Mornings with the Master

Jesus Is With You

November 28, 2020 by Bill Leave a Comment

“I will never leave you; I will never abandon you.” (Hebrews 13:5 GNT)

God speaks to me a lot about our journey on the Path of Life. There have been so many lessons He has taught me “on the Path” and I want to share one with you today.

As the verse above says, if we have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, He is always with us wherever we go. But in this lesson, God showed me that Jesus may be in different locations with us on the Path. Try to picture these different scenarios.

Jesus will lead you. Picture yourself on the Path and Jesus in in front of you leading the way, holding out His hand, saying, “Follow Me.”. “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is good for you and leads you along the paths you should follow.” (Isaiah 48:17 NLT). “He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” (Psalm 23:3). Pay attention, keep your eyes on Him and follow Him. Now, sometimes it may be really dark, and you’re hesitant about moving on but you hear this: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12). Keep going.

Jesus will be beside you. Picture you and Jesus on the path and He is walking beside you maybe holding your hand. “I know the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me.” (Psalm 16:8 NLT).

Jesus will be behind you. You’re on the path wondering which way to go but you hear a loving, all-knowing voice right behind you encouraging you to go on. “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” (Isaiah 30:21). God told Jehoshaphat to go to the battle lines with Israel’s army when it seemed impossible for them to be victorious, but God was backing them up. (2 Chronicles 20).

Jesus will carry you. Sometimes you will be so worn out and burdened on the Path that you think you just can’t go on. Then: “I will be your God throughout your lifetime— until your hair is white with age. I made you, and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you.” (Isaiah 46:4 NLT). Even when you fall, He will pick you up and carry you if needed.

And the last thing I learned from the Mind of the Master was that this journey on the Path to our final destination is a process. God is with us all along the way, but He doesn’t want to carry us all the way. He wants to train us, to strengthen us, to teach us, to increase our faith and develop us so we can successfully complete our mission. You know, getting to Heaven is not the only mission we have. We are to be servants and helpers to others along the way. Jesus wants us to be changed: “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Be like Jesus, He’s with us…let’s go!

Resist

August 8, 2020 by Bill Leave a Comment

I have several things I read during my morning devotion time and one of them stood out to me recently. God speaks to me in different ways and, on this morning, it was the imagery in my mind or like a video playing to show me something. The prayer I read was, “Lord, may nothing separate me from You today.”, then, the video. I saw me and God walking on the narrow path of life, God leading the way. Then, suddenly, a temptation demon jumped out from the side of the path and stood between me and God. He had, what seemed to be, a desirable offer for me. I looked up at God and He says, “Your choice, what are you going to do?” (How many times has this happened to us?) We’ve all sinned and come short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23). “Well, I’ve submitted to you God (James 4:7), Your power is in me (Ephesians 6:10), and You’ve given me the authority to use it (Luke 10:19), so…” I turn to the demon and declare loudly, “Demon, I’ve submitted to God and I resist you. Get outta here before I stomp on you!” He gets a frightened look on his face and flees back into the bushes. Now, there is nothing separating me from God, nothing standing in the way. God smiles, nods His head and says, “Good decision. Now, let’s keep going.” Can you envision this scene?

We have to know the weapons we have and how to use them. We have to go out with the full armor of God in place. We have to have the confidence to draw our sword of the Word and stand! If we submit to God, resist the devil, and stand in God’s power and authority, the enemy has to flee. Are you ready? Are you equipped? Hey, are you walking with God? Let’s be prepared as we journey toward our destination.

Renew, Restore, Refill, Recharge

August 1, 2020 by Bill Leave a Comment

I have some scriptures I pray during my morning devotion time and recently I got a different view of them. They started with Psalm 51:10-12 and took me through a lesson that, apparently, I needed to hear and maybe some of you do as well. “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” (v. 10). The word “renew” stood out to me. It made me think of a magazine subscription that’s about to run out. We like the magazine and want to keep it coming so we do what’s necessary to renew it. Do we need to renew the Holy Spirit in us? King David thought so. Then, verse 12 says, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation” and that made me think of something that is old and not as useful or something that has run out but someone restores it to usefulness or to a fresh supply. Does our joy sometimes get low or run out so that we need it restored? God can and wants to do both of these things.

Continuing on that morning with this lesson, I thought about a vessel. The Bible says we are vessels, some fancy, and others for daily use, (2 Corinthians 4:7). But what good is a vessel if it’s not filled with something? Is it helpful to just sit on a shelf and look good? No, the apostle Paul said, “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;” (Ephesians 5:18). But you know, if a vessel is being used, at some point it needs to be refilled. We can pour out the Spirit in us to serve others but sometimes our pot may get cracked and need to be restored or rebuilt. Then we can be refilled. Do you see where this less is going?

