Allowing God’s Will to be done through us

Richard Forbes
Christian , Daily Devotional , God’s Will

Being humble and meek are not weaknesses, but requires a great deal of strength, and fortitude. Standing before our inquisitors, our own versions of Pontius Pilot, and remaining silent, takes much more courage than to rattle off a series of defenses out of panic and fear. As Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, an Angel came, and He received increased strength to face what lay ahead. When we are facing our own hardships we should not pray that the trouble we will face as we do God’s will should be taken away, but that we be given the strength to complete the task and the courage to endure the trials that we will face in so doing. How are we praying today? Are we asking for smooth sailing, or the courage to step out of our boat, and the strength of faith needed to walk across the water to Jesus?

Traveling God’s Mountain Road

Richard Forbes
Christian , Daily Devotional , God’s Road

In the time of Isaiah, God promised to restore Israel, and through His Son Jesus Christ He has not only made a similar promise to us, but has fulfilled that promise to restore us; having redeemed us today. In Isaiah 49 God promises to do many things for Israel, but one in particular should stick out in our minds; He tells them that He will make His Mountains into a road. Has the Lord made His Mountains to be our personal road today? Do we travel across them, back and forth into His presence? Have we worn deep paths along their steep passages as we have journeyed onto His Holy Mountain to worship Him? To the unfaithful, mountains are obstacles, but to we who believe they are places of awe, and are holy beyond description. As we look at our lives, do we view the mountains before us as encumbrances, or do we see them as a divine road we follow… our highway to holiness, eternity, and God?

The Proper Application of Grace

Richard Forbes
Christian , Daily Devotional , Grace

We are under grace, and this opens to us an unmerited access to life everlasting through Jesus Christ. Jesus allows for the forgiveness of sin in us, not because we warrant it, but because of God’s mercy, and amazing grace. The more we have sinned, the greater God’s grace grows, so that through it we are forgiven. But, we are a people who are inclined to take advantage of any opportunity to advance ourselves, even when that opportunity presents itself in greed and selfishness. In this way, if we are not careful, we will look at God’s gift of grace as an opportunity to sin without lasting consequence. Paul warns us against this in his letter to the Romans, but do we pay attention to his warning in our lives today?

Family Stories of Faith and Blessing

Richard Forbes
Christian , Daily Devotional , Family witness

When it comes to spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the Word of God, we do a fairly good job as believers, but do we spend enough time with our children and grandchildren telling them about the glorious, wonderful, and occasionally miraculous ways that God has dealt with our families? Do we tell them about the amazing ways that Jesus has transformed us personally, or saved the souls of our relatives, and ancestors? We don’t serve, and believe in a distant God, but a very personal God who is with us, and engaged in our lives every day. Have we witnessed great moments of faith in our lives, or families… if so then we must share them with our children so that they can see how God, and Jesus just don’t just love and help others… they love and help our family too.

Trusting Jesus and Traveling the Unknown Road before Us

Richard Forbes
Christian , Daily Devotional , Trusting the Journey

We profess our faith in Jesus Christ, fall to our knees as we ask Him to be the center of our life, and pledge to follow His commandments and instruction. On that first day when we said that we would faithfully follow Him, did we really know where that would take us, and where we were going? Reading scripture and commentaries is like packing our luggage with the necessities we would need for a journey to anywhere, but before we can select suitable clothing for the trip, we must know where it is that we believe we are going; so today let’s each begin by asking ourselves some questions… do I know where Jesus is taking me? Have I asked the Lord where our final destination is to be, and am I prepared to trust in Him enough to leave my luggage and clothing behind, and to simply shoulder my cross, and begin the journey that He is leading me on?

God our Healer, and why Two Aspirin and a prayer can be good

Richard Forbes
Christian , Daily Devotional , God Heals

In Psalm 41 David writes of being sick, and how his enemies want the worst for him, but the real story here is that our God heals, and will often do so despite our prognosis, or the desires of others. Are any of us sick today? Do we have cancer, COVID, monkey pox, or perhaps something as routine as a cold, or headache? Whatever it is that sickens us, have we taken it to our Father, the great healer, by praying in faith, in His will, and in the name of His Son Jesus for relief? Or, have we simply made an appointment with a doctor, or taken a couple of aspirin, and decided to heal ourselves? Well, it is prudent to take the aspirin that God has provided, or seek help from medical professionals, but before, during, and after that, we should lift up our sicknesses before the Lord in prayer, and ask that if it be His will, that He heal us.

The Lord knows those who seek refuge in Him

Richard Forbes
Christian , Daily Devotional , Refuge

We are inclined to think of the wrath of God when the storms of life move in, and trouble brews. We look at leaders who are His adversaries, enemies, men filled with evil, or leading lives of sin, and fear that we will be consumed by the God’s indignation, and anger, as He deals with them, but although the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike, He knows all of us who have taken refuge in Him. Are we ready to trust in His goodness, and mercy as He deals with countries, and people who oppose Him?

We possess the Master Key, but do we unlock our prayers?

