Category: Devotions

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Daily Devotion

Stepping out of "Me"
 
Philippians 2:3-4
Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. 4 Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.(NKJV)
 
Whoo…A tough few weeks makes for a hardened and extra-sensitive me…but I'm making it.  I hope you are blessed.  I had recruiting today at SC State and was very impressed with the turn out of students and their professionality.  Yes this is a tad bit unrelated but it kind of made me think.  In following God's will and "recruiting" others for service to God, we have to look beyond our own problems.  We have to step out of "Marquita-the individual" and into "Christ-the body".  That is hard to do when you have this situation and that trouble, those problems, and daily struggles.  Life does not encourage us to think of others first.  I have had this ongoing battle for many years.  I have always been the kind of person to do for others with little regard for what pain or kind of bind it may put me in.  However, after I got sick, I began to think of Marquita first then everyone else.  And when I evaluate myself, I was never truly happy either way.  I think the solution is not to be wholly one way or another, but have a balance of both.  I got tired of being hurt and feared(see how the devil comes in and makes a situation look bad right?) that if I continued to be that way, people would take advantage.  But in having divine balance, you can recognize when a situation is ordained by God for your intervention.
 
Don't be so wrapped up in yourself that you miss out on an opportunity to be a blessing to someone else but yet don't be so focused on everyone else that you don't give yourself time to reflect.  I think its at those points of truly putting God first that you find a happy medium and a pinnacle of balance.  As the saying goes (loose interpretation of course), when you step out of your problem and into someone else's, God steps into yours and cleans it up!
 
James 3:16
For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. (NKJV)
 
Marquita
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Daily Devotion

Living Outside of God’s Will

We have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. (Colossians 1:9)

I know people that hate to hear the saying “everything happens for a reason.”  I have come to create my own interpretation of that saying, with expansion and real life application.  Marquita’s phrase:  “There are things in life that happen with no explanation, with no possible way for you to understand them when they happen.  But as a Christian, we can rest assured that God will use them for our good–our good meaning strengthening, sculpting, defining, and sometimes pruning.  But your faith should reinforce the fact that it will all be understood at Jesus’ coming and that it will ultimately prepare you for some situation that you could not have otherwise gotten through without it.”—MBP everyday lol.

But sometimes when we want to make our own way and forget about God’s way, we push ourselves outside of God’s will.  When that happens, we often get much more than we bargained for, ending up disappointed and disheartened.  We have self-inflicted crises of faith and want to run away from God.  Or we become “conditional Christians”–bowing and praying to God for deliverance from these difficult times and cursing Him when we don’t get what we want.  Listening to what God wants from you sometimes hurts because it may mean that your wants and desires have to align themselves with that will–sometimes it cannot be done.  At this very moment in my life, I want to move, go back to school, win the lottery (lol), get married and have children, and live happily ever after.  But clearly life isn’t a fairy tale!  Who’s to say that will happen in that order or even at all???  I have a mentee that needs me which means sacrificing my desire to move at the present moment; I have student loans and medical bills which means going to school full-time is out of the question; only God knows whether and when the other things will happen.  But I’m okay with that because I know that God will work it all out!  He’s no respecter of persons so everything entitled to me is entitled to you.

Check out these scriptures on the Will of God…good stuff! http://www.psalm40.org/verses.html

And this one: 
http://counseling4christians.com/Scriptures/will%20of%20God.htm