If someone examined your calendar, bank statement, browser history, conversations, and prayer life for the last six months...would they conclude that Christ is the treasure of your life? Or just one interest among many?
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It is a terrifying thing, to fall into the hands of the living God.
Hebrews 10:31
Hebrews 10:31
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WEEK 4 — Legacy
August 31 (Monday — Month's Close
Dear Daughter,
The month closes the way every good chapter should — not resolved, but rooted.
You have walked warfare, identity, suffering, and legacy this August. None of it was wasted; all of it was formation.
Carry the roots into September. Let go of what was only scaffolding.
'He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion' (Phil 1:6).
Which of this month's lessons will you carry forward, and which will you leave behind?
#DearDaughter #AugustClose #StrongMarriage
August 31 (Monday — Month's Close
Dear Daughter,
The month closes the way every good chapter should — not resolved, but rooted.
You have walked warfare, identity, suffering, and legacy this August. None of it was wasted; all of it was formation.
Carry the roots into September. Let go of what was only scaffolding.
'He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion' (Phil 1:6).
Which of this month's lessons will you carry forward, and which will you leave behind?
#DearDaughter #AugustClose #StrongMarriage
There is nothing more important than your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
As August ends, give thanks for growth unseen! 🌾❤️ God has been at work in your marriage even on the quiet days! Phil 1:6 💪
What growth are you most grateful for this month? #StrongMarriage #August
What growth are you most grateful for this month? #StrongMarriage #August
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For we wrestle not, against flesh and blood.
Ephesians 6:12
Very clearly.
Ephesians 6:12
Very clearly.
A little faith will bring your soul to heaven, but a great faith will bring heaven to your soul.
- Thomas Watson
- Thomas Watson
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Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Matthew 11:28
We can trade the harshness of self reliance, for a peace that passes understanding.
Matthew 11:28
We can trade the harshness of self reliance, for a peace that passes understanding.
❤5
Porn is a heart problem, not a marriage problem.
You can't fix it with more sex or a better spouse.
Only through the power of the Holy Spirit can you love and delight in Jesus so much that you no longer seek pleasure in sexual immorality.
You can't fix it with more sex or a better spouse.
Only through the power of the Holy Spirit can you love and delight in Jesus so much that you no longer seek pleasure in sexual immorality.
❤5
A Christian’s life can be summed up in seven words: undeserving recipient of God’s grace and mercy.
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Trials and suffering are not signs that God has abandoned you. The Lord uses the hard times of life to test believers' faith and make them look like Jesus.
Trust his good plan even in the storm.
Trust his good plan even in the storm.
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There was a time where Christians could say homosexuality, fornication, adultery, and other sexual sins were morally wrong without any real repercussions—but times have changed. How can we handle this new animosity?
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September 1: An Unusual Portrait
#Devotional
Hosea 1:1–2:23; Acts 1:1–26; Job 15:1–9
“At the beginning when Yahweh spoke through Hosea, Yahweh said to Hosea, ‘Go, take for yourself a wife and children of whoredom, because the land commits great whoredom forsaking Yahweh.’ So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son” (Hos 1:2–3). God’s people had prostituted themselves to other nations by seeking their help instead of Yahweh’s. Hosea’s act, which dramatized the rebellion of God’s people against Him, is one of the oddest in the Bible.
God loves His people with passion and jealousy. He has little tolerance when they seek alliances with other nations and put false gods before Him. At times, He takes shocking measures to get their attention. The act He requires of Hosea not only depicts Israel’s unfaithfulness, but it also reveals God’s own feelings of betrayal. Many of us can empathize.
At such moments in the Bible, it’s hard to understand how God uses such behavior to further His plan. But within the view of biblical theology, desperate situations like Hosea’s are transformed into redemptive scenes. Such is the case when we open the book of Acts: “I produced the former account [of the Gospel of Luke], O Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and to teach, until the day he was taken up, after he had given orders through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen, to whom he also presented himself alive after he suffered, with many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking the things about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:1–3). Jesus came to redeem a people who sought refuge in the arms of false gods and other nations.
When we see Hosea’s story in the light of Jesus’ acts and the subsequent acts of His apostles, we learn that God can indeed bring even the most wretched of people to righteousness. We also learn that sometimes it takes a vivid, if odd, real-life portrait for us to understand the truth about our false ways.
Are you seeking refuge in the wrong places or the wrong ways? What are you placing before Yahweh and His work in your life?
