Michael Harrison's e-devotion

  Yesterday I completed a series of messages at The Community titled “Give THANKS”, and we have discussed what keeps us from being thankful, how we decide to that gratitude is art of our every day lives. What I might have missed an important part.  There are many things that we are thankful for.  But are we sometimes not specific about what we are thankful for. That is why I wanted to take a few minutes to share with you some notes from yesterday’s sermon.  Especially in light of the coming Christmas holiday it is important to be open about what keeps us grounded in gratitude. I am thankful for faith.  This is the gift of God that allows us to see the big picture of life and to live out what the Scripture says, Philippians 1:6  NLT And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. 2 Corinthians 1:3  NASB Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ , the Father of merc

  Not all people around the world celebrate Thanksgiving as a holiday but everyone should be giving thanks.  We ought to be thankful and we should be thanking God often. Whether you celebrate the holiday or not, choosing to be thankful and to be actively giving thanks things will happen around you that you might not be able to explain.  It is like the results that come from following God.  There is a return on your investment when your life and focus and heart are set on God. What might the results be for choosing to be thankful?  They are many.  here are a few. Psalm 50:23  NLT But giving thanks is a sacrifice that truly honors me. If you keep to my path, I will reveal to you the salvation of God.” Giving thanks is a sacrifice that honors God.  Honoring God leads to great rewards in our lives. 2 Corinthians 9:12  NLT So two good things will result from this ministry of giving—the needs of the believers in Jerusalem will be met, and they will joyfully express their thanks to God. The r

  We each have our own convictions or the truths that seem to be important to us.  As followers of Jesus many of those should be the same.  Scripture is given to us to reenforce what God does, who God is and how we live for Him. One passage hit my heart several weeks ago and seems to come back around pretty often.  That would be Psalm 136.  It demonstrates the love of God and pours it out over and over.  Then I realized it is more of a responsive reading, the kind we do in church from time to time. Read this out loud wherever you are today.  Let God reenforce the fact that His faithful love endures forever… Psalm 136 NLT 1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever. 2 Give thanks to the God of gods. His faithful love endures forever. 3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords. His faithful love endures forever. 4 Give thanks to him who alone does mighty miracles. His faithful love endures forever. 5 Give thanks to him who made the heavens so skillfully. His fait

  Romans 8:6  NASB For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, The last eight months have been full of challenges.  Most would use world like chaos, stress, unrest, pain, confusion and lots more.  The pandemic we know as Covid-19 continues to be something that stumps us all. The choice is ours of what we allow it to be for us.  We can go with the chaos or choose peace. What we so with our minds or what we allow our minds to dwell either produce pain and chaos or life and peace.  I will choose life and peace.  There is a choice to be made, and that choice is yours and mine. Look at the key words of this verse.  Well, at least the key verbs if you change them around a bit.  I would say they are “set your mind”.  Set it to peace and life.  Set your mind away from death, destruction and stress.  If we are honest, we would say that we thought this stuff would be over by now, yet it continues to confound so many people.  That would include you an

  Hebrews 4:7  NASB He again sets a certain day, “Today,” saying through David after so long a time just as has been said before, “Today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts.” It is easy to do.  When our focus is not on God, we will allow our hearts to go in any number of directions, but it will not take us in the direction of God. That is one reason that we need to take the warning that this verse.  When you hear from God, don’t harden your heart.  To do this us to turn away from God, to not listen to God or even to simply avoid what God is saying. There is a problem with our hearts when we do not have them turned toward God.  We stop listening.  We stop being fed by God.  We stop caring about what God cares about.  That is why we have to take some precautions. Proverbs 4:23  NLT Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. This is the place to start.  Guard your heart by the best means possible.  God offers those options throughout Scripture

  Are you open enough to see what God is doing or to hear what God is saying?  It is easy, but it also alludes us when we are too busy or focused on the wrong things. Yesterday was incredible.  I want to thank every one that was so kind and wished me a happy birthday.  Our family devotion last night was especially good.  That is why I simply share part of it with you in today’s edition of the e-devotion. As you read, I challenge you to hear God’s voice for you. How's your faith right now? I would like to encourage you to have an eternal focus so the situation you are facing does not limit your worship. Worship like never before, put music in your car, kitchen, living room or wherever you are day after day. Because when you raise a song to the Lord, your heart focuses on Him; you proclaim His victory and focus on His greatness, His power and majesty. At the end of the day, we are all created to worship Him. Let us not deny reality, but rather live according to that higher and more p

