A Little Walk With God

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

So we have all of the evidence of who Jesus is. We have the stories. We have the testimonies of the disciples and the early church leaders. We have the faith of those early Christians who even suffered martyrdom for Christ. Would they do that if all of it were not true? Would they suffer the kinds of death they faced if Jesus were a farce? I don’t think so.

So we have 2,000 years of historic facts behind us. The Pharisees Jesus spoke to had only His words at the time and the gossip they heard from the uneducated masses that told them about this man who could perform miracles and must be God. We know. We have the evidence. We have the witnesses. We have God’s words handed down to us. What more do we need to believe Jesus is the Son of God? If you don’t believe Him now, like the Pharisees, you probably wouldn’t believe if He stood in front of you. What do you need to do about it? Exercise a little faith in Him. That’s all. Stop doubting and believe.

Read it in a year - Mark 3-4

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 understand what Jesus talks about in these words. Especially as He goes on to talk about what comes out of our mouth. I understand that good fruit doesn’t come out of good plants. I can attest to that as I’ve tried my hand at growing tomatoes and cucumbers a couple of times. And you know what? Good tomatoes and cucumbers never grew from the bad plants I managed to grow. My friends and neighbors could have bumper crops, but my scawny little vines would just produce…nothing.

So it is with the words we speak. When we are dried up and rotten inside, we can’t get good words out that will bless and edify others. For us to really help lift others with our words, we need to be right on the inside. That’s what Jesus is telling these blowhard religious leaders. They can’t help the people they are supposed to be leading because they are rotten on the inside. Nothing good can come from them until they clean up their act from the inside out.

Read it in a year - Isaiah 62-66

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.

People worry a lot about this saying of Jesus. What does it mean to blaspheme God’s Spirit? What is the unpardonable sin? Have I committed it? Am I beyond God’s grace for what I have done?

Satan tkes these words of Jesus and causes many to bail out. To think they are so far down the path of sin that God can’t forgive them. Satan makes them feel so bad about themselves that they just know God must feel the same way and would never let them into His kingdom. So they give up. They stay at the bottom of the pit and feel utterly hopeless. But that is just another lie of Satan. Remember, Satan is the father of lies. He will do anything he can to keep you from giving yourself to God.

Read it in a year - Job 21-22

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.

When others see us failing in God’s plan to enlarge His kingdom through the missions He gives us individually, to make disciples out in the world, it tarnishes God’s name. It says God can’t do what He says He can do. It tells others He has limited power and authority. As Christians we know that is not true, but Satan blinds us and convinces us it’s okay not to obey, let someone else gather people into the fold. Let someone else do the discipling.

That’s not our marching order from our Savior. So will you be doing the Father’s work of gathering the flock, or will you scatter the flock by your inactivity? Again, you get to make the choice. Choose the right path!

Read it in a year - Psalms 30-32

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.

Have you ever been guilty of the Pharisees’ crime, trying to give credit to the wrong spiritual side? They tried to give credit to Satan for the work Jesus did. Particularly His work in driving out demons from the possessed. They just couldn’t come to grips with Jesus being the Son of God as many claimed. He kept fulfilling the prophecies they kept reading to the people. But surely, this carpenter’s son from Nazareth could not be the Messiah they looked for. Surely, the Messiah would come from the priestly line and would be born in their capital among the priests. After all, they were the leaders of Israel. Everyone expected their Messiah to come from the proud lineage of Levi.

So the Pharisees disregarded what they saw in front of them and declared Jesus’ miracles must be a product of Satan’s work. But they didn’t use their head and think it through. Just like we too often make rash statements without thinking them through. Jesus’ retort put them in their place, still they plotted to kill Him because He disrupted their system of religious rules. He made them introduce love and mercy and hope into their religious equation, characteristics they were not ready to adopt as the harbingers of justice, not mercy.

Read it in a year - 1 Samuel 1-5

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.

