The Christian Bucket List:
1. Praise God
2. Seek God
3. Live for God
4. Glorify God
5. Love God
6. Worship God
7. Bless God
8. Pray to God
9. Thank God
10. Be still and let God be God
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Christian Devotional
Christian Devotional
By Christian Author Linda Wiggins-Edwards
"Walking With God – Part 2"
Many Christians say they want to walk with God, but will say things like “I’m just waiting on the Lord” or “In God’s set time” or “I’m learning to have patience and wait on God.” I have a question for you though. What if God is the one who is waiting on you? Yes it’s true that God does things in His own time, but He does them in His time because He’s the one waiting for us, not the other way around. He is the one with the perfect knowledge, the perfect wisdom and the only one with the ability to make our paths straight.
No parent would take their child over to the neighborhood pool and suddenly push them into the deep end without first ensuring a few things: 1) that their child has had proper swimming lessons and has the ability to swim in deep water, 2) that the pool has a life preserver on the side, 3) that there are clear markings for the deeper end of the pool, and 4) that a lifeguard is on duty who is trained in CPR and other life-saving techniques. If you suddenly pushed your child into that pool, without first making sure at the very least that your child could swim, and God forbid they drowned, you would be the one held responsible for your child’s death. I dare say that it would be ruled a homicide, and not an accidental drowning. However, we know that no one with any good sense would do anything like that.
Well, God would never do anything like that to us either, without first making sure that everything was in proper order, and most importantly, without making sure that we can swim. If He did, He’d be drowning us, setting us up for failure, leading us down a path of total destruction, and this is not something that God would ever do. It is something that He is utterly incapable of doing. This is not, however, to say that we will never experience hardship in our lives, and will sometimes have the feeling that we actually are drowning. We absolutely will experience some hardship in our lives, but God also provides us with a way to deal with those hardships. He has provided us with the one known as “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). All God is doing is just waiting for us to learn to swim.
Some of us take a little longer than others to learn to swim. Therefore, God is the one that always has to have patience with us, not the other way around. God already knows where He wants us to be, and He’s already there. He’s simply waiting for us to learn to swim, to be obedient and join Him. But we are the ones that make Him wait. We run away, turn away, jump into the shallow end of the pool and splash around, we use floaties pretending that we can swim. We do things the way that we want to do them, instead of the way He wants them done. We’ll pray to God and then ignore the answers He gives us. We’ll sometimes even fight Him every step of the way, and then think to ourselves, “Oh, I’m just waiting for God, I’m waiting for my breakthrough.” Well, maybe that breakthrough is never going to happen; not in that manner anyway. Maybe we need to stop fooling ourselves, saying that we want to walk with God, but then aren’t willing to make the necessary changes in our lives and take the necessary steps that we need to take in order to follow Him. If we truly want to walk that walk, then we need to make a decision now, to finally do something about it. Stop splashing around pretending that you are swimming, stop pretending that you are walking with God. Stop trying to make God the one responsible for your lack of obedience, your lack of faith, your lack of righteousness.
1John 2:4-6 says, “The man who says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.” God can’t bring us out of darkness and into the light is He’s already in the light waiting for us, and we’re still splashing around in the shallow end of the pool. If we’re still fumbling around in darkness – darkness that has the ability to lay claim to our souls – what is God to do? How long is He supposed to wait for us? Why do we expect Him to bring us out, but we’re not willing to simply be obedient when He does? “Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God” (John 3:20).
Don’t continue to make God wait for you. Meet Him where He is. Come into the light. He’s already there and He wants to bring you through, just reach out your hand. All He needs to know is that you are finally ready to be brought out, you are truly ready to have your breakthrough, and you are finally ready to do whatever He asks of you, whenever He asks it. God will even come into the darkness and meet you where you are. All you have to do is ask. Jesus says himself, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). Take the first step. Reach out to God. Tell Him, “I’m ready Jesus, please bring me out of my darkness. God I want to walk in your light. Please, take my hand. I need you in my life like never before. Make me over into the Christian that you need me to be. I’m ready.”
And when God does bring you out, it is crucial that you make every effort to be completely obedient to Him and never go back into the darkness and make Him wait for you again. Once you’ve asked God for His hand, He will fill you with His Holy Spirit, and will always keep you in His awesome presence, while maintaining a loving, Godly, righteous and faithful relationship with you. He wants nothing more than to have us walk with Him in His glorious Kingdom, to walk like Jesus walked. And when we have made a decision to walk with God, we will understand that from that point forward, all we will need to do is just be still. Be still and let God be God. “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted in among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth” (Psalm 46:10).
Allow God to just take over your heart, your mind, your soul and your life. Make Him the biggest part of your life and seek Him first in everything that you do. Hold His hand and never let it go. Once we are able to do that, and we see the awesome, transforming power of our omnipotent Creator, our Heavenly Father, our one true God, and we see the miraculous things that He is capable of, we will forever exalt His Holy name!! Thank you Jesus!!! Amen.
