Devout Christian

Does God's Word ever cause you discomfort? When you read the Bible, does what you read make you feel uneasy? Do you find, when you listen to sermons, that the Scripture seems aimed directly to you? You are experiencing the reality that the Word of God is alive and can read your thoughts and judge your intentions.

Regularly allow the Word of God to wash over you and find any sin or impurity. (Ephesians 5:26)

Always make the connection between your life and what God is saying to you through His Word. Make a habit of taking every word from God seriously, knowing that it is able to judge your heart and mind.

Your life will not convince those around you of the reality of Jesus if you cannot live in unity with your fellow Christians.

Righteousness is something you must allow the Holy Spirit to work in your life.

Instead of sowing holy thoughts, are you allowing evil and sinful thoughts to grow in your mind? Are you allowing lust to grow unchecked within you? Does enmity, bitterness, jealousy or unforgiveness remain in your life?

Jesus said if we first seek God and His righteousness, everything else will follow. (Matthew 6:33)

If you want to harvest righteousness in your life tomorrow, you must plant seeds of righteousness today.

What happens when Jesus speaks to you?

Have you been reading the words of Jesus in your Bible without experiencing His word that transforms everything around you?

Jesus condemned the Pharisees because they assumed the knowledge of the written Scriptures would give them life. They were satisfied with having the words instead of experiencing the Person who spoke the words. (John 5:39)

How powerful a word from God is to your life!

God knows how to bring salvation to your family, your friends, your community and your world. Accordingly, He looks for those who will allow Him to shape them into the instruments He requires to do His divine work.

Clay has no plans of its own, no aspirations for service, nor reluctance to perform its given task. It is just clay. Moldable, pliable, totally submissive to the will of its master.

If your tendency is to tell the Father what you can and cannot do for Him, submit to His agenda and allow Him to shape you into the person He wants you to be. Like clay.

The best indication that we have truly worshiped is a changed heart.

You will not see those around you trusting Jesus until they recognize a clear difference between you and the rest of the world. God wants us to sanctify you as He is holy. When God deals with you, there will be a radical degree of purity about your life that is absolutely different from the world can produce. The world, including those closest to you, will be convinced you serve a Holy God by your consecrated life.

When we encounter God and gives us a direction, it is not enough to write down the date in our spiritual journal, or even to tell our friends and church of our "decision".

God's call is not to "make a decision" but to obey.

It's easy to become so busy that you are oblivious to those in need. Your schedule can become so full of accomplishing good things that you are no help to the people around you. God is at work in the lives of your friends, your neighbors, your family members. He may ask you to interrupt your day long enough to join Him as He ministers to them.

Nothing on your agenda, no matter how pressing, is reason enough to ignore the voice of God when He tells you to stop and help.

Prayer is not calling God in to bless our activities. Rather, prayer takes us into God's presence, shows us His will, and prepares us to obey Him.

God will use your prayer times to soften your heart and change your focus. As you pray for others, the Holy Spirit will work in your heart so that you have the same compassion for them that God does (Romans 8:26-27).

If you do not love people as you should, pray for them. If you are not as active in God's service as you know He wants you to be, begin praying.

You cannot be intimately exposed to God's heart and remain complacent. The time spent with God will change you and make you more like Christ.

Now, God asks us to lay down our lives on His altar as a living sacrifice. Just as it was in the Old Testament, our sacrifice, once offered, cannot be reclaimed. We belong entirely to Him. We cannot make partial sacrifices of our lives; our offering must be wholehearted.

Therefore, if you are a Christian, your life is not your own. Rather than dying, however, God asks you to live for Him as a living sacrifice. Every day, you are to offer your life to Him for His service. You do not serve Him in your spare time or with your leftover resources. The way you live your life for God is your offering to Him. Relentlessly pursue holiness so that your offering to God is unblemished and acceptable to Him. (Eph. 4:1; Phil. 1:27; 1 Thess. 2:12)

Sanctification prepares you to see and hear God. It enables you to serve Him. Only God can purify your heart. Allow Him to remove any impurities that hinder your relationship with Him, and then your service to Him will have meaning as you offer Him your consecrated life.

