Dean Allen's Daily Devotional

-May 4, 2021-

Good morning, happy Tuesday,

-Repentance Precedes Restoration And Revival-

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

(2 Chronicles 7:14).

We often hear of this verse being applied to our nation, which is very valid, but its primary application was to the nation of Israel, and is also applicable to the church as well. We as believers are God’s people and we need repentance and revival just as our country does.

Repentance means to turn away from sin and toward God. When we do, it leads to restoration and revival. The key word in our text is the word “if.” God will never force anyone to repent, if must be our willing choice. There are four things we must do as believers and or as a country: humble ourselves, pray, seek God’s face, and turn from our wicked ways.

• Humble ourselves – We must humble ourselves before God, His greatness and His glory. We must see God for who He is before we can see ourselves for who we are. We then can see our weaknesses and nothingness. It says in James 4:10, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.”

• Pray – Once we see God in all His holiness and righteousness, it causes us to turn to Him in prayer for His help. We must confess our sins, forsake them, and turn from them. It is like looking in a mirror and seeing yourself as you really are. The prophet Isaiah experienced this in Isaiah 6:5, “So I said, ‘Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the Lord of hosts.’”

• Seek His face – So often we seek God’s hand but not His face. In other words, we want the blessings more than the Blesser. God’s desire is for us to love Him and seek Him for who He is not just for what He does for us. I still remember a brother preaching on this some 40 years ago!

• Turn from our wicked ways – We have all heard the expression, “Call a spade a spade.” We must call sin in our lives for what it is: an abomination to God, wickedness, and evil. We cannot “sugarcoat it,” nor justify ourselves in God’s sight. David repented of sin of adultery and murder in Psalm 51. He wrote in Psalm 51:3-4, “For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight — That You are just when You speak, and blameless when You judge.” All sin is against the holiness of God.

May the Lord help us to repent, be restored, and be revived. It takes honesty to admit our sin, confess it, and forsake it. If we do, God will send revival in our lives. It will start with us and spread to many others. Let us humble ourselves, pray, seek His face, and turn from our sinful ways. God will then forgive us and heal our land and our lives.

Have a blessed day of soul searching honestly before God. Stay safe and healthy.

Dean

-May 3, 2021-

Good morning, happy Monday,

-Looking To The Lord When All Else Is Crumbling Around Us-

“Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer.”

(Romans 12:12).

Paul’s familiar pattern in his epistles is to cover doctrine first then practice. Romans is no exception. In the last four chapters 12-16, he speaks of practical Christian living. In particular, Romans 12:9-13 is titled, “Behave Like A Christian.” It involves how we treat each other as believers.

Today’s text is the key to putting the rest of passage into practice since it directed toward the Lord. There are three qualities we need in abundance: hope, patience, and steadfastness. We cannot be victorious without all three.

• Rejoicing in hope – Hope looks to the future. Paul tells us to not just have hope but to have it joyfully. Praise God our hope goes beyond this world and into eternity. Paul was able to see beyond his present circumstances and this caused his heart to rejoice in the Lord even Ashe sat in prison for his faith in Christ. In Philippians 4:4 he says, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, rejoice.” Are you rejoicing in the Lord today? Our attitude determines our gratitude!

• Patient in tribulation – Patience is so important as we wait upon the Lord. Often we want the Lord to work at a faster speed than He is working. We fail to understand God’s plans and purposes. He is never in a hurry. James 1:2-4 tells us, “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” Trials produce patience. Job, and so many others in Scripture, experienced this for themselves.

• Continuing steadfastly in prayer – We must pray and keep on praying. Steadfastness is holding on no matter what happens to us. One of my favorite lines of the hymn, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” says, “O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.” Prayer is our lifeline and how we communicate with the Lord and seek His help and guidance.

Let us then rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, and steadfast in prayer. David wrote in Psalm 57:1, “Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me! For my soul trusts in You; And in the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge, until these calamities have passed by.” We can face anything with the Lord, but nothing without Him!

Have a blessed day in hope, patience, and steadfastness. Stay safe and healthy.

Dean

-May 2, 2021-

Good morning, happy Lord’s Day,

-Confidence In Prayer-

“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.”

(1 John 5:14-15).

Prayer is a divine exercise of the soul, a delightful fellowship with God, and a productive time well spent. We all wish we spent more time in prayer. Today’s text demonstrates the confidence we can have when we pray according to His will.

God knows what is best for us, for the church, and for the world. Our task is pray, and God will hear and answer. In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” It is the first request mentioned in the prayer. That is how important God’s will is in what we ask.

