Open Our Eyes, Lord .....By Lynette Kittle

 Open Our Eyes, Lord (2 Kings 6:17)

By Lynette Kittle

Today’s Bible Verse: “And Elisha prayed, ‘Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.’ Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” - 2 Kings 6:17

Have you ever found yourself feeling outnumbered and surrounded by the opposition? If so, you understand those who may feel hopeless and helpless when encircled by the enemy, not knowing where to turn or what to do next.

Yet when the prophet Elisha woke up to find an enemy’s army with horses and chariots encamped around him, unlike his servant who began to panic, he had a different reaction.

“'Don’t be afraid,' the prophet answered. ‘Those who are with us are more than those who are with them'" (2 Kings 6:16).

Realizing his servant could only see what was happening in the natural, Elisha asked God to open his servant’s eyes so he could see what was really going on in the spiritual.

For many of us, it’s easier to become distracted and caught up in what the enemy is doing around us than to keep our eyes steadily focused on the Lord.

Sadly, some believers in difficult situations believe they have to fight their battles on their own, leading many to turn to worldly tactics rather than applying spiritual principles.

But like Elisha requested for his servant, rather than thinking we’re all on our own in the conflict, we can ask God to open our eyes to see Him in the midst of our circumstances.

 We, too, can pray for Him to reveal the truth of the situation to us. Instead of feeling alone and outnumbered, we can inquire of God to show us beyond what we see through our physical eyes. We can ask Him for a glimpse into the spiritual to see how He is standing with us.

Too often our emotions and responses are based on what we see because we’re looking only at the natural circumstances. But like those in Bible, we can encourage not only ourselves but also those around us, to gain confidence in God by reminding each other where our strength and victory come from in the world.

2 Chronicles 32:7-8 records a time where Israel’s enemy was staging a mighty attack against them. Instead of cowering in fear, King Hezekiah took the opportunity to encourage his people by reminding them where their power comes from in difficult situations. “’Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged because of the king of Assyria and the vast army with him, for there is a greater power with us than with him. With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us it the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles.’ And the people gained confidence from what Hezekiah the king of Judah said.”

We, too, can gain confidence to be strong, courageous, and free from fear and discouragement, when we remind ourselves and one another of the One who is on our side.

Like 1 John 4:4, God reminds us, “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the One who is in you is greater than the One who is in the world.”

Rejoicing and Weeping with Others..... Denison Ministries

 Rejoicing and Weeping with Others

Denison Ministries

Weekly Overview:

This week we’re going to take a look at seven principles found in Romans 12 that describe the marks of a true Christian. The intent of studying this passage is not to condemn or lead you to comparison. Instead, let Paul’s teaching fill you with a deep, transformative longing to wholeheartedly pursue the life God intends for you. Ask God to help you see yourself as he sees you, to see the grace he’s placed upon your life by the blood of Jesus so that you might walk more fully in the power and anointing of the Spirit. Open your heart to God, and let him do a mighty work in you. He is near to you, ready to mold and shape you into a disciple filled with and fueled by his incredible love. May you discover God’s grace and perspective this week as you examine your life in light of this powerful passage of Scripture.

Scripture:“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” Romans 12:15

Devotional:  

Have you ever experienced love and compassion from someone right when you needed it? Have you laughed or rejoiced with friends or family when you wanted to celebrate something great? Or, have you ever had a friend cry with you in a time of great trial and grief? In Romans 12:15, God commands us, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” We are called to be the hands and feet of Jesus because his heart is filled with compassion for people. David exemplifies this truth in Psalm 30:11 when he says, “You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness.” Let’s spend time today encountering God’s heart of mercy for his people and learn how we can better share the love we’ve been shown with others.

As children of God, we are called to community. We are called to step away from the path of selfish ambition and sacrifice our lives for others the way Jesus has for us. Often this sacrificial life requires simply being there for those God has placed in our lives in whatever capacity they need. Colossians 3:12-13 says, “Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” God calls us to clothe ourselves with his heart. He asks us to be ambassadors for him by sharing his love with others. Philippians 2:3 says, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” Jesus counted our redemption more important than his own life and “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:8). And he asks us to be like him.

