Corona Devotionals

Apparently it's time for me to be gettin' along. Perhaps it's time for you to be movin'-on-down-the-road in some area of your life too. We shouldn't be surprised. God has always moved His people in and out of their comfort zones. Seems like just as soon as we get comfortable with a "camp" in life, it is time to " break camp " and move on to follow God somewhere new. The Israelites moved and "camped" in many places as they followed God's lead. They would be "called to a location", they would "set-up camp", they would "get acclimated" and then God would "bring word that it was time to move on". I can relate today, can you? Have we gotten relatively comfortable in a certain location/situation/routine-of-life and now we feel the Lord telling us that it is time to break camp and move on (Deuteronomy 1:7). Yep-I'm there in more than one situation in my life. If you are on the cusp of...

Psalm 65 (1) What mighty praise, O God, belongs to you in Zion. We will fulfill our vows to you, (2) for you answer our prayers. All of us must come to you. ~Psalm 65:1-2 Lord, we stop for a moment in the midst of our daily madness to praise You. Our focus, credit and praise belongs to You, O God . You are worthy and holy and You are ours : O God . Today let us give you what You are due. Let us fulfill our vows of love/service/faith to You , O God. Because You hear us, because You see who we truly are, and because you answer our prayers. (3) Though we are overwhelmed by our sins, you forgive them all. ~Psalm 65:3 Like sand poured through our fingers, we cannot hold on to the depth of this Truth. We grasp it for a moment, but the magnitude of Your grace is unintelligible, O God. Our sin, and the overwhelming nature of it is palpable, tangible...suffocating at times. That part I get. Old sin resurfaces, new sin entices--and we wonder in shame if you could forgive any ...

I am praying for a friend that I've never met. Will you join me? She's 17 years old and a couple months ago she was sled riding on a hill that our family had sledded on days earlier and many times before. It could have been me or my child, but it was her on the sled when something went drastically wrong. Time stopped. And her life changed. She spent weeks in the hospital, and she came home in a wheelchair. Currently she is walking differently than you and I do--she has been forced to walk in faith. She and her family are walking in blind faith and steeped in prayer and hopes that one day soon she will regain use of her legs. And so I pray for her. Me, my family, and a community are praying for her and rallying around the family. Join us, won't you?  James 5:16 says that, " The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective ", and I believe God's word to be true. How God will "heal" her, I am not sure, because His divine thinking is b...

In one of the villages, Jesus met a man with an advanced case of leprosy. When the man saw Jesus, he bowed with his face to the ground, begging to be healed. “Lord,” he said, “if you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean.” (13)Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be healed!” And instantly the leprosy disappeared. ~Luke 5:12-13 He is willing. Have you ever wondered if God is willing to forgive you of all that you've done? Or if He is willing to forgive you for what you've just done? Some of us can look over our entire lives: at all of the sin and shortcoming that we have produced. So many things went on for way too long. Sins that are still going on. T he shame of it should cause conviction within our spirit, and make us wonder, "Is God willing to heal me and make me clean ?" Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. (Luke 5:13). Some of us received that "initial healing" into our hearts/over our s...

Have we "caught on" yet? I'm realizing that one of the secrets to fulfillment in the Christian life is blooming-where-we-are- camped at the time being, and moving on at God's command. It's human-nature to resist change-of-surrounding and to feel intimidated by who we are " camped " next to, but it is God's nature (and the reality of life) to continually be moving us into new surroundings, and to see God's opportunities and calling on our lives to embrace those who we are " camped " next to during this current stage. I am trying to catch on. Even though every new phase or " camp " that I find myself in initially feels awkward and intimidating. And then by the time I am comfortable and adept in it, it's time to "set up camp " somewhere else. But have we caught on yet? This is the story of life. And it's not just the story of our lives. B looming-where-we-are- camped and moving on at God's command h...

A beautiful woman who lacks discretion  is like a gold ring in a pig’s snout. ~Proverbs 11:22 Such a strange image, isn't it?  And "Ouch", I hear You speaking it to us today, Lord.  A beautiful woman who lacks discretion  is like a gold ring in a pig’s snout. ~Proverbs 11:22 We can "appear" and "present ourselves" as beautiful in so many ways to others.  Outwardly beautiful : as in beautiful hair, beautiful figure, beautiful skin, beautiful clothing, and even status can appear "beautiful". But have you ever had someone nullify all of that "beauty" the moment they opened their mouth or the second they succumbed to an activity that was anything but beautiful?  Forgive us for the times when it has been us, Lord.    And believe me, there have been those times.  Too many of them.   In those lapses, we lack discretion , and we devalue the " gold ring " that God has given us as His followers. Discretion:  the quality of having ...

As the sun went down that evening, people throughout the village brought sick family members to Jesus. No matter what their diseases were, the touch of his hand healed every one.   ~Luke 4:40 As a child, one of my earliest memories of "prayer" was bringing the name of each person in my family to God at night as I lay in bed. Of course parents and siblings, but also grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins I would list out and ask the Lord to bless. Most nights I fell asleep somewhere in the cousin line-up, but I knew that God covered them, even if I didn't. It was a humble start to prayer for family and others, and it certainly wasn't specific, but it was something , and the older I get, I think that is what God is looking for in our hearts more than anything. If we will try/attempt/make-an effort: He will take care of the rest. As the sun went down that evening, people throughout the village brought sick family members to Jesus. No matter what their diseases ...

Some passages in the Bible can be brand new and obscure to us, and others are like old friends that we have grown up with since we were children. But even if we are familiar with a Biblical teaching, it doesn't mean that it can't speak freshly to our hearts when we are reacquainted with it. Today let's be re-introduced to the fisherman and their amazing catch. Lord, open our eyes and hearts. Fill our nets with a fresh-catch of Your vision for our lives today. Amen. One day as Jesus was preaching on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, great crowds pressed in on him to listen to the word of God. (2) He noticed two empty boats at the water’s edge, for the fishermen had left them and were washing their nets. (3) Stepping into one of the boats, Jesus asked Simon, its owner, to push it out into the water. So he sat in the boat and taught the crowds from there. ~Luke 5:1-3 Jesus was ingenuitive. The crowds were massive and growing, but He " noticed " an unorthodox wa...

Do you dictate your thoughts in a diary? Do you jot in a journal? Do you have a notebook to record prayers and praises and notable daily events? Do you keep a written record of ( your) progress, the stages of (your) march, identified by the different places where (you've) stopped along the way? We should. A written record gives us proof of our prayers. It gives us something to refer to, review, and rejoice in...when time has passed and we see how God has "worked things out" and to stay persistent in prayer for those things that He is still working on. But it's not actually my advice to " keep a written record ", you don't need my advice. But we do need God's. And if He recommended to Moses to " keep a written record ", then there must be value in it for us as well: This is the route the Israelites followed as they marched out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses and Aaron. (2) At the Lord’s direction, Moses kept a written recor...