Devotional “Bits”
BY CAMI TAPLEY
Minute Devotions
Personal Beatitudes
Employment Office bulletin board, late twentieth century, handwritten on small scrap of paper, ad for a shepherd—some thing will never change: “Candidate must be willing to be alone for long periods of time, live in scanty shelter, sleep uncomfortably in the cold, get by on little sustenance, and risk own life to protect the sheep.”
“Why is Jesus the only way to God?” and, “If God is real, and a God of love, how can He permit suffering in the world?” These are simple questions, and common, but there are deeper ones; questions so deep they cannot be uttered aloud. These are the real questions, the ones God can answer to the soul’s satisfaction.
The truth about learning is, after we’ve learned a good number of things, we have a responsibility to unlearn as well if we’re ever going to move forward effectively; it is the path to higher understanding, to humility.
A triumphal entry is one thing, making our way along a triumphal journey is another.
Sometimes all we need to concentrate on is staying on course.
Life will not be summed up by vitality and youth. This is an important test for those who find themselves left with nothing of value in this world. God looks for value in the hidden motives of our hearts.
Nothing of real worth is past for children of God, it is now and always.
Just as the mist is a promise of a new day, hope is the assurance of His love, which will one day make all things clear.
Training a child in the way he should go is just that: training him or her in the way he or she should go; not the way our personal prejudices want him or her to go. The wisdom of man is foolishness to God.
The very best thing we can do for a child is to show them what is best by living an upright example, and when we fail, to admit we’ve been wrong. Children do not learn so much from what we say, but rather, from what we show them.
If children aren’t drawn to you, you’re missing out on realizing the things in your life that keep you from your personal potential.
When our children are fully grown, we realize that nothing else ever mattered to us more than their opinion of us does now.
Children don’t judge others from preconceived ideas. Their disapproval is based on truly hurtful words and behavior, not on what that is simply unusual or unexpected.
Faith develops like life in reverse: as one grows in faith, one becomes more and more open to wonder and to trust, the childlike attributes.
The human spirit can be broken under abject cruelty, but destroyed beneath relentless generosity. We are more likely to rise above affliction than we are to exhibit a grateful heart.
If God didn’t spare the dirty details of His chosen ones’ lives in the canonized scriptures, why do we purport to be anything more when we meet together?
The social-networking generation is a lonely generation; everything for the senses, nothing for the soul.
We don’t do ourselves any favors by considering ourselves “good.” We weren’t wired to simply be good, only to choose what is good.
Discipline is love disguised to the rebel. Nevertheless, it is always calling him or her back.
We each, in one way or another, need the love of God, to start all over again. Jeremiah 31:3,4
A disciple doesn’t have a plan of his or her own.
It’s humbling to be a disciple of Jesus, to experience His mysteries; it makes us strange among people who are considered to know what’s best in this world.
It’s easy to get caught up in the moment and not see the long run. Wisdom will show whether or not we are to take risks or to put reins on relationships that come and go, or come and stay, in our lives. The “long run” will either have us smiling or sorrowing, depending on whether or not we listened to wisdom in the moment of choosing.
Temptation can build strength for our spirits in the same way that bodybuilding builds strength for muscles: by resistance.
Bombs don’t materialize out of thin air. First they are conceived in theory, secondly they are built, and thirdly they are set off with intent. It is foolish to deny the power of intent in human nature; to think if we simply ignore it, it will “just go away.”
Sins aren’t mistakes, and mistakes aren’t sins.
“Being made in His image” has to do with our eternal souls. God made us to dwell with Him forever, to think and to reason, to love and to create. We were corrupted in the Fall, but made right by the redemption of Jesus. We are fully restored to our right relationship to God by His faithfulness to us, not by anything we’ve done to deserve it. All we have to do is receive.
Without the peace of Christ guarding our minds at strategic times, we will fall into dark thought patterns, robbing our joy, God’s glory, when our prayers are answered.
