'Devotional' Tagged Posts (Page 2)

Matthew 7:3-4 BSB Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while there is still a beam in your own eye?      Romans 3:23 tells us that we all sin, James 2:10 tells us “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.”…

Romans 2:1 GNT Do you, my friend, pass judgment on others? You have no excuse at all, whoever you are. For when you judge others and then do the same things which they do, you condemn yourself.          Hank Williams Jr had a song with the lyric “Well, if you mind your own business, then you won’t be mindin’ mine” and there is a great deal of truth in that. Not only are we not perfect, but we ought to be…

Proverbs 18:13 AB He who answers before he hears the facts— It is folly and shame to him.      Knee jerk responses are some of the worst kinds there can be. Belief, anger, rage, and judgement in the spur of the moment can cause a whole lot of trouble. We have all done it, reacted immediately to something and found out later we were wrong. We need to learn to practice the pause, to stop and breath and think and maybe…

Luke 6:37 NKJV “Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.“      In the end, we get what we gave and that should give us pause. Every assumption, every word of gossip, every lie, every condemnation, every hateful word, all of that will come back on us. The good news is that every act of compassion, every act of mercy, every kind word, these will come back…

Exodus 23:1-2 BSB “You shall not spread a false report. Do not join the wicked by being a malicious witness. You shall not follow the crowd in wrongdoing. When you testify in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd.      Do we side with the crowd without looking for the truth out of laziness; or out of fear of speaking up; or do we just not care enough to find the truth? Are we just trying to…

John 7:51 NIV “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?”      Do we repeat what we hear without finding out the truth or condemn someone because of what we heard? Why? Is it just easier to take something as fact? Do we trust the source of the information too much? Is it what we suspect or want to hear, so we don’t want to know the truth? Are we just…

Jeremiah 29:11 ESV For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.        In a recent report by the CDC it was noted that suicide rates over the last 15 years have increased 30% and that it is now the tenth leading cause of death for Americans. In 2016 nearly 46,000 people (10yrs and older) took their own lives (that’s 130 people every…

Luke 18:1 NIV Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. That is the core of the solution, keeping in touch with God. He is always with us and even if we don’t pay attention sometimes. But He is there for us, always. He is our Heavenly Father, our Brother in Christ and we have His Spirit within us. But we have to chose to keep the contact going.…

Micah 7:8 GNT Our enemies have no reason to gloat over us. We have fallen, but we will rise again. We are in darkness now, but the LORD will give us light.      Most of us have been there, abandoned at the bottom of the heap with someone gloating over their “victory” over us. Yet here we are “still standing”. Like the mythical phoenix, many of us have risen from impossible circumstances to be far better off than before; given another…

Matthew 6:26 NLT Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are?      He will look after us; all we have to do is trust in that. We are made in His image; don’t you think he will care for us like any good parent would? He loves us and wants us to be safe and happy and restored…

1 Kings 19:4 BSB while he himself traveled on a day’s journey into the wilderness. He sat down under a broom tree and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”       Elijah had suffered enough; he was tired and wanted to quit; he wanted to just die and be done with it all.  I don’t know about ya ’all, but I know exactly how he…

Romans 8:35 ESV Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?      The first apostles suffered a lot for the Gospel, and yet it just made them more faithful. No matter the persecution they would always bounce back and rise up. It was faith, pure and simple, that got them through it all. From excommunication, to arrests, to beatings and even unto death, they remained faithful.…