Category: Devotions

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Daily Devotion #3

Hold Yourself Accountable and Clean Up Your Own Mess!
 
"We know that whatever is in Moses' Teachings applies to everyone under their influence, and no one can say a thing. The whole world is brought under the judgment of God."
Romans 3:19 GWT
 
"Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given, for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses, and to show that the entire world is guilty before God." Romans 3:19 NLT
 
We have all at some point or another blamed someone else for something that happened in our lives. For a long time I blamed the experiences of my childhood on my low self-esteem, and lack of love for myself.  But at some point you have to let that go–it happened, its over, but you have the CHOICE whether or not you will continue to allow it to control your future. Because YOU ultimately have the power to dictate what you decide to do!  You can choose to overcome your circumstances or let them guide and make your choices for you. But lets be real here: blame gets you NOWHERE!  Neither does judging someone because you don't deal with the real culprit–yourself. 
 
I have a little girl that I mentor.  Whenever I ask her how she behaved that day, and she happened to have done something wrong, she always starts out with what the other person did.  I always say to her, the moment you reacted, or did something back to them, you became involved.  You became a participant.  So stop making excuses and accept your role in the mess!!!
 
We often like to think that the circumstances of our upbringing or the things that have happened to us along the way should excuse us from any responsibility for our actions.  Ezekiel the prophet was told by God that he would be held accountable if he did not bring God's message to all of the people.  Their deaths would be on his hands. (Eze. 33:8)  His responsibility was to God, to do God's work; he could not dwell on the fact that the Israelites were wicked and evil, often threatening his very life.  He had to trust that God would protect him from anything they tried to do; else, why would God even require him to do so?
 
The central theme here is that God gave us free will to choose. Adam and Eve proved that way back in the Garden of Eden.  Adam knew that the fruit was forbidden because God gave the decree directly to him, but that did not stop him from blaming Eve. Yes there are some things out of our control like what family you are born into, your last name, your complexion, how tall you are, etc. There are even some terrible things out of your control like in my case, my kidneys deciding to fail. I have gone through a lot of things so far in my life. But you have the choice of whether to allow those situations to guide where your life will go.  Before I was a Christian (I gave my life to God when I was 9 years old), I was the oldest child in an alcoholic family.  That affected me greatly, still does, but I cannot blame my distrust of people on that.  I cannot blame my debt on the fact that I had a horrible doctor that misdiagnosed my kidney disease, and another to misdiagnose me with lupus.  But I can accept that I made the choice to spend money on things I did not need to, I can accept that I do not readily trust people because it makes it easy for me.  I can accept that I chose to move to Charleston even though I do not like it there now.  This does not dispute the fact that I am a child of God.  Accepting my part in my mess allows God to put things in proper perspective, and by accepting my role, I can get out of God's way and let Him have control and actually clean it up!
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Daily Devotion #2

Letting Go and Stopping the Pain

So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor.” 1 Peter 5:6

As a person that has endured a lot of pain over the course of my life thus far, I have tried to figure out ways to cope. It is not easy trying to go it alone. The only way I have been remotely able to recover more quickly is by falling on my knees and crying out to God for His help, His peace, and His strength. Confronting hurtful experiences like loss of a loved one or unexpected illness forces you to accept that you are not in control. I sometimes think dealing with some things like this would be much easier if it were an innate behavior—like you know how to use the restroom from birth, you know how to cry from birth, but you have to learn that there are certain places for using the restroom or even you have to be taught to read. I have come to learn that we ourselves have to learn how to give our problems and concerns to God. Job 22:21 says “"Submit to God, and you will have peace; then things will go well for you.” Because we are born as fleshly beings, yielding first to our flesh, we cannot innately give our concerns to God. But because here it says to submit to God, and another translation says acquaint yourself with Him, we can know that we will have peace about whatever it is we face. I have come to believe two things: 1-Life is like a box of chocolates (thanks Forrest Gump) because you really don’t know what you’ll get! 2-You have a choice of how you deal with the things that come.

As we all know, trying not to think about something does not work because you’ll inevitably think more about it. But I know one thing that works for sure: submitting your thoughts to God. Jesus says in John 15:7 “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” So if you ask God to guide your thoughts and protect your mind—especially when you are going through something, don’t you think He will do it? Whatever you ask God for in prayer, He will give it to you. He will give you the strength to recover from that situation. He will order your steps so that you steer clear of situations that will make you slip—but you have to choose to listen. I like the verse above because of the promise at the end, God will lift us up!  He will exalt us, even in times of sorrow. Because the purpose of that suffering is that we share in the experiences of Christ and learn something, which is always for God’s honor! Allow God to rule over you and as in James 4:7, your resistance of the devil will cause him to flee. Don’t allow the inclination of your flesh to sin to prompt you to not turn to God.  Fall before Him and let God carry you through your pain.