A Little Walk With God

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

Look what Jesus does for us. When we were still sinners, dirty, and filthy in our sins, rolling around in the mud and the filth of this world, He came to us. We didn’t deserve His love. We didn’t deserve His visit. We didn’t deserve His attention. We didn’t deserve His words of kindness. We didn’t deserve anything from Him except the outpouring of His wrath. But like the Roman officer, Jesus says enthusiastically, “I will come to you.” Invite Me and I’ll be there. I want to come. I want to show up and attend your party. I want to help you. I want to do more for you than you can ever imagine. Please invite Me. I’ll come.

Read it in a year - Genesis 20-23

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.

How many times do we use our words to explain what happens to us in our religious experiences instead of our actions? We declare to the world, “I’m a Christian.” We say the right words and attend the right churches. We tell others of our generosity and our faith. We talk about our prayer life and our study. We have a lot of words we share with others and sort of brag about our relationship. I think that’s what Jesus warns against as He shares this instruction with the leper after his miraculous cleansing that day.

Just do what you should be doing as a child of God. Follow His instructions. Read His manual and do what it says. That’s enough.

Read it in a year - Romans 11-12

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

Jesus redeemed us with His shed blood. But we must accept that redemption. He doesn’t put shackles on our feet and drag us into His kingdom. He paid the price, but asks us to voluntarily follow Him. He lets us choose the path we take. Will He cleanse us and make us free from the dirt and filth of sin? Absolutely! But we must come to Him the way the leper came to Him. The leper knew his condition. He didn’t care what others thought about him coming forward to Jesus. He knew they would talk about his breaking the rules. He assumed some what talk about how terrible he was to expose others to his disease by coming along the road with people who didn’t have his disease. The leper knew he was an outcast and could not help himself. He knew his only hope was in the healing and cleansing Jesus could bring. He knew Jesus could make the difference in his life no one else could make and had confidence in Jesus’ ability to do so. He put all his faith in Jesus.

What do you need Jesus to do for you? How do you come to Him with your request? He tells us to come to Him boldly? But do we remember that He is Lord of creation? Do we understand just Who we address when we fall on our knees in front of Him? The leper understood. He came in humble adoration and made his plea. Jesus’ response - Of course, I wish to do it! He doesn’t withhold His good gifts from us. Just remember Who you’re asking in the process. He is God, you know.

Read it in a year - Matthew 14-16

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.

A few weeks ago floods tore through the midwest again. The Mississippi River overflowed its banks and the same little town that routinely finds itself ravaged by those floodwaters found itself ravaged again. I sometimes wonder about the intelligence of the people that live in that little town. Year after year, the Mississippi floods when the rains hit the countrysides upstream. Rains don’t necessarily hit that town, but all through the midwest, melting snow and spring rains fill the tributaries that feed the Mississippi and invariably that little town hits the national news.

So why do the people stay there? When I hear the name of the town on the news every year, I think about Jesus’ words to the crowd on the mountainside. When a storm comes, the rain falls, the waters rise, the wind blows, and his house will collapse with a great clash. That’s what I think about as I see the houses float down the Mississippi after the floods rip them from their foundation in the spring and autumn rains. You would think people would look at the maps and quit building in the floodplain, wouldn’t you? But next year, guess what we’ll see on the news. Yep. Rescuers will be pulling someone from a rooftop or out of a tree because they built back in the same place and the Mississippi will overflow its banks and they’ll feel the power of the floodwaters as their house disappears in the torrent.

Read it in a year - Isaiah 29-33

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

These words of Jesus must have been tough for those who heard it that day. They are probably tough for us if we really stop to think about them a little. Jesus is saying all our good deeds don’t mean anything to God if they haven’t come from an obedient heart. Look at the list of things He mentions as the works of those who He turns away at the day of judgment. Prophesy, driving out demons, performing miracles. Aren’t these the very works He did? Aren’t these the things Jesus said we would do for Him when He departed?

How can He tell us that those who do these very things will not be allowed to live with Him? These people are doing great things in Jesus’ name! They show every evidence on the outside that they are His followers, so how can He now reject them from heaven?

The answer is simple. They haven’t been obedient to Him. Remember Moses? Do you remember why God didn’t let him cross over the Jordan River into the land promised to the Israelites? The event was such a simple thing. God told Moses to speak to the rock and tell water to come out of it to give the Israelites water to quench their thirst. Instead, Moses struck the rock with his rod. Years earlier in the journey God had told Moses to get water by striking the rock and water came out of the rock. So why would God ban Moses from the promised land for such a simple thing, striking the rock instead of speaking to the rock? Disobedience.

