Are you a new creation in Christ?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
(2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV))

Everyone wants a clean start. We have all done things that we are not proud of. Quite often, we wish that we could simply forget our past and start again with a clean slate. Perhaps that is why so many people love to celebrate the beginning of a new year. It is as if you get a reset on the things that you wish you could have done differently. Sadly, too many people resolve to do things differently, but end up giving up on their plans after only a few days.

There is a reset that we can take advantage of that has so much more probability of lasting more than a few days. In fact, it has the ability to last for all eternity!

Think about that and what it truly means. Man’s religion can’t change you. Only by accepting God’s offer of a reset through the acceptance of Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior can you change for all eternity! Only through the process of being born again, can the new creation come.

Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
(John 3:1-6 (NIV))

Are you a new creation in Christ?

Copyright 1998 – 2019 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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He is the Lord!

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”
(Revelation 1:8 (NIV))

God is good all the time!

Yesterday, today and tomorrow, He is the same. He is the Alpha and the Omega.

Now that we are facing a new year, we must remember that God is God and He never changes. No matter what year, this will always be true!

He is the Lord of the beginning and the end and everything in between.

Happy New Year!

Copyright 1998 – 2018 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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Are you ready for the Lord to do a new thing?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

This is what the LORD says–
he who made a way through the sea,
a path through the mighty waters,
who drew out the chariots and horses,
the army and reinforcements together,
and they lay there, never to rise again,
extinguished, snuffed out like a wick:
“Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland.
(Isaiah 43:16-19 (NIV))

January 1st !!!

A new year. A new beginning. If you are like me, you probably have plans to do things a little different in the new year. You have new hobbies. New family members. Perhaps you may even have a new job.

What makes the new year so different from the old year? Just because the calendar tells us it is the beginning of a new year is no reason to do anything different. Those changes can come at any time of your life, any day of the year. If you have wandered away from God, make a u-turn and come back to the embraces of a loving Father. He is still there. He is still the same.

Isaiah wrote of God doing a new thing. God has made a way in the desert. He has made streams in the wastelands. He sent Jesus into this world to give each of us a way to receive salvation. God became a man. That definitely was a new thing from our perspective. Now, we can come to God through Jesus.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
(Hebrews 13:8 (NIV))

If God came to this earth as Jesus, and Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, what does that mean to you? Will God continue to do new things? Personally, I don’t think that God is in the traditions business. All throughout the Bible, the people of tradition were the very people who tried to stifle what God was doing. God is in the business of drawing people to Him. Expect something new and wonderful. Open yourself up to that possibility and I believe that God will pour out countless blessings to those who earnestly seek Him and the new things that He does. It is important to not be fooled by the enemy. God will never contradict His Word. Study God. Study His Word so that you will know and be able to discern God’s still, small voice.

Happy New Year !

May it bring you abundant blessings from God so that you may be a blessing to others.

Copyright 1998 – 2017 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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Do you desire a new you in the new year?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”
(Revelation 1:8 (NIV))

God is good all the time! Yesterday, today and tomorrow, He is the same. He is the Alpha and the Omega. Now that we are facing a new year , we must remember that God is God and He never changes. No matter what happens when January 1 comes, God is still God.

Rejoice in the certainty of the promises of God. January 1 is the day that we look forward to as being able to have a new beginning. Rejoice that we can be washed as white as snow and be just like new any day that we accept Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior.

Are you ready to be a new creature in the New Year?

Do you desire a new you in the new year?

Happy New Year!

Copyright 1998 – 2017 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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What are your thoughts?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.
(Romans 12:3 (NIV))

Sadly, it is human nature to think more highly of ourselves than we should.

Is this something that you are guilty of at times?

Have you ever looked at someone and thought to yourself that you were glad that you didn’t have their particular sin to deal with? Do you realize that this is exactly what Romans warns against? We have a tendency to place ourselves above others. We think that our sins are nothing compared to the sins of others.

God looks at this much differently than we do.

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
(Isaiah 64:6 (NIV))

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
(Romans 3:23 (NIV))

We are all guilty of sin. Not a one of us is righteous on our own. All of us have earned something that none of us want to collect.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 6:23 (NIV))

As we move from the time that we celebrate as the birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, into a new year, all of us need to take the time to reflect on what God has given us. Have we accepted that gift? Have we realized that we are no better than anyone else? Have we learned to control our selfish thoughts? Have we learned to stop thinking of ourselves more highly than we should?

What are your thoughts?

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

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ^©

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”
(Revelation 1:8 (NIV))

God is good all the time!

Yesterday, today and tomorrow, He is the same. He is the Alpha and the Omega.

Now that we are facing a new year that brings uncertainty, we must remember that God is God and He never changes. No matter what happens when January 1 comes, God is still God, this will always be true!

Happy New Year!

Copyright 1998 – 2016 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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Are you filled with God’s new wine?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ^©

“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
(Matthew 9:16-17 (NIV))

This time of year can be a time of renewal. It can be a time of repentance. It can be so much more than the commercialization of the celebration of the birth of Jesus and the beginning of a new year.

