January 18

I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today: I place before you Life and Death, Blessing and Curse. Choose life so that you and your children will live. And love God, your God, listening obediently to him, firmly embracing him. Oh yes, he is life itself, a long life settled on the soil that God, your God, promised to give your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”  Deuteronomy 30:19 (MSG)

It is quite amazing that God, in His great mercy and kindness, gives us the power to choose. He values our free will, for free will matters to Him. It is the precious gift He has entrusted to us.  In His loving ways, He will never force us into anything, but He sets before us choices that will lead to life, and life abundantly, or choices that can lead to death—death to relationships, to freedom, and to the life we were born to live. These choices don’t just impact us in our own lives, but can affect everyone around us, including the generations to come.

Yet here, beloved, is the exceedingly good news in it all. He will help you with every decision you will ever need to make, for He is wisdom and understanding. He always knows the exact right thing to do. Not only for situations or circumstances far in the distance, but for all that matters most, moment-by-moment, and day-by-day, in the here and now, too.

He will empower you to walk away from sin, sorrow, and satan’s traps meant only to rob, steal, and destroy. To hinder and hold you back from all you were created for, and all you were created to be.

God will enable you to see, to dream, to believe it could all be well again, and to anticipate and embrace the hope filled future that has always belonged to you. He will give you the ability to love yourself as He loves you, to risk, to try, to trust, and to care. He is right there with you, standing side by side in the path of life, grace filled arms open wide, to hold, support, and carry you into the promises that were yours from the beginning of time. “Come, follow Me”, He says, “The best is yet to be”.

Divinely loved and cherished one, listen to His heart of love for you and surrender to Him as you can, for with the Holy Spirit’s leading and guiding you, the best will certainly, and most gloriously, be!

Prayer:

Precious Holy Spirit, I invite You afresh today to lead me and guide me into all truth—the truth of how God sees me in His tender love and care; the truth of what Jesus has done for me in providing complete freedom in forgiveness; the truth of my redemptive purpose, born in the heart of God before there was time.

Take my hand in Yours, I pray.  Take me where heaven ordained destiny leads. I know the plans God has for me are for good, and that in Christ, I have a future filled with hope.

I receive that future now, Holy Spirit, just as God has graciously promised it to be, and I give thanks that it could be so. Strengthen me so that I may please You and live my life in Your Life-giving Light.  

To bless Your heart, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and for the glory of Your Name.