A Little Walk With God

A daily devotional through the recorded words Jesus spoke while He walked alongside us. Our website http://alittlewalkwithgod.com.

The thing to fear are those who would tell us that God’s word doesn’t need to be followed. The thing to fear are those who lead us to certain destruction by lulling us into thinking God doesn’t care about what we believe or that a God of love would not let anyone be doomed to an eternity without Him. The problem with that thinking is that God isn’t the one doing the dooming. He isn’t the one sending us there. God isn’t the one who make the choice about our eternal destiny.

God takes His hands off of that decision. He lifts His omnipotence in that one area and gives that choice to each of us. We decide if we will spend eternity in heaven or hell. We decide if we will follow Him or not. We decide if we will face eternal reward or eternal punishment. God is love. That’s why He made a way for us to be with Him forever. But He also expects us to choose His way. If we choose not to follow Him, He has told us the consequences. There is no doubt about the outcome. We are empowered to choose the path.

So now what do we do? Should we fear the paltry issues the media seems to throw in our faces to raise their ratings and get us to watch their newscasts? Should we shed crocodile tears over the meaningless headline that won’t last another week before something else hits the news and takes its place? Should we fear these false Armageddons that society tells are happening all around us that might disrupt our personal comfort and pleasures?

I think it’s time we pull out the rule book of the One who will be our final judge, the One who checks our actions against our stated beliefs and looks into our hearts to see how it all matches up. I think it’s time we figure out He’s the One we need to start paying attention to and live up to His expectations. If we choose not to, then it’s time to really be in fear. Then it’s time to check the sky and see if this is the day He comes to take out His vengeance on those who fail to follow Him.

What should we fear in these days? Only God.

Read it in a year - 1 Peter 4-5

see the whole year's plan here

A daily devotional through the recorded words Jesus spoke while He walked alongside us. Our website http://alittlewalkwithgod.com.

I’ve seen some incredible things happen with technology in my 62 years of life. Sixty years ago, going to the moon was just a dream. Now we’ve been there and most of the people alive today, were born after the historic even when John Armstrong set foot on that dusty surface. Going to the moon is ancient history for our children, after all, that was almost fifty years ago!

Our school aged kids have never known a world without smart phones or remote controls or televisions with that little white dot in the middle of the screen when you turned it off. They don’t know how a record player or 8-track works and might have never seen one. They don’t know a world without calculators or computers. They’ve never seen a slide-rule and certainly wouldn’t know how to use one if you gave it to them. Even 9/11 happened before our high-school freshmen were born.

So, knowing the advancement of technology in just my life, is it hard to think that God can display my life or yours for everyone to see? Pretty simple, isn’t it. Not even a magic trick anymore, is it? Jesus says everything we do in public or private will be revealed one day. It pays to remember and let God be your guide all the time.

Read it in a year - Acts 15-16

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A daily devotional through the recorded words Jesus spoke while He walked alongside us. Our website http://alittlewalkwithgod.com.

I mentioned Jesus earlier words, “A kingdom divided against itself will collapse.” So what will we do in the coming days? As Christians we can teach our brothers and sisters to act like Christ rather than the scribes He speaks to in the words we heard today. We can stand in the way and build those barriers. We can continue to criticize the other side and talk about how terrible the other party is and how corrupt the opposition has become. We can complain about how poorly run the government will be because of the divide and how nothing will get done.

Or we can do something remarkable as Christians. We can lift every newly elected official in prayer. We can send them messages of encouragement and stand behind them as our leaders regardless of their party affiliation. We can determine that together we can bring unity to our land, not a party member, but as an American. We can forget about color and gender and race and socioeconomic standing. We can begin to show the love of God to all the people who live in our neighborhood and show them what really matters is belonging to the Kingdom of God and nothing more.

Did your candidate win? It doesn’t matter because God allowed Mr. Trump to win the Electoral College vote. Never forget that! God allowed the 45th President of the United States to have never held a public office, never served in the Armed Forces, never been a government employee. God allowed the election to turn the way it did. This has not surprised Him. So what do we do now?

“If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” See, we have not elected the right candidate in a long time. It’s time we get down to business, quit complaining, quit acting like the scribes and Pharisees, humble ourselves, turn from our wicked ways, and pray folks. Our nation needs it, our leaders need it, we need it, I need it. It’s time.

