Inside Woman

Jesus met with Nicodemus in the night, a relationally broken woman at a Samaritan well, and Matthew at a party thrown for tax collectors. He befriended prostitutes, recruited zealots, and pronounced forgiveness for known adulterers. God, in Christ, has definitely demonstrated his willingness to go to the gutters of society to change the lives of sinners by His truth and grace.

So know this. The Holy Spirit will pursue you to the darkest, deepest, dirtiest corners of life. He’ll meet you right where you are, no matter your story or situation. No place is off limits.

However, once he finds you there, you need to be prepared for his invitation to leave the gutter and follow him. He loves you, just like you are, but he loves you too much to leave you that way. He always has a better plan for your life than what you or your culture has had for your life.

My favorite unofficial title for the Holy Spirit is The Difference Maker. He changes the game. When the Holy Spirit gets involved, dead people come back to life, scared people find courage, and wanderers come home. Just listen to this…

But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord — who is the Spirit — makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.
– 2 Corinthians 3:16-18 NLT

The big truth of the Apostle Paul’s words is this: God meets you right where you are, but he doesn’t leave you there. He will radically change you, from the inside out, to look like Jesus.
And how?

He unveils our eyes so that we can see spiritual realities beyond the physical world.
He grants us the freedom to pursue him passionately and live differently than we lived before.
He uses the mirror of God’s Word to shape us into the likeness of Jesus Christ.

Change may be something that’s hard for you, but that might be because you’ve tried to adapt to external changes without an internal power like the presence of the Holy Spirit. The good news is that the Creator, the Architect, the Artisan who hand-crafted you in his own image wants to move into the broken you and fix, over your lifetime, all the ways in which his image is marred.

God wants to change your life. But he doesn’t force or coerce us. He invites. He draws. He even warns. But he leaves the choice to you and to me. Will we say to him, with unreserved abandon, have your way, Lord?

Written: Brandon Cox

Devotional - Friday, July 15, 2016

God wants to change your life

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“We were created for good works that God planned in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:10

Everything in our society teaches us to use our abilities for ourselves – make a lot of money, retire, be comfortable and die. That’s the dream. But deep down inside we know we were made for more than that. We know instinctively that there is a bigger purpose in life. There is a desire to make a difference.

You weren’t created just to consume resources — to eat, breath, and take up space. God designed you to make a difference with your life. You were created to add to life on Earth, not just take from it.

We know that Christ came to earth to model this life style, “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).

When we follow Jesus, he empowers us for a life of service. The more we become like Jesus, the more we will serve others.

Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be GREAT must become a servant.” Mark 10:43 (MSG)

The world defines greatness in terms of power, possessions, prestige, and position. If you can demand service from others, you’ve arrived. In our self-serving culture with its me-first mentality, acting like a servant is not a popular concept.

Jesus, however, measured greatness in terms of service, not status. God determines your greatness by how many people you serve, not how many people serve you.

This is so contrary to the world’s idea of greatness that we have a hard time understanding it, much less practicing it.

Everyone wants to lead; no one wants to be a servant. We would rather be generals than privates. But to be like Jesus is to be a servant. That’s what he called himself.

Having the heart of a servant is to be like Christ.

Your service is essential to the Body of Christ, the church. Each of us has a role to play, and every role is important. There is no small service to God; it all matters.

There are no insignificant ministries or serving opportunities in the church. Some are visible and some are hidden behind the scenes, but all are valuable. Are the hidden parts of your body important? Small or hidden ministries often make the biggest difference.

There is no correlation between size and significance. Every ministry matters because we are all dependent on each other to function.

What happens when one part of your body fails to function? You get sick. The rest of your body suffers. Imagine if your liver decided to start living for itself: “I’m tired! I don’t want to serve the body anymore! I want a year off just to be fed. I’ve got to do what’s best for me! Let some other part take over.”

What would happen? Your body would die. Today thousands of local churches are dying because of believers who are unwilling to serve. They sit on the sidelines as spectators, and the Body suffers.

God calls you to life far beyond anything you could ever imagine. He created YOU for a life of good deeds, which he has already prepared for you to do. (Ephesians 2:10). Whenever you serve others, you are actually serving God and impacting eternity.

There are three things you can do with your life: You can waste it, you can spend it, or you can invest it. The best use of your life is to invest it in something that will last longer than your time on earth.

Adapted from some of my favorite devotions on service.

Devotion by Darrell Koop

Devotionals - Friday, April 15, 2016

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Lord, give me wisdom and a hearing heart

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In any construction project, there is a specific order in which you have to do things. Obviously, you don't just start by having the carpenters show up and start putting up the building. There has to be a foundation laid first, but you can't lay the foundation or start building until you have the detailed plans for the building. It takes contractors, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, pavers, and heating and air conditioning people, but first you need the architect! Without his design, it would be mass confusion at the construction site.

Maybe what you've been trying to build hasn't been going the way you hoped, or the love and the happiness that you were planning isn't working out like it was supposed to. Maybe you've been able to build your life pretty much as you wanted; the building is up, but you're not satisfied living in it. There's restlessness, confusion, disappointment, and maybe loneliness.

If your plans haven't worked, or if your plans haven't given you what you were looking for, it's time to go back and start with the Architect. In the Word of God in Psalm 100:3, God says, "Know that the Lord is God. It is He who has made us and we are His; we are His people, the sheep of His pasture." Three times God tells us whose we really are—we are His. We are made by our Creator and for our Creator, to live by our Creator's plan. We are sheep led by an all-powerful, all-loving Shepherd.

Why is our life turning out to be so confusing and unfulfilled? We've tried to build our life without the Architect who gave us our life. In Isaiah 53:6, God says, "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way." We're wandering without our Shepherd; we're building without our Architect.

When a media house asked what the one question they would like to ask God, by far the answer most given was, "What is the purpose of my life?" If you've wondered that yourself, realize the reason we don't know that is that we're away from the One who gave us our life.

Even though we have rejected our Architect and His plans, He loves us so much that He paid an awful price to get us back. We've all gone our own way, "And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity (or the wrongdoing) of us all" (Isaiah 53:6). Jesus Christ, God's only Son, went to a cross where He paid the death penalty for all the sinning you have ever done. It's possible to actually belong to the One who made you and who loves you most, and to have Him move into your heart and give you His inner guidance system to follow the plan you were designed for.

If you want to belong to Jesus Christ and come home to your Creator, tell Jesus that you're putting your total trust in Him to forgive all your sin and to change your life. Find spiritual encouragement and belong to Jesus today. Haven't you lived enough years building it your way?

Let today be the day that you begin living by the plans that you were made for. In the words of the Bible, you were "Created by Him and for Him." You can begin today living in a love relationship with the Person who made you.

By Ron Hutchcraft

Devotional - Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Starting With the Architect

In any construction project, there is a specific order in which you have to do things. Obviously,...

Inside Woman

God wants to change your life

How to live a simple Christian Life

Created for Greatness

Lord, give me wisdom and a hearing heart

Gossip is destructive

Starting With the Architect

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