Are you in danger of becoming lukewarm?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ©

So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
(Revelation 3:16 (NIV))

We know that this is the message to the church in Laodicea. When we think of this passage, we instantly think about a faith that is neither hot, nor is it cold. They do not possess a faith that is on fire, yet they don’t possess a faith that is nonexistent. They are somewhere in the middle.

They believe in Jesus, but they believe in the power of their wealth and self sufficiency more!

Don’t be so self sufficient that you become lukewarm!

Did that last statement catch you off guard?

Think about that for a moment. Are you more concerned about your house and cars than you are about your faith in Jesus? Do you pay more attention to the things that make you money than you do to the One who brought you salvation? Do you think that your lifestyle is because of the things that you have done? Have you relegated God to be a distant second, or even lower, in your priorities? When things look bad, do you look to your own understanding to get you onto a firmer foundation, or do you turn to the Lord in prayer?

Professing a faith in Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior is a choice!

It is a choice I pray that everyone will make.

Becoming lukewarm is also a choice, and it is a choice of neglect. It happens when you neglect to spend time daily in His Word and in prayer. It happens when you neglect to place God above all other gods. It happens when you neglect to love the Creator more than the creation. It happens when you neglect to realize that faith must be nurtured, and, as a result, you become so comfortable in your faith that you think that you have it made! It comes when you neglect to realize that you cannot handle anything that the world sends your way. It comes when you neglect to realize that your self sufficiency means absolutely nothing.

Are you in danger of becoming lukewarm?

Copyright 1998 – 2023 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
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Believe!

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ©

For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.
(Romans 10:10 (NIV))

You have a choice!

Once you make that choice, your life will continue to be a series of choices. Some times you will make the right choice and follow Jesus. There will be many times that you will make the wrong choice and do what you know is not according to His will. Even then, you have a choice! You can recognize your sin and repent. Don’t make the choice that leaves you arrogant and unrepentant!

Following Jesus is not easy. We have His words telling us what we should expect.

“Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.
(Matthew 10:34-39 (NIV))

The reason for this is simple. Jesus calls us out of this world. He sets us apart from the sin in this world. As a result of this, we know how the world will react. We know that even family and friends who are of the world will hate the choice that has been made.

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.
(John 15:18-19 (NIV))

You have a choice!

You can choose to be loved by the world, or you can choose to follow Jesus.

Like I previously stated, following Jesus is not easy. Once you make the choice to follow Him, the world will try to do all within it’s power to cause you to fall. The world, and the prince of this world, will hate you because you have chosen to follow Jesus.

Personally, every day that I live, I choose to believe. Every breath that I take, I choose to believe. Every word that I type, I choose to believe in prayerful hope that you will make that same choice!

The choice is yours!

Believe!

Copyright 1998 – 2022 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
https://www.dailylivingministries.org
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What are you living on?

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))

What does your diet consist of?

We have a tendency to think that the only thing that matters is what we put into our physical body, and some people don’t even worry about this aspect of their existence. Far too many of us fill out bodies with things that are harmful and we never even think about the consequences.

How many people are actually concerned with the spiritual nutrition that they should be concerned with?

There is an old saying, “Garbage in, garbage out.” Think about that. If you spend time feeding your mind and your spirit foul and harmful garbage, eventually you will get to a point where that is what comes out. You are what you eat, both physically and spiritually.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
(Philippians 4:8 (NIV))

We must embrace the Word. We must read it. We must study it. We must strive to live by it! We must feast on the sweetest truths and the sweetest promises that humanity has ever been given. These sweetest truths and promises can only be found in the very heart of the One who created us. When your diet consists of daily time spent feasting on God’s Word, you grow to understand the very heart of God. This daily diet allows for a fuller life as God intended. It helps you to live in the present and promises an eternal life through the atoning blood of Jesus.

Far too many people are still living on sin.

What are you living on?

Copyright 1998 – 2020 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
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Is Jesus your Lord and your Savior?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ©

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
(Romans 10:9 (NIV))

Can you count to two?

If these were the rules for a contest, reading the requirements for participating would be over very quickly. Still, so many people have trouble with this. Do you?

God wanted to, and perhaps He even felt that He needed to make this as simple as possible since we are only human. After all, we only had one instruction in the Garden of Eden. We were not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and we blew that.

I realize that I am being a little condescending, but in all reality, it is a simple process to gain God’s grace and mercy. We must start with an acknowledgment that we are sinners in need of a Savior. Once we come to that realization, then the rest is simple.

Declare with your mouth.

Believe in your heart.

Do your heart and your mouth make this declaration?

Is Jesus your Lord and your Savior?

Copyright 1998 – 2020 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
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If you believe, tell someone!

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ©

For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.
(Romans 10:10 (NIV))

If you had invented something that would truly benefit every single person who ever lived, would you keep it bottled up inside and never share it with anyone? You would shout it from the mountain tops. You would be so full of enthusiastic energy that everyone you meet would be told about your invention and how much that they need it. That is human nature. If you ignore the sinful nature of human pride, most of us would still share this kind of situation just because we want others to be as happy and fulfilled as we are. We have a tendency to want to share good news with anyone and everyone who will listen.

Why are so many of us afraid to share our faith with others?