Jesus came to bring new life to those who would call upon His name as Lord and Savior.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
(John 10:10 (NIV))

That fullness is celebrated yearly to be thankful for His birth, which brought grace. I am not privy to all of the reasons that December 25th was chosen, but I do like the symbolism that it presents to those who call upon His name. We celebrate the birth of forgiveness, mercy and grace and then we move right in to the celebration of a new year. In essence, we are renewed by grace and then begin a new year on the promises that grace has brought. We shed the old, worn out skins of our lives from that last twelve months and prepare ourselves with newness to face the world and to share His Gospel. Our lives are the wineskins. Sometimes, even the best of us need to have new wine poured into our lives. Sometimes, we need to be remade to accept that new wine.

Are you ready to face the new year?

Are you ready to be filled with the new wine from God?

Copyright 1998 – 2016 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
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Let God fill you with His Spirit in the coming year!

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ^©

“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
(Matthew 9:16-17 (NIV))

With the new year rapidly approaching, what are we going to fill ourselves with?

Society looks at the new year as a chance to make a clean start. We make resolutions about things that we plan on doing differently. We tell ourselves and others that we will lose weight, that we will exercise, that we will go to church more, that we will . . .

I could go on and on and list the things that we say we are going to do. Have you ever stopped to think that what we say we are going to do is comparable to the new wine and that we are the old wineskins? We cannot handle the new things without changing ourselves first. It is a matter of the heart. It is a matter of priorities.

If you go into an activity to lose weight and get in shape and you try to start full throttle, it usually doesn’t last long. We must start slowly and build up to what we long to do. The same is true of our spirituality and our relationship with Jesus. We must learn to crawl before we can walk. We must learn to walk before we can run. To use the concept that we are familiar with, we must be fed milk until we are mature enough for solid food.

Walking with Jesus, just like anything in this life, is not an activity that we can achieve perfection instantly. We will stumble. We will fall, and we will all have times when we will think that Jesus must really be shaking His head because of all of our failures.

Don’t give up!

A life spent walking with Jesus is just that. It is a life long event. It is a journey and not a destination. You can’t simply arrive at a point where you are perfect in your walk. You will be made new every single day of your life. You will be filled with new wine as your old wineskin is made anew.

I pray that we go in to this new year with the attitude that we will stand firm and stay the course that is laid out before us.

I like the way that Paul described it as a race and that he was in it to win it!

Happy New Year!

Copyright 1998 – 2015 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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God is the same no matter when we seek Him!

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ^©

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”
(Revelation 1:8 (NIV))

Human nature is such a funny thing.

What is your reaction when the grocery store that you normally go to is closed for some reason? Do you complain or do you simply adapt? What do you do when your favorite shirt is no longer suitable for public appearance? Do you throw it away or do you cling to it like a small child clings to a blanket? How do you react when your favorite magazine stops publication because the content is now readily available on the Internet? Speaking of the Internet, how do you react to reading something online versus reading it from a book that you can hold and feel?

Let’s face it, we are all creatures of habit. We have our routines and we all have our favorite things that we think that we could never do without. In all honesty, most people do not like change. Change is something that we fear. It is unknown.

Too many of us do not like anything to ever change, yet we often are guilty of saying that God is not the same as He was in the Old Testament. We have a double standard for what we expect of ourselves and what we think that God is like. We have heard the stories and we have read the passages that tell of God’s laws, yet we find it difficult to comprehend that God could remain the same for all eternity.

Personally, I like knowing that God is constant, that He is, and was and is to come.

If we spend time getting to know God through His Word, then we will know the very heart of God for all time. He doesn’t change. I honestly would not like having to constantly second guess what I was supposed to do because of a constantly changing god. That is not our God. That is not our creator, our Father. God is a God of eternity.

January 1 will soon be here. It is the beginning of a new year. Many people look upon this day as the opportunity to start fresh, to change what they have been doing. For humanity, change for the better is good, especially when that change means that we repent of our sins and turn to God. When we desire to change, isn’t it good to know that the One who welcomes us in our change, never changes. God will welcome us with open arms any day of the year.

Today is that day.

Happy New Year !!!

Copyright 1998 – 2015 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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Who am I?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ^©

But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
(Exodus 3:11 (NIV))

Who am I?

Have you ever said these words or thought these words? If you have, then you have not been the only one. You are in some pretty good company, for these very words were uttered by Moses and they were uttered by David.

Think about that last statement.

Two of the greatest heroes of the Bible have said the very words that you have said, and they said them to God! They were no different than you and I. They had human feelings and faults. They doubted their own worth in the eyes of God. They doubted that God could ever use them for His purposes.

Does any of that sound familiar?

It sounds human!

We have all experienced these very same feelings, yet having and expressing these feelings does not mean that God is giving up on you. It just means that He is still leading you to the place where He wants you to be. These words are only the end if we start to believe that we are of no use and importance to God.

I want to challenge everyone as we approach the beginning of another new year. I want to challenge each and everyone who reads this to realize that God has a plan for us. I want you to realize that the next time that you start to feel like you are of no use and you utter the words, “Who am I,” I want you to remember that you are the person that God sent His Only Son, Jesus, to die on the cross for. If God has called you to do something, remember who calls you. He will not call you for something that He plans to be a failure!

Copyright 1998 – 2015 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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