New Day - A Devotion

Psalm 96:1-3 (NLT)
Sing a new song to the LORD! Let the whole earth sing to the LORD! Sing to the LORD; praise his name. Each day proclaim the good news that he saves. Publish his glorious deeds among the nations. Tell everyone about the amazing things he does.

Today is a brand new day! The Lord is requesting your Presence and is waiting for you to come. He has no intention of berating you for yesterday for your past is forgotten. No, the Lord is ready to continue the transformation process that is releasing His Glory in your life. Maybe you are not quite awake yet but the Lord has been singing over you throughout the night looking for a crevice in the hardness of your heart to let His Love seep into. (Zephaniah 3:17) Just by asking Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior, you have invited the Lord to live in your life. However, rather than it becoming a passionate love affair for many it is a forgotten gesture or overwhelming responsibility. But that is not what God intended when you gave your life to Him. God desires our delight driving us to holiness and obedience not due diligence to religion but a loving relationship that makes us seek His Face, listen for His Voice and live in His Presence. It is a New Day! God is ready to do amazing things in your life!

Yesterday was a good day! I love completing an old journal and beginning a new one. These are an important chronicle of God’s Intervention in my life. I began journaling faithfully about five years ago. Each new journal is different from the last. Handsome black binders, monogrammed notebooks, and whimsical covers relay the message of a massive God cramming all of His Very Best in my life. There are good days and not-so-good days written on each page but as we see in God’s Word – the Lord always shows us to save me in my greatest need. He is transforming my life as I surrender my life to Him. Each day is a gift! New light should be “pleasant” as His Light illuminates the world. (Ecclesiastes 11:7) As a believer, we should be able to welcome each new day with all the possibilities and potential that God has packed in them. If not, it may be time for a new journal. Turning the page from yesterday and inviting God to speak life into this new day with His Amazing Love. I often encourage Children of God to journal what He says and does in your life. It is as important as His Written Word as the Lord reveals all the Goodness and Grace of His New Covenant with us – His Beloved Children.

Habakkuk 2:1-3 (NLT)
I will climb up to my watchtower and stand at my guard post. There I will wait to see what the LORD says and how he will answer my complaint. Then the LORD said to me, “Write my answer plainly on tablets, so that a runner can carry the correct message to others. This vision is for a future time. It describes the end, and it will be fulfilled. If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed.

God hears every word spoken to Him in prayer. Not one complaint, request or need goes unnoticed. However, many people today do not believe that God answers prayer let alone speaks to His People. This is a lie of the enemy reinforced by all the baggage from previous relationships that has formed many hardened hearts. Fathers who leave their children, mothers abandoning their kids emotionally create adults with trust issues. Husbands who do not honor their wives and love them like the church along with overbearing women who refuse to submit and become Proverbs 31 women leave broken marriages creating broken people unable to cultivate faith in their God. God is not like all the other people who let have let you down, left you and broken your spirit. Instead, the Lord took His Love as far as it would go dying just so you could know and experience real love. Do not let the enemy rob you of such a glorious experience as the transformation of God. He is making you a new creation! It is the potential of your life whether you choose to develop it or not! You can climb up on the watch tower of prayer and wait for the Lord’s Arrival – because HE WILL COME unlike all the others who never made it. He will answer every prayer in living color and vivid clarity if you will watch and wait. “Write my answers plainly on a tablet” or journal what the Lord is telling you. In the beginning it may seem like a faint, subtle voice as you meet Him at a distance unsure of His Faithfulness, Goodness and Love. But once faith becomes a commitment to daily meet Him in this place, you will not be able to go a day without spending time in His Presence! God’s Perspective of your life is not limited to here and now. This is the limited visibility of those who have no hope. Living only to survive today, they cannot think about tomorrow because worry overshadows them. But to the watchman on the wall, only one thing will do! His Word is essential. His Answer is necessary! His Arrival is eminent! So they wait… Are you waiting for the Lord’s Reply today? Are you poised for His Answer? With pen in hand are you ready to commit His New Word on this New Day to your life?

2 Corinthians 3:5-8 (NLT)
It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God. He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant. This is a covenant not of written laws, but of the Spirit. The old written covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life. The old way with laws etched in stone, led to death, though it began with such glory that the people of Israel could not bear to look at Moses’ face. For his face shone with the glory of God, even though the brightness was already fading away. Shouldn’t we expect far greater glory under the new way, now that the Holy Spirit is giving life?

