How well do you know the everlasting God?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.
(Isaiah 40:28 (NIV))

Everyone who has ever lived has had a definition of a smaller god that is who they would like to make God into.

Far too many people limit God because they lack the faith to understand, to believe that God is far greater than we can comprehend. They pray to Him, yet, they truly don’t believe that He can do anything to help them. They read the Bible and will make comments about how He no longer does miracles. They look at the world and blame God for all of the sin and take credit for anything good that happens to them.

Is this how you think that you know God? If it is, you need to spend more time with the Lord and in God’s Word! Nowhere is the Lord our God described as weak and insecure. Nowhere is He described as anything less than mighty and powerful. Nowhere is He described as anything less than the awesome Father that He is!

We all have things that we elevate to places of importance in our lives. I pray that we, as the Body of Christ, lower our individual gods of status, wealth and whatever else we elevate as important and replace them with the knowledge and understanding of the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth!

How well do you know the everlasting God?

Copyright 1998 – 2018 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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What do you have?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
(1 John 2:23 (NIV))

What do you do when you hear people say that they don’t need Jesus to be close to God? Do you agree with them or does your heart break over their reluctance to accept the truth?

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
(John 14:6 (NIV))

Why do people still reject Jesus? Honestly, I believe that this is the same mentality that makes people reach out and touch the wall when they see a “Wet Paint” sign. They simply cannot accept things at face value. They believe that God would not limit how someone can come to Him. They don’t want to accept the simplicity of God’s plan. You can show them the truth but they refuse to believe. They refuse to accept what is right in front of them. They refuse to recognize the fallacy in their thinking. I started to use the word reasoning instead of the word thinking, but if you truly reason, if you truly apply all aspects of your intellect, then your conclusions would be completely different.

“Come now, and let us reason together,”
Says the Lord,
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
They shall be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They shall be as wool.
(Isaiah 1:18 (NKJV))

Perhaps you are on the fence about accepting or denying Jesus.

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. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
(John 3:16-21 (NIV))

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,
(Romans 8:1 (NIV))

Accepting Jesus means that there is no condemnation!

What do you have?

Copyright 1998 – 2018 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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Is your belief clouded by doubt?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.
(James 1:6 (NIV))

Why would anyone bother to ask for something if they didn’t believe that it could be attained?

Why would you ask and then vacillate, or waiver, about what you just asked for?

Think about this concept in the following contexts. From a man’s perspective, how would the following scenarios play out in relationship to the two questions above? Would you ask someone to marry you if you didn’t believe that it could happen? What if you asked someone to marry you and then immediately responded with something like, “Never mind! I didn’t mean it!”? Now, suppose that you then asked again and then changed your mind again.

The first scenario shows your lack of faith while the second scenario shows your lack of decisiveness. Both scenarios reflect negatively on you.

Think about this in terms of asking for something from God.

Why ask God for something if you don’t believe that He can or will do it? We have a tendency to place God in a box of our own design and by so doing, we limit Him to our understanding. If God spoke everything into existence, what makes you think that He is limited in His response to you?

Why ask God for something if you can’t decide what you want to ask Him? We are told that we should approach God with confidence.

In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.
(Ephesians 3:12 (NIV))

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
(1 John 5:14 (NIV))

With this in mind, let’s take this one step further. When we approach God in confidence, we are told that this is the very definition of faith.

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
(Hebrews 11:1 (NIV))

We must rest assuredly on the promises that we have been given. We must have faith that when we seek God’s will and when we ask for something in confidence according to His will, that it will be done. We must not be clouded in doubt?

Is your belief clouded by doubt?

Copyright 1998 – 2017 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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Is there anything that God cannot do?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

I am the LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?
(Jeremiah 32:27 (NIV))

I have had this verse at my fingertips for a few days. I have been thinking about it. Something in these words has made me stop and reflect on them. Several things have made me pause on this passage.

The biggest question that I have is why do we even need to be reminded of this? Is humanity so completely idiotic that we have forgotten what has been common knowledge since creation? Of course we are! All throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament, as well, humanity has ignored God. We have rebelled against God. We have embraced evil and called it good. We have embraced false gods. We have created our own gods when we couldn’t find one that we liked that someone else had created. We have limited God in so many ways that by the time that Jeremiah walked the earth, God had to speak through Jeremiah to remind creation that only He is Lord. Keep in mind that this was not the first time that God had to remind people exactly who He is. God used Noah to let creation know that He is Lord. God used Moses to let people know that He is Lord.

These are just a few of the instances when God reminded His creation that He is Lord, still, there is something about the words from Jeremiah that stand out!

“Is anything too hard for me?”

Why is humanity so fickle? Why do we place limitations where no limitations can be placed? Why do we try to define God in terms that we can understand? If we can understand everything about whom we worship, then it is not the one true God, but a god of our own creation.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord,
(Isaiah 55:8 (NIV))

Do you try to limit God?

Is there anything that God cannot do?

Copyright 1998 – 2017 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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Do you limit what God is capable of doing?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ^©

Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power
and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom;
you are exalted as head over all.

Wealth and honor come from you;
you are the ruler of all things.
In your hands are strength and power
to exalt and give strength to all.
(1 Chronicles 29:11-12 (NIV))

Are you one of those people who put God in a box? Do you limit God within your life?

Since we cannot see Him with physical eyes, it is easy to apply our own limited perception and limitations to One who has no limitations.

In today’s society, specifications, qualifications and quantifications are the measuring stick for everything. How big? How fast? How rich? If it can’t be measured it must not be important!

Don’t fall into society’s trap. Can a rag understand it’s creator? We are as rags, yet, God has given us His Word so that we may know Him. If God can create the heavens and the earth and still take the time to leave us instructions, how can we, as His creation, limit what God is capable of doing?

Copyright 1998 – 2013 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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