Devotional for friends // Devocional para as amigas

Today I heard some amazing sentences, inspiring sentences.   We are the biggest blocking stone to become what God wants us to be. There is no denial of courage. You deny that that reality has authority over you.   God let us choose how to do what is the calling you have, you can do it joyfully, or you can do it angrily, resenting and complaining.   Conditional faith isn’t faith.   We’ll never be victorious if we face things with fear. The enemy knows your fear, and he is going to threaten you over and over again. The hardest command in the Bible is “Don’t be afraid”, “Fear not”. No one was borne brave. It is a call to be brave. Esther 4:13 – 16. You need to know that God’s plan will come true with or without you. It’s your choice if you’re going to do what He is calling you to do, and How you are going to do it. If you decide not to follow through, God will find someone else, and what are you going to do with your conscience? Or you...

The book of Nehemiah has a lot to teach us about what God puts in our heart, and how we should proceed when opposition comes. In chapter 4:1-9 ( click here ), we witness something very familiar. People who come at us with insults trying to mess with our work. When we are not being led by God, we can easily become angry and react to those insults. But Nehemiah teaches us something different. In verse 4 you’re going to notice that instead of counterattacking, Nehemiah brings to God his frustration and, as human beings, he asks God to act in their defense. Nehemiah kept his ease and motivated the people to keep working (v.6). He did not yield to his opposition. He did not react with a harsh emotional response. Instead, he went praying. And he and the rest of the Jews succeeded in building the wall. However, oppositions don’t go away so fast. They tried another strategy – to cause confusion. The enemy just doesn’t retreat in their first defeat. They come at us stronger,...

Why are the police instructed to not negotiate with kidnappers, terrorists and blackmail threats? Because once you give what they want they will always find their way back to threat and obtain even more again. The same thing happens when you give away to sin. You might be satisfied for the moment, even happy, but later on, it will come back, and make you a slave of it. Joash was one king of Judah, he did what was right in the sight of the LORD, however, he did not get rid of the places people used to worship other gods. Despite the good that Joash did, it wasn’t enough to save the people from the curse written in the book of the Law ( Deuteronomy 28:15 – 68 ). So, Joash was attacked by Hazael king of Syria, and Joash instead of fighting against, he decided to buy off the enemy ( 2 Kings 12:17 – 18 ). Fortunately for Joash, he did not see the come back of Syria to Judah, he died before that. He suffered a coup and they killed him ( 2 Kings 12:19 – 21 ). The thin...

Our God is a generous God. He not only created us in His image and likeness, but He also gifted us with some skills; besides, when we decide to live for Him and with Him, He gives us His Spirit who enables us with spiritual gifts. How generous our God is! So, do you know yourself enough to say that you have such and such skills? Can you play? Can you write? Can you sing? Can you be a good friend? Can you be honest and sweet and kind at the same time? Are you patient? Do you have faith? Are you generous? Are good at defending people? How about making peace between people? Are you strong? Are you fast? Do you play any sport? What are you good at? Have you ever asked yourself how you can use your skills for the kingdom of God? “ And whatever you do , in word or deed , do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him .” Colossians 3:17 When Solomon was building the Temple, he called the skilled person to do their best, and God im...

Reading the book of Kings in the Bible sometimes it can be boring and sometimes very complicated. Not always the events are chronological. That I don’t know the reason. It can only be boring if you read as it is a normal book, and likely you won’t find many applicable things for your life. However, if you read not only the book of Kings but the whole Bible as a book about God, not about the people of Israel, not about you or whatever, but only about God, you will know the person of God. You will know the personality of God, all characteristic that he has, his love, his mercy, his faithfulness. You will understand so many more things about Him than you ever imagined. 2 Kings 8: 1 – 6 tells us a short story about the Shunammite woman who Elisha raised her son from the dead. God shows great concern for this woman. God has seen her, has seen all her troubles, sadness, desperation, and more importantly, He saw her faith. God knows her and honors her faith. So, El...

We all have secrets. There secrets that sometimes we don’t even know we have them. There are those which we don’t want to remember. But I can hide them from you and you can hide them from me. But neither of us can hide them from God. I love Psalms 139. It says that God knows our thoughts, every word that we are about to speak. He knows us better than we know ourselves. I have been saying this for quite some time now. Today, the last two verses from this Psalm caught my attention. “Investigate my life, O God, find out everything about me; Cross-examine and test me, get a clear picture of what I’m about; See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong – then guide me on the road to eternal life.” Psalm 139:23 – 24 MSG. We might never say that to anyone. No person in the world should have this kind of access to our lives. Right? Have you ever prayed like that? Have you ever acknowledged that even without saying those words to God, it is what ...

Sometimes all we want is a big demonstration that God is with us, like when Elijah offered a sacrifice to the LORD, more like a dispute between God and the prophets of Baal. And God showed His power ( 1 Kings 18: 20 – 40 ); but in general, we only get the whisper. Like Elijah, who was very afraid and depressed running away to save his own life from Jezebel, the LORD came as a whisper to him ( 1 King 19:11 – 13 ). Sometimes we want God to yell, shout at us, to us and tell us what to do because we don’t have enough faith to hear a whisper. We are too busy to pay attention to a whisper. So, we want a shout from everywhere, all kinds of signals so we are sure where we are going. And frequently we get very disappointed because we don’t see any signal, we don’t hear any shout telling us what to do.   So, we either give up or think God didn’t listen to us or even that there wasn’t an answer for us at that time. But God always listens to us, howeve...

It always amazes me that no matter how many times I have read the same Bible's story, but every time we read, we learn something new. Just like Gideon's story. So, there was this time when Israel had no king, and judges were the ones who were putting some order in the place. But, every time the people of Israel disobeyed God, some sort of calamity started happening. That is their story. It doesn’t mean it has to be also yours. It doesn’t mean that every time some starts happening in your life it is because you have kindled the anger of the Lord. Although it might be also. Anyway, this time was the Midianites. Every year they were coming and destroying the crops, the harvests, and everything the land of Israel had produced. Sometimes we have this kind of problem, a recurrent problem. It comes and destroys, and we start over, and then it all happens all over again, and again! Barely had recovered from the last time, and there it comes again. Very tir...