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Today's Scripture Colossians 2:9-10 (NIV) 9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. Devotional Reflection There is an incomprehensibility to what we call the Trinity. God is one. There is only one God, yet He manifests Himself in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Because they are one, even though they are distinct, none is less God than the o

James 1:21 21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. (NIV) The KJV translates today’s passage a bit differently. Rather than the phrase "the word planted in you," it says, "the engrafted word." While James is not directly referring to Jesus' teaching about the Vine, the imagery beautifully complements what Christ taught in John 15. Christ taught us that He is the Vine and we are th

John 15:10 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. (NIV) Devotional Reflection In today’s passage, the Lord gives us the pathway of holiness. It is not that obedience and love are in opposition to one another. Rather, love becomes the motivation for obedience, and obedience becomes the expression of our love. We often wonder why we keep doing the things we shouldn’t and never start doing the thin

Isaiah 6:1–3 1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of His robe filled the temple. 2 Above Him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;the whole earth is full of his glory.” Devotional Reflection The angels call to one another that

Proverbs 18:4 4 The words of the mouth are deep waters, but the fountain of wisdom is a rushing stream. (NIV) Devotional Reflection We remember in our passage today that words carry the power of life and death. The old childhood chant that words will never hurt us is a farce. Words run deep. Our proverb today describes our words as deep waters. Deep waters incapacitate us. We have nothing to stand on but our own strength, which will not last. The deeper the water, the farther

When Jesus asks us to pray for our daily bread, He is clearly referencing the manna in the desert. In John’s Gospel, Jesus refers to Himself as both the Manna from Heaven and the Bread of Life. It would be simple enough to see this part of the prayer as a request that Jesus would be with us, or that He would give us what we need for this day. And neither would be untrue, but there is still a deeper movement He is calling us to.

Scripture: Matthew 6:10 10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. (NIV) Devotional Reflection: After we have positioned ourselves in humility, our highest desire is for His kingdom to come here on earth. Heaven is a kingdom with a King who has set the laws and established the culture. We know Heaven is not a place of pain, sorrow, or tears. There is no stress, worry, or anxiety—no fear, no doubt, no sadness, no anger, no jealousy, no uncertainty, n

Hallow is not a word many are familiar with. It means to make something holy or sacred. When Christ teaches us how we should pray, we first must position ourselves as little children whose Dad is also the Creator and Sustainer of everything visible and invisible, who sits above all power and dominion. What an amazing thought. But then Christ teaches that we are to hallow His name.

Scripture: Romans 8:1–2 1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. (NIV) Devotional Reflection: We don’t always recognize the legality of salvation. The Lord is the Judge, but also the founder of the cosmic state. He is the King, but He wrote the laws and established the judgments against lawbreakers. And Paul is drawing our att

The Lord looked at humanity in its pitiful state of sin and was moved by love. However, this love prompted Him to send His Son to die for the sins of the world. We might suppose God could have taken the record of sin collected since the beginning of time and simply erased it and pretended it never happened. He could have removed righteousness as a requirement to be saved from our sin. But to simply erase sin would deny justice. God is a judge. The law had been broken. Justice

He gives strength to the weary, but opposes the proud.He increases the power of the weak, but opposes the proud. Pride keeps us from acknowledging our failures and flaws. We do all we can to keep others from seeing our weaknesses. We don’t even want to look at them ourselves. Pride paints a picture of an imaginary version of who we are in an attempt to feel better about ourselves and to persuade others to see us the same way. Pride is weakness, but God does not increase th

Proverbs 3:5–6 (NIV) 5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Devotional Reflection The Holy Spirit reminds us today that the best path for life begins with the heart. The word heart signifies the deep center of our emotions and will. The strange thing about the heart is that our emotions and our will do not always align. Often, the person we want to be requires us

Love gets defined subconsciously when we are children. Our mind observes the behaviors of those who we love, those we want to love us back, and those who claim to love us. Through these repeated observations, we begin forming an internal picture of what love looks like. We develop an abstract idea of love without clearly defining it through these behaviors. This idea of love is deeply embedded into our spirit (our inner identity and emotional framework) before we are old enou

Our passage today speaks to the path of maturity to which the Lord has called us. We receive the gift of salvation by faith when we choose to believe in Him. But in our passage today, we are taught that this gives us the right to become children of God. We tend to think differently. We very often join together salvation with being children of God, and this is not untrue. But John is making a distinction between different types of children.

When we think of strength, we do not naturally think of meekness. Many consider strength to be displayed when we fight back against those things and people that come against us. We often think of strength, in a negative sense, as those who dominate and subjugate others. But meekness is a strength greater than any person might display in fighting back against enemies or forcibly dominating others. Meekness is the strength to not respond. It is the strength to hold one’s peace

For His name’s sake, He does all of this. We may often wonder if God would do this for us. We are quite aware that we are the one sheep that keeps wandering away from the Shepherd. We are the stubborn one who just won’t listen. We go our own way. Over and over again, He must stop what He is doing to come and find us and carry us back because our curiosity distracts us with every rustling bush, distant sound, and greener patch.

⠀The word “portion” refers to a person’s inheritance. In Biblical times, the inheritance belonged to the father and the child simultaneously until the father died. It was not like it is in our society, where the inheritance does not belong to the child until the parent has passed. The inheritance belonged to the child from the moment he was born.

God had never intended for Israel to have a king. He was to be their king, and He would appoint a prophet to be His mouthpiece to the people. But when Samuel was old, he appointed his sons as Israel’s leaders. They were not righteous. Between his age and his sons’ corruption, the elders of Israel went to Samuel and asked for a king. And the Lord gave them what they wanted. Saul became king.

Matthew 21:12–13 12 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’” (NIV) The first thing Jesus does after coming into Jerusalem for the last time before His crucifixion is to clear the temple. If our temple is not functioning as G

Moses is drawn toward this strange sight—a bush on fire, yet not consumed. When he approaches, the voice of God speaks to him from the bush, telling him to take off his sandals because he is standing on holy ground. God reveals Himself to Moses through this image of a burning bush, teaching us about His character and His work within us.