Read it in a year - Job 9-10

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.

There are a lot of false prophets out there now days. They were around in Jesus’ time, thrived during the days of the early church, and keep on truckin’ today. In fact, if I read my Bible right, they will be around until Jesus comes again. And guess where they do their best work. If you guessed in the church, you’d be right. It’s sad, but true.

They come in with all the right words. They look religious. They quote long passages of scripture to prove their point. But when you look at their lives, they are empty shells with nothing inside. No real life. Nothing to show on the inside that would point anyone to Christ and His truth. Yet many will fall for their flattering words and mystic sounding phrases and follow them anywhere. Just look at the number of people that followed Jimmie Jones and David Koresh. Those two made national headlines because of the scores of people who died because of their false teaching, but there are dozens like them that don’t get the mass attention but are just as dangerous.

Read it in a year - Psalms 12-18

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

It’s easy to go along with the crowd. Just ask the herd of cattle on the farm. They move from the barn in the morning to the pasture and just graze around following the lead cow. In the afternoon, the lead cow knows it’s about time to go back to the barn so they follow the same worn path back to the barn until the next morning. The same routine goes on day after day, with the cows going out into the field and coming back in again until one day the lead cow leads the herd through a series of gates that ends up with the cows looking through the sideboards of a transport headed to the slaughter house.

We’re not much different. We have a tendency to just follow the leader, not thinking much about who we’re following. We get into the middle of the crowd and let it push us along mindlessly going back and forth day after day until finally we find out one day we’re looking through the sideboards of life on our way to the slaughter house and it seems there’s no way out.

Read it in a year - Joshua 21-25

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.

Jesus gives instructions that turns us away from selfish motive. He turns us to think of others. He points us toward doing good deeds for the benefit of those we can touch. Demonstrate God’s love through our actions. So if that’s what Jesus has been telling us to this point, He probably means to carry that message through with this tidbit of instruction as well. This command isn’t just about showing mercy. It isn’t about holding off on our vengeance against those that wrong us as we so often want to use this verse.

Jesus give us these words to spark us into action. Listen to those words once more. “In everything, in every circumstance, do to others as you would have them do to you.” So stop for just a minute and think. What would you like someone to do for you today? Would you like someone to tell you, “I love you?” Then find somone and tell them those words and mean it. Would you like someone to compliment your work efforts? Then find one of your co-workers and compliment them.

Would it be nice if someone paid for your gas at the pump? Fill the tank of the next car that pulls up at the pump next to you. Would you like to get flowers? A book you’ve been wanting to read? A meal at a restaurant? A ride somewhere? Just stop and think about what you would want someone to for you today. Then do it for someone else.

Read it in a year - Genesis 16-19

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.

What God wants is our recognition that He is God. He wants our honor, respect, and obedience. He wants us to say yes to His will. He wants us to accept the gifts He has for us and to use those gifts to carry out His will on earth, not ours. He wants us to forget about our desires and focus on His. God wants us to abandon our selfish ambitions and seek His kingdom and His righteousness. You see, we can never be good enough, but we can accept His goodness as our own through faith. That’s what Abraham did without the written law. That’s what Moses did before the law was given to Him on tablets of stone. That’s what Joel talked about when He said God would write His law on the hearts of men and women.

But one thing is certain. When we ask our Father for something in prayer, we can be sure He answers. And when He answers, His answer is good. It might not be what we want, but it will be good. Because the Father gives good gifts to His children.

Read it in a year - Romans 9-10

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.

Jesus moves back to the topic of prayer. He tells us to just ask, but does He mean we can get anything we want? Does He portray the Father as a cosmic Santa that will give us whatever we want? “Just ask and it will be given to you…” It might sound like it if you lift that verse out of His sermon like a lot of name it and claim preachers try to do. But go back and look at the model prayer He gives us earlier in His sermon and remember that He never contradicts Himself.

Ask and it will be given to you. Ask for what? Remember Jesus’ model prayer? Father in heaven, I ask that your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Ask and it will be given to you. Seek after it and you will find it. Find what? Find the Father’s will. You see, I think we get the wrong idea about what to ask for in the first place. We get ourselves mixed up into the equation and let that selfish desire poke its head up and try to grab all the attention instead of listening to what Jesus says to us in the rest of His discourse.

Read it in a year - Matthew 11-13

see the whole year's plan here