Written by Linda Wiggins-Edwards
Copyright 2010. All rights reserved.
By Christian Author Linda Wiggins-Edwards
"Walking With God – Part 2"
Many Christians say they want to walk with God, but will say things like “I’m just waiting on the Lord” or “In God’s set time” or “I’m learning to have patience and wait on God.” I have a question for you though. What if God is the one who is waiting on you? Yes it’s true that God does things in His own time, but He does them in His time because He’s the one waiting for us, not the other way around. He is the one with the perfect knowledge, the perfect wisdom and the only one with the ability to make our paths straight.
No parent would take their child over to the neighborhood pool and suddenly push them into the deep end without first ensuring a few things: 1) that their child has had proper swimming lessons and has the ability to swim in deep water, 2) that the pool has a life preserver on the side, 3) that there are clear markings for the deeper end of the pool, and 4) that a lifeguard is on duty who is trained in CPR and other life-saving techniques. If you suddenly pushed your child into that pool, without first making sure at the very least that your child could swim, and God forbid they drowned, you would be the one held responsible for your child’s death. I dare say that it would be ruled a homicide, and not an accidental drowning. However, we know that no one with any good sense would do anything like that.
Well, God would never do anything like that to us either, without first making sure that everything was in proper order, and most importantly, without making sure that we can swim. If He did, He’d be drowning us, setting us up for failure, leading us down a path of total destruction, and this is not something that God would ever do. It is something that He is utterly incapable of doing. This is not, however, to say that we will never experience hardship in our lives, and will sometimes have the feeling that we actually are drowning. We absolutely will experience some hardship in our lives, but God also provides us with a way to deal with those hardships. He has provided us with the one known as “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). All God is doing is just waiting for us to learn to swim.
Some of us take a little longer than others to learn to swim. Therefore, God is the one that always has to have patience with us, not the other way around. God already knows where He wants us to be, and He’s already there. He’s simply waiting for us to learn to swim, to be obedient and join Him. But we are the ones that make Him wait. We run away, turn away, jump into the shallow end of the pool and splash around, we use floaties pretending that we can swim. We do things the way that we want to do them, instead of the way He wants them done. We’ll pray to God and then ignore the answers He gives us. We’ll sometimes even fight Him every step of the way, and then think to ourselves, “Oh, I’m just waiting for God, I’m waiting for my breakthrough.” Well, maybe that breakthrough is never going to happen; not in that manner anyway. Maybe we need to stop fooling ourselves, saying that we want to walk with God, but then aren’t willing to make the necessary changes in our lives and take the necessary steps that we need to take in order to follow Him. If we truly want to walk that walk, then we need to make a decision now, to finally do something about it. Stop splashing around pretending that you are swimming, stop pretending that you are walking with God. Stop trying to make God the one responsible for your lack of obedience, your lack of faith, your lack of righteousness.
1John 2:4-6 says, “The man who says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.” God can’t bring us out of darkness and into the light is He’s already in the light waiting for us, and we’re still splashing around in the shallow end of the pool. If we’re still fumbling around in darkness – darkness that has the ability to lay claim to our souls – what is God to do? How long is He supposed to wait for us? Why do we expect Him to bring us out, but we’re not willing to simply be obedient when He does? “Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God” (John 3:20).
Don’t continue to make God wait for you. Meet Him where He is. Come into the light. He’s already there and He wants to bring you through, just reach out your hand. All He needs to know is that you are finally ready to be brought out, you are truly ready to have your breakthrough, and you are finally ready to do whatever He asks of you, whenever He asks it. God will even come into the darkness and meet you where you are. All you have to do is ask. Jesus says himself, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). Take the first step. Reach out to God. Tell Him, “I’m ready Jesus, please bring me out of my darkness. God I want to walk in your light. Please, take my hand. I need you in my life like never before. Make me over into the Christian that you need me to be. I’m ready.”
And when God does bring you out, it is crucial that you make every effort to be completely obedient to Him and never go back into the darkness and make Him wait for you again. Once you’ve asked God for His hand, He will fill you with His Holy Spirit, and will always keep you in His awesome presence, while maintaining a loving, Godly, righteous and faithful relationship with you. He wants nothing more than to have us walk with Him in His glorious Kingdom, to walk like Jesus walked. And when we have made a decision to walk with God, we will understand that from that point forward, all we will need to do is just be still. Be still and let God be God. “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted in among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth” (Psalm 46:10).
Allow God to just take over your heart, your mind, your soul and your life. Make Him the biggest part of your life and seek Him first in everything that you do. Hold His hand and never let it go. Once we are able to do that, and we see the awesome, transforming power of our omnipotent Creator, our Heavenly Father, our one true God, and we see the miraculous things that He is capable of, we will forever exalt His Holy name!! Thank you Jesus!!! Amen.
Written by Linda Wiggins-Edwards
Copyright 2010. All rights reserved.
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