  There are times we just have to recognize it.  Today is one of those days for me.  From the calls or text, to the messages from so many, it is so evident to see how God has placed in my life some incredible people.  Has also given blessing, upon blessing. I mean it is easy to get negative.  It is easy to see the down side or even to dwell on what should have been.  All the while God is working and blessing all around us.  Look at the sunrise or the sunset.  Remember the conversation.   Stop taking making it so hard on yourself to life each day.  Stress takes minutes off of our lives.  Struggles rob us of life to live and to enjoy.  Literally what we dwell on will take the joy we can have. I choose joy.  I will choose to recognize the blessings.  Look at them.   Ephesians 1:3  NLT All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. There is the truth.  We are blessed.  As God

  There is more to being thankful that just saying “thank you”.  It has do with with what is going in and our of your life on a daily basis. What impacts you, influences your words, actions, thinking and much more.  That is why it is important to be careful with what influences you allow around you. Colossians 3:15  NASB Let the peace of Christ, to which you were indeed called in one body, rule in your hearts; and be thankful. Let peace flow in and out of your life.  But what might keep you from having this kind of peace?  Oh, that could be many things, yet I suggest that when we are trying to focus on two things that contradict each other that peace will allude us. James 4:8  NLT Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world. We might find our hearts divided.  That means we can’t follow God or anything with all of our lives.  Having split loyalty makes life very difficult.   Ta

  1 Peter 2:9  NLT But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. November is always a time of giving thanks as well as the celebration of the Thanksgiving holiday.  Maybe you have watched the last several years how some people take each day and share what they are thankful for. I have done that.  But more often I will simply focus on being thankful, thinking about what gratitude looks like and how it works in my life.  It does.  Being thankful changes us.  It will change how we see things.  It will change how we respond to others and to our struggles. Thankfulness gives us a view of God that is more clear and most likely more accurate than at any other time.  I pray we will find ourselves being thankful even when we aren’t thinking about it. There has been a song going through my head.  This one

  Being a follower of Jesus is one of the most important things in my life.  In fact, it ought to be important to all of us.  Take a deeper look and understand that our private lives and public lives ought to match.  Live faith out everywhere. Let’s take a look at some verses from Colossians 3.  One of them we read yesterday.  Each one reminds us that faith is part of all we are, all we do and what we believe about God. Read on.  Maybe read them several times. Colossians 3:1  NLT Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand.  Set your sights.  There is more to it, but this really is something we can do in every area of our lives. Colossians 3:15  NLT And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful. Peace is something we all want.  But this is peace based on who God is and what He i

  Take time each day to interact with the things that make you stronger.  There are several of these things that I think are very important.  Make a list.  Mine is pretty simple. Family.  Scripture.  Your purpose.  God. I know there are others, but these are the ones that will help us be better, stronger and even ready to get more done.  That is why I ask you to take some time today to spend with what matters most to you. Our days should could count.  Our time can be used well.  I am not talking about an issue of being lazy or wasting time.  What I am talking is making your life count.   Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter. - Francis Chan That makes a lot of sense to me.  Spend your time with the wrong people or the wrong purpose and you will succeed at the wrong things. In fact if you take some time to think a little more about that spending time with the wrong people and the wrong things will make others fail too

  The following devotion is from pastor Robert Morris.  Read on.  This is good stuff… John 1:1 is a verse you might be familiar with. It says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus is the Word and all things were made through Him. Without Him, there would be nothing. Meditate on that for a moment and personalize it. All things in your life come from Him, and without Him, nothing happens. John 1:10 is a sad verse. It says, “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.” Jesus created the world, but the world didn’t even know He gave them life and breath. They didn’t know the One who created them. They didn’t know His Word. But, as we’ve talked about over the last few days, if we meditate on the Word of God, we get to know Him and something supernatural begins to happen. Why? Because we’re actually meditating on Jesus when we study His Word. Colossians 1 says all things are created by Him and hel

  Sometimes you just know that God is speaking to you.  It is obvious.  You don’t have to question.  In fact you need to stop questions and listen in a bit more. Yesterday was one of those days for me.  I began a new sermon series at The Community titled “Give THANKS” and spoke from 1 Chronicles 16 of a psalm of thanks from David.  Last night I attended a meeting and heard an awesome sermon by a missions leader.  Guess what passage he used.  It was 1 Chronicles 16. Stop right there.  I had to ask (and I still and asking) God what He wants me to hear and learn.  I have already come away with a few things. The message I shared was about deciding to give thanks before other things or people led us away from being thankful.  The missions sermon from the same passage was about the people of God sharing with the world God’s message.  Both have a good foundation in the Scripture.  Both are pretty clear. I walk away with two verses sticking out for me.  Well, really there are a lot that stick