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Finding Your Contentment in Jesus   Hebrews 13 5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,    “Never will I leave you;    never will I forsake you.”[b]   Think about this: What do I really want this year? If you tear away all the extras, what’s the bottom line? For me I think the bottom line is that I want to be content. The first step in being content is to honestly evaluate what I have. The first thing to recognize is that I need to compare myself with the rest of the REAL world, not what I see on TV or imagine others to have. Economically, there is no doubt I am “better off” than most of the world. I have more freedom and opportunity. But the most important thing is that I am better off than most of the world because  I have Jesus. As I face the new year, I want to find  contentment in Jesus, my companionship in Jesus, and my confidence in Jesus. Then I’ll find my comfort and my courage in Jesus.    When I am contented in Jesus and He […]

“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.” —2 Corinthians 4:7   Greg Laurie tells of a little girl who was asked in her Sunday school class what a saint was. Thinking of the saints in stained glass windows, she replied, “Oh, those are the people the light shines through.” She was right. That is exactly what a saint is: someone whom the light shines through. Jesus said, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). According to Scripture, a saint is a true believer. It seems so difficult for us to have men see our good works, yet glorify the Father. Don’t we love “taking credit.” We do so even when we have little or nothing to do with the outcome. How can we be sure that He gets the glory? It is possible when the light shining through us isn’t ours, but His. Consider:Do things that do not come easily based on our “natural” talents.Do things that He calls you to do; not that which comes naturally.Do things in groups […]

 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. James 4:13-16   Life goes by so quickly, doesn’t it? An old friend of mine said it best when he told me, “Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you get to the end, the faster it goes!” Remember as a kid, a month before Christmas, it seemed the magical day would never come. In the time that month would take to pass, now an entire year goes by. Life is moving so fast, and with it our opportunity to leave an eternally significant mark. If we failed to make a deliberate effort to leave such a mark, we will never do so. We need to abandon thoughts about “one day.” […]

 I want everything my God has for me in 2011. I want a productive fearless life. What we achieve is very dependent on our attitude. On what have we focused? What do we seek? Much of today’s devotional is based on Pastor Doucet’s New Year message. We are told in Matthew 7:7, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be open to you.” I think it is significant that the word used is “ask” not “demand” or even “request.” There is a certain amount of inquiry involved. We go to our God with a questioning heart. He is the one who knows what we need. It’s not a question of our desires or whims. We want what is best for us and no one knows that better than Our Lord. Often our askings go askew. “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” James 4:3 I am reminded of the small child who will repeatedly ask for candy or to go out to play in the rain or to be left on their own near a busy street. All […]

The Key for Success in the New Year is to live it without fear. There are four reasons why we can do so, based on promises of God. Adrian Rogers put them this way: The Contentment of His Provision Contentment is not getting what you want, but it is wanting what you already have. First Timothy 6:6-8 says, “But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us therewith be content.” If you know Jesus Christ, you have contentment. If you’ve got clothes on your back, something to eat, and Jesus Christ in your heart, you’re rich!  Do you know why we have fear? Because we think our needs or the needs of someone we love are not going to be met. Or we fear that the things we think are meeting our needs are going to be taken away from us. The deepest need of your heart can only be met in the Lord Jesus Christ.  When I look back over my life I see clearly that He has been forever faithful in meeting my needs. There is […]

You shall not go out with haste, . . . for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard —Isaiah 52:12   These are insecure times, politically, physically and fiscally. There is much to unsettle and create fear. Security is the great gift of the saved, security in Christ. With security comes joy and the absence of fear. It is His gift to us; don’t let Satan steal it from you.  Security from Yesterday. New Years tends to be very forward looking. At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise when we remember our yesterdays. Our past can drag us down. Satan can use the past to condemn and distract us from the all important now.  Our present enjoyment of God’s grace tends to be lessened by the memory of yesterday’s sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future. God reminds us of the past to protect us from a very […]

A bit over a year ago my Pastor suggested that I use Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest as a basis for my daily devotional for 2010. After some prayer and thought I agreed. I have been greatly blessed by the process. Sometimes I simply quoted the devotionals word-for-word. On others I picked out and tried to explain one aspect of Chambers’ thoughts. On still other days, Oswald’s words led me to share on something only generally related. It has been a great experience. I considered repeating it for 2011, but have decided against it. Beginning on Saturday I will be embarking on more “original” daily postings. I have subscribed to several devotionals which I hope to draw from in the year ahead. I pray I will receive guidance from the Lord on what and how to share in the year ahead. I also pray these sharings will be of some benefit to each of you. Looking forward to 2011. Nick

We have natural talents. They vary person to person. Folks who are successful in life are those who correctly identify and develop those talents. and apply them to the puzzle of life. It is important to know what gifts we have been given and focus on those. The frustrated are those who try, maybe all their lives, to “develop” talents they have never been given.  When we come to Christ it is “natural” to want to use these natural virtues in a new way, to glorify Christ. But this ignores the fact that we are new creations and the glory should not go to what we have been given naturally, but to glorify Him who know resides in us. We want to cling to our natural virtues, while all the time God is trying to get us in contact with the life of Jesus Christ— a life that can never be described in terms of natural virtues. It is the saddest thing to see people who are trying to serve God depending on that which the grace of God never gave them. They are depending solely on what they have by virtue of heredity. God does not take our […]