October 2021
Apart from God, we can’t resist temptation. Jesus told the disciples to watch and pray, and that includes us, so we don’t enter into temptation. (Matthew 26:41)
We need to pray, and pray often. We also need to pray with others when we can. The enemy makes something look true when it’s a lie, and he makes it look pleasant to the desires of our old nature.
It seems good, but it is destructive. We need to recognise temptation for what it is – something that can lead to sin.
If we are a child of God, we are loved, accepted, and welcomed into the family of God. God loves us with an everlasting, immovable love. We are secure in Him.
Our good deeds or anything that we do will not make us more secure. And anything that we do wrong does not make us any less secure. We cannot overcome insecurity by doing things to impress God.
We need to have the self image that is Biblical. Believing God’s truth sets us free from insecurity. God wants us to find our security in Him alone.
Babies are cute when they are young and going through different stages of growth. But when they get older, you don’t expect them to act like babies! It is normal to grow and mature.
Something is wrong if this normal development doesn’t happen. We need to be growing as Christians into maturity, and moving on to other things. (Hebrews 6:3)
Growth is our responsibility, and it always involves change. If we don’t change, we won’t grow. We need to be teachable. If we are satisfied with where we are, we won’t want to move on – and we will stagnate. We always need to learn. The Holy Spirit is always ready to teach us, and open up new ground to us.
We need to walk and talk and live like Jesus.
It’s His life and His Holy Spirit living in us. It’s living in His love, His compassion, His mercy, His grace, and honouring and glorifying Him above everything else in our lives.
A good tree produces good fruit. As Jesus says, we are known by the fruit of our character.
September 2021
Loss of our natural appetite usually means there is something wrong. Spiritually, it can mean the same. God made us to hunger for His presence.
Even good things can take away our hunger for God – even things like our busyness in our work for Him. There is always the temptation to fill our time with good things, and miss the best that God has for us.
God wants us to feast on Him, to spend time in His presence, and for His presence to be the pinnacle of our lives. We should desire God above all else. (John 7:37-38)
The dictionary definition of burn-out is, “When the fuel is exhausted and the fire ceases.” We must always guard against doing things in our own strength.
We need to always tap into God’s divine supply, and the overflow of His Holy Spirit. Even if we are doing the right things for God, we must keep going back to His resources for our strength and ability. We must never rely on our own strength – it will always run out and we will run dry.
Self-reliance is often the cause of burn-out. We need to ask God for wisdom and direction in all things. In order to carry on in our calling without burn-out we must stay focused on Jesus, and be filled with the Holy Spirit.
If we ask God for something with the wrong motive, we will not receive it from Him. God knows our hearts and the intentions of our hearts. (Hebrews 4:13)
We need to be honest with ourselves about our motives in prayer. It is always good to check ourselves, and ask ourselves why we are praying for something. Is it with the right heart and motive? Are there any selfish motives in there?
It is possible to do all the right things with the wrong motive, and be unaware of it. This is why it is so important to check our motives on a regular basis – for God’s sake and for His Kingdom, for the sake of others, and for our own sake. The ripples go out, but when we do the right thing with the right motive, how different are the ripples that go out!
If we want good fruit for the Kingdom in our lives, then it must be our choice that we speak only blessing and life.
When we make the right choice, God comes to help us by His Holy Spirit at work within us. Our words have power. Power for evil and power for good. Power for life and power for death.
Our circumstances are not under our control. But the way we respond to them, and talk about them, is our choice. We can speak positively with faith into our circumstances, or negatively with doubt and unbelief.
God is always wanting to fill us and overflow us more and more with His Holy Spirit. We need to be hungry for more. God longs to feed our hunger. God always wants to give us more.
He is not a stingy God, He is a God of plenty and more than enough. He wants us to be full and overflowing with His Living Water. The more we receive, the more we have to give.
As we receive more of this Living Water, more of His Holy Spirit, we are refreshed, blessed, encouraged, and built up ‒ and the more we can minister and bless others out of the overflow in us.
August 2021
The life of Jesus Christ was a life of Power and Passion. Our lives should be filled with power and passion and His authority. We have the power of Christ in us. (Colossians 1:27)
In John 2:15-17 we see that Jesus was passionate for God’s honour. He cleared the moneychangers from His Father’s house.
All the rebellion in men’s hearts against God was aimed at Jesus on the cross. Our passion for God and His Kingdom should burn hot within us!
July 2021
God gives us authority in the name of Jesus the moment we are born again. Authority is ours when we become a child of God. Every believer has God-given authority.
It is by the grace of God. It is not something we earn. God’s power works through our God-given authority. Authority and power go together. Authority is the channel for the power to flow through.
The power of the Holy Spirit works in us and through us, as believers. God is the all-powerful One. His power is the greatest power of all! The Holy Spirit lives in us as born again believers. We have the greatest power living in us! (1 John 4:4)
When we get disappointed, we get discouraged and our expectations of things changing can grow dim. We can feel powerless and helpless.
We often don’t understand the circumstances, so we limit God. Our expectation levels and our faith in God can lose their cutting edge, and we can forget how big God is.
We need to trust God when we can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. We need to remember that He Himself is the Light in the darkness, and as we trust Him He will come through for us.
May 2021
God’s promises are packed with His provision – according to His riches in glory. And you can’t get any more packed than that!
God is an abundant God, a God of plenty. Whatever we place into God’s hands, however small, God will enlarge and use in a mighty way. We must never think that what we have is too small. Nothing is too small for God. It may seem small to us, but when God blesses it, it multiplies.
A tiny acorn becomes a large oak tree. Perhaps we feel that our gifts, our time, our talents, and our efforts are too small to make a difference. But when we trust God with them and place them into His hands, He blesses them and increases them. God uses them in ways we never imagined.
Our faith in God is not an escape from the trials of life. God keeps us and sustains us, and these trials help our faith to grow even stronger.
Trials come in many different areas in our lives. Some are short, and some are long. Some are more intense than others. But one thing is the same in all of them – they can all carry mystery and cause us to wonder why they happened. God will use the hard times in our lives as a refining process to bring out the best in us.
Gold is valuable when it is purified through heat. God is very much in control of the temperature. He wants to mature and develop us. He knows where we need Him to work on us by His Holy Spirit. He does it all for our good. As we grow and develop in Christ, He will teach us to be the overcomers we were made to be.
April 2021
When we compromise in any way in our lives, we open ourselves up to the tactics and strongholds of the enemy. We become vulnerable. The enemy has a hold on us. His goal is to keep us weak and ineffective.
We need to spend time in God’s Word to become more like Jesus, and we need to stand strong in truth and righteousness. We need to be wearing all the armour of God. The belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.
Don’t miss out on a blessing!
Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” And the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice..
Jesus intercedes to the Father on their behalf. Even though He was suffering on the cross, being rejected and mocked, treated like a criminal, Jesus still was pleading with His Father not to lay it to their charge.
The Holy Spirit helps us know what God is saying to us and what is in His heart. We cannot trust our own wisdom, but the Holy Spirit helps us in all our weaknesses. He empowers us to pray in line with the will and purpose of God.
We need to follow His leading in intercession. The Holy Spirit will put people and situations on our hearts, just at the right time when prayer is needed. We need to pray in faith, believing (Mark 11:24).
