Topic: Submission Is Not Weakness — Thursday December 21, 2017.

‘’And when he had saluted them, he declared particularly what things God had wrought among the gentiles by his ministry’’ Acts 21:19.

One major factor that enabled Paul to achieve that measure of success in Ministry that we read about today was that he held himself accountable. He was submissive to authority. No matter how highly placed you are, there must be someone you submit to, who can help you to ensure that you are building according to a pattern. You cannot grow like a wild bush and expect the beauty of the Lord. Jesus, our perfect example, submitted Himself to John the Baptist. If Jesus did, why won’t you?

Submission to a constituted authority or an accountability partner is a secret of every successful person. It is not weakness to submit to authority. Everyone who wants to be all that God has ordained him or her to be must be ready to submit to authority. Don’t be a law unto yourself, you cannot know everything and your opinion is not always right, that is why God has surrounded you with people at different levels. No one achieves greatness alone. There are deficiencies and vacuums that God allowed in you as a person that can only be filled by another person. So you need somebody in your life that can correct you and call you to order when you are missing it. You need an adviser; you need a mentor; you need a true friend.

If there is anyone that should be arrogant and cocky, it should be Paul. Remember, he is learned, secondly, no one preached to him. He had a direct encounter with Jesus on the way to Damascus – Acts 9. But even in that situation, when he asked, “what wilt thou have me do?” in verse 6, he got no direct instruction, rather he was directed to the city “… and it shall be told thee what thou must do.” Did you see that? No man, no matter your level of anointing or relationship with God, He will never leave you as an island. Remember, iron sharpens iron.

Further Reading: Acts 13: 1-4; Prov. 11:14; Prov.15:22.

Daily Bible Reading: Morning- Micah 4-5; Evening- Revelation 12

Written by Dr. Mike Okonkwo; Is the Presiding Bishop of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM); a versatile man of God with over 30 years of dedicated service unto the Lord.

Topic: Home for Christmas— Thursday December 21, 2017.

Read: Genesis 28:10–17, Bible in a Year: Micah 4–5; Revelation 12

I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. Genesis 28:15

One year Christmas found me on assignment in a place many of my friends couldn’t locate on a map. Trudging from my worksite back to my room, I braced against the chill wind blowing off the bleak Black Sea. I missed home.

When I arrived at my room, I opened the door to a magical moment. My artistic roommate had completed his latest project—a nineteen-inch ceramic Christmas tree that now illuminated our darkened room with sparkling dots of color. If only for a moment, I was home again!

As Jacob fled from his brother Esau, he found himself in a strange and lonely place too. Asleep on the hard ground, he met God in a dream. And God promised Jacob a home. “I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying,” He told him. “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring” (Gen. 28:13–14).

From Jacob, of course, would come the promised Messiah, the One who left His home to draw us to Himself. “I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am,” Jesus told His disciples (John 14:3).

That December night I sat in the darkness of my room and gazed at that Christmas tree. Perhaps inevitably I thought of the Light that entered the world to show us the way home.

Prayer: Lord, no matter where we are today, we can thank You for preparing a place for us to be with You. And we have the presence of Your Spirit today!

Home is not so much a place on a map, as it is a place to belong. God gives us that place.

Insight:

Sometimes our perceptions of God get a startling adjustment. That was the case for Jacob in today’s passage. From our perspective we know through the Old and New Testament Scriptures that God is everywhere and is always with us. But Jacob’s knowledge was limited. His statement in Genesis 28:16 hints that he thought he was out of “God’s area.” How comforting it must have been to Jacob to realize that though he had left his family and his home, he was still in the presence of God.

How does knowing that God is always present comfort you? J.R. Hudberg

This message was written By Tim Gustafson [Our Daily Bread Ministries.]

Topic: Stick to Your Calling [Thursday December 21, 2017]

Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God…. who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. – 2 Timothy 1:6-9

Are you doing what God called you to do?

If you haven’t ever thought about it before, that may sound like an odd question to you. You may be tempted to shrug it off and say, “Oh, I’m not really called to do anything. I’m not a pastor or a teacher or a minister of any kind…I guess I’m just what you might call a little finger on the Body of Christ.”

