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DAILY DEVOTIONAL | December 20th

📖 "Where there is no word from God, people are uncontrolled, but those who obey what they have been taught are happy." -Proverbs 29:18 New Century Version 

The Word of God was given to us to govern our lives. It tells us what is acceptable and what is unacceptable to God. When the Israelites were freed from their bondage at the hands of the Egyptians, God gave them the Law so that they would know what would be pleasing and displeasing to God. The Israelites had been in bondage for 400 years, and when they were free, they needed to get acquainted with God. If they followed the Law, they experienced success. God would conquer their enemies and prosper them wherever they went. God has given us His Word so that we can experience victory and prosperity in our lives as well. Without the Word of God, we would not have any restraint, and the devil would have total access in our lives. If we want to enjoy the good life that God has preordained, we must embrace and obey His Word. 

#obediencee #devotional #bible #vcccharlotte #WordofGod

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL | December 19th

📖 "The good or bad that children do shows what they are like." -Proverbs 20:11 Contemporary English Version 

One fairly popular quote in our society is “Actions speak louder than words.” Perhaps you’ve heard it. A person can say all day that they are a Christian, but what do their actions say? What statement is their behavior making? One cannot truly be born again and practice sin. Sinners practice sin because of their sin nature. They sin because their father is the devil. The sinner is only acting out what is on the inside of them. When we ask Jesus to be the Lord of our lives, we are born again. The sin nature is gone, and the nature of God is now on the inside of us. When there is a change in our nature, there should be a change in our behavior. People expect sinners to sin because they are sinners. Christians are supposed to act differently because we have a different nature. You won’t find apples growing on an orange tree. You won’t find peaches on a pear tree. The fruit of the tree determines what type of tree it is. The behavior of a person should reveal what’s on the inside of them. A good tree can only produce good. We must be ambassadors of the Lord Jesus Christ. If we are going to wear the badge of a Christian, then our lifestyle should match the badge.  

#ambassadorsofChrist #devotionaal #actionsspeaklouderthanwords #vcccharlotte 

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL | December 18th

📖 "And become useful and helpful and kind to one another, tenderhearted (compassionate, understanding, loving-hearted), forgiving one another [readily and freely], as God in Christ forgave you.” -Ephesians 4:32 Amplified Bible Classic Edition    

Oftentimes, it is easy for mankind to justify the harboring of offenses in his or her heart because of the level of degree of disappointment or hurt experienced. He or she may erroneously find themselves rationalizing the “totem pole” of sin based on their individual views of the seriousness of the infraction, but how can one with a flawed intellect and heart JUSTLY walk in un-forgiveness towards another man? The answer: it’s impossible. Through His Word, God has commanded believers specifically to not only forgive without delay. He also instructs us to be kind to one another, looking after one another’s interests. When we have the heart of God, it’s pliable, loving; and it organically will operate from a position of compassion and understanding. We’ll be loving and patient instead of resentful and contentious. If we find that we don’t have the heart or desire to help our brother and sister in Christ, then there’s a simple solution. All we have to do is have faith and ask God to give us one. After that, we must spend time in His presence and Word and practice obeying His instruction, and it will transform us. As children of God, we should desire to have our Father’s heart. His way and outlook on life is Truth and always wisest.

#forgiveness #donation #vcccharlotte #compassion #ephesians

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL | December 17th

📖 "Daniel answered the king, The [mysterious] secret which the king has demanded neither the wise men, enchanters, magicians, nor astrologers can show the king, But there is a God in heaven Who reveals secrets, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what it is that shall be in the latter days (at the end of days). Your dream and the visions in your head upon your bed are these" -Daniel 2:27-28 Amplified Bible Classic Edition    

The world is full of problems. As the people of God, we have the solutions, because we have the greater One living on the inside of us. There is no problem that the Spirit of God can’t solve. There isn’t anything that is too difficult for God. Daniel had to believe God to not only reveal to him Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, but also to interpret the dream. If he had not interpreted the dream, all the wise men of the land would have been killed including Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. When Daniel received the revelation, that revelation saved many lives, and it brought about promotion. God wants to reveal things to His people that will have a positive impact on our society. He wants to use us to bring glory to the kingdom of God and to point people to Jesus. We must make ourselves available to God so that we can be used by Him in a greater way.  

