“Jesus Our Understanding”
Proverbs 8:14 (ESV)
“I have counsel and sound wisdom;
I have insight; I have strength.”
Consoling isn’t it…Jesus IS our understanding. He gives us insight into His mysteries, and His counsel is ours as we ask Him for it. .As we search His Word He will help us understand it and apply it to our lives. When you think about it, there is no end to the depths of understanding His ways and His Word. May we continually pursue greater depths all of His truth no matter how many times we have heard it. In those times where things may seem to appear hard to understand …know that He is well able to unfold to you what you need to know. He is able to bring to you the clarity and light that you need.
1 Corinthians 2:16 (AMP)
” For who has known or understood the mind
(the counsels and purposes)
of the Lord so as to guide and instruct Him and
give Him knowledge? But we have the mind
of Christ (the Messiah) and do hold the thoughts (feelings and purposes) of His heart.”
“His Blessing Upon Us”
Living Bible (TLB)
O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit or stand. When far away you know my every thought. You chart the path ahead of me and tell me where to stop and rest. Every moment you know where I am. You know what I am going to say before I even say it. You both precede and follow me and place your hand of blessing on my head.
While reading these verses my heart is especially blessed when I read “You chart the path ahead of me and tell me where to stop and rest.” Today as you go about your day I encourage you to be mindful of His plans for you as He works through your life. Also, be ready to stop and rest as He instructs you to do so in order that your may receive refreshing and strength from His mighty and gentle hands. Many times we can get so focused on the work that we forget that our spirit and in body need rest. He desires to continually empower us with His strength and wisdom that we would not get weary in doing His will. God bless you as you ponder His blessings and plan for your day!
“Pushing Beyond Ourselves”
They began to show different men and women demonstrating their strength by lifting heavy weights . It was amazing seeing them display their fitness and strength in spite of their injuries. It was so touching to see such strength and perseverance even though they had been severely injured or lost a limb.
The one young woman that really blessed and touched my heart had suffered the loss of her one leg. She stood among her injured comrades with complete poise and balance. You see, even though she only had one leg she determined her life would go on and she would press in, and do all that seemed impossible. She stood there like a beautiful statue. She was a picture of complete balance, dignity and strength, and not once did she lose her balance nor did she hold onto anything to help her. Not only was she able to do that, she was able to reach down and pick up a barbell and then put it back down perfectly. Again, even with the heavy weight in her hands, there was no loss of balance or strength. It was simply amazing!
They began to interview her and ask her how could she do such a thing? She began to share that when she first lost her leg, her physical trainer began to share with her how she wanted to rehabilitate her. At first this young lady struggled with believing her physical trainer. She kept working with the trainer and she gained the ability to keep her balance and stand strong even though she only had one leg. When she reached that goal, she said to her trainer, “I want to go further!” I was blessed and touched, as I saw her share her heart of rising above such a huge difficulty and misfortune, but yet she purposed to go further. She purposed to go for even greater strength, and she purposed to accept even greater goals!
This challenged my heart, because we all have things in our life that we need to look beyond what we think we can not do or inabilities that are very real. We need to believe what God says about us, and what He says about our situation. We need to lay hold of it, and move in the direction of His vision of our life. When we are strong, let us not stop there but let us say as this young woman said, “I want to go further!”
May I encourage you today to look to the Lord as the greatest Spiritual and Physical Trainer ever! Yes, you may have inabilities and lack of development in certain areas of your life. And yes, you may have experienced things that have set you back, but know that the Lord your God is able to strengthen your feet to stand strong again, and He will lift up your arms in times that you are weary. Let us look forward and persevere and reach for the goals that the Lord is setting before us in Jesus Name!
Hebrews 12:1-2 Amplified Bible
Jesus, the Example
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of [a]witnesses [who by faith have testified to the truth of God’s absolute faithfulness], stripping off every unnecessary weight and the sin which so easily and cleverly entangles us, let us run with endurance and active persistence the race that is set before us, [looking away from all that will distract us and] focusing our eyes on Jesus, who is the Author and Perfecter of faith [the first incentive for our belief and the One who brings our faith to maturity], who for the joy [of accomplishing the goal] set before Him endured the cross, [b]disregarding the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God [revealing His deity, His authority, and the completion of His work].”
“Living Life Wisely”
Psalm 111:10
Today I want to share with you about the value of living every day of your life wisely as you serve the Lord. In Proverbs 3:5-6 the Word admonishes us to trust in Him and lean NOT on our own understanding. This scripture will serve to keep us humble and growing in our walk with Him. Many times it can be a struggle to resist leaning upon our knowledge. We live in an age where information is so easy to get our hands on. Any information that we need is at our finger tips as we google in our questions on our computers. Quite honestly, I have found the more I know about things sometimes it can actually hinder my faith. The tendency to trust in what man says above what God says about a particular thing will hinder our faith and trust in the Lord.
Leaning on God for all that we need is so vital, and it must be our pursuit for this is very much a part of living wisely and being a doer of the Word! Living by faith will always challenge us in the realm of thinking we have to see, feel or understand things with our minds. Sometimes we want so badly to understand things that we are walking through, and there are times we may be putting too much focus on figuring things out. Understanding things can be beneficial at times but remember, peace does not come because we understand a problem but rather peace comes from knowing we serve the One that can solve our problem. May our hearts be reminded that His peace surpasses our understanding, and it surpasses the ways and thoughts of man. Even in the midst of turmoil going on within us, we can hold fast to a peace that permeates our soul, and keeps us from being tossed around by the circumstances we are facing.
