2023-04-21
Good Morning Dear Ones,
After reading last week’s devotion we are better able to understand the qualities that please God as prayerful ones. We must also take some actions, as a result of what God offers believers in Christ. So, let’s begin looking at some of those blessings. The Holy Spirit reminds me that we should look at what our Lord Jesus knows about the Father than enabled Him to face the atoning sacrifice of His physical life. MT 6: 8, “Do not be like them [Pagans] because the Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” Rest assured that Jesus knew His needs would be filled, no matter what or when He was asked to go through what He did. Just as the Father is omniscient, so is the Son with one exception. We learn, in MT 24: 36, that He doesn’t know the date and time He will return the second time. How do we know this? JN 14: 9, 11 tell us “Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father…I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me.” In every way, except for what was already written Christ and the Father are One; Christ and the Father both send out the same Holy Spirit to all who are willing to receive Him. Worrying is a common human trait, even though it won’t help. MT 6: 25-32, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t it more than food and the body, more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single day to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet, I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you---you of little faith? So do not worry saying, ‘“What shall we eat or what shall we wear? For the Pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.’”
God surely doesn’t want us to sit around, waiting for our basic sustenance to be given either. We were created to serve Him and others, by being given talents (skills) which we are expected to search out and discover through our life experience. The greatest joy I’ve ever experienced is when something I’m doing serves Him and other people. Seeing their good reactions is a blessing. We must remember that RO 8: 32, “God didn’t even keep back His only Son, but offered Him for us all. Since God did this, won’t He freely give us all things?” I didn’t reach adulthood knowing these things but learned them from the age of 25 on. God is a generous Deity! Even when we were not His friends, He kept us in His sight and enabled us to gain faith in His Son. The other day, there were terrible tornados in MS, ones strong enough to level and entire community burying people under huge piles of debris. Some of them lost their lives, and some of them survived. This disaster was one of many that have happened all over our world this year. And yet, God put the idea of bringing in food, water, medical supplies and other needs after these weather events and earthquakes on the hearts of godly donors. The basis of all mentioned here is God’s generosity and caring love for us. COL 1: 23, “If you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the Gospel, this kind of activity will follow. This is the Gospel that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which Paul became a servant.” Remember HE 11: 1, “Now faith is the confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Our Lord Jesus has it and want us to have it. Studying the word of God and praying often for the leadership of the Holy Spirit prepare us to have ever-increasing faith.
PRAYER: O Lord, trusting you is not always easy, but it is something that benefits us by doing so. You are a generous and faithful God. When You make promises, You keep them! More than anything, Your love for us leads You to generously give us the faith we need. Without it, we can’t fully appreciate the atoning sacrifice that Your Son made for us. There is so much to say about learning to trust You and what goes into it, that I must write more about that than I have. Trusting doesn’t come easily; it takes time and patience. The gifts of the Holy Spirit, from GA 5: 22-23, are listed, so that we can see the relationships between them and also how they function in teaching us to trust You. We beg You to share the wisdom that our faith in Christ makes available to us. Show us how to apply Your wisdom to our lives and service to You. Let our legacy be one of a Christlike example to other people and of genuine worship of You. In Christ’s holy/mighty name we pray, Amen.
NEXT WEEK: This week, we looked at God’s generosity and the faith it gives us. But there is much more to learning how to trust Him; that will be the subject of next week’s devotion. More issues, like hope, comfort, courage, memory, direction, and more all help us with trusting God. Perhaps, trusting God is one of the most difficult things we must learn. This is particularly true because most of us have experienced the painful emotions of being betrayed during our lives by other humans. So, no matter how much the Holy Spirit gives me to share with you on learning to trust Him, I promise to persevere until He thinks I have completed the task. My service to God is probably the most important thing I am doing. Our Lord treasures the faith we develop, the service we give, the love we show that He has modeled for us. He wants as many of us as possible to come to faith in the Lord and to live out that faith leaving a valuable legacy behind us. He wants us to be saved and to flourish for eternity with Him. Praise and thanks be to Him!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn, JS 24: 15
© Lynn Johnson 2023. All Rights Reserved.
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