7/02 Revelation 22:1-3
1 And the angel showed me a pure river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2 coursing down the center of the main street. On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations. 3 No longer will anything be cursed. For the throne of God and of the Lamb will be there, and his servants will worship him.
HOME
Heaven is my home. I am just passing through. The Lord is in control and I am seeking to follow Him and help those around me. Heaven is going to be a great place and I will live there with Jesus for eternity.
Category - Devotionals
7/1 Psalm 148:1
1 Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD from the heavens! Praise him from the skies! 2 Praise him, all his angels! Praise him, all the armies of heaven! 3 Praise him, sun and moon! Praise him, all you twinkling stars! 4 Praise him, skies above! Praise him, vapors high above the clouds! 5 Let every created thing give praise to the LORD, for he issued his command, and they came into being. 6 He established them forever and forever. His orders will never be revoked. 7 Praise the LORD from the earth, you creatures of the ocean depths, 8 fire and hail, snow and storm, wind and weather that obey him, 9 mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, 10 wild animals and all livestock, reptiles and birds, 11 kings of the earth and all people, rulers and judges of the earth, 12 young men and maidens, old men and children. 13 Let them all praise the name of the LORD. For his name is very great; his glory towers over the earth and heaven! 14 He has made his people strong, honoring his godly ones — the people of Israel who are close to him. Praise the LORD!
PRAISE
It is wonderful to praise the Lord. He is worthy of all of our praise. When our hearts are focused on Jesus, praising God comes naturally. Praise the Lord.
6/30 Acts 7:46-60
“David found favor with God and asked for the privilege of building a permanent Temple for the God of Jacob. 47 But it was Solomon who actually built it. 48 However, the Most High doesn’t live in temples made by human hands. As the prophet says, 49 ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Could you ever build me a temple as good as that?’ asks the Lord. ‘Could you build a dwelling place for me? 50 Didn’t I make everything in heaven and earth?’ 51 “You stubborn people! You are heathen at heart and deaf to the truth. Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit? But your ancestors did, and so do you! 52 Name one prophet your ancestors didn’t persecute! They even killed the ones who predicted the coming of the Righteous One — the Messiah whom you betrayed and murdered. 53 You deliberately disobeyed God’s law, though you received it from the hands of angels. ” 54 The Jewish leaders were infuriated by Stephen’s accusation, and they shook their fists in rage. 55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily upward into heaven and saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand. 56 And he told them, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand!” 57 Then they put their hands over their ears, and drowning out his voice with their shouts, they rushed at him. 58 They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. The official witnesses took off their coats and laid them at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 And as they stoned him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60 And he fell to his knees, shouting, “Lord, don’t charge them with this sin!” And with that, he died.
SIN
We recoil at someone pointing out our sin. Pride demands an apology and we continue in our sin. The truth is sin separates us from the Lord. It blinds us to our actions and permits us to esteem ourselves above the Lord. We must be constantly before the Lord so that we can deal with our sin. Ask Jesus what your sin is and He will quickly tell you. Ask Him to forgive you and the Word tells us that He will forgive you and equip you to stand in the evil hour.
6/29 Acts 7:30-45
“Forty years later, in the desert near Mount Sinai, an angel appeared to Moses in the flame of a burning bush. 31 Moses saw it and wondered what it was. As he went to see, the voice of the Lord called out to him, 32 ‘I am the God of your ancestors — the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ Moses shook with terror and dared not look. 33 “And the Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground. 34 You can be sure that I have seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries. So I have come to rescue them. Now go, for I will send you to Egypt.’ 35 And so God sent back the same man his people had previously rejected by demanding, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us?’ Through the angel who appeared to him in the burning bush, Moses was sent to be their ruler and savior. 36 And by means of many miraculous signs and wonders, he led them out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, and back and forth through the wilderness for forty years. 37 “Moses himself told the people of Israel, ‘God will raise up a Prophet like me from among your own people.’ 38 Moses was with the assembly of God’s people in the wilderness. He was the mediator between the people of Israel and the angel who gave him life-giving words on Mount Sinai to pass on to us. 39 “But our ancestors rejected Moses and wanted to return to Egypt. 40 They told Aaron, ‘Make us some gods who can lead us, for we don’t know what has become of this Moses, who brought us out of Egypt.’ 41 So they made an idol shaped like a calf, and they sacrificed to it and rejoiced in this thing they had made. 42 Then God turned away from them and gave them up to serve the sun, moon, and stars as their gods! In the book of the prophets it is written, ‘Was it to me you were bringing sacrifices during those forty years in the wilderness, Israel? 43 No, your real interest was in your pagan gods — the shrine of Molech, the star god Rephan, and the images you made to worship them. So I will send you into captivity far away in Babylon.’ 44 “Our ancestors carried the Tabernacle with them through the wilderness. It was constructed in exact accordance with the plan shown to Moses by God. 45 Years later, when Joshua led the battles against the Gentile nations that God drove out of this land, the Tabernacle was taken with them into their new territory. And it was used there until the time of King David.
IDOLS
Every age of mankind has its own unique idols and its own style of idol worship. For example in the USA we worship personal success almost to the exclusion of everything else. We strive to be number one. The lonely and downtrodden are overlooked unless it benefits us to remember them. We seek personal beauty and self-fulfillment. The Lord is God and we are to worship Him alone. We have one Lord and one God and He has manifested himself to us in a form we can understand. His name is Jesus and He is God’s everything.
