A Positive Perspective

Perspective. Everyone has one. It is what we do with our perspective that concerns God.

So before we make one we need to get some understanding, wisdom, and knowledge before we do or say something that we have no business of saying or doing.

This little devotional can and will be a guide to help in the area of perspective. It's not a matter of when we will have one, it's about the aftermath of how we see things.

So see wisely my friends and may God Bless.

A Positive Perspective

A spiritual wilderness does not have to be a negative time if we are eager to obey God. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but the desert’s purpose is quite positive: to train, purify, strengthen, and prepare us for a new move of God’s Spirit, resulting in us becoming more fruitful.  Unknowingly, when entering the wilderness, many people panic and behave unwisely. Without understanding, they search for and do the wrong things. An example might be a radical change in career or changing from one church to another—any drastic move in their life that they think will bring instant happiness or restore what was normal. For a single person, it might be leaping toward a new relationship after the hurt of a painful breakup. 

If you search for an escape route before understanding why God has you in a particularly dry situation, you unwittingly prolong your wilderness time. This may cause more hardship, frustration, and even defeat, because you don’t understand the season or the place to which God has led you.  This was the case with the children of Israel during their forty years in the wilderness. What was to be a one-year wilderness journey became a lifetime experience. Ouch! A lack of understanding of what was happening to them caused an entire generation to be unfit to inherit the Promised Land.  God’s purpose in leading the children of Israel into the wilderness was to test, train, and prepare them to be mighty warriors able to capture and occupy their divine promise—a new homeland. But instead, the children of Israel erroneously perceived the wilderness as punishment, so they murmured, complained, and lusted constantly. 

How tragic! If we can learn to recognize when we have entered a wilderness experience, we can avoid complaining and be thankful that beyond this place is a “Promised Land” of new maturity, power, blessing, opportunity, and fulfilled promise.  How have you viewed your wilderness season?

-Author Unknown

Quote Of The Day - The Holy Spirit Knows

Some great advise here. The only thing left to say is let's start living it.

God Bless.

Quote of the Day

-Joyce Meyer

“The Holy Spirit knows precisely the right timing in our lives. I always say, “Only the Holy Spirit knows when you are ready for what.” In other words, the Spirit of the Lord is the only One Who knows what it will take to help you, and when you are ready to receive help.” 

-Joyce Meyer, Beauty for Ashes: Receiving Emotional Healing

After You Have Suffered A Little While

Okay, let's be honest, I am not nor was I keen of the title when I first came across this little devotional.

In fact, after reading the title, I was just about to move on from it and not even given it  a second glance.

However, a little prickling in my stomach wouldn't let me get away from this devotional.

And once I read, I am so glad I didn't pass over it. There is a lot of wisdom written below along with a much needed truth. We can't afford to give up anytime during the suffering part of our walk.

We all have to suffer depending on any given situation happening in our lives, it's how we respond to the suffering that makes a lifetime impression.

So be the impression someone needs to see and may God Bless you during your suffering as well as in the day's after.

After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. (1 Peter 5:10)

Sometimes in the midst of the afflictions and ordinary stresses of daily life, we may cry out, “How long, O Lord? I can’t see beyond today’s pain. What will tomorrow bring? Will you be there for that affliction too?” This question is utterly urgent, because Jesus said, “The one who endures to the end will be saved” (Mark 13:13). We tremble at the thought of being among “those who shrink back and are destroyed” (Hebrews 10:39). We are not playing games. Suffering is a horrible threat to faith in God’s future grace.

Therefore it is a wonderful thing to hear Peter promise the afflicted and weary Christians, “After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Peter 5:10). The assurance that he will not delay beyond what we can endure, and that he will abolish the flaws we bemoan, and that he will establish forever what has tottered so long — that assurance comes from the God of “all grace.” God is not the God of some grace — like bygone grace. He is “the God of all grace” — including the infinite, inexhaustible stores of future grace, that we need to endure to the end.

Faith in that future grace, strengthened by the memory of past grace, is the key to enduring on the narrow and hard road that leads to life.

-Author Unknown

My Times Are In Your Hands

I came across this word on the King's Daughter Devotional, well at least I believe it was and the words just popped out at me.

I can't be the only one wondering if God even knows I am alive so when I read these words below, I became encouraged to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

And who am I to keep these words to myself? So be encouraged, God knows everything about you!

God Bless.

“My times are in Your hands…” Psalm 31:15, Berean Study Bible.

“Your times and seasons are in My hand. Your times and seasons change according to My plan. I know where you are and I know where I’m taking you.

Every season is important. In every season you are learning more and more about Me and who you are in Me. Don’t rush through the seasons of your life. In the Winter, draw near to Me and receive My warmth. In the Spring, watch how I make everything new for you. In the Summer, the heat will not scorch you. I will protect you. You will not thirst if you drink from My well that never runs dry. In the Fall, things are shaken and fall away, but you will not be moved. You have received a kingdom that can never be shaken or moved.

As long as you are in Me, you will be immovable like a tree. You have been planted on a firm foundation in Me and though seasons change in your life, I never change and nor will you. No matter the changing seasons, your faith in Me shall remain. Your spirit shall remain. Your hope in Me shall remain unchanging. Says the Spirit of the Lord.”

(Scripture References Psalms 1:1-3; Ecclesiastes 3:1; Hebrews 12:28)

Kings Daughter Devotional

Jehovah- Rapha

You wanted a little insight on the God that heals? Than this little devotional is for you!