And finally, the lesson reminded me that sometimes we need to be recharged. If we’re doing the work of God, being a servant and working to do His will, we can get burnt out or have our Spiritual energy drained. That’s when we need to plug back into God’s word, talk to Him and maybe fast for a time to get charged up again. When our phone’s battery is low, we plug it into a source of power. When we’re feeling low in Spiritual energy, we need to plug into the ultimate source of power, God. Isaiah 55:11 says, “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” I see this like an electrical circuit. God sends His Word, His power, to us as we plug into Him and, to complete the circuit, we speak that word back to Him in faith. Renew, restore, refill and recharge. Which ones do we need today?

Work

July 18, 2020 by Bill Leave a Comment

“Get to work!” Have you ever had someone say this to you? Maybe you were goofing off at school, taking a break at your job or supposed to be doing a chore at home. We all need to be working sometime unless you’re a baby. But wait, babies work at rolling over, crawling, walking, and learning new motor and cognitive skills. So, we all work at some time.

I have several scriptures I read each morning and noticed recently that several of them mentioned “work”. So, God says, “Do a blog post on work.” “OK God.”

Ephesians 2:10 – “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”. Think about that; we are a masterpiece of God, His handiwork! He worked on us before we were born fashioning us with certain gifts and abilities then made us a new creation when we accepted Jesus. And the old song says, “He’s still working on me to make me what I need to be.” (The Hemphills 1980). The reason God worked on and made us was for us to do “good works”; that’s what our gifts, talents and abilities are for. (If you’ve never taken a Spiritual Gifts Assessment, click this link to take an online survey and discover your gifts.) God has already prepared these jobs, missions, or assignments for us to do, given us the tools, and He’s there to help us do them. Let’s get to work!

Philippians 2:13 – “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.” As I said earlier, God is with you and in you by the Holy Spirit as you work for Him to do these “good works”. Because you’re using your special gifts, you will have the desire to do them, you’ll enjoy your work and you’ll be successful at it. And though, sometimes, you’ll feel weary on the job, God is providing you the power and wisdom to complete the task. And when you do, it makes Him happy. Let’s get to work!

Romans 8:28 – “And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.” Beware, there will be times on the job that it will seem things aren’t going according to the plan. The devil may throw, as we might say, a monkey wrench into the plan. You might pray, “God, what’s going on here? I don’t think this is how this is supposed to work.” To which He will reply, “Just hold on, I know what I’m doing. I’m working on a couple of things here so we can move on with this.” So, if we love Him and believe He called us to this work, we also believe it will end up good for us or for those we’re helping. Let’s keep working!

And finally, Ephesians 3:20 says: “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,”. We may have an idea of the work we’ve been called to do but our vision is very dim, (1 Corinthians 13:12). We may have asked God to do something in our lives and can “see” the expected outcome, but God sees so much more. He will be pleased with our accomplishment of the current task, but He always has more for us. He will never say, “OK, you’ve completed the work, you’re done, see ya later.” No, He always has something greater for us to do which will take us from, “glory to glory”. (2 Corinthians 3:18). Remember, with His power at work within us, there is nothing we can’t do. “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26). Jesus said this, do we believe Him?

So, God’s family members, we’ve got work to do. We have our assignments. If you don’t know yours, ask God. We’re all members of the Body of Christ and each one of us has the gifts, talents, and abilities to do the work of God for the church. We ARE the Church! Let’s get to work!

The Gadarene Demoniac

March 21, 2020 by Bill Leave a Comment

I do my devotions and Bible reading twice a day, in the morning and before I go to sleep at night. I keep a journal of inspirations that God gives me and lately I have gotten much more than usual. So, I’ve decided to record them here on my blog under the heading, Mornings With The Master and hashtag, #MorningswiththeMaster.

March 19, 2020 – I read something in one of my devotions about the Gadarene demoniac in Mark 5, who, “lived among the tombs. And no one could constrain him,” “night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones.” (v. 3,5). Here was this man, completely possessed by demons, many of them, to the point he was totally under their control. It made me think; “How did this begin, was he totally possessed from the beginning?” Then I thought of how the devil works. He usually temps us with something that we’re weak in, something that looks good to us. He’ll come to us with a big smile like he’s our friend and tell us, “Oh, it’s OK, it won’t hurt and it’s just this one time.” LIES! But, if we follow him into that sin, it may be OK for a while. So, he’ll come back with more. “each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” (James 1:14-15). The devil’s plan is step by step and, if we follow it, eventually we’ll end up like this Gadarene demoniac. And, once we get there, we are enslaved the devil is a slave driver! He’s out to, “kill, steal and destroy.” (John 10:10).

However, this man was not destroyed. He met Jesus. He was totally delivered. And, we can be too, no matter how enslaved we are. Like the man did, we can come running to Jesus and bow before Him.