Are you ready for Jesus?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ©

For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
(Matthew 24:27 (NIV))

Do you ever sit outside and watch the lightning as a storm approaches? Everything gets dark as the storm begins to build. The darker it gets, the worse the storm. Then, out of what seems like nowhere, lightning breaks forth and illuminates the sky. You never know where and when it will come, but you know that it will. You sit there in anticipation of the lightning. You sit there in awe of the splendor and the power. You sit there and watch in amazement at the lightning in the distance and you know that it is coming your way.

Take a serious look at the darkness of the storm that the world is currently facing. I am certain that some people will remember dark periods in their lives. There have been dark periods in not too distant history. The one thing that gave the world hope was a resolve to defeat the darkness. Today, too many people are more than willing to embrace the darkness.

We need the lightning!

We need Jesus!

I don’t know about you, but this passage gives me a mental image of Jesus coming in power and in light. He breaks the darkness with just His presence. He touches people here. He touches people there. His coming is like the lightning. It is a magnificent vision for those who have called upon His name as Lord and Savior. For those who have denied Him, it is one of sadness and fear.

Some believe that the Body of Christ will see this from the earth. Some believe that we will be by His side as He comes down from heaven. Either way, I can rest assured that this will be the most glorious entrance that the world has ever seen. It will be the most powerful display in all of history.

It will be a lightning show magnified by a heavenly host.

It will pierce the darkness. It will be a resounding victory just as we have been told.

Are you ready for the lightning? Are you ready for the power? Are you ready for Jesus?

Copyright 1998 – 2020 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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How can we serve Him while we wait?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”
(John 14:1-3 (NIV))

What imagery do you see when you read this passage? Do you focus on the splendor of the dwelling that you have the hope and the promise of attaining? Perhaps you focus on the shear number of dwellings that must exist. Perhaps you read that Jesus is preparing a place for you and then you realize that the Lord of all is personally taking care of your needs. These are all fantastic visions of what awaits, but I find solace in the last statement.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”
(John 14:3 (NIV))

Isn’t that amazing? Jesus, in all of His glory, is not only personally preparing our future dwellings, He will also come back personally and take us to be with Him. He is NOT sending an angel to come and pick us up. He is not using a GPS system or Mapquest to send us directions so that we can find our own way. He is coming personally to take us to be with Him.

Think about that. Jesus – King of kings and Lord of lords – loves us so much that He is coming for us. In fact, all of history is unfolding because He loves us and died on the cross so that we can receive salvation, grace and mercy. God’s Word tells of God’s love through His creation and how we, through Adam and Eve, fell from grace. The Old Testament shows us how we should live, but how we fail because of sin. It also points to a savior who will change all. Then, Jesus comes and shows us how to return to God. We are given a choice. We are given a free gift. Finally, those who trust in Jesus will be welcome home.

Jesus is that gift. Even now, He is still fulfilling these words.

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
(Mark 10:45 (NIV))

Jesus is preparing a place for us. Even in His Lordship, He is still serving us. How can we serve Him while we wait?

Copyright 1998 – 2019 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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Are you a new creation or do you still worry?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, `What shall we eat?’ or `What shall we drink?’ or `What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
(Matthew 6:28-34 (NIV))

God created us to enjoy life! Life is not yesterday. Life is not tomorrow. Life is today! Once this moment is gone it can never come back.

We do not need to worry for worry takes away from today. God gave us the ultimate relief from worry when He sent His Son, Jesus Christ to die for our sins. Once we accept this gift, we no longer have to worry about tomorrow and the consequences of sin.

If we have accepted this gift, we have died to our sin and are new creations through Jesus Christ!

Are you a new creation or do you still worry?

Copyright 1998 – 2018 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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Do you desire to exalt God?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ^©

“Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”
(Psalms 46:10 (NIV))

Many of you know that the first part of this passage is one that I refer to often, and rightly so. There is so much wisdom contained in the eight words of the first line. It instructs us to be patient, to be still and wait, to cease striving in our own efforts, and realize that He is God and we are not. It prompts us to recognize our rightful place as creation and His rightful place as Creator. It instructs us to put all of our trust and hope in Him, for we are not capable of doing anything on our own. I could go on with several different reflections on these eight words, and every single reflection would come to the same conclusion and that is that no matter how hard we try, we are an imperfect, fallen and sinful creation and God is the perfect Creator.

Have you ever truly thought about the next two lines of this passage?

