A Moment for Your Soul: Devotions to Lift You Up

Evans

INTRODUCTION

I remember when schedules were less busy and people seemed to have more time and less pressure in each day. With all of our technological advances, from our smartphones to our touch-screen tablets, you’d think we would have found more freedom and time for ourselves. But just the opposite has occurred. With more opportunities to communicate, connect, and stay in touch with the latest information, we tend to have fewer opportunities to connect with ourselves and our Creator.

Amid the busyness and the noise of our world, it’s critical to carve out moments for your soul. It’s essential to allow yourself the luxuries of silence, meditation, and feeding on God’s Word. These are the times when you will discover a new strength, find clarity of thought, and enjoy a breath of fresh air.

A Moment for Your Soul was created with you in mind. These short but meaningful reflections on God, His values, His heart, and His plans for you are designed to give you a moment each day to enter into His presence and to let His truths enter into you.

I pray that you will make the most of these moments and that your soul will feel the fullness of His great love.

Dr. Tony Evans

Encourage Others by Making a Difference

Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing.

1 THESSALONIANS 5:11

A father and son walked along a beach after a powerful storm. In fact, the storm had been so strong that as the waves crashed and the wind blew, hundreds of starfish were washed ashore and left far from the water they needed to survive.

As they walked, the father and son began a rescue mission, picking up starfish one by one and throwing them back into the ocean. When the boy looked at the hundreds of remaining starfish, he became discouraged. Dad, there are too many. We can’t save them all. We can’t make a difference!

The father looked at the starfish in his hand. The creature would have never made it back to the ocean on its own. As he threw the starfish into the water, he told his son, We’re making a difference to this one.

You can make a difference too, even if it’s only one by one. God has called each of us—not just the pastor or the missionary—to be a voice of encouragement to someone.

Bless someone. Make a difference.

Encourage Others by Speaking the Truth with Love

Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ.

EPHESIANS 4:15

Most of us can think of someone who has encouraged us. Perhaps it was a parent, teacher, coach, or pastor. Few things are as meaningful as a timely word of encouragement that builds us up and helps us through hard times.

During my years of ministry, I have found that a voice of encouragement can be life-affirming, but a voice of discouragement can have a devastating effect. You must choose which voice you will offer to the people you meet each day.

As you encourage, always speak truth. In each and every situation, seek to discover the truth that will speak life into someone’s heart.

Today, begin a habit of affirming the lives of the people you meet.

Be an encourager.

The Lesson of the Cross

Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 CORINTHIANS 15:57

As Jesus hung on the cross at Calvary, He took on our sin debt to redeem us from the law. His death satisfied God’s divine law and overcame the problem of sin and the condemnation of death. When God looks at us, He sees only the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ.

All the sin of the world for all time—every millennium, every age—was placed on the person of Jesus Christ at Calvary. When Jesus rose from the dead, He was victorious over sin and death, destroying the power that death held over us.

From the moment of His resurrection, Jesus has shared this victory with all who believe in Him. This victory is a gift of grace. God forgives the sins of everyone who accepts His Son as Lord and Savior.

Every believer can live in great anticipation of spending eternity in the presence of our Lord because of the victory of Jesus Christ through His death and resurrection. If you’re a believer in Christ, you have a glorious eternal tomorrow that ought to affect your today. If you forget that Jesus is coming back, you are going to live as if He’s not. I encourage you to remember His victory and His return so that you will live in the light of it now.

From Failure to Success

This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth…so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.

JOSHUA 1:8

God can reverse every downturn in your life—including the financial, physical, emotional, and spiritual—when you follow Him and His Word.

The prophet Elisha would not accept payment from General Naaman for God’s restoration of the warrior’s health, but the prophet’s servant Gehazi couldn’t resist. He lied, took the payment, and hid it. Elisha knew what Gehazi had done and rebuked him for jumping ahead of God’s provision and blessing. Gehazi set himself up for failure, and as punishment, he was made a leper.

Seven years later, because of God’s divine arrangement, Gehazi could have stolen and hidden an abundance of riches from an abandoned Syrian camp. A changed man, Gehazi generously shared his profit with the children of Israel. As a result, God restored Gehazi’s health and promoted him to the king’s advisory board.

If you are wrestling with a downturn in your life that may be the result of a wrong decision or an action you made in the past, keep in mind that God longs to accomplish something in you that is greater than you can imagine. Don’t throw in the towel. Never let your past determine your future. Rather, put your trust in God through obeying His Word, and set yourself up to succeed, just as Gehazi did.

Never Settle for Less

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus.

PHILIPPIANS 2:5

If I had to choose one passage of Scripture that describes the core of who Jesus Christ is, I would select Philippians 2, which deals with the humiliation of Christ. This isn’t humiliation in terms of embarrassment; rather, it refers to the humbling of Christ as He took on human flesh and died the cruel death of a lawbreaker when in fact He was the only sinless man ever to walk the earth.

Verse 6 affirms the deity of Christ, who existed in the form of God but who also did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. Jesus did not selfishly hold on to His status as God; He gave it up for our sakes. His deity was never compromised—He did not cease being God—but He chose to leave heaven because of His love for us. Paul tells us we should have this attitude and be willing to relinquish our prerogatives for God’s glory.

Whenever you hold on to your own prerogatives, you risk missing out on God’s plan for your life and losing the very things you’re trying to hold on to. People are quick to claim their rights. But we are to follow the example of Jesus, who humbled Himself so that we might be saved. Verse 7 says that Christ emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant.