#trustGod #submission #daniel #devotional #bible 

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL | December 16th

📖 "Wisdom is the most important thing; so get wisdom [The beginning of wisdom is: Get/Acquire wisdom]. If it costs everything you have [ Above all your acquisitions], get [acquire] understanding. Treasure wisdom [Highly esteem her], and it [or she] will ·make you great [exalt you]; hold on to it [or embrace her], and it [or she] will bring you honor.” -Proverbs 4:7-8 Expanded Bible 

   

Wisdom is so important. King Solomon wrote about it being “the most important thing”. He understood the importance of wisdom to the extent that even if it costs a man or woman everything, they must acquire it and make that sacrifice. His reasoning was that wisdom will exalt us and bring us honor among other things. He would have known this firsthand. When God asked him what He wanted from Him, Solomon didn’t ask for riches, long life, or the lives of his enemies, he simply asked for wisdom and knowledge so that he would be able to judge the people. God was so impressed with Solomon’s request that He gave him what he asked for and the things that he did not ask for. God made him wealthy and gave him rest from all of Israel’s enemies. We have access to God’s wisdom. I Corinthians 1:30 tells us that Jesus has been made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. We don’t have to be without wisdom. James said that if you need wisdom, to simply ask for it. So, we are without excuse. We will always receive when we ask in faith. 

#faith #wisdom #kingsolomon #vcccharlotte #solomon 

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL | December 15th

📖 "I am but a pilgrim here on earth: how I need a map—and your commands are my chart and guide." -Psalm 119:19 The Living Bible 

   

When we make Jesus the Lord of our lives, we are born again. We are born from above. We become ambassadors of Heaven. We are now strangers or pilgrims that are just passing through here on earth. We understand that we are here temporarily, and that Heaven is where we will spend eternity. While we are here, God has given us His Word. His Word is our chart and guide on how to live and function while we are here. We have been translated out of the kingdom of darkness and have been translated into the kingdom of God’s Son. So, we now must learn how to function in the kingdom of God while we are living in the earth. The more proficient we are at operating in the Kingdom of God, the more success we experience during our time on the earth. God has given us a guide for us to live by, and our success depends on how diligent we are in using that guide. Let us never forget that our success comes by the Word of God. 

#pilgrims #heaven #weareHisambassadors #devotional #vcccharlotte 

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL | December 14th

📖 ""Whoever walks with wise people will be wise, but whoever associates with fools will suffer." -Proverbs 13:20 GWT

   

The Bible tells us that Noah walked with God. Enoch walked with God. Abraham was called a friend of God. David was a man after God’s own heart. We can also have a relationship with God. We can walk with God and fellowship with Him just like Adam did in the Garden of Eden. As we walk with God, we will start to think like God and talk like God. It has been said that “associations determine your destiny”. What better way ensure that we walk in our destiny, than by associating with God. God wants to manifest Himself to us. Hebrews 11:6 tells us that God, “is a rewarder of them who diligently seek Him”. Psalms 37 tells us that when we “delight ourselves in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our hearts”. You can’t go wrong walking with God. Your life will never be the same. 
 
#trustGod #wisdom #devotional #vcccharlotte 

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL | December 13th

📖 "The wicked are overthrown and are not, but the house of the [uncompromisingly] righteous shall stand.” -Proverbs 12:7 AMPC 

   

The wicked and the righteous will always have a different outcome. The righteous should always flourish like a palm tree. They will be like the tree that is planted by the rivers of water. The righteous don’t experience the same heat that the wicked experience because of where their roots are planted. Jesus said that He was the vine, and we are the branches. We draw our life and our strength from Him. When we build our house on the Rock and not the sand, we can expect our house to stand when the winds and the rains beat against our house. The wicked will be overthrown, and they will perish. They build their house on the sand. They are not in Christ, so they must draw their strength from another inferior source. The righteous will always stand when their foundation is the Word of God. 

#righteous #devotional #ChristJesus #vcccharlotte  

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL | December 12th

📖 "Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah." -Psalm 68:19 KJV  

God will take care of us every day. He desires to meet every need, every time. He daily loads us with benefits. He daily desires to demonstrate His love towards us. God took care of the Israelites daily. Every morning when they woke up, there was manna on the ground to feed them. A cloud protected them from the heat of the wilderness during the day. A pillar of fire gave them light and kept them warm at night. God took care of their every need daily. God has not changed. His ability has not decreased. God still honors the covenant. God will still take care of us. His desire has not changed. He even told us that He would give us the desires of our hearts when we delight ourselves in Him. We must raise our expectations. When we look to God for our daily benefits and trust in Him, we will eventually experience what we expect. 

#dailybenefits #devotional #GoodFather #dailybread 

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL | December 11th

📖 "You are my hiding place from every storm of life; you even keep me from getting into trouble! You surround me with songs of victory.” -Psalm 32:7 The Living Bible 

We all must deal with life storms. Those storms don’t have to overwhelm us. We can outlast the storm every time. We can calm the storms of our lives by speaking to them the way Jesus did when He was here on the earth. Jesus knew who He was and the authority that He walked in. As believers, it is important to know who we are and what we are to walk in. While we are going through the storm, God will provide a hiding place: a place of shelter. A place where we can hide until the storm passes. Sometimes we must go through the storm, but God will keep us. God will protect us. God will provide a hiding place. When it is all said and done and the storm is over, we will still be standing. There is no storm that can overpower us when God is our refuge. He will see us through every time. 

