DEVOTIONAL BY BILLY GRAHAM – HOPE FOR EACH DAY

A Sure Supply

My God shall supply all your needs. – PHILIPPIANS 4:19

One lesson that Jesus would teach us is to have confidence that God answers every true petition. Skeptics may question it, humanists may deny it, and intellectuals may ridicule it. Yet here is Christ’s own promise: “If you abide in me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you” (John 15:7).

Does this verse mean God gives us a blank check (so to speak) when we pray? Does He promise to give us anything we want, if we just keep asking? No. God loves us too much to answer prayers that are foolish or might harm us. But the closer we get to Him—the more we abide in Him and His word abides in us—the more we will desire what He desires, and the more our prayers will reflect His will.

The Bible promises, “No good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless” (Ps. 84:11, NIV). Trust that promise with all your soul.

DEVOTIONAL BY CHARLES STANLEY – ON HOLY GROUND

The Focus Of Your Faith

The Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations.

An imperfection in a piece of cloth or silverware may be unattractive but has few functional implications.  However, a flaw in the construction of your home or engineering of your car can have serious consequences.

When it comes to the matter of faith, it is wise to periodically examine the spiritual integrity of your trust in Christ.  A defect in this area can impair the quality of your relationship with the Lord and your response to His leadership.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Does God or my personal concerns occupy the center stage of my faith?
• Am I more interested in knowing what the will of the Father is, or just what the will of the Father is for me?

If you are not careful, your own neediness can crowd out the centrality of who God is in your walk of faith.  Perhaps unintentionally, you allow pressing problems to supersede your chief duty to know God and enjoy Him forever.

Certainly God understands your desire to have your needs met (and He is more than willing to do so).  However, he wants you to be supremely occupied with Him, to delight yourself in His personhood.

When the focus of your faith lies in the greatness and grandeur of God, you have little trouble believing He is faithfully and lovingly at work for your well-being.

DEVOTIONAL FROM POSTCARDS FROM HEAVEN – CLAIRE CLONINGER

Leave Tomorrow In My Hands

Dearest Child,

There are two ways you can go about the business of our life.  You can be stressed and anxious and crippled with worries.  Or you can trust that I am in control, working in your circumstances, and you can be free!

Why is trust so difficult for you?  Why do you worry about menus and calories and grams of fat?  Why do you fret about styles and fashions and pulling together the right wardrobe?  Life is so much more than food.  Your body is so much more important than the clothes you put on it every morning.

Look up.  See the birds?  They have never made a grocery list or counted a calorie, and yet they are fed.  Find a field filled with flowers.  Spend an hour gazing at their beauty.  Do you think they are worried about what’s in style this year or what goes with what?  Now, if I take care of birds and flowers, can’t you believe that I will take care of you?  It is the godless person who worries about these things.  But you are my own child.  Seek my kingdom, and I’ll provide for you.  Leave tomorrow in my hands.

I love you. – God

Luke 18:1-8

The Parable of the Persistent Widow

18 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. ² He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. ³ And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’

⁴ “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, ⁵ yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!’”

⁶ And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. ⁷ And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? ⁸ I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

Psalm 70

¹ Hasten, O God, to save me;
O Lord, come quickly to help me.
² May those who seek my life
be put to shame and confusion;
may all who desire my ruin
be turned back in disgrace.
³ May those who say to me, “Aha! Aha!”
turn back because of their shame.
⁴ But may all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you;
may those who love your salvation always say,
“Let God be exalted!”

⁵ Yet I am poor and needy;
come quickly to me, O God.
You are my help and my deliverer;
O Lord, do not delay.

DEVOTIONAL BY OSWALD CHAMBERS – MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST

Christ-Awareness

. . . and I will give you rest —Matthew 11:28

Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once, asking Him to re-establish your rest. Never allow anything to remain in your life that is causing the unrest. Think of every detail of your life that is causing the disintegration as something to fight against, not as something you should allow to remain. Ask the Lord to put awareness of Himself in you, and your self-awareness will disappear. Then He will be your all in all. Beware of allowing your self-awareness to continue, because slowly but surely it will awaken self-pity, and self-pity is satanic. Don’t allow yourself to say, “Well, they have just misunderstood me, and this is something over which they should be apologizing to me; I’m sure I must have this cleared up with them already.” Learn to leave others alone regarding this. Simply ask the Lord to give you Christ-awareness, and He will steady you until your completeness in Him is absolute.

A complete life is the life of a child. When I am fully conscious of my awareness of Christ, there is something wrong. It is the sick person who really knows what health is. A child of God is not aware of the will of God because he is the will of God. When we have deviated even slightly from the will of God, we begin to ask, “Lord, what is your will?” A child of God never prays to be made aware of the fact that God answers prayer, because he is so restfully certain that God always answers prayer.

If we try to overcome our self-awareness through any of our own commonsense methods, we will only serve to strengthen our self-awareness tremendously. Jesus says, “Come to Me . . . and I will give you rest,” that is, Christ-awareness will take the place of self-awareness. Wherever Jesus comes He establishes rest— the rest of the completion of activity in our lives that is never aware of itself.