Weekly Devotional – May 22, 2021

Grow Your Patience!

And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.

Galatians 6:9 (NKJV)

I once attended a church in Virginia Beach, Virginia who was trying to increase their attendance by putting basketball goals all around the inside of the church. The preacher wore a referee’s uniform and used basketball lingo in his sermon. The church thought if they used the things of the world to attract the children of the neighborhood to their service, they could grow their attendance. What they forgot is that God gives the increase, not the world. When I visited the church in 1997 their attendance was about 75. When I left Virginia Beach about 10 years later, the church had disbanded, and the world had built apartments where the church building once stood. The apartment buildings were filled.

This church had a young pastor who was just out of the Seminary. He had been taught to fill the church with children’s programs and the church would grow. This young pastor forgot two things:

1. Children of today have not been raised in a Church environment and are more interested in the things of the world. They had rather go to the beach than to church.
2. When children go away to college, only an exceedingly small percentage of them return to their hometown. Most of them secure jobs in larger cities.

Children are not the ones who fund a church, they are not the ones who teach the church, they are not the ones who lead the church. Their parents are the ones the church should have tried to attract, and you can’t do that with basketball. To attract adults, you must use logic, truth, and intelligence.

The Seminaries should be run by Preachers, not educators. The only curriculum used in the Seminaries should be the bible. God has included the complete plan to increasing a church in His word.

There was another church in a small town in California who had 17 members and wanted to grow. They were faithful to God and prayed to him for guidance. The guidance God gave them was to build another church in another town, a satellite church. The guidance scared them a bit, but they trusted God. When the second church was completed, they saw their attendance had grown. The Lord led them to start yet another church and again their own attendance grew more.

By trusting God and having the patience to wait on him and do what He asked instead of depending on the world, this little church of 17 not only has several satellite churches but this little church has an average attendance of 3000 on Sunday morning.

Growing patience is not about the world. There is no pill, no fertilizer, no treatment that the world can give that will help a person grow patience.

God, on the other hand, has been helping people grow patient since the beginning of time. All you need to do is believe in Jesus Christ and give your life to Him. You see patience is not something you grow after all. Patience is a gift from God. Only God can help you grow in Patience. You will find that no one who is of the world has the patience to grow.

Just trust God and the patience will come. As this little church found out, it’s not the world that grows a church, it is trust in God and the patience that God gives that grows churches and people.

Weekly Devotional – May 8, 2021

The Perfect Garden!!

Genesis 1:11-12 (NKJV)

Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Can you imagine a garden that you only have to plant each year and watch it grow? A garden that has no weeds, no insects eating the leaves, no mold, or anything else to damage the plants. This would be the perfect garden.

In the beginning this was the type of garden man was given to tend. The Garden of Eden contained nothing that would corrupt the plants in any way.

Believe it or not you, as a Christian, have experienced this twice. The first time was at birth. Even though we are born into a sinful world, children have not yet learned to sin. Small children live in their own little world and there is no sin in it.

The Christian experiences this situation a second time at the time they are saved. (Eph. 4:24) Because we are born again into God’s Righteousness and Holiness, we are again in a sin free state. It is not until we listen to others that we are tempted to sin again.

Some preachers like to take advantage of this state of the Christian and send them out to talk to the lost in the community. This is usually a good thing for the church, but bad for the Christian. Instead of using the baby Christian to talk to people, the preacher should be teaching the baby Christian how to resist temptation. How to live by the spirit, not by the flesh.

Once we grow as Christians, we should be able to achieve this state a third time. As we grow as Christians, we learn more about using the Holy Spirit to direct and improve our lives. When we do this, we are living by the spirit and we are living “in Christ.” If we live in Christ every day, then there is no sin in our lives, and we are living in righteousness and holiness and in that perfect state. This is what God intended for us from the beginning of the world.

Genesis 2:9 (NKJV)

And out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

As you can see from the verse of scripture above, God gave man a choice between His way of life and the sinful live we now want to live.

Yes, God forbid man to eat from the tree of good and evil. However, God left the tree there for man to see.

God also left the tree of life there and allowed man to eat from its fruit. If man had chosen this tree, we would live forever in the presence of God.

We still have that choice. Like Adam and Eve, we have our choice of eternal life and the destruction of darkness.

What have you chosen for your life?

Live and Multiply

“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, in that I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the LORD your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you today that you shall surely perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess.”

Deuteronomy 30:15-18 (NKJV)

God has put up with a lot from mankind and still His love is there if we will ask for it. We must obtain God’s love much in the same manner as they did when this verse of scripture was written. What’s more we must do the same thing to keep God’s love that He describes in the verse of scripture above.

Almost from the beginning of the world, God promised to give the descendants of Abraham the land of Canaan. That was God’s promise to them and now they were there to claim it. The rules were the same then as they were when the land was promised to their forefather.

Today we are the spiritual descendants of Abraham and are entitled to the Love and promises that God promised to Abraham. No, we are not fighting for the land of Canaan, but we do need a good career in order to support our families and to be able to live a good life and multiply. To obtain this good career, we must follow the same rules that Abraham had to follow.

