Category Archives: Devotionals

Truth: Day 15—He Is Faithful

For the word of the Lord is right and true;
    He is faithful in all He does.

Psalm 33:4

God is always doing something, even if it seems that He isn’t. He is not passively waiting for the world to end. He is rescuing, delivering, healing, comforting, drawing, protecting, leading, filling, disciplining, loving, listening, moving, pouring out, setting on fire, breathing life, raising up and tearing down. He is being who He is at all times, and who He is, is the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth and Lord of all.

And in all things, He is faithful.

He does not trick us or mislead us.

His love for us does not grow cold or turn away.

He does not forget us or overlook us.

His provision does not run out and His love never fails.

Our 11th hour is not His 11th hour. He will always be on time.

He is faithful to know what we need and when we need it, and He is faithful to give us everything we need for life and godliness.

He faithfully provides for the birds of the air, and considers us of much more value than birds.

He faithfully loves us at all times.

We must get this truth into us so that nothing can shake it out of us.

He is faithful.

Truth: Day 14—I Can Resist

Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

James 4:7

That lie. That stretching of truth.

Eating and drinking what is slowly killing me.

The greener grass that makes me think I belong over there instead of here.

I don’t have to. I don’t have to do them or think them or wish I coulda.

I can resist.

I don’t have to give as good as I get. Return evil with evil. Eye for an eye.

Anger doesn’t have to be my response. Neither does sarcasm. Words that sting or bite or cut.

Jealousy, envy, or my “what about me” attitude. None of those have to follow me into the room.

Because I can resist.

I am not the devil’s slave. He has no authority in my life. He can hang around if I let him, but I don’t have to let him.

I can resist.

I can choose not to gossip, not to be the one who brings division. I can choose to stop resenting others, stop protecting my pride, and I can start submitting.

I can resist and that is truth and I need to know truth so I can live truth.

I can decide that I would rather look like Jesus than look like me.

I can submit to God, and I can resist the devil.

I belong to Christ. I am a citizen of heaven, and the Spirit of God lives on the inside of me. Nothing can make me resist God and submit to the devil, except me.

The devil can’t make me do it.

I can resist.

Truth: Day 13—I Can Flourish

The person who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence indeed is the Lord, is blessed.

He will be like a tree planted by water: it sends its roots out toward a stream, it doesn’t fear when heat comes, and its foliage remains green. It will not worry in a year of drought or cease producing fruit.

Jeremiah 17:7-8

I’ve spent many years attempting to find self-confidence. They were years of drought that caused a withering in me. And all these years later, I am still surrounded by a world seeking something that will not bear fruit, at least for long.

Trust your gut. • Trust your instinct. • Trust yourself but no one else.

You’ve got this. • Be all you can be. • Believe in yourself.

Things we tell one another to help prop us up, keep us going, but we don’t realize what we’re building.

Self-reliance comes from self-confidence and all the other self things we keep self-helping ourselves into.

There will be no true flourishing in the land of self.

So I’ll speak truth so that we can all walk out of our self-made lies and into truth.

Flourishing comes when I have confidence in God, not in me. When I trust Him above my gut, my instincts, my own smarty pants ways, then it won’t matter the conditions I’m living in – I will flourish. I will bear fruit in dry places, because my roots will go down deep to living water. When I stop trying to be all I can be and start leaning on Him to be all He is, there will be no withering in me.

I can flourish. Not in myself, but in Him.

Think about it…

Are you flourishing in your life right now? Why or why not? What, if anything, needs to change so that you can be “like a tree planted by the water?”

Truth: Day 12—My Life Isn’t Mine

“You are not your own, for you were bought at a price.”

1 Corinthians 6:19

“I gave my life to Christ” is part of our testimony. They are the words that we use to try to describe what happened when we first believed.

But it isn’t always how I’ve lived after I first believed.

I have laid claim to my life far too often. Made demands that weren’t mine to make.

Lived as though I’m the one who makes me draw breath.

I’ve made decisions and plans expecting, or at least hoping, that God’s big plan lined up with all my little plans.

Instead of bowing to the truth that every plan is His to make, not mine.

Every step I take is His to determine, not mine.

I know, Lord, that a man’s way of life is not his own;
no one who walks determines his own steps.

Jeremiah 10:23

So I declare truth to help me live truth.

My life isn’t mine.

It belongs to the One who saved it.

Truth: Day 11—I Can Do This, But Not Without Him

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

Philippians 4:13

Growing up, we’re told we can be whatever we want to be. Reach for the stars and all that. Work hard and you can have it all.

It sounds good. Inspiring. Until the weight of it starts to sink in.

Until you realize that you are now expected to actually be something great, have it all, and do it all.

And then your legs are taken out from under you when you experience the truth – that we don’t get to be whatever we want to be and we can’t really have it all and for heaven’s sake, we cannot do most of it, let alone all of it.

We have been dining at a trough of lies and it’s left us bloated and sick with guilt, shame, and striving of every kind.

So I am speaking truth so that I can live truth.

I can be exactly who God has called me to be, and He calls me to be what I could never be on my own.

I can do what He has wired me, gifted me, and anointed me to do, and it is nothing I could ever do on my own.

I can have all that He offers me, all He provides for me, and it can be more than enough, and more than I could have ever gotten on my own.

I am weak in so many ways it’s ridiculous. On some days I can’t stick to anything long enough to start, let alone finish.

I have relied on my own strength so much it’s no wonder I believe failure when I hear it whispered over me.

But oh, the truth.

God was never relying on my strength. Never demanded that I do any of it on my own. In fact, He told me the exact opposite.

“…apart from Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

The truth for my tired self is that it was never meant to be through me. It was never going to be my own strength that got anything done,or made me into anything.

I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.

I can do this, but not on my own.

Truth: Day 10—I Belong

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Ephesians 2:19-22

I am no longer one of them, I am one of us.

Not a stranger to God, now part of His family.

I am a citizen of His Kingdom, part of His Church, a stone in the temple that is His dwelling.

I am a sojourner, but I am a wanderer no more. I have a sure destination.

I am not on my own, forging my own path, figuring it all out.

The community of God are my family, my fellow soldiers at war with darkness, my friends and my people. We are the one anothers, learning how to love and forgive and serve and care for one another. Together.

I used to believe that I didn’t belong. Anywhere, but especially in the Church. With all the good ones, the well dressed ones who knew all the things I didn’t know. The ones who would never understand where I had been or why I was now standing in their space.

But now I know the truth, so I speak the truth to help me live the truth.

I am part of something. I am part of Someone.

I am not on the outside looking in. I am not the thing that is not like the others.

I belong.

Truth: Day 9—I Can Be Content

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

Philippians 4:11-13

I don’t need more.

I don’t have to have the latest and the most and what everyone else has.

I can be content with what He gives me.

I can ignore the shiny things and the faster things and the things that make me feel like I belong at the table with the cool kids.

I can be content at my own table.

But there is a secret to that contentment.

His name is Jesus.

The better thing, always.

I can stand right here and survey my life with my honest eye and see that I have what more than I need. And I can admit that my flesh confuses wants with needs, and I let my flesh boss me around more than I make it die.

But I don’t have to do that.

I have the Spirit of God and I know what is true. So I’ll speak truth so that I will live truth.

I can be content.