Come Thirsty
Do you basically ignore God or do you have a desire to get to know Him? We have online mentors who would love to talk with you.
“…Let anyone who is thirsty come to Me, and let the one who believes in Me drink…” (John 7:37-38).
Please read John 7:37- 41
Several years ago I taught a class in my home on how to prepare and serve a three - course tea. Although the women who attended didn’t know me, or each other, our hearts blended while sipping tea. Before the women left I shared that, although tea was physically satisfying, after they drank it they would thirst again. “Only Jesus” I said, “can give us living water to quench our spiritual thirst.”
In John 7, Jesus offered “living water.” It was the last day of the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles. The people had gathered to commemorate God’s faithful provision during the forty years the Israelites had wandered in the wilderness while living in tents, eating manna from heaven, and drinking water from the rock.
After a week of celebrations, Jesus stood before the crowd and announced: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me” (v. 37). I wonder how many understood his incredible invitation. Did they realize he could satisfy their spiritual thirst? Were they thirsty? Did they come?
Some in the crowd seemed thirsty; they recognized something special about Jesus. They called him a prophet and the Messiah. But others were skeptical, saying, “Surely the Messiah does not come from Galilee” (v. 41). They were not ready to believe and thus find their spiritual thirst quenched.
Jesus offers us the same invitation: Come and drink. There seems to be only one requirement— come thirsty. Are we thirsty? Are we open to drinking of the life that Jesus offers?
Lord Jesus, you are the living water who quenches spiritual thirst. Today I come thirsty - thirsty for You and Your righteousness. Refresh me, and let Your living water flow through me to bless those around me. Amen.
Questions: Are you thirsty today for the Living Water to flow to you and through you? Do you need to ask the Lord to help you thirst after Him? Do you need to ask Him to refresh you today?
About Lydia Harris
Tell the Next Generation
Make a difference in a kid’s life - Become a mentor.
Tell the Next Generation [2:59m]:
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“We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD, his power, and the wonders he has done.” Psalms 78:1-4
Do you have the impression that the next generation is not interested in hearing about the things of the Lord? We sometimes feel the divide is so great that we simply stay in our familiar circles far removed from theirs. Sometimes our own judgments even keep us from seeing past the earrings and tattoos. Yet there is a deep growing hunger in our youth for spiritual understanding and they are seeking answers that we, who have walked with the Lord and have experienced His faithfulness, have to offer.
Would it surprise you if you drove past your church this week and found over 500 young people lined up to ask a Christian mentor questions about life and faith?
That is exactly what is happening here at Truth Media. It’s amazing! God is at work! One year ago in November ’07 Truth Media partnered with a teen help line in the US called DMLive. Our mentor center received 91 emails that month from teens wanting to talk with someone about the challenges of their lives.
Last month alone, just one year later, we received 776 emails from this helpline. 282 on going conversations between teens and mentors are taking place. Yet we have only 56 mentors in this group and hundreds of emails await a caring response.
Would you consider being a mentor to teens? We offer training and resources to help you. If you receive an inquiry you don’t feel equipped to respond to you can return it to the pool and receive another so you only deal with ones you are comfortable with. You can sign up for just one a month, one a week or one a day, whatever works into your schedule.
Look around you today and watch for the teens in your circle of influence. Pray for them as you pass them on the street. Share your own story with a grandchild. Ask God for creative ways to tell the next generation of His faithfulness to you. And please investigate the possibility of becoming a teen mentor. These kids are sitting down at their computers and seeking answers that their hearts yearn for.
Your faith in Jesus and your stories of His faithfulness to you are just the things that will inspire this next generation to look to God as well. Won’t you consider being a teen mentor today?
Father God,
Thank you that Your Spirit never ceases to draw hearts to You. Help me today to see the teens in my circle with new eyes. Help me to see the hungry hearts behind the fashion statements and to pray for those I encounter each day. Open opportunities for me to share Your faithfulness in fresh ways. If You desire for me to be a teen mentor online please don’t let the thought leave me and help me to respond. Lord, I want to share Your praiseworthy deeds with the next generation in whatever way You open for me today. In the strong name of Jesus I pray, amen.
