April 1-5, 2012 Quiet Time Series

DAY 1

HABITS: EASY TO FORM, HARD TO BREAK

1 Corinthians 9:27

Can you identify your habits? Do you think your habits are helping you or tearing you down?

All of us have stumbling blocks in life but there is an encouragement to break them. There are many people who are striving and thinking of how to change their habits. Some try to lose weight. Some try to quit smoking and drinking. Some are working on bad habits of speech. Some are working on their posture. For long-standing habits, it takes courage, determination and a lot of self-discipline to break them. In our lives, we will either allow our habits to dictate the result or develop the habits that guarantee the result we want. But not all habits are bad ones.

The effort needed to discipline ourselves is a great character builder. We all need to develop self-discipline. We become stronger and more likely go where we wish to be. Change habits that hinder your progress.

If you are too lazy to do your quiet times with God then expect spiritual dullness. If your mind is too consumed on worries then you may lose the joy of living. If you keep on looking at other peoples’ mistakes then you may lose the great opportunity of building friendship. If prayer is not part of your life then you will miss the power of prayers.

I’m determined to lose weight so it takes proper diet and exercise. Rather than changing our direction to conform to our habits, we need to change our habits to conform to our goals. Whatever your habits are, let these be habits that lead to progress.....

Rosalie Natural

DAY 2

LOVE: SUPERIOR TO ALL GIFTS

1 Corinthians 13:1

In the morally corrupt Corinth, love had become a mixed-up term with little meaning.

Today, many of us are still confused about love. But do you know that love is the greatest of all human qualities and it is an attribute of God himself (1 John 4:18)? Love involves an unselfish service to others; to show the evidence that you care.

Faith is the foundation and content of God’s message. Hope is the attitude and focus. Love is the action. When faith and hope are in line, you are free to love completely because you understand how God loves.

Is our love patterned in the way God loves?

Romeo Samson Jr.

DAY 3

MY LIPS OVERFLOW

Psalm 119:169-176

I believe appreciating someone can be easy because of two reasons. Either (1) the person is full of great qualities that you just cannot help but appreciate him or (2) you are humble and grateful enough to recognize the value of the other person.

When it comes to praising God, appreciating Him would definitely be not the problem since God is full of great qualities and He deserves our reverence. In fact, no word is enough to really describe His greatness. I then realize that the problem lies within me. I am not humble and grateful enough to recognize who God really is in my life. In Exodus 3:14, God said “I am who I am.” No man can truly fathom all of who He is.

In the book Crazy Love written by Francis Chan, it states there:

To the Jews, saying something three times demonstrated its perfection, so to call God “Holy, holy, holy” is to say that He is perfectly set apart, with nothing and no one to compare Him to. His perfect holiness assures us that our words cannot contain Him... Not being able to fully understand God is frustrating, but it is ridiculous for us to think we have the right to limit God to something we are capable of comprehending.

My prayer is for God to give us understanding according to His Word… and may our lips overflow with praise, for God has taught us His decrees. Let us live to praise God! We may not come close to fully understanding who God is, but let us not make this a reason not to praise and glorify Him each day. Let us be humble and grateful before our Almighty God. Let us shout to God all the great names we can give Him. Let us lift Him up wherever we go and give Him the due reverence and honor. Let us not be ashamed to carry His name as we share our faith, our lives and hearts to the people around us.

If even the lips of infants and children praise God (Psalm 8:2) and if even all of Gods creation praise Him, then let us, as God’s disciples, God’s children, even more praise Him!

January Samson

DAY 4

HOW GOD DEMONSTRATES HIS LOVE

It is my joy to share with you one of my quiet moments with God...

Upon browsing the net, my eyes caught attention to this online devotional by Katherine J. Kehler...She shared about how she is amazed and grateful for the many ways GOD demonstrates his LOVE.

She began to make a list of How GOD Demonstrates His LOVE...

• He never changes. “I the Lord do not change” Malachi 3:6.

His love is always sure. Seasons change, people change, the world is changing, but God never changes. We can rely on Him.

• He is faithful. “You can trust the One who calls you to do that for you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:24

God is not moody or fickle. We are. People will love you for a while and then they don’t. But God is not like that. He sticks with you. Whenever He asks us to obey Him, He also provides everything we need.

• He is our protector. “So our hope is in the Lord. He is our help, our shield to protect us.” Psalm 33:20.

He is our shield. Our “always there” protector. It is so comforting to know that everything that comes our way has to go through “the shield about us” before it touches us.

• He is always thinking about us. “How precious it is, Lord, to realize that you are thinking about me constantly! I can’t even count how many thoughts turn towards me.” Psalm 139: 17.

This is one of the neatest things. When you think about it–there are over 6 billion people in the world and He still thinks of you and me constantly. He is able to give us His undivided attention.

• He is always with us. For He Himself has said,

“I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5.

• He is never to busy for us. He never goes away, or takes breaks or a vacation.

When we are in trouble and think we are going under, we can be encouraged because,

“Underneath are His ever lasting arms.” (Deuteronomy 33:27) I pray that you’ll be blessed as you are reminded of His great love.

Raquel Culango

DAY 5

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE ‘DEAD’ IN YOUR SINS

Ephesians 2:1-3

If you ever want to see a visual picture of what it means for you and me to be dead in our sins, try this simple exercise: Take a glove and a Bible, and place them on a table next to each other. Then yell as loud as you can, “Glove, pick up this Bible!”

That glove would be helpless, hopelessly unable to pick up that Bible. That is a perfect picture of the spiritual reality described in today’s passage. We can stand up and preach, but the undeniable truth is that every person is just like that glove and can not reach out to God on his or her own.

But if you were to put your hand in that glove, then the strength of your hand would become the strength of that glove. And anything your hand could do, that glove could do. As a Christian, because the Holy Spirit draws us first to Christ, we are able – enabled, that is, to come before God.

This world is still full of men and women who are utterly lost and dead in their sins. They can never come to Christ on their own. But for many, God supernaturally draws them to Himself. So thank God today for His work in you. And as you share Christ with others, pray that God would open their eyes to His eternal truth!

ONLY GOD CAN DRAW PEOPLE TO HIMSELF. SO THANK HIM FOR HIS WORK IN YOU AND PRAY FOR OTHERS’ EYES TO BE OPENED TO CHRIST.

Halbert Tillor