Is your heart heavy today? We have mentors ready to talk and pray with you .

“COME unto me all you who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest … for your souls” (Matthew 11:28).

Are you feeling parked in your faith and not moving forward as you would like? Take some time today to respond to God’s invitation to come to Him and find His rest.

In our busy days we often try to commune with God on the run. Carve out 20 minutes today to sit quietly and allow your heart to draw near to God through the following verses of truth. He will draw near to you. It’s a promise you can count on.

1. C – CAST your concerns: 1 Peter 5:7 “Casting all your cares on Him for He cares for you.” Bring Him your unanswered question/self-pity/disappointment/ your distracted life.

2. O – OPEN your heart: Philippians 4:6/7 “Don’t worry about anything but pray about everything. Tell God your needs and don’t forget to thank Him for His answers.” Ask for His truth to penetrate your heart and mind and open your heart completely, with all your doubts and reservations, to Him.

3. M – MAKE REQUEST: Hebrews 4:16 “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” Lay aside your own best thinking and ask God to give you what He knows you need today. Thank Him for His mercy and grace in your time of need.

4. E – EXPECT:  Romans 15:13 “May the God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Let His peace and joy flow over you and spill out to those around you.

Lord God, today I want to sit in Your presence and let Your love settle over me. I need to draw near and feel Your presence and Your love. Speak to my heart as I allow each one of these verses to steep into my heart. Thank you that You are all I need today. I pray this in the strong name of Jesus, amen.

Questions: Are you feeling like your faith is not growing and you are stuck?  What does the scripture mean when it says to cast all our cares on Him?

Does fear hold you captive in your home, hinder your relationships and control everything you do? Take this lesson.

A friend of mine, recovering from a deep depression, said his turnaround came when he realized, “I have a choice. I can continue to blame my upbringing, past traumatic experiences, and life’s injustices for the emotional mess I’m in, or I can focus on today and begin to take small steps of recovery.”

Like him, I got myself out of a pit of self-pity and despair by focusing on the fact that if Jesus Christ lives in me, I’m a new creation. I can leave the old behind and claim my new position in Christ. But it was a choice I had to make many times a day.

God has given to each of us the privilege of making choices and the responsibility of living with the consequences of those choices. “Every choice we make takes us down a certain path. Either to a person that is in harmony with God and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself,” writes C.S. Lewis.

A poster on a wall in a school says it so well: You’re not born a winner; you’re not born a looser. You are born a chooser.

Dear God, today I want to see myself as a new creation in Christ and act upon this truth.  Amen.

Questions: How can one get out of a pit of self-pity and despair?  Tell us about a time when you made a good choice in a difficult situation.

About the Author Helen Grace Lescheid

Does God hear prayers? Talk to us.

Has God given you a promise? Perhaps in the reading of your Bible a verse lit up or in prayer you heard God say something specific to you. But then, nothing happens. In fact, your circumstances turn for the worse. Where are the promised blessings?

As a young man, God had given Joseph a promise that one day he would rule. But then, for the next thirteen years everything went exactly opposite to the promise. His brothers, who hated him, sold him to the Egyptians. As a slave in Potiphar’s house, he was falsely accused of raping his master’s wife. Then he was thrown into prison and forgotten.

But Joseph refused to let his circumstances shape his outlook. He allowed no self-pity or bitterness to rob him of energy. Instead, he chose to use each circumstance – whether at home, at Potiphar’s house, or in prison– as God’s appointed place where he would serve him with all of his heart. And God blessed him and made him a blessing.

Instead of using the delayed promise as a reason to grumble against God, he kept it in the back of his mind to give him courage and strength. He let go of expectations of how and when God would carry out the promise. In the meantime God was up to something much bigger than he could have imagined. In time – God’s time! – Joseph became ruler of all of Egypt!

God has a good plan for our lives also. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

Trust him even when life doesn’t make sense. God’s good plan is being carried out and this set of circumstances is needed to prepare you. As Joseph’s life points out, even tragedy and evil can be part of God’s plan for good.

A delay is not denial, but a time of preparing you for the promise.

Dear God, cleanse my heart of self-pity and resentment I want to trust you that your good plan for my life is being carried out in my present circumstances.  Amen.

Questions: What is God’s purpose for a delayed answer to prayer? What do you do with your time while you are waiting for an answer from God?

About the Author Helen Grace Lescheid

Do find yourself drifting away from God? Talk to one of our mentors about that.

“A perverse heart shall depart from me” (Psalm 101:4).

Susan had wanted the photo to be perfect. But it came back distorted and she realized she had moved at just the wrong moment.

Distortion is subtle. We often don’t know its happening. It’s a bending or twisting out of shape. It can happen in conversations, in creative projects, in paintings and in photos. It often isn’t even noticed at the time.

My husband laid some hardwood floor in our house last week. At one point several rows were down and we noticed an end in one of the boards had twisted out of place and a sharp edge appeared where it should have been smooth. Immediately he reworked the area to remove the distortion. It seemed small but in the overall view it would have distorted the look of the whole floor.

It’s much the same with our hearts. Jagged edges pop up of resentment, anger, negativity, self pity and any number of little things we rationalize away. Left alone they will create a distortion in our hearts that will interfere with the picture God wants to paint of our heart in connection with Him.

