James 4:7-10 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
Over the past month, I decided to purposely disconnect from all social media and I must say, despite the craziness in the world — I found myself more at peace, by simply disconnecting.
And speaking of being disconnected, one missionary tells of his experience about being assigned a car that would not start without a push. After pondering this problem, he devised a plan. He went to the school near his home, got permission to take some children out of class, and had them push his car off. As he made his rounds, he would either park on a hill or leave the engine running. He used this ingenious procedure for two years.
When a new missionary came to take over his station, he proudly began to explain his arrangement for getting the car started. As he was talking, the young missionary picked up the hood only to find that the only trouble was a loose cable. He gave the cable a twist, stepped into the car, pushed the switch, and the engine roared to life.
For two years, needless trouble had become routine — but the power was there all along — and the only thing that was needed was a better connection!
So it is for us as believers, we can walk through this life stumbling and struggling … having a loose connection with God — or we can determine to be steadfastly connected to Him — and His unlimited power.
As James clearly says, “Draw near to me, and I will draw near to you,” so we have the choice to be as close or as distant as we want to the King of Kings! God’s decision to be intimate with us was already made when He displayed His love for us through the sacrifice of His Son! Now it’s in our hands … what kind of relationship do we want?
So let’s resolve to spend some time under the hood, double checking those connections, and making whatever adjustments necessary to get better connected to God — and His omnipotent power. Amazingly, if you go through the self-inspection process — you’ll begin going through personal revival — and true revival begins one person at a time — perhaps it’ll be you this weekend!
Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy Devotions. This devotional was originally published on Worthy Devotions and was reproduced with permission.
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It must have been a bad storm. These men were experienced, hardened sailors who had seen it all at sea. If they were scared, this could have been the first “perfect storm” since Noah’s flood. So they started the first interfaith prayer meeting in the Bible, each man crying out to his own god. As the ship groaned and creaked in howling wind and massive waves, and the men threw cargo overboard in a desperate attempt to save it, where was Jonah? On deck helping them? Confidently praying to His own God? Shaking with fear and paralyzed with deep conviction? No, he’s taking a nap down below…
Back in the third century Cyprian the Bishop of Carthage wrote to his friend Donatus: “It is a bad world, Donatus, an incredibly bad world. But I have discovered, in the midst of it, a quiet and holy people who have learned a great secret.
For the next week or so we’ll be looking closely at the life of Jonah the prophet. Jonah was told to “preach against the city of Nineveh”, that was in the ancient kingdom of Assyria. Nineveh was a major city on the banks of the Tigris River about 500 miles north and east of where Jonah was; located on a contemporary map in modern Iraq, about 300 miles north of Baghdad. Archaeologists have found the ruins of ancient Nineveh right outside the Iraqi city of Mosul. Yes, the same Mosul that was taken last week by jihadists!
So Jonah goes and begins to preach in this pagan city. His message is very simple. “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown”(v. 4). That’s it. That was his whole message. It’s eight words in English; only 4 words in Hebrew.
Abraham was sitting in front of his tent on the plains of Mamre, when the LORD (Yehovah — Yud Hay Vav Hay) came to him and declared the fulfillment of a promise He had made to him many years before, saying that through Abraham’s seed the world would be blessed! (Genesis 12:7; 13:15-16, 15:18, 17:7-9)
As we conclude the Feast of Sukkot tonight, I want to reflect on one of the profound mysteries of God—how He aligns the prophetic clock with the Hebrew calendar. Sukkot, also known as the Feast of Ingathering, is a harvest celebration. Notably, it remains one of the few biblical feasts yet to be fulfilled prophetically, pointing us to future events in God’s divine plan.
The story of the Exodus is a story of miracles – yet in the beginning when Moses first appeared before Pharaoh to deliver the children of Israel from 400 years of slavery, the Israelites were severely tempted and became angry because of the initial hardships that were laid upon them.