Read it in a year - SCRIPTURE

see the whole year's plan here

A daily devotional through the recorded words Jesus spoke while He walked alongside us. Our website http://alittlewalkwithgod.com.

The Pharisees tried to look prim and proper and keep all those external appearances up for everyone who could watch them. They didn’t know Jesus could see into the recesses of their spirit. But He could. He could open their Fibber’s closet door and watch the cascade of junk come tumbling out onto the floor. He could see all the things they tried to hide from everyone else. He knew their heart and wouldn’t let them keep their facade.

Jesus does the same with each of us. We might keep up appearances for a long time with those who see us occasionally or even see us a lot. But Jesus sees through us. He knows us intimately. He knows all our hidden secrets and opens the doors even we have forgotten about to reveal the things we need Him to sweep out of our lives. And He always comes with a bright light and a broom. He’s ready to clean out all those cobwebs and dirty corners. But He won’t go where He is not invited. Until we invite Him in to do His work in our lives, He remains on the outside and just knocks at the door asking to come in. Only when we open the door of our hearts and lives will He enter to do His work.

So what will it be for you? Will you continue to let Fibber McGee’s closet be the description of your life with all the junk that needs cleaned out? Or will you let the One who can purify your life from the inside out take charge and become the Lord of your life. All you have to do is open the door and let Him in. What do you say?

Read it in a year - Ecclesiastes 5-6

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A daily devotional through the recorded words Jesus spoke while He walked alongside us. Our website http://alittlewalkwithgod.com.

So what would Jesus say to us if He came to visit? Do our services and our institutions look like we have OCD? Do we get so wrapped up in the routine activities that just have to be done in just the right order and just the right way that we forget why we come to church in the first place? Do we forget that what God wants from us is our worship and that when we gather for fellowship it isn’t the ritual that’s important but the relationships we build with people that supersedes everything else? It’s not what we eat or what we drink or how we wash our hands or how we set the table or whether the silverware matches the plates or the napkins match the tablecloth. None of that matters if we love people and care about the relationship we are building.

The Pharisees took their rituals to an extreme to try to assuage their spiritual conscience. It didn’t do any good. They still didn’t meet God’s standard because what God wanted was their devotion and love for each other. They could give neither as long as they were so focused on getting the ritual right. It’s the same with us. Until we get it right and love God and each other, we, like the Pharisees, will try to substitute our rituals, our activities, for the right stuff. Like Jesus says, “Guys, get it right!”

Read it in a year - Psalms 128-130

see the whole year's plan here

A daily devotional through the recorded words Jesus spoke while He walked alongside us. Our website http://alittlewalkwithgod.com.

It’s a shame we can’t figure out spiritual maladies the way we do physical maladies. Satan has clouded our vision so we walk through this world with cataracts if we let him. But Jesus wants to be that ophthalmologist that performs the needed surgery on our eyes so we can see clearly once more. He wants to remove those diseased lens so we can see the way God meant the world to be, not the way we have perverted it through our sinful ways. He can correct our vision so we can see the way we should, we can see through His eyes of love and recognize those who need the same vision correction He gives us. Then we can introduce them to the physician who can help their spiritual vision, too.

Walking around blindly today is dangerous. There are too many pitfalls and dangers to just strike out without sight. Even the physically blind today go through months of training or use support animals to help them through the perpetual night. But the spiritually blind, talk about dangerous. Our eternal destiny is at stake. Satan tries to make us believe that God is too kind to let any of us go to hell. He’s going to save us all, Satan tells us. God is love, after all, right?

But it’s one of Satan’s lies. You see, God doesn’t send us to hell. We send ourselves there. God is love. He made a way of escape for us, but we must take it. The means of salvation is there, but it is still our choice. Ted Bundy’s mother loved him, but it didn’t keep him from choosing to become a serial killer. We make our own choices. I choose to spend eternity with God or with Satan. It is my choice. I choose to let Jesus open my eyes to His light and follow Him. How about you?

Read it in a year - 2 Chronicles 33-36

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A daily devotional through the recorded words Jesus spoke while He walked alongside us. Our website http://alittlewalkwithgod.com.

