Weekly Devotional: Gems From Pastor Jim 10/19/2020

by Jim Hughes

Dan. 9:4 I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed, “ O Lord, you are a great and awesome God! You always fulfill your promises of unfailing love to those who love you and keep your commands.”

Do you really believe it? Do you believe that God always fulfills His promises of unfailing love to those who love Him and obey Him? Think about how you think about God when circumstances overwhelm you and He seems to not care. Be honest. Do you consider God loving you when things are going bad for you? Don’t you question the love of God for you when nothing seems to change for the better? After all, if God really loves, He would make sure everything went well for us, wouldn’t He?

We doubt God’s love because we can’t see the forest because of the trees. All we can see is the moment we are in, not the broader picture of our lives. We don’t see how the moment can be good for us in any way. We don’t see how God is going to use us the rest of our life journey and how our present circumstances are a part of our preparation.

We don’t see the good in the bad because we fail to remember what God says about himself. He is holy love and is incapable of acting in a non-loving way. Everything God does, or allows to happen in our lives, flows from love. He is incapable of doing anything wrong. We may not understand it at all, but it is true. In order to deal with life we must accept as absolute truth everything God says. All of God’s promises come to pass but, there is a condition if we are going to personally experience them.

We must love the Lord and obey Him. When we love the Lord we trust Him. We rest in the knowledge that what we are going through is noticed by God and is being used by Him for our good. We do not speak negatively of Him; instead we acknowledge Him, thank Him, and praise Him regardless of what we are experiencing. We continue to faithfully obey Him regardless of how we feel. God never fails us, but we do fail Him. God will see you through whatever you are going through if you love Him and obey Him.

About the Author:

Spending his formative years in Ft. Wayne, IN, Jim followed the love of his life to southeast Iowa where they married and have spent the majority of their lives. Jim has pastored several churches throughout his life and has worked many years in local factories to help support his family. The father of two married adult children and one son still at home, Jim is a first-time author.

C Through Marriage came into being through many years of pastoral and life experiences. The book first took on a life of its own over 20 years ago when I sought to address the much publicized moral failures of prominent leaders in the church. In the chapter on Chasity, I include the guideliness that I developed then to protect one's self from such failures.

I am a firm believer in order to make sense out of life you have to use much common sense. We need to get back to the basics of what has worked for many, many generations. If is isn't broke, why try to fix it? I strive to return to the basics of what really works in all my writings.