Category: Devotions

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Daily Devotion

God Sees the Best in You

“In the wilderness He fed you manna which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do good for you in the end.” Deuteronomy 8:16

I love that song by Marvin Sapp. It reassures me that God knows me and sees past all of the things I have gone through, all of the trials I have to endure and my response to life. He sees the best within us. Sometimes even when we do not see it ourselves, when everyone we turn to are saying things to contradict how we feel, we can rest assured that God sees our future selves, the person that He is working in us.

The purpose for this devotion is that sometimes when we feel so low we have to remember that God has chosen us for His work. I personally get weighed down by the negative thoughts of things that have happened to me, and I sometimes wonder how God could want to use someone like me. Don’t get me wrong, I know that God loves me, but the hardest part of loving others is truly being able to love yourself in spite of everything that has happened in your life. The situations we face are often discouraging and disheartening, sometimes crushing our spirits and are intended to ensure defeat. But Jeremiah 17:10 tells us that “I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” We know that God is all-seeing, all-hearing, and all-knowing. So with God searching our hearts, He sees our destinations. Not just potential, because quite frankly, some people never reach their potentials. God sees the end result, the result of all those difficult issues, trials, and circumstances that are intended to defeat us. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:5 God already wrote the vision for your life. He knows what He desires and plans for you; He sees your best, He sees your future. So don’t let the burdens of life lead you astray. Psalm 139:1 tells us that God has already searched and known us; even before we were born. Don’t let what somebody says about you hurt you or turn you away from what God puts in your heart because they don’t know what they are looking at! (1 Sam 16:7) Trust the Spirit of God within you to guide you and know that God sees (and has already seen) your best! As the song says, the best is yet to come!

“And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.” Romans 8:27

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Daily Devotion

Favor in the Midst of Persecution
 
"The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man; he was in the house of his Egyptian master.  His master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord caused all that he did to prosper in his hands."  Genesis 39:2-3
 
How can you be blessed while you are going through?  To the mere human mind it seems to be an oxymoron, a paradox of some sort.  How can you reap blessings of immeasurable substance when enduring seemingly endless trials?  How can you keep God in the right place–your heart–when you are suffering?  Take a lesson from Joseph. 
 
Joseph was the favorite son of Israel (Jacob); so loved that his dad made him a special coat and preferred him above his other sons.  His jealous older brothers sold him into slavery (after deciding against killing him) where he was bought by an Egyptian Potiphar.  As the scripture above says, God was with Joseph even through all of this, showing him favor in the house of Potiphar.  God's blessings allowed Joseph to become prosperous even while being owned by someone else.  But as we have to learn, sometimes we must go through trials for our own testing, to test our faith.  His master put Joseph in charge of all of his affairs and the master prospered.  But being that Joseph was handsome (v. 6-7), the lustful wife of his master tried to seduce him into sleeping with her.  Because Joseph feared God, he passed his test, but not without the enemy seeking the opportunity to put him back.  Now we should all know that God can use anything thrown at us as a setback as a setup for our elevation.  Anytime someone does something that in normal circumstances would have caused you great strife, because of God's favor and blessings on our lives we can always expect a miracle to manifest for us.
 
By this point, we should all know that life is not a guaranteed cake walk.  There are mountaintops and valleys, periods of happiness and periods of sadness.  Yet the one profound truth is that God has the power to turn any losing battle into a victory.  Yes because the word says that we are already victorious because of Christ! "For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith." 1 John 5:4  There are no limitations in that verse.  We are blessed and can resolve to be victorious even in the face of adversity because we are born of God.
 
"But thanks be to God, which gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 15:57

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God loves you…He blesses you with another day so make the most of it!

Marquita B. Priester