Please check out the Mentor Application today.
Questions: How do you view the next generation? Are you willing to let God use you today to reach out to a teen in your world or online?
About this Author: Gail Rodgers
How to Pray Effectively
** Need prayer? Anytime, day or night, let us know and someone will email you back and pray with you. Or you can check our online chat room … there’s usually someone there!
How To Pray Effectively [3:11m]:
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“Please remember what you told your servant Moses: “If you sin, I will scatter you among the nations.”” Nehemiah 1:8 (NLT)
Here are four secrets to answered prayer from the life of Nehemiah:
1. Base your request on God’s character. Pray like you know God will answer you: “I’m expecting you to answer this prayer because of who you are. You are a faithful God. You are a great God. You are a loving God. You are a wonderful God. You can handle this problem, God!”
2. Confess the sins of which you’re aware. After Nehemiah bases his prayer on who God is, he confesses his sins. He says, “We’ve sinned.” He says “I confess . . . myself . . . my father’s house . . . we have acted wickedly . . . we have not obeyed.” It wasn’t Nehemiah’s fault that Israel went into captivity. He wasn’t even born when it happened and he was most likely born in captivity. Yet, he’s including himself in the national sins. He says, “I’ve been a part of the problem.”
3. Claim the promises of God. Nehemiah prays to the Lord, saying, “I want you to remember what you told your servant Moses.” Can you imagine saying “remember” to God? Nehemiah reminds God of a promise he made to the nation of Israel. In effect, he prays, “God, you warned through Moses that if we were unfaithful, we would lose the land of Israel. But you also promised that if we repent, you’d give it back to us.”
Does God have to be reminded? No. Does he forget what he’s promised? No. Then why do we do this? Because it helps us remember what God has promised.
4. Be very specific in what you ask for. If you want specific answers to prayer, then make specific requests. If your prayers consist of general requests, how will you know if they’re answered?
Nehemiah is not hesitant to pray for success. He’s very bold in his praying. Have you ever prayed, “Lord, make me successful?” If you haven’t, why haven’t you? What is the alternative? A failure?
Is it okay to ask God to make you successful? It all depends on your definition of success! I believe a good definition of success is: “Fulfilling God’s purpose for my life in faith, love, and the power of the Holy Spirit, and expecting the results from God.” That is a worthy life objective that you should be able to pray for with confidence.
Consider this: If you can’t ask God to make you a success at what you’re doing, you should be doing something else. God doesn’t want you to waste your life.
Question: How are your prayers similar to or different than Nehemiah’s?
About this Author: Rick Warren
You Can Overcome
What is your greatest obstacle to overcome? Discover a way you can handle anger that is pleasing to God.
Join us for our Daily Devotional Chat today in our Women’s Chatroom at 10:30am EST.
(Application Study Bible) So what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose?
I was standing in the Old Growth Forest near Nelson, British Columbia, staring at a most extra-ordinary pine tree. The base of the tree rested on a huge boulder like a giant sitting on a chair. The bark was split open like a brown cloak on either side of the rock. The tree, like a grinning champion after a noble fight, stood triumphantly on top of its enemy. In fact, it was taller than some of the trees beside it. All because of the boulder!
As I gazed at the tree, I got quite excited. “Come back,” I called to my party, “have a look at this brave tree.” Soon a motley group of men and women gathered round. “Isn’t this a lesson for us all,” I said. “A lesson in overcoming.” A guy winked at his friend, as much as to say, “Here she goes again, finding a lesson in whatever!”
