THE HERALDS DEVOTIONAL

FROM SOLITUDE TO SIGNIFICANCE PART 1: THE PLACE NOBODY SEES Mark 1:35 (NLT) “Before daybreak the next morning, Jesus got up and went out to an isolated place to pray.”   The Place Nobody Sees There are places in your life where nobody sees you. Nobody applauds you there. Nobody celebrates you there. Nobody even knows what you are doing there. But sometimes, that is exactly where God wants to work on you.  We often desire significance, influence, visibility and impact. We want people to see what God is doing through us. But we sometimes forget that before God uses you publicly, He often works on you privately. Jesus gives us a powerful picture of this. Before the crowds gathered... Before the miracles... Before the teaching... Before people began looking for Him... Jesus went to an isolated place to pray. The crowd saw His ministry. But the Father saw His solitude. And that teaches us something important: The place nobody sees may be the place that prepares ...

WHEN SCRIPTURE BECOMES YOUR PRAYER PART 10: THE COMPLETE PICTURE Joshua 1:8 (NIV) “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.” We have come to the final part of this journey. And when we look back, we can see that we have been building one picture from the beginning. We started with a simple question: What happens when Scripture becomes our prayer? And the answer is much bigger than simply learning how to quote Bible verses when we pray. Let's put the whole picture together. SCRIPTURE IS GOD'S WRITTEN MESSAGE. God has spoken. The Bible reveals His character, His truth, His instructions, His promises, His wisdom, and His will. So we begin by listening. Then we discovered: SCRIPTURE IS GOD'S BLUEPRINT. A blueprint reveals the intention of the architect. In the same way, God's Word gives us the pattern He has revealed for how we should understand Him, ourselves, and the...

WHEN SCRIPTURE BECOMES YOUR PRAYER PART 9: WHEN SCRIPTURE BECOMES YOUR LANGUAGE Colossians 3:16 (NIV) “Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom…” In the previous parts, we have been following a simple journey: Scripture gives us the blueprint. Faith trusts the blueprint. Prayer responds to the blueprint. Obedience follows the blueprint. But what happens when we stay in God's Word long enough? Something begins to change. Scripture begins to become our language. Think about someone who spends a lot of time around a particular language. At first, they may not understand much. But the more they listen, the more familiar the words become. Eventually, they begin to understand. Then they begin to speak. And with enough exposure, the language becomes natural to them. Something similar happens spiritually. When we continually expose ourselves to God's Word, Scripture begins to influence the way we think and spea...

WHEN SCRIPTURE BECOMES YOUR PRAYER PART 8: THE BLUEPRINT MUST BE FOLLOWED James 1:22 (NIV) “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” So far, we have been building this picture: Scripture is God’s written message. Scripture is God’s blueprint. Prayer is our response. Faith trusts what God has spoken. But now we come to something very important: The blueprint must be followed. Imagine an architect gives a builder a blueprint. The builder studies it. He understands it. He talks about it. He even prays about the project. But then he builds the house according to his own ideas. What is the problem? The blueprint was never the problem.  The builder simply did not follow it.  And sometimes, this can happen in our Christian lives. We can read Scripture. We can listen to sermons. We can underline verses. We can quote Scripture. We can pray Scripture. We can even have strong faith. But if we are not willing to obey what God has r...

WHEN SCRIPTURE BECOMES YOUR PRAYER PART 7: PRAYER GIVES FAITH A VOICE Mark 11:24 (NIV) “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” In the previous part, we said something important: Scripture gives us the blueprint. Faith trusts the blueprint. Prayer responds to the blueprint. Obedience builds according to the blueprint. Today, let's take another step.  Prayer gives faith a voice.  Think about faith for a moment. Faith may begin in the heart, but eventually, faith needs expression. And one of the ways faith expresses itself is through prayer. When you pray, you are bringing your trust in God before God. You are saying: “Lord, I believe You.”  Not because everything looks good. Not because you have all the answers. Not because you can already see the outcome. But because you trust the One who has spoken. Consider the story of Peter when Jesus told him to step out of the boat and walk on the wate...

WHEN SCRIPTURE BECOMES YOUR PRAYER PART 6: WHEN THE BLUEPRINT MEETS FAITH Hebrews 11:1 (NIV) “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” So far, we have been building a simple picture. Scripture is God’s written message. Scripture is God’s blueprint. Prayer is our response to the blueprint. Then we moved from reading to praying. But now we come to another important question: What happens when what God has said does not look like what we currently see? This is where faith comes in. Think again about a blueprint. A builder may look at an empty piece of land and see nothing but sand, stones and space. But when the architect looks at that same land, the architect sees something different. The architect sees the building that has been designed. The building is not physically there yet. But the blueprint reveals what is intended to be built. The builder therefore does not build according to what the land looks like. The builder builds acc...