Let me tell you something: No matter who you are, God has put a holy calling in you. He’s designed you and called you to meet a need in the Body of Christ that nobody else can meet quite like you can.

You may be called to be so successful in business you can finance the gospel worldwide. You may be called to a ministry of prayer and intercession. You may be called to a ministry of healing right there in your own neighborhood. But no matter what that calling is, it’s important and you need to follow it!

If you’re like many believers I know, you may have let your life become so overgrown with other things that you just don’t have time to pursue your calling. You may be so overwhelmed with the cares of life that you can’t imagine how you can fit in anything else.

Over the years, a pastor friend of mine got involved in so many different areas of ministry that he was about to fold up physically under the strain of it. The overload was actually about to kill him. Finally, the Lord spoke to him one night and said, John, it’s not your calling that’s nearly killed you. It’s everything else you’ve added to it.

I’ve had to deal with that in my own life. I’ve had to quit doing things just because they need doing. I’ve had to discipline myself to sticking to what I’m called to do.

Make up your mind to prayerfully trim away the extra things you’ve added to your life. Stir up the gift God has placed inside you. Get back to what He has called you to do.

After all, that calling is vital. It’s holy…and it’s yours. Don’t ever let it slip away from you.

Scripture Reading: Acts 9:1-20

This message was written by Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, the leader of the Kenneth Copeland Ministries (www.KCM.org) that specializes in teaching principles of bible faith – prayer, healing, salvation and other biblical topics.

Topic: Minister The Good News [Thursday December 21, 2017]

John 20:21 “Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.”

The dictionary states that to reconcile means to re-establish friendship between; to settle or resolve, as a dispute. The key to reconciliation is to effectively deal with the enmity, ill will, hatred, or hostility that caused the dispute, etc.

The enmity between man and God was sin. God took the initiative to remove this barrier through the means and agency of Jesus Christ, thus leaving man and God as friends once again.

We have received the ministry of reconciliation. That means we are in the ministry of reconciling people to God. Much of what people call the gospel today is actually alienating man from God. True, we need to show people their need for God to get them to receive His forgiveness and reconciliation, but the angry and bitter attitude some people have when confronting the sinner, is not correct.

Imputing people’s sins unto them was not the way God used Jesus to reconcile the world unto Himself. We should not focus on the problem of sin, but on the answer of God’s grace (Rom. 5:20).

When you read a newspaper, you read about things that have already happened. They are not reporting prophecy. They are reporting the news. So our real job as ministers of reconciliation is to announce the good NEWS, which is an accomplished fact – that sin has already been dealt with through the person of Christ. We should say, “Now we beseech you, be ye reconciled to God. Change your mind and believe the gospel so that you may partake of what has already been done on your behalf.”

This message was written by The Association of Related Ministries International (ARMI) is an extension of Andrew Wommack Ministries (AWM). ARMI is a unique partnership committed to providing resources to help like-minded ministers succeed in a spirit of excellence and to draw from the experience and expertise of both the AWM and Charis Bible College staff. (www.awmi.net).

Topic: Neglect of Soul [Thursday December 21, 2017]

“Blessed is the man who reveres God, but the man who doesn’t care is headed for serious trouble.” —Proverbs 28:14 (TLB)

All Christians believe in God, but many Christians have little time for God. They are too busy with everyday affairs to be taken up with Bible reading, prayer, and being thoughtful to their fellowmen. Many of them have lost the spirit of a zealous discipleship. If you ask them if they are Christians, they would probably answer, “I think so,” or, “I hope so.” They may go to church at Easter and Christmas and on other special occasions, but otherwise they have little time for God. They have crowded God out of their lives.

The Bible warns against neglect of your soul. It is possible to harden your heart and shrivel your soul, until you lose your appetite for the things of God. This hunger, then, that you should have is a desire to be always right with God. It is a consciousness that all searching for peace of heart, except in Him, is in vain.

Prayer for the day: I hunger today to know more of You, Lord.

Written by Billy Graham, Founder of Billy Graham Evangelistic Association(BGEA). BGEA exists to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ by every effective means and to equip the church and others to do the same.