This daily devotional concludes the review of the nuggets from the past year.
To read devotions in the Redo for Godliness series, click the appropriate button below.
Going through the nuggets from the newsletters, I had a lot left over that seemed like they were on miscellaneous topics. I didn’t want to miss these, so we’ve been looking at them for the last few devotions.
I went through and sorted them by topic. To finish this review out, these are the ones that didn’t seem to fit other places (or I missed them).
All the Rest
- We settle for an inferior religion instead of going for a true relationship with Sovereign God and our Blessed Redeemer. Yeah, yeah. Part of it is because our wee human minds just can’t fathom the greatness of what is available to us. Part of it is because we just like our sinful nature. We don’t want to give it up. So we compromise worldview with Godview (How a Minister Says Goodbye).
- God doesn’t want us to go through the motions. God isn’t interested in us buying into the ceremony of religion. It isn’t about checking things off our list. We’ve got to grow our relationships with God. This is all about becoming more like Him (What Is Our Life About?; Joining the Living).
- Some try to fake that they are good. An example is the Pharisees. They thought their religious ceremonies would cut it. Jesus said no. It is about relationship, not ceremony (Don’t Slander Our Good).
- God has a variety of gifts that He gives to His children (Transformed to Unity).
- No, we are not all given the same gift — and not all at the same level. We don’t all use our gifts the same way (Transformed to Unity).
- No one possesses all of the gifts. For that reason, we have to work together to accomplish God’s mission (Transformed to being Servants of God).
- We shouldn’t have ulterior motives or a hidden agenda. We shouldn’t be expecting a specific payoff. In fact, we shouldn’t be expecting anything (Transformed to being Servants of God).
- We have an influence in so many different places. Yes, I influence my Ladies when I teach my class. It could be said that I have an influence when I sing on Praise Team and do an offertory on my flute. But I have influence in my own home and job. I can be an influence when I am out shopping. We can be an influence anywhere there is people. It may be in His house, on a mission field — or on our field (Transformed to Unity).
- We need to remember how He has provided for us in trials. We need to think about how God has saved us from difficult circumstances. Having those memories — and dusting them off and contemplating on them — help us to corral our thoughts. When our thoughts want to run away with us, we can simmer down when we remember how God has provided in the past (How Else Do We Set Our Thoughts Above?).
- It doesn’t matter if we think a law is a biggy or something minuscule. It tells us about God. That makes what He reveals through His Holy Spirit. infinitely more than we realize (Renewing Our Inner Person by Being Sober).
- We need to use what God reveals to us to better our relationships with Him (Renewing Our Inner Person by Being Sober).
- There are different theories as to how this world was created. The how part doesn’t really matter. The most important part of knowing is the Who part. The Sovereign God created the universe and all that is within it (A Three-Step Approach to Knowing God).
- Nothing in Scriptures is fiction. The multiple authors did not make up some interesting story to manipulate us (Growing in Godliness).
- What Jesus was saying was that the earthly governments have the authority to govern actions of this world. While they have their rights, they cannot govern God (The Morality of Being Just).
- Righteousness and mercy go hand in hand with prayer (What Are Acts of Mercy?).
- God will never change. Things are really going to happen just as God says they are. He doesn’t lie. He is not going to reconsider. He isn’t going to be talked out of it (Why and How Are We to Live Godly Lives?).
- God requires that we honor those who have authority over us without denying Him His ultimate authority (The Morality of Being Just).
- God, as Truth, despises lies (The Morality of Honesty).
- God does not promise to deliver us from trouble — He promises to deliver us out of trouble. Going through the trouble is how we grow (God’s Blessings for Merciful Disciples of Christ).
- God rewards us when we share our possessions (God’s Blessings for Merciful Disciples of Christ).
- The disciples hadn’t changed any since this started on Good Friday, but neither had Jesus. He was concerned for their peace. He was still tender and loving toward them. He patiently gave them time to process the difficult thing He was asking them to understand (When the Unexpected Happens).
- Jesus didn’t gloss over their doubts. He called them on them — lovingly — with a side of encouragement. He brought them to a deeper understanding of Himself (When the Unexpected Happens).
- God wants only His children to understand some parts. He purposefully chooses the opposite of what those who really don’t want to believe in Him hold to be wise (I Cor. 1: 27). It isn’t that Jesus doesn’t want us to know. If He wanted to keep us in the dark, He wouldn’t have explained everything to the disciples as they were journeying to Emmaus (When the Unexpected Happens).
- Jesus’ death was not an afterthought. God knew from before the foundation of the world that Jesus was destined for the tree (When the Unexpected Happens).
- The starting place for spreading the message was Jerusalem, and it was up to the disciples to do it (The Expected Message).
- We don’t witness under our own power. It is through the promptings of the Holy Spirit that we spread God’s message (The Expected Message).
- We can’t go ahead of God. We can’t go where He is not leading (The Expected Message).
- God wants us to depend on Him in everything (The Expected Message).