But no matter, my mind continued to imagine what it was like for this tree. Many years ago, at the edge of a boulder, like a menacing mountain, a small seed sprouted in the ground. What chance did it have to grow up? Still, it pushed its way through the ground. As it grew in size it kept bumping into a rocky wall, a constant reminder of its unyielding, ornery neighbour. If it had been like us, it might have grumbled, ‘What did I do to deserve this? I can’t even stretch and grow like other pine trees around me.’ But it kept growing and reaching and stretching and climbing, one inch at a time. Right on top of the boulder! Thus elevated, it continued to grow, perfectly straight, with the rest of the trees.
Now, the tree seemed to be saying to me, “If you have a boulder in your way and you can’t move it or tunnel through it, use it to your advantage. Turn a stumbling stone into a stepping stone.”
Take one little step by giving thanks that God knows all about this obstacle and He will turn it into something good.
Father, show me a way of surmounting this obstacle, one inch at a time.
Questions: What is lying in your path today? How can you make a positive out of a negative?
About Helen Grace Lescheid
Daily podcast: A second daily devotional, God’s Timing is Not Ours, today on the Men’s Devotional Blog
God’s Timing is Not Ours
** When God’s answer doesn’t satisfy: Try our interactive online study “Why Doesn’t God Answer My Prayer?”
God's Timing is Not Ours [3:55m]:
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Jairus is in a hurry. If you have children, or even if you don’t, you can probably sympathize with his plight. You see, his little daughter is dying. Or, as the Message paraphrase puts it, his “dear daughter is at death’s door.” (Mark 5:23)
So you can imagine why he’d be more than a little perturbed when, the Lord tarries on the way to Jairus’ house. “Who touched my clothes?” Jesus suddenly asks the crowd. The disciples, perhaps a bit anxious themselves given the gravity of the situation, reply “Look at this crowd pressing around you. How can you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”. Then Jesus proceeds to leisurely engage the woman in conversation. It turns out that she’s suffered from a medical condition for the last twelve years.
“Twelve years?” thinks Jairus, “My daughter is dying! Surely this woman can wait a little longer!”
Then, while Jesus is still talking with the woman, messengers arrive with the most dreaded news imaginable: “Your daughter is dead.”
“Oh Lord, why couldn’t you just have hurried?” Jairus probably cried to himself. From a human perspective, all was lost. But from a heavenly perspective, “all things are possible with God.” (Mark 10:27) Jesus responded immediately: “Don’t be afraid; just believe.” (Mark 5:36)
God’s timing is not ours: “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” (1 Peter 3:8) But we can be confident that whenever and however God chooses to respond to us, it will be good, just, and to His glory.
If you’ve been patiently praying with seemingly no response, don’t lose heart. Jesus implores us to not be afraid and trust in Him; consider the parable of the persistent widow Jesus told in Luke 18:1-8, which Jesus told to encourage us that we “should always pray and not give up”. Be encouraged that while God’s timing is not ours, because He is always for you, not against you, and we will someday, at just the right moment, fully understand His divine timing.
Questions: What is a prayer that you have been earnestly praying for lately? Are you ready to leave it in God’s competent hands when/how/if he answers it?
About this Author: Darren Hewer
Deny Self
Do you struggle with denying yourself? Do you need to talk to one of our mentors?
Join us for our Daily Devotional Chat today in our Women’s Chatroom at 10:30am EST.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).
What does it mean to deny myself?
The primary thing that springs to mind is the idea of doing without things desired - a picture of a monk leading a strict and harsh life, far from luxury.
Although the concept of doing without is found in the dictionary under “deny”, the first definition under “deny” is “to declare untrue”. Of course the dictionary was referring to denying a statement, but I began to wonder if it might apply to denying oneself.
If I declared myself as being untrue, I would point to someone or something outside myself as the ultimate source of truth - it could not be found in me.
If I declared myself as being untrue, I wouldn’t trust my feelings or my interpretation of the facts.
If I declared myself as being untrue, I would admit that I am not right, that my ways are not right, that I indeed have a sinful nature that desires what is contrary to what God desires.
Is that not what Jesus is asking us to do? We must acknowledge Him as the only true one. God’s ways are always right.
We are called to choose His way rather than our own, to surrender our will to Him and to follow Him where ever He leads.
