Daily Readings at Southeast

  God Is Our Banner Sometimes God’s promises to us involve a fight. We have to fight to keep our focus on Him, fight to move towards the promise we know God has laid on our hearts. We have a real enemy that would love nothing more than to get us sidetracked and doubt God’s promises. So we fight saying that we are going to believe God will do what He says He will do, and we keep fighting until we see that promise come to life. In Exodus 17:8-15 the nation of Israel, freed from great oppression in Egypt was traveling to the land God promised them. Yet, Israel was fighting, again.    As the Israelites were fighting in the valley, Moses was on the hill top lifting his hands in prayer for these great fighters. Israel fought hard, and with the prayers of Moses and the help of his companions, Aaron and Hur, the Amalekites were defeated. Moses knew that it was solely because of the Lord’s hand of protection and blessing on the Israelites that they won the battle. “Moses buil...

God Is Our Healer The Bible describes God as Jehovah-Rophe (or Jehovah-Rapha) more than 60 times. Jehovah means “God” and Rophe or Rapha means “to restore,” “to heal,” or “to make healthful.” In Exodus 15:26, God promised Moses and the people of Israel, “If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in His eyes, if you pay attention to His commands and keep all His decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.” Healer is an integral part of God’s character. God cares about every area of your health — your physical health, your mental and emotional well-being as well as your spiritual vitality (Psalm 103:2-3). When we understand that God is Jehovah-Rophe, the Great Physician, we recognize that no healing happens apart from Him. Only He can provide lasting healing from our brokenness. So often, we want the healing without ...

God Is Just We have no shortages of being hurt, failed, and scorned in life. The question to ponder is who do we trust to rescue us in our time of need? Who do we turn to and lean on when we are unsure which direction we are being pulled? Who can we rely on to serve justice when we desperately want to do so ourselves? Psalm 75 describes God as the ultimate judge — righteous, holy, fair, and equitable in all things. God is the only one capable of righting every wrong, the only one we can trust to always do the right thing. God is powerful, mighty, and capable of all things. But He doesn’t wield his might carelessly. One day, His Son, Jesus, will return to earth to deliver judgment and bring Christians to His heavenly home where we will dwell with Him forever. We can praise God in good times and bad times, through successes and disappointments, because we know that He will set things right. One day, God will “cut off the horns of all the wicked, but the horns of the righteous will be lif...

God Is Peace In Judges 6:11-24 Gideon’s hiding away, head down, working hard. Many of us could say the same about our day to day. How often do we toil away rarely lifting our eyes off our tasks to have an encounter with the Lord? God calls Gideon to take his eyes off his tasks and onto Him. When God gives Gideon the details of His plan, it's clear that Gideon’s self-evaluation falls much shorter than God’s view of him. Gideon is so caught off guard he questions God (Judges 6:15). In a simple plea starting with “Pardon me, my Lord,” Gideon basically tells God, “You must be mistaken! Not me! I’m weak, unequipped, not capable! You can't mean me, Lord!” Gideon trembles with fear of the unknown, his anxious thoughts made clear in his words. When we doubt and face fear we can know that we can have peace. The story doesn’t end here though. Even when we experience doubt and fear, we can know that we can have peace. In God’s infinite goodness, He fills Gideon with the fullness of His pe...

God Is Our Provider Have you ever sat at the dining table and wondered which bill could be late so your lights would not be turned off? What about sitting in your car at the gas pump checking your account to see exactly how much gas you could put in your car? Life happens and sometimes, it happens fast.  But there is one thing we have to keep in mind — God always provides. The thing is, God is not always going to provide in the way we think. We may want someone to give us money, but instead there’s an error with our previous payment, and we now have a credit on a bill. We could be trying to figure out how far we can go on what gas we have left in our tank when we realize we don’t have as many errands to run this week. God is able, and He provides for us. Abraham knew what it was like to trust God to provide. Abraham obediently brought his son Isaac up the mountain to sacrifice him, trusting that God would provide a substitute.      In Genesis 22:9-19, Abrah...

