Devotionals for the Heart: God never meant for you to go through life alone

Not Alone
A devotional by Tessa Huckstep

“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” 

–Hebrews 10:25 (KJV)

How often do you contemplate leaving your crazy life behind and living like a hermit for a few weeks?

As an introvert, I probably consider this scenario too often. Life is crazy. Socializing is exhausting. Wouldn’t I feel more renewed if I just stayed home all day on Sunday and read my Bible? I have heard lots of people say that they can get just as close to God by listening to a sermon online than they do in person.

But there is something missing when you simply watch a sermon online instead of going to church. There is something missing when you do not see and socialize with fellow believers. Actually, there is Someone missing.

As a believer, the Holy Spirit dwells inside your heart. He is part of the Trinity—God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit.

The God of the universe is living inside your heart! The Holy Spirit is working within your heart to help you understand Scripture and comfort your soul. However, this wonderful, amazing phenomenon does not occur in your heart alone—the Holy Spirit lives inside each and every believer.

Consider this—when a group of believers come together, the Holy Spirit within one believer can be used to comfort and encourage another believer. Yes, you can grow spiritually from reading your Bible, praying, and listening to sermons—but not to the extent that God wishes for you. It is in God’s design for people to need other people. In fact, God says it is not good for us to be alone (Genesis 2:18). God designed us to need people. We were made to be comforted and to comfort others.

When we neglect to ‘assemble together’ or come together in fellowship as believers, we are missing a vital part of God’s will for our lives. First, we are not being comforted and encouraged as God intended for us to be. Second, we are not comforting and encouraging others as God intended for us to do.

Sometimes, it can be hard to work up the courage to bring comfort or encouragement to someone. We often feel as if we are drowning in our own troubles and needs, which makes it feel impossible for us to reach out to others to offer strength we don’t have. The truth is, dear reader, you don’t have the strength necessary to live the Christian life. But God does. According to the apostle Paul, God offers us His strength (Philippians 4:13).

Maybe it is just a smile. Or a simple “How are you?” that you can offer. God can take little offerings such as these and completely change another believer’s day. Remember, the Holy Spirit is living inside of you. He is working through you. By encouraging another believer, you might just feel encouraged yourself!

The Holy Spirit—our gift from Heaven—longs to comfort and encourage you as well as other believers. This is why we come together as a church—not the church building, but the church people. This is why the early church leaders fought so hard to establish the church. We were not created to do the Christian life alone.

Let’s Pray: Dear Lord, thank You for giving us the Holy Spirit to offer us comfort and encouragement. Please give us Your strength that we may fulfill Your will for our daily lives. Help us to submit to the Holy Spirit that we may be used to comfort other believers. Lead us to perform the good works you have prepared for us. In Jesus’s Name I pray. Amen.

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Author Bio:

Tessa Huckstep grew up in rural Illinois to Christian parents and has known Jesus personally since the age of five. 

She is currently attending community college and majoring in elementary education. In the future, she plans to teach in the public school, hoping to bring the love of God with her.

God’s dream of Tessa becoming a writer was revealed to her at the age of sixteen and she hasn’t been able to stop since. Though she has not yet been published, Tessa enjoys writing historical romance novels and speculative fiction.

Tessa believes God loves stories, and through her writing, she wants to reveal the happily ever after God dreams of for each of his daughters—one where Jesus is the knight in shining armor.

Tessa loves all things Georgian/Regency, needlework, and dainty teacups of every size. When she isn’t writing or studying for exams, Tessa can be found in the kitchen with more flour in her hair and on the floor than in the mixing bowl, though the mess is always half the fun!

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Connect with Tessa:
Blog: https://beautifulbeloved937002841.wordpress.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beloved.bookworm/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/101227159

Words of Faith: Lee's story about church songs and peace for your mind

A Song of the Mind

A Words of Faith story by Lee Carver

The elderly women behind me in church wouldn’t stop chatting during the prelude. The ladies seemed urged to talk, ignoring this moment of quiet inspiration just to visit, making no attempt to lower their voices. But perhaps they had been lonely all week, I thought. Or maybe there was a certain gene activated in aging women that compelled them to talk during the prelude, during the music, during the sermon. I should be patient. I might be there someday.

Virginia and Ed, a dear couple well known to us, sat down to my left, and I smiled and nodded. It was clear that her losses to Alzheimer’s disease were progressing. An hour before, she had not recognized me. Now Virginia looked directly into my eyes and said in a clear voice, “Where are we?”

On what level should I answer the question? What, exactly, did she want to know? What building we were in? What city? What meeting we were attending?

“We’re in church. We’re going to worship God together,” I answered.

For a moment that satisfied her, and then she asked her husband, “What church? What church is this?” He tried to gently quiet her. Then she took the hymnal from the rack before them and read its title aloud, “The United Methodist Hymnal,” her thin, childlike voice standing out as the congregation stilled. “Oh. That’s nice.”

Virginia loved to sing, and she knew the words to all the verses of the old hymns as the service progressed. On the less familiar songs she bent low over the hymnal held by her husband.

During the offertory, the choir sang a tender and moving hymn arrangement accompanied by the organist and a violinist. Virginia sang along, inaudible more than a few feet, “My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine.” She smiled peacefully as she sang, and no one minded a bit.

As they sang, my mind wandered back to last week’s sermon which had deeply impressed me. Dr. Jerry Chism asked the question most painful in a believer’s odyssey: When life is hard, when suffering comes to Christians, is God there with us? To these I added the question which so saddened me today: Why do elderly people who have lived good lives of dedication to God and their families become senile or suffer dementia? Is God still with them as the light of their minds grows dim?

As if answering my question, the choir and Virginia ended their anthem together, “If ever I loved Thee, My Jesus, ’tis now.”

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Author bio: 

Lee Carver is once again failing at retirement, a hybrid author in every sense: fiction and nonfiction, traditionally and independently published. 

She also does freelance editing, formatting, and uploads as well as being a Stephen Minister, alto in the choir, crocheting with Pray Shawl Ministry, and volunteer pianist, among other activities.

Married forty-eight years to a very tolerant man, they have two children and five grandchildren.