Good morning, Lord Jesus. Put Your thoughts in my mind and Your desires in my heart to align my steps with Your path for my life.
Yesterday, I reflected on my family. This morning, The Holy Spirit wants me to continue to reflect on family, but not mine, but a family he gave me a holy glimpse into while drinking a cup of coffee.
I went to the Waffle House to meet a person who wanted to talk but they did not show up. So I sat at the bar next to a senior-aged black man who is a regular at the WH. Not his real name, however I will call him Dave for this post. It turned out that Dave was who I was meant to sit with this morning and listen to. In a few months Dave will be married to his wife for 50 years. I will call her Martha. They married right after high school. The first 13 years of their marriage was great and normal. What he thought marriage would be like, what “he signed up for.” Then Martha was impacted by a degenerative nerve disease that ran in her family. She became depressed, suicidal, emotional and moody. She has been hospitalized 70 times in the 37 years since she was effected by the disease for various periods of a week to 2 months. Dave said Martha will be one moment engaged and joyful, and then the next depressed and saying she does not want to live anymore. In this state she takes things out on Dave and says hurtful things to him because of her condition. Dave says it hurts him inside but he knows it is the disease and depression speaking, not his wife. Martha has gone through all types of different medicines and doses with only brief or sporadic help.
Dave said the 37 years of marriage since Martha’s disease changed everything has been a challenge. Sometimes a deep struggle. He has had to forgo allot of travel, and normal activities couples do together like going to a dinner and a movie because since the disease hit his wife hardly leaves the house. His 50th Class reunion was in Mississippi that he would have loved for her to attend with him, but because she was “not good” he had to go by himself. Yet for the past 50 years, with 37 of them being difficult, he has remained faithful to his wife. He has a strong faith in Christ, and he said he made a covenant before God and his Martha that he will not break. He said, “Do I have moments and days I thinks this is not fair? Yes. That I got a raw deal of more years of the “worse” out my vow of “for better or for worse?” Yes. That I miss going out and enjoying my wife’s company? Yes. Have I had occasional thoughts of leaving my wife? Yes. But he loves Martha. Loves God. And remains faithful to both. I told him he was a good man. He said I hear that allot however I am not. Most days I do not know what I am. He told me thanks for listening. Most people can't tell the difference between listening and loving. And we listen because we love.
We prayed together and after I did I thought I have no reason to complain about any of the struggles I have had in my marriage or my life. Any percieved bitterness in my marriage was now sweetened by my morning interuption with Dave and God.
"Then Moses ordered Israel to set out from the Red Sea and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter. That is why it was called Marah. And the people complained against Moses, saying, 'What shall we drink?' He cried out to the Lord; and the Lord showed him a piece of wood; he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet" (Exodus 15:22-25).
In You, we're on a spiritual journey out of the bondage of Egpyt, through the wilderness, and into the promised land of our destiny. And along the way we can grow weary and worn. We can give in to the negative attitudes of murmuring and complaining and criticizing. We can let our faith waiver as we begin to forget Your faithfulness for salvation and deliverance so many times before and start to lose our vision and hope for the destiny You've set before us. We focus on the cup of bitter waters we may be drinking from in the present.
But You are the God who makes our bitter waters sweet. Just like You showed Moses a piece of wood, you remind us of a piece of wood. You remind us of Your cross. The power of Your cross and Your sacrifice of love for every one of us is the power of God for our salvation, for our healing, for our deliverance that refreshes us and renews us to continue the journey. Just as You showed the children of Israel that day, You show us every day You are "the Lord who heals you" (Exodus 15:26) In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
My family, I pray you may drink deeply from the Living Waters every day, from the One who makes your bitter waters sweet, in Jesus' name! Please pray the same for me. God bless you, my friends!
Help Me Help Others Out Of Their Graves!
Help Me Share The Gospel!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
CLICK HERE TO GIVE
Discipleship Training.
One of my passions is helping churches or small groups understand and embrace their call to be disciples of Jesus in their community. I offer and lead discipleship trainings in person and on-line. If you are interested I would love to talk to you bout it. Email me at garyl@onedirection.community.
Would you like to receive my morning devotion blog?
Email your name and email address to garyl@onedirection.community and I will add you to my ODC Daily Message distribution list to receive an email of these reflection every weekday morning.
Weekday morning Devotions are also published daily on my “ODC Daily Message” Facebook page.
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website: https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Good morning Lord Jesus fill me with the power of your presence so I can impact today with the power of my presence.
Last week I was blessed to be able to spend a week on vacation with my wife and two daughters. With the chaos of life, it was the first time in over 2 years I was able to do so. It was a blessing to have an extended period of time to listen to my daughters, and hear and learn deeper of what and where they are now in life. In these extended conversations where we were able to talk and share about our lives. And it gave my wife and I as we listened to our daughters and greater understood their accomplishments and challenges, opportunities to pour into them out of our experience and faith and speak into their lives. It gave us clarity on the current inner realities of each other and how to specifically pray over our family.
I have invested in, pastored and help lead many churches and ministries, however the most important church I will ever need to invest in is a church of four members: myself, my wife, and my two daughters. Because if I fail in leading that church of 4 people, it will haunt me more than failings of leading churches and ministries of hundreds.
I believe for any church to press deeper into our calling, grow stronger together and grow our ministries together as a church family in Christ, we must first strengthen and grow our personal families in Christ. I strongly believe in the importance of all of our call to be part of and lead houses churches, Band groups, and other small groups. However, as important as these groups are, the most important small group we are part of and are called to lead is our family. As I begin the first Monday back after my vacation, “Back to the real world”, I want to focus my prayers and your prayers and reflections today on your family.
Pray for clarity and how to specifically pray over the real physical, financial, emotional, and spiritual needs of the members of your family. If you are honestly not sure of what these are, pray for the opportunity and space to learn them.
Pray and reflect for a moment how your living out your faith has affected, and more important, is affecting your family: spouse, sons and daughters, parents, siblings, nieces and nephews, cousins.
Reflect on: How do you share your faith with your family? Pray that you may witness to those in your family more bolder. Pray for the faith of your family. Spend your time at lunch praying over your family. Plan to spend a day this week fasting in prayer over your family.
In areas of conflict and division in your family, Pray that peace and reconciliation in your family may occur, and the presence and Spirit of Christ may break through these divisions, bond you, instill forgiveness, acceptance and respect and heal all that divides you.
