How do you live your life?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.
(1 Peter 2:16 (NIV))

We have been given a choice as to how we will live. God has given us free will, and we can use that free will to follow Him or to reject Him. Too many people have two sides to them. There is the one side that puts up a good image while in the presence of those that you want to impress, and then there is the side that rebels against all that is good. This reminds me of the warning to the church at Laodicea. They were neither cold nor hot. In essence, they couldn’t decide if they were following Jesus or not.

Just like the church at Laodicea, we all have the choice to follow Jesus or to follow the world. Don’t use the grace that you have been given to convince yourself that you are able to do whatever you want. Jesus came to bring grace and mercy, but that does not mean that you can continue to sin. We are called to repent, to turn from our sin, and to follow Jesus. That means that we must change the way that we live our lives so that they honor God.

How do you live your life?

Copyright 1998 – 2017 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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Which do you seek, righteousness or worldly gain?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

Better a little with righteousness than much gain with injustice.
(Proverbs 16:8 (NIV))

How many of us, when first reading this passage, try to figure out if there is a happy medium where we are willing to compromise on righteousness in order to increase our gain?

I hope that if you did ask yourself if you could find a happy medium it was a short-lived question and you quickly came to the conclusion to never compromise on righteousness. If you stop to realize what compromising on righteousness entails, it means that you are willing to sin. To be righteous in the eyes of God means that you are free from sin. If you compromise on righteousness, then you are willingly opening the door to your life to allow sin back in.

Is this what you want to do?

Is this what God wants you to do?

Salvation was purchased with a very high price. It took the sacrifice, the crucifixion, of a sinless man in the form of Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, to allow our sins to be forgiven. The cost was too great. What we would lose is too great!

There is nothing in this world that is worth losing what was so highly valued that it took the death of the Son of God to purchase it for us. Still, human nature tries to figure out how to have the proverbial cake and eat it, too. We want the treasures of heaven, but we are too easily enticed by the worldly treasures.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
(Matthew 6:21 (NIV))

Which do you seek, righteousness or worldly gain?

Copyright 1998 – 2017 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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Has the Lord established your plans?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.
(Proverbs 16:3 (NIV))

Why is it so difficult to turn your life over to someone else, even if that someone is the Creator of all things?

When each of us are just a single individual in the vastness of human history, why do we think that we are any different from anyone else? Why do we think that we can achieve what we want when others have not been able to do this? Why do we strive to be greater than our neighbors? Why do we strive to be greater than our friends? Why do we try to establish plans for ourselves without truly understanding who God is and who we are in His creation?

Human nature makes us look at life as if it is ours to do with as we please. We think that we can go here and there without any ramifications. We think that we are free to make decisions and then expect everything to turn out just as we planned. Have any of us truly ever asked God to tell us His reason, His purpose for creating us? Would you be surprised to find that you are racing down a path that you were never intended to travel?

God did create us to have free will. We do have the option of doing with our lives as we please, but how does that make you feel? Do you still have an emptiness inside? Do you feel as if your life has no purpose?

Be still, and know that I am God
(Psalm 46:10a (NIV))

We all need to spend time in God’s presence. As we get to know God, He will give us insight into ourselves. He will give us insight into His plans for us. As we get to know God, we will find that we want to align our lives, we will want to commit whatever we do to the Lord. He will then establish His plans for our lives.

Has the Lord established your plans?

Copyright 1998 – 2017 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
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Do you like to boast?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.
(James 4:16 (NIV))

Why is it within our nature to boast about what we can do or will do?

I honestly believe that it is due to pride. If you stop to think about what caused Satan to rebel against God, it makes perfect sense. He wanted to be greater than God. He wanted everyone to look upon him as the ultimate in all of heaven. For this, he was cast out of heaven. In his cunning, he tricked Adam and Eve into sinning. He convinced them that they knew better than God. He convinced them that their understanding of what God meant was different from what He truly meant. In Satan’s efforts to elevate himself above God, he caused all of humanity to suffer the same evil desire. We want to elevate ourselves!

I believe that boasting is an offshoot of the sinful nature that wanted to be elevated above God. Boasting is the prideful, arrogant scheming that speaks from the heart of the person who is boasting. Because boasting comes from pride and arrogance, it is a sin. It is evil.

Boasting is a prideful and sinful expression where the one who boasts desires to elevate themselves even to the point of trying to be greater than God.

Do you like to boast?

Copyright 1998 – 2017 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
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Are you truly triumphant?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.
(Revelation 12:11 (NIV))

Do you have what it will take to triumph over the enemy?

Are you willing to do what it takes to find eternal life?

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.
(Matthew 16:25 (NIV))

If you truly stop to think about those two questions, there really isn’t any difference in what it takes to triumph over the enemy and what it takes to find eternal life. Both require placing your faith and trust in the blood of the Lamb. They require trusting Jesus completely with all aspects of your life, no matter what the world may do to you.

Do you trust Jesus completely?

Is your faith strong enough to lay down your life if necessary?

Jesus did it for you! Jesus did it for me!

