Devotion
Sing for as long as I live
David Jacobs
I have been fortunate to share my music ministry with many congregations since I was young. There is no activity that I have ever done where I received more praise than singing as a child soloist in my church. Decades later, I can still remember the eager looks in the pews of my church, staring up at me in anticipation of this music. The amount of joy that I brought to people's lives simply by singly a cute song in front of the church unabashedly was humbling, so humbling that I still remember that 'rock star' feeling that I got as a child to this day.
Prayer
Nobody sang the praises of God more loudly and more often than King David. He seemed to sing the praises of God with nearly every breath that he took, and much of the Old Testament is evidence of that. How many chances have we had to lift up our voices and sing in joyous worship of the Lord? The answer is at any time. Our entire life can be lived as a song of worship or a prayer of devotion to our God. Why do we not sing God's praises with every chance that we have? The sinners will live a life of temptation, ours will be a life of rejoicing. Thanks be to God! Amen.
See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven:
Inspiration
To reject the truths taught in God's Word, spoken by his prophets and apostles and by Jesus Christ his Son, is a grave offense. In the days when Hebrews was written, there were still true prophets in the Church, speaking from God. Today, we have his written Word as our "prophet. " If a preacher preaches truly according to the Book, we are in a grave sin if we reject it.
Prayer
Help me, O Lord, to discern when your Word is being taught correctly and when it is not. Teach me to embrace your truths and love them. Help me to walk in them and meditate on them. Let me not sin in rejecting the plain teachings of the Bible. Amen.
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 ...
