Dean Allen's Daily Devotional

-March 17, 2023-

Good morning, happy Friday, Happy Saint Patrick’s Day,

“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15).

“And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen” (Mark 16:20).

The gospel is the good news of God’s salvation available to whomever believes in Jesus Christ. It is a message that Christ died for our sins, He was buried, and He rose again the third day. It is an invitation from the Lord Himself that whoever believes in Him, repents of his sins, and receives Jesus as Lord and Savior will be saved. Paul had a burden for lost souls and tirelessly preached the gospel and won many to Christ. All the eleven apostles also proclaimed the truth and were all martyred for it. This included Matthias who was chosen to take the place of Judas who betrayed Christ and went out and committed suicide. He was never saved and is called the son of perdition.

A man named Dick Hopkins wrote a gospel tract, entitled, “Saint Patrick of Ireland: The Real Story behind Saint Patrick’s Day.” In it he tells the true story of a man who changed a country. I will share some excerpts from this wonderful tract. He wrote, “Patrick was born in about 389 in Scotland. His father and grandfather were leaders in the primitive British Church. Not withstanding the fact that Patrick grew up in a Christian home he says of himself, ‘I knew not the true God.’”

“At the age of 16 he was captured by some pirates and taken across the sea to serve as a slave in barbarian Ireland. Ireland had never been civilized by the Romans and was inhabited by about 200,000 Celts of the pagan Druid religion.” He spent time alone on the mountains tending the sheep and had time to reflect on the Christian teaching of his father and grandfather. He wrote, ‘The Lord opened to me a sense of my unbelief, that I might remember my sins, and that I might be converted with all my heart unto the Lord my God.’ “At the age of 22 he fled Ireland. He had no money to pay for sea passage back home so he prayed and God softened the heart of a tough sea captain. He gave him free passage.”

He finally made it home to his parents but he had a great burden for the lost souls in Ireland. He went back to Ireland preaching the gospel of Christ and winning souls for Him. He spent the rest of his life there preaching the gospel to the poor and lost of Ireland. He died in Ireland in his mid 70’s and by that time he had turned most of Ireland to Christ and organized at least 350 churches plus hundreds of schools where the Bible was taught. His writings are filled with quotations from the Scriptures. For hundreds of years after his death the Bible was kept alive, while the rest of Europe mostly set it aside for church ritual and tradition. Only hundreds of years later was the Irish church incorporated into the Roman Catholic Church.

“Patrick described himself as a ‘sinner’ who had been saved by the grace of God to turn the Irish from the worship of the sun god to ‘the worship of the true Son, Christ’ and God the Father Omnipotent.’ “Patrick’s true humility, his deep concern for lost souls and his unwavering dedication to obey and serve the Lord present a challenge to all who profess Christ as Savior today.” As Paul Harvey used to always say, “Now you know the rest of the story.”

May the Lord help us to follow Saint Patrick’s example and go everywhere to share with every person we can the gospel of salvation. This gospel that began when Christ rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of God, still is the power of God unto salvation today. Have a blessed Saint Patrick’s Day. Stay safe and healthy.

Not just wearing green but putting on Christ so that He can be seen,

Dean

-March 15, 2023-

Good morning, happy Wednesday,

“Therefore take heed how you hear. For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will taken from him.”

(Luke 8:18).

Yesterday we considered that we should take heed what we hear; today we will look at how we should hear. The former involves, the what we need to hear and not hear; and the latter how we should hear and how we should not hear. Both are extremely important in the Christian life. It is always good to compare Scripture to Scripture.

There are bad ways and good ways to hear. As to the bad ways we should avoid are: hearing without listening, hearing with a critical or judgmental spirit, hearing without obeying or applying what we hear, hearing with an insensitive heart, and hearing something so often that it doesn’t affect us. I have guilty of one or more of all them. These principles especially apply to reading the Bible and listening to a sermon or Bible Study.

On the positive side, we want to be aware of how we hear and take heed to the various messages. Consideration with concentration leads to reaction and response. Let us pray that God will open our hearts and ears to act on what we hear with godly fear. James 1:22-25 says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.”

It is so important to prepare our hearts to hear and respond. It is easy to see what others need to do without applying it to ourselves. Instead of thinking or saying, “That was so good for So and So,” we should think and say, “That was a blessing to me, I really needed to hear that.” William MacDonald wrote, “The more we hear the Word of God without obeying what we hear, we become judiciously deafened. If we refuse to hear, we lose the capacity to hear. The best way to hear is reverently, obediently, and seriously. We should approach the Bible with the determination to do what it says, even if no one else is doing it.”

Have blessed day taking heed not only to what we hear, but also how we hear. Stay safe and healthy.

Hearing more to obey, and obeying to hear more,

Dean

-March 15, 2023-

Good morning, happy Wednesday,

“Then He said to them, ‘Take heed what you hear. With the same measure you use, it will be measured to you; and to you who hear, more will be given.’”

(Mark 4:24).