Richard Forbes
Christian , Daily Devotional , Praying in Full

We ask very little of God, and yet He has so much more that He wants to give us. We ask in prayer, and yet we only ask for a sip from His cup, when He actually wants us to drink our fill, cup after cup of His boundless blessings, the blood of Christ, and from the endless flow of His living water. Do we think that if we ask too much it might be presumptuous, or that we might exceed His grace? Do we fear that we will strain His mercy, or ask for something that is beyond His ability to give? No my brothers and sisters, our God can satisfy our every need, and will keep asking us if we want more. The name of Jesus is like the master key that opens up every storehouses of our Lord’s provision, and treasure to us.

Renewing our Hope in the midst of Life’s Storms

Richard Forbes
Renewing Hope

Truly blessed is he who has never stood hopeless on one of life’s darkest nights, and searched for a tiny glimmer of hope. When we stand beneath a starless sky, or cower in hopelessness as storm clouds turn our day to night, where do we find the strength to believe, and the faith to hope again? Where do we turn to reclaim the lost joy that will bring light back into our lives? There is but one place for us to turn, and that is to the Lord. We cry out to Him with tears of desperation, and patiently wait upon Him with a strength that only His Holy Spirit can brings to us. We trust in our hope’s return, and have faith in Him, our strong tower, while we wait for the glow of the Lord’s righteous return.

Understanding the challenging mysteries of God

Richard Forbes
Christian , Daily Devotional , Mysteries

As men and women of faith we often encounter hardships or other occurrences in life that we don’t understand. We see great catastrophes, and horrific wrongs being done in the world and ask “Why is God allowing this to occur?” We pray for intervention, or at least an answer, yet despite our pleading, and questioning, we can’t hear an answer, or understand God’s reasoning in allowing such a terrible occurrence. In truth, we are often shown the good as it rises from the terrible things we have faced, and in those times when we don’t get a glimpse of it, it is because we can’t understand or aren’t capable of seeing, what God’s hand is constructing.

Seeing Him who is Invisible

Richard Forbes
Christian , Daily Devotional ,

Moses endured by seeing Him who is invisible, can we say the same thing regarding our faith? Is God so real and tangible to us that we can see Him all about us? When we open our eyes in the morning, and thank Him for the blessings to come, is He real to us? When we pray our morning prayers do we look into His eyes? And, even before our feet touch the floor, can our ears hear the voice of Jesus as He intercedes for us? Seeing is the process of our eyes gathering the reflection of light from the things about us, and our brain transforming them into an image. Do we see God in this way? Do our eyes gather Him in because He is light, and do we see Jesus because He is light too, or do they both remain invisible to us? Do our minds block what they should be seeing clearly? Is our faith correctly gathering the light of God, and of Jesus Christ and transforming it into their images for us to see?

Restoring the Fizz to a flat Faith, or Relationship

Richard Forbes
Complacent Faith

If we know and serve the Lord long enough there will be a time when we will experience His silence, and feel like He is far away. Maybe sin has separated us from Him, or we have become so used to His presence that we don’t feel His closeness like we once did. Whatever the reason, we know that we don’t believe any less, and yet for some mysterious reason there seems to be a distance between us. We are like a carbonated drink that has lost its fizz… we are flat. So what do we do when we find ourselves in this lonely place? I recommend that we read and pray the scriptures, and seek new ways to serve Him until we realize He is still close, and our hand is firmly in His once more.

Our Adoption as the Children of God

Richard Forbes
Christian , Daily Devotional , Adoption

I once heard a man who had just lost both of his parents make this statement in the midst of his grief, “now I am an orphan”, and I thought to myself “for those who believe in God that will never be true.” Jesus Christ came to redeem us from sin, and to abide in us, but He came to do much more than simply introduce us to His Father, He came so that we would be adopted by Him… in Jesus we have become more than orphans that our Lord has charitably taken in… we have become His true sons and daughters; the sons and daughters of a loving God, and made His in every way.

Trials, Choices, and our Lessons of Faith

Richard Forbes
Christian , Daily Devotional , Trials and Faith

When we face trials in our lives God will teach us lessons in faith through them, and the hardships we encounter will be of varying degrees, but every once in a while we will face one that is so overwhelming, and so devastating, that it shakes our faith to its very core, and those are the storms that break loose the loose debris of our self-imposed religion. These are the disasters that leave us with only the cornerstone of Jesus, and the solid foundational stones of God standing. It is in such times, when we think all is lost, that we will find our belief is still intact beneath the rubble, and that the things of God which are firm, and never changing have not only survived, but have become more deeply imbedded in us. Each of us will go through minor tremors, and fires of varying degrees, but when that magnitude 10 quake comes, or the fierce fires rage, what will we find standing when their dust has settled?

Who among us can fight for God?

Richard Forbes
Christian , Daily Devotional , Fighting

It is a common misconception that we need to fight God’s battles for Him. Christian’s who think that they must aggressively defend God, or Jesus Christ, from the world are mistaken. As humans we carry a lot of defensive anger around in us, and it will bubble to the surface when we, or our families, are threatened in any way. If you aren’t inclined to believe this then try disparaging someone’s parents, correcting their child, or doing just about anything that makes them feel their loved ones are facing harm in some way. We allow this anger to bleed over into our faith too, and will turn neighbors into enemies over our desire to defend God, and even our liturgy. We will lash out at others who don’t believe as we do, and will even go to war over these differences. We act as though God needs for us to fight His battles, when all He really wants us to do is to show others who He is by standing firm in our spiritual lives, revealing the nature of His Son Jesus to the world, and then by trusting in Him as He wages spiritual war.

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