Pray a prayer of thanks over family members, who like go of their way on your behalf, and currently pray and minister to you and allow you to be where you are in Christ today.
Pray for the forming of a sturdy covering of prayer over your family, your home and your relationship with them. Pray your home can be encouraging to each of you individually, where real conversations and learning take place, and that your home and can be an outpost of the kingdom of God.
Pray over ways you can engage your family and together as a family to serve and share the love of Christ with those in your community. You are called to encourage your family to love God and also love their neighbor.
Pray that your church, The Church, will become an even stronger family bound by prayer that stands up for and supports each other, serves Christ together, and proclaims the gospel together.
My family, I pray the Holy Spirit will lead you in prayer over what immediate action you need to take today. Perhaps make plans to share this message with your family to open a conversation with them and pray with them. Call at least one family member today and let them know you love them and are praying over them, Jesus name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
Please share your comments and reflections on my post in the comment box below.
Help Me Help Others Out Of Their Graves!
Help Me Share The Gospel!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
CLICK HERE TO GIVE
Discipleship Training.
One of my passions is helping churches or small groups understand and embrace their call to be disciples of Jesus in their community. I offer and lead discipleship trainings in person and on-line. If you are interested I would love to talk to you bout it. Email me at garyl@onedirection.community.
Would you like to receive my morning devotion blog?
Email your name and email address to garyl@onedirection.community and I will add you to my ODC Daily Message distribution list to receive an email of these reflection every weekday morning.
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website: https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Good morning, Lord Jesus. Align my heart with Your Heart, my mind with Your Mind, my will with Your Will, as You make me more like You today (Romans 8:29). ...
I was sitting at the Waffle House low bar listening to a conversation that came up. As it increased in intensity one man, who is a Christian said, “ I wish God would just wipe out all those LGBT and pro-abortion people from the face of the earth.” I was shocked and asked him, “I thought you are a Christian, a follower of Jesus? He pushed back, “I am, and if Jesus was here right now that is exactly what He would do!” He then said, “And you are a pastor, you should know this!” He then through some money down on the bar to pay for his meal and stormed out of the restaurant.
“Now it came to pass, when the time had come for (Jesus) to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before His face. And as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans, to prepare for Him. But they did not receive Him, because His face was set for the journey to Jerusalem. And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, ‘Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?’
“But He turned and rebuked them, and said, ‘You do not know what manner of spirit you are of.’ For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.’ And they went to another village” (Luke 9:51-56).
James and John -- though disciples of Jesus, didn’t always have the heart of Jesus. They were on the journey with Jesus, but they had come to a different destination in their estimation of just what that journey was all about.
And unfortunately there are Christians still today who do not always have the heart of Jesus and have a different estimation of what of their journey with Jesus is all about. They are to quick to “call down fire” on those who have not yet received Jesus or surrendered and conformed thier decision and lifestyles to His teachings. Instead of choosing to disciple them, they choose to destroy them. Attacks of Hate signs and messages outside abortions clinics, LGBT rallies, directed at democrats or republicans, and even mask wearers or others who’s destination is not lining up with theirs.
Is the truth is always important. Absolutely! I am orthodox in my understanding of Scripture. It should break out hearts in love for those who’s decision is to reject Jesus and His teachings, who is “the Way and the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6). But we must grow up in spiritual maturity by speaking the truth in love, sharing the truth in love, and living the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). That’s the journey Jesus was on and that is the journey we are called to be on; that’s the true destination where we’re headed.
And the only Fire we need to ever be calling down from Heaven is the Fire of the Holy Spirit, burning in our hearts with a passion for Jesus, burning in our hearts a passion for those who’s live and choices and not surrendered to Jesus and that every soul would be saved by the power of His love That’s the only manner of Holy Fire we want to be in us as the Spirit of Christ fills our hearts with mercy and love, as well as truth (Romans 8:9; Ephesians 5:18). Jesus, Give me that Spirit! Give Your Church more of that Spirit! -- more and more every day -- I pray! In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
My family, may you be filled with the Holy Spirit, full of a fiery passion for Jesus and every soul He's reaching out to save in the truth and the love of God, in Jesus' name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
Please share your thoughts and prayers with us in the comment box below.
Help Me Help Others Out Of Their Graves!
Help Me Share The Gospel!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
TO GIVE CLICK HERE!
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website:https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Subscribe to ODC Daily Devotions
Would you like to receive my daily devotions in your email inbox every weekday morning? I can add you to the email subscription list if you message me on FB or email me at garyl@onedirection.community. You can email me your prayer requests as well.
Good morning, Lord Jesus. My eyes are on You and Your Spirit is in me, as I seek to begin my day embraced by my Father, centered in Christ, and filled with the Holy Spirit. ...
“When the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come” (John 16:13).
Holy Spirit, You are the Spirit of Truth. And You are always guiding us into all truth and pointing us to the One Who is the Truth -- “the Way and the Truth and the Life” -- our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (John 14:6).
The truth is not always popular. But we don’t follow the crowds, we follow You, Lord Jesus. The crowds who welcomed You into Jerusalem crying, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” became the crowds that rejected You and condemned You to death on the Cross crying, “Crucify Him!” (John 12:13; John 19:6). So we don’t trust the crowds, we trust You Jesus.
Whether popular or not, whether rejected or not, You call us and empower us to courageously take our stand in truth, to take our stand in the One who is the Truth, filled with the Spirit of Truth:
“Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication” (Ephesians 6:13-18).
“Children (of God), let us love, not in word or speech, but in action and truth” (1 John 3:18).
Come, Holy Spirit. Give me courage to take action, to stand in the truth, even when it’s not popular, even when it costs me something. That’s all part of my calling, along with every disciple of Jesus standing against the tide of the culture of this age, to be salt and light in my world every day, In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
My family, I pray you may be filled with the Spirit of Truth to courageously take your stand in truth in the One who is the Truth, in Jesus' name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
Help Me Help Others Out Of Their Graves!
Help Me Share The Gospel!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
TO GIVE CLICK HERE!
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website:https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Subscribe to ODC Daily Devotions
Would you like to receive my daily devotions in your email inbox every weekday morning? I can add you to the email subscription list if you message me on FB or email me at garyl@onedirection.community. You can email me your prayer requests as well.