Need a healing of any kind? Than this little devotional is for you.

Need encouragement about a God who you seem to think has left you? Than this little devotional is for you.

God is love and He loves to show off His name and He will meet you at your need anytime, anywhere, I promise He will be there.

God Bless.

Jehovah-Rapha

The Lord Who Heals

When we think of healings in the Bible, we tend to think of all those jaw-dropping physical restorations: lepers made whole, the blind healed, the lame suddenly leaping through the air. Without question, these are marvelous demonstrations of God’s power. Yet His power far transcends the physical realm. God created us in His own image, which means that He gave each of us a mind, a will, and emotions, and He enabled us to have relationships. We are complex beings, and our brokenness due to sin is complex as well. Sometimes our deepest hurts cannot be seen on an X-ray or through the results of a blood test. If you’ve wallowed in guilt and shame, felt the heartbreak of a broken relationship, agonized over a wayward family member, felt grief over a lost loved one, or been disappointed by an unfulfilled dream, you know that spiritual, emotional, and relational hurts can sometimes be more painful than physical maladies.

The good news is that God is able to heal more than just the physical—much more. In fact, he can meet our greatest need: spiritual healing. When Jesus was on earth, He healed many. But none of these healings was ever an end in itself. Each compassionate healing was a sign of things to come. These physical healings pointed people toward the kingdom of God that was coming, toward a new heaven and restored earth, where there will be no more pain, no more suffering, and no more tears (see Revelation 21:4). Today, when God heals—a broken bone, a broken heart, a broken relationship—He is giving us a foretaste of what is to come.

God is Jehovah-Rapha, our healer. God alone saves from spiritual death. He only can give eternal life. In what specific aspect of your life do you need to experience God’s healing?

Prayer Lord, thank You for caring about every part of me. You desire that I find healing—physically, emotionally, and most of all, spiritually. Thank You for providing me with a way to be healed of my sin. Amen.

-Author Unknown

Jesus Our Health Insurance

We recently got medical insurance after not having it for about a year. So when I came across this little devotional, the title popped out at me.

No one likes to be sick but more importantly, no one likes not having the money to pay for being treated if need be.

But thank heavens we know someone who has the answers to all our questions and is the best doctor to have in your corner.

Jesus is indeed the only thing we need.

God Bless.

Jesus Our Health Insurance

In 1931, Dr. Warburg received the Nobel Prize for Medicine. His study showed that oxygen deficiency is the root cause of cancer. Acidity increases as the levels of oxygen decrease. He also found that cancer cells are anaerobic (do not breathe oxygen) and cannot thrive in aerobic conditions, that is, with oxygen. What state are we in today?

Surplus of oxygen, which is the basis for ‘life’, or the lack of it which leads to acidity, cancer, and death? Our true ‘oxygen’ is Jesus and depletion of Him will cause all of the above problems. Eating, drinking and breathing Him does not just give us eternal life, but helps us live a wonderful life here on the earth- physically and spiritually as well. In our Christian life, we face disappointments and discouragements. Keeping our eyes on Jesus and literally living off Him is the only thing that will fill us with ‘oxygen’ (life) constantly. Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). If we don’t eat from God’s Word, and draw from the godly people He has placed around us (good fellowship), we will grow acidic. We have to constantly allow His ‘oxygen’ (the Holy Spirit) to reign in us to keep our bodies cancer free. A healthy relationship with the Holy Spirit will help us live the ‘life in abundance’ which Jesus paid for, by dying for us.

Prayer Lord, this day please rid me of all the acidity I may have toward You, Your people and anything in my life that is not from You. I need ‘Your oxygen’ in my life to keep it cancer free always. Amen.

-Author Unknown

Never Be Lacking In Zeal

The following devotional uses ants as an example of how much zeal we should have in our lives.

Although, I am not fond of ants, I can however, appreciate their determination and the fact they rarely let anything detour them from their calling.

So yes, after reading this little devotional, I have a new found respect for ants but that doesn't necessarily mean, I would have that same zeal to do everything in my power to get them out of my home when I find one.

So in the end, it's all about the zeal and how that effects your daily life and the lives around you.

God Bless.

Scripture Reading: Proverbs 6:6-11; Romans 12:3-18 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. - Romans 12:11

You can’t stop ants from doing their work. No matter how many times you sweep away the sand they’ve muscled through the cracks in your driveway, you can do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Ants are vocationally fulfilled; like the birds of the air, they do not have a care in the world. God cares for them; all they care about is doing what God made them to do.

But God cares for us even more than the ants and the birds. And he equips us, like them, to give our all to do diligently what he has created us to do—to love him above all and our neighbor as ourselves. With God’s help, we can love sincerely, as Paul instructs. We can “hate what is evil; cling to what is good.” We can “be devoted to one another in love” and “honor one another” above ourselves. “Never be lacking in zeal,” says Paul, “but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.” Hospitality, patience, sharing with others, living in harmony, and other positive traits are listed as important to a Christian who is trying to serve the Lord.

We are also called to live at peace with everyone. This is a challenging task. It is fulltime work. But God’s gifts will simply overwhelm spiritual carelessness because, like the ant, we’ll have enough to do from morning till night. And we can do it again the next day, and the next.

Prayer: Thank you, Lord for equipping us to do your good will all day long, and every day, in Christ’s name. Amen. Arie C. Leder