Devotions January 4, 2010

Proverbs 4:23 says, Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. It's really easy for me to let my heart get carried away and lead me down paths I shouldn't go. It's not that I intend for it to happen, but I certain ideas to get stuck in my head, then off we go. I am an all or nothing kind of person. As soon as I decide I want something, I want all of it and nothing less. It is a great attitude to have, as long as the things I want are in line with God's will. Verses 24-27 tell us how we can help keep our hearts in check. 'Put away form thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee. Let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. Turn on to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil.' If we want to keep our heart, we need to keep all of our focus on God and his word.

Two Rivers' devotion came from Psalm 71. I read the whole chapter, but I was stuck on the first verse. In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust; let me never be put to confusion.' This month, we have been studying faith in Ohana's devotion. Faith is trusting and believing God. This is just one more verse that tells us to trust him :-)

Ohana's devotion is from Luke 17:11-19. This is the story of Jesus cleansing the 10 lepers. When they cried to Jesus in verse 13 'Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.' Jesus told them, 'Go show yourselves to the priests.' The thing that has always stood out to me is their faith. in verse 14 it says, 'And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.' As soon as Jesus told them to go, they went, even though they still had leprosy. It was not until they were well on their way that God healed them. Most of the time we don't want to do what God tells us to do until we know every last little detail. The simple fact of the matter is that in order to have faith, we need to trust God, and believe that he knows what is best for our life. If we do that, we will be able to do whatever he asks us to do, without worrying about all of the details surrounding it.