Daily Devotionals
Daily Devotional: Psalms 146:1-4
Ps 146:1-4
1 Praise the LORD. Praise the LORD, O my soul. 2 I will praise the LORD all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. 3 Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save. 4 When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing.
Luke 9:23-25
23 Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. 25 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?
It goes against everything in us to put God first in our lives. Since the day that Satan deceived Eve in the Garden and convinced her that eating the fruit would make her wise as God, mankind has been thinking that they don’t need God. We seem to think that we can ban together, forming unions or associations that are invincible but these have failed since the tower of Babel.
They reasoned that nothing would be impossible for them if they just worked together. We hear the same thing today in every area of life – “we don’t need God, we can do it ourselves.” This reminds me of a small child who tells their parents they don’t need help, they can do it by themselves. It is only after they attempt and fail that they concede and let mom or dad do it for them.
Praise the Lord, God is in control. He does know what is best for us and he has revealed it to us in his word. To sum it up, our whole purpose of existence is to respect him and serve him because we will all give an account to him in the day of judgment. So the sooner we deny ourselves and begin to live for him the more our lives will be filled with his joy and his peace as we find true meaning and purpose for being on earth. In this way, Christ will live in us.
This does not mean that everything will always go the way we want it to or think it should. It does mean that we will live in hope – assurance that God is working all things for our good. He is getting us ready to live with him in eternity as he molds us into his image by the things we face and overcome in our lives.
Thank you God for your great love for me. It is easy for me to say that I am giving you all of my worries and cares but then I find myself trying to carry them again in my own strength. I realize that I am weak and need your help every day. Keep me from being proud and selfish. Help me be willing to love and forgive as you love and forgive me. Lord, I have not forgotten those who suffered such great loss in the storms in recent months and I ask you to continue to be with each of them. Use me to serve you as I serve others. I pray in the name of Jesus.
Robert