“We are fools for Christ…To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, poorly clothed, brutally treated, and without a roof over our heads. We do hard work, toiling with our own hands. When we are verbally abused, we respond with a blessing, when persecuted, we endure, when people lie about us, we answer in a friendly manner. We are the worldʼs dirt and scum, even now.” (I Cor. 4:10-13)
You probably remember the story about Jesus asking a Samaritan woman with a dubious reputation for a drink (as if he didn’t know how that would look). And how he recruited zealots, harlots, fishermen, despised tax-collectors, and Sons of Thunder. And how he enjoyed a perfumed foot-rub at a respectable dinner party. One scholar says of the woman in this particular encounter, “Her actions would have been regarded (at least by men) as erotic. Letting her hair down in this setting would have been on a par with appearing topless in public. It is no wonder that Simon [the host] entertains serious reservations about Jesus’ status as a holy man. Jesus made himself unclean again and again, touching the untouchables: lepers, menstruating women, and even corpses. He got down on his knees and washed between the toes of men who’d been walking dusty roads in sandals behind donkeys.
And while the dirt lingered in the creases of his hands, he accused those whose hands were clean of sin. Did you hear the one about the whitewashed tombs? (Matthew 23:27) Or about the dutiful son who despised the prodigal brother staggering home penniless and covered in pig? (Luke 15:30) Or the story about the dirty low-life tax-collector whose snivelling apologies were heard by God while the precise intercessions of a righteous Pharisee merely bounced off the ceiling? (Luke 18:9-14) The Word told dirty stories, and the stories told the Word.
Offended, they washed their hands of him—Pontius Pilate, the Chief Priest, even Simon Peter—and they hung him out to die, Eventually he was extinguished: Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Glory gone the way of all flesh.
But the dirt could not contain him for long. Three days later the sun rose and the Son rose. And now that he could do anything, go anywhere, what would he do and where would he go? Out of the whole realm of creation, the entire populace of humanity, Jesus chose to appear first to a woman. To a woman, in a time when women lived in a chauvinistic culture that refused to teach women the Torah and discounted their testimony in a court of law. And not just any woman, but Mary Magdalene, who was a colorful woman, a woman with a questionable reputation from whom seven demons had been cast. Jesus appearing to Mary was the biggest moment of her life. And yet at first, embarrassingly, she mistook the resurrected Jesus for an ordinary gardener, a man with the earth ingrained in the creases of his hands at the start of a working day. Yet Jesus had chosen her quite deliberately, another Mary for another birth, another Eve in another garden, to be his first apostle. This, too, is offensive to some to this day.
Yes, we believe in the Word made flesh who dwelt among us as a kind of prayer and sends us out to speak the “Amen” in every dark corner of his creation. He handpicks dim-witted people like us: “the foolish things of the world to shame the wise” (1Corinthians 1:27). Bewildered by grace we go wherever he sends us, eat whatever is put before us, kneel in the gutter, make the unlikeliest locations places of prayer. We participate fervidly in a morally ambiguous world, carrying the knowledge of his glory “in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (2 Corinthians 4:7).
And so, with angels, archangels, and that great company of gnarly old saints, we believe that someday soon this whole dirty world will finally be filled with the knowledge of God’s glory. He will breathe once more into the dust of the earth. And on that day, every knee will bow. Every blaspheming tongue will cry, “Oh my God!” Every hand will be raised in surrender. And he will choose the ones with dirt in the creases of their hands, just as he always did. Flesh will become Word, and dwell with him in glory.
My family, I pray you may understand that you and I are also the glory of God covered and contained in flesh and dirt. Like Jesus, we were not created to contain the glory of God and to be the hands of Christ in the world with our hands kept clean by remaining in our living rooms and church sanctuaries, and shaking hands of our peers. We were created to contain the glory of God with hands with dirt in their creases from entering brothel’s and bars, embracing addicts and the homeless. Our hands were not created for the ringing church bells, but for ringing the door bells of the our neighbors and the poor and the lost, In Jesus’ name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
Please share you thoughts and prayers with us from this devotion in the comment box below.
Help Me Help Others Out Of Their Graves!
Help Me Share The Gospel!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
TO GIVE CLICK HERE!
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website:https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Subscribe to ODC Daily Devotions
Would you like to receive my daily devotions in your email inbox every weekday morning? I can add you to the email subscription list if you message me on FB or email me at garyl@onedirection.community. You can email me your prayer requests as well.
Good morning, Lord Jesus. As I begin my day, I speak out Your name over everything I’ll face, for there’s no other name above Your name (Philippians 2:9). ...
“Now while they were going, behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all the things that had happened. When they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, saying, ‘Tell them, ‘His disciples came at night and stole Him away while we slept.’ And if this comes to the governor’s ears, we will appease him and make you secure.’ So they took the money and did as they were instructed; and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.
“Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted.
And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’ Amen” (Matthew 28:11-18).
Matthew’s account of the days following Your resurrection doesn’t shy away from the issue of doubt. The Jewish leaders were sowing doubt, deception, and misinformation with their money. Even some of Your disciples were giving into doubt and unbelief with their skepticism.
Better to doubt the doubters than doubt Jesus. Better to overcome the skepticism than believe the misinformation.
Your Word says of Your disciples, that they saw You, they worshipped You; but at the same time, “some doubted” You (v. 17).
Even among Your disciples today, we have to battle the doubt and unbelief that’s been sown into this world to deny our Savior. Even “until this day,” especially today with all the disinformation that speaks to us on social media, in the news, and actions of social groups, that same spirit of doubt and unbelief persists. Skepticism and misinformation continue to spread.
But You still come among us and still speak Your words over us. You still remind us of Your authority and Your desire for hearts and souls from every nation. And You still encourage us You are with us -- “with (us) always, even to the end of the age” -- as we go make disciples of the nations in the name of Jesus.
Jesus, deliver us from doubt and increase our faith. Free us from the skepticism and misinformation of this age. Help us to turn to Your Word and open our Bibles instead of opening a website to get the truth of who you are. Fill us with hearts that trust You and obey You, that worship You and willing “Go” for You everywhere You send us with the Good News of Your resurrection. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
My family, I pray you may be filled with faith and set free from doubt, as You trust in Jesus and share the Good News of His resurrection everywhere He sends you. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
Please share you thoughts and prayers with us from this devotion in the comment box below.