So, how can you and I live our lives like Jesus? How can we better “rejoice with those who rejoice [and] weep with those who weep?” It all starts with encountering the heart of God ourselves. Only in seeing the incredible compassion and love God has for you will you be able to have his heart for others.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” We’re meant to love others out of the overflow of God’s love for us. He doesn’t ask you to have compassion and mercy in your own strength. He knows those are gifts that come from the Spirit working in our lives. You and I can do nothing in and of ourselves. To truly share God’s heart we need God’s help, and that starts with simply spending time encountering God for who he is.

After being filled with the love of God, you must choose to humble yourself before others and step outside of your comfort zone to bless someone. Humility requires strength, courage, and the help of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit will always help you share God’s love for someone. Follow his leading, ask him for his heart for people around you, and follow through with courage in love. If you will make it your goal to see God’s heart proclaimed through your life, you will experience more joy and purpose than you can imagine. Being a person who gives their own life for the sake of others will fill you with more peace and passion than living for yourself could ever produce. Spend time encountering God’s heart today, and walk in obedience to his command: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” If you do so, you will find yourself filled with the knowledge of God’s love today and satisfied in knowing you proclaimed God’s love through your life.

Guided Prayer:

1. Meditate on God’s love for you. Ask God to show you how he feels about you in this very  moment.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

2. Now ask for God’s heart for someone else today. Who needs you to rejoice with them? Who needs you to weep with them?

“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” Romans 12:15

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” John 13:34

3. Right now in your own heart, humble yourself before the person that God has shown you. Choose in your own heart to count them as more significant than yourself. And commit to share God's love with them in whatever way the Spirit leads you.

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” Philippians 2:3

“Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” Colossians 3:12-13

Choose to love people today in whatever situation you find yourself. Whether you’re driving, having a conversation, working, or just relaxing with someone, you can always count others as more significant than yourself. You can always show others God’s love. And the more you encounter God’s heart for yourself, the more natural sharing his love with others will become. Share in the joy of co-laboring with God to see his kingdom, founded on love, come to earth today. There is no better life we can live than one spent working with our heavenly Father.

Extended Reading: 2 Corinthians 1

Exhale.....GRACE FOX

 Exhale

GRACE FOX 

“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:7 (NIV)

The new day had barely begun, but already its concerns burdened me: a dear friend fighting cancer, a relative battling mental health issues, family tensions over COVID-19, work deadlines and more.

Overwhelmed. Crushed by circumstances beyond my control. Anxious over questions for which I lacked answers. That’s how I felt.

I suspect you can relate. Your concerns may or may not match mine, but you “get” the weight because you’ve carried yours, too. We all do it, and often to our own detriment. We lose sleep, worrying about those we love. We lose our focus, fearing the worst about financial difficulties. We lose our peace, drawing hypothetical conclusions from what-if thoughts.

Jesus never intended our concerns to dominate our thinking because He understands their negative impact on our well-being. That’s why He says, through a letter written by the Apostle Peter, to cast our anxieties on Him:

“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).

In this verse, “cast” means to hurl or heave with force. It doesn’t suggest we gingerly place one problem on Jesus’ shoulders to see how He resolves it before entrusting Him with another. Neither does it imply we give Him our concerns only to retrieve them a short while later. Casting our cares means throwing them onto Jesus with force because we’re done dealing with them and have no intention of taking them back.

Jesus’ shoulders are bigger than ours, and His strength is greater. He can handle those situations too complex for us. He can bear the burdens too heavy for us. Every single one of them.

Sometimes we forget the little word “all” in 1 Peter 5:7. We give some concerns to Jesus, but we hesitate to surrender others. But here’s the thing: Our concerns can’t wield control over us when we yield control to Jesus. Let’s surrender all our anxieties, no matter what caused them, and trust Him for the best outcome.

That morning amidst my anxious thoughts, I sensed the Lord whisper, Take a deep breath, and then exhale your anxiety about your friend with cancer. Trust Me. I’ve got this. I did what He said, and my soul felt a little lighter.

He spoke again: Exhale concern about your relative with mental health issues. And again: Now exhale concern about all things COVID-19-related.

The Holy Spirit led me through that morning’s list, and then He brought several more concerns to mind — burdens I hadn’t even realized I was bearing until I felt the load lighten. One by one, I cast all my concerns onto Jesus, grateful for His willingness to carry them for me.