Do we get mixed up in what is really right and wrong? The Pharisees did. Jesus used this opportunity with their condemnation of His disciples for their gathering a handful of wheat to teach them a lesson about God’s goodness. What is really important? Doing good or setting and keeping stupid rules? Granted, the rules help to keep us in line most of the time, but sometimes, the rules just don’t make sense. That’s what He was trying to tell these holier-than-thou leaders. People are more important than rules. Relationships are more important than rituals.

Read it in a year - Genesis 40-43

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.

One of the things necessary to build a relationship with God is obedience. And one of the things He demands of us is mercy to others. Because He shows us mercy, we should show mercy to others, something the Pharisees seemed to have in short supply. They were ready to condemn Jesus’ disciples for being hungry and eating a few grains of wheat on the Sabbath. Their rules said you couldn’t harvest on the Sabbath and the disciples act of running their hand across a ripe stalk of wheat growing in the field and eating those few grain, they considered harvesting.

Read it in a year - 1 Corinthians 5-6

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.

So what’s your hangup? What is it that you just can’t get over someone else doing that you think must be wrong? Take a look at it again from Jesus’ perspective. Is it one of those that He would same the same thing He did to the Pharisees about their comments to Him about the Sabbath? It’s not that observing the Sabbath is wrong. It’s not that your particular hangup is wrong. (sorry, I probably shouldn’t call it that). But sometimes the things that we think are just so important, are not. God wants more out of us. He wants a relationship with us and that doesn’t come through those rituals and rules and habits we think are so important. Relationship comes through listening and talking and doing things together. And since He’s God and we are not, doing the things He wants us to do. It means reciprical love. You know God loves you, He wants you to love Him back.

Can it be that simple? Can our spiritual life be summed up as simply as that? Yes! His word says it is so simple that even a fool doesn’t need to miss it. So unless you want to call yourself dumber than a fool, it’s not that hard to figure out. Let Him be Lord!

Read it in a year - Mark 1-2

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.

Until we come to Him, we’re like a private in basic training, unfamiliar with that equipment. He puts it on, but doesn’t know how to make it fit right. It jostles and rubs and pushes in the wrong places as he moves through training and everyday he goes back to the barracks with more bruises and sores than the day before. Until finally, he gets smart and asks his drill sergeant for help. That’s all the drill has been waiting for. Helping the new recruit understand that he’s not alone and can’t make it by himself. He needs someone else to show him the way.

That’s what Jesus does for us. He’s like that drill sergeant just waiting for us to realize how desparately we need Him, come to Him and ask for His help. He willingly gives it. But He doesn’t force Himself on us. He wants us to desire Him, not be robots that just jump because we’re programmed that way. He desires us to love Him the way He loves us. So He tells us to come along side Him in His work, share His yoke. He will take the heavy load and give us the lighter burden. Just as with a team of oxen, the lead ox takes the heavy load. That’s just what Jesus invites us to do as He invites us to come to Him.

Read it in a year - Isaiah 56-61

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.

All of us have access to His word today. All of us are in the same boat as Chorazin and Bethsaida and Capernaum. We have no excuse. We can read the scriptures and know the truth. If we choose not to listen to His word, that is our fault, not God’s. If we choose not to take advantage of the resources available to us, that is our fault, not God’s. If we choose not to learn about Him, that is our fault, not God’s. At judgment, we will be as guilty as these three cities Jesus points out in the words we consider today. If we fail to take advantage of His words, listen to Him and follow Him, it’s our fault, not His.

God has done everything He can to make salvation available to us. But He won’t make the choice for us. The one area in which He has removed His power is in respect to our moral choice. We can choose to do right or wrong. We can choose to make Him Lord of our life or not. We can choose to live eternally by following His decrees or we can choose death by living our own way. It’s always our choice. He wants us to fare better than Sodom.

Read it in a year - Job 19-20

see the whole year's plan here