Help Me Help Others Out Of Their Graves!
Help Me Share The Gospel!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
TO GIVE CLICK HERE!
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website:https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Subscribe to ODC Daily Devotions
Would you like to receive my daily devotions in your email inbox every weekday morning? I can add you to the email subscription list if you message me on FB or email me at garyl@onedirection.community. You can email me your prayer requests as well.
Good morning, Lord Jesus. I look to You and listen for Your leading, for Your sheep hear Your voice (John 10:27) and the children of God are led by the Spirit of God (Romans 8:14). ...
As I listen, what comes to my heart this morning is this Scripture from the apostle Paul:
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him”
(1 Corinthians 2:9).
And I’m remembering similar words from the prophet Isaiah:
“For since the beginning of the world
Men have not heard nor perceived by the ear,
Nor has the eye seen any God besides You,
Who acts for the one who waits for Him” (Isaiah 64:4).
And now what rises up in my heart from Your heart are these words:
“Look to Me with expectant faith. You’ve only just begun and the best is yet to come. But the key to the kingdom I have set before you, the key to the kingdom of God I am forming within you and within the hearts of all who would seek Me and follow Me, is to keep looking to Me. Let me open your eyes to My vision and your ears to My voice. And I will guide your heart and your steps into My plan. And my plan is form the character of My nature in you. For the kingdom of God is within you.” ...
Yes, Lord. ...As I seek to discern what I believe I’m hearing in Your spoken word, these Words come to me from Your written Word:
“Now when (Jesus) was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, ‘The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you’” (Luke 17:20-21).
“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29).
Yes, Lord. I seek You and seek to follow You and I seek to allow You to establish Your abundant and everlasting kingdom in my heart, as You keep forming the character of Your nature in me -- as best as I can and all by Your grace. Apart from You, I can do nothing (John 15:5). “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).
So with all my heart, I believe in You and I will keep seeking You with expectant faith, as You keep establishing Your kingdom in me. One day my eyes will see and my ears will hear and my heart will know these astounding things You have prepared for me and for all who love You and seeking You. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
My family, I pray as you walk out your door this morning into a new week you may walk out looking to God with expectant faith, letting Him establish His kingdom in your heart and the character of His nature in your life, in Jesus' name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
Please share you thoughts and prayers with us from this devotion in the comment box below.
Help Me Help Others Out Of Their Graves!
Help Me Share The Gospel!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
TO GIVE CLICK HERE!
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website:https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Subscribe to ODC Daily Devotions
Would you like to receive my daily devotions in your email inbox every weekday morning? I can add you to the email subscription list if you message me on FB or email me at garyl@onedirection.community.
“So then from now on we acknowledge no one from an outward human point of view. Even though we have known Christ from such a human point of view, now we do not know him in that way any longer. So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; what is old has passed away - look, what is new has come! (2 Cor. 5:16-18)
Last night in my men’s group, Brothers, Bibles and Beer, we read through and discussed 2 Corinthians chapter 5. I read through this amazing chapter again this morning and my reflection flows out of this reading. I am asking you to watch this 4 minute video before you continue on to reading my reflections that follow.
Flawless! That is what we are told the cross makes us and we become when we accept Christ into our life isn’t it. When we were saved. That is what Salvation means. Salvation means and requires a change. We were saved from something, to something.
We are born again new as Jesus tells Nicodemus in John Chapter 3
“Jesus replied, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”… “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must all be born from above.’
John expanded earlier on being born again in John Chapter 1 that when we came to Christ we born again, that we were not born of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. We become sons and daughters of God!
And Nicodemus answered. “How can this be?” And I believe that many of us here in Christ, and many who have been Christians in the church for decades, still wonder, “How can that be?”
If I were put on a name tag that states “I’m Flawless” What would most who read it think. “Ya right!” They would lean over to their neighbor and whisper, “You got to be kidding! ”
Because if you look at me with earthly eyes, in my flesh, I look like almost all of them in the “before” pictures in the attached video you watched.
I live with guilt of a reckless living
I am prone to being selfish
I at times doubt if God will provide my needs.
I struggle with being the spiritual leader in my house
I’m at times haunted by my past
I can make my work a priority over my family
I should not only be covered in muck like those in the video, but up to my waist in it!
But none of that defines me as who I am anymore. And none of that defines who you are anymore. But we as a church still greet, judge, and live as if it does. Why?
Let me ask you this: Are you in Christ? Do you believe you are a new creature? That when you came to Christ it completely changed and altered not just your eternal destiny or your present in a spiritual sense, but you were changed mentally and physically as well. Your DNA was affected and renewed,
If you are witnessing to someone and talking to them about Jesus, and you invite them into a relationship with Jesus, or just to go to church. They answer, “No, I am not good enough.” No, I am not ready yet. Your reply may be the standard, “You do not have to be good enough, Christ will meet you right where you are.” Or “If You take one step towards Jesus, and he will take 1,000 towards you.” To which I say amen and its true! I hope you believe that! But when Jesus does meet them, In this eternity altering encounter, What happens to them? They are totally and completely transformed! You were totally and completely transformed! They were made Flawless! You were made flawless! And if the church did not make you realize that then I am sorry. Listen again to Paul.
Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2Co 5:18-21 )
God through the Holy Spirit dwells flawlessly in us.
We need to reach out to people as realizing this. As Flawless people inviting others into a flawless existence. The world needs people offering this. Flawlessness. But you can not offer to them, what you do not see in yourself. Maybe the church never conveyed this to you. But you are flawless!
My family, I pray this morning you look in the mirror and claim your flawless in Christ. I pray throughout this weekend you continue to receive this message, believe this message, and then go out and share this message, In Jesus’ name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
Please share you thoughts and prayers with us from this devotion in the comment box below.
Help Me Help Others Out Of Their Graves!
Help Me Share The Gospel!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
TO GIVE CLICK HERE!
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website:https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
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Good morning, Lord Jesus. I welcome You here in my heart and in every moment of my day. You’re with me always . ...
As You cried out from the Cross, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ -- “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” -- You took upon Yourself all my sins and all that would separate us (Mark 15:34). “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
“Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:4-6).
“Because He poured out His soul unto death,
And He was numbered with the transgressors,
And He bore the sin of many,
And made intercession for the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12).
