Today’s scripture…
Lord, there is no one like You, and there is no God besides You, as all we have heard confirms. (1 Chronicles 17:20 HCSB)

Devotional thought…
Many folks live under the curse of a life that is too busy. From our first waking moment until our heads hit the pillow at night, our schedule is filled to the brim. One of the reasons people fall into the trap of getting too busy is forgetting not everything holds the same value in our life. When we start to make time for things that have the greatest value, we will be more willing to say NO or POSTPONE things that have little or no value.

Today’s verse is a great reminder of that which is of greatest importance… our Heavenly Father. There truly is NO ONE and NOTHING that compares to Him or that can compete with Him. He is Creator, Sustainer, and all things find their purpose and fulfillment in Him. This is why Jesus said the most important thing we can do is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.

Facebook… ESPN… Soccer practice… Gym time… Family… Work… School… The God of the Universe.

When you see a list of the things we do written out like that, it’s easy to start figuring out what is most important and what is not. When you are running from event to event on your calendar, it is easy to lose that perspective. Make time for God first… Let your relationship with Him be primary and influencing of everything else you choose to do. Seek Him first and everything else will fall into place (Matthew 6:33).

Devotional Thought…
As you think about going to church this Sunday, are you going with a teachable spirit?

Sometimes, folks go to church intent on “knowing what they know that they know” and intent on refuting anything that might challenge that. Apollos was someone who certainly knew a lot when it came to Jesus, and could effectively communicate it. But a discerning couple name Priscilla and Aquila realized he still had something to learn. They lovingly shared things with Apollos that he didn’t know, Apollos was teachable, and the result was that Apollos became a sharper tool in God’s toolbox.

Realizing there is a difference between personal preferences and Godly doctrines is a big part of being teachable. God may want to teach or refine your understanding of doctrine, just as He did with Apollos. God may also want you to lay down a personal preference so that He is able to accomplish something new and needed through the church. Both of these scenarios begin with us having a teachable heart with the Lord. Entering your Bible study class or the Worship hour with a teachable spirit is a vital part of the sharpening God wants to do on each of us during our church gatherings.

Talk to the Lord about your teach-able-ness (or lack thereof). If you are aware of a tendency toward spiritual pride or realize that you are puffed up in your knowledge, ask God to soften your heart. Ask for an openness to receive anything that He might want to teach you that would allow you to more effectively accomplish His will.

Devotional Thought…
Do you believe that each day, God has something He wants to do through you?

The Bible describes the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with attributes such as being all powerful and all knowing. Through these two attributes He is able to bring us into situations each and every day where He through us can make a difference. Each of these situations is a spiritual opportunity.

The wise person understands that God can use a flat tire, a fender bender, the flu, a trip to the grocery store or any other unplanned or unwanted event to cause us to intersect with people and places that He wants to impact. There are plenty of people in the world that are not looking for God, but God is looking for them and wants to encounter them through those of us who believe in Him.

Because an opportunity encountered is not necessarily an opportunity taken advantage of, God gave us today’s passage of scripture. The days are evil and many people are not looking for or to God for answers. Ask God to give you a heart of wisdom to be open to the situations of each day that present opportunities for you to let God show Himself to the world through you. It may be through a cup of cold water, through a word of encouragement, or through the changing of a flat tire for someone. It also might be through a fitting word spoken about how much God loves them and how He sent His Son to take away our sins. Talk to God today about helping you to make the most of every opportunity.

Devotional Thought…
Do we really think seeing is believing?

There are lots of ways that we make choices and commitments based on that which is NOT seen. For example, most folks don’t take cash to buy a car or home. They either agree to a loan where money they have never seen, will be paid by a bank they have never been to or talked to.
Most folks have never seen electricity, yet they plug their electronics into holes in the wall trusting that the correct amount of electricity will come out so that their device will not explode form too much power or not work at all because of too little electricity.

How do we know the reality of these things? It is because having the faith to try them has been matched with the evidence that what you hoped would happen did happen. We believe it will happen, not because of seeing it ahead of time but because we have plenty of evidence that it will happen.

The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is unseen. History is filled with the evidences of changed lives. People who are not believers will never see God’s form, but they can see the evidence of His reality in us, if we are intentional about not “hiding it under a basket.” Do they hear us talk about how we trust Him? Do they see us living joyful lives because of the things God is doing in and through us?

No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is
placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house.
In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see,
so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.
Matthew 5:15-16 (NLT)

Talk to the Lord today about ways you need to stop “hiding under a basket” as it pertains to the evidence that God is real and alive in you. How could you make the God in you more obvious to others who are looking for tangible evidences that God is real?

Devotional Thought…
One of the meanings of the word worship is to fall down before. It is the idea that everything is worth laying down compared to the object of our worship. When it comes to worship, we have plenty of options.

In the traditional god category, millions of people worship their god in the form of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam. If you consider that many are laying their lives down for jobs, relationships, money, power or the promotion of self, you add a whole different set of gods that we have the option of worshipping.

Far above any of these options is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He truly is most worthy of praise. The Bible says He not only created the heavens and the earth but also created each of us. We began with Him and we will end before Him. He is to be feared or respected more than any other path that might promote itself as the way to peace and fulfillment.

Monotheism is the belief that there is only one God whereas Polytheism believes that there are multiple gods worthy of our worship. While most of us realize the incompatibility of trying to be Christian and Hindu at the same time, we can be easily led astray to try to serve Christ and fame or Christ and fortune.

Talk to the Lord today about his exclusive place in your life. Is He truly most worthy of our worship? What gods do you find yourself laying it all down before? Ask God to help you put away any pursuit that has become an object of worship, so that He might hold the place He deserves in your life.

Devotional Thought…
Idols that represent false gods have been a part of human history for a long time. Idols are tangible representations of false gods that have been created to give people a tangible focus to their worship. On a human level, it makes people feel better about their worship.

A false image of God does not have to be tangible. Many people construct their own ideas of God not from wood or stone, but from ideas that are most palatable to them. God of love… I like that! God of mercy… like that too! God who lets tough times come into my life to make me more like Jesus… not so much!

There are a lot of variations on the God that is revealed through the Bible. Either we can run to the Bible to discover who HE has revealed Himself to be, or we can discover just enough to create a god that is similar but in reality is a god that we have made with our own thinking.

Talk to the Lord today about this. Ask Him to help you discover any way you have reconstructed Him into something He is not. Let Him know you want to know who He really is. Commit to really start reading the Bible, not as a motivational book, but as God’s revelation of Himself. He is the main character of every page, so study His heart, His actions, and His words. God wants us to really know the real Him.

Devotional Thought…
Some people make huge mistakes in life because they don’t think enough about a decision before they make it. The person you will marry, and the home you will purchase are decisions that we usually will want to take a good amount of time to think about before we say yes or no to them.

But there are some choices in life that we can think too much about, in fact we really don’t even need to think about them at all. Jesus had one of those moments in today’s scripture passage. Satan came to Jesus with several temptations, the last of which was for Jesus to be given all the kingdoms of the world. What would it cost Jesus? The simple gesture of kneeling down to Satan, and worshipping him.

Jesus didn’t take time to think about it by picturing Himself as the ruler of all these kingdoms and how He could change things if He were in charge through such an arrangement. For Jesus, the act of worship… laying down all we have and all we are in adoration, was exclusively reserved for His Heavenly Father. Anything that would rival that or hinder that didn’t even need to be thought about… it would be a NO.

Are there areas of your life that thinking has led to compromise? Has your exclusive worship of the Heavenly Father been compromised because of a relationship, a business deal or a personal dream? Maybe compromise has come because of something a family member wanted, and now your choice to give in to it has caused compromise for you and other family members. Talk to God about becoming hyper-sensitive to anything that would compromise your worship of Him. When you realize that an area of compromise is before you, ask God to help you do what Jesus did. Tell Satan (the author of all compromise) to “get out of here!”