I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”
(Psalms 46:10b (NIV))

Has it ever occurred to you that once we truly stop to know God, we will see Him for all of His majesty and splendor and we will desire to exalt Him?

Take another look at this passage from a different perspective. Look at it from an end times point of view. Was the psalmist telling us to know and to trust in God no matter what we may face, for when God’s timeline unfolds, He will be exalted and those who know Him will be by His side?

No matter what perspective you choose to use to understand this passage, there is one very clear message that we must never forget. We are to take the time to get to know God in all of His glory. We are to spend time in prayer. We are to spend time in God’s Word. We are to commit to knowing God the way that we commit to knowing anyone that we love. We should desire to know God’s very heart. We should desire to seek His presence. We should desire to see His will be done.

What do you desire?

Copyright 1998 – 2016 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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We need to return . . . to God!

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ^©

Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;
worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness.
(Psalms 29:2 (NIV))

In today’s society, too many people attribute things to God that just aren’t true. These include a false understanding of God’s glory, splendor and holiness.

Does God love us unconditionally?

Does God accept sin?

How many ways are there to God?

Does God accept our definition of Him?

Does God accept our attempts at working our way to Him?

I could go on and on, but I believe that you can understand when I say that we ascribe attributes to God that just are not true. We, as a society do this because we no longer find it appropriate to study God’s Word. As a result, we honestly don’t know any different. We don’t find it appropriate to talk about God in public. We have turned the Creator of all things into a subject that we feel is unfit for public display and consumption. We don’t find it appropriate to allow God in schools, and as a result, we wonder why our society is full of people who have no moral basis.

We need to return to giving God the glory. We need to return to worshipping God. We need to return to the realization that God is holy.

In other words, we need to return to God!

We are only a few days away from when we celebrate God reaching out to His creation to offer us salvation, to offer us a way out of our sin. Now is an excellent time for us to show the world that we accept that offer and that the offer is available to anyone.

God, in all of His splendor, sent His Son, Jesus, to bring us back to Him. Through Jesus, God has ascribed to us the righteousness that we seem to want to deny to Him.

It is time to return to a full understanding of God and not the watered down person that the world claims that He is!

Copyright 1998 – 2014 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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The truth is that God loves us!

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ^©

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?
(Psalms 8:3-4 (NIV))

Isn’t it amazing that the Creator of all that we know, and all that is beyond our imagination, cares for us unconditionally?

All of the splendor and majesty that is God’s creation pales in comparison to the love that God has for us, part of His creation. In all of creation, we, as humans, are uniquely loved. We, after all, were created in God’s image.

Those who believe in evolution claim that we are descendants of apes. Isn’t it interesting that there is evidence that Charles Darwin denounced his own theory and professed a faith in Jesus Christ? Isn’t it interesting that many of the same scientists who were claiming that everything can be explained scientifically are now saying that the odds of everything happening are so astronomical that the universe had to have been designed?

Man can try to say that we are gods, or that we are no more than evolved apes, yet, the truth is that God loves us so much that He sent His Son, Jesus to die on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. There are skeptics who do not wish to admit this. They say that Jesus was not a real person. They choose to ignore the fact that there is more evidence that says Jesus lived and did what the Bible says than there is evidence that they exist! When you look at the facts, the facts don’t lie.

The truth is that God loves us and does not wish for any of us to perish.

Copyright 1998 – 2013 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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We are of great value to God

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ^©

Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.
(Luke 12:27 (NIV))

All of us are guilty of it. We all worry about what we will wear, what we will eat, where we will live, and many other things that consume us on a daily basis.

Jesus’ words tell us not to worry about such things, for God cares for the lilies, and they are of less importance than us. God clothes them in such splendor that nothing we do can match them, yet God loves us and cares for us more than the lilies. They are fleeting and are gone in a very short period of time. Once they are gone, there is no trace of them. They do not leave this world and have the opportunity to spend eternity with God. Only one created being has that opportunity.

Would God allow us to go beyond His grace and mercy. It is true that humanity must work for food. Look at the Garden of Eden and the aftermath. Jesus was not saying that we did not need to not work, for God said that we would toil for our food. What is implied is that we are of far greater value to God than the lilies, and that God has a far greater reward for us.

Calling upon the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ, will allow us to be clothed in righteousness, something that no other created being can achieve. Being righteous before God is far more spectacular than anything that the lilies may show.

Copyright 1998 – 2013 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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