THE RESURRECTED LIFE--Day 1

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Day 1--God's Covenant with Abram  (Genesis 12, 15)

You may be wondering why I would include an Old Testament character in a devotional about heart and life transformation due to a relationship with Jesus Christ.  It is a good question, and I think you might be surprised at the answer.  Over the next three days you will clearly be able to see that Abraham was aware of the coming Messiah, and that he himself was directly involved in God’s marvelous plan for salvation.

In Genesis 12 we see that Abram was set apart by God, and was called forth from the country he knew, from all of his relatives, and from his own father’s house, to go to a land that he did not know.  God promised to bless him and make his name great.  Abram was 75 years old. 

He departed his home town of Haran, taking Sarai, his wife and Lot, his nephew, his servants, and possessions.  Can you imagine the faith that it took to leave everything familiar, safe, and secure in his life?  What would it require of us to respond in such a way?  Maybe, if we knew that surrender was required of us for the Savior’s purposes, we would respond with that level of obedience and faith. 

Abram wasn’t walking in blind faith.  God had clearly spoken a message to him that encouraged his heart to respond as he did.  In the initial promises of the covenant with Abram, God’s last words were these:  “And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”  Do you see the importance of this tiny revelation?  Abram was the beginning of the Hebrew (Jewish) race.  But God did not say that through Abram the Jewish families would be blessed.  He said that all the families of the earth would be blessed.  That included you and me!  Jews and Gentiles would be blessed through Abram and his seed. 

Today, it is important for you to consider what great things you have been told and promised in God’s word.  It is time to evaluate your life in order to measure your level of obedience to God’s words to you.  Are you going in the direction that God has asked you to go?  Your obedience is no less required of you than was Abram’s to fulfill God’s purposes.  Obedience is always our choice, and it flows out of our relationship with God, on in which we understand what is required of us.

40 Days of the Resurrected Life

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This is a season of preparation for Resurrection Sunday.  Many people celebrate by offering to remove something from their life for 40 days.  I offer you something quite different--a chance to see, in your life, a true spiritual resurrection.  By looking at the lives of 40 people who experienced this kind of radical change, I pray you too may be inspired to look within your own heart, to see the sin that dwells there, and to lay it down before the Resurrected Christ, with no intention of returning to it when the season of preparation is over.  This is true sacrifice and offering to God.  By taking such action, you will see that your life has been resurrected from sin and death!

Beginning tomorrow, February 29, you will find a daily devotional on this site that is designed to take you on such a journey.   If you would like to be prepared for Holy Week and the day we celebrate our Lord and Savior's Resurrection, this daily devotional will help you come to His cross in purity and holiness as you surrender yourself to Him day by day.

This devotional is not intended to be for your reading enjoyment.  On the contrary, it has been written so that you will be introspective.  It is designed so that you can ask yourself questions that will, hopefully, lead you to a true assessment of yourself and to a calling of God to be who He wants you to be.  You can also ask yourself which person in each devotional you most relate to or resemble.  And be prepared--sometimes you won’t like what you discover about yourself.  That’s alright…keep looking at your heart and asking the deeper questions!

Prayerfully read each Bible passage before reading the devotional, looking at the cross references as well.  They will add further insight to the daily story.  Your heart is of extreme importance to Jesus.  During these 40 days, be faithful to do what is necessary in order to bring a changed heart to the Resurrected Jesus.  Roll the stone away from your heart, and take a walk around in there!  Be open to discovering the things in you that are displeasing to God. When you discover something, tell God about it and ask Him to transform you by the reading of the Word, by prayer and by the Spirit.  Then begin to spend more time with Him, so that He can transform you.  It is through your relationship with Him that He will change you.

No matter how difficult, rejoice in the journey.   He has risen so that you may have a resurrected heart!  Hallelujah! 

And let me know that you are following this devotional by your comments and "likes."  That would be a delight to my soul! 

Setting Boundaries--Exodus 19: 10-12

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Humankind hates boundaries.  To them they, represent a lack of freedom.  Every boundary screams, "No!"   My children today do not like that word; neither did My chosen, Israel, in the days when I was leading them through the desert to their Promised Land.

On the day that I chose to meet with Moses on Mt. Sinai, in the wilderness, just 3 months after they had made their historic exit from Egypt, I set up boundaries for all the people except Moses.  I asked him to set up a boundary all around the perimeter of the mountain.  If anyone entered the restricted area, or even touched the border of the mountain, there would surely be consequences:  they would die!  

Now, don't misunderstand My heart; the boundaries were not set up to keep them away from Me.  On the contrary, I wanted them to draw near to Me, but spiritually close, not physically close.  You see, I desired for them to love Me by surrendering to My words and obeying what I said.  I desperately wanted My people to experience a special kind of freedom that can only be found in obeying Me.

It is so easy for you to think about My people, associating their desire to draw physically near to Me with their love and reverence for Me.  However, I was asking them to squash their own desires and feelings (what they wanted to do), and obey My voice instead (19:5).  To obey My words, they would have to make a conscious effort to submit themselves to My desires.  That kind of surrender shows Me their love, not running past My boundaries so that they could feel good.  