Jesus didn’t give up His deity, but He deprived Himself of the normal privileges of deity by taking on the form of a man—and even a servant. He did this entirely voluntarily. He didn’t have to. But He did it because He loves us.

Why We Need Revival

Will You not Yourself revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?

PSALM 85:6

David’s cry in this psalm is one we each must echo.

How do we know whether we need a revival? Historically, revivals are preceded by spiritual decline, which is marked by divisiveness, anger, continuous crises, addictions, and service without passion. The need for revival is simply a result of sin in our lives.

Revival is the restoration of the spiritual life of God’s people and a return to the abundant life God intended for His followers. When God revives us, we can expect authentic change and real spiritual power.

If you have experienced chaos or a crisis in your life lately, ask yourself, what might be God’s purpose behind it? Dignify your difficulties by focusing on the purpose of the pain. Seek Him and allow Him to show you the sin He wants you to turn from. In doing so, you can usher in a revival in your soul.

I want to encourage you to spend time asking God to let you see yourself and your situation from His perspective. Let Him reveal to you why He has allowed what He has. Discover the meaning in the mess as God draws you near to Him in your own personal revival.

Are you ready for the abundant life? It’s yours to receive.

Requirements for True Revival

[If] My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

2 CHRONICLES 7:14

When God’s people are disobedient, we suffer His wrath because we have rejected His way. God desires a restored relationship with His people, but we believers still have a responsibility in our own revival. That responsibility, outlined in 2 Chronicles 7:14, calls for specific action.

[If] My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray… With these words, God reveals that He focuses revival on His people. When believers come to God on His terms with humble hearts, we give God permission to take action. When we open the door for revival through prayer, God works on our sins and addresses how they affect our lives.

And seek My face… Seeking God’s face means seeking His presence, submitting to His authority, and approaching Him on His terms.

And turn from their wicked ways… With these words, God is calling for spiritual and physical action as prerequisites to His intervention. We must rid ourselves of excuses and crutches, which are often disguised as addictions and issues.

Only when we seek God’s will with humility, prayer, and obedience will true revival occur.

Life in the Valley

The hand of the LORD was upon me, and He brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; and it was full of bones. He caused me to pass among them round about, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley; and lo, they were very dry. He said to me, Son of man, can these bones live?

EZEKIEL 37:1-3

Spiritual collapse places us in the valley of dry bones, where we experience hopelessness and helplessness. God, however, has provided a way out.

We must be willing to listen to the Word of God. When in a dry place, a place of no hope and no apparent answer to life’s dilemmas, we need to turn to God’s Word, which is the beginning of the process for deliverance from disorder.

We must be willing to respond in obedience to the Word of God. Our willingness to act on what God has spoken continues this deliverance from our dryness.

We must be sensitive to the movement of God’s Spirit. God’s Word gives us order, but the Spirit gives life. The Holy Spirit provides the power to bring the truth of God’s Word to fruition.

Friend, if you feel as if you’re in a dry place or a valley, always remember that a valley is a mountain waiting to form. The only way to get out of a valley is to go through it. Keep your eyes focused on Jesus, who can bring life and light into a dark and dry situation. He cares for you.

You Are an Overcomer

Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.

EPHESIANS 6:10-11

When Paul established the church at Ephesus, he wanted the believers to understand they had the power to withstand the attacks of the enemy, Satan. He wanted them to know that they could stand firm in their faith and refuse to yield to sin and thoughts of defeat. They had been given spiritual weapons more powerful and effective than the enemy’s.

But first they needed to understand they were not strong enough on their own to resist Satan’s temptations and tactics. God’s power and strength empowered them to rebuke the wiles of the devil. Paul explained to the Ephesians that they needed to use weapons of spiritual warfare on a daily basis. God protected them, and He protects us. One way He does this is through the full armor of God, which believers put on daily.

As an overcomer, always keep this truth in mind: You are not fighting for victory, you are fighting from a position of victory. Christ has secured the victory for you, and He offers you this victory through the armor of God. The victory is yours when you are well-dressed for warfare.

Living with Purpose

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

GENESIS 1:27-28

You take an important step on the path toward purpose when you realize that you exist for God—He does not exist for you. God loves doing things for you, but the reason to get up in the morning is to fulfill His purpose for your life. He has a plan for you, a destiny with your name on it.

God saved you not only so you can go to heaven (which is wonderful enough!) but also so He can fulfill His purpose through you on earth. Friend, if you truly want to discover and live out the full power and meaning of God’s purpose in your life, you must stop thinking of God as a vending machine and let Him be the central focus in your life.

If you want to find your purpose, find God. If you want to get close to your purpose, get close to God. When you get close to God, you get close to the One who knows the plans He has for you—good plans for a future and a hope.

You Are on Purpose

You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb.

PSALM 139:13

The God who created you for Himself has never made any mistakes. There have been no failures or flaws in His plan and program for you. Genesis 1:1 says, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Since this is true, there can be no such thing as an accident. In this first verse of the Bible, the theory of naturalism is proven incorrect. Naturalism states that the supernatural does not exist and that the world and its inhabitants evolved by chance into what they are today.

There is no room for chance if you believe God is Creator and Sustainer. People who believe the world came about by chance are simply saying that at one time nobody and nothing existed, but somehow that nothing then produced everything! It’s important that we see the flaws in this worldview. Many of us live by a philosophy of luck or chance when actually God sovereignly allows things to happen in our lives for His purpose. In fact, God created each one of us on purpose and with a plan in mind. When we don’t connect with His purpose, our lives lose their meaning.

If you know that God purposefully created and sustains you, you know you are not a mistake. You are not the coming