6/28 Acts 7:20-29
“At that time Moses was born — a beautiful child in God’s eyes. His parents cared for him at home for three months. 21 When at last they had to abandon him, Pharaoh’s daughter found him and raised him as her own son. 22 Moses was taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he became mighty in both speech and action. 23 “One day when he was forty years old, he decided to visit his relatives, the people of Israel. 24 During this visit, he saw an Egyptian mistreating a man of Israel. So Moses came to his defense and avenged him, killing the Egyptian. 25 Moses assumed his brothers would realize that God had sent him to rescue them, but they didn’t. 26 “The next day he visited them again and saw two men of Israel fighting. He tried to be a peacemaker. ‘Men,’ he said, ‘you are brothers. Why are you hurting each other?’ 27 “But the man in the wrong pushed Moses aside and told him to mind his own business. ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us?’ he asked. 28 ‘Are you going to kill me as you killed that Egyptian yesterday?’ 29 When Moses heard that, he fled the country and lived as a foreigner in the land of Midian, where his two sons were born.
DO IT YOURSELF?
Taking God’s will into our own hands always results in failure. We are to do God’s will but in so doing we have to be under the constant leadership and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Christ in us is the key to fulfilling God’s will.
6/27 Acts 7:11-19
“But a famine came upon Egypt and Canaan. There was great misery for our ancestors, as they ran out of food. 12 Jacob heard that there was still grain in Egypt, so he sent his sons to buy some. 13 The second time they went, Joseph revealed his identity to his brothers, and they were introduced to Pharaoh. 14 Then Joseph sent for his father, Jacob, and all his relatives to come to Egypt, seventy-five persons in all. 15 So Jacob went to Egypt. He died there, as did all his sons. 16 All of them were taken to Shechem and buried in the tomb Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor in Shechem. 17 “As the time drew near when God would fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt greatly increased. 18 But then a new king came to the throne of Egypt who knew nothing about Joseph. 19 This king plotted against our people and forced parents to abandon their newborn babies so they would die.
VICTORY
Victory is accomplished in the face of the most cruel attacks from our enemy, the evil one, Satan, who cannot change the fact that we belong to the Lord. His program is to strike out as viciously as possible to deter us from the Lord’s way and work. Serve the Lord. Let the Lord fight the battle with the evil one for you. Stand in the day of testing and the Lord will see you through.
6/26 Acts 7:8-10
God also gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision at that time. And so Isaac, Abraham’s son, was circumcised when he was eight days old. Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob was the father of the twelve patriarchs of the Jewish nation. 9 “These sons of Jacob were very jealous of their brother Joseph, and they sold him to be a slave in Egypt. But God was with him 10 and delivered him from his anguish. And God gave him favor before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. God also gave Joseph unusual wisdom, so that Pharaoh appointed him governor over all of Egypt and put him in charge of all the affairs of the palace.
FAVOR
The Lord will show you favor. He will heal your heart and equip you to face the challenges of life right now this moment. Trust the Lord. Serve the Lord in obedience and live by faith and He will favor for you.
6/25 Acts 7:5-7
But God gave him no inheritance here, not even one square foot of land. God did promise, however, that eventually the whole country would belong to Abraham and his descendants — though he had no children yet. 6 But God also told him that his descendants would live in a foreign country where they would be mistreated as slaves for four hundred years. 7 ‘But I will punish the nation that enslaves them,’ God told him, ‘and in the end they will come out and worship me in this place.’
PROMISE
The Father has made you a promise in Jesus Christ-nothing can separate us from Him. We will not be alone and we will know which way to go. He will heal us. The Lord will forgive us. His love will carry us. Follow Jesus and you will worship and honor the Father.
6/24 Acts 7:1-4
1 Then the high priest asked Stephen, “Are these accusations true?” 2 This was Stephen’s reply: “Brothers and honorable fathers, listen to me. Our glorious God appeared to our ancestor Abraham in Mesopotamia before he moved to Haran. 3 God told him, ‘Leave your native land and your relatives, and come to the land that I will show you.’ 4 So Abraham left the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran until his father died. Then God brought him here to the land where you now live.
FOLLOW
Jesus wants us to follow Him. Where He leads us we should go. There is no fear in Jesus for He will not leave us, He is never caught off guard and He knows what is going to happen. He will lead us in the way we should go and we can totally trust Him.
6/23 Ezekiel 34:24-31
And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David will be a prince among my people. I, the LORD, have spoken! 25 “I will make a covenant of peace with them and drive away the dangerous animals from the land. Then my people will be able to camp safely in the wildest places and sleep in the woods without fear. 26 I will cause my people and their homes around my holy hill to be a blessing. And I will send showers, showers of blessings, which will come just when they are needed. 27 The orchards and fields of my people will yield bumper crops, and everyone will live in safety. When I have broken their chains of slavery and rescued them from those who enslaved them, then they will know that I am the LORD. 28 They will no longer be prey for other nations, and wild animals will no longer attack them. They will live in safety, and no one will make them afraid. 29 “And I will give them a land famous for its crops, so my people will never again go hungry or be shamed by the scorn of foreign nations. 30 In this way, they will know that I, the LORD their God, am with them. And they will know that they, the people of Israel, are my people, says the Sovereign LORD. 31 You are my flock, the sheep of my pasture. You are my people, and I am your God, says the Sovereign LORD.”
YES
Yes, the Lord is for us. Yes, Jesus loves you and me and He is seeking our best good. Take your troubles to the Lord and ask Him for guidance. He will speak to you and tell you which way to go for the Lord is good and He is seeking our good. Bend your knee in obedience to the Lord and you will never walk alone.