- We only get this power from God (The Expected Message).
- While we are in these physical bodies, we are not going to be able to “sin no more.” God isn’t going to judge us on something that there is no way for us to have success (Transformed through Trials).
- Emotions help us build the relationship with God. They also help us to become invested in the lives of those to whom we are witnessing (Transformed to Harmony).
- God wants us to be good managers of our resources (Submitting to Love).
- Only God has full wisdom and knows exactly how everything is and should be. He only tells us a part (The Law of Unity).
- We live to bring glory and honor to God (The Law of Liberty).
- We are guarded by God’s power because of our faith. He has promised to sustain us until the end, when He will reveal part three of salvation to those who have worked out their salvation (The Law of Liberty).
- God calls us to worship Him (The Law of Liberty).
- God calls us to have a relationship with Him (The Law of Liberty).
- God has an individual relationship with each of us. In my opinion, He builds that relationship based on what we need to get us to His character. That is what happens on each of our Sanctification Roads – making each of them different. In a way, you can say it is the same. God is sanctifying us. In a way, you can say it is different. He is sanctifying us differently (The Law of Liberty).
- There is no debate that we are God’s (The Law of Getting Along).
- We were created to put God first (The Law of Getting Along).
- God created us to worship Him. He wants us to have a relationship with Him (The Law of Getting Along).
- Someone who is not putting God first is looking at every situation to see how s/he is being impacted (The Law of Getting Along).
- Our way of life has to be by God’s rule. Our goal should be to bring Him glory (The Law of Belonging).
- We need to consider ourselves dead to the world (The Law of Belonging).
- Jesus has to be sovereign of our inward and outward lives (The Law of Submission).
- Jesus is Lord of the dead and the living (The Law of Submission).
- God is our Judge (The Law of the Future).
- God judges us every day — He isn’t just waiting for the end (The Law of the Future).
- There is only one standard by which we will all be judged. We should hold ourselves and others to that standard (Don’t Slander Our Good).
- God doesn’t want us on autopilot. He wants to be our Pilot (Don’t Slander Our Good).
- Righteousness is all about God. It is our relationship with Him. We are justified and freed from sin to follow God’s moral laws (The State of the Kingdom of God).
- Having joy in all circumstances designates us a child of God. We get the joy from Him as part of our adoption (The State of the Kingdom of God).
- People are very important to God. Whether they are a strong disciple or a weak disciple today isn’t how He sees them. He sees them as perfected (How to Promote Peace).
- Yes, we may be weak, but we are as God made us. Yes, we may we strong, but we may be fall into temptation and lose our way (How to Promote Peace).
- There is only one road to God — through Jesus (How a Minister Says Goodbye).
- God isn’t in the business of proving Himself to us. We have to have faith and believe (Paul’s Travel Plans).
- God frees us, changes us, revives us, and remakes us. But it starts with the idea of Him (Focusing Our Thoughts Off of the World).
- Spiritual knowledge and wisdom comes from God. We get it through the Holy Spirit. God will reveal Himself to us. He doesn’t do this all at once (We Are All Ministers).
- Through our obedience in faith in Jesus Christ, God strengthens us and provides His wisdom (How a Minister Says Goodbye).
- God’s wisdom is available to all. No one is excluded. Rich or poor. Old or young. Gender doesn’t exclude us. What we’ve done doesn’t exclude us (Why Should We Listen When Leading?).
- We have to become children of God to fully praise Him and know His blessings. He won’t bless us if we are not following His laws and commandments (Controlling Our Though through Contemplation and Praise).
- God isn’t always going to ask us to do the easy stuff. Sometimes, He is going to ask us to do the hard (A Ministry of Love).
- God will be victorious over Satan. He is the One Who will crush Satan, not us. His victory is assured (A Team Approach to Ministry).
- The Holy Spirit assists us in overcoming the temptations of this life. The Holy Spirit is more powerful than Satan, meaning we can conquer Satan. We can conquer our thoughts because the Holy Spirit that lives within us (Focusing Our Thoughts Off of the World).
- First John 4: 4-5 say nothing about Satan being weak. It definitely doesn’t say he isn’t a threat. What it says is God and the Holy Spirit are greater than Satan. It doesn’t matter how formidable Satan is. He isn’t more powerful than Omnipotent God (Focusing Our Thoughts Off of the World).
- But isn’t it a comfort to know that, when Satan tempts us, God only allows that to go on for only a little while. Then God shuts that down, too (A Team Approach to Ministry).
- We aren’t doubting God. We are doubting ourselves. But that means we are doubting God, because that means we don’t think He is powerful enough to do what He says He can do (A Team Approach to Ministry).
- God has the power to establish us because He can and will strengthen us (How a Minister Says Goodbye).
- We gain balance by gaining knowledge of God (Where Is the Balance?).
- God works in our lives to give us balance. He controls what happens (Where Is the Balance?).
- We can only obtain the balance by faith. We can’t get there by our feelings (Where Is the Balance?).
What do you think?
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