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
(John 15:13 (NIV))

Jesus calls you and I friends. He laid down His life for us in faith that we would be able to accept His gift of grace and mercy. Have we taken this gift to heart and can we truly claim that we triumph over the enemy by His blood? Do we love this life or do we long to be with Him?

Are you truly triumphant?

Copyright 1998 – 2017 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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Are we living our lives expecting to see Jesus?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
(2 Corinthians 13:14 (NIV))

Many prophetic signs are lining up for this year, and some are saying that they all converge on this weekend. I am not date setting, for it is not my place to say when things happen, but I have a question for you.

What if something in God’s timeline does happen this weekend?

Everybody who professes a faith in Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior longs for Him to return for His church. If we long for this to happen, then why do so many people claim that it couldn’t be this weekend? It will happen at some point. God could make it happen whenever He wants, so why couldn’t it be this weekend.

We need to live as if it were!

If you knew that Jesus was returning for His church this weekend, how would you react? Would you still do the things that you know are sinful? Would you still live your life as if you had all the time in the world to repent? Would you scoff at the possibility and claim that it has been two thousand years so why would He come now?

I want to ask you some very serious questions.

What if Jesus did return this weekend for His church? Would you be ready? Would He call you to go with Him, or would you be left behind. One day time will run out. It could be this very minute. It could be this weekend. It could be next week or next month. The question that we all have to ask ourselves is whether we will be blessed by grace and love or whether we will be left behind.

Are we living our lives expecting to see Jesus?

Copyright 1998 – 2017 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
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What do you hide in your heart?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
(Psalms 119:11 (NIV))

We have been told that in the last days, people will turn from righteousness and turn to wickedness.

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God
(2 Timothy 3:1-4 (NIV))

What does this say about what these people treasure in life?

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
(Matthew 6:21 (NIV))

It is sad to say, but it is obvious that these people do not treasure God’s Word. They have not allowed it to take up residence within their hearts. If you seek and find a treasure, it is human nature to place the treasure in a safe place. The safest place to hide something is where it cannot be lost or stolen. If we cherish God’s Word as our biggest treasure, then the safest place for it is for us to make it our own. We have to study it. We have to memorize it. We have to make it so integral to our lives that even if we no longer have a physical copy of God’s Word, it is a part of us. We have to hide it in our hearts!

We have to make room for it!

The people that we are told about in the last days not only have not made room for God’s Word, they have rejected it. They have placed something else in their hearts such as themselves, money, pride, pleasure or a vast number of other things.

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
(Matthew 6:24 (NIV))

There is not room in your heart for two things that are polar opposites.

What do you hide in your heart?

Copyright 1998 – 2017 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
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Do you cover as well as you are covered?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
(1 Peter 4:8 (NIV))

Do you believe this passage? Do you believe that love covers over a multitude of sins?

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
(John 3:16-18 (NIV))

Just think of the multitude of sins that God’s love for us covered! Would we have the ability to claim salvation in the name of Jesus if our vast multitude of sins was not completely covered by God’s love for us? Would we be able to claim that we have been washed in the cleansing blood of the Lamb?

Think about what our response should be.

Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.
(John 14:12 (NIV))

We are told that if we believe in Jesus, then we will do the same things that He had done. The Father’s love was made manifest through Him and by this love, our sins are covered by His love. I am not saying that we have the power to forgive sins and to cover them, but we do have the power to love people and show them the love of God. We can let them know that their sins can also be covered by God’s love. Do we love others enough to lead them to Christ? Do we love others enough to allow them to be covered?

In other words, do you cover as well as you are covered?

Copyright 1998 – 2017 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
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Will you be acquitted or will you be condemned?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.
(Matthew 12:36-37 (NIV))

We must be careful of what we say. Every word that we utter has a profound effect on us and everyone around us.

Not a word from their mouth can be trusted;
their heart is filled with destruction.
Their throat is an open grave;
with their tongue they speak deceit.
(Psalm 5:9)

The tongue is the ultimate weapon that we have against others. We must not wield that weapon. We must hold it in check. God will hold us accountable for all that we say.

What have you said today?

Will you be acquitted or will you be condemned?

Copyright 1998 – 2017 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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Are you delusional?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.
(2 Thessalonians 2:11-12 (NIV))

What do you think of when you hear that someone is delusional?

If you are like most people, you think of the proverbial old lady who thinks that you are her child. You think of the type of characters who are, for lack of a better description, space cadets. You think of some of the people who believe that they are someone besides who they truly are.

The one common trait that all of these possess is a strong adherence to something that is totally false. Something inside of them has convinced them that a lie is the truth and they cling to it completely.

Think about being delusional, or possessing a false belief, about your sinful nature. Sadly, too many people believe that they are good. Sadly, too many people possess a false belief about Jesus. These false beliefs are numerous in nature, but some of the most common are that Jesus did not exist, or that He was only a man, or that He was not resurrected. History records that there were numerous witnesses to all of these aspects of Jesus, yet people have a false belief contrary to historical evidence. They are delusional.

I honestly do not know if we are at the point in God’s plan where the powerful delusion has been sent, but I do know that there are numerous people who deny the truth and delight in wickedness. According to God, they are delusional.

Are you delusional?

Copyright 1998 – 2017 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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