Who I Am In Christ Devotionals

Out of the depths I call to you, Lord ! Lord, listen to my voice; let your ears be attentive to my cry for help. Lord , if you kept an account of iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, so that you may be revered. I wait for the Lord ; I wait and put my hope in his word. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning — more than watchmen for the morning. Israel, put your hope in the Lord. For there is faithful love with the Lord, and with him is redemption in abundance. And he will redeem Israel from all its iniquities. Psalm 130:1-8 Adam Hid Adam bit into that fruit and hid. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if he had, upon his sin, immediately turned to the Lord in sorrow and asked for forgiveness.  But he ran. And when the Lord found him hiding, Adam blamed his wife and the Lord for his sin. Lord, you put the test there.  But what if he had turned straight away to the Lord.  That’s who I want to be. I sin. Hey, I can cert...

    Like a servant’s eyes on his master’s hand, like a servant girl’s eyes on her mistress’s hand, so our eyes are on the Lord our God until he shows us favor. Show us favor, Lord, show us favor, for we’ve had more than enough contempt. Psalms 123:2-3 Remind Me Who He Is As a believer in Jesus, I must speak those truths that remind me who He is. Who He really is. I so easily imagine that God is an angry fire-breathing person, ready to stomp on me as soon as I get out of line. Satan loves for me to pray to that one, for he knows the damage it does. When I see God this way, I hide. I fill up with fear and resentment. This is not the loving Creator who breathed the breath of life into me. I love that when Adam sinned, God went walking, calling to Him. He didn’t come on like the Wizard of Oz. Nor is God the one preached in so many churches who wants me to be rich and comfortable, wants me to believe in myself (follow your heart) no matter how sinful and unrepentant. Don’t get me w...

  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say, “We have not sinned,” we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. 1 John 1:9-10 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 1 John 2:15 Am I Sunk? As a follower of Christ, I read and learn from the bible. It’s part of who I am. Christians are the people of the book. And one of the things I learn from the Bible, in this case the apostle John, is that I have sinned. It happens. And when it happens, we must confess it. We confess it. He cleanses us. I’m starting with that because the next part is heavy if I read it apart from understanding that. Believers do not love the world nor the things in the world. Gulp. If I love the world (and the things of the world), the love of the Father is not in me. I struggle with my love of the world and the things of the world so much. So then, I’...

His God teaches him order; he instructs him. Isaiah 28:26 Order in His Creation Who am I in Christ? I’m His servant, His Child, and even His friend, but I’m also His student. He teaches me. God teaches me order. This is so interesting because the non-believing world pushes the idea of chaos not order. They don’t publicly recognize the Creator of all. In fact, they say it all came from nothing. Or dust. Even life came from non-life. That’s what they say. It’s all a bunch of chaotic physics they say. But that’s not what God teaches. He teaches order. And He teaches me order even in His own creation. His natural law. The first chapter of bible, Genesis 1 is a study in order. And yes there is apparent chaos in the world, but the chaos isn’t the creator; the chaos is the breaking down of creation. He Instructs Why does it break down? Because Adam and Eve ate the fruit that God told them not to eat. Adam and Eve sided with Satan, the great deceiver. He told them to believe in magic. He told ...

  See what great love the Father has given us that we should be called God’s children — and we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it didn’t know him. Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when he appears, we will be like him because we will see him as he is. And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure. 1 John 3:1-3 I Am His Child God’s children hope. It’s a good and glorious hope. I am His child. Right now. I don’t have to die and go to heaven first. I am chosen. Chosen to be his child. Chosen to talk to Him. Chosen to be tested and trained by Him. Chosen to be used by Him. Chosen to be blessed by Him (over and over again). And I did nothing to deserve it. I’m like Charlie Bucket from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who found a dollar in the snow and bought a chocolate bar with a golden ticket inside. Only in my case, God did it. It wasn’t random. Plus, it’s infinitely bet...

Our help is in the name of the Lord , the Maker of heaven and earth. We have escaped like a bird from the hunter’s net; the net is torn, and we have escaped. Psalm 124:7-8 Maker of Heaven and Earth As a believer in Jesus, a grateful child of the king, I am an escapee. See, I have escaped the clutches of sin. And I have escaped Hell. When’s the last time you thought about it? I admit, I don’t think on this very often. Maybe there should be a day set aside for fasting and praying to remind me to be grateful that I’m not going to Hell. I’m a cleaned up citizen of Heaven. And notice this: my help is in His name, and just so I don’t get it wrong, the verse is talking about the Maker of Heaven and Earth. Why is that important? Made Up gods Because even as a child of God, I can dream up a god of my own design in a blink. I can trim an attribute of God off here, or a truth about Him there. I can be filled with such denial that I convince myself that this is the God of the bible. Why would I do...

  Then he said to them all, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. saying, “It is necessary that the Son of Man suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and be raised the third day.” For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will save it. Luke 9:22-24 Being a believer has not always been a euphoric sled ride for me nor a walk on a sunlit beach. And maybe I thought it would be, or it was supposed to be, but if I thought those things, I wasn’t really paying attention.  Being a believer involves discipline.  And I’ve been disciplined. Umm… Sort of.  This is the part where I need to be careful, careful in what I say. This is the get-a-speck-out-of-your-brother’s eye, get-the-plank-out-of-your-own-eye part.  Being a disciple of Jesus, a follower, is not about hitting all of the boxes on the checklist. I did this. ...