09 Friday Aug 2013
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God is worthy of our praise and honor. He loves us and created us out of His goodness and desire for relationship with us. In our reading in Psalms today, Psalm 106:1 says it perfectly, Praise the Lord. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever. God’s love is never ending. No matter what we do His love knows no limits. Let us remember this today and live as though He is standing beside us in all we do.
01 Thursday Aug 2013
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Today we read through 1 Corinthians 13, the “Love Chapter”. Most of us have been to a wedding where this chapter was read as an example of what Love is supposed to look like. If we take the time to read this chapter and truly understand what Love looks like, we can transform the way we treat each other, even our enemies, and be a true reflection of Christ. The end of the chapter, verse 13, is the most impactful, And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. Let us remember that nothing worth having exists without Love being at the center. However, we must still make sure we love the right things, and we can only know what that is by following God’s leading in our lives.
23 Tuesday Jul 2013
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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.
04 Tuesday Jun 2013
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I keep noticing a pattern with David. He knows how to be competitive and he knows how to win. However, he never loses sight of the people he loves. No matter what people do around him, even when they betray him, he still loves them and mourns for them when they are gone. We saw this with Saul and in today’s reading we saw it with his son Absalom. This is one of the reasons I think God calls David “a man after His own heart”. God never stops being righteous and He never stops wanting us to do the right thing. But when we sin and the consequences of our sin causes us pain, and sometime death, He is sad and He does mourns for us as well.
01 Saturday Jun 2013
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Even after everything David went through at Saul’s hand, he still chose to honor Saul’s grandson who was Jonathan’s son, Mephibosheth. David’s treatment of Mephibosheth showed David’s integrity as a leader who accepted responsibility for showing love and mercy to those who needed it most.
26 Sunday May 2013
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I’m a little disappointed that our reading plan today took us through the entire book of Philippians in a single shot. There is so much information in this letter from Paul and it is difficult to summarize it all. If I had to pick one verse that stood out to me today it would be Philippians 4:8, Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. This verse is a great summary of where our focus should be in our lives. I feel we tend to focus on the negatives too often; mostly because it’s easy to pick things apart. We should spend our time finding the good and work on multiplying it in all we do.
21 Tuesday May 2013
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My good friend Sarah provided the reflection video for today. This is a clip of Father Gregory “Greg” Joseph Boyle who is an American Jesuit Priest. He is the founder and Director of Homeboy Industries. In this short clip he gives a profound definition of heaven as “loving without regard for return”. We should all practice this with people around us whether we like them or not. Let me know your thoughts.
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13 Monday May 2013
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The passage that stood out to me today was Ephesians 5:1-2, 1 Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Just as children imitate their parents, we are to be imitator of Christ. Because of His love for us, He sacrificed Himself for us. Likewise, our love for others should be the same. It should be a self-sacrificing love, just as He showed us.
12 Sunday May 2013
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In today’s reading, my favorite part is the prayer found in Ephesians 3:16-19, I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Paul is praying for two things here: 1) That we may have the power of Holy Spirit so we can experience God’s glorious riches, 2) Through the power of the the Holy Spirit we can grasp how big the love of Christ is for each of us. The reason why this is such a big prayer is because our simple human minds cannot grasp the immensity of Christ’s love for us. We may think we know how much, we may think we can correlate it to the love we have for our spouses or children, but in the end, without the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit, we simply cannot grasp it.
22 Monday Apr 2013
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I love Jesus’ reply in Matthew 22:37-40 when asked what the greatest command is, 37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” It is easy to get caught up in a bunch of rules to make us feel like we are keeping God’s commands. But if we boil it all down, Jesus’ words keep it pretty simple and effective.
Daily Devotion 