The same is true for you, My precious one.  When you ignore My sign saying that something is a "Restricted Area," running ahead with your own plans to meet your own desires, you are making an "Unauthorized Entry."  When you do that, you are walking in disobedience, and there are always consequences, whether you notice them or not.  

My boundaries are to protect you, but they are also to test you.  The boundaries I have set before you are not necessarily boundaries that I set for everyone.  I know what areas of your life need My protection and what areas that I need to test you in, so that your faith may be increased.  To enter where I have said "No!" is no freedom at all; it is disobedience that will lead you to bondage.  

Heed My sign, precious one, for what lies beyond it is a danger for you.  Walk the other direction, and you will be obeying My voice and keeping My covenant with you.  In this alone is your freedom. 

 

God's Warnings--Ex. 11

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My Precious One, how easy it is to ignore My warnings, when the one I am warning is you.  How equally easy it is to know of My warnings to another and judge their lack of response.  This morning as you read the passage concerning Pharaoh's final warning, it was easy for you to read it with the mind set that it was foolish for Pharaoh to ignore My 7 warnings and My 9 plagues.  Yet, that is exactly what you do when you know the behavior I desire from you, and you choose instead to ignore what you know that I have clearly asked of you.

Pharaoh could easily ignore My warnings and plagues because, with each time that he followed his own heart, his heart became hardened a bit more.  As he scoffed at the warning, not believing Me at all, it got easier to repeat the wrong response.  By the time I reached the tenth and final plague, his heart was so hard and unbelieving that he thought nothing of what Moses had said to him by prophecy.  He did not count the cost at all for his willful, stubborn disobedience.  His hard heart had already cost him much, but he was willing to overlook it, believing that, in the end, he would prevail over Me.  When Moses told him of the death that would be coming to all the firstborn of the Egypt, Pharaoh never considered that if Moses was speaking the truth (as he had 9 previous times), that he himself would lose his own firstborn.  Because his unbelief prevailed, all of Egypt went into deep sorrow and mourning when they witnessed the devastation that the Angel of Death delivered.

My Precious One, how many warnings from Me will you continue to ignore, believing that no real harm will come to you. Ignoring My warnings, those things that I have clearly laid out for you in My Word, leads to sinful disobedience.   And do you not know that your lack of concern for your disobedience reveals your true heart?  Your disobedience, at its core, is unbelief in Me, the One you say is your Lord.

Disobedience is its own form of unbelief.  When you disobey Me you are telling Me that you believe in your own, sinful heart's desires more than you believe in My ability to provide a way of escape for you.  Did you notice that every one of  My 7 warnings to Pharaoh included a way a repentance for him, a way for him to turn around and heed My warning?  You see, I desire to bring you to repentance, too.  Pharaoh never took Me up on it.  Will you?

I AM . . . The God of the Impossible--Ex. 6

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I purposed to use My servant Moses long before he became My servant.  My plan included 40 years in Egypt, followed by 40 years in Midian, but even that would not completely prepare him to be My servant in the  impossible ministry assignment that I was calling him to.  Between his 40 years in Midian and his Egypt assignment, Moses would have many questions and moments of unbelief.  The fear of Pharaoh and of what I was asking him to do, would cause him to want to run away from his calling.  It was in those "in between days" that I would teach Moses what it meant to be a servant.

Can you hear it in his questioning and unbelieving words?  This is what he said to Me:

• "Who am I to do this?"  (Ex. 3:11)
  
•  "What if my brothers ask who told me to come set them free?"  (Ex. 3:13)
  
•  "What if they will not listen to me?"   (Ex. 4:1)
  
• "What if I can't speak the words out?  You know I am slow of speech and slow of tongue!"   (Ex. 4:10)
  
• "Don't send me; send someone else!"  (Ex. 4:13)
  
• "Why did you bring harm to Your own people, and why have you sent me to help them?  I knew I wouldn't be able to do this.  I told You I wouldn't!"  (Ex. 5:22)
• "My people have not listened to me, so why do You think Pharaoh will?"  (Ex. 6:12)
• "I am not a good spokesperson.  My lips are unskilled.  Pharaoh will not listen to me . . . EVER!"   (Ex. 6:30)

Moses really only had one problem to overcome--his unbelief in Me!  Moses looked at Pharaoh, and then he looked at himself and his people, and he considered the task I gave him to be impossible.  And he was right!   His unbelief, and the  discouragement he felt when he did what I told him, to no avail, clearly show Me what I see over and over again when giving these difficult assignments to My children--that they are more impressed and have more clearly in their sights the problem, not Me.    You see, Moses looked a Pharaoh and was more impressed with what Pharaoh could do than what I could do.  Moses was not even glancing in My direction; he only saw the problem, Pharaoh.

