Devotion
Remember What The Lord Has Done
Frances Taylor
Jesus has just cured a man who had been unable to walk for 38 years, lying beside the healing waters of Bethesda with no one to put him into the water. After Jesus heals him, he finds him to warn him against sinning. Does this seem weird? Well, let's think about it. A man who can't walk can't get into too much trouble. Now, he has choices and he may be tempted to make poor ones. God answers our prayers too. When we are in trouble and praying for God's help, our focus is on God and trying to work things out. Once everything is great again, we often forget about God and get back into the same trouble or worse. Many people have prayed to become rich, to win a lottery or get an inheritance, and then what happens? In the majority of cases, the money can lead to a spending spree, a dissatisfaction with one's spouse, job, home, etc, and the person loses what he has gained and more as the family, the job, the home, etc. are now gone. God's message to the man who was healed is the same for us. Just as we turn to God in times of trouble, we must not turn away from God when all is going well.
Prayer
Lord, I know I try your patience at times, turning to you for help and then turning away once my prayers are answered. Give me your grace so that you will always be on my mind and in my heart. 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 ...