#Devotional
Hosea 1:1–2:23; Acts 1:1–26; Job 15:1–9
“At the beginning when Yahweh spoke through Hosea, Yahweh said to Hosea, ‘Go, take for yourself a wife and children of whoredom, because the land commits great whoredom forsaking Yahweh.’ So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son” (Hos 1:2–3). God’s people had prostituted themselves to other nations by seeking their help instead of Yahweh’s. Hosea’s act, which dramatized the rebellion of God’s people against Him, is one of the oddest in the Bible.
God loves His people with passion and jealousy. He has little tolerance when they seek alliances with other nations and put false gods before Him. At times, He takes shocking measures to get their attention. The act He requires of Hosea not only depicts Israel’s unfaithfulness, but it also reveals God’s own feelings of betrayal. Many of us can empathize.
At such moments in the Bible, it’s hard to understand how God uses such behavior to further His plan. But within the view of biblical theology, desperate situations like Hosea’s are transformed into redemptive scenes. Such is the case when we open the book of Acts: “I produced the former account [of the Gospel of Luke], O Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and to teach, until the day he was taken up, after he had given orders through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen, to whom he also presented himself alive after he suffered, with many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking the things about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:1–3). Jesus came to redeem a people who sought refuge in the arms of false gods and other nations.
When we see Hosea’s story in the light of Jesus’ acts and the subsequent acts of His apostles, we learn that God can indeed bring even the most wretched of people to righteousness. We also learn that sometimes it takes a vivid, if odd, real-life portrait for us to understand the truth about our false ways.
Are you seeking refuge in the wrong places or the wrong ways? What are you placing before Yahweh and His work in your life?
❤4
September 1 - Mankind’s Lost Condition
#LifeOfChrist
“They were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36).
One of Jesus’ main motives for ministry was the knowledge of man’s lost condition. He saw the people He lived among in the reality of their need. He was moved by their diseases and sickness, and He healed every one of them (v. 35). But He was moved even more deeply by the deepest need that most of the multitude did not even know they had—to be freed from their bondage to sin. He saw their hearts, and He knew that inwardly “they were distressed and dispirited.”
Jesus saw the multitudes as being inwardly devastated by their sinful and hopeless condition. The idea behind “dispirited” is to be thrown down prostrate and utterly helpless. Jesus saw the dispirited multitudes as sheep without a shepherd to protect and care for them.
Those who claimed to be the shepherds of the multitude were the scribes and Pharisees, yet it was those very shepherds who were largely responsible for the people’s confusion and hopelessness. The people were spiritually led by uncaring, unloving leaders who should have been meeting their spiritual needs. That’s why Jesus calls the people “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 10:6)—God’s chosen people who had been left to perish.
Ask Yourself
Begin to develop Jesus’ motive for ministry as your own. Take every opportunity to introduce others to the Great Shepherd.
#LifeOfChrist
“They were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36).
One of Jesus’ main motives for ministry was the knowledge of man’s lost condition. He saw the people He lived among in the reality of their need. He was moved by their diseases and sickness, and He healed every one of them (v. 35). But He was moved even more deeply by the deepest need that most of the multitude did not even know they had—to be freed from their bondage to sin. He saw their hearts, and He knew that inwardly “they were distressed and dispirited.”
Jesus saw the multitudes as being inwardly devastated by their sinful and hopeless condition. The idea behind “dispirited” is to be thrown down prostrate and utterly helpless. Jesus saw the dispirited multitudes as sheep without a shepherd to protect and care for them.
Those who claimed to be the shepherds of the multitude were the scribes and Pharisees, yet it was those very shepherds who were largely responsible for the people’s confusion and hopelessness. The people were spiritually led by uncaring, unloving leaders who should have been meeting their spiritual needs. That’s why Jesus calls the people “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 10:6)—God’s chosen people who had been left to perish.
Ask Yourself
Begin to develop Jesus’ motive for ministry as your own. Take every opportunity to introduce others to the Great Shepherd.
❤5
Imagine telling Jesus, "I love You, but I don't really care what You've said." That's exactly what many Christians communicate when weeks pass without opening the Scriptures.
Love for Christ produces a desire to hear His voice.
Love for Christ produces a desire to hear His voice.
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The Enneagram has become strangely comfortable in Christian circles.
But Christians should be cautious about using a system with dubious spiritual origins to tell us who we are.
Scripture already tells us who we are, why we sin, what needs to change, and how transformation happens.
We don't need nine personality types to explain the human heart.
We need God's Word.
But Christians should be cautious about using a system with dubious spiritual origins to tell us who we are.
Scripture already tells us who we are, why we sin, what needs to change, and how transformation happens.
We don't need nine personality types to explain the human heart.
We need God's Word.
❤5
The fear of God doesn't make a man weak. It makes him fearless before everyone else
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