My prayer is that you read and study these devotionals with an earnest desire to seek the Lord
¨¨¨ These devotionals are much easier to read on-line ¨¨¨
THE THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Don’t foolishly make excuses for your lack of mercy or forgiveness by using the excuse that ‘’God knows my heart”
“Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.”
Proverbs 22:15 (KJV)
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
Jeremiah 17:9 (KJV)
Genesis 22
Abraham’s only true promised son from God
Genesis 17:17-19 (KJV), “17 Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? 18 And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee! 19 And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.”
Though Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac, he only had one son who was the promised son who would seed dependents throughout the world
Genesis 22:2 (KJV), “And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.”
The significance of mountains – Old Testament
Mountains are places where Heaven and Earth meet so, the mountain becomes a place of transformative encounter with God
The Garden of Eden
Ezekiel 28:13-14 (KJV), “13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. 14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.”
Abraham assigns Isaac to carry the wood for the offering
Genesis 22:6 (KJV), “And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together.”
Jesus carried His cross for His offering
John 19:16-17 (KJV), “16 Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away. 17 And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha.”
God will provide the lamb
Genesis 22:7-8 (KJV), “7 And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? 8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.”
John 1:29 (KJV), “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
1 Peter 1:18-19 (KJV), “18 Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; 19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”
Isaiah 9
From the previous chapter when the curse was laid upon them
Isaiah 8:21-22 (KJV), “21 And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward. 22 And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness.”
But, in the worst of times God’s people have a nevertheless to comfort themselves with, something to allay and balance their troubles; they are persecuted, but not forsaken
Isaiah 9:1 (KJV), “Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations.”
2 Corinthians 4:9 (KJV), “Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.”
Sorrowful yet always rejoicing
2 Corinthians 6:10 (KJV), “As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”
Isaiah 9:2 (KJV), “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.”
God makes way for the coming Messiah by placing us in our lowest point
Isaiah 9:4-5 (KJV), “4 For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian. 5 For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire.”
To where we need a Savior
Isaiah 9:6 (KJV), “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
God sends warnings, by means of His prophets, but they would not take the hint, took no care to turn away his wrath, and so it lighted upon Israel
Isaiah 9:8-9 (KJV), “8 The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel. 9 And all the people shall know, even Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria, that say in the pride and stoutness of heart.”
Most of the world takes for granted what God has provided for them, literally everything. The world often believes they can do better than our Creator
Isaiah 9:10 (KJV), “The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.”
God then often reminds us that we do need Him and should be grateful for all that He has given us
Isaiah 9:11-12 (KJV), “11 Therefore the Lord shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him, and join his enemies together; 12 The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.”
Psalms 9
God watches out for His chosen children and protects them unconditionally
Psalm 9:1-3 (KJV), “1 I will praise thee, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works. 2 I will be glad and rejoice in thee: I will sing praise to thy name, O thou most High. 3 When mine enemies are turned back, they shall fall and perish at thy presence.”
Will God’s enemies be blotted out of the book of life?
Psalm 9:5 (KJV), “Thou hast rebuked the heathen, thou hast destroyed the wicked, thou hast put out their name for ever and ever.”
Psalm 69:28 (KJV), “Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.”
Some translations say “book of life” but literally translated as “the book of the living ones”
Exodus 32:32 (KJV), “Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin–; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.”
God does say that from the foundation of the world, only the righteous are written in the book of life
Revelation 13:8 (KJV), “And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”
Revelation 17:8 (KJV), “The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.”
Jesus told us that if your name is written in the book of life, it can never be removed
Revelation 3:5 (KJV), “He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not [or never] blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.”
Nowhere in these Old Testament contexts is the book of life directly mentioned (if indeed Psalm 69:28 is best translated as “the book of the living ones”)
God makes it very clear that He will righteously judge the world
Psalm 9:8 (KJV), “And he shall judge the world in righteousness, he shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness.”
Psalm 9:15-17 (KJV), “15 The heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made: in the net which they hid is their own foot taken. 16 The Lord is known by the judgment which he executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. 17 The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.”
Proverbs 22
Your family name is precious and we should work to protect it and honor it in everything we do
Proverbs 22:1 (KJV), “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold.”
A parent is always a parent and their children are always their children
Proverbs 22:6 (KJV), “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
A genuinely lazy person will make up any excuse to avoid almost anything
Proverbs 22:13 (KJV), “The slothful [lazy] man saith, There is a lion without, I shall be slain in the streets.”
We are born with a deceitful heart
Jeremiah 17:9 (KJV), “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
God put the greatest amount of wisdom in Solomon so he could share it with us
Proverbs 22:17-19 (KJV), “17 Bow down thine ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply thine heart unto my knowledge. 18 For it is a pleasant thing if thou keep them within thee; they shall withal be fitted in thy lips. 19 That thy trust may be in the Lord, I have made known to thee this day, even to thee.”
If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it (needs vs. wants)
Proverbs 22:26-27 (KJV), “Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debts. 27 If thou hast nothing to pay, why should he take away thy bed from under thee?”
Grow in the Word of the Lord 