There are dozens of translations of the Bible. Pick one or two or three. Read them all. If you don’t like the way one translates the Hebrew and Greek language, read another. What you’ll find is that they all say about the same thing. Unless you can find one that has perverted the language, you’ll see that dozens carry the same message, the same language, the same warnings and admonitions. The truth hasn’t changed, no matter how much people want it to.

Yes, there are some things that we know are cultural in God’s word. But the flavor of God’s word speaks to us through the ages despite the culture or time or political theories you hold. God’s truth is still viable for every generation and if we follow His word, we find peace with Him now and throughout eternity. He will be the one to judge us at the end of time. We should read His instruction manual and do what it says. We will be judged by that book.

Regardless of whether we want to set up some other method of measurement, He gave us the rules to follow. Don’t you think it makes sense to follow the manual He gives instead of something someone else made up? It certainly does to me. Moses told the Israelites to meditate on God’s law day and night. When you get up in the morning and when you go to bed at night. When you sit down and when you stand up. Meditate on it all the time. We don’t do that. Apparently neither did most of them or they wouldn’t have fallen as far from the path as they did.

Everybody wants a sign. Everybody wants proof. What we really need is to read God’s word. When you do, that will be proof enough. Trust me.

Read it in a year - Deuteronomy 10-12

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A daily devotional through the recorded words Jesus spoke while He walked alongside us. Our website http://alittlewalkwithgod.com.

What do we learn from these three verses that Luke records for us? First, there are demonic spirits in the world. Satan has the ability to infill us with His demonic spirits if we let him.

Second, Satan’s demons can be removed from our lives.

Third, Jesus’ words tell us that we need to replace those evil spirits with God’s Spirit in us.

Fourth, Jesus tells us that if we don’t fill our lives with His spirit, we are in danger of falling further from Him than we were before He drove out the sin and evil the first time.

These words from Jesus give us ample warning about the way Satan works in our lives. We need to be careful to fill our lives with God or risk the dangerous consequences Jesus describes. Don’t take the chance. Let God fill that hole in your life.

Read it in a year - 1 Peter 1-3

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A daily devotional through the recorded words Jesus spoke while He walked alongside us. Our website http://alittlewalkwithgod.com.

Rahab made a decision when the spies came to see her that she lived on the wrong side and wanted to be on Joshua’s side, on Jehovah’s side. So she told those two spies everything she knew about Jericho. She hid them on her roof and protected them from the soldiers that came to her house to find them. She gave the spies the information they needed to get back to their own people on the other side of the Jordan and share their information with Joshua. Rahab got on the side of the man she knew was stronger and would win the final battle.

Jesus asks the same question with His metaphor. “When a man of power with his full array of weapons guards his own palace, everything inside is secure. But when a new man who is stronger and better armed attacks the palace, the old ruler will be overcome, his weapons and trusted defenses will be removed, and his treasures will be plundered.”

He is that stronger man. Satan wants you to think he is. He wants you to think maybe you are and that you can stand up to everything the world throws at you by yourself, but you can’t. You need God to stand against the tide of evil that we face every day. So Jesus still asks the same question He asked those gathered around Him that day 2,000 years ago. Whose side are you on? Are you working for Him or against Him? Those are your only choices and depending on which side you’re on will make a huge difference as to whether you survive the fall of the wall of Jericho so to speak. Make sure you make the right choice.

Read it in a year - Acts 13-14

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A daily devotional through the recorded words Jesus spoke while He walked alongside us. Our website http://alittlewalkwithgod.com.

So can we judge the behavior of others? Yes and we should these days. Satan is trying his best to use that “don’t judge” phrase to trap us into all sorts of tolerance for evil. Stop! Judge others for their evil behavior. But also let God shine His light on your own and become Lord of your life by being obedient to Him. Only then do we have any chance of finding unity of any kind in this world.

Remember what Jesus called us to as His disciples? If your answer was unity, you got it right. That doesn’t mean we’ll all be Democrats or Republicans or Green Party or any party. It means we’ll be children of God and get along even in this crazy mixed up ridiculous election year.

All that said, don’t forget to pray for all of the candidates because someone will win each seat up for election and lead us for the next several years. Each of them need God as their God whether they know it or not. According to His word, many will use their own wisdom instead of His, unfortunately. He’s coming to take us home where we will be unified. But if we call ourselves Christians here, we better be getting along. It’s one of those qualities He expects in us.

Read it in a year - Haggai

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