What concerns are you carrying today, my sweet friend? Take a deep breath. Now exhale. Repeat. Do this little exercise as often as needed. Give those concerns to Jesus because He cares for you.

Heavenly Father, thank You for offering to carry our concerns. When we’re worried or afraid, please remind us You are completely trustworthy. Help us yield control to You so our concerns cannot control us. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Acquiring Wisdom.....Dr. Charles Stanley

 Acquiring Wisdom

Dr. Charles Stanley

Proverbs 4:20-27

The most obvious source of godly wisdom is the Bible. You cannot think of a question or life circumstance about which God’s Word is silent. His principles for right character, conduct, and conversation apply to every situation and decision confronting human beings.

We’re all able to recall times when we didn’t respond wisely. Those incidents can be traced back to one of two possibilities—either we didn’t know a certain biblical principle or we knew the principle that applied but chose to ignore or violate it. To ensure that we’ are familiar with God’s standards and the importance of following them, we’ve got to dig into His Word.

For example, suppose that you walk into the office and a coworker verbally assaults you with undeserved blame for a costly mistake. Your flesh and the world would have you respond in kind with anger and malice. But Luke 6:27-29 offers a different approach, that might go something like this: “Is there anything else? Thank you for telling me how you feel” (spoken gently). 

Knowledge comes from learning biblical principles; wisdom has to do with applying them. The Lord cautions us to keep His Word in our heart and in our heads so that we will heed His instructions (Ps. 119:11; Prov. 8:33).

Wisdom is acquired as we pursue the Christian life—absorbing Scripture, doing what it says, and observing the result, which is for our good even when consequences appear less than favorable. Special classes aren’t required; God simply wants obedient hearts and a willing spirit.

Trapped in the Darkness.....by Fred Alberti

 Trapped in the Darkness

by Fred Alberti

"…to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me."
Acts 26:18

As I was walking through my nature trail this week I, as I normally do, asked the Lord what I should write this week. As I passed through the chapel area of the trail the sun flashed through the leaves and caught my attention. Light. I had entered the darkness of the woods but that light caught my attention. I "filed" it away and continued my travels through the trail.

Later, I was reading through various news stories of earthquake survivors in China when one particular story jumped out at me and brought back to my mind my earlier encounter with the rising sun. The story was of a middle-aged man named Mr. Shen whose quick thinking to take cover in a doorway saved him from the fate experienced by many of his co-workers.

When interviewed, Mr. Shen recalled shouting to a co-worker to join him in the doorway when the room suddenly collapsed. The next thing he remembered was the sudden darkness that enveloped him.

What struck me in his interview was his statement, "Oh, the darkness, oh, the darkness all over. I didn't know when it was going to end."

There are people that we walk past every day that, without knowing it, are spiritually in the same condition as Mr. Shen; trapped in darkness under the weight of sin.

For Mr. Shen, the darkness crumpled under the hands of the rescuers. After 146 hours his encounter with complete and utter darkness came to an end. That darkness, however, will always leave a mark on his being.

Will you forget the darkness that seeks to crush the hope of those around you?

Intersecting Faith & Life: Find a place of complete and utter darkness and spend at least 15 minutes praying for people you know who have not accepted God's free gift of salvation.

Further Reading:

Ephesians 5:8
John 12:46
1 Peter 2:9

A Prayer to Get Spiritually in Shape.....By: Alisha Headley

 A Prayer to Get Spiritually in Shape

By: Alisha Headley

“So, teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” - Psalm 90:12

We are told by doctors and health professionals to work out our body, eat right, don’t smoke, limit drinking, and all kinds of advice to develop a strong and healthy heart and body. We are told these things are important for the health of our heart, that we might live a long and active life. If we don’t maintain these disciplines, the consequences could lead to tiredness, lethargy, lack of motivation or negative thought patterns. How we take care of our bodies matters.

Disciplines are designed to strengthen. We take care of and work out our bodies so that our bodies remain strong and become stronger.

What if the same is true in our spiritual life? If we don’t take care of our spiritual heart and learn to discipline it, will we too feel lethargic and lack motivation in our spiritual walk with the Lord?