God, teach me what it means to deny myself. Show me how to give up not just external things but how to give up my right to decide for myself. I want to be led by Your Spirit as I choose Your way.
Questions: Why is denying yourself difficult? Why does God ask us to deny ourselves?
About Suzanne Benner
Daily podcast: Hear this devotional, Deny Self, today on the Men’s Devotional Blog
Deny Self
** Learn to walk closer with God and by following His will “deny” yourself. Try one of our free online Bible studies.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)
What does it mean to deny myself?
The primary thing that springs to mind is the idea of doing without things desired - a picture of a monk leading a strict and harsh life, far from luxury.
Although the concept of doing without is found in the dictionary under “deny”, the first definition under “deny” is “to declare untrue”. Of course the dictionary was referring to denying a statement, but I began to wonder if it might apply to denying oneself.
If I declared myself as being untrue, I would point to someone or something outside myself as the ultimate source of truth - it could not be found in me.
If I declared myself as being untrue, I wouldn’t trust my feelings or my interpretation of the facts.
If I declared myself as being untrue, I would admit that I am not right, that my ways are not right, that I indeed have a sinful nature that desires what is contrary to what God desires.
Is that not what Jesus is asking us to do? We must acknowledge Him as the only true one. God’s ways are always right.
We are called to choose His way rather than our own, to surrender our will to Him and to follow Him where ever He leads.
Question: What does the idea of “declaring yourself untrue” mean to you and your approach to God?
About this Author: Suzanne Benner
Tell the Next Generation
Asking God how He wants to use you? Share with a mentor who can come alongside you in prayer.
Join us for our Daily Devotional Chat today in our Women’s Chatroom at 10:30am EST.
“We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD, his power, and the wonders he has done” (Psalms 78:1-4 (NIV).
Do you have the impression that the next generation is not interested in hearing about the things of the Lord? We sometimes feel the divide is so great that we simply stay in our familiar circles far removed from theirs. Sometimes our own judgments even keep us from seeing past the earrings and tattoos. Yet there is a deep growing hunger in our youth for spiritual understanding and they are seeking answers that we, who have walked with the Lord and have experienced His faithfulness, have to offer.
Would it surprise you if you drove past your church this week and found over 500 young people lined up to ask a Christian mentor questions about life and faith?
That is exactly what is happening here at TruthMedia. It’s amazing! God is at work! One year ago in November ’07 Truth Media partnered with a teen help line in the US called DMLive. Our mentor center received 91 emails that month from teens wanting to talk with someone about the challenges of their lives. Last month alone, just one year later, we received 776 emails from this helpline. 282 on going conversations between teens and mentors are taking place. Yet we have only 56 mentors in this group and hundreds of emails await a caring response.
Would you consider being a mentor to teens? We offer training and resources to help you. If you receive an inquiry you don’t feel equipped to respond to you can return it to the pool and receive another so you only deal with ones you are comfortable with. You can sign up for just one a month, one a week or one a day, whatever works into your schedule.
Look around you today and watch for the teens in your circle of influence. Pray for them as you pass them on the street. Share your own story with a grandchild. Ask God for creative ways to tell the next generation of His faithfulness to you. And please investigate the possibility of becoming a teen mentor. These kids are sitting down at their computers and seeking answers that their hearts yearn for.
Your faith in Jesus and your stories of His faithfulness to you are just the things that will inspire this next generation to look to God as well. Won’t you consider being a teen mentor today?
Father God, Thank you that Your Spirit never ceases to draw hearts to You. Help me today to see the teens in my circle with new eyes. Help me to see the hungry hearts behind the fashion statements and to pray for those I encounter each day. Open opportunities for me to share Your faithfulness in fresh ways. If You desire for me to be a teen mentor online please don’t let the thought leave me and help me to respond. Lord, I want to share Your praiseworthy deeds with the next generation in whatever way You open for me today. In the strong name of Jesus I pray, amen.
Check out the Mentor Application.
