Christian Holiness Journal

One Minute Memory Verse 

Look to the Lord and His strength. Seek His face always.

 – 1 Chronicles 16:11

Previous Memory Verses

Philippians 4:6

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-19 

Rejoice always. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit. –

One Minute Bible

Luke 4:1-13 NKJV

​            Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.

And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”

But Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’ ”

Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.  Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.”

And Jesus answered and said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ”

Then he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here.  For it is written:

‘He shall give His angels charge over you,

To keep you,’

and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up,

Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’”

And Jesus answered and said to him, “It has been said, You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’”

Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time.

One Minute Prayer

Father, teach us to absolutely rely on You, that we will resist when temptation.

One Minute Praise

Isaiah 12:1-2 ESV

You will say in that day:

“I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me,

Your anger turned away,

that you might comfort me.

“Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid;

For the Lord God is my strength and my song, And he has become my salvation.”

One Minute Wisdom

Proverbs 22:17-19 NIV

Incline your ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply your heart to my knowledge,

For it will be pleasant if you keep them within you, if all of them are ready on your lips.

That your trust may be in the Lord, I have made them known to you today, even to you.

One Minute Devotion

I drove fifty miles daily from home to work, to school and back. I gave God that journey daily. He, in turn, made the drive joyous.

One day, though, traffic came to a standstill. I spied a fast-moving 18-wheeler in my mirror. I had no doubt that it would plow right into me.

Oddly, I didn’t panic. I told Christ that my life was in His hands. I was resigned to die if that is what God wanted. I said a prayer for Kathy and our kids. I intended to lie across the seat, but before I could move, the semi ran up over my trunk and through the rear window, up against my seat

When I read Luke 4, I realize that Christ was fully man and fully God. He was able to resist temptation because of His relationship with His Father. Abraham in Genesis 22 had faith to offer up his son as a burnt offering because of his long relationship with God.

Rarely does a man exhibit a solitary act of great faith. Faith comes from daily reliance on God in the small things. Faith is the result of intimately knowing God’s heart, trusting Him Whom we know, and obeying what He has taught us. Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

One Minute Memory Verse 

Look to the Lord and His strength. Seek His face always.

 – 1 Chronicles 16:11

 

Previous Memory Verses

Philippians 4:6

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-19 

Rejoice always. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit. –

One Minute Bible

Acts 16:16-29 NIV

Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.

When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.”

The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose. The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!”

The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

One Minute Prayer

Father, we pray for faith in all circumstances. Lord, we believe; help us in our disbelief.

One Minute Praise

Psalm 37:5-6 NIV

Commit your way to the Lord;

trust in him and he will do this:

He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn,

your vindication like the noonday sun.

One Minute Wisdom

Proverbs 28:26 NIV

Those who trust in themselves are fools, but those who walk in wisdom are kept safe.

One Minute Devotion

Lesson for parents: never give a BB gun to kids at Christmas if the weather is too nasty to use it outdoors. That was the case when I was seven. My brother David got a new Daisy BB Gun for Christmas, and I was the only indoor target at which to aim. What’s worse, is that I was a willing target