Prayer is having a reverential and sanctified conversation with God in Jesus’s name. There are several requirements we must meet if we want God to answer our prayers: pray accordingly to His will (1 John 5:14-15); pray in obedience to God’s commandments, being pleasing to Him (1 John 4:22); pray in faith (Matthew 21:22); pray persistently not losing heart (Luke 18:1); pray with no unconfessed sin (Psalm 66:18); pray in the Spirit (Ephesians 6:18); pray earnestly and vigilantly with thanksgiving (Colossians 4:1); pray boldly before the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:12); and pray expectantly and confidently (1 John 5:14-15).

When we pray according to these conditions, God will answer our prayers with a yes, no, or wait. It is always so encouraging, exciting, and energizing when God answers our prayers. Let us pray more often and more effectively. James 5:16-18 says, “Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.”

There is tremendous power in prayer. God wants us to pray and ask big things from Him. Let us pray and pray specifically.

Have a blessed day in prayer. Stay safe and healthy.

Dean

-May 1, 2021-

Good morning, happy Saturday,

-We Need Faith In Order To Please God-

“But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”

(Hebrews 11:6).

Hebrews chapter 11 is the “Hall of Faith.” All the men and women mentioned there share the same faith in the Lord, but they all manifest it in their own personal and practical way. The phrase used, “By faith,” is used 16 times. Those who are so honored for their faith are: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, and Samuel.

The very first verse defines faith as, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Faith believes God and acts upon that belief in willing obedience. Faith believes when it cannot see, it cannot hear, and cannot understand. The key to faith is not its own strength or understanding, but its object which is God Himself.

Belief must always precede sight, otherwise it is not faith. When Jesus stayed away purposely two more days before going back to Bethany where Lazarus was sick. He knew that He would perform a greater miracle of raising him from the dead, rather than merely healing him of his sickness. Both sisters, Mary and Martha told Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died” (See John 11:21 and John 11:32).

Jesus made a wonderful statement on faith in John 11:40, “…Did I not say to you that if you believe you would see the glory of God?” Thus, we believe, then we will see. The world has it backwards: seeing is believing. When God says it, we must believe it as though it already happened. There is such great confidence and assurance in faith. Faith sees what is unseen, hears what is unheard, and understands what is not known. James wrote, “Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17). We do not believe something unless we act on it. Mary and Martha had to have the stone rolled away from their brother’s tomb in order for him to be raised from the dead though he had been dead four days.

May God give us the faith to believe and the obedience to receive. We must claim God’s promises by faith and apply them to our lives. Our faith grows by what God does for us. He never changes nor does He ever fail.

Have a blessed day walking by faith not by sight. Believe first, then you will see. Stay safe and healthy.

Dean

-April 30, 2021-

Good morning, happy Friday,

-Speaking The Truth In Love-

“But speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head — Christ” (Ephesians 4:15).

“Therefore, putting away lying, ‘Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,’ for we are members of one another” (Ephesians 4:25).

In the early days of Christianity, the new converts were adults saved directly from the world. All they knew was what they learned in this world and they lived very worldly, sinful lives. Then they got saved and began to learn the ways of the Lord and the Word of God. They had a lot to learn. They did not have the Bible as we have it today.

Paul won many to Christ and taught them how to live for Christ in the world. We have such wonderful teaching in all the NT. Today’s verses teach us the principle of speaking the truth in love. Christ, who is the head of the church, is Himself the truth. Jesus said in John 14:6, “…I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” We as believers in Christ must be men and women of truth. Our word is our bond, and our standards are His standards.

When Jesus stood before Pilate, he asked Him, ‘Are you a king then?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.’ Pilate said to Him, ‘What is truth?’ And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said, ‘I find no fault in Him at all’” (John 18:37-38).

We must follow Christ our head, He is our example to speak the truth in love. When someone is about to testify in court, he must swear “to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.” Every word we speak must be the truth. We live in lying world, a dishonest world. We must not only speak the truth, but we must speak it in love. This refers to speaking to other believers, who are members of the body of Christ, and also to all people saved and unsaved.

We teach our kids from their youngest days to tell the truth. If they do, their punishment should always be less. The best way to teach them to tell the truth always is for us to always tell the truth. The problem today is that families as well as society as a whole have drifted away from the Lord and the Bible.

Let us remember, the truth is always the truth, and never changes; lies are always lies and always change. May we always speak the truth in love, and leave the consequences to the Lord.

Have a blessed day telling the truth and living the truth. Honesty is the best policy and always glorifies Christ. Stay safe and healthy.

Dean