Forgive me for any way I take this Truth for granted. Forgive me for failing to remember -- with a heart filled with thanksgiving and praise in every moment of every day -- all You have done for me because of all the mercy and love You have for me.
As I’m pondering Your Truth in my heart this morning, I sense Your Spirit drawing me to embrace the fruit of Your sacrifice. You literally died for me to have more deeply, more fully intimate presence of You in my life. On this side of the Cross, on this side of the resurrection, may You receive Your full reward of Your suffering. And part of that reward is the oneness of the spiritual intimacy with us You prayed for and died for in ways we can’t even comprehend or imagine.
You’re One with the Father and One with the Holy Spirit (John 14:10, 16). And in the mystery of faith and the mercy of God, You want to be One with me and every one of Your children of God as well. As You promised for all who trust You and believe in You will receive Your gift of God from You,; “At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him” (John 14:20-21).
Just before You died for us, with the same passion that You cried out from the Cross in surrender to the burden of our sin, You cried out to the Father in prayer for the intimacy of our spirits with Your Spirit, our hearts with Your Heart, that we would be one with You, that we would be one with our God:
“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me” (John 17:20-23).
This is all part of the reward of Your suffering. This is all part of growing up in spiritual maturity “to the unity of faith.... to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). This is all part of “the joy that was set before You” when You “endured the Cross, despising the shame” for us (Hebrews 12:2). And that’s all part of why we’re to remember, to embrace, to never take for granted, not even for a moment, that gift of God we have of a life of intimacy with You, as we live out our journey of faith morning by morning, step by step “looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1).
So by the mercies and grace and love of God, I do. Looking to You, responding to You, I trust and obey You, that You may have the fullness of Your desire and Your reward. I choose this oneness with You that You desire for me -- this day and every day. For “he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him” (1 Corinthians 6:17). In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
My family, I pray you may know you are one with the Father, one with the Son, one with the Holy Spirit, as you fully surrender your heart to Jesus and live out your journey of faith in deep intimacy with Him morning by morning and step by step, in Jesus' name. God bless you my friends!
Please share you thoughts and prayers with us from this devotion in the comment box below.
Help Me Help Others Out Of Their Graves!
Help Me Share The Gospel!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
TO GIVE CLICK HERE!
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website:https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Subscribe to ODC Daily Devotions
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Good morning, Lord Jesus. I welcome You here in my heart and in every moment of my day. ...
“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the Express Image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they” (Hebrews 1:1-4).
We American’s are impatient and want everything fast. We have drive throughs for fast food, banking, pharmacy, and curbside pick-ups far about everything, We want the cliff notes, the simple explanations, the all-in one, compact products.
Our one true God is incomprehensible. Paul states,“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!. For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” No matter how many “boxes” we try to put God in, there are no “cliff notes, ” nothing about God simple, fast, compact. God knew this. He did not want to have a distant, intangible relationship with us. So He became flesh in His Son Jesus. In Jesus, we have all the vastness of God in an all-in one package. Falling on our knees and cry out to Jesus, we are in the “drive-through lane” to God, and are immediately placed into His presence. God gift of grace is everything that Jesus is, all His love, power, and presence, made available to us today, right now.
So I look to You Jesus. I seek You. You are “the Express Image” of God: And as I turn to You and look to You, Your Spirit removes everything between us that is complicating and slowing my connecting with You and changes everything within me to be more like You, “transformed into the same image:” (Romans 11:33)
Keep removing every veil, every sin, every distorted image of who You are and who I am in You. Keep drawing me close to You, lifting up my spirit to You, setting me free in Your liberty to seek You and see You, to behold and worship You, as You change me into Your image “from glory to glory” more and more every day.
“For this is the will of God, (my) sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). This is Your plan for my life -- to make me more like You every day through every battle I face, every test I endure, and every challenge I overcome -- all by Your grace, as I’m looking to You (Romans 8:29; Hebrews 12:1-2). In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
My family, I pray you may today enter the “fast lane to God” and cry out to Jesus, who is "the Express Image of God," He desires to keep changing You into His image by His Spirit more and more every day, "from glory to glory," in Jesus' name. God bless you my friends!
Please share you thoughts and prayers with us from this devotion in the comment box below.
Help Me Help Others Out Of Their Graves!
Help Me Share The Gospel!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
TO GIVE CLICK HERE!
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website:https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Subscribe to ODC Daily Devotions
Would you like to receive my daily devotions in your email inbox every weekday morning? I can add you to the email subscription list if you message me on FB or email me at garyl@onedirection.community.
Good morning, Lord Jesus. I bow before You in my heart and look up to You in my spirit to begin my day embraced by my Father, centered in Christ, and filled with the Holy Spirit. ...
Scripture lists “the names of the mighty men whom David had ... thirty-seven in all” (2 Samuel 23:8-39).
I have been reading through 1st and 2nd Samuel and the stories they contain of David and his battles, victories, and struggles. There are also the stories of the men of God who stood by him and fought alongside him. They were all at varying places of spiritual maturity, but all of them revealed a deep place of loyalty and faithfulness to the one they looked toward to lead them. They were the mighty men, the mighty warriors, of the army of David.
One killed eight hundred men in one battle. One stood his ground and fought off the enemies of the Lord until his sword stuck to his hand, as if his hand were welded to his sword. One chased a lion down into a pit and fought it to the death on a snowy day.
They were courageous. They were unrelenting. They were mighty men of David who chose to follow David and were willing to lay down their lives for David. And their lives speak to us as our calling to pursue You Jesus -- “the Son of David” (Matthew 1:1), the One who forever sits on “the throne” of David (Luke 1:32) -- both “Son of God” and “Son of Man” (John 1:34 and 12:23) -- the “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” who “judges and makes war” at the head of “the armies of heaven” (Revelation 19:11-16).
All men and women baptized into the family of God today are to be Your mighty warriors (2 Timothy 2:3), courageous, unrelenting, faithful to You through every battle we face for our families, our communities, our nations, learning to weld “the weapons of our warfare (which) are not of the flesh, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:4). We’re learning, as You equip us and empower us by Your Spirit, to “put on the whole armor of God” and to wield “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” until our swords are stuck to our hands and sealed in our hearts to be released through our words in the days of our battles against the enemies of the Lord -- whether in our own flesh or in the world we face (Ephesians 6:10-20).