#refuge #hidingplace #goodGod #dailydevotional #vcccharlotte 

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL | December 10th

📖 "Jesus answered him, “I assure you and most solemnly say to you, unless a person is born again [reborn from above—spiritually transformed, renewed, sanctified], he cannot [ever] see and experience the kingdom of God.” -John 3:3 AMP

God has many wonderful things in store for His children. Many think that we are all “God’s children,” when that is not the case. To be a child of God, you must be born again. To be born again, one must accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. God is a spirit, and He is the Father of spirits. Every person born on the earth is born with a sin nature and is spiritually dead. When we are born again, we become alive unto God, and we are born from spiritual death unto spiritual life. Being born again means that we are transformed, renewed, and sanctified. We are taken out of the kingdom of darkness and translated into the kingdom of God. Life truly begins when we are born again.  

#bornagain #childrenofGod #vcccharlotte  

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL | December 9th

📖 "These are the commands, rules and laws of the Lord your God. He told me to teach them to you. Obey them in the land you are crossing the Jordan River to own. You, your children and grandchildren must respect the Lord your God. You must do this as long as you live. Obey all his rules and commands I give you. Then you will live a long time. Listen, Israel, and carefully obey these laws. Then all will go well for you. You will become a great nation in a land where much food grows. The Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised it to you." -Deuteronomy 6:1-3 ICB

It will always go well when we obey the Word of God. Israel was told that this would be the way to walk in all that God desired for that nation. If they would observe and do what was written in the law, they would succeed. They were also told how to succeed from generation to generation and to teach these same laws to their children and grandchildren. One reason God chose Abraham, was because He knew that Abraham would teach the laws of God to his children. God is a generational God. He wants us to show Himself strong from one generation to the next. The Word tells us that He keeps covenant to a thousand generations. God never changes, and He desires for His people to prosper every generation. When we follow His orders and His laws, we can be sure that we will eventually walk in that prosperity. God is faithful. 
 
#faithfulness #devotionaal #vccchaarlotte #generationalGod 

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL | December 8th

📖 "Do the best you can to be the kind of person that God will approve, and give yourself to him. Be a worker who is not ashamed of his work—a worker who uses the true teaching in the right way.” -2 Timothy 2:15 ICB 

We should all endeavor to live a life that is well pleasing to God. We should do our best to be the type of person that God will approve of. We know that “without faith it is impossible to please Him” (Hebrews 11:6). We must be people of faith, people who believe God’s Word and act on His Word. We cannot be ashamed of the things of God or our relationship with Him. Jesus told us that if we would be ashamed of Him on earth, He would be ashamed of us before the angels and His Father. We must all examine our lives. As we spend time with God, He will show us the things in our lives that are displeasing to Him, and eventually as we make the necessary changes, we will find ourselves living a life that is well pleasing to God, a life that is approved by Him. 
 
#wellpleased #honorGod #dailydevotional #faith #motivation 

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL | December 7th

📖 "So we have many people of faith around us. Their lives tell us what faith means. So let us run the race that is before us and never give up. We should remove from our lives anything that would get in the way. And we should remove the sin that so easily catches us.” -Hebrews 12:1 ICB

We all have a race that is set before us. God expects us to not only run the race, but He expects us to finish the race. It takes faith to complete our race. We have the Word of God that builds our faith. The Bible tells us that, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. We also have examples of people who have accomplished remarkable things by faith for the glory of God. Some have authored books, and others have audio messages, giving their testimonies of what God has done in their lives. We can learn from those who have achieved, and we can imitate them as well. We can also remove the things from our lives that will hinder us from running our race. We can go to God, and He will show us the things that are possibly hindering us, and when we deal with those things, refusing to give up, we can run our race with patience and expectancy, knowing that we will eventually hear these words: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant”. 
 
#welldonethygoodandfaithfulservant #devotional #vcccharlotte #faithwalk 

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL | December 6th

📖 "[Motivated] by faith he left Egypt behind him, being unawed and undismayed by the wrath of the king; for he never flinched but held staunchly to his purpose and endured steadfastly as one who gazed on Him Who is invisible.” -Hebrews 11:27 AMPC

Moses had decided to walk away from the palace. He would rather have lived for God then to live out of the will of God. He held on to his purpose even though he made the mistake of killing an Egyptian. He held on to his purpose even after he spent 40 years in the wilderness. He kept his eyes on God, and that is what we are supposed to do. We are to keep our eyes on the One who can do the impossible. The One who can turn every situation around. Moses would eventually fulfill his purpose and become the Deliverer for the Israelites. He could have voided the plan of God but he chose to endure. If we will do the same, we can eventually fulfill the will of God for our lives as well.

