Devotionals for the Heart: Learning to take a step of faith and trust God

Step of Faith
A devotional by Tessa Huckstep

“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” –Matthew 6:34 (KJV)

Worry and fear can be nearly paralyzing when considering an unknown future.

There are so many “What ifs?” in this life. Such as, "What if I fail the exam? What if the test comes back positive? What if life never gets better than this? What if God never shows up?" 

These questions make us feel suffocated in our hearts, minds, and souls. If we allow these fears, worries, and doubts to continuously enter our thoughts, we are destined to start believing our future is bleak and hopeless. We begin to believe we are justified in our worries and things will always turn out badly.

But such a negative focus could not be further from the truth. Maybe the test will come back positive. Maybe we will experience the worst possible scenario in our situation. God never promised our lives would not be filled with problems and sorrow. However, God did say that He would never leave us (Hebrews 13:5). Additionally, Jesus promised that the victory is already His because He has overcome the world (John 16:33).

We will face trials, heartache, and failure. No one can claim the remainder of their life will work out perfectly and without problems. Your future does hold difficult seasons, but you were never meant to walk in those seasons alone. Our Heavenly Father walks beside each of His children in the darkest of valleys and the highest of mountaintops.

Lay your future in the hands of the Creator. He knows all things in the past, present, and future. God knows every worry that consumes our thoughts and He is calling us to release them to Him. Today, will you release your fear, your worry, and your doubts? Remember: There is no dark valley along your life journey that God’s Light cannot break through. There is no worry that the peace of God cannot still. The peace of God passes all of our human understanding (Philippians 4:7). His peace is so strong that it can ease our worry even though the situation that is bringing our worry remains.

I know that God is the One who directs my paths (Proverbs 3:5-6) and leads me toward a future that I am uncertain of (Jeremiah 29:11). I also know that God is calling me to release the worry that is weighing me down. He continues to whisper just one simple request, “Trust Me.”

Trust is a choice. It is a step of faith. Will you choose to trust the Lord Jesus Christ and simply take one more step of faith today and every day of your life on Earth?

Let’s Pray: Dear Lord, thank You for offering Your peace and presence to us. Please help us to release our worry and fear to You. Grant us the faith to entrust our future to you and simply take another step of faith. In Jesus’s Name I pray. Amen.

Song of Reflection: “Trust Me” by Crystal Lewis. Listen to it here.

~*~
Author Bio:

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

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

Tessa enjoys being active in her local church. She serves as a co-teacher for the two-to-five year old class where there is never a dull moment.

It is Tessa’s passion to be a girl after God’s own heart and through her studying of God’s Word, Tessa longs to draw closer to her Savior. Through her writing, she longs to take others with her on this journey of faith.

Tessa loves all things Regency, needlework, and dainty teacups of every size.

When she isn’t writing or studying for exams, she can be found in the kitchen with more flour in her hair and on the floor than in the bowl, though the mess is always half the fun!

~*~
Connect with Tessa:
Blog: https://beautifulbeloved937002841.wordpress.com/

Devotionals for the Heart: God's Light

The Light of the World
A devotional by Karen Marstaller

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”—John 8:12 (ESV)

In the beginning of the Bible, the first spoken words out of God’s mouth are, “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3 NIV). God’s first words spoke His own nature into the world He would go on to create. Is it any wonder that we can’t see much in the darkness, but give us daylight and we are good to go? The Creator of the universe planned it that way.

The New Testament was written a long time after the creation, but Jesus Christ’s message is still clear—He is the Light of the World. The One who called light into existence so long ago is one with God. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit brought us into the world, and when we ask Jesus to save us, the Light of God’s presence starts to illuminate our lives. All we can say is, “Wow! Look at what God is doing!”

How does God make such a thing happen? Jesus clearly shows the way in John 3:16. He reminds us of our sinful nature and calls us to be born again because Jesus came to die once and for all so that we could enter His eternal home all clean and pure, covered in His righteousness instead of our own filthy rags. When we believe Jesus and ask Him to save us from our sins, He does exactly that. Because Jesus completed the plan for salvation when He died on the Cross of Calvary, we can have salvation when we give our hearts to Him and call on His Name. The Bible says in Romans 10:9 (NIV), “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

This is good news because sin separates us from God. Without God’s forgiveness we will never become one of His children, and we will ultimately face eternal separation from God, the Creator of our souls, and the Lover of our hearts. But thanks to Jesus Christ’s sacrifice, we can be reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:18), and if we choose to follow Jesus, we can have the hope of eternal life in Heaven (John 14:6).

However though this plan of salvation has been completed and is a free gift to all, we still have to choose to receive this gift and accept Jesus into our hearts. God will not force us to choose Him because He created us with a free will. We can choose to follow Him, or to reject Him. To follow Jesus is to “walk in the light, as He is in the light” (1 John 1:7 NIV) and the blessing is that we come into fellowship with Jesus who will make us ready for eternity with God.

As God purifies us, He also recognizes that we are fallen and broken. We wake up in the morning, and as much as we don’t want to mess up, we do. Sometimes I won’t even get out of bed before some awful thought crosses my mind, and there it is—my first sin of the day. With the successive events that transpire, my sin pile grows, and by nightfall, if I haven’t taken my sins to the Father and asked for forgiveness, I toss and turn all night.

However, Jesus made a way for us to repent of all the horrid things we’ve thought and said and done—He shines His light in all the deepest corners of our hearts, roots out all the strongholds where we fall captive, and creates a clean heart in us. Forgiving us is His way to let us see how desperately we need Him. With it, we can keep going. We can draw close to His loving Father’s heart and rest in His unquenchable light.

What a glorious gift! What unstoppable love!

Even though we are sinful creatures, we don’t have to walk in eternal darkness. Christ’s light is enough. If we will follow His light, and accept the enormous gift of His salvation then we are made new. Forgiven. Blessed. God’s precious children. Eternally secure in the Father’s hand.

Bright spotlights, fame, thousands of social media followers, fat bank accounts, and exotic vacation spots are all temporary fixes for our deepest needs. We desire true relationship, real love, and freedom from the guilt we all carry. The only answer is Jesus. His death in our place brings new life to the world—to every person who craves the only things that matter.

In Revelation (the very last book of the Bible), Jesus told the apostle John to write down God’s truths about heaven. John writes, “I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.” (Revelation 21:22-24 NIV)

Only Jesus makes that possible—Jesus, the Light of the World.

*Note from Alexis: This message from Karen today reminds me of this song, “Light of the World” by Lauren Daigle. Listen to it here.

Let’s Pray: Heavenly Father of Lights, there is no shadow in You. Thank You for Your glorious light in our lives and help us to run to You for forgiveness when we mess up. Please draw us closer to You each day. In Jesus’s Name I pray. Amen.

~*~
Author Bio:

During this time of quarantine, Karen enjoys reading, writing, and connecting with friends and family via phone calls, texts, emails, blogs, live-streams, and video conferencing.

She is grateful that the Lord has provided so many ways for humankind to stay in community, even when we are all hunkering down in our homes.

Karen says, “In this unprecedented time, we know that He has prepared us for such a time as this! To God be all the glory!”

You can reach Karen by emailing her at this address: klmarstaller@gmail.com

Devotionals for the Heart: God's Light

Shining God’s Light
A devotional by Jessica Brodie

One of my favorite things to do lately is go into really busy places, like gas stations or the grocery store, and spread some God-inspired peaceful light and love.

Like the rest of us, in today’s fast-paced society I am more than guilty of rushing to and fro, getting so tunnel-visioned in my thinking that I miss out on important connections with others—sometimes even the people right next to me.

It doesn’t help that so many of us spend such a great deal of time staring into small rectangular screens—our cell phones—giving us yet another reason not to connect with our fellow humans. When was the last time you waited at a doctor’s office and actually talked to the person a few seats over instead of checking Facebook or email on your phone?

But as a Christian, I’ve lately become convicted that I am called not just to love my family and my close friends, as well as people in need and people in my church, but I also need to love the people all around me—the general public. I’m talking about the cashier who rings up my sale. The teenager who hands me my salad through the drive-through window. The lady who takes my money at the tollbooth. The elderly man thumbing through a magazine next to me at the dentist.

“I’m just soooo busy” can no longer be my excuse in life. Instead, I’m making a huge effort to stay off my phone when I’m in public and instead try to connect with people around me. Even if they’re lost in their own cell phones, at least I can send some loving prayer vibes their way. When it’s my turn at the cash register, I no longer care how grumpy the clerk looks. I find a way to look into her eyes and give her a sincere thank you.

Even in the first century, early Christians had places to go and things to do. Jesus and his disciples knew this, knew money and security vied for his followers’ hearts far more than anything else. But time and again, Scripture reminds us that loving others is far more important than our own concerns.

“This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us this way, we also ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. If we love each other, God remains in us and his love is made perfect in us. This is how we know we remain in him and he remains in us, because he has given us a measure of his Spirit." 

~1 John 4:10-13 (CEB)

Loving others is loving God. Let’s shine His light together.

~*~
Author Bio:

Jessica Brodie is an award-winning Christian novelist, journalist, editor, blogger, and writing coach and the recipient of the 2018 American Christian Fiction Writers Genesis Award for her novel, The Memory Garden. 

She is also the editor of the South Carolina United Methodist Advocate, the oldest newspaper in Methodism, and a member of the Wholly Loved Ministries team.

Learn more about her fiction and read her faith blog at http://jessicabrodie.com/shiningthelight.