Satan is using false preachers to try to tempt and deceive the children of God today. They are trying to say that sin is ok, following the commands of God are not important and we have it better than the prophets and the Apostles to us. They are trying to teach individuality and hero worship and the new norm. Do not listen to them.

We still must live a humble life, not a life of self-glory. We still must follow the statutes and commands of God. If we follow those commands, then satan can’t have any part in our lives.

This is not a new set of rules that God is giving them. It is the same rules that were given to Adam and Eve (Gen. 1:28). There too, it tells them to go forth and multiply.

How do we know when the preacher is telling us something wrong? Simple. Read the bible for ourselves. Don’t tolerate a mispronounced word or sentence. There are many different translations of the bible today. Don’t allow them to discourage you. I find that if I teach from the NKJV and read to children and unlearned people from the NIV, that will suffice. The main thing is to study whatever version you use with God at home. If you study with God, He will teach you the truth that is contained in His word.

As Christians, we enjoy the love of God in a better way than they did in the Old Testament. We not only have the love of God in our hearts, we have God Himself living in our hearts. If you want to keep God in your heart, you must do all the things that God stated in this verse of scripture so that we may “live and multiply.”

Sacrificing Isaac

Genesis 22:1-14

Due to the circumstances that surround us today, this scripture may seem like it doesn’t apply, but it does. We are living in very trying times. Due to the Covid-19; people are having to make one decision after another.

Today we are going to look at how we can make decisions that please God as much as this incident did.

⁸  And Abraham said, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.” So the two of them went together.

Genesis 22:8 (NKJV)

The story contained in this scripture reading is love. Not only the love from God to Abraham, and the faith in God that Abraham had, but also the love that Abraham had for God. This story of love is overly complicated and most people who call themselves Christians, would fail miserably when it came to the faith and degree of love we should give to God.

Notice that, before they went up the mountain, Abraham had faith that God would furnish the lamb for sacrifice. The faith that Abraham had would not move the mountain, however, this faith convinced God of His love for Him.

Because of the pandemic, many people have lost their jobs and are depending on others to survive. Bills are piling up and they are in a panic mode. Don’t worry, if we are honest with each other, we have all been in this predicament.

What we have to ask ourselves is not what we would do in this predicament, what we need to look at is our heart and make sure we have enough faith in God to sacrifice a good job that would make us work on Sunday, because of our Love for God. We also need to look and see what God has put in our path that would make this decision a good one. God will always give us something better than what we think would be good for us.

When we look for a job, we are looking for something that will pay a high wage. We want to make a lot of money so we can do the things the Jones family does. We want people to look up to us like they do the Murphy’s after they bought that new car. What we want is the money.

When God choses something for us, He looks at what we need. God knows about the pandemic that will happen in the future. God knows about the house fire that will happen six months from now. God knows about the accident that will happen to your child at school. God looks at what you need now and what you will need in the future.

How much do you love God? Do you love Him enough to do what ever He tells you to do? Do you love God enough to not sin?

As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

John 15:9-10 (NKJV)

Notice that Jesus didn’t tell us to keep the commandments while we were at church; He didn’t tell us to keep the commandments while we were at work, Christ wants us to keep the commandments from the time we wake up in the morning until we go to sleep at night. If we can do that, we will show Christ that we love Him.

How many commandments are in the bible? I can’t tell you the exact number, but I can tell you that there are far more than ten. The only way you will be able to know the commandments you have to follow is by studying the bible. Look on the bright side. If you study the bible every day from the time you get home until the time you go to sleep, you won’t have time to sin and your love for God and Christ will grow so much stronger.

There are actually teachers and preachers that will tell you that once you are saved, you can do anything you want to do, and God will forgive you. Do not try it, it won’t work.

Abraham had always done what God asked him to do. God had also determined that all of the descendants of Abraham would do the same.

And God said to Abraham: “As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations.”

Genesis 17:9 (NKJV)

How can we follow the commandments of God that were given thousands of years ago? They didn’t have all the debt that we have today. They didn’t have the diseases we have today, they didn’t have to travel like we do today, they didn’t have to drive across the country to visit relatives like we do today. A donkey didn’t cost thousands of dollars like the car. Things just weren’t the same back then.

Now that you have tried using all the old worn out excuses there are, let’s look at the reality of the subject. God would never tell you to do something you can’t do, and it doesn’t matter whether you drive a donkey or an SUV.

The descendants of Abraham were given a set of laws and ritual readings they were to follow and perform.

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Christianity is not under the law. However, we do still have to follow the commandments that are totally separate from the law. Judaism is a religion; Christianity is a way of life. We are given the word of God and we are also given something that wasn’t given to the Jews. We, as Christians, are given the Holy Spirit to guide us. God is living in our hearts. He is there to instruct us 24/7.

The problem with most Christians is that they don’t listen. If we need guidance on what to do in a certain situation, God is there to guide us, the problem is that we don’t listen when He tells us what to do.

Study the bible and ask God to help you. If you do then God will know that you love him and will have no need to test you like He tested Abraham.

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How much do you love God? Would you sacrifice one of your children for God?