God’s Instant Forgiveness..Craig Denison Ministries

 

God’s Instant Forgiveness

Craig Denison Ministries

Weekly Overview:

The story of the prodigal son moves my heart to delve into the depths of God’s limitless grace. I find myself in every facet of Jesus’ words. I identify with both the son’s rebellion and the power of the father’s love. As children of God we are in constant need of reminders about God’s mercy toward us. When the world rejects us, God calls us in. When the world writes us off, God clothes us with righteousness and honor. May this transformative story of the prodigal son guide you to a deeper and more intimate relationship with your loving heavenly Father.

Scripture:“And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” Luke 15:20

Devotional:    

One of the most powerful verses in Scripture is found in Luke 15:20. Take a minute this morning to reflect on the forgiving heart of your heavenly Father as you read this Scripture: “And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.”   

Our heavenly Father is quick to forgive us no matter how great our sin. He longs for us to turn our hearts toward him so that he can run out to meet us in our brokenness and weakness and draw us back into total communion with him. Too often we wait to turn our hearts toward the Father. Too often we allow the lack of grace in others to instill in us a belief that God will be mad and slow to forgive us if we confess to him.

The truth is that God is constantly aware of our sin, and yet he longs for intimacy with us in every moment. You are never too dirty to be wrapped up in the loving arms of your Father. You are never too broken to be clothed with his righteousness and honor. You never step outside of being his fully loved and forgiven child. If you will turn your heart toward him the instant you sin, you will discover a continual wellspring of grace and love that never runs dry and never holds back. God is filled with grace and love for you all the time no matter how great the sin or how long it has been since you’ve turned your heart toward him.

1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The moment you confess, you are brought back into total freedom and righteousness. The forgiveness of God cleanses you through and through. There is always joy, peace, purpose, and hope on the other side of confession. There is always intimate, restored relationship available to you. All that is required of you is to open your heart to the Father in faith that he will always love you and receive the overwhelming love he longs to give you.

What area of your heart has yet to receive the fullness of God’s love? Where do you need his instant forgiveness? What are you hiding from the Father in fear of how he will react to your sin? Place yourself in the prodigal son story today. Open your heart to the Father in a posture of repentance and set your feet toward him. Go to him and confess your sins, weaknesses, and need of him. Picture yourself at the feet of the Father who has run out to meet you, and receive all the love and restoration he has to give you today. There is nothing more important than allowing yourself to be fully available to your heavenly Father and taking time to be fully loved by him. May you have a transformational encounter with your Father today as you enter into guided prayer.

Guided Prayer:

1. Meditate on the importance of having your heart fully available to the Lord. Reflect on the importance of confession.

“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” Proverbs 4:23

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6

“Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.” Proverbs 28:13

2. Confess any sin you have and acknowledge your need of God’s love and forgiveness. Picture yourself at the feet of the Father as he runs out to meet you, and make your heart fully available to him.

“Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out.” Acts 3:19

3. Receive the love and forgiveness of your heavenly Father. Ask him to show you how he feels about you. Ask him to help you experience the cleansing power of his forgiveness. Take time to rest in his love and allow it to transform you.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9

While God certainly knows everything about our hearts, he waits to transform, renew, and fill them until we open them up to receive. He is not a God that forces what we need but waits for us patiently and expectantly. As children of such a loving God, it’s vital that we cultivate a posture of need and receptiveness. It’s vital that we till the soil of our hearts to fully receive God’s love and bear the fruit of his presence in our lives. Take time throughout your day to check the posture of your heart and open any areas that are closed off. Allow him to guide you in every way. Trust him and live in obedience. May you live today in total communion with your heavenly Father.

Extended Reading: 1 John 1

The Cost of Control..SHARON HODDE MILLER

 The Cost of Control

SHARON HODDE MILLER 

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

For two weeks in the fall of 2018, I became a meteorologist.

Not literally, of course, but emotionally.

In September of that year, Hurricane Florence was forecasted to plow through the state where my husband and I lived. For weeks, we monitored its progress and prepared for the worst. At its most powerful, Florence was a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 150 miles per hour, and our local weatherman warned that we might suffer a direct hit.

This forecast sent me into a tailspin for two reasons.

The first is obvious: Hurricanes are scary! I had lived through only one hurricane in my life, so I was not exactly a seasoned veteran. I wondered if we should pack up the kids and go stay with my parents, but there was another complicating factor that was also contributing to my stress.