#commitment #devotional #moses #trustGod

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL | December 5th

📖 "I have gained perfect freedom by following your teachings, and I trust them so much that I tell them to kings." -Psalms 119:45 CEV

The Word of God was given to us to set us free from every wile and scheme of the wicked one. It was given to us so that we can know who we are and what belongs to us in Christ. The Word of God will set us free, and it will cause victory to manifest in every area of our lives. God told Joshua that if meditated the Word of God both day and night, that he would become prosperous and have good success. The Word of God says something similar in Psalms 1. Our success comes from desiring and obeying the Word of God. In the book of Acts it tells us that the Word of God grew mightily and prevailed. When the Word grows in our lives, it will do the same thing. It will prevail over everything the devil can throw our way. 

#success #dailydevotional #vcccharlotte

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL | December 4th

📖 ""Amaziah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he ruled as king in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Jehoaddan of Jerusalem. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord but not with a completely committed heart.” -II Chronicles 25:1-2 EHV

God wants us to be obedient to His Word, but He also wants a committed heart. Many have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof. As believers we must serve God with all our hearts. Isaiah 1:19 tells us that if we are “willing and obedient we will eat the good of the land.” God is fully committed to us. He demonstrated that commitment when He sent Jesus to the earth to die for humanity. God demonstrated His commitment to us then, and He continually demonstrates His faithfulness to us by staying committed to His Word. Amaziah obeyed God but was not committed to God in his heart. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). When God looks at our heart, let’s make sure He sees a committed heart, not just an outward demonstration of obedience. Obedience is great, but obedience with an obedient heart is even better. 

#faithfulness #devotional #obedience #trustGod #vcccharlotte 

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL | December 3rd

📖 "And when they knew (perceived, recognized, understood, and acknowledged) the grace (God’s unmerited favor and spiritual blessing) that had been bestowed upon me, James and Cephas (Peter) and John, who were reputed to be pillars of the Jerusalem church, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, with the understanding that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised (Jews). -Galatians 2:9 AMPC

God knows how to confirm the gifts and the callings that are on our lives. Here it was confirmed and recognized that Paul had been called to the Gentiles and that Peter and John were sent to the Jewish people. The Bible tells us that “in the multitude of counsellors there is safety”. Paul knew that he was called to the Gentiles, but it was later confirmed by these “pillars” of the church. There are times when we know what we are called to do and where we are called to do it. There are also times where God will confirm these details through a man or woman of God. John the Baptist knew who he was, and he knew his purpose. When they asked him if he was the Messiah, he would reply, “No”. He would then follow up by letting them know that he was the voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord”. God will confirm the calling, and He will put His stamp on what He has called us to do. 

#gifts #dailydevotional #vcccharlotte #trustGod #discernment 

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL | December 2nd

📖 "It is because of the Lord’s mercy and loving-kindness that we are not consumed, because His [tender] compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great and abundant is Your stability and faithfulness. -Lamentations 3:22-23 AMPC 

Thank God for His mercy. Thank God for His compassion. If it weren’t for His mercy, we would all be consumed. God’s mercies are new every morning. That is not a license to sin, it is another reminder of His goodness and love towards us. Later, the verse tells us that God’s faithfulness is great! God is faithful to His Word. He is watching over His Word to perform it. The Word of God tells us that He keeps covenant to a thousand generations. Because God is bound by His Word, He must continue to be merciful and faithful. We may be inconsistent at times in our walk with God, but God is always the same. There is no variable or shadow of turning in God (James 1:17). He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). You can always count on God, and you can always count on His Word. 

#faithful #mercifulGod #vcccharlotte #dailydevotional #motivation  

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL | December 1st

📖 "O my God, I trust, lean on, rely on, and am confident in You. Let me not be put to shame or [my hope in You] be disappointed; let not my enemies triumph over me. Yes, let none who trust and wait hopefully and look for You be put to shame or be disappointed; let them be ashamed who forsake the right or deal treacherously without cause.” -Psalm 25:2-3 AMPC 

We don’t ever have to worry about being put to shame when we put our trust in God. He will never fail orforsake us. He is a very present help in the time of trouble. We can lean on Him, and we can trust in Him. Furthermore, we can count on Him to do exactly what He said He would do. It is impossible for God to lie! If He said it, He will do it. If He spoke it, He will bring it to pass. It is a divine truth that God cannot lie. Therefore, we can trust Him. Therefore, we can put our hope in Him. God is faithful, and He keeps covenant to a thousand generations. We can never be disappointed when we truly put are trust and confidence in God. 

#noworry #devotional #covenant #vcccharlotte #Godcannotlie 

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