Brennan Manning

Another Year, Another Devotional

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I’ve had this one a while. If memory serves, I picked it up outside the old library at Union University back in the day. If I had to hazard a guess, it would probably be somewhere around 1994 to 1995. So yeah, it’s been a little while.

But I always like to read through a good devotional along with reading through the Bible. This year felt like it needed some Charles H. Spurgeon. It’s an oldie but a goodie complete with King James-style English thrown in for good measure.

But it’s a book with a promise from God for every single day. Sometimes, you and I need that. We need to be reminded of God’s promises over and over again. We need to pray them every chance we get, not because God might have forgotten but because we have. And probably will again at some point.

Reading these old promises of God reminds me that the same God who made and fulfilled all His promises to His people way back when will keep every one toward us. We can rest on His every word and stand assured on the promises of God, as the old hymn says.

I for one am thankful that God is not like me when it comes to keeping those promises. I’d like to say that every time I said I’d pray for someone I kept that promise. Or whenever I said I’d keep in touch that I followed through. I wish.

But God is not like me. That gives me great comfort. What gives me greater comfort is that one day I will be like Him.

Thank You, Lord, that every single one of your Promises to Your people is YES and AMEN in Christ Jesus. That in itself is a promise as sure as the God who made it. Amen.

You Will Come Forth as Gold

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I don’t know, but I think this will speak to someone reading this tonight. Maybe it’s something you needed to hear right at this moment. I do believe that no trial is ever wasted on those who hold fast to hope in Christ. God always redeems every situation that seems hopeless at the time to work it for our good and His glory. This too shall pass and soon you will see . . .

A Bold Prayer

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“God, change anything about me that isn’t about You.”

That’s a dangerous prayer. I know there’s a lot in me that probably doesn’t reflect the heart of God. I think I speak for just about everyone in the room when I say that all of us who are followers of Jesus don’t exactly mirror Jesus very well most of the time. There’s a lot in us that needs changing.

I think we do a lot of things for selfish reasons — we even do good with ulterior motives. But the beautiful part is that God still chooses to use us. Sometimes I wonder not why bad things happen to good people but why God allows good things to happen to any of us. After all, we’re the ones who rebelled against God and chose our own way over His.

But God still blesses us. God still loves us. God still promises to finish what He started in us. God sent His only Son for us while we were still sinners and died for us while we were still sinners. He didn’t wait until we got better. He didn’t even wait until we really wanted to get better. When we were dead in our trespasses and sins, God made us alive in Christ.

So maybe that’s not a bad prayer to pray. It’s scary but it’s the best thing God could ever do for us. God, change anything about us that isn’t about You. Make us like You at any cost, so that we can lead others to know You and find out what the eternal and abundant life looks like. Amen.

Ever Giving Lord

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“Our Lord Jesus is ever giving, and does not for a solitary instant withdraw His hand. As long as there is a vessel of grace not yet full to the brim, the oil shall not be stayed. He is a sun ever-shining; He is manna always falling round the camp; He is a rock in the desert, ever sending out streams of life from his smitten side; the rain of his grace is always dropping; the river of his bounty is ever-flowing, and the well-spring of his love is constantly overflowing” (Charles Spurgeon).

I remember a famous writer once said that you can never outgive God. I’ve never forgotten those words in all the years since I first read them. I’m finding them to be more and more true the older I get.

That’s the way God works. You go to serve in a homeless ministry or in a greeting capacity at a local church and end up getting way more blessed in return. It helps to remember that absolutely everything we own and all of our abilities we use to give were first gifts from God. We can never give anything back to God or to anyone else that God didn’t give to us first.

Sometimes, I think the only thing we offer God that’s ours is us. Our surrender. Our willingness. Our obedience. But even those are responses to the overflow of God’s love toward us, like us offering God a thimble of love from the ocean He washes over us.

But God is ever merciful and ever giving. He never ceases to give and bless and overwhelm His people with good things. They may not always look like blessings at first glance, but those with eyes of faith know.

Thank You, Lord, for every single blessing and gift — especially the small ones that I take for granted every day. I could never in a billion years come close to paying back or matching Your gifts to me. May I be a conduit for Your blessings to flow through me to others so that they can know You and know the joy of Your blessings. Amen.

70 Years Ago

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It was 70 years ago today that five missionaries went into the jungles of Ecuador to bring the gospel to an unreached group of indigenous people. Those five ended up sacrificing their very lives for that gospel. Months later, two of the wives, including Jim Elliot’s wife Elisabeth, went back to that very tribe that had murdered their husbands and led many of them to saving faith in Christ.

Jim is famous for saying, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

Those are the words he and his friends lived by when they risked their lives to go to places where the name of Jesus had never been heard before. But in heaven’s eyes, the sacrifice was worth it. God honored the lives of those men and their wives, and their legacy still lives on.

Every time someone goes to a part of the world where the gospel has not gone before, we honor their legacy. Every time a missionary couple or family goes to a country where missionaries are not allowed, their legacy lives on. Whenever people are willing to risk everything to share the gospel where Christianity is illegal and converting means instant death, the legacy of the Elliots, the Flemings, The Saints, the McCullys, and Youderians is passed on to a new generation.

The goal is that everyone must know. Heaven will be filled with people from every tongue, tribe, and nation because people like Jim and Nate and the rest weren’t content to stay in this country and be comfortable but traded convenience for obedience and were able to hear the words of Jesus, “Well, done, good and faithful servants.”