My husband and I were weeks away from launching our church. We were planning to hold a practice service on the very weekend Florence was scheduled to hit, and we weren’t quite sure what to do.

As my imagination ran wild with all the worst-case scenarios, I did the only thing that gave me some sense of predictability. I tracked that hurricane’s every move. I downloaded our local news channel’s weather app; I clicked “Yes, I DO want notifications!” and I became intimately acquainted with the Weather Channel’s website. I followed each new development, in real time, 24/7.

And then, as the date of our church’s practice service neared, something happened that I didn’t expect. The hurricane’s path shifted. On a dime, weather experts changed their predictions and speculated it would skirt our area entirely.

In the end, that hurricane never did hit us. In fact, we experienced only an ordinary amount of rain, so when I look back on how I responded to the hurricane, the source of my anxiety is clear: My stress was the fallout of taking my control issues to the internet instead of to God as 1 Peter 5:7 instructs: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”

This is the great temptation of our age. Thanks to technological advances like the internet, smartphones, satellites, modern medicine, air travel and more, we have access to more knowledge, more choices and more certainty than any generation before us — which is, by and large, an enormous gift. However, underneath all of these daily habits of checking our phones and combing the internet, our technology is nurturing in us a belief in an attractive lie: the illusion of control.

The illusion of control is convincing because we mistakenly think knowledge is the same thing as influence. But as a friend once told me, “Knowing how the weather works does not mean we can control it.” When we forget this distinction and then turn to the illusion of control to help us, it cannot provide us the peace we crave.

In fact, it will only provide the opposite.

That is the paradox of control. The more we seek control, the less we feel it. We experience this anxiety in relatively harmless situations like tracking the weather or an incoming package, but we experience it more acutely in other situations.

In the church that my husband and I lead, some of the greatest anxiety I have experienced has resulted from my naive belief that I could make people think or act a certain way. I was convinced that if I just explained something enough, I could walk people back from the self-destructive decisions they were making. In short, I thought I could control them, and this illusion of control has been the source of many sleepless nights and strained relationships over the years.

Control is a false gospel of sorts, promising us a security that only Jesus can provide. But while the promise of control is quite literally a devil’s deal — dating all the way back to the garden of Eden — the good news is this:

We don’t have to settle for the enemy’s offers of power or peace because we can have the real thing in Jesus.

Jesus, this world feels out of control. Very often, I feel out of control. I want to fix things or know what is going to happen, and deep down, I do not believe I can have peace any other way. Open my eyes to the illusion of this thinking, and help me to recognize the true and greater peace available to me in You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen. 

Conquering Fear..Dr. Charles Stanley

 Conquering Fear

Dr. Charles Stanley

Psalms 63

Every one of us will experience moments of apprehension, and denial or trying to hide from it will do no good. When fear arises, ask yourself the following questions: Where does it come from? (You know it isn't from God.) Has God ever failed me in the past? Does He promise to meet all of my needs? Does He keep His promises?

If we read the Bible, we'll find countless stories of God's faithfulness. For example, Paul lived through hardship, persecution, pain, and all kinds of terrible circumstances. The apostle wrote these well-known words: "God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose" (Rom. 8:28). This testifies to the fact that for those who trust in Him, God turns every difficulty, loss, and separation into something good.

From Abraham to Isaiah to David to Job to Jonah to Paul to John, we see God's constant love and care for His people. His Word is a lamp that will give us clear guidance when circumstances are bleak. It offers the best direction we will ever find. When we meditate upon it, pray over it, grapple with it, and incorporate it into our lives, His light chases away the darkness. The psalms, in particular, are helpful in dealing with fear.

God, the sovereign ruler of this universe, is in control of your life. Don't make the mistake of thinking He isn't, simply because He does not operate according to your will and schedule. If you read your Bible and meditate on it, you will find genuine strength in His promises.

6 Important Things Proverbs 31 Doesn't Say about Women..Rachel Dawson

 6 Important Things Proverbs 31 Doesn't Say about Women

By Rachel Dawson

She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. – Proverbs 31:25

The book of Proverbs is full of practical wisdom all based in a good, healthy fear of the Lord. The last chapter, chapter 31 where this woman is depicted, was an acrostic poem written to offer counsel to young men on the kind of wife they should be seeking. It wasn’t even written directly to women, yet we take it to be this end-all-be-all list of requirements and standards to achieve perfect godly womanhood when that wasn’t ever the intent.

