s a victory that was won on Calvary and will be made complete when Jesus returns to take His people with Him to heaven. It is a victory that was made necessary when sin entered the world in the Garden of Eden through man’s disobedience to God. And it’s a victory that we could never have won through our own strength.

Jesus Christ came to earth in order to secure our victory. He gave His life as a sacrifice for our sins, taking our sins upon Himself in order to pay the price for those sins. The price for our sins was death. When Jesus breathed His last on the cross of Calvary, He took our sins with Him, washing us clean of the stain of those sins and enabling us to stand before the presence of God. That is when our victory began, but it didn’t stop there.

Jesus died and was buried in a tomb but, three days later, that tomb was empty. Jesus had risen from the dead. His resurrection was the next step in our victory, as Jesus conquered death. Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, death no longer has a hold on us. Our mortal bodies will die, but we can have eternal life through Jesus, if we believe in Him and follow Him.

The victory over death will be made complete on the day that Jesus returns for us. On that day, a trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised, and we will be changed. The perishable body that we live in now will be replaced by one that is imperishable (1 Corinthians 15:52-53). Our mortal bodies will become immortal and as it says in 1 Corinthians 15:54, death was swallowed up in victory. And, what a sweet victory that is!

God created nature. He created the earth and all that is in it. He created the atmosphere, He created the wind and the waves. When God created the earth, He did it by speaking it into being. When God spoke, the oceans came into existence. When God spoke, the mountains appeared and the earth was filled with all kinds of plant and animal life (Genesis 1:1-2:3). Creation was the result of God speaking, the result of His Word. Scripture tells us that Jesus is the Word of God and that it is through God’s Word that all of the nature around us came into being (John 1:3).

Nature is a powerful force, as evidenced by the power of the elements, the power of wind, water, and fire. But nature was created by a power far greater than the force of nature. The power that created nature is the power of the One who has conquered sin and death. It is the power of the One who has provided the way for us to have eternal life with our heavenly Father. It is the power of the One who has the ability to tear down strongholds in our lives. It is the power of Jesus Christ, the Word of God who became flesh and walked among us (John 1:14).

Jesus showed His power over nature through some of the miracles that He performed. At the wedding feast in Cana, through Jesus, the nature of water changed and it became fine wine (John 2:1-10). When a storm hit while He and His disciples were out in a boat, Jesus simply spoke and the wind, the rain, and the waves ceased and became peaceful (Luke 8:22-25). And, it was through Jesus that five small loaves of bread and two fishes became a meal for thousands of people, with food left over (Luke 9:10-17).

By accepting Jesus as our Savior, by repenting of our sins and giving our hearts to Him, we can experience the power that turned water into wine, the power that calmed the storm, the power that turned a few loaves and a couple of fish into a meal for a multitude. We can experience that power in our lives as our sins are washed away, our strongholds come down, and our storms are quieted.

Several years ago, my wife and I were planning to move to Florida. We had chosen a lot and put a down payment on it. The next order of business was to get our home in New Jersey ready to sell. One of the things that needed to be done was to have the retaining walls in our driveway replaced. We hired a local mason who was doing a lot of driveway paving in our neighborhood and he began to do the work. The old wall was torn down and the new one started going up. And that’s when the trouble began. To make a very long story short, the mason walked away from the job, leaving us with a half-built wall and several deep holes in our driveway that filled with water and became a home for frogs.

When we give our lives to Christ, the Holy Spirit begins doing a work in us. Like my old retaining walls, the old person is torn down. As the Spirit works in us, the old person becomes new, becoming more and more like Christ. In Christ, we become a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). Our minds are renewed and we begin to bear a greater resemblance to our heavenly Father as righteousness and holiness replace the sin in our lives (Ephesians 4:23-24; Colossians 3:10).

The best part about all of this is that, unlike the mason who left me with an unfinished wall, the Holy Spirit will complete the work in us. The good work that He begins in us when we give our lives to Christ will go on throughout our lives and the Spirit will not stop working until it is completed at the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6). On that day, Jesus will return to judge His enemies and to deliver His people as He establishes His reign on earth. Because of the completed work by the Holy Spirit in our lives, those of us who have given our lives to Christ can look on that day not with fear, but with rejoicing.

Let’s say that a new business is opening up in your neighborhood and the owner is looking for people to help him get everything ready. He is offering $100.00 for a day’s work that coming Saturday. Needing some extra cash, you decide to take him up on the offer. When Saturday comes, you arrive at 9:00AM. There are three other workers there and you all begin working hard. Late that afternoon, two more people show up looking for work. Seeing that there is still much to be done, the business owner hires them and they join in on the work. When the work is finally done, the business owner calls you and the other workers over and hands each of you a one hundred dollar bill. How does that make you feel? Slighted? Treated unfairly?

Sometimes God speaks to us through things that happen in our daily lives. Sometimes it’s through our work, sometimes through our kids, and sometimes it’s even through our pets. Today, God spoke to me through my two retired racing greyhounds, Toby and Flo. This afternoon, I needed to go out to the store. Since I wasn’t going to be going to a pet-friendly store, I left the dogs home, got in my car and headed out.