2013 Day 212 – Reflection

Today, I did not have a reflection to share. Hopefully, if you are behind in reading, these last three days gave you an opportunity to catch up. Tomorrow we will resume our regular reading schedule. See you then!

2013 Day 211 – Death Crawl

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Today’s reflection post comes from a Christian movie called “Facing the Giants”. The movie is a bit rough, but the message is very good. The clip below is from a very powerful scene showing the power of our potential. We tend to hold ourselves back to what we think our potential is instead of what we are really capable of accomplishing. God created us to accomplish greatness for His glory. He did not create us to accept mediocrity. Push to find your greatness through God’s power.

 

If you ever come across anything you’d like me to post on this blog, please feel free to contact me at dino.evangelista@gmail.com.

2013 Day 210 – He Is There

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For the next three days, we are going to take a little break from reading. I’ll try to have and interesting video or thought to share, so come back each day to check it out. We will resume our reading plan on Thursday, August 1st.

For today, I thought I would share this simple picture, which reminds me no matter what, God is always with me.

HeIsThere

If you ever come across anything you’d like me to post on this blog, please feel free to contact me at dino.evangelista@gmail.com.

2013 Day 209 – 1 Corinthians 9-11, Psalm 99

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In today’s reading, 1 Corinthians 10:31 stood out to me. It says, So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. God is much more concerned with our heart than with our actual actions. We get so hung up on our actions and the grandeur of it that we sometimes forget it does not matter how big our accomplishments are. Nothing we could ever do comes close to what God is capable of doing. Who are we trying to compete against, God? In God’s eyes our heart is all that matters.

2013 Day 208 – 1 Corinthians 6-8, Psalm 98

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God’s grace is an amazing thing. Through His grace we are saved from all our filthy sin. However, there are still consequences to sin, which is why God wants us to be righteous. In 1 Corinthians 6:12 it says, “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything. God gives us the right to do anything, but our choices are not always beneficial to us and that is why He wants us to be righteous and follow His commands to protect us.

2013 Day 207 – 1 Corinthians 3-5, Psalm 97

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In today’s reading, 1 Corinthians 3:18-20 stood out to me. 18 Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”; 20 and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.” Wisdom is not a bad thing. But when wisdom keeps us from faith and trusting in God, it keeps us from experiencing God’s power in our lives. We must remember God is the one who gave us wisdom in the first place. Never mistaken our wisdom as something we earned or deserved. It is God given.

2013 Day 206 – 1 Corinthians 1-2, Psalm 96

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Today we begin book of 1 Corinthians, which was the first letter to the church in Corinth. Paul writes this letter to identify problems in the Corinthian church and to ultimately offer them solutions. It sounds like the church is beginning to lose sight of why it exists in the first place and Paul takes a moment in the first chapter, 13th verse to say, “Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? ” Paul did not want anyone to forget Christ was the reason for their salvation and that every believer was baptized in Christ’s name. We also have a tendency to forget why we do the things we do as believers. Do we go to church to hear a great speaker or great musicians? Or do we go to hear God’s word proclaimed in truth? When it comes to church, we should probably be more concerned with “what” is being said and done, and less concerned with“how”.

2013 Day 205 – Hosea 12-14, Psalm 95

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In today’s reading in Hosea we come across a verse Paul quotes in 1 Corinthians 15:55, which describes our resurrection from death.  Hosea 13:14 says, “I will deliver this people from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction?” (last few words in the verse omitted). Death does not have victory over us when God provides a savior. This is comforting news knowing that none of us will ever get out of this life alive. But there is peace in knowing the end of our earthly bodies does not signify the end of our lives in eternity. There is a lot of peace there.

2013 Day 204 – Hosea 9-11, Song of Songs 8

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God shows much sorrow through the words written in Hosea. He has repeatedly shown His love to His people and yet they have turned away from Him. God is not pleased when we turn our backs on Him, but His love is never ending. Even when we do things that displease Him, He never stops loving us. And even when the consequences of our sin finally catch up with us, He is right there beside us walking through whatever pain we may face. We are never alone because God never leaves us.

2013 Day 203 – Hosea 5-8, Song of Songs 7

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I don’t have a lot to say about today’s reading in Hosea other than an observation. Hosea takes time to really lay out and verbalize all that Israel is doing wrong. It hurts to hear about what we are doing wrong, but sometimes it is necessary to make good changes take place.