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Higher Ways
Today's Scripture †
“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9).
Today's Word from Joel and Victoria
Sometimes it’s easy to get focused on what’s happening in the world around us. We see things on the news or hear something about the economy, and we dwell on those thoughts. Before long, those thoughts start to drag us down. But when we choose to think higher thoughts, the way God thinks, and when we choose to meditate on God’s Word, His higher thoughts will draw us to a higher level of living.
You can live above the stress and pressure of the world because He has promised to give us perfect peace when we keep our minds focused on Him. You can live above financial worries because God has promised that when we follow His Word, He will supply all our needs according to His riches in glory. You can live above fear and dread because God has promised that His perfect love will drive out all fear. Choose God’s higher thoughts today and allow His ways to become Your ways. Open your heart and allow Him to direct your every step. As you do, you will rise higher and higher, and you’ll live the life of victory He has in store for you.
A Prayer for Today
Father in heaven, I humbly come to You giving You all that I am. Fill me with Your higher thoughts which will lead me in Your higher ways. Help me to look beyond my circumstances to the good things You have in store for me. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
♥
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Don't Forget Your Honey
Let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Ephesians 5:33
Recommended Reading
Ephesians 5:28-33
When mystery writer Agatha Christie married archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan in 1930, she reportedly quipped, "An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have.
The older she gets, the more interested he is in her!"
If that's true, we should all be archaeologists!
As we age, we mature; and as we mature, our marriages should improve. Our love for the other should grow stronger, and our respect deeper. We should become more loving and more lovable—more interested in each other, not less.
But there's one way in which we should not be archaeologists. We don't need to keep digging up the past. The secret to a good marriage is leaving faults and failures buried under the grace of Jesus, focusing instead on meeting the needs of the other with joy in our hearts.
Remember those timeless, treasured vows: To have and to hold from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in heath, to love and to cherish, as long as we both shall live.
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The Gift of Weeding
He has filled them with skill to do all manner of work.
Exodus 35:35
Recommended Reading
Exodus 35:30 - 36:1
Jim didn't like teaching the boys class at church, but he pressed on dutifully because he'd been asked and he didn't want to disappoint his pastor. What he really liked, however, was using his day off to do yard work at the church. He devoted every other Tuesday to mulching, mowing, trimming, clearing, raking, planting, and weeding. He knew that the appearance of the church's lawn was important in attracting visitors to the Sunday services where they could hear the Gospel. But truth be told, he was a poor Sunday school teacher.
One day after talking with his pastor, Jim realized he didn't have the gift of teaching. He had the gift of weeding—well, the gift of serving, of helping. When he began working more fully within his areas of giftedness, he was happier; and so was everyone else.
The Lord has made each of us differently, with different passions, abilities, and gifts. We're happier when we're doing what God has called and gifted us to do. Others will be blessed, too, and the Lord will be honored.
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| | | | Uncomfortable with the Culture
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2
Recommended Reading
1 Peter 1:13-16
It's happened more than once—missionaries leave the United States and, in time, become more comfortable in a foreign land than in their native country. They give various reasons: "It's quieter," "less materialism," "less peer pressure on our children," "the people are more receptive to the Gospel." When they return to America to visit, they talk about "returning home" in a new way—they've exchanged their old home for a new one.
That's what it means to be a citizen of the kingdom of God. Paul says our "citizenship is in heaven," not in this world (Philippians 3:20). It's why, over time, Christians begin to feel more and more out of place with the cultures of this world; why they speak of God's eternal kingdom as "going home." When we exchange our earthly home for our kingdom home is up to God. In the interim, our job is to so walk in the Spirit that we aren't "conformed to this world"; that we aren't squeezed into the world's mold, as Bible translator J. B. Phillips put it.
When you leave home today, let it remind you of where your true home is—in Christ Jesus, now and for eternity.
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What Everyone Needs
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
Galatians 5:22-23
Recommended Reading
1 Corinthians 2:10-14
When it comes to radical spiritual transformations, it's easy for us to think of saints like John Newton (from slave trader to pastor), the apostle Paul (from persecutor to protector of the church), and Nicky Cruz (from street thug to street evangelist). But the truth is, every follower of Jesus has been transformed.
Before you met Jesus, you were something that needed radical transformation—what the Bible calls a "natural" man or woman (1 Corinthians 2:14). You may have been polite, friendly, generous, and well-educated—hardly someone who appeared in need of transformation. But in God's eyes, the need was readily apparent. Only God can see the fallen human nature that does not know how to give glory to the Creator. If you think for a moment about your life before and since meeting Jesus, you'll see the transforming work only God could accomplish.
Whether the changes are subtle or significant, they are the work of the Holy Spirit within you, reproducing the life of Jesus (Romans 8:29). Don't forget today to thank God for the changes He has made.
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