Daily Devotions based on the Sermon Series: “Thoroughly Equipped”
Week 4 of 4: “Christ Who Rules Over Us!”
Full Sunday message: CONTEMPORARY or TRADITIONAL
THIS WEEK: Five Reasons to Give Thanks!
Who would have ever thought we would be discouraged from celebrating Thanksgiving?
I know we can still celebrate Thanksgiving, but Covid-19 certainly has put a damper on things. Travel discouraged…seeing family discouraged…wearing a facemask between bites…encouraged?
Satan would love to focus us on what we DON’T have and reasons NOT to give thanks. Let’s not fall for it. The reasons to give thanks will always supersede reasons not to be thankful. I pray the devotions this week will help keep us focused on at least a few of the many reasons God gives us to give thanks…this week and every week.
Let’s start with the most important.
Did you know there is a greater pandemic infecting our country and the world than CoVid-19?
The CDC doesn’t recommend guidelines concerning it. No mask will stop it. The President doesn’t have a task force to fight it. Social distancing doesn’t work. Staying at home doesn’t slow the infection rate.
This pandemic didn’t start in China, Europe or the United States, it started in Iraq and Iran…OK, not really, but that’s about where the Garden of Eden was. J
Sin entered the world. The infection rate is 100%. The mortality rate is 100%. Pfizer and Moderna can’t develop a vaccine.
Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned—
The outlook looks bleak. A solution to this spiritual pandemic seems to escape us as hard as we try. For this certain death sentence God works a solution.
Romans 7:21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Thanks be to God…through our Lord, Jesus Christ!
When a cure seemed impossible and healing seemed improbable, God sent his Son Jesus into the world to win the victory we could never win on our own. His perfect life…made ours. His death on the cross…applied to us. His glorious resurrection…the final blow to sin and death.
He didn’t need 100s in a clinical trial…just one perfect person on trial. He didn’t need to learn from the deaths of 1000s…he simply sacrificed himself once for all. He didn’t need FDA approval…he had his Father’s approval.
For you.
No matter what has happened in your life this year, God wants you to know your biggest problem in life, sin and its consequences, has been solved by Jesus Christ.
Give thanks…it’s the greatest gift ever given!
Apply: Make a list this week of all the things that have happened in 2020. Next to each one write one blessing God has given you through that event…whether you perceive that event as good or bad.
Prayer: Father, thank you for ALL the reasons you have given to me to give thanks this week and always. Thank you most of all for sending Jesus to win a victory I could never win on my own…thank you for providing me with a solution for my sin. AMEN.