We will see Him

Mark 1:7-8  And he (John the baptist) preached, saying,  "After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.  I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." Yesterday we read in Ezekiel 36:26 that God promised in the Old Testament that He will clean His people outside and in - a complete renewal. Today we read that Jesus Christ fulfils that promise.   Being baptized with His Spirit places a new desire in your heart to please God through the way that you live. You either have this desire or you don't.  We sometimes subdue this desire... or in other cases pretend to have this desire while we don't.  Tomorrow we will read how to get this new desire. Our Father in Heaven, some of us long to please you but struggle with sin's hold on our lives.  Others of us long to know you so that we can desire to please you.  Would you strengthen our weak h...

Ezekiel 36:25-27  I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. Here God promised in the Old Testament that He will clean His people outside and in - a complete renewal. Tomorrow we will see how Christ fulfilled this promise.  Are you living in the light of such a complete new beginning?   For now: See how God does everything for us, culminating in Him causing us to walk according to His will. Father God, your act of saving us is 100% complete.  We are sorry that our response does not match your commitment to us.  Would you give us a deep desire to ...

Mark 8:34 If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. To be a disciple of Jesus Christ, we will need to become His followers, valuing the same things He valued. If the path He walked led to the cross, why do we think that following Him won't lead to suffering for us? This suffering however, will only be temporary.  Our Lord Jesus Christ, we confess that we are unable to follow you as we should.  Please help us to follow you wherever you will lead us.  Motivate us to follow you, not out of fear, but instead out of a desire to be with you.  Amen If you do not want to receive these messages anymore, just reply with 'unsubscribe please' in the subject line

Matt 4:23   Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.  News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and he healed them.  Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, a Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.  The Gospel is not only good news, and not only good news for you but also good news for the whole world.   It is the "good news of the kingdom". Each one of us has been affected by the brokenness of this world - and here Jesus is giving a foretaste of the Kingdom He came to inaugurate.   It will be a Kingdom where there will be no more spiritual, psychological or physiological suffering. At this moment He is sitting at the right hand of the...

Deut 8:17  Beware lest you say in your heart, 'My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.' You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth… ·      We can make the mistake to think that all that we have accomplished attests to our own worth and abilities. ·      But here the Bible reminds us that it is rather a testimony of God's grace – that He blesses us in spite of our flaws and mistakes… ·      On the cross He gives us the ultimate blessing in spite of our ultimate sin, so that He can build a Kingdom where He will never again be overlooked as the Giver of all Gifts.   Heavenly Father, please forgive us for thinking that our wealth is our own doing.  Everything that we have or own is a gift from your hand – we praise you for it.  Above all we ...

Col 1:6  All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth.  There is life in the Gospel... look, it's "bearing fruit and growing." This growth is changed lives that become more and more in line with the Gospel from which it is growing. These changed lives are becoming more and more grace-filled, rather than law-filled or law-less. "The Gospel is not merely the ABC of the Christian faith, it is the A-Z!" (Tim Keller)   Prayer: Our Father in heaven, please help me to see that the Gospel truth is clearly saying who you are: a God of grace!  I must admit that when I loose my grasp on the Gospel I start to worship another god... one who's love I can only access or reject through doing 'good' or 'bad' things.  Please remind me moment by moment that Christ has already earned every blessing in heaven for me, and that I can just b...

Jer 29:7 Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper. We are not only to pray for our own needs but also the needs of this great city. More than prayer, we are actively to seek it's peace and prosperity. The real peace this city needs is the peace bought for us by Christ on the cross.  How can you help people to discover that peace today?  Prayer: Father God, we want to pray for this city and plead with you that more and more people will come to believe that Jesus' death gave them eternal peace with you.  Help us to show them that peace in giving us more opportunities to serve the people of this city.  Amen  If you don't want to receive these messages just reply 'unsubscribe please' in the subject line.

Col 4:2 Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. To devote yourself to something means you give yourself entirely and continuously to it. Some believers find it hard to do this in prayer - sometimes forgetting that even Jesus 'devoted' Himself to prayer. It is not optional: the Lord commands us to do it. It is very important:  Prayer is not closing our eyes and not seeing the dangers around us.  Prayer is the way we see the dangers around and in us.   Prayer is not closing our eyes to the things God has given us, but it is the means to enjoy the Giver of the things we have received and be truly thankful. Our Father in Heaven, we want to praise and thank you for a way to enjoy our relationship with you.  We want to be watchful over the dangers in our own hearts by confessing to you all that we have done that is wrong in your sight.  (Put your own confession here).  We are thankful that you give us the full assurance that we are completely fo...

Phil 2:12  Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed —not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling ,  for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.  "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling".  If you are a believer, doesn't this line just scare you?  After all, the Christian faith states that God does everything for our salvation?  This almost sounds as if I have to save myself!  But, look at the careful balance striked by the two statements on either side.  On the one hand - "obey" and then "God works in you".   It is because God works in us that we can obey. This obedience is given to us by God, but it is with fear and trembling that we have to follow his lead - for the sake of our salvation. Prayer: Our Father, we humbly confess that we easily think we alone are responsible for our salvation. Looking at ...

Acts 20:32  Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.  When we look at the brokenness in the world around us we are tempted to think we are the ones to fix it.  Here Paul commits or gives God's people back to Him and to His Word of grace.     We can have full confidence that when we commit ourselves or others to God, His Word of grace is powerful enough to build them up and prepare them for an eternity with Himself. Father God, we confess that we do not always trust the power of your Word.  We praise you that your Word of grace shows us that Jesus took all of the brokenness and punishment our sin deserved on Himself. More than that, such is the power of your Word that you rose again to triumph over death. Help us to truly believe that. Amen Kruger de Kock Canada Water Church If you no longer like to receive these devotionals, just reply to this email with...

James 4:7-10 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.  8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.  9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.  10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.  Reading this text from the top can make you quite discouraged... But if we start from the end we see that it holds out the wonderful promise of the Lord lifting us up. Are you also trying to lift yourself up in a competitive world?  Prayer: Father God, we confess that we long for someone to lift us up - but above all we long to be lifted up by You.  Here me when I  recognise my own rebellion against God, the devil's sway in my life, the sins of my hands and the sinfulness of my heart. Father God, I embrace my sorry state... but through faith in Jesus Christ...

Psalm 90:10 The length of our days is seventy years-or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. Philippians 3:20  But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,  • Heaven, not earth, is our home. • To invest our hearts and resources into this world would only bear fruit in this world while an investment into the kingdom to come will bear fruit both here and there.   • At the center of both kingdoms is an intimate relationship with a person: either myself or Jesus Christ. Lord Jesus, because you paid for our self-centeredness of the past we can hope in an eternal Kingdom to come.  Help us to live with you in this broken world and work for it's renewal daily. Amen   

Hi there, We would like to see if there's interest out there for a daily devotional like the one following underneath.  Every weekday we would take one or two verses, try to explain them in three bullet points and add a short prayer.  Ephesians 5:1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.    And   walk in love,    as Christ loved us and    gave himself up for us, a fragrant    offering and sacrifice to God. Christians have the security of knowing that they have been adopted by God as His beloved children. This adoption came at the cost of Jesus being forsaken on the cross.   Now Christians have the calling to follow God's example and love in the same way as the Father loves us - through giving ourselves away.  After all - He gave His Son over to death so that believers can live! Prayer : Father God, we long to follow your example and love you and the world as you have loved us.  Please give us the deep...