There is so much more to be said about how we should live our lives as Christian women than Proverbs 31 includes. I believe there is so more that the Lord desires for us as His beloved daughters than those few verses show us.

Here are 6 things that Proverbs 31 doesn’t say about women:

1. We are valuable even when we aren’t a wife. Yes, the Proverbs 31 woman was married with children who called her blessed and praised her, but even single women who aren’t loving their husbands and raising their babies have abundant value and worth in the Lord’s eyes. We are still blessed and beautiful.

2. We need other women. We need to be rooted in communities of other women who are running the same race. So often, we see women in the world being pitted against one another in an ugly battle of competition and judgment, but we have the beautiful opportunity to come alongside other woman in collaboration, love, support and true friendship. Communities like that are life-changing and God-glorifying.

3. We are valuable even if our gifts aren’t in homemaking. Some women are more the “grab take-out” type than a home chef. Some are brilliant speakers or writers or businesswomen or teachers, and they hire others to help fill in the gaps at home or share those responsibilities with their husband. That’s okay. The Proverbs 31 woman was a successful businesswoman too, but we rarely talk about that part. Our work, our art, our volunteering, our words, and our actions have worth whether they produce handmade goods and a sparkly clean home or if they look a little different.

4. We have a place in the church and in leadership. I’m grateful to live in a time and a country where I see women on stage leading worship, speaking, teaching, preaching, and leading ministries on every level. The Proverbs 31 woman speaks with wisdom and has faithful instruction on her tongue—she is described as a faithful and loving counselor—but never is her role in a church body mentioned. I believe we as Christian women have been blessed with gifts that the church so desperately needs, and it is our role to use them to serve for God’s glory in our churches.

5. We are called to be advocates for justice and mercy. The Proverbs 31 woman opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy, and it’s beautiful. We as women today should be doing the same. Let us give, serve, pray, and act in new ways to bring hope and healing to the world around us.

6. Our personal walk with the Lord is essential to the work we do and the lives we lead. While these verses say the Proverbs 31 woman fears the Lord, it doesn’t give us much insight into what her spiritual life was like. The time that we spend with the Lord changes us, and taking time daily to be in Scripture, to pray, to worship, and to reflect on all that He has done and is doing is essential to keeping our souls healthy and alive. It is only when we are abiding in the Vine that we can bear fruit and thrive.

Women, let us not hold ourselves to an unattainable standard of marriage, motherhood and homemaking, but instead fear the Lord in all that we do with gracious and boundless humility.

A Prayer to Remember You Matter to God..Alisha Headley

 A Prayer to Remember You Matter to God

By: Alisha Headley

“By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples…you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit.” (John 15:8,16)

We all want to matter in this world. The truth is we do matter, already, exactly as we are, wherever we are, and no matter what we’ve done up unto this point. Everything changes when you let your Maker show you why you matter. The One who fashionably knit you together one thread at a time in your mother’s womb, who created you and the world we live in, says that you matter immensely to Him. It’s God that we must look to, to truly recognize our worth in this world.

God uses everything in your life for His purpose, Everything. It all matters – every ounce of it. Nothing is dropped, nothing is discredited. God wants you to flourish and grow in Him, and bear fruit for Him. We do this by giving ourselves fully to His faithful ways, trusting our lives in the hands of the master Gardner. It is then that we can grow and bear fruit and come to realize it all matters.

Every small or large seed He plants in your life is intended to grow into fruit. Yes, even the painful, hurtful things planted in your life can become fruit for His greater purpose. He will use it all for His glory just as He promises us in Romans 8:28, saying “He works all things for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.”

Your failures matter, your relationships matter, your childhood matters, your past matters, your present matter, your dreams matter, your work matters, your tears matter, your pain matters, your prayers matter, your voice matters. You dear brother and sister in Christ, YOU matter.

We were chosen to bear fruit, so take every seed planted and surrender it to the Lord for it all matters. Allow Him to water and flourish it so we can bear fruit for the glory of Him, our Maker.

Let’s pray.

Dear God,
Thank you for forming us uniquely, making us one-of-a-kind and choosing us for a purpose. Thank you that you appointed us as modern-day disciples to bear fruit for your Kingdom. Often, we wish away seasons and seeds of pain, but Lord, we pray that we would learn to embrace everything you plant in our life, for we know that trials of any kind still produce fruit.