Devotional Thought…
One day, Jesus was ministering to many people who just would not go away. He realized they needed edible food for their bodies at this point, just as much as they needed the spiritual food He had been serving them for many hours. As He threw the issue out to the disciples, they were focused on what they didn’t have. But Jesus wouldn’t let them stay in an area of thinking that would ultimately result in ministry paralysis. His question was basically, “So what do we have to work with?” When the little they had was collected, Jesus thanked God for it and a miracle followed.

Being thankful for what you have is a game changer. We all have areas of our lives where compared to others we seem lacking. For some it is financial, for others it is relational, health, mental or in our abilities. There are rich people who are relational paupers, and incredibly smart people who have debilitating health issues.

When you are connected to Christ, we must begin realizing that what we have in any area is not by accident. God knows exactly what we have, no matter how little it may seem. He knows what little you can do with what you have and how much He can do with what you have. The key is not getting more so you can get started; the key is being thankful for the little you have and turning it over to God. The same God who has caused donkeys to talk, slaves to become a nation, and thousands to be fed from a few sardines and biscuits is the same God who will take the little you have and show His glory to the world.

Talk to the Lord about this. Has your mental life become a self depreciating beat down as you look at everyone else and compare what you don’t have to what they do have? When is the last time you took an honest and personal inventory of what you really have and given thanks to God for it? Is there something God wants you to do that you have run from because of what you don’t have?

Devotional thought…
As a young child, I remember watching a game show on television called TO TELL THE TRUTH. A group of celebrities would be introduced to three people who claimed to be the same person. The job of the celebrities was to ask the three people questions that might reveal who was telling the truth, and who was lying about claiming the name. Some celebrities were very intense and engaged, while others were very silly and nonchalant about it all. At the end of the game the celebrities would make their best guess and the host would say, “Will the real ________ please stand up.”

When it comes to God, there are a lot of usurpers who claim the name. For the nonchalant seeker, many of the options seem to make a lot a sense and are very convincing. At first glance, it might seem impossible to really figure it out. With the real God, there are a few things to remember.

Today’s verse of scripture reminds us the true God is a God who reveals Himself. God has always been and always is revealing Himself so He may be found. If you really want to discover the true God, He won’t be playing “hide and seek with you.” the true God lives to be found.

The other thing this scripture points out is that the true God is a God of wonder. In other words, He can’t help but be “exceedingly, abundantly beyond all that we could ask or think.”. If a “god-claimer” makes perfect sense and can be seen only through human effort and explanation, you haven’t found the true God.

At the end of your breaths the real God is going to stand up. If you knew Him in life you will keep knowing Him in after-life. Its important that we are intensely engaged in seeking the truth about knowing who the real God is. Fortunately, He is always working to make Himself known.

Devotional thought…
Today’s scripture describes a life changing moment for Saul of Tarsus. Up to this point in his life, Saul had been self-determining who God was and how to serve God. He saw God as a Holy, far off rule giver and the only way to find favor with Him was to piously follow all the rules… or at least make everyone think you were! But through events on a road to Damascus and a visit from a believer named Ananias, God was giving Paul a chance to quit writing his own story and start conforming to the real story that God began “… in the beginning.”

The main character of all history has been and always will be the One and Only God who calls Himself, I AM. History is truly HIS story and we are not the main character but players in it. In every story there are protagonists and antagonists, and they are defined as their actions support or conflict with the story line of the main character.

Living life with God as the main character isn’t always easy, as today’s verse tells us it would not be for Saul. But the hard times are much more bearable when you are convinced they are a part of supporting the Main Character of the universe.

Paul thought he was a protagonist when in reality he was not, yet he was finally willing to quit talking and start listening to God his life changed forever. It’s never too late to quit writing your own story line…