Let it be so Jesus for each of Your sons and daughters of God reading this reflection this morning; soldiers and warriors in the army of the Lord -- “more than conquerors through Him who loved us” and gives us the victory in every battle (Romans 8:37). In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
My Family, I pray as you rise this morning to begin a new week, you will rise into your calling to stand alongside snd fight with Jesus. I pray you may be empowered and equipped, with His Holy Spirit, filled with faith and courage as you walk out your door into a new week to follow Jesus at the head of His army in every battle you face as more than a conqueror in Him, in Jesus' name. God bless you my friends! Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
Help Me Help Others Out Of Their Graves!
Help Me Share The Gospel!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
TO GIVE CLICK HERE!
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website:https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Subscribe to ODC Daily Devotions
Would you like to receive my daily devotions in your email inbox every weekday morning? I can add you to the email subscription list if you message me on FB or email me at garyl@onedirection.community.
Good morning, Lord Jesus. Arise in my heart and shine through my life today. ...
“Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, But a good word makes it glad” (Proverbs 12:25).
As I begin my day, fill my heart with Your Good Word. Let Your Word be a Lamp to my feet and a Light to my path (Psalm 119:105). The Good News of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God will make me glad, as I hear it and as I share it (Luke 4:43).
Anxiety and depression fill the hearts and minds of so many people I talk to today. They cause fear, paradise the soul, and are ay the root and cause of many sins and disorders like hoarding, drug addiction, alcoholism, cutting, anorexia, suicide and others. As the root of anxiety bears the fruit of depression, we need to let the root of Jesus’s good words, rooted and grounded and springing forth from the Word of God, bear the fruit of gladness and peace and joy.
Your words are Truth; Your words are Spirit; Your words are Life (John 6:63).
You are Love (1 John 4:8). And Your words are expressions of Your love. And they are better than life.
“I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld Your power and Your glory. Because Your love is better than life, my lips will glorify You. I will praise you as long as I live, and in Your name I will lift up my hands” (Psalm 63:1).
So let Your words of Spirit and Life fill my heart. Let Your words of Love and Life cast out all fear, all anxiety and lift off all depression, all discouragement, all heaviness of heart. “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). “For (You have) not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). So we can cast all our cares, all our anxieties upon You, for You care for us (1 Peter 5:7).
Jesus, uproot from within us all that bear the fruit of depression, discouragement, and heaviness of heart. In its place, comfort all who mourn in sadness or weariness or sorrow:
“To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified” (Isaiah 61:3).
Let it be so in me. And let it be so in every heart who would receive any words You would speak through me today on my journey of faith with You.
My family, I pray you may be filled with gladness and peace and joy as God's Good Words are rooted in your spirit, uprooting any anxieties, washing away depression, and casting out any fear, in Jesus' name. God bless you my friends!
Good morning, Lord Jesus. As I speak out Your name, I listen for Your leading -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of God. ...
“I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will” (Acts 13:22 from 1 Samuel 13:14).
David was a man after Your heart. And by the grace of God, so am I. I’m after Your heart. I’m after Your character, after Your nature, after Your Spirit, after Your Presence.
I’m after Your whole purpose for my life, after all Your will through my life. I’m after all the plans You have for me -- for my good and not my harm, for my future full of hope (Jeremiah 29:11; Psalm 139:16; Romans 8:29).
I’m after You. Pursuing You. Pressing into You. Holding nothing back from You. Hungering and thirsting for more of You.
And by the grace of God, I believe I’ll catch You. Because You’re the very One who’s put this desire and passion to pursue You, to go after You with all my heart and mind and soul and strength within me. You give us the desires of our heart because You’re the One who puts Your desires in our hearts.
As Your Word invites us, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33). “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6). “Pursue love” (1 Corinthians 14:1).
David had his issues. and believe me, so do I. But despite his issues, despite his failures, he never let down and never slowed up in his passionate pursuit of what mattered the most -- his passionate pursuit of the One who mattered the most. And despite my issues and despite my failures, neither will I.
It’s all by Your grace (John 15:5). And I thank You every moment of every day for that grace -- the grace of God to be a man after God’s own heart -- as Your Spirit keeps working in me to keep making me more like You every day (Romans 8:29; 1 Corinthians 6:17; Philippians 2:13; 1 John 4:17; 2 Peter 1:4). Lord, let it be so -- here in my heart and here in my pursuit today. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
My family, I pray you may be filled with a passion to pursue the heart of God, and despite your issues, never letting down, never slowing up, by the grace of God, in Jesus' name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
Help Me Help Others Out Of Their Graves!
Help Me Share The Gospel!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
TO GIVE CLICK HERE!
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website:https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Subscribe to ODC Daily Devotions
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Good morning, Lord Jesus. Your name is above every name; and I speak Your name over everything in my life and every moment of my day (Philippians 2:9). ...
As I wait for the leading of Your Spirit, an image comes to mind from the Garden of Gethsemane. When Judas who betrayed You came with “a detachment of troops ... with lanterns, torches, and weapons” to arrest You, You said to them, “Whom are you seeking?” (Luke 18:1-4)
When they answered they were seeking Jesus of Nazareth, You simply said, “I am He” (v. 5). And immediately, they “drew back and fell to the ground!” (v. 6)
All their lanterns and torches couldn’t hold a candle to the One who is the Light of the World (John 8:12). All their weapons formed against You could not prosper in the face of the One who is the Word of God (John 1:14; Isaiah 54:17).
And now, by the grace of God, in the mystery of faith, the One who said “I am He” lives in me. “Christ in (me), the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). “The Spirit of Christ” abides in me (Romans 8:9) and I abide in You (John 15:4). The same Spirit who raised You from the dead, the same Spirit that pushed back and knocked over that detachment of troops in the Garden now dwells in my heart and in the heart of every one of Your disciples (Romans 8:11).
Lord Jesus, release Your words of power through us today. You are the Word of God made flesh (John 14:1). And at the same time, Your words are made flesh through the words of the sons and daughters of God who are called by Your name, who abide in You, and Your words abide in us. As You said:
“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples” (John 15:7). You said, “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full” (v. 11).
Speak Your words through me and every one of Your disciples, the sons and daughters of God, today, I pray, Lord Jesus. Shine forth Your Light. Push back the darkness. Overcome the enemies of the Cross and the kingdoms of this world, as a foretaste and foreshadow of the age to come when “the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ (who) shall reign forever and ever!” (Revelation 11:15) In Jesus’ name, ahem!
