Life's Happening Devotional

God told Joshua to be strong and courageous, but he didn’t stop there. He also told him, “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”. I find comfort, strength, and safety in this Scripture. God says don’t be afraid and discouraged; I’m with you. Life throws so much at us that we can become so afraid and discouraged, but there’s life in the Boo...

God says to Joshua, Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. In other words, God's saying I have commanded you to be strong; draw strength from the Book of Life. Draw power from the Word of God. I know there are enemies in front of you, I know what the doctor said, I know the mortgage is due, and bills are piling up, but I have given you the written Word so that you would have the s...

Have you ever wondered how you will make it in this world? How will you make it with all we are facing in our society: the hate, the killings, the economic downturns, and the natural disasters? Do you wish you had a manual, a navigation system that could guide you and bring you through? Indeed, I would like to remind you that such a roadmap, navigation system, and plan exist in the Word of God. It...

If you find yourself running from the call of God on your life, today’s devotional will encourage you to say yes to the call. It will remind you that you can run but can’t hide. God wants you, and he will stop at nothing to get you to yield to the call and say yes to him. Many of us run; we do not say yes; we know that there is a call and that God has anointed and chosen us, but we are hiding and...

When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Do you see disappointment? Do you see stress? Do you see fear? Do you see failure? Do you see pain? The mirror gives us a moment to see ourselves. When we are out in the world we really don't have a mirror to see how we look physically (ladies exempted) ... But really even when you carry a mirror, you're not always looking in one. It is importa...

Don't allow the pressures of this world to cause you to see what God did not create. Our society is so self-centered and self-focused that we tend to see what God does not see when he sees us. I submit to you today that God's mirror is you, and when he looks into his mirror, he's looking for himself in you, and when he doesn't see it, he asks us the question he asked Adam in the ga...

When God has a set time for us, it requires patience—Waiting. Waiting can be hard, as we saw this week, and it can be challenging. Some people faint in the process of waiting on their dreams and in believing God because his timing is not theirs. He has a set time. Waiting, however, requires trust in the one we are waiting on or in the thing we are waiting on. So, there's a trust component to w...

Dreams have a set time. We sometimes get impatient when it comes to waiting for something we've been dreaming about or believing God for. Time is never on our side because what we want, we want, and we want it now. But there is a set time. God's timing is always right, but we always see it as too long and just plain hard to deal with. A set time is not bad when we have the right perspectiv...

Dreaming Big! Requires patience. Yes, dreams and Faith are always needed, but they take time. I'm not suggesting that because we Dream big it's an immediate result. This is not a name-it-and-claim-it thing. Dreaming Big requires Faith and waiting. If you've been a person of Faith, a believer who prays to God regularly. Then you know that it takes patience to serve God. Have you ever wo...

God's word is filled with dreamers, from Noah to Abraham and Joseph, to name a few. They are all dreamers because of their faith in God. God created us to dream because he is a dreamer. Creation started with God's imagination; he desired and produced it. We were created in his image and likeness as humans and God's most incredible creation. Thus, we were made to Dream. Do you have a Dr...

God requires nothing from us; he only requires faith. In our society, where everyone is hustling and outworking the other, God says he wants faith. The Bible reminds us that we walk by faith and not by sight. Faith unlocks doors; faith works. If my faith is in the right place, it produces the works to validate my faith. I need faith works to make my dreams, a job, a house, and a relationship; fait...

We cannot touch, look at, or purchase anything with faith. But in the kingdom of God, faith is required; faith is currency. God’s gift of grace requires no purchase, but this gift comes through faith. Faith is required, when we come to God, we must believe in him and trust him, the Bible reminds us that without faith, it is impossible to please God. What is faith? Faith is dreaming of something an...

No Purchase Necessary! It is all about God’s grace! Jesus fulfilled the requirement for us to be saved; no purchase was necessary. Jesus paid for our sins, yours and mine. It is the love of God that sets us free. God loves us and decided by himself that no purchase was necessary; God took responsibility for our sins and transferred it to his Son, Jesus Christ. There is nothing we could do, God sen...

Joseph had big dreams. When his dreams came into reality, he was sold into slavery, and he experienced a lot of pain and trauma. We also have experienced trauma, and we have experienced our own pit and prison, but Joseph did not spend forever in the pit or in prison. He came out. And even when we cannot seem to get help, we must pull ourselves out and move forward. We spend too much time in the pi...

Our Pit stops are for us to get support, dive deeper into the Word of God, through prayer, reading the Word, fellowship with others, and communicating with those who can help us by encouraging us and giving us the courage to move forward. We cannot stay in the dark, cover the issue, and remain in the dark. We are not called to live in darkness; we are children of the light. Sometimes, we feel like...

Have you ever been in a pit stop? Pit stops are for refueling, servicing, and returning to the race. Life can have many pit stops but are not permanent, and we cannot make them permanent. As you listen today to this devotional, be encouraged that your pit stops will not be forever; God is using them to refuel you through the Word, prayer, and community. Please share this episode with someone else...

It is inevitable that we will fall. Falling should not make us afraid because if we are living, we will fall, we will fail, and we will have failures and disappointments, but the real problem is not falling but staying down when we fall. Our text tells us that, though the righteous fall seven times, the righteous, not the unrighteous, but the righteous, when the righteous fall, the word of God say...

As children of God, we are known for one thing, or we should be known by one thing, and that is we should love or have love for each other. This is how we know who are children of God; that's what separates us from children of the evil one. John makes it clear in our text when he says, "Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother...

God's love is so powerful that He became man in the person of Jesus to save us or to bring us back to God. Love Brought us back to God. It was His love for us that brought us back to God. How did love bring us back to God? Peter tells us. He said, "For Christ died for sins once and for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God." Now, that's love. That's rest...

Love takes action. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. In other words, Jesus sacrificed his life for us by dying in our place. He was our substitute and the sacrifice for our sins. Jesus denied himself and died in our place. This is love. Imagine you are sentenced to die, and you are guilty of all charges; there's no way out. But someone stood up and said...

John, the writer here, does not mix words. He equates hate to murder. Those are strong words. He says, "Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer..." anyone, no one is exempt from this. If you have hate in you for your brother or sister, mother or father, you are a murderer. Hate Kills! Love brings life, as we saw yesterday, but hate Kills. In other words, when we hate death is...

Jesus is love, and love is God. He says, for God so loved the world, that's all of us, everyone. Love brings life; therefore, God gave us the ability and capacity to love. Our scripture reminds us of the power of love. John writes "We have passed from death to life, because we love each other..." That's powerful. It means without love we are dead. John says previously, do not be...

God's faithful. He's never unfaithful. We can attest to it that he's not like us. He remains faithful, and he remains the same. He is a faithful God. Therefore, when he makes a promise or gives us a dream, he will do it because he is faithful. God's faithfulness is not contingent on anything outside him; he is faithful to his word. Thus, if he makes you a promise in his Word, it wi...

There's something about the valley that makes you look up for directions. Preparation in the valley is not the easiest thing to handle; having the courage to look up and see that I am not alone is vital, even in the valley. David said, My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth (Psalm 121:2). In other words, my direction from this place comes from God. While I'm in the vall...

Preparation gives Directions: Have you ever wondered why it seems like God is far away during your preparation season? He’s not near; he’s distant and unreachable. It’s something that I never understood. But I think it’s because God wants us to look for him so that we can change directions. David, in this Psalm, tells us that he’s walking through the valley of darkness, the darkest valley. Often,...