  God Is Holy In fact, God wants you to be different — and not just in personality and personal likes and dislikes. But to understand how each of us are called to be different, we can first see how God is different. God calls us to be different, set apart for a greater purpose. One of the names for God is Jehovah-M’Kaddesh, which means “the God who sanctifies” (Leviticus 20:7-8, Exodus 31:13). Sanctification is a big, churchy word that means to set apart or separate. Often, the words holy and hallow are used in place of sanctify. We cannot make ourselves holy, so God did that for us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. He calls us to be different, set apart for a greater purpose, like He called the people of Israel to be different from the world around them: “‘Keep all my decrees and laws and follow them...You must not live according to the customs of the nations I am going to drive out before you...I am the Lord your God, who has set you apart from the nations” (Lev...

Hope Thanks be to God, there is hope today; this very hour you can choose Him and serve him. — D. L. Moody Have you ever felt hopeless, worthless, or just downright useless? I believe we all have those days, months, or even years when we feel like we are nothing but a shadow in a world of color—like our existence is meaningless, or that the day of our birth was a catastrophic mistake in the space-time continuum. And while all of those things might feel very real to you, I’m here to tell you that they’re wrong. In fact, they’re straight-up lies. And that’s not just my opinion. Jeremiah 1:5 states, “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.” Did you catch that? God knew you before He formed you in your mother’s womb. He knew you before you were born. And on top of that, He set you apart from the beginning of time to be someone of substantial worth in His name. . . .  God is the author of ...

Love We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that He should bother to call us by name, our mouths wide open at His love, bewildered that, at this very moment, we are standing on holy ground. ― Brennan Manning First Corinthians 13:4–7 tells us: Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love is the foundation that God has called us to construct our lives upon. After all, if we follow Jesus, perfect love already is the foundation of our lives. But we aren’t just called to love our Lord Jesus Christ. Second and “equally important,” says Jesus, is to love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:31). I know what some of you are thinking: “But you haven’t met my neighbors, they’re c...

Truth To secure one’s freedom, the Christian must experience God’s light, which is God’s truth. — Watchman Nee Our world has this crazy notion that once we seek God, everything will be hassle-free. Now don’t get me wrong, having Jesus in our lives makes a world of a difference. But don’t be surprised if you hit obstacles the second you start to truly seek after God’s heart.  There are two things I know about Satan: He doesn't want me to be in a relationship with God. He will do everything he can to distract me from the truth. Looking back at my past, I realize how many times I let Satan get in the way of my relationship with God. The sad part is, I always allowed it to happen when things were beginning to look bright. (This is one reason why understanding our last word, “identity,” is so important!) Satan will do everything he can to distract us from the truth because the truth of God is Satan’s weakness. The truth of God is found in His Word (the Bible). And if we aren’t willing t...

Identity Gathering your self-worth externally is kind of like trying to fill up a lake with a Dixie cup. It’s just never enough. That’s why it’s so addictive. — Pete Wilson, in his book  Empty Promises Usually when someone wants to get to know a person they’ve just met, they ask these three questions: What’s your name? What do you do? Where are you from? And although there is nothing wrong with asking these things, I believe our identities as Christians are to be built on a lot more than what can be answered in three shallow questions. If we were to truly evaluate our lives, we’d all be surprised as to where we seek most of our identity. All you have to do is look to see where your time goes. I’m not saying we do it on purpose, but many of us might be astonished to realize we’re seeking our worth in the world around us and not in the Savior who wants to breathe life into our hearts. At the end of the day, the world can never offer anything remotely close to the worth and purpose of...

Joy Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God. — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Have you ever looked at the face of someone who just scored a winning touchdown, won first place at a competition, or just won the grand prize on a game show? Well if you have, you’ve noticed they look pretty happy. But I want you to realize that not one of those things has anything to do with joy. Why? Because joy isn’t a product of something you have your hand in. Joy is not affected by what we can do in our own strength. And joy is not something this world can truly offer us in the first place. Most of us in today’s world have mistaken happiness for joy. But if we unveil the truth behind what joy in Christ is, it is something eternal and unshakable. What would happen if the man who scored the winning touchdown didn’t get both feet on the field before the catch? What would happen if you took away the first place medal? And what would happen if the game show contestant had lost instead of won? Would th...