My family, I pray the word of God may be released through you in the power and authority of the name of Jesus, who abides in you, in Jesus' name. God bless you, my friends!
I would love if you would share your reflections on this devotion with us in the comment box below.
This song came to me as I was writing this devotion. Take a few minutes to let the Holy Spirit sing these words over you and claim them.
Help Me Help Others Out Of Their Graves!
Help Me Share The Gospel!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
TO GIVE CLICK HERE!
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website:https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Subscribe to ODC Daily Devotions
Would you like to receive my daily devotions in your email inbox every weekday morning? I can add you to the email subscription list if you message me on FB or email me at garyl@onedirection.community.
Good morning, Lord Jesus. I begin this day seeking Your face, listening for Your voice, and waiting for the leading of Your Spirit. ...
“The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning He awakens; He awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught” (Isaiah 50:4).
“Morning by morning” You awaken me and bring me into this place of Your Presence, as I listen and wait for Your leading and your daily message You have for over 10 years now of this spiritual journey of growing in spiritual intimacy with You -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of God. And then I follow Your leading to share the words I hear in my heart and the impressions and images and Scriptures that come to my spirit with those who join me on this journey.
I do pray these simple prayers help them draw nearer to You, to be sustained with a word when they’re weary, encouraged and lifted up when they’re discouraged or stuck, filled with a deeper hunger and pursuing thirst for closer intimacy with You, and set ablaze with a fiery passion for more of You -- just as You’re doing with me “morning by morning” before I send out these words of prayer to them.
Thank You for the freedom to be honest and real, transparent and true, in these morning expressions of my heart in my pursuit of Your Presence. Right out of bed, with my first cup of coffee, sinking into my prayer chair with my spirit and my laptop open for the leading of Your Holy Spirit, You’ve given me a persistent passion to spend these first moments of every weekday morning with You.
Take me deeper, Lord. Lift me higher, Lord. Draw me closer, Lord.
As David expressed his morning prayers to You:
“Give ear to my words, O Lord,
Consider my meditation.
Give heed to the voice of my cry,
My King and my God,
For to You I will pray.
My voice You shall hear in the morning, O Lord;
In the morning I will direct it to You,
And I will look up” (Psalm 5:1-3).
This is my way of looking up, of listening up, of lifting up my heart to You in worship and prayer in these first moments of my morning to start of my day embraced by my Father, centered in Christ, and filled with the Holy Spirit of the Living God. You meet me here -- Heart to heart, Spirit to spirit, Deep to deep -- in the communion of prayer “morning by morning.”
And this is one of Your ways of making me more like You, “morning by morning,” step by step, one day at a time, “from glory to glory:”
“Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:17-18).
“The one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him” (1 Corinthians 6:17).
Make me one spirit with You, Lord. Put Your thoughts in my mind, Your desires in my heart, Your words in my mouth, as You sustain me with Your words and draw me near by Your Spirit “morning by morning” on my daily journey with You. And make me more like You each day (Romans 8:29; 1 John 4:17; 2 Peter 1:4). In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
My family, may you be drawn close to God and conformed into His image from glory to glory as you pursue Him -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of God -- in the deep communion of prayer "morning by morning", in Jesus' name. God bless you, my friends!
Please share with readers your thoughts on this reflection this morning in the comment box below!
Help Me Help Others Out Of Their Graves!
Help Me Share The Gospel!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
TO GIVE CLICK HERE!
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website:https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
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Good morning Lord Jesus, I connect myself in union with You, the Father and The spirit this morning. Speak to me before I speak to others..
“He said, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Make this valley full of trenches.’ For thus says the Lord, ‘You shall not see wind nor shall you see rain; yet that valley shall be filled with water, so that you shall drink, both you and your cattle and your beasts.” (2 Kings 3:16-17)
Most weekday morning for over 10 years now I have been walking into the Waffle House sitting at the bar, and talking with customers and waitresses.. There is a man in his 80’s who is a regular at the bar. I talk to him almost every morning. He was raised and holds “old south views.” In conversations he often gets angry and loud. “he says things like, “Send all those foreigners back where they belong,” “Those so and so’s are all lazy, no good, welfare bums” Those sos and so are all nothing but criminals and I wish they’d go back to were they came from” and so on. He often makes other customers at the bar uncomfortable with his racist remarks. I try to respectfully counter his racial remarks. Many times he just tells me, “ If you don’t like what I am saying, well you can just go back up to Cleveland where you came from1” This has been going on for years and I have prayed, loved, and tried to soften his heart. The other morning I was sitting at the low bar next to him and he quietly and politely told me about an inmate health struggle he and his wife are going though. He had tears in his eyes as he shared. And instead of telling me to “go back where I came from” he asked me to pray for him, his wife, and so I sat at the bar and prayed over him.
I have never saved anyone in my life. Salvation is in and through Christ alone. Only He through the Holy Spirit can flip the switch of faith in a person. Only he can make it rain with the water of life that fills a dry, parched, dead clay of a persons heart to bring forth new life,. However, we are commanded by God and required by our faith to participate in cultivating His saving grace of new life.
We are called to be ditch diggers. To love our neighbors and go out and interact, have conversations, end break into the dead soil of their hearts, share are faith, plant the seeds of the Gospel of grace to prepare those seeded hearts to receive the water of life. In the passage in 2 Kings, God told the three Kings through Elisha tohave thier men dig ditches in the valley. The valley was hard, dry, and not bearing any life. But Elisha told them to dig ditches to hold water.. He said as you dig you will not see any rain, the hot sun will be above, the ground will seem to hard, you may feel like you are waisting your time, but if you are faithful to dig, God will bring the rain. God provided the miracle of rain, but it came about because of the obedience and participation on the part of the kings. If they had not dug the ditches, God would not have brought the rain. In the story on the Public man God allowed me to enter into, if I had not kept digging ditched of love in the man over receiving, even if it look like it was a waste of my time as I was not seeing any results, an opening in the soil of his heart would not have occurred to allow the love of God to soak in.
