Two Days that Will Steal Your Joy (and other devotionals)

Two Days that Will Steal Your Joy

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13-14

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

There are two days that can steal your joy and the fulfillment of today. One is tomorrow and the other is yesterday. Both are days in which we as Christians should refuse to live.

So many of us have never learned how to separate ourselves from yesterday. We are still dragging it around with us and it is stealing our joy. Paul could have lived there in the realm of guilt, but he refused.

ACTION POINT:

Maybe you, like Paul and countless others, have committed some horrible sins. But friend, what God has called cleaned, let no man call unclean. If you have confessed that sin and given it to God, it is buried in the depths. Don’t let it contaminate your day. Learn to live in the present.

~Adrian Rogers~

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He went out, not knowing whither he went (Hebrews 11:8).

It is faith without sight. When we can see, it is not faith, but reasoning. In crossing the Atlantic we observed this very principle of faith. We saw no path upon the sea, nor sign of the shore. And yet day by day we were marking our path upon the chart as exactly as if there had followed us a great chalk line upon the sea. And when we came within twenty miles of land, we knew where we were as exactly as if we had seen it all three thousand miles ahead.

How had we measured and marked our course? Day by day our captain had taken his instruments and, looking up to the sky, had fixed his course by the sun. He was sailing by the heavenly, not the earthly lights.

So faith looks up and sails on, by God's great Sun, not seeing one shore line or earthly lighthouse or path upon the way. Often its steps seem to lead into utter uncertainty, and even darkness and disaster; but He opens the way, and often makes such midnight hours the very gates of day.

Let us go forth this day, not knowing, but trusting.
--Days of Heaven upon Earth

"Too many of us want to see our way through before starting new enterprises. If we could and did, from whence would come the development of our Christian graces? Faith, hope and love cannot be plucked from trees, like ripe apples. After the words 'In the beginning' comes the word 'God'! The first step turns the key into God's power-house, and it is not only true that God helps those who help themselves, but He also helps those who cannot help themselves. You can depend upon Him every time."

"Waiting on God brings us to our journey's end quicker than our feet."

The opportunity is often lost by deliberation.

~L. B. Cowman~

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Grumbling and Complaining

One of the things I believe grieves the heart of God is when His children grumble and complain.  In Jude 6 we find some interesting insight into this destructive behavior,

These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage.

The word complainer is really two Greek words stuck together.  The first word means to blame, and the second word means your fate or lot in life.  The point is that complainers blame someone else for their lot in life.

Isn't it always amazing how someone can make wrong choices, and when they have to face the consequences of those choices, it is always somebody else's fault?

I have two pieces of advice for you on this.  First, if you are a complainer and grumbler, stop.  God is not honored, and you are only showing that you are "walking according to your own lust," not according to God's Spirit.

Second, stay away from people like that or you will end up being like them.   Proverbs 22:24-25 says,

Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man do not go, lest you learn his ways and set a snare for your soul.

Their attitudes and mindsets will bleed off on you.

Did you ever throw a pair of jeans in the washing machine with a red shirt?  What happened to your blue jeans?  They turned pink, didn't they?  The red dye bled over into the blue jeans, and the blue jeans were no longer blue.  They were pink. 

If you hang around with people who grumble and complain, their attitudes will bleed over into your way of thinking.  And the last thing you want to be is a grumbler and complainer.

~Bayless Conley~

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I Trust

Today's reading: Psalm 20:1-9

Psalm 20 is a great reminder of God's power and sovereignty. What a comfort to know that, as believers, we have full access to God and His power by calling on the name of the LORD. The words of verse 7 (which are quoted often) say it well.

"Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God" (vs. 7).

Are you fully trusting in God today? What's the impact on your life when you "trust in the name of the LORD"? 

~Tami~

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Wrath to God's Glory

"Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee: the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain"   (Psalm 76:10).

Wicked men will be wrathful. Their anger we must endure as the badge of our calling, the token of our separation from them: if we were of the world, the world would love its own. Our comfort is that the wrath of man shall be made to redound to the glory of God. When in their wrath the wicked crucified the Son of God they were unwittingly fulfilling the divine purpose, and in a thousand cases the willfulness of the ungodly is doing the same. They think themselves free, but like convicts in chains they are unconsciously working out the decrees of the Almighty. The devices of the wicked are overruled for their defeat. They act in a suicidal way and baffle their own plottings. Nothing will come of their wrath which can do us real harm. When they burned the martyrs, the smoke which blew from the stake sickened men of popery more than anything else. Meanwhile, the LORD has a muzzle and a chain for bears. He restrains the more furious wrath of the enemy. He is like a miller who holds back the mass of the water in the stream, and what He does allow to flow He uses for the turning of His wheel. Let us not sigh, but sing. All is well, however hard the wind blows.

~Charles Spurgeon~