Think about that in context of the previous questions. Jesus is far greater than anything else that we could ever share, yet, most of us don’t share our faith at all. We claim that it is a personal matter. We claim that we believe, yet we aren’t willing to tell anyone what we believe or why we believe it.

We aren’t willing to profess with our mouths!

If you are reading this, I can probably make the safe assumption that you believe in Jesus in your heart. That is fantastic, but have you told your friends? Have you told your family? Have you told those you work with? Have you verbally pronounced that you have placed your faith in Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior? Think about your answer in context with the last half of Romans 10:10. Have you fulfilled this part of your salvation? Have you made a public proclamation?

If you have good news, it is human nature to want to share it. What better news is there than this?

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.
(John 3:16 (NIV))

I can’t think of better news that the whole world needs to hear!

If you believe, tell someone!

Copyright 1998 – 2020 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
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Have you gotten a taste of the Lord’s goodness?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ©

Taste and see that the Lord is good;
(Psalms 34:8a (NIV))

Have you ever asked yourself why this passage uses the word taste?

Think about the process of tasting and eating and drinking. We slowly put something into our physical body via our mouth to see if we will like it and if it will be good for us. In essence, we are taking something that is foreign to our bodies and putting it inside of us. It becomes a part of us! We become intimately familiar with what we are tasting.

Ever since the fall from grace, God’s goodness has been foreign to our spiritual being. Due to our sinful nature, we are not sure what to do with what is good and pure. We sample, or taste, just as we do with physical food and drink to see if it is good. We taste of the Lord and find that His love and mercy is sweet and very good for our lives. We ingest bits of His Word and find that it is very palatable and we soon find ourselves wanting more. Just like physical food that tastes good, we find ourselves feeding on the Word of God and we find that it becomes integral to our lives. The more we taste, the more we want.

David wrote much about the goodness of the Lord. He understood it. He longed for it. He never wanted it to end.

Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
(Psalms 23:6 (NIV))

David had gotten a taste of the goodness of the Lord. As a result, he followed the Lord all the days of His life.

Have you gotten a taste of the Lord’s goodness?

Copyright 1998 – 2020 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
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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.
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Where do your actions lead you?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life,
but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
Hatred stirs up dissension,
but love covers over all wrongs.
Wisdom is found on the lips of the discerning,
but a rod is for the back of him who lacks judgment.
Wise men store up knowledge,
but the mouth of a fool invites ruin.
The wealth of the rich is their fortified city,
but poverty is the ruin of the poor.
The wages of the righteous bring them life,
but the income of the wicked brings them punishment.
He who heeds discipline shows the way to life,
but whoever ignores correction leads others astray.
(Proverbs 10:11-17 (NIV))

Too bad that nonbelievers do not take these words to heart! Nothing could be plainer than the truth these words speak of.

Today, too many people go about doing whatever “feels good” to them without any thought to the consequences of their actions. If you have ever studied Physics, there is a physical law that states for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If these people would only realize that what is true in the physical world is also true in the spiritual world. Every time that they do a wicked act or do something that lacks spiritual judgment, then they are storing up equal and opposite actions that will be brought upon themselves. They store up rotten fruits as their reward for their actions. Believers store up abundant fruit that does not rot.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
(Galatians 5:22-23 (NIV))

Where do your actions lead you?

Copyright 1998 – 2019 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
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What comes out of your mouth?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.
(Ephesians 4:29 (NIV))

What comes out of your mouth?

Perhaps, a different translation says it clearer.

Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.
(Ephesians 4:29 (NLT))

We are clearly told that we are to not speak using foul or abusive language. If we can control the tongue, then we are one step closer to controlling the heart. When we control the heart, we are able to follow the teachings of Jesus. We are able to do everything more closely to what Paul told us in Colossians.

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men
(Colossians 3:23 (NIV))

If we speak in foul and abusive language, do we truly have Jesus as our Lord and Savior? Do we have the Holy Spirit within us and guiding us? Is this the type of language that God desires for us to use? The foul and abusive words only reflect what is in our hearts.

But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man `unclean.’
(Matthew 15:18 (NIV))

Think about the things that you say. Do they uplift or do they come out as unwholesome talk?

Copyright 1998 – 2019 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
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What type of appetite do you have?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

The discerning heart seeks knowledge, but the mouth of a fool feeds on folly.
(Proverbs 15:14 (NIV))

Do you feel that you are good at discerning the truth, especially God’s truth?

One good way to truly know the correct answer to this question is to look at what your heart seeks. This can be easily determined by your answers to a few more questions.

What do you spend your money on?

What fills your free time?

Do you spend time daily in God’s word?

What do you and your friends do when you are together?

Do you have to change how you act when around people whom you know who are believers in Jesus?

Do you find any excuse that you can to avoid going to church?

Do you feel empty and unfulfilled when you don’t spend time with the Body of Christ?

I could probably keep going, but your answers to these questions will give you a good and truthful understanding of what you truly seek to fill your life with. Just as each of us have specific foods that we like, we also have specific things that we long to put into our lives. Some have an appetite for destruction. Some have an appetite for lust. For some people, it is greed, while for others it is drunkenness and debauchery. Human nature longs for things that always seem to lead to sin and destruction. We must overcome our sinful human nature and seek after God’s truth, wisdom and knowledge. We must cultivate an appetite for righteousness!

What type of appetite do you have?

Copyright 1998 – 2019 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
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