When I give an impossible assignment, it is to teach one thing--that I Am the God of the impossible and that I am to be  trusted, Me alone.  I am utterly faithful to bring about what I say I will do.  It is up to My servants to put their faith in Me, not in  themselves and what they can do on their own.  They must even put the responses of their family and friends aside, and listen only to Me.  It is up to My servants to look to Me alone, not to the circumstances that I have allowed, for in doing so, they will experience fear instead of having complete trust  in Me.

Do you see that you have done this same thing?  I have given you an assignment that is bigger than you, bigger than your ability, bigger than the "helpful tips" others can give you.  But it is not bigger than Me!  Your trust and faith in Me has been growing over the years, but this assignment before you is to help you learn that you need ME!  I want to strip you of your self-reliance and self-sufficiency.  For My plan to be accomplished, you must surrender yourself to Me.  If you do not, then you are tying My hands, and My plan will fail.  I am waiting for your full surrender.

Are You Too Comfortable--Ex. 3:17

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Suffering . . . affliction . . . hardship.  This is exactly what My people were experiencing.  For 400 years they had been forced into labor for which they were receiving no pay.  Life was more than difficult; it was nearly impossible for them to live by faith in Me.  And remember, the Holy Spirit had not yet come, because I had not yet come.  And they had no Word of God by which they could be strengthened.  They only had the promises I gave to their forefathers, and the stories that had been passed down from generation to generation about Me.  And yet they cried out to Me in their suffering, and I heard their cries.  For these four centuries, I had not spoken to them, and they had learned to live where they had long since been planted.

Though you might think that they would be happy to hear from Me, in reality, My children, though suffering and calling out to Me to deliver them, had grown quite accustomed to their home in Egypt.  When Moses would bring the news that I was going to now move them to the land I promised them, they would surely FIRST think of what they perceived that they were leaving behind, as well as what such a journey to a new land would cost them. 

Can you really be so comfortable in your affliction, that you would choose to stay in it?  The answer, unfortunately, is yes, My precious one.  You see, that is exactly where you are today.  You are in this world, with all of its temptations and trials and suffering, while I am calling you to My world of living surrendered and obedient to Me.  You complain about how "hard" it is here, and yet you refuse to come away to the land I have promised you, the land of walking in the Spirit. 

You are far too comfortable in this place.  Your flesh balks at surrender, and so you continue to live in your Egypt. I have already said to your enemy (the world, the flesh and Satan), "Let My people go!"  when I died on the cross, rose again, and ascended into heaven to sit down at the right hand of My Father.  You have been set free and My Spirit lives inside of you, waiting to lead you.  But you are still choosing in several areas of your life to stay in your comfortable chair, with you feet kicked up, with the TV remote in one hand and your cell phone in the other.  And since you do not have a third hand, you comfortably set your laptop in your lap.

You cannot stay and go at the same time.  You must choose which land you want to live in, this place or My place.  If you follow Me out of your place, you will have struggles, but I will be leading, guiding, and protecting you. 

Will you get out of your comfortable chair . . . for Me?  You will never know what the land of promise holds for you if you don't.

The Sovereign Purposes of Affliction--Exodus 1

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Does it seem that I am far from you when you walk through the dry and parched desert of affliction?  The truth is, I am right there.  I was there for Israel, and I am there for you, too.  When life makes the least sense to you, you can be sure that I am at work, both in your circumstances and in you.

I sent Israel to the land of Egypt, during the time of the great 7 year famine over the entire land.  Joseph was already there, set in a position of power and authority, and he kept the clan of Israel alive so that the line of Messiah might be spared.  But Joseph didn't come to be in Egypt by pleasant circumstances.  He was afflicted by his own brothers, and then sold into slavery. That is what brought him there.  But never lose sight of the fact that I allowed the events.  Why?  Because My purposes would be brought to fruition in just this way.  Joseph grew up in Me as he walked out these heart-wrenching days of despair and anguish.

After his death, the ever-growing and strengthening nation of Israel had worn out the favor of the Pharaoh.  Fear and dread caused Pharaoh to put the Israelites to hard physical labor, not because they had done anything wrong; he did it simply because of his own pride.  Israel, My shepherds-by-trade were forced to become common laborers who would build the cities and memorials in a country that was not their own.  But no matter how difficult Pharaoh made it for My chosen people, no matter how harsh their affliction became, the plan of man would never, could never, overcome My great plan for a nation and the seed that would lead to My own Son.

For hundreds of years, My children toiled in impossible circumstances under the weight of terrible affliction.  But in that very affliction, I caused them to multiply immensely.  I kept them safe from intermarriage in Egypt that would have polluted the bloodline of Christ.  I held them safe and secure in My hand the entire time, preparing them for what would come next in My plan.  In their affliction they became the nation of Israel.  THAT was My goal.

How are you viewing the affliction, test, or trial I am allowing in your life right now?  Do not be discouraged in your desert, for I am the Conductor of this symphony in your life.  While it may sound loud and dissonant, with clanging cymbals and staccato and shrill notes, understand that I write the music.  Surrender to My will, and I assure you, the melody will become more pleasant to your ears.  Your posture in the desert should be the same as in the fruitful plains--kneeling in My presence.  It is there that you will see My face.