Beauty
for Ashes
TODAY’S
SCRIPTURE
He will give: beauty for ashes; joy instead of mourning;
praise instead of heaviness.
Isaiah 61:3, TLB.
TODAY’S
WORD
Everyone has experienced hurt and disappointment. We’ve
all been burnt by life. But God doesn’t want us to sit in the ashes of the
past; He wants to trade our brokenness for healing. He wants to give us beauty
for our ashes. The key is that we have to be willing to give up the ashes in
order to receive the beauty. You can’t have both because the old has to go
before the new can come.
Today, are you willing to trust Him with your past hurts?
Are you willing to let go of the pain, to forgive others and yourself so you
can move forward in freedom? Don’t waste another day sitting in the ashes. The
past is over, but your future remains. Let God give you joy instead of
mourning, and let Him make something beautiful out of the ashes of your life
today!
PRAYER
FOR TODAY
God, thank You for promising to sweep away the ashes of
my past and give me something beautiful in their place. I choose to give them
up to You and receive Your healing and restoration in my life in Jesus’ Name.
Amen.
***
6 hours ago
“God has given gifts to each of you from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Manage them well so that God’s generosity can flow through you.... Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then God will be given glory.” (1 Peter 4:10-11 NLT)
When God gives, he holds nothing back. He gives you every spiritual blessing available in the storehouses of Heaven (Ephesians 1:3), and he meets your every need.
Do you know what that means? It means you are free to be abundantly generous because God is taking care of you. He wants us to bless others on his behalf. We receive from God, then we give to others: “Be generous with the different things God gave you, passing them around so all get in on it” (1 Peter 4:10 MSG).
As Pastor Rick has been teaching, God is generous, so he wants us to become generous. It is a Jesus-like characteristic. Since we belong to Jesus 24/7 and our generosity is unlimited when guided by the Holy Spirit and energized by the life of Christ within us, we need to apply more creativity to our generosity.
We often complain about the superficial materialism that has overtaken Christmas. Godly generosity is the antidote to superficial materialism. Give some serious, intentional thought to how you can be generous this Christmas season, not in the sense of excessive gift giving but rather in helping and blessing those in need.
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