James 1:2 says, “to count it all joy when trials come in any form because it produces the fruit of perseverance, so let it grow, for when our endurance is fully developed, we will be perfect and complete, not lacking anything.” Please remind us in moments where we feel like what we have around us doesn’t matter, that it all matters to you. It’s all a part of your bigger purpose.

Uplift us today, reminding us that our story, no matter how messy it is, matters to you and will be used for good. Our mess ultimately is our message we can use to be lights in this dark world. We surrender and sacrifice everything to you today Lord. Our past, our present and our future. We want to bear fruit for you and your Kingdom. May your Word water our souls today so the seeds planted can grow and flourish into who you’ve designed and called us to be. Thank you for choosing us to partake in your beautiful garden. We love you, Lord.

In Jesus’ Name we pray,
Amen

Heart Transplant..Annie Yorty

 Heart Transplant

By Annie Yorty

“But the words you speak come from the heart—that’s what defiles you. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander” (Matthew 15:18-19 NLT).

A man named Chuck is alive and thriving today because he just received a new kidney to replace his malfunctioning organs. The surgeon cut into his flesh to remove the diseased kidneys that were allowing toxins to flood his body—toxins that were slowly killing him. Where did Chuck get his new kidney?

In a remarkable display of God’s kindness, my friend Judy donated a healthy kidney to him. Thanks to modern medicine, doctors could remove one of her two kidneys without sacrificing her life. Most organ donation, however, requires that someone dies before another can live. Heart transplants, for example, can only come from a person who has recently died or who is brain dead and kept alive by artificial means.

Jesus addressed the need for a heart transplant when he spoke to the hypocritical religious leaders of his day. “But the words you speak come from the heart—that’s what defiles you. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander” (Matthew 15:18-19 NLT).

In case we think Jesus’ words only applied to those particular leaders, God spoke the same truth in the Old Testament through His prophet Jeremiah about every person. “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is” (Jeremiah 17:9 NLT)? Try as we might, we cannot heal the sickness of our hearts. Only a transplant will solve our wickedness.

This brings us to another unpleasant truth. Someone must die to provide a new, healthy heart. But if every human’s heart is unsuitable for transplant, where can a donor be found? There is only One who can solve this conundrum. Jesus, called both Son of God and Son of Man, is fully God and fully human. Because He’s God, His perfect, holy human heart meets the stringent requirements for the transplant process.

But first, Jesus had to die. In obedience to His Father, Jesus allowed Himself to be executed on a cross, taking the death sentence deserved by every human who would ever live throughout history. On the third day after His death, God raised Jesus from the dead.

As a result, each of us may receive the heart transplant we so desperately need. It’s ours for free if we are willing to humbly confess the need for Jesus as our Lord and Savior. When we bow in submission to follow Him instead of our own wayward heart, then He performs the transplant.

This miraculous exchange was promised by God to His people long ago through His prophet Ezekiel. “And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations (Ezekiel 36:26-27 NLT).

Both Chuck and Judy experienced pain in the transplant process. As one who has received a new heart through Jesus, I admit that I have sometimes struggled with the pain of letting go of my original, deficient heart. I was quite familiar with the old one. The change was challenging. But God patiently helped me through the required rehabilitation that comes after a transplant. Now my healthy heart pumps the grace of God throughout my being. In freedom, I am able to obey God’s commands and receive His blessing.

What about you? Have you noticed a certain hardness in your heart? Is your joy constricted by poor grace flow? Have you asked Jesus to come and transplant a tender and responsive heart to replace your desperately wicked heart? If you haven’t yet given up your old heart, I encourage you to pause now and talk to God about receiving Jesus as your Savior and committing to follow Him.

If a new heart beats in your chest, cooperate with God in rehab, so it functions at full capacity. Learn from His Word how to strengthen your heart muscle to obey Him in all circumstances. Tell other people about the new life you received through Jesus. God wants to save every person who is dying from a sin-ravaged heart. Bring them to the Great Physician for a heart transplant.

Intersecting Faith and Life:
What are some ways your new heart enables you to obey God’s commands? Who in your sphere of influence needs to hear about God’s heart transplant?

Further Reading:
Psalm 51:9-12
2 Corinthians 5:11-21