I know I have shared this before but I love to repeat it because it was a special time of imparting truth to our youngest son. When he was small, he was full of questions, and he tried so hard to understand everything. There was a particular time he was having a very hard time trusting my judgement on a particular thing. I can remember sharing with him that he just needed to respect my judgement, and not try to figure it out for he was just too young to have wisdom on such a matter. I began to share with him that there will be times in life that we will face things that we do not understand. I stressed with him to trust me as his loving mother and authority in his life. I encouraged him in the fact that someday he would understand but for now he just needed to trust me. He submitted to that, and all was well within his soul regarding his questions.
“The Wonderful Power In the Blood”
“Would you be whiter, much whiter than snow?
There’s pow’r in the blood, pow’r in the blood;
Sin-stains are lost in its life-giving flow;
There’s wonderful pow’r in the blood.
There is pow’r, pow’r, wonder-working pow’r
In the blood of the Lamb;
There is pow’r, pow’r, wonder-working pow’r
In the precious blood of the Lamb.”
Lyrics from “There’s Power In the Blood”
by Lewis E. Jones
I love this old hymn because it challenges my heart to remember that Jesus did what no one else could do for me. Today I encourage you to remember that your heart is whiter than snow because of what He did at the cross. Because He lives we can face our today and every tomorrow in the strength and power of all that He is!
Psalm 103:12 (CJB)
“He has removed our sins from us
as far as the east is from the west.”
“Trusting Him From the Bottom of Your Heart”
“Trust God from the bottom of your heart;
don’t try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;
he’s the one who will keep you on track.
Don’t assume that you know it all.”
Everyday we are presented with opportunities to lean on our own ability. Yesterday my husband shared an interesting thought, and that was that we spend much of our life developing our abilities yet God desires that we not put our trust in them. The Lord delights as we develop our gifts yet He also desires that we remain humble, and truly lean on Him in every area of our life. May we be diligent to entrust every talent and ability to Him, and praise Him for all of these good things come from His hand!
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart.
Never rely on what you think you know.”
God desires that we trust Him, and keep our focus toward Him so that we can discern when our thoughts are not in agreement to His will and purposes for our life. Many times we can overlook the fact that God may be seeing our situation in an entirely different way, and it would do us good to be quiet and consult with Him Remember…He cares about every detail of your life! Today I encourage you to learn of Him, and lean on Him, and trust Him from the bottom of your heart.
“Abundant Peace Belongs To You!”
“Abundant peace belongs to those
who love Your instruction;
nothing makes them stumble.”
There is one thing the Lord asks that we do and that is to love His Word. I believe that loving His Word means to embrace it no matter what is going on around us. Loving His Word means looking daily to it for our instruction in the way that we are to walk. His Word is our instruction manual for life. As we love His Word and make a decision to do what it says, He promises that abundant peace belongs to us. I thank Him for that peace!
“The Voice Of Our Actions”
“He Makes All Things Possible”
“I am the vine, and you are the branches.
If you abide in Me and I in you, you will bear great fruit.
Without Me, you will accomplish nothing.”
I can remember once putting some fresh batteries into something I wanted to use. I checked and checked to make sure all the batteries were in the right position and secure. It made no sense to me that there was no power. My husband opened it and examined it and sure enough one of the three batteries was in the wrong direction.
Sometimes that is how it is for us. We can seem to have all that we need, yet one thing is out of place and there will be no power. When we are connected to God, He assures us that all things are possible as we stay hooked up to His divine ways and purposes! God bless you.
“The Voice of Wisdom”
One thing the Bible clearly states throughout Proverbs about wisdom is that it is to be sought after and held as valuable as a jewel. One can embrace wisdom and yet be fooled by people’s opinions or the voice of circumstance and turn from wisdom’s way. Over and over Proverbs emphasizes the need to embrace wisdom. Don’t let it go! Clearly God understands our human nature that we can tend to look to doing things our own way or we are moved by what we see and not what He sees.
“I love those who love me;
And those who diligently seek me will find me.”
Wisdom desires to be loved and embraced. Wisdom desires to be sought after with one’s whole heart. I would like to share a handful of translations of how wisdom desires to be sought after.
(NLV) “…those who look for me with much desire will find me.”
(VOICE) “… those who search hard for me will find me.”
(WYC) “…and they who wake up early to seek me, shall find me.”
(YLT)”… And those seeking me earnestly do find me.”
Let us look straight to the Lord for His wisdom for our lives each and everyday!
This is a good way of teaching the kids to forgive each other(Matt. 5:7). I like the power of this gentle scripture and lesson… Thanks!!
thank you Lisa for sharing. I am blessed that this was a blessing to you!
Ralph &I are really enjoying your devotional together.
So glad this is blessing you both!
Oh, what a wonderful reminder! I want to break the magnifing glass of worry and trust God for each step I take.
It is interesting Selena how the more we worry the bigger and more magnified things get in our minds. Oh how important it is to trust our God for the smallest of things! Thank you for sharing!