God gave the Law to Moses on tablets of stone. The old written covenant led to death because man could not seem to fulfill its bylaws and decrees. So the new covenant became available through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. His Spirit has given us life. The Holy Spirit resides in the heart of every believer making it pliable enough to write the greatest love story ever told there. (2 Corinthians 3:2-4) It is not a fairy tale. It is the new life and new creation that the Lord desperately wants to make of your worn out, broken existence. He is transforming you from the inside out. (Galatians 6:14-16) The women who went to tend the Body of Jesus Christ were greeted at the tomb and instructed to stop worshipping a dead god and look for the Living Lord. (Matthew 28:1-7) The Living Breathing Spirit of God lives on the inside of you and is looking for a way out. “For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.” (Romans 6:4)

Romans 12:1-2 (NLT)
And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

The question that I asked the most is “how do you hear the Voice of God”? I assure you there really is no magic formula or religious ritual to it. When God laid it on my heart to begin to write these devotions, it was really quite simple. As I prayed, I felt His Spirit tell me that if I would just come to Him each day that the Lord would do the rest. Five years later, I am still amazed and overwhelmed that the God of the Universe with such a massive responsibility would meet with me each day as I watch and wait for His Arrival. There is no fancy prayer to conjure up or weird spooky spiritual thing. I sit down in an old sweat jacket with my journal and His Word. I remain there until He comes and then write simply what He tells me. What was once thirty minutes has become at least two hours. I believe this is how God works in every area of our life. His Spirit gives us a nudge and if by faith we take the step – the Lord meets us there. It is really that simple. Transformation comes through a surrendered life – that is sacrifice. If you sacrifice even the smallest portion of your life to the Lord intending to increase your faith, He will release potential. I know it is hard to understand a God that continues to be faithful in the midst of our rebellious fickle nature. But He does. He cannot help but do it. His Love keeps Him right there. His Mercy makes God wait. His Grace quiets His Anger. His Perfection does not permit the Lord to change. God’s Goal for your life is total transformation to receive His Glory! (I Corinthians 15:51-53) Our mission is to receive the new life He has promised and is faithful to deliver. (I Corinthians 15:58) God’s Glory is ready to transform your life. Today just might be that day! Are you ready to receive New Life? (Hebrews 8:10-11)

Romans 8:14-16 (NLT)
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.

The Spirit of the Living God is essential to bringing God’s Written Word to life. The Words on the page have all the power you need but His Spirit allows us to receive it by making room in our life. He is constantly working to remove the sin that keeps us from having the life that God promised. He is not alone in there. Our flesh or human spirit fights for control constantly. Side note: “So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.” (Matthew 17:20-21 NKJV) When the disciples could not cast out evil spirits, they came to Jesus with their problem. The Lord told them that faith was required. It would come through fasting and prayer. We all have faith. However, it grows in the midst of fasting and prayer. Why? Because prayer invites the Lord to have His Way and speak His Word in your life which comes with transformation, restoration and revival permitting faith to grow. (Romans 10:17) But if we do not communicate to the Lord there can be confusion, and if we do fast then our spirit hinders the Spirit of God’s ability to transform our life. Fasting silences the flesh giving way to God’s Spirit enabling us to learn to live to satisfy the Lord rather than our body’s constant need for immediate gratification, flesh is insatiable and will never have enough. Fasting releases the stronghold your flesh has over your life enabling you to give it to the Lord. Fasting changes our focus to become more like Jesus Christ. (Isaiah 58:6-7) If you are having trouble experiencing the Resurrection Power of the Lord in each new day and becoming the new creation that you are promised, it may be time to fast. His Spirit is waiting to move mightily in your life. But you must give your life to Jesus to make it happen! The Spirit of the Living God will not disappoint as He makes all things new in your life! Your faith will grow like never before as God’s Written Word gives way to a constant conversation with the Lord. You will be able to trust again! You will see the potential as His Spirit broadens your perspective of life! No Virginia there is no Santa Clause BUT there is a God who loves you unconditionally. He has a Son that made a way for you to have it all. His Spirit will stop at nothing to guide you to that place!

Titus 3:4-6 (NLT)
But—“When God our Savior revealed his kindness and love, he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. He generously poured out the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior.

To begin each new day with this thought in mind and take hold of its true potential by faith will release the Resurrection Power of God in your life. The Lord is not dead. He did not leave you to struggle through life. You have the Spirit of Jesus Christ on the inside of you and He is waiting to transform your life and reveal His Presence. Will you watch and wait for the Lord knowing He will come? Will you take interest in what He has to say writing down and praying until it comes to pass? Will you break the stronghold of flesh that hinders God’s Spirit from completely fulfilling your life as God has planned and accept the New Life you have been given? The choice is yours! It’s a brand new day! What will you do with it is completely up to you!

Revelation 21:5-6 (NLT)
And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” And then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.”And he also said, “It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life.”