Entire rooms are built just for people to wait in. Every doctor subscribes to magazines to keep you busy. You sit in a room full of strangers, sitting in a place you don’t want to be, with people you don’t particularly want to be with, waiting to go a place you don’t particularly want to go.

Whoever came up with the doctrine of Purgatory had to have spent a lot of his life waiting in a doctor’s office. Many believers spend their lives the same way. Heaven is the office, and earth is the waiting room. They’re just waiting for it to be over – in a place they don’t want to be, with people they don’t want to be with, waiting for a place they hope will be better. They spend their days on earth just trying to get through. This life isn’t a waiting room. God promised us life abundantly now. We look forward to heaven, but the heavenly life starts now or not at all. Stop waiting for life and start living it, fully, victoriously, and heavenly. This life is the beginning of eternal life and not a cosmic waiting room.

TODAY’S MISSION – Stop waiting to live – And start living. Live as if your heavenly life actually begins now.

For the observant Jew, Friday is a special day. It’s called the Day of Preparation. It’s the day given to prepare for the Shabbat, the Sabbath. So observant Jews will often rush around to do their shopping, to finish up what they have to in order to prepare for, and enter the Day of Rest. Now when you read the Gospels, you come across an interesting phrase.

It’s written that Messiah died on the Day of Preparation. The day He completed what He had to do, and then said, ‘It is finished.’ God gave His people the Shabbat, the Day of Rest and Blessing, so His people might find peace, healing, and communion with God. This teaches us something very important. You need to prepare for blessing. If you want to enter God’s presence, you have to take it seriously and even, yes, labor to enter it. You may even have to tie up loose ends, forgive that person, bless that other person, put away that other thing that has to go from your life. God has in store for you a Day of Blessing. But you need first to take a Day of Preparation.

TODAY’S MISSION – Today, make preparations for your ‘Day of Blessing’ by spending some great time in the presence of the Lord.

No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.
1 Corinthians 10:13

Some people have been known to say, “You know the Bible says that God won’t put more on you than you can handle,” but in reality, the Bible doesn’t say that. Some will even say that 1 Corinthians 10 is where that is stated.

Yet it is clearly seen that Paul was talking about and the text actually states sin and temptation, not hardship and trials.

What the Bible does say is that life itself is too hard to handle.

In fact, Jesus promised trouble and tribulation. That’s the reason that God wants us to rely on Him. He is not “putting things on us.” Life just happens to all of us. Sometimes life is difficult and other times it is pleasant, but this life is a struggle for everyone.

But aren’t you thankful that the promise of 1 Corinthians 10 is about the temptations we face?

It is a comforting thought that although Satan knows our weakness, God knows our limits. He won’t let the devil tempt us to the point in which we can’t escape. So whether it’s life or temptation, just know this, God is there for us in all things. There is nothing He can’t handle! After all, Jesus followed His statement with the instruction to take heart, He has overcome this world!

Since He has already overcome, He will cause you to overcome even in your difficult times in this thing we call life.

Bro. Mike

Today’s Verse:
Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise – Ephesians 5:15 

How do you live your life? Are you living your life according to what you want, what other people want, or what God wants?

The phrase, “be careful” means to be precise, or to be accurate and sure. It means that we should make sure that the way we live our lives here on earth is precisely the way God wants. Being wise does not only mean to be intelligent or smart.

The Bible often uses the word “wise” for people who choose to obey the Word of God, while the word, “fools” often describes those who choose to disobey God’s Word. “Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

So you have two choices; are you going to live wisely or live foolishly?

If you want to live wisely then live and do as God tells you. Love Him above all else and follow His laws, go to church and get into Sacred Scripture. Learn more about God and the principles that He teaches us and then apply them in your everyday life. – Commentary By Jeremy B. Trio 

Today’s Prayer:
Lord, help me to know You and Your Word more every day so that I can live my life according to what You want. Help me to be wise, so that my life will become pleasing to you. Amen.

Today’s Verse:
Whatever prayer, whatever plea there is from any individual or from all your people Israel, … You alone know the hearts of all the sons of men – 1 Kings 8:38-39

When we pray, we are to pour our hearts out to God and tell Him all of our concerns, with a spirit of thanksgiving and confidence that He hears us and will answer. It says in the Kings verse above that God already knows what is in our hearts, but He still wants to hear us call out to Him in daily prayer.