You can attend church services, read your Bible, and pray; but if sin fills your heart, you will not see God. You will know when you have encountered God because your life will no longer be the same.

We will face the temptation to call something good that God has declared wicked. We may be persuaded that we can accomplish more good by lying than by telling the truth. We may claim that we are mobilizing Christians to pray for someone in sin when, in fact, we are spreading gossip. We may assert that we are following God's will in our job when, in fact, we are striving to pursue our own ambitions. We will also be tempted to call evil that which God declares good. God says it is good to love our enemies, yet we might decide our task is to hold them responsible for their actions.

It is so important to hold ourselves accountable to God's Word.

Jesus insisted that in order to follow Him, we must deny self. As long as we rely on our own resources, we will never place our trust in Him.

As we acknowledge the poverty of our souls, we realize how desperately we need a Savior. God has so much to give to the one who recognizes his need and will call upon Jesus!

True wealth is found in a relationship with God.

Do not allow all your resources, wisdom, talent or abilities prevent you from trusting the Person who can bring you abundant life.

Life challenges sometimes seem impossible.

Do you feel you are too weak to fight the battle? Don't give up!
Keep your heart loyal to God, for He constantly watches over you, and He desires to demonstrate His strength in your life. God is willing and just as capable of giving you victory in your current challenge as He was with those in times past.

The question is not whether God is looking for His people, but whether His people are seeking Him.

Take courage in knowing that God never sleeps and rests.
God is never distracted, but diligently seeks individuals whose hearts are completely committed to Him. 🥰

By praying. When we do not feel like praying is precisely the time we ought to pray. There are no shortcuts to prayer. There are no books to read, seminars to attend, or inspirational mottoes to memorize that will transform us into intercessors. This comes only by committing ourselves to pray and then doing so.

The servant carries out the master’s will. The servant doesn’t tell the master what to do. The servant does not choose which tasks to perform for the master, nor does the servant suggests days or time when it would be convenient to serve the master. The servant’s function is to follow instructions. The master, on the other hand, gives directions. The master does not tell the servant to develop a vision that will guide the master. The master is the one with the vision; the servant’s task is to help fulfill the master’s purposes.

We may be tempted to give up or wish we could escape when we’re weary and can’t see the end of our current battle. But, we can learn to trust that God will hold us up and help us rest in His constant and loving presence. 🥰

Are you a friend of such integrity that you would risk wounding your friends in order to deter them from their sin?

It may, in fact, indicate that you have chosen a substitute for intimate fellowship with God.

Would you be satisfied to have success, power, and wealth, but not a relationship with God?

Do you value God’s presence in your life more than the greatest achievements you could experience in the world?

As a Christian, you are obliged to view your actions in light of how they will affect other Christians. You will discover God’s will for your life when you consider His activity in the lives of others. This goes contrary to worldly thinking. The world encouraged you to love your own life, taking care of your own needs and wants first. Sin promotes independence. It isolates you from others and separates you from those you could help or who could encourage you.

God designed you for interdependence. 💕

You have a responsibility to live in such a way that you do not hurt others. You must deny yourself and allow the Holy Spirit to put to death your natural inclination to be self-centered. As long as you focus on yourself, you will be oblivious to the needs of others.

DON’T BE!
God’s gifts to you are perfect because, through them, God make you perfect as well. (Matthew 5:8; James 1:17) 🥰

Grief can be a terrible form of bo***ge, yet we can become comfortable with it. We can grow so comfortable with fear that we don’t know how to live without it. As destructive as our sinful habits and lifestyle might be, we may prefer living with familiar, rather than being freed to experience the unknown. We may recognize the harmful influence of a friend but choose to reject God’s will rather than offend our friend.

Do you fear change more than you fear God?

Are you willing to allow God to do what is necessary in order to free you?