A Weekly Devotional – Receivers of Mercy – Personal Meditation

A Weekly Devotional – Receivers of Mercy – Personal Meditation

Comment: For a moment or two, lets think about the most important decision a person can make in his or her lifetime. Now if you came up with anything else besides the Gospel of God’s Son, you are missing the point. Abiding in the darkness of a night can be pleasant for a season, but as you KNOW, when the first light of dawn finally arrives it always brings a shout of joy because the darkness fades and the new light of day begins. Those who sail the oceans know this very well, I remember those days long past now, when standing the early watch, that when the day began to dawn there was that pure sense of fresh beginnings. Plans for the coming day began to take over and the past events of the darkness faded away. The memories of the night never seem to measure up to the light of a new day, those memories fade away like a fog when the morning sun burns it away. Jesus spoke of night and day to His disciples, please read John 11:9-10 and be of an understanding heart.

Devotional: Here is the rub. “But even if our gospel is veiled (not visible), it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of the age has blinded, (darkened) who do not believe, lest the LIGHT of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. 2 Corinthians 4:3-4.” People who live in the darkness as revealed by the apostle in these opening verses of chapter 4 of Second Corinthians are those who have not received MERCY from God because they knowingly live in ‘darkness’. 

The apostle is writing to those of us who experience God’s Mercy, we knowingly will never experience God’s Wrath, thus we should never lose heart. Having renounced the hidden things of darkness (shame) we should cease walking in the craftiness of our flesh and stop handling the Word of God in a deceitful manner. Now, you say what? Far to often we fail to lead by (Example or Word) those who are in darkness to the Light of the gospel. I hear as you do the testimonies of men and women who fail to know the results of their feeble witness. When asked if those they spoke to came to faith, the answer, more often than not is, “Well I don’t know?” Some would argue that we do not need to know. If that is so, then why do the ones asking, ASK?

Why then do we see in the gospels and the book of Acts these witness accounts of one on one results by Christ and His disciples saving ‘one soul’ or thousands in one presentation of Gospel? The angels in heaven rejoice when a soul is saved by grace, should we not also! I am as guilty as the next, in failing to complete the message of the Gospel of Grace and Mercy, so the challenge is! “We are living in the last days before the return of the LORD to remove His Church, and we need to be ready to give an answer to those perishing in the darkness that provide results, and we need to know the results of the answer we give.”

A Weekly Devotional – man – Personal Meditation

A Weekly Devotional – man – Personal Meditation

Comment: Is there anything in your life that you are ‘assured of’? Many people it seems are like the drunk trying to walk a straight line, unable to find any firm footing. One moment we are purposed to go in a direction that seems to be right, only to change our mind and follow another course. These temporal ways of living life (and there are many) are a distraction, a distraction of the devil! Go ahead and say it; “Oh Balder-dash, Jesse” where do you come up with stuff like that? If you said that or something similar I would say that you are not reading your Bible. All the ways of man stem from the heart, this is where wickedness is rooted, notice Psalm 58:1-2 – Do you indeed speak righteousness, you silent ones? Do you judge uprightly, you sons of men? NO, in your heart you work wickedness; you weight out the violence of your hands in the earth. David the Psalm writer is expressing justice on those who think they are ‘just and righteous’ but in fact, are applying ‘self-righteousness’ to their pathway and work wickedness and violence in their daily life.

Devotional: The many ways of the human heart are not paths that lead us to “Righteousness”. There is a standard, only ONE and it is ETERNAL. This standard has never changed, nor will it EVER change as it is the way of God. Jesus Christ is that Standard, if you are saved and it is my prayer that you are, note the following verse of scripture from the apostle Paul in Galatians 2 verse 20. The apostle writes; “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I NOW live in the FLESH, I live by FAITH in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

I sense that one of the biggest hurdles we face as believers in Christ is that we fail to understand, that like Paul the apostle, we too have been crucified with Christ, our lives are not to be lived in the confines of our own self-righteous ways of the past. When the LORD Jesus was crucified, we were crucified with Him, our SIN (self-righteous deeds of the flesh) were removed from us and placed on Him. Now we live, yet still in the flesh, but now by FAITH in the One who took our sin upon Himself (Jesus), Paul says in Romans 6:6 that we know this, “our ‘old-man’, that is life before Christ was crucified with Him (Jesus) and that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

Again in 2 Corinthians 5:14-21, the apostle Paul in similar words says that if ONE died for all, then ALL died. And He did die for all, that those who live (are you not alive?) should live no longer for themselves (SELF), but (NOW) live for Him (Jesus) who died for us and rose again for us. We need to stop living for ourselves according to the flesh. Once Jesus was alive and known in the flesh, but we know Him no longer this way. Thus, if anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation, not of the flesh but of the Spirit, like that of Christ. For God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

A Weekly Devotional – GOD – Personal Meditation

A Weekly Devotional – GOD – Personal Meditation

Comment: Do you have a name for God? If you do not have a name for Him, I have a few suggestions. The man Moses was called by God to go Pharaoh the ruler in Egypt and ask for the release of the Israelites who were enslaved to the Egyptians for four hundred years. Moses was fearful to do this for a few reasons; (1) he was a wanted man in Egypt. (2) He was an Israelite who ran away after killing an Egyptian. (3) Moses stuttered when he spoke. The Israelites did not like Moses as he had been raised by Pharaoh’s daughter some forty years earlier and had been educated in the best schools of Egypt. If you are not familiar with the early life of Moses you might read Exodus, chapters 1 and 2. 

Devotional: God’s children do not start out at birth knowing God and many of them take ungodly paths before He gets their attention. Even while they may recognize God as Creator as Moses did, he like most men chose to do things, their own way. Surely you know what I mean; I have said many time in the past, “It is MY WAY or the Highway.” God, and many people did not like “My Way” so I took the Highway a lot! Get the picture? So many children of God at mid-age in life have a ‘burning bush’ encounter with their Creator, Praise God! I am sure Moses praised the LORD of heaven a time or two, notice his song in Exodus 15:1-19.

Before going to Pharaoh, Moses asked God the following question: Exodus 3:13-14 – Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and to say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to me, ‘What is His Name?’ What shall I say to them?” And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God was giving His identity to Moses as, THE SELF-EXISTING ONE. As the events in history unfold in the tribes of Israel, God clearly identifies His Sovereign Name.

Again, Exodus 3:14 – He is (Chabod-hayah), the Self-Existing (Adonai) Sovereign God; in Exodus 6:3 – He is (El Shaddai), the Almighty comforter. In these early chapters of Exodus God reveals His Total Character with His Trustworthy Names. Like, Yahweh (Jehovah), meaning, He is LORD, He is our COMFORT, our BLESSING, our PERSONAL CARE and PRESENCE. He is our EVERLASTING STRENGTH, our COMMANDER of the heavenly ARMIES. God is our HEALER, physical and spiritual. He is our PEACE, our RIGHTEOUSNESS, He is our SANCTIFIER. And lastly, He is YAHWEH NISSI, meaning God is a protective BANNER over all of His children.

To sum this up in a few words, God’s Name is: First – CREATOR, Second – SAVIOR, Third – LORD, Four – Father. You cannot KNOW or RELATE to the Sovereign GOD, if you do not know Him in that ORDER. In the Revelation, chapter 14:6-7 we read the following; “Then I saw (Apostle John is speaking) another angel in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth – to every tribe, tongue and people – saying with a loud voice, “Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come, and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water.”

Cease being an “earth dweller” and know that while God has many names, He is ONE God who reveals Himself to us in ways that challenge our, FAITH.