Have you been paying attention?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ^©

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
(Psalms 19:1 (NIV))

Have you been paying attention?

God, in all of His majesty, has created a spectacular universe in which we live. He has set things in motion from the beginning of time. When we are young, we look up at the night sky and are amazed at the stars. We are amazed with the moon. As we grow older, we soon stop looking up and spend all of our time looking down. We look down to avoid the pitfalls of this world. We look down to hide our eyes from the gaze of others. We look down to shield our eyes from the truth.

Look up!

The stars are still spectacular. The moon is still amazing. The timing of alignments and events is something that we should pay attention to. If the heavens declare God’s glory and the skies proclaim the work of His hands, shouldn’t we look to them as a means of understanding God and His plans?

I am sure that you have at least read about the four blood moons and how they all coincide with Jewish holy days and festivals. I find it amazing that four blood moons is a very rare occurrence with the next four occurring about 500 years from now. In all of time, what are the odds that four such events will line up perfectly with the Jewish calendar and fall on the same days in consecutive years?

I know that sometimes things do happen, but with the timings of these events and the other things that are going on in the world, I honestly believe that these are not accidental alignments.

God is doing something!

To make things even more interesting, according to some of my research sources, today is the midpoint of the four blood moons. I am not professing any knowledge of something happening, but I do know that God is up to something and that He uses the heavens to provide insight. And, no, this is not some astrological mumbo-jumbo.

Is God the Creator?

Is God in control?

If you answered “Yes” to both of these questions, then what is stopping God from using His creation to declare what He is about to do?

I think that it is time that we pay attention to God’s word and His creation!

Copyright 1998 – 2014 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
Subscribe to daily email delivery

What do you call man’s wisdom?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ^©

So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters? God has made them all look foolish and has shown their wisdom to be useless nonsense.
(1 Corinthians 1:20 (NLT))

Useless nonsense!

Does this sound like anything you have seen or heard lately?

I honestly think that humanity has gotten lost in the vicious cycle of intellect. If you think about our college systems and the degrees that you can receive – Bachelors, Masters, Doctorate – it has been said that you learn more and more about less and less. You start off with a fairly broad study, then with the next degree, you narrow the focus. You finally narrow the focus so much that you learn as much as you can about such a narrow topic that you know almost nothing about anything else. Ironically, it seems that our society then looks to these people who have focused on such a narrow aspect of knowledge as the wiz-kids of all knowledge. We then have people who are so totally inept at anything that resembles an overall big picture giving our society directions on everything.

I realize that there are always exceptions to this rule, but it seems like our society has become so fixated on this type of knowledge that we tend to ignore what is truly important. It is this type of knowledge that has caused people to believe that humanity is capable of doing anything, It is this type of knowledge that makes people think that we are our own moral compass. It is this type of knowledge that tells us that a person’s usefulness is gone when they are 75 years old.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
(Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV))

What happens to people when we focus so much on what we can comprehend? We use logic to make ourselves believe that there is no higher authority than us. We use this false logic to make all kinds of bad decisions and we call it wisdom.

God calls it useless nonsense!

What good does it do if we can circle the world with technology and we ignore the Creator of the world? What good does it do if we can build huge cities but lose the compassion to reach the people who live there? What good does it do if we can have hundreds of “friends” and never know them or share the Gospel with them?

What do you call man’s wisdom?

Copyright 1998 – 2014 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
Subscribe to daily email delivery

Boast about Jesus!

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ^©

But let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth.
(Jeremiah 9:24 (NIV))

Do you ever boast and brag?

Be honest!

It is human nature to boast about things. Even when we don’t mean to, we have a tendency to boast and brag. If you have ever written a resume or gone on a job interview, you have probably boasted about your accomplishments.

Have you ever been around someone who bragged so much that they were difficult to put up with?

Let’s face it, there is a fine line between being truthful and being prideful. It is a fine line that is very easy to cross.

What happens if someone asks you about your job? Do you tell them that you are part of a team or do you lay out your responsibilities to make it sound like you are the central core to all of the functions that are performed at your office?

What happens when someone asks you about your children? Do you respond with what they are doing or do you go on an on about how they are the center of every activity that they are involved in?

We all boast, but is there anything in our lives that we can truly boast about? Did we create our job? Did we build our house? Did we design our car? Did we teach our children all that they know? We have had a hand in none of these things, yet we boast about them all of the time.

What do you do when you are confronted about your faith?

What do you do when you are confronted about knowing Jesus?

Personally, I find it very disturbing that people do not boast about knowing Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior. The Creator of all things, God, the Father, has sent His only Son, Jesus, to save us from our sin. Jesus calls us by name. God calls us by name. The Creator knows my name and He has a plan to redeem me for a full relationship with Him.

If this isn’t something to brag about, I don’t know what is!

Our society has become too complacent, too jaded with God and with Jesus. We have gotten to the point where we simply take it for granted. We are not willing to share the good news. We are not willing to boast about our relationship with the Creator. We are not willing to boast that Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sin! Instead, we boast about things that are trivial. We boast about the football team that we support. We boast about the fish that we caught. We boast about our new car. We boast about everything but that we know and understand our Lord.

Will your car save you? Will your job bring you eternal life? Will your favorite football team pay you when they win?

Boast about Jesus!

Copyright 1998 – 2014 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
Subscribe to daily email delivery

We are the Body of Christ! We are to press on!

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ^©

“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator `made them male and female,’ and said, `For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’ ? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
(Matthew 19:4-6 (NIV))

The things that God has put together are under attack by man. Or should I say that they are under attack by the enemy as he lies and tricks man into believing that anything goes?

Think back over your life.

Is there anything that you considered to be unshakable, only now to see it being questioned or completely discarded?

Have you stood up for the biblical principles that used to be the foundation of our society? Have you stood face to face with the enemy as he tries to remove any reference to God from our society? Do we, as the Body of Christ, even try to take a stand or are we so lost in the hope of the Rapture that we forget that we are called to be salt and light where we are?

Many people believe that we are living at the beginning of the times written of in Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelation, and we just might be, but I have a question for you. If you are running a race, do you lose focus once the finish line comes into view? Do you slow down and take it easy because you are almost there? Do you stop altogether and join the spectators to see what will happen?

You persevere!

You complete the task!

To quote Paul in his letter to the church at Phillipi,

I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
(Philippians 3:14 (NIV))

We are called to be salt and light to the world. We are called to finish the race. We are not told to give up when we see good being called evil. We are to model out faith after Paul.

We are the Body of Christ! We are to press on!

Copyright 1998 – 2014 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
Subscribe to daily email delivery