Topic: One Good Choice After Another [Joyce Meyer Devotional 26 April 2019]

Read Previous MESSAGES HERE

Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. — Proverbs 4:25

Are you enjoying the life and blessings of God in your everyday life? Or have you made a series of choices resulting in disappointment, pain, or feeling that everything you do requires great effort and produces little reward? Don’t spend your time and energy mourning all the bad decisions you have made; just start making good ones. There is hope for you!

The way to overcome the results of a series of bad choices is through a series of right choices. The only way to walk out of trouble is to do the opposite of whatever you did to get into trouble—one choice at a time.

Maybe the circumstances of your life right now are the direct result of a series of bad choices you have made. You may be in debt because you have made a lot of bad choices with money. You may be lonely because of a series of bad choices in relationships or in the way you treat people. You may be sick because of a series of unhealthy choices: eating junk food, not getting enough rest, or abusing your body through working too much and not having enough balance in your life.

You cannot make a series of bad choices that result in significant problems and then make one good choice and expect all the results of all those bad choices to go away. You did not get into deep trouble through one bad choice; you got into trouble through a series of bad choices. If you really want your life to change for the better, you will need to make one good choice after another, over a period of time, just as consistently as you made the negative choices that produced negative results.

No matter what kind of trouble or difficulty you got yourself into, you can still have a blessed life. You cannot do anything about what is behind you, but you can do a great deal about what lies ahead of you. God is a redeemer, and He will always give you another chance.

Trust in Him If you have a situation that is too big for you to solve, then you are material for a miracle. Invite God to get involved, trust in and follow His directions, make one good choice after another, and you will see amazing results.

Prayer Starter: Father, thank You for Your wisdom and guidance to make good choices for my life. Please help me to leave past disappointments behind and begin, one by one, to make decisions that will bring a harvest of good things into my life. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

From Joyce Meyer’s Ministries.

The Daily Fountain Daily Devotional of the Church Of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) 26 April 2019 – The Hope of Resurrection

Click HERE to Read Previous MESSAGES

TOPIC: The Hope of Resurrection

READ: 1 Corinthians 15:12-28 New King James Version (NKJV)

1. Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
2. But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen.
3. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.
4. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise.
5. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen.
6. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!
7. Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
8. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.
9. But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
10. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead.
11. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.
12. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming.
13. Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power.
14. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet.
15. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.
16. For “He has put all things under His feet.” But when He says “all things are put under Him, ” it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted.
17. Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.

THE MESSAGE:

Paul, in today’s passage, is gradually getting to the conclusion of this first letter to the Corinthian church. But he still had a very critical issue to address: the resurrection of the dead. It appears the Christians at Corinth were becoming increasingly confused about what happens after death. Many of them were beginning to be deceived by the lie of the devil that life on earth is all there is.

The danger, therefore, was for people to begin to live lives anyhow, assuming that there will be no judgment after death since there is no resurrection of the dead!
God inspired the Apostle Paul to address this matter. God’s verdict is very clear: if Jesus Christ rose from the dead (and He did), then definitely humanity will also rise from the dead – some to honour, some to dishonour (John 6:39-54; Matthew 16:24-27).

The truth is that if life were to end only on this earth, Jesus would not have bothered to come and to lay down His life for the world. But He died so that we who trust in Him might have hope, not only for this life, but also for the life after resurrection.

Let us, therefore, live each day as a rehearsal for the life to be spent in eternity with Christ.

Prayer: Father, thank You for the sacrifices of Your Son, Jesus Christ for me. Help me to live each day with eternity in mind.