The blessing of hearing is such a wonderful and amazing thing. The human ear is so intricate and sensitive. We all have a pair of these tremendous hearing devices. As one ages, there often becomes a need for hearing aids. Listening to loud music or working around extremely loud sounds causes even younger people to have hearing loss.

Jesus is not speaking of physical hearing, but spiritual hearing. It is our responsibility to take heed to what we hear. Selective hearing is choosing what we hear and what we don’t hear. We should refuse to hear gossip, slander, abusive language, off color jokes, and other destructive messages. In today’s world, we must be especially cognizant of what we hear on movies, television, radio, and the internet. What we read is also extremely important, for our minds are affected by what we read.

On the positive side, we need to immerse ourselves in the Word of God and prayer daily to keep our minds and hearts on the right track. By knowing the Scriptures we are able to discern whether something is true or not, right or wrong. We don’t we to become dull of hearing God’s Word or let in go in one ear and out the other with no effect on us. This is why we need to hear the Word, understand it, and put it into practice.

May the Lord help us to take heed what we hear. There are many voices from many sources that we should reject; and other voices from the Lord and sound preachers and teachers that we should embrace. Have a blessed day taking heed what we hear.

Heeding what we hear in godly fear,

Dean

-March 14, 2023-

Good morning, happy Tuesday,

“Man who is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble” (Job 14:1).

“And Jacob said to Pharaoh, ‘The days of my pilgrimage are one hundred and thirty years; few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage’” (Genesis 47:9).

Both Job and Jacob came to a very similar conclusion in life: life is short and difficult. The reason is simple: sin abounds everywhere and it’s results wreak havoc in the lives of God’s people. We look forward to leaving this earthly scene and being transported to our new home in heaven. Though we have good days and bad days, the Lord is with us, helping us, encouraging us, and guiding us. Our attitude toward what happens to us is what is the key. When we are thankful and content, joyful and obedient, we will be truly blessed.

• Days Are Short – Both Job and Jacob agreed that no matter how long we live, life is short, especially compared to eternity. Jacob made the mistake of comparing his days and years to his forefathers. Once we start looking around at what others have experienced and compare ourselves to them, we get into trouble. There will always be people that are richer, fitter, healthier, or better off we are. God wants us to be thankful for what He has given us. Life in Scripture is rightly described as a vapor. James wrote, “Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that’” (James 4:14-15).

• Days are evil, filled with trouble – In Job’s life the trials and bad things that happened to him were out of his control; whereas in the case of Jacob, much of the trouble he had was of his own making through wrong decisions. He was known as a sub planter and schemer. The Angel of Lord wrested with him, and Jacob would not let loose of the Lord until God blessed him. The Lord touched the socket of his hip and put it out of joint. God changed his life as well as his name from Jacob to Israel. For us to be truly happy, must allow God to break our will and give us His will.

Life will always be short and full of trouble. Life for the Israelites in the wilderness was difficult but God provided for them all along the way to the Promised Land. An eleven journey turned to a forty year trudging through the desert. Let us trust the Lord and obey Him. He will guide, chide, and provide. May we thank the Lord for both the quality as well as the quantity of our lives on this earth as our preparation for heaven. Earl Radmacher used to say, “This life is training time for reigning time.“

Have a blessed and thankful day no matter the troubles that come our way as long as we are following the Lord’s way. Stay safe and healthy.

Living the most fulfilling life when filling it full of Christ’s fulness in life,

Dean

-March 23, 2023-

Good morning, happy Monday,

“For a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again, but the wicked shall fall by calamity.”

(Proverbs 24:16).

Last evening I received a phone call from my older brother telling me that my mom had fallen and the paramedics just took her to the E.R. I met him at the hospital where the doctors ran all kinds of tests, took X-rays, and examined her. She is 95 and has fallen several times before. Fortunately no broken bones and she was able to go home. I spent five hours waiting in the E.R.

Recently, Senator Mitch McConnell, attended a function at a hotel, fell, suffered a concussion, and spent several days in the hospital. Because of his position in the Senate, the whole world knows about it. I prayed for him as I did for my mom. Falls can happen anytime to anyone; though older people are the most vulnerable. Several different people in our church have had falls. The Lord helped them all to recover.

Spiritual falls are worse than any physical falls. The devil does his utmost to trip us up. We must watch and pray, walk circumspectly, and trust in the Lord. The promise to us is that though we may fall seven times we will rise again. The wicked, which is another term for the unsaved, will fall by calamity. Their future is far worse than we can even imagine.

When we fall physically, we must get up; so too, when we fall spiritually, mentally, or emotionally. The Lord Jesus lifts us up, strengthens us, and helps us to walk again. Psalm 145:14 says, “The Lord upholds all who fall, and raises up all who are bowed down.” Take courage dear saint, hold onto to the Lord’s hand, and trust in Him. You may stumble, you may fall, but Lord is with you through it all.

Have blessed day relying on Jesus. Stay safe and healthy.

Eternally secure and able to endure,

Dean