Grace is the power of the Holy Spirit coming to us freely, enabling us to do with ease what we could never do on our own. You might find other definitions describing grace as God’s divine favor, and that is certainly true, but His grace is also the power you need to live in victory. Grace can be received only through faith, and that is one of the main reasons we must resist fear. When we allow fear to rule us, we unwittingly receive what Satan has planned for our lives. But when we live by faith through grace, God is able to work His divine plan in us. Whatever you need to do today, lean on God, and let Him empower you to be successful.

Power Thought: By God’s grace I have the skills to do all He asks of me with ease.

From the book Power Thoughts Devotional by Joyce Meyer.

The one who is patient calms a quarrel…….Proverbs 15:18

Tough words hurt. So my friend—an award-winning author—struggled with how to respond to the criticism he received. His new book had earned five-star reviews plus a major award. Then a respected magazine reviewer gave him a backhanded compliment, describing his book as well-written yet still criticizing it harshly. Turning to friends, he asked, “How should I reply?”

One friend advised, “Let it go.” I shared advice from writing magazines, including tips to ignore such criticism or learn from it even while continuing to work and write.

Finally, however, I decided to see what Scripture—which has the best advice of all—has to say about how to react to strong criticism. The book of James advises, “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” (1:19). The apostle Paul counsels us to “live in harmony with one another” (Romans 12:16).

An entire chapter of Proverbs, however, offers extended wisdom on reacting to disputes. “A gentle answer turns away wrath,” says Proverbs 15:1. “The one who is patient calms a quarrel” (v. 18). Also, “The one who heeds correction gains understanding” (v. 32). Considering such wisdom, may God help us hold our tongues, as my friend did. More than all, however, wisdom instructs us to “fear the Lord” because “humility comes before honor” (v. 33)………..By Patricia Raybon

Reflect & Pray:

Dear God, when criticism strikes or a dispute hurts, guard my tongue in humble honor of You.

Credit: Our Daily Bread

We will never enjoy life unless we make a quality decision to do so. Satan is an expert at stealing and our joy is one of his favorite targets. Nehemiah 8:10 tells us that the joy of the Lord is our strength. In John 10:10 we are told that “the thief” comes to kill, steal, and destroy, but that Jesus came that we might have and enjoy life. Satan is the thief, and one of the things he seeks to steal is our joy. If he can steal our joy from us, we will be weak; and when we are weak, the enemy takes advantage of us.

Weak believers are no threat to him and his work of destruction. In order to live as God intends for us to live, the first thing we must do is truly believe that it is God’s will for us to experience continual joy. Then we must decide to enter into that joy. Experiencing enjoyment in our souls is vitally important to our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. Proverbs 17:22 says, “A happy heart is good medicine and a cheerful mind works healing, but a broken spirit dries up the bones.” It is God’s will for us to enjoy life! Now it is time to decide to enter into the full and abundant life that God wills for us.

Joy and enjoyment are available just as misery is available. Righteousness and peace are available and so are condemnation and turmoil. There are blessings and curses available, and that is why Deuteronomy 30:19 tells us to choose life and blessings.

Credit: From New Day, New You….Joyce Meyer

Complaining is a sin! It is a corrupt form of conversation that causes many people a great deal of problems in their lives. It also opens many doors for the enemy. Words are containers of power. Complaining, grumbling words carry destructive power. They destroy the joy of the one doing the complaining and can also affect other people who have to listen to them.

In Ephesians 4:29, the apostle Paul instructs us not to use any foul or polluting language. At one time I would not have known that included complaining, but now I have learned that it does. Murmuring and complaining pollute our lives and probably sound like cursing to the Lord. To Him it is verbal pollution. To pollute is to poison. Did you ever stop to think that you and I can poison our future by complaining about what is going on right now?

When we complain about our current situation, we remain in it; when we praise God in the midst of difficulty, He raises us out of it. The best way to start every day is with gratitude and thanksgiving. Get a jump on the devil. If you don’t fill your thoughts and conversation with good things, he will definitely fill them with evil things. Truly thankful people do not complain. They are so busy being grateful for the good things they do have that they have no time to notice the things they could complain about. Praise and thanksgiving are good; complaining and grumbling are evil.

Credit: From New Day, New You….Joyce Meyer

Willpower sure sounds like a great thing. We are led to believe that we have enough of it to fight off every temptation that comes our way. And sometimes it works. But let me tell you a little secret about willpower. Willpower is your best friend when things go well, but it’s the first friend to check out when you get weary. I have found that if I really don’t want to do something, my mind gives me plenty of reasons why I don’t have to. My emotions even join in, saying, “I agree because I don’t feel like doing it anyway.”

Our soul (mind, will, emotions) would love to run our lives, but the Bible says we are to be led by God’s Spirit. We are never instructed to be willpower-led, we are told to be Spirit-led. Willpower and discipline are important and vitally necessary for a successful life, but willpower alone won’t be enough. Determination gets you started and keeps you going for a while, but it is never enough to bring you across the finish line. Zechariah 4:6 (NKJV) says, “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.”

What happens if, instead of turning first to willpower in your time of need, you turn to God instead? God releases His power into your willpower and energizes it to bring you across the finish line. Willpower does not get the credit for our success, God does. Jesus said in John 15:5 (AMP), “Apart from Me [cut off from vital union with Me] you can do nothing.” This is one of the most important and most difficult lessons we must learn if we want to enjoy the life Jesus died to give us.

From the book New Day, New You by Joyce Meyer.

Most of us pride ourselves on our ability to solve our own problems and to avoid needing others—basically to live a DIY kind of life. For example, if we don’t know how to do something, we watch a YouTube tutorial. If we have a question about something, we research it on the internet until we find an answer. If we’re struggling with something, we’ll often listen to a podcast, find a sermon, or distract ourselves with a binge-worthy TV series or endless social media scrolling. 

While there’s nothing inherently wrong with any of those coping mechanisms, they are all things we can do alone, and rarely do those things inspire us to reach out to others around us. The thing is, we have more information and content available to us than we could ever hope to consume. And while it’s great to be informed, we have to recognize that consuming information in isolation rarely leads to transformation. So we can’t allow our consumption of information to outpace our connection with others. 

The truth is, following Jesus is a journey of surrendering our self-sufficiency and recognizing our need for a Savior. No matter how hard we try to be good enough, to work hard enough, or to gain enough material resources, wealth, or wisdom—it will always fall short of God’s standard—perfection. 

To follow Jesus is to admit that we don’t have it all together, but that there is One who holds everything together—including us. We can’t live a life fully surrendered to Jesus while also idolizing independence. We need God, and we also need others to help us live a life that honors God. 

When we’re feeling worried or anxious about the weight and demands of life, we often try to fix it ourselves or find the solution on our own. But Jesus invites us in Matthew 11:28-29 to come to Him to surrender our worries. It’s only then that we’ll discover we don’t actually have to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders after all. 

And as for needing others? Jesus modeled this with His life by choosing to invest His life intentionally in 12 people—His disciples. And He instructed us to do the same. In Matthew 18:20, Jesus tells us that when multiple people gather together, He is right there among us. And in Matthew 9:38, Jesus invites us to pray for more workers to do the good things God has planned for the world. See, the more we try to solve our own problems and fix everything on our own, the less we’re allowing the Church to be the body of Christ. 

When we’re trying to solve everything, we can’t solve anything, because God has given each of us a unique role to play in sharing God’s love with others. We need each other.

Following Jesus isn’t about what we can do. It’s all about what He did. And our appropriate response is to continue to give up control, to depend on God instead of ourselves, and to recognize our need for others. 

Pray: God, I sometimes find myself tempted to live a DIY kind of life. Show me any areas of my life in which I need to surrender control to You. Show me where to invite others into my life. Give me the right people to surround myself with. And help me honor You with everything I say and do today. In Jesus’ name, amen.  

Scripture reading: Philippians 4:4-7; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

If we must believe that God exists and cares about us—the Law of Faith (Devotional Day 2)—in order to become God’s partner, then our next step is to try to contact him. Prayer is talking to God. It is the path by which we ask God for help, thank him for all that we have, and express to him our fears, anxieties, and hopes. When we are in partnership with God, it is important that we set our problems before God in prayer—and that we do this consistently and daily. As the apostle Paul said, “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17 NKJV).

Is it appropriate to take our habit of prayer into our professional lives? If you think career and business are personal subjects that are irrelevant to God, you will answer no. However, if the workplace is where you spend a good part of your life and where you have many daily interactions, you will understand that it is a wonderful field of action in which God can achieve his greatest endeavor here on earth. Therefore, the workplace is and should be a place for prayer.

We see an example of this in Daniel 2, which tells the story of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who was deeply troubled by a dream he had. One of the king’s wise men, a godly man named Daniel, asked for some time to resolve the problem and took it before God in prayer. The mystery was revealed to him in a vision. In other words, a work problem was taken to God in prayer, and God answered.

Prayer works; it changes things, and it can—or should—be practiced in the workplace to the benefit of your career or your company. Professional success is a complex subject that isn’t limited to prayer, but prayer is an essential component in the fulfillment of your goals.

To overcome pressure, humiliation, injustice, and other misfortunes, the apostle Paul instructed us to talk to God, because in extremely difficult situations, his help is essential. Paul wrote, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Phil. 4:6 NIV).

If you believe in God and habitually take your requests to him in prayer, you will benefit from a strong sense of security that will propel you on your walk with God and help you reach your goals.

Every time you pray, if your prayer is sincere, there will be new feeling and new meaning in it, which will give you fresh courage, and you will understand that prayer is an education.

Credit:
Fyodor Dostoyevsky , William Douglas and Rubens Teixeira: The 25 Biblical Laws of Partnership with God Devotional

Slat Grobnik, a seller of Christmas trees, was observing a couple who was looking for a tree. The husband was slim and his wife was quite attractive, but they wore clothes that seemed to be bought from the Salvation Army. After passing by several very expensive Christmas trees, they found a pine Scotch tree which was quite OK on one side but had not so many leaves on the other side. They took another tree which was not in a better condition than the previous trees because one of its sides did not have many leaves. The wife whispered to her husband, and the husband asked if both trees could be bought at the price of $3. Slat realized that it would be difficult for him to sell those trees, so finally, he agreed to sell them both for $3. 

A few days later Slat was walking when he saw a beautiful tree in the couple’s apartment. The tree was full and the shape was good. He knocked on the door and the couple explained how they had tied the two trees together with the bare sides touching. The branches of the trees crossed over one another making the trees appear as one. 

“So that is your secret,” exclaimed Slat, “You just took two imperfect trees with flaws that could have been discarded because no one would accept them. But united in the right way, you produced something so beautiful.”

The same goes for a marriage. We could not find a perfect husband or wife. Every one of us has so many imperfections. However, when we can complement and support each other and accept our spouse’s imperfections, we can have a beautiful marriage. 

Prayer: Lord, teach us to accept our spouse’s flaws and help us to complement each other in the family. Amen. 

Words have the divine power to generate realities—that is why prayer is so powerful. Prayer is declaring God’s purposes. You can pray for your spouse for years, “I want my spouse to change,” but if every time you talk to them you say negative things, that prayer is not going to work. Understand that praying is speaking what God says. Instead of praying for two hours on your knees and then doing something that contradicts your prayers, you will achieve more if you declare God’s purpose over your spouse. You need to know that he or she is who God says they are.

Our words, the same as our prayers, are declarations that align things to the will of God. James 3 in the Scriptures talks about people who do not put a filter on their mouths, people who have not learned to stop saying negative things. If two different things are coming out of your mouth, God has given you the power today to stop cursing and start speaking words of blessing. It is a choice, a decision you have to make. You can choose today to speak what is right and put a filter on your mouth to create a positive reality in your marriage.

I need to learn to speak so that the negative energy that is within me, can be changed into positive energy. My words affect not only the people I speak to but my life as well. In many ways, the state our marriages are in is the result of the words we have been declaring over our spouses. Do not let negative things come out of your mouth any longer. 

God’s message is called “The Good News” because bad news does not change a person. People and marriages change when they hear good news. Good news can change us on the inside and change our families, our jobs, and our world. We need to learn how to speak like God. God put His Word in our mouths. We need to speak of God’s decrees, establish them in our marriage, and start creating life and change in our homes.

 Reflect: Are you using the Good News to change lives?

Credit: Gerardo Cardenas; www.centrocristiano.org