Today’s verse touches on that: to gain a heart of wisdom, we must learn to number our days. The problem is, just like our physical bodies, we tend to want to get in shape overnight. This is why there are fad diets that come and go from one year to the next. We want the strong heart and body now. We tend to not look at the day-to-day like this verse suggests. We focus on the end result. In today’s key verse, the Lord is asking us to focus on the day-to-day. The day-to-day faithfulness. The day-to-day sowing and planting seeds that will one day (maybe not today) produce fruit. The day-to-day trusting Him. The day-to-day flexing our prayer muscle. The day-to-day praising Him. The day to day seeking His Word. The day-to-day living out His truth.

It’s in the everyday work that we gain a heart of wisdom, strengthened through our disciplines. A strong heart that feeds on the Word’s truth rather than on the world’s lies. Every day we get stronger and stronger in our walk with the lord. Every day our heart gets stronger, and our will gets stronger aligned as it gets closer and closer to God’s will over our own. The day-to-day is where we can gain wisdom and become spiritually in shape, and this is where we gain a strong heart full of wisdom.

Let’s pray.

Father,

Thank you for Scripture like today, teaching us about discipline. Often, we think of the word discipline as a punishment or a taking away. But it is through spiritual disciplines that we experience strength through you. We find peace as we discipline ourselves; every day is a day to come closer to you.

Thank you for teaching us that the purpose of practicing spiritual disciplines is for a deeper relationship with you. Father, we ask that as today’s Scripture says, you would orient our lives around what truly matters. Help us become spiritually fit. Help us have hearts for you and minds “that is set on things above, not on the things on the earth” (Colossians 3:2). Help our hearts to be strengthened day-by-day, as we begin to habitually put our focus on heavenly things.

Lord, we know that our days are numbered and each day counts. Setting our hearts on things of temporary value creates a weak heart that lacks wisdom. Lord, create in us a strong heart, one that is full of wisdom. Please remind us of this Scripture and prompt us in moments of laziness or lethargy to keep “pressing on toward the goal to win the prize for which you have called us heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14).

In Jesus’s name, we pray,

Amen

An Easter Prayer of Celebration: He Is Risen!.....By Debbie McDaniel

 An Easter Prayer of Celebration: He Is Risen!

By Debbie McDaniel

“He is not here; he has risen, just as he said…” Matthew 28:6

Such incredible, miraculous, life-changing words. “He is not here, for he has risen…”

His power could not be contained in a grave. His love could not be conquered by death. His truth could never be buried and forgotten.

Jesus Christ rose again, He is Victorious!

And He makes all things new.

The very purpose of this Easter weekend reminds us, that no matter what we’ve been through in the past, what we might be facing today, or what uncertainties tomorrow may hold, Christ alone is our Hope. He conquered death, He rose from the grave, He is all Powerful.

He breathes new life, so that we can live…free.

We have so much to celebrate today, for He has risen!

He has risen indeed!

Dear God,

Thank you that you make all things new. Thank you for the Victory and Power in your Name. Thank you that you hold the keys over death, and that by your might, Christ was raised from the grave, paving the way for us to live free. Thank you that you had plan, thank you that you made a way. 

We praise you for your great strength, we praise you for your lavish love. We praise you for you are Conqueror, Victor, Redeemer, and Friend. We praise you that you alone are our Deliverer, you are Worthy, you are our everlasting Father, our great and awesome God.

We confess our need for you. We ask that you would renew our hearts, minds, and lives, for the days ahead. We pray for your spirit of refreshing to fill us again.

Keep your words of truth planted firmly within us, help us to keep focused on what is pure and right, give us the power to be obedient to your word. And when the enemy reminds us of where we have been, whispering his lies and hurling attacks our way, may he be reminded again of his future. For we have a future and a hope in you. We’ve been set free, redeemed, the old has lost its grip, the new has come.

Shine your light in us, through us, over us. May we make a difference in this world, for your glory and purposes. Set you way before us. May all your plans succeed. We may reflect your peace and hope to a world that so desperately needs your presence and healing.

Thanks be to you God, for your indescribable gift!

To you be glory and honor, on this Resurrection Day, and forever.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen.