List of God’s Promises on Various Issues – PDF Download

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bible, Christian Living, counsel, God's love, God's promises, inspiration, Jesus, Spiritual Reflections

Hey everyone!

A few months ago, I wrote a post on how God loves and accepts you for who you are, and that because of that, we can love and accept ourselves no matter what lies the devil is throwing at us. I mentioned that I took the bulk of that post from the notes for my cabin devotions that I gave over the past summer.

Spending Time With God for Who He Is

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Christian Living, devotions, God, God's presence, Love, silence, waiting for God

Do you go to God only when you have a problem, or need something from Him? Are those the only times that you feel compelled to reach out to Him?

Or do you ever go to God just for Him?

I am guilty of that just as much as anyone. Most of my past life I thought of prayer as something you do when things are going really badly and you need help. When you or someone else is sick or needs money or wisdom for something, you go and pray and ask God for the solution.

For so long I pretty much only thought of God as a sort of 911 emergency service. When I need help, call on God. When I’m not sure where to go next, ask God. When I need strength or encouragement, go to God.

Only recently have I truly come to realize that my relationship with God is about so much more than that.

I’m not saying that it’s wrong to pray about those types of things, or to go to God when things get bad. God wants us to do that and He loves when we cast our cares on Him and ask Him for things. He’s a loving Father and He loves to give us good gifts.

But my point is, is that the only reason we ever go to Him or talk to Him–whenever we need something?

Do we ever go to Him for none other reason than we just want to be with Him? We want to experience His presence in our lives?

When you love someone, often you don’t need anything more than to just be with them. You don’t even have to talk to them or do anything with them. It’s enough to sit with them and just be with them. You love their presence.

Do we love the Lord’s presence?

You don’t have to wait till church on Sunday to be with God or worship Him or experience His presence. You can do that at any time, at any place. At home, at school, at work. During lunch break, in the middle of afternoon traffic, when you wake up in the middle of the night. He’s always with you, so that means that you can always intentionally spend time with Him, and He’s always there, ready and waiting for you to come to Him so He can pour love His love and peace and Himself into your heart.

Psalms 62 and 63 both have verses in them that speak to this seeking for God and longing for Him just for who He is.

Psalm 62:1-2; 5-7 ~

For God alone my soul waits in silence;
    from him comes my salvation.
² He alone is my rock and my salvation,
    my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken.

⁵ For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence,
    for my hope is from him.
⁶ He only is my rock and my salvation,
    my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
⁷ On God rests my salvation and my glory;
    my mighty rock, my refuge is God.

Psalm 63:1-8 ~

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
    my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
    as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
² So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
    beholding your power and glory.
³ Because your steadfast love is better than life,
    my lips will praise you.
⁴ So I will bless you as long as I live;
    in your name I will lift up my hands.

⁵ My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food,
    and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,
⁶ when I remember you upon my bed,
    and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
⁷ for you have been my help,
    and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.
⁸ My soul clings to you;
    your right hand upholds me.

I love these scripture passages! They really highlight David’s hunger and thirst for God and for God’s presence in his life, and the lengths David goes to to make God the most important part of his life. His relationship with God is more vital than any physical sustenance. God is the center of his existence.

And that’s how our lives should be, too. That’s what I want my life to be like, where I can’t live another second without God’s very breath flowing through my being. Where I literally live every day for my relationship with Him. That’s what truly abiding in Christ is–you are in Him, and He is in you, and your very existence is completely wrapped up in Him.

I read somewhere that Christianity is first a love relationship with God, and everything else that you do flows from that (roughly paraphrased). If we don’t first get to know our God and Creator as the Lover of our souls that He is, then the rest of our view of Him will be distorted and unbalanced. Coming to Him with the goal of first being with Him and knowing Him will not only increase our love for Him, but also increase our heart knowledge of His everlasting love for us, and that will change everything–how we live our lives, how we interact with others, what and whom we live for. It will transform our entire outlook on life.

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Thanks so much for stopping by! Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below!

If you haven’t already, check out my other recent posts, like When People Are Hard to Live With, and Lessons From Our Furry Friends.

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Photo Credit: Gabrielle Harrison

Reading the Bible Doesn’t Make You Spiritual

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bible reading, devotions, God, meditation, spiritual

You might have read that title and thought, “What?? That doesn’t make any sense.”

I know, it does sound backwards . . . I mean, reading the Bible is how we become more spiritual, right? Here’s my point —

Reading the Bible doesn’t make you spiritual or change you in any way, if that’s all it is–just reading. If all you are doing is just chipping out 15 or 20 (or 5 or 45) minutes of your day to read your designated chapter or the Psalm or Proverb of the day, but you are not taking any action steps based on what you just read, then no amount of Bible reading is going to help you grow spiritually.

This reminds me of the passage in James chapter 1 where it talks about a man looking in the mirror and seeing a fault or error in himself, but then he walks away and straightaway forgets what he just saw in the mirror, and he was no better in the end for looking in the mirror in the first place (James 1:23-25). That guy read his Bible and saw where he needed to change, but he didn’t do anything about it.

And that’s just what I think we do a lot of the time. I know I have done it countless times. It’s so easy to be reading a passage, and something jumps out at me, an issue or concept that the Lord has brought to my attention for the purpose of making a difference in my thoughts, words, or actions. And I think, “Oh, yeah, that’s great! I really need to make that change in my life,” but the next minute I’ve laid down my Bible and started checking my email or Facebook or whatever, and the issue God convicted me of is long forgotten in the mists of the past–even though it was less than five minutes ago.

I don’t think I’m the only one with that problem. That’s why simply reading isn’t going to get you anywhere unless you purposefully apply the truths God has revealed to your every day lifestyle.

So then, how to get what you’ve read into your life permanently?

Here are a few thoughts of my own mixed with some things that I have learned about this recently.

1. Be intentional in what you read and why you are reading.

Come to your daily Bible reading and devotions with a purpose and intention of being changed by God’s Word. That also means that you usually aren’t going to sit down, randomly flip open your Bible, and start reading. Though I know God can and will work that way, especially in times of distress or sorrow, I believe that for daily, regular times in God’s Word, we should have a plan in place. Some examples are reading through the Bible in a year; reading the Bible chronologically; going through topical studies, either on our own or guided; word studies; character or book studies. There are lots of ways to read and study the Bible; we just need to be intentional and faithful in using one.

Being intentional also means that we will take some steps to make sure what we read will not fall on rocky or thorny ground, ie. a forgetful or distracted mind and heart. That leads into my next thought.

2. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide your reading and illuminate your inner understanding as you read.

We can take all the effort in the world to pick out a great devotional plan and be intentional in sticking to it every day, but if we are not committing our time in the Bible to God and yielding our minds to the revelation and illumination of the Holy Spirit, then we will be trying to do it in the flesh, which isn’t usually very effective. Our minds and reasoning capabilities can be pretty great on their own, but they are that much better and more enlightened to God’s truth when it is His Spirit guiding and speaking to us through the Word!

Paul prayed for the Ephesian church, “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints” (Ephesians 1:17-18).

And if you are asking the Holy Spirit to enlighten your heart, then He may reveal something new to you that you have never noticed before . . .

3. Read until God shows you something specific to apply to your life today.

I know it can be hard with our busy schedules to take the time we need to find that nugget of truth, but this is really important. All of the Bible is relevant and applicable, but when God actually points out a single truth to you in such a way that it really seems to jump out at you, then you know that that God literally prepared that truth for you, today. And it’s really important that we pay attention to those instances. It’s so cool to think that God can make certain things pop out to you that you hadn’t really noticed before, or noticed in that way before–because that means that He is illuminating your heart and giving you custom advice for that specific day or situation. So take the extra time to let what you are reading soak in, and seek for that moment when something really jumps out at you. Then, stop and focus on meditating on that verse or truth and how it applies to your individual situation.

4. Take some practical steps to remember and meditate on the truths God has shown you throughout the day.

In order to keep from letting that truth God has shown us slip right into one ear and out the other, we’ve got to be proactive in taking steps to keep it in the forefront of our mind, apply to our lives, and actually start changing our realities.

Several practical ways of staying focused on God’s truth constantly and applying it could be the following:

• writing a verse or passage onto an index card and keeping it next to you so you can take it out and memorize/meditate on it throughout the day;
• writing the passage down in a journal, and then praying about it and writing down thoughts of application or meditation that God brings to your mind — try personalizing the verse/passage and praying it back to God;
• making posters of Bible verses or passages and putting them up around the house where you know you will be frequently;
• (if you have the time) going through the verse and picking out key words to look up in a concordance and dictionary to get a fuller and deeper meaning of what the passage is saying — this is one of my favorite ways to study God’s word, and often the original Greek or Hebrew opens up a whole new level of meaning to a verse or passage;
• getting a Bible app for your phone or tablet, and using it to go back and meditate on a verse during the day as you have little breaks here and there
• once you have a verse or section memorized (or as you are in the process of memorizing it), personalizing it and saying it over and over out loud throughout the day to help cement the truth in your mind and heart.

But I know I’m not an expert at this, and I’m sure I’ve probably left out a lot of other great practical ways to remember and meditate on God’s Word, but these are just some things that I have personally done in the past and have helped a lot (I may just edit and add to that list up there if I think of any other great ideas later).

So yes, reading your Bible is awesome, and very necessary and crucial to your spiritual health and growth, but you’ve got to be focused and intentional about letting it change you.

This is something that I have by no means arrived at yet, but just thinking this all through as I’ve been writing this post has been a wonderful exercise for me. I hope that you will be challenged and encouraged just like I have to make your daily times in God’s Word exceptionally meaningful and productive in the future!

I would love to hear your thoughts or advice on how you’ve made your devotional times meaningful and productive — please feel free to leave your comment in the box below!

Thanks for reading!