Devotion
God’s thunderous storm
David Jacobs
The Lord works in mysterious ways. Have you heard this? While this may seem profound at first, if we dig deeper I think we can see that this phrase is a superficial explanation for something more meaningful. As these verses discuss, do we find it marvelous or mysterious when it rains or snows? Do we dwell on the ways that the Lord is working or do we take it more or less for granted? If we stop and take a moment to consider what we understand about our existence on Earth, we can start to appreciate how beautiful life can be. It helps us to understand our place and our own existence as well as reveal some of the mysterious ways that God is working.
Our worries are often about what God has planned for us: why won't He show us a sign? Why do we feel alone? We become anxious over things beyond our control, causing us to forget that God wants us to enjoy our time on Earth. Worship takes many forms, and one of the most important forms of worship is appreciating the natural world that God created. Rain, snow, thunder, lightning, humans, animals...instead of viewing God's plan as "mysterious", try to appreciate the wonders of His love and the infinite manifestations that we can see, feel, touch, smell, and taste.
Prayer
Take a moment from your busy life and go into nature. The next time you encounter rain, snow, sunshine, wind, plants, and animals, realize that these are all God's creations. More importantly, realize your own place among them and that you, too, are God's work.
Night Prayer
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
Inspiration
Sin rules our lives until we accept Christ as our personal Lord and Savior. When we invite Him into our lives, our old sinful heart dies, and God creates within us a new one, where sin no longer rules our life; God does! Our thoughts and actions begin to change because we no longer desire a sinful lifestyle. We joyfully devote our lives to serving Him and inviting others to understand His promise of salvation.
Prayer
Dear Lord, we are sinners born again and recreated to live according to Your will. We are grateful for Your love and the peace we experience by abolishing our old sinful self. In Jesus' Name, Amen.
Devotion
Satan Has Been Defeated
Frances Taylor
Salvation and power have come with Christ and Satan has been defeated. Sin and death have been conquered by the actions of one man, Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, both human and divine who came into the world to bring the Good News of salvation by living, dying and rising for us. As Christians we claim to believe this but our actions sometimes deny it. Unfortunately, people seem to resurrect Satan all the time. We allow him to lead us away from God, forgetting the way to the Father that is love, and giving in to Satan's path of hatred, anger, pride, lust, chaos and destruction.
Satan, of course, doesn't present these as bad things, he makes them seem attractive. He presents sin as goods to be desired, as things to make us happy or give us pleasure. It can be hard to stay on the path that leads to God when the world seems to be crowding us and pushing us off of it. How easy it is to forget the sacrifice that bought our freedom! Which of us ...
Morning Prayer
Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.
Inspiration
It is right for us to defer to others and to rejoice with others when they have cause to rejoice over some blessing in their life, instead of sorrowing before them over some problem in our life. It is right also to weep with those who weep, showing compassion and feeling for them in their grief instead of "dancing joyfully before those who mourn" as if insensitive to their sorrow.
Prayer
Give me a discerning spirit, Lord, to know when to rejoice and when to weep. Let me show concern for others and their situation and life events instead of just focusing only on my own. Let me show true compassion and genuine joy in the right way and time to others. Amen.
