18 Friday Sep 2015
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God does not love us because we love Him; We love Him because He first loved us. 1 John 4:10 says, This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. There is no greater evidence of God’s love for us than the sacrifice of His own Son for our eternal salvation.
15 Tuesday Sep 2015
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We are all sinners and just like people who struggle with addiction, the first step in recovery is to admit we have a problem. 1 John 1:8 says, If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. There is no greater deception than the deception we believe about ourselves. When we believe we are justified in sin, we not only lie to God, but we lie to ourselves. Once we realize how much we need God’s grace and mercy, we can then see how broken we are without the love of God, and this is when we begin to heal.
11 Friday Sep 2015
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It is better to not know the truth and do wrong, than to know the truth and do wrong anyway. In today’s reading Peter makes it clear what it is like for a person who comes to know Christ and then falls away. 2 Peter 2:22, Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.” Like a person drowning in the ocean who refuses to grab a life preserver; the person who turns away from Christ casts aside their only escape from death.
31 Monday Aug 2015
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Jesus Christ died as the complete and final sacrifice for our sins. In Hebrews 9:27-28 it says, 27 Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgement, 28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of the people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. Just like we only die once physically, Christ died once so we would not have to die spiritually. We have a confidence He died for our past, present, and future sin, which gives us eternal salvation from spiritual death.
29 Saturday Aug 2015
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The original covenant God had made with Abraham and later fully articulated with Moses and Aaron, was meant to be temporary. It was not perfect and required a lot of intervention from the High Priest. Hebrews 8:7 says, For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. Jesus fixed it by becoming the perfect High Priest for us. When we have faith in Him, He automatically intercedes on our behalf. The new covenant is perfect.
28 Friday Aug 2015
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Jesus is our advocate. Hebrews 7:25 says, Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. Jesus intercedes for us to God, just as the Old Testament High Priest interceded for the Israelites. The assurance that Christ is there on our behalf, frees us from guilt and fear of failure in God’s eyes.
22 Saturday Aug 2015
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Jesus is relevant today and always because he lived as we did and He suffered for us because He loved us. Hebrews 2:9 says, But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. Jesus is God and yet He allowed himself to be placed on earth, lower than the angels, so He could take our place in death for our eternal salvation.
05 Wednesday Aug 2015
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Today we begin 1 Timothy, which is the first letter Paul wrote to Timothy. The letter is meant as an encouragement and Paul is blunt about needing Christ’s presence in his life just as much as anyone. In 1 Timothy 1:15 Paul says, Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst. None of us is without sin. Even in our best of days, we are not sinless. Christ died for us because we cannot do it without Him. Praise God He did.
25 Saturday Jul 2015
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God created us for Him to do great things through us. In Ephesians 2:10 Paul says, For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. We are His great works of art and we are to treat ourselves and others as such. We are to respect and love one another as God intended and we are to serve each other as well. We have everything we need through all God has provided to us.
24 Friday Jul 2015
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Our salvation is 100% up to God. It is through His grace that we have been saved and it is His choice to extend grace to us. In Ephesians 1:4 Paul says, For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. God’s desire is for us to be holy and blameless at all cost, including at the cost of the death of His son. It is at the feet of Jesus and His sacrifice that we are brought into holiness and blamelessness in His sight.
Daily Devotion 