What is the source of your sustenance?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ©

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'”
(Matthew 4:4 (NIV))

We spend so much time thinking about what we eat. We spend so much time worried about eating the rights things in the right amount so that we don’t put on weight, or so that we will lose weight. It seems like every day we hear about new diets or nutrition supplements that are designed to make us the best possible physical specimen that we can be. The things that we put into our bodies are important, but why do we spend so much time and effort with this aspect of our lives while we neglect a very important aspect of our growth and maturity? Why do we ignore the spiritual aspects and focus on the physical when the physical is here today and gone tomorrow?

We need to focus on feeding our spiritual side. We need to feed on the very Word of God.

Jesus IS the Word made flesh.

Jesus IS the bread of life.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Bethlehem means house of bread.

I find it interesting that in order to receive salvation, each of us must accept Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior. We must embrace Jesus as the bread of life. But, we are not to stop there. We are to immerse ourselves in God’s Word in order to become like David, a man after God’s own heart. We can’t know the Father without spending time in His Word. We can’t truly know the Son, without spending time with the Word. We can’t mature in our faith without knowing the very heart of God! They go hand in hand.

We eat physical food to strengthen our bodies. We must also strengthen our spiritual nature. We need more than milk. We need to mature in our faith!

In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness.
(Hebrews 5:12-13 (NIV))

Are you acquainted with God’s Word?

What is the source of your sustenance?

Copyright 1998 – 2020 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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Are you glad He went after you?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.
(Matthew 18:12-14 (NIV))

Are you lost?

Helpless, hopeless and lost?

Satan longs to have us feel this way.

God longs for us to feel helpful, hopeful and loved.

God also longs for us to mature spiritually and become the person whom He created us to be. Sometimes this requires tough love. Just as a parent must sometimes withhold things from a child, God must withhold things from us. Just as a parent must allow the child to enter into things that will teach them a lesson, so too with God and us.

We are creatures of habit. Each of us exists within certain boundaries that we have established or that have been established for us. These boundaries become our comfort zone. God, in His infinite wisdom, knows that our comfort zones foster stagnation. We soon grow complacent. We soon grow so rigid and confined within our comfort zones that we fail to recognize the need for spiritual growth and maturity. We become creatures of habit, and all too often our habits leave something to be desired. It takes something drastic to get our attention. It takes something that will make us look beyond our circumstances and look at our core beliefs and priorities.

God wants to get our attention. He wants to get us out of our comfort zones and focused on Him. Sometimes, that requires something bigger than we care to have happen. He wants us to take the time to fulfill Psalm 46:10a so that we may know Him and His will for our lives.

Be still, and know that I am God
(Psalm 4610a (NIV))

Are you glad He went after you?

Copyright 1998 – 2019 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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Has Jesus been written on the tablet of your heart?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
(2 Corinthians 3:3 (NIV))

Everyone has a place where they record things and store things that are important to them. Where is your special place?

Some people will record things in a journal. Some will takes notes in their phones. Others will use social media to share what is important to them. In the past, people would record things in stone thinking that this was a safe way to keep them for a very long time. Some people have even created a secure place where they can lock away the things that they hold dear and want to safeguard. I find it interesting that people will bury treasure in order to keep it safe. What is of such importance that you would choose to hoard it, to hide it away and to bury it, never to be seen again? What does that say about the state of the heart that seeks to do this?

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

Let’s take another look at treasure and the heart.

If you value something so much, where is the one place that it can be kept and no one can take it from you? Where is the one place that you lock things away?

But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.
(Luke 2:19 (NIV))

Have you ever wondered about the things that Mary stored away in her heart? She stored away all that she had experienced with the miraculous conception, the birth of Jesus, the shepherds, the wise men and all of the other things. They were written on her heart. They could not be taken away from her even though she watched Jesus suffer and die.

When something is in your heart, it has become an integral part of who you are. Tablets of stone can be broken or forgotten, but when it is written on your heart, it is essential to your very existence.

Has Jesus been written on the tablet of your heart?

Copyright 1998 – 2018 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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There is no greater lifeline!

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
(Romans 10:13 (NIV))

Humanity tries to duplicate God’s promises by using the same concepts and applying them at a much smaller scale. Take this passage as an example. I have read this passage many times. I cling to the promise that it contains, yet, today when I read it, something stood out that I hadn’t seen before. Perhaps this visualization will reach someone and help them to realize the greatness of the promises that are always Yes in Jesus!

We are all familiar with the televised game shows where they allow the contestants to phone a friend to help them get the right answer. Most of the time, the subjects of the questions deal with something from this physical world and the idea of the question is to trick the person who is asked to answer it. If they don’t answer correctly, they simply don’t win the money, and they return to the life they already know.

Imagine something with much higher stakes. You are asked one question and that question will determine where you will spend eternity. There is no going back to the way things were before the question is asked. You are asked to account for your sins. You are given the ability to respond with an answer. Do you answer of your own sinful abilities or do you call upon a friend for assistance? If you call upon a friend, who do you call?

One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
(Proverbs 18:24 (NIV))

Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.
(Acts 4:12 (NIV))

Based on these verses, and many more, I know what my answer will be!

I would like to call upon the name of Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, and that is my final answer.

There is no greater lifeline!

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