We Christians often hear that the Holy Spirit lives inside of us, but He doesn’t want to just stay there! If we submit to Him, the Holy Spirit manifests Himself through our words and actions so that others can see Jesus in us. When we allow the Holy Spirit to work this way, we reflect the power of a living God. Let’s pray for the Holy Spirit to manifest Himself in our lives. He will do things beyond our imaginations!
All disasters start with little things—a disagreement, a slip-up, an ego. There are always repercussions to our actions! Samson saw this a woman he never should have been with led him to break his covenant with God. Every choice we make either draws us nearer to God or pushes us farther away. No matter how far we drift, God always helps us when we sincerely call on Him! Praise Him for His goodness!
We can’t change what we don’t confront. The Angel of the Lord wrestled with Jacob and asked him to define the strongholds in his life. Once we, like Jacob, name our battles, we can defeat them! God uses every crisis we face to change us and draw us closer to Him. It’s time we stop running from our problems and hand them over to God!
Jesus made something very clear: in this life, we will have pain. Just because we’re Christians doesn’t mean we’ll escape hardships; it means we have God Almighty to run to and trust in when those hard times come. Pain is not a punishment—it’s an invitation for us to experience God more. The choice of how we react to pain is completely up to us. God is always good—even when our circumstances aren’t.
When we are hurt, it’s imperative that we learn to forgive and let go. Being bitter is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to be affected! Forgiving others does not excuse their behavior or diminish our pain; rather, it frees us to heal. We only hurt ourselves further by holding onto unforgiveness. By the grace of God, let’s forgive others.
Every day we face decisions that require wisdom. How can we be wise enough to make the right choice every time? On our own, we can’t! We need to ask God for wisdom and believe that He’s going to provide it. God never intended for us to walk around making unwise decisions. He wants to give us the wisdom we need—we just have to ask Him with fervent belief.
Jesus says to all of us, "Come." For some people, that's an invitation to be saved from their sins. For those of us who already believe in Jesus but may have strayed, it's an invitation to come back to Him. Every one of us can go to Jesus with our messes, brokenness, and problems, and He’ll make us right as we abide in Him. God doesn’t need us to fix ourselves before we come to Him—He does the fixing! Let's come to Jesus today.
How amazing is it that Almighty God wants to be with us? He keeps our prayers in Heaven—they are that precious to Him! In our churches and our personal lives, we need to spend more time in prayer. The most effective stance we have against Satan is a strong prayer life. The Holy Spirit makes us aware of situations we can avoid when we spend time with Him. Let’s get praying!
Education and status are pursued by people every day. But these things are meaningless when it comes to revelation—what the Holy Spirit reveals to believers about God. The world seeks its own kind of wisdom, but it's only through the Spirit that we can truly be wise—for salvation, to grow in our Christian lives, or to walk in spiritual victory. Christianity is hopeless without the Holy Spirit!
Good things don’t just happen—they occur when God’s people work with and for Him to bring His good will all over the earth. Jesus doesn’t need us—He is the Light of the world. He knows exactly who we are and how we’ve failed, but He invites us to participate anyway! Tomorrow is never promised, and yesterday is passed. We only have today—let’s share Jesus’s light with the world!
Deception is everywhere. Leaders, relationships, and situations all can lead us away from the will of God if we aren’t careful. Whether it’s a new job opportunity, a potential partner, or an event invitation, we need to seek the Lord about everything. No matter how long we’ve attended church, we can still be fooled. Let’s be on guard against the deceptive ways of the devil today and every day.
Have you ever felt prompted to speak to or pray with a stranger? That prompting comes from the Holy Spirit! When we follow Him, He speaks through us to the people God brings our way. We need to care for others more than we care for ourselves—and we need to do it humbly. With God’s help, we can bless and uplift those who need it.
How frequently do we tell God how to answer our prayers? We get caught up in the trials and temptations of our lives, and we imagine mighty, miraculous solutions about how God should do His job! But all we’re supposed to do is surrender our burdens to God in prayer—then trust Him and obey whatever He tells us to do. He’s got it!
We want to be liked by others so much that we forget to tell a lost and dying world about the love of God. It’s time to tell someone the gospel! Just someone hearing the gospel is a victory—Jesus can work in that person's heart with what he or she heard! When we pray for opportunities to witness, God will set up divine appointments. Let’s live with eternity in mind and love the lost.
God—the Creator of the universe—knows us each by name. He has a purpose for our lives. He loves us more than anything else in the world! The apostle Paul saw that love firsthand when Jesus called him by name and radically changed his life. Another man, Annanias, was also called by name to do something great for God. The Lord calls us all to something. Let’s be available to Him.
Although we may not feel like it, every Christian body is a temple for the Holy Spirit—God Almighty is living inside born-again believers! The odd thing is, we still try to act with our human desires, and thus we don’t please God. Only the life-changing power of the Spirit can make us do things for Christ! Tell your human spirit that it’s not in control of your life—God is!
What a curse grumbling is! The Lord has given us more than we could ever need, yet we still find ways to complain. But God is with us, and He has a purpose for our circumstances. We should give Him thanks in the hard times as well as the good—the Bible tells us to be thankful for everything! Let’s pray for spirits of thankfulness today. May we never forget God’s goodness.
Jesus told us that we would do even greater works than He did—but what does that mean? We often aren’t even bold enough to share our faith or overcome sins in our daily lives! But it's not up to us to convert people or produce spiritual fruit on our own! If we just get in the presence of God and behold His holiness, He will fill us with the power of the Holy Spirit. We’ll be so full of awe that we can’t keep God's love to ourselves! Let’s behold the Lord's goodness today and watch what happens.
The difference between being rich and poor could be as simple as one good deed. A five-dollar bill doesn’t mean much here on earth—but if it’s used to bless others, it has extreme value in heaven! On the other hand, $50,000 on earth is meaningless if it is used only for selfish reasons. If we have Christ, we are rich! Let's be like Him and bless others today!
Taking up a cross sounds like a daunting task. We all have a spiritual cross to bear—not to punish us, but to set us free! As Christians, we have to surrender our own will for our lives in favor of God’s will. We must lay our sins at the cross, but we can’t get there on our own. The power of the Holy Spirit takes the wills and ways that we offer, and He gives us new life! If we show up in faith, the Spirit meets us there.