Questions: How do you view the next generation? Are you willing to let God use you today to reach out to a teen in your world or online?
About Gail Rodgers
Living Water for the Thirsty
** Feeling spiritually dry? Would you like us to pray with you? Please contact us for prayer.
Living Water for the Thirsty [2:34m]:
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Originally written by Charles H. Spurgeon, published in “Mornings & Evenings,” entry for November 6th, AM.
Updated to modern English by Darren Hewer, 2008.
“I will pour out water to quench your thirst” Isaiah 44:3
When a Christian believer falls into spiritual depression, he or she often tries to lift themselves out of it by focusing on their sorrow. That’s not the way to rise from the dust. It’s a sure way to continue in it.
It is not the law, but the gospel which saves the seeking soul. And it is not legal slavery, but gospel liberty which can restore the hurting believer. Slavish fear won’t bring back the backslider to God, but the sweet wooings of love will draw them back to Jesus. Similarly, the spiritually depressed must focus on the living God’s love and promises.
Are you today thirsting for the living God, and unhappy because you cannot find him to the delight of your heart? Have you lost the joy of your relationship with God? Then this is this your prayer: “Restore to me the joy of your salvation.” (Psalm 52:12)
If you are feeling totally barren, like the dry ground, in this state you are not producing the fruit which God has a right to expect of you. Here is the promise which you need: “I will pour out water to quench your thirst.” (Isaiah 44:3)
You will receive all the grace you require, and it will exceed all of your needs. Water refreshes the thirsty and you will be refreshed. Your desires shall be gratified. Pulse quickened by exhilarating grace. Harvest of fruit multiplied. You will enjoy all of the goodness of divine grace. It will be as though you were drenched with the water of divine grace. How do I know that? Because God promised it!
And as sometimes the meadows become flooded by the bursting rivers, and the fields turn into pools, you yourself will become a pool of living water as God fills you. In this way the entire thirsty land can become full of pools of living water for the good and refreshment of all!
Question: Have you felt spiritually dry lately?
About this Author: Charles Spurgeon
Joy Every Day
Do you need encouragement in your walk with God? Study Online one of the most joyful books in the New Testament.
Join us for our Daily Devotional Chat today in our Women’s Chatroom at 10:30am EST.
While a prisoner in Rome, Paul wrote the Philippians a letter that sounds like a shout of victory. Its theme is joy and rejoicing in the Lord.
Paul knew the secret of victory over anxiety and depression. After telling the Philippians to rejoice in the Lord always, he advised them not to worry about anything, but to bring everything in prayer to the Lord with thanksgiving (Philippians 4:6). Then, instead of being worried and depressed, the Christian would have God’s peace (4:7).
Paul was well acquainted with victorious rejoicing in the Lord. When he and Silas were evangelizing in Philippi, they were arrested, beaten, and imprisoned.
In chains in the rat-infested dungeon, they prayed and sang praises to the Lord. Suddenly an earthquake shook the prison’s foundations. The doors flew open; the prisoners were loosed from their shackles.
Similarly, we are loosed from the shackles of depression, anxiety, fears, and worries as we pray and rejoice in the Lord. For how can the flesh keep us down when we are up in the Spirit?
If you rejoice in the Lord every morning, think what a difference it would make in your life. Practice this when you awaken. Tell the Lord you love Him. Then thank and praise Him for every blessing you can think of. Rejoicing in the Lord will soon be a habit.
The Apostle Paul put it this way: “Rejoice in the Lord always, I will say I again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4).
Lord God,
Thank you that You alone can break the shackles of discouragement and fear. Today I bring all my worries to You and I thank You for the victory that emerges in my heart as I rejoice in You. Fill my mind and heart with love, thanksgiving and praise to You today. I love You Lord. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Questions: What situation do you need to begin praising the Lord in? What will you praise the Lord for today?
About Muriel Larson
Daily podcast: A second daily devotional, Love that Sweats, today on the Men’s Devotional Blog