In Place of Joy

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“For many, Christmas is no longer the day to celebrate the mystery of the birth of God among us, the God hidden in the wounds of humanity. It is no longer the day of the child, awaited with prayer and repentance, contemplated with watchful attentiveness, and remembered in liturgical solemnity, joyful song, and peaceful family meals. Instead, Christmas has become a time when companies send elaborate gifts to their clients to thank them for their business, when post offices work overtime to process an overload of greeting cards, when immense amounts of money are spent on food and drink, and socializing becomes a full-time activity. There are trees, decorated streets, sweet tunes in the supermarkets, and children saying to their parents: ‘I want this and I want that.’ The shallow happiness of busy people often fills the place meant to experience the deep, lasting joy of Emmanuel, God-with-us” (Henri Nouwen).

It seems strange for me to be posting a Christmas blog on January 7, the day after the Epiphany. But if you think about it, it makes sense. At least to me it does.

When you focus on all the wrong parts of Christmas, like the buying and getting, the wrapping and decorating, the parties and the food, then at some point it has to end. But when Christmas becomes the arrival of Emmanuel, then it never ends because Emmanuel has not left us nor will He ever.

I love all the other stuff. But it gets weird if the Christmas tree is still up and decorated in July. But I think the idea of treating others with kindness or giving to the less fortunate or being Jesus with skin on never gets old. That can be 24/7/365.

Above all, the greatest gift of Christmas is one that we can give to anybody anytime we share the hope of salvation in Jesus with anyone who hasn’t heard it before or who needs to hear it again for the 300th time. That’s the only part that we get to take with us to heaven — those who will go with us because we were faithful to share the good news.

The Way of Jesus

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What is the way of Jesus? What are those who follow Him called to be and to do?

The answer is simple. Repent and forgive.

Self-righteous finger pointing has no place in the Kingdom of God. Neither does condemning those who sin differently than I do. While we are called to speak in love against people when their actions don’t match their faith, neither you nor I get the right to judge their motives or intentions. Neither you nor I get to decide

Jesus never said, “You make sure everyone else is living right.”

What He said was, “You live right,” or better yet, “You repent. You seek to serve the least of these. You be holy.”

The Kingdom of God isn’t about a political party or platform. It’s not an ideology, either left or right, conservative or liberal.

It’s about the God’s love breaking into the world, one heart at a time.

You might say to Jesus, “But what about these people over there not doing right? What about those people flaunting their freedoms over and above any responsibility?”

Jesus says to you, “But what about you? You repent. You make peace and live in peace with others as much as it’s in your power to do so.

At the end of the day, the question to you and me will be how well we loved. How well we served and ministered to the least of them. How well we made visible the invisible grace of God.

Jesus also said to forgive.

That becomes possible when you and I understand that the kind of inhumanity and evil we’re capable of apart from the grace of God. Also, we need to embrace the fact that those we deem our enemies are still created in the image of God and loved by God.

When we grasp how much we’re forgiven by God, we can in turn forgive others.

“One of their religion scholars spoke for them, posing a question they hoped would show him up: ‘Teacher, which command in God’s Law is the most important?’ Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.'”

Epiphany Eve

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That’s the paradox of Christmas — that God, the Maker and Sustainer, was for a time homeless so that all who waited for and longed for His appearing can be at home and find their home in Him. I love that God became one of us so that we could become like Him and be made into the image of His Son, Jesus.

Thank You, God, for Your sacrifice that I could know You and know eternal and abundant life that I never deserved but that You freely give through Your Son Jesus Christ. Amen.

Prayer Request

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I don’t normally do this kind of thing, but I’m requesting prayer for myself on here. I’m asking each and every one of you to join me in prayer for God to lead me to a career where I can not only earn a living but also make a difference in the world.

I’ve been praying and believing in God for a job, but I think sometimes there’s mighty power when God’s people join together to agree on something in Jesus’ name. I’m thanking God in advance for His provision because I know that God has provided for me in every season through every kind of circumstance.

I’m claiming and believing the promises of God.

“Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?” (Romans 8:32, NTL).

“Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20, NLT).

“And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. And since we know he hears us when we make our requests, we also know that he will give us what we ask for” (1 John 5:14-15, NLT).

Thank you in advance for your prayers. I will update when God answers and I am still believing for good things from God. He is still good and worthy of my worship, no matter what.

Above all, I choose to pray the prayer that never fails: God, Your will be done. Amen.

Here I Am

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“Now it was after these things that God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham.”

‘Hineni,’ he said (Genesis 22:1, TLV).

I learned a new Hebrew word today. I’m reading through the Tree of Life Version of the Bible. It’s a Messianic Jewish translation that often will insert Hebrew words instead of translating them. Also, it refers to Yeshua rather than Jesus when talking about the Messiah.

Hineni simply means “Here I am.”

But according to all that I have learned, it’s more than stating a geographical location. In this passage, God didn’t need to know where Abraham was. What Abraham was saying in that one word response was, “I am available and willing, no matter what.”

In this case, God was calling Abraham to take his only son, Isaac, and offer him as a sacrifice. Abraham was completely ready to obey even though he believed God’s promise about making a nation through his offspring. He somehow knew God could still fulfill His word.

Later on, we see that the Angel of the Lord stopped Abraham from going through with the deed. After He calls to Abraham, again Abraham responds with “Hineni.”

Once more, Abraham was instantly willing and able to do whatever God commanded. He didn’t need to think it over or figure out how it made sense before he could act. He simply acted.

Also, the word is used for Isaiah when God asked who could He send and who would go for Him to preach His message to wayward Israel. Again, Isaiah said “Hineni – here I am. Send me.”

May that be the posture of our hearts. Lord, whatever and whenever You call, I’m ready. My answer is Yes before You even ask the question. Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening. Amen.