He listens to our pleas and hopes we listen to what He wants us to do. He always answers our prayers, sometimes we may not think so, and then, later on, we look back and realize He answered them in a bigger way than we could’ve imagined. When we see that happen, it makes us feel loved, reassured, and thankful we have such a caring Father.

That’s why we should make our prayerful requests, then immediately thank God for answering us, concluding each prayer with a resounding “Amen,” which means so be it.

To encourage you to pray, remember that you are talking to the same God that heard the prayers of Moses, Abraham , Isaac, Jacob, David, Paul, Peter and a host of others you can read about in Hebrews 11 that received their miracle from God! So pray, pray, pray and then have faith, faith, faith!!

Today’s Prayer:
Loving Father, thank You for being a constant loving force in our lives. You are so good! Thank You for hearing our prayers and always answering all of them. Help me to reach for prayer before I reach for worry, concern or doubt.

Amen. 

Today’s Verse:
Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters. – Colossians 3:23

A dead end job, a task not in your job description, a favor asked of you, hosting family holidays, or the hand you’ve been dealt. Sometimes, we can reflect on our life and be considerably unsatisfied with how it looks. “This isn’t my dream”, “this isn’t what I went to college for”, “I’m not making a change in the world”, “my boss is terrible”, “what have I done to deserve this life?”

We’ve all been there. It’s hard to perform dreadful tasks with integrity, zeal, and excitement when we know the end goal isn’t what we dreamt for ourselves.

What is your end goal? Success? Money? World change or impact? Perfection? Praise? What about glorifying God?

The only core reason we should ever be performing a task is to glorify God. Paul tells us that no matter our circumstance or situation, we are to throw our entire selves into it as if we are working for the Lord. Thus, won’t we see what we wanted all along? Won’t He bless us by glorifying Him?

God’s blessings for our lives are so much better and bigger than anything we could think of, comprehend, or expect. Let Him work through You, that’s Your only job in this world.

You can’t mess up The Great Commission, making disciples of all nations. – Commentary by Kristina Taylor

Today’s Prayer:
Father, please give us the capability of seeing beyond what the world promises us. Remind us our purpose on this earth is far greater than our own successes and pleasures. Remind us that Your perspective is SO much broader than ours. It is like You’re at the top of a mountain that we are slowly climbing. Thank You for giving us a purpose. Amen.

www.facebook.com/181872369300102/posts/910082313145767/

Skeptics claim that the Bible is not from God, but from men. So the question then is, what kind of men?

Bad men wouldn’t want to write the words of the Bible. For the words of the Bible condemn sin and judgment on those who live in evil. Bad men could not come up with Psalm 23, John 3:16 or the Beatitudes. Even if they could, they would certainly take credit for it. To come up with it and not take credit is evidence of great virtue and extreme humility. The words of the Bible turn bad men into good men.

The problem is, good people wouldn’t do very bad things. And so, to say that the Bible was the Word of God, when it was really their own words and stories they just made up, would be a very bad thing–a hoax and fraud.

The fact is, whichever way you go… you’re led back to one thing. The Bible is the Word of God.

So read it, study it, receive it, treasure it… and live it. It’s the Word of God and it will transform your life for blessing, whether you be good… or bad.

TODAY’S MISSION – Give thanks and rejoice for the Word of God. Take a word today, ponder it, take it specifically to your life, and go with it.

fb.watch/4Q4B9W-Qov/

Today’s Verse:
I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. – Ephesians 3:18-19

When I think about the biggest things I’ve seen, I think of the immense horizon at the beach, the height of the sky when I see jet trails, stars on high, the enormous expanse of the Grand Canyon, and the depth of the ocean that experienced divers struggle to reach. Yet these huge things aren’t even a fraction of how much God loves us.

God’s ways are truly so much grander, extravagant, good, and excessively overflowing with love that we can’t even imagine the bigness of His heart. Our love and understanding is shallow and selfish compared to God’s. We can’t even love our immediate family with the depth of love God does, which seems hard to believe, but it’s true. It’s impossible to grasp this concept with our limited minds, but thankfully we will get to experience this love when we join our loving Father in heaven. Until then we can only remind ourselves how blessed we are to be created by a God, who made this whole world and loves each of us so deeply. – Commentary by Colleen Mallette

Today’s Prayer:
Loving Father, thank You for the huge amount of love You have for me. Help me to remember that nothing I do will ever change Your Fatherly love for me. Amen.