When David was surrounded by his enemies, he said, “I will both lay me down in peace and sleep, for Thou, Lord, only makes me dwell in safety.” (Psalms 4:8) I have often gone to bed feeling that I cannot bear to think about another responsibility or problem one more second. However, when I awaken in the morning after a good night’s sleep, I discover the meaning of His new mercies.
No matter how black the night, morning comes.
Paul said he had become all things to all men so that some might be saved. It starts with our families and our neighbors; if we can’t be the Lord’s with them, we can only be hypocrites.
Although Abraham and Sarah greatly desired a child for many years, at a certain point they became past caring. But when God desires something, it doesn’t matter what we are “past.”
All we need for a successful Christian life is the Holy Spirit; one of the fruits of the Spirit is self-control. There is no lasting self-control apart from the enabling power of the Holy Spirit. We can get sick of ourselves and work to break our bad habits, and may succeed for a while, but it will either end in failure when the going gets tough, or, it will take on the form of a different addiction.
The true message of Christianity; for disciples only: Leave your life at the cross. Be dead to yourself, and let Christ live His life through you. Be so passionate about being totally His that nothing else appeals to you in comparison.
This is Christianity: to know Christ, and to follow Him, not a set of principles.
A child is born impoverished, while elsewhere, a man grows rich. While neither deserved their lot more, both face Eternity.
The name of Jesus offends people because it puts a face and a name to the plan of salvation. Even so, one may cry out to the living God not knowing His Name, and if that one seeks in truth, He will hear, and answer.
Hell is not what most people think it is, and some are already experiencing it.
Like the wind, no one can predict where God’s Spirit will come in, exactly how He will move, or where He will go, as His love renders great damage to pride and selfishness of heart.
Faith is a gift of God. When we try to interpret for ourselves what we have yet to experience, it usually loses something important in the translation. Faith glorifies God while we wait.
God’s character defines itself. Period.
When God speaks something to us, it isn’t so we can say, “God told me,” it’s to learn more of His character—and this is something often inexplicable, both to ourselves and to others.
There is no doubt that life is full of magic, and only those who keep their eyes open for it ever see it. After all, God created the world by the magic of “Let there be…” and there WAS!
Humdrum exists where everyday miracles are taken for granted.
If we are good students—submissive, teachable and humble—the Lord will fill us with the Holy Spirit for wisdom in making important decisions, big and small.
If you judge your spiritual life by how often you read the Bible or do devotions, you will slip into an emotional pattern. We don’t serve God by our emotions. God gave us His word to confirm His nature, and we can know Him by the circumstances and people He brings into our lives to test us and to shape us; by letting His Holy Spirit have His way with our secret heart of hearts. Never boast to yourself or to others how much you read your Bible, just live by it.
Sometimes we get discouraged, and we have to remember that God cares more than we ever could, as we trust in His Spirit to bring forth fruits of righteousness at the proper time.
It is a blessing to do menial tasks that require little concentration, because in them, our minds are free to perform the awesome and powerful ministry of intercession.
The Lord never sleeps nor slumbers, and sometimes we are “asleep” to something He’s been working on for a long time. When we “wake up” is a matter of His knowing love.
We can’t find love; love finds us. If we go looking for it, we will always find the wrong thing.
Without a doubt, our children will be courted by the world to worship creation, not the Creator. We need to take our imaginations and feelings back from worldly thinking, and guide our children never to hand them over. We can do this by feeding in them what is from God: the need to believe in more than they can see.
It’s too easy to fall into a pattern of thinking that has already been defined by others who tell us we should be like them. We are to be like the Lord. The Pharisees criticized Jesus for eating with “publicans and sinners.” Jesus could walk and sit and sup with immoral people because he was internally detached from all Sin. In this, He set the example for how we should be.
Love is like a torch in a dark place, taking us where we would never venture without its light.
Laying down the things most precious to us so we can know how precious we are to God equips us with His nature. There is no other effective plan for living. “Kindle” means, “to start or to ignite.” When we give our dreams, our plans, our hopes and our sorrows to God, His touch kindles meaning in them.