Psalm 101:4 says “A perverse heart shall depart from me.”

In the original Hebrew language the word “perverse” means “distorted” and the word “depart” suggests to “sour” or “decline”.

Normally we would never view our Christian hearts as perverse and departing from God.

We recoil at the thought! But here we are warned to be careful we don’t let our hearts become distorted. It can cause a heart to become sour and decline away from our God. Distortion is so subtle.

Are you feeling a sourness in your heart? Is there a slight decline away from your God and you are puzzled by it? Ask God today to show you if there is a distortion in your heart that you have allowed to come in by resentment, hurt, or some emotion or circumstance that has caused your trust in your God to falter just a bit. Ask for forgiveness and let God know you want a pure heart so you can see Him undistorted.

Father God, I confess to You that I have allowed distortion of my view of You to creep into my heart by some relational or circumstantial difficulty I have experienced. I recognize my potential for a sour heart that can decline away from You. I don’t want that Lord. I ask that You would forgive my wrong attitude and heal my hurt. May I see You clearly and draw near to You with a pure heart today. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.

Questions: Do you find yourself drifting away from God? Has your attitude become sour over time? Let’s spend some time asking God to forgive us and to heal our hurt so that we can again draw close to Him.

About the Author Gail Rodgers

Has someone you love died? Then you know the feelings death detonates in your body: anger, self-pity, depression, confusion, grief, anguish.

Scripture tells of Jesus’ close friend, Lazarus, who was sick. Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha, quickly sent word. “Come, Lord, and save him!” But incredibly, Jesus didn’t come. Lazarus died. The sisters entombed Lazarus and sank into grief and confusion. Where was the Lord? Jesus could’ve saved their brother! Weren’t they his closest friends? Four days later Jesus finally showed up! Martha, beside herself with grief, accused, “Jesus, if you’d been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.” John 11:1-43

Jesus quietly answered, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this” (John 11:25-26)? I don’t think Martha had a clue what He meant. Would you?

They walked to the tomb and Jesus commanded the stone sealing the entry be rolled away. Then, stunning everyone, he commanded, “Lazarus, come out!” Instantly Lazarus stood before him! Alive! Jesus ordered the grave clothes removed and mayhem followed as incredulous onlookers gawked and shouted, pushing and shoving to get a better look. Did anyone pinch Lazarus to see if this miracle was real? I would’ve.

Jesus’ name is The Resurrection and The Life. His dying is mankind’s only hope, then and now.

Resurrection in Greek means anastasis: literally a resurrection from the dead; a standing up again. Can we wrap our minds around that? Jesus promises to stand us on our feet again. Not just when we die but when we fail or sin. Faith in Him opens the door for this miracle of new life, eternal life.

Lazarus is Jesus’ ‘show and tell’ of His power to stand men up again. Jesus later demonstrated His power over His own death by rising on the third day after crucifixion. He has the authority and power to lay down his life and stand up again alive. John 10:18 He is resurrection. He is life. No other god has that power.

Jesus gives eternal life to those who believe Him. “For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that He might be the Lord of both the dead and the living” (Romans 14:9).

Jesus wakened Lazarus from death so Jesus would get glory, people would see His glory and believe, and so Lazarus would live again.

Do you know this astonishing God who raises dead folks? Who lifts us into abundant newness of life now no matter our trials and heartaches and promises a tomorrow seated next to Him in Heaven?

Ask Him if He’s real. Test Him and see if He answers. But watch out, Jesus will call your name, remove your grave clothes and stand you on your feet. Forever.

Father of Life, resurrect me from my grave and unwrap me to newness of life. I believe, help my unbelief. Thank you, amen.

Questions: Do you know this Jesus who is ”The Resurrection and The Life”? If you know Him, what difference has He made in your life?

About the Author  Petey Prater

Daily audio podcast: A second daily devotional, The Cross: Why we Believe, today on the Men’s Devotional Blog

“May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it” (1Thessalonians 5:23,24).

Like you, I check my incoming email very carefully. Anything suspicious I don’t open up. Why, I don’t want to get a virus that will mess up my whole program.

My mind is like a computer. A file that keeps cropping up in my memory is the “It’s not fair!” file. I compare my life with someone who seems to have more of what I want and come away feeling cheated. At a Christmas banquet, among all the happy couples, as a single I have to sit alone. She’s getting all the breaks. How come some of them don’t come my way?

Opening up the “It’s not fair” file–as I’m so prone to do– is dangerous. A vicious self-pity virus is attached to it. It sends my mood spiraling downwards. It messes up my whole outlook on life. It distorts reality, preventing me from seeing my own blessings.

So what do you do when an unpleasant memory flashes on your screen? Don’t open the file. Instead, send it away into cyberspace–to God. “Here, God, I give this to You as a sacrifice.” A sacrifice? Yes, you have every right to be self-indulgent, but you’ve decided it’s not worth it. You want to get on with the program. You want the most out of life.

Dear God, cleanse me from every trace of self-pity. I want to be sound in spirit, soul, mind, and body. I want to get the most out of this day.

Questions: What situations cause you to feel sorry for yourself and indulge in self-pity? What can we do in order to not dwell on it and spiral down the slippery slope?

About this Author Helen Grace Lescheid

Daily audio podcast: A second daily devotional, The Message of Christmas, today on the Men’s Devotional Blog