We understand this about agriculture. If we just stare at a piece of land, do not hoe it, make rows and plant seeds, but just sit, watch and pray for plants to reproduce, it will not happen We know this is true. Why don’t we understands this about our faith? As a church, if we look at our neighbors and drive or walk by them, and don’t go intentionally interact with them and share seeds of our faith, but just sit and pray for our churches to grow and reproduce, it will not happen. Watching a piece of land is not going to produce bushel baskets of vegetables Watching our neighborhoods is not going to produce churches full of life.
My family, I pray today as you begin your work week, you resolve to go out into the field God has placed you over: your neighborhood, your work place, your school, your “waffle Houses” and start digging relational ditches of love. Even when it seems hopeless, even when it is scary, just keep digging, just keep digging, and watch how God will bring the rain, In Jesus’ name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
Please share with readers your thoughts on this reflection this morning in the comment box below!
Help Me Help Others Out Of Their Graves!
Help Me Share The Gospel!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
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Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website:https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Subscribe to ODC Daily Devotions
Would you like to receive my daily devotions in your email inbox every weekday morning? I can add you to the email subscription list if you message me on FB or email me at garyl@onedirection.community.
Good morning, Lord Jesus. Lead my heart and my thoughts in Your will and Your ways this day -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of God. ...
"I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord;
I will remember Your wonders of old.
I will meditate on all Your work,
and muse on Your mighty deeds.
Your way, O God, is holy.
What god is so great as our God?
You are the God who works wonders;
You have displayed Your might among the peoples.
With Your strong arm You redeemed Your people,
the descendants of Jacob and Joseph. Selah
When the waters saw You, O God,
when the waters saw You, they were afraid;
the very deep trembled.
The clouds poured out water;
the skies thundered;
Your arrows flashed on every side.
The crash of Your thunder was in the whirlwind;
Your lightnings lit up the world;
the earth trembled and shook.
Your way was through the sea,
Your path, through the mighty waters;
yet Your footprints were unseen.
You led Your people like a flock
by the hand of Moses and Aaron" (Psalm 77:11-20).
When torrents of doubt seek to flood our minds, when winds of worry seek to topple our faith, Your Spirit stirs us to "call to mind the deeds of the Lord" and "remember Your wonders of old" (v. 11). We "meditate on all Your work" and "muse on Your mighty deeds" (v. 12). For You are the God of miracles! "You are the God who works wonders!" (v. 14)
You're the God who makes a way where there seems to be no way (v. 19). You're the God who has His say no matter what the world around us has to say. And in ways where "Your footprints" are "unseen," Your Spirit and Your Word, Your angelic hosts of heaven, are at work in ways not yet revealed and in ways yet to be unsealed (v. 19). Yes, You are at work! And Yes, You will make a way -- Your way "through the sea" and Your path "through the mighty waters!"
You will lead Your people like a flock (v. 20). And though You alone are the One leading, You will lead "by the hand of Moses and Aaron" -- by those You've positioned in places of authority, places of courage, places of intercession, and places of spiritual leadership for just such a time as this, for a nation of Your people You will vindicate and redeem "with Your strong arm to "display Your might among the peoples" (v. 14).
God of miracles, God who works wonders, strengthen our faith and our resolve to keep looking to You, to keep trusting in You, with persevering prayer and expectant faith. Even now, this battle still belongs to the Lord!
So let the waters be "afraid!" (v. 16) -- both the intimidating waters that rise up against Your will and Your word and the stagnant and swampy waters that would drag us down and hold us back from all You've created us to be. Let "the very deep tremble!" (v. 16) -- all that's hidden in deceit, entrenched in the deep, and lying in wait to ensnare and entrap the truth You'll reveal and expose for all to see! With thunder and lightning, with signs in the heavens and shakings in the earth, let all that cannot stand in Your Presence and Your Truth "tremble and shake!" (v. 18)
There's no surrender and no retreat for those who are called to pray and to fight, to persevere in the faith -- no matter what we face and no matter what they say. God of miracles, God who works wonders, we still believe! And we're still excited to look and see what only You can do! In Jesus' name I pray. Amen
My family, may you persevere in the faith, no matter what we face and not matter what they say, trusting the God of wonders who makes a way where there seems to be no way -- all in His time and all for His glory, in Jesus name. Please pray the same for me. And I continue to join with you in prayer for our nation through these challenging times. God bless you, my friends!
Please share with readers your thoughts on this reflection this morning in the comment box below!
Help Me Help Others Out Of Their Graves!
Help Me Share The Gospel!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
TO GIVE CLICK HERE!
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website:https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Subscribe to ODC Daily Devotions
Would you like to receive my daily devotions in your email inbox every weekday morning? I can add you to the email subscription list if you message me on FB or email me at garyl@onedirection.community.
Good morning, Lord Jesus. Put Your thoughts in my mind, Your desires in my heart, and Your words in my mouth, as I wait for Your leading in these first moments of my morning. ...
As Your disciples, we’re all on a journey of spiritual maturity to “grow up in all things into Him who is the head -- (into) Christ” (Ephesians 4:15). You’re growing us up by the power of Your grace at work within us, individually and together as a whole, “till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man or woman, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (v. 13).
As The Message version of The Bible expresses it, it’s Your desire that we embrace Your power to become “fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ. No prolonged infancies among us, please. We’ll not tolerate babes in the woods, small children who are easy prey for predators. God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love -- like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love” (Ephesians v. 13-16 The Message).
I have a long way to go. And truth be told, so do we all as the body of Christ. But You are work in the hearts of the willing. And by the grace of God, I’m willing. Grow me up, Lord. I desire to “grow up in all things into” You -- Your nature, Your character -- in my thoughts, my desires, my words, and in every dimension of my being until I am “fully mature, fully developed, fully alive like Christ.” In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
My family, I pray you may keep growing up into the full measure of the stature of Christ, "fully mature, fully developed, full alive like Christ", in Jesus' name. God bless you, my friends!
Please share your reflections and prayers in the comment box below.
Help Me Help Others Out Of Their Graves!
Help Me Share The Gospel!
I could use your financial support for One Direction Community and my family to jump down into the pits and help lift up those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please commitment to partner and support myself and One Direction community through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, PO Box 1293 Madison, Al 35758. Thank You!!
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website:https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Subscribe to ODC Daily Devotions
Would you like to receive my daily devotions in your email inbox every weekday morning? I can add you to the email subscription list if you message me on FB or email me at garyl@onedirection.community.
