The plan is to do 5 readings and then spend some time in prayer.
1st Reading - Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life.
2nd Reading - The one year at HIS feet Devotional.
3rd Reading - The 21 days Deeper email devotion.
4th Reading - Rick Warren's daily devotion.
5th Reading - HIS word.
Day 1 on Purpose Driven Life.
Just on 26 of July, I made this comment:
"oh my...even my best friend got himself a partner already...reality check...what am i doing with my life...lol"
followed by
"there are so many things i want to accomplish...there are only so many things that i can accomplish...but there is only one thing i need to accomplish....but am i even trying to accomplish that one thing.."
Today, reading the seemingly common text (i always start and stop and restart), I should have familiarized these words by now. Anyway, it immediately made an impact on my self-proclaimed mature thinking....
"Many people try to use God for their own self-actualization, but that is a reversal of nature and is doomed to failure. You were made for God, not vice versa, and life is about letting God use you for his purposes, not your using him for your own purpose."
All these while, I have been thinking from the wrong source, for the wrong focuses.
July 30 - at HIS feet Devotional.
I find myself often trying to distance myself from God's work through apathy, sin, or a plan to "retire." The temptation here is to think that God is done with us. But the truth is, if we're alive, He isn't done with us yet.
For those who have long been Christians, we can easily become discouraged when we try to measure our present with our past. We also find that we commit sins that we once, early in our discipleship, thought we were done with. Our discouragement about the present, especially when it doesn't measure up to our fond memories, may lead us to wonder: "What have I lost that I once had? Have I become unfruitful for God? Has His blessing left me?"
In deed. The answer, of course, is that God is still at work in us. Our job is to be alert! to cultivate the gifts He has given us, and to persevere in the good works He has prepared for us in advance (Ephesians 2:10). Unless He has already taken us to heaven, He has not found our deeds complete.
Deeper - email devotion
Fix Your Attention on God
The only way they can be empowered to live out their faith is to fix their attention on God. When they do this God starts to work from the inside, they are able to recognise His will and are empowered by grace to obey!
Rick Warren's daily devotion (Day 18)
"God, I'm checking in with you. Anything you want to do in my life today, anything you want to tell me." Just sit there and be quiet. Read the Bible a little bit, talk about whatever is worrying you, unload your burdens, and listen for God's direction.
HIS Word
Acts 2:25-28
New International Version (NIV)
25 David said about him:
“‘I saw the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.
26 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest in hope,
27 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
you will not let your holy one see decay.
28 You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence.’
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.
26 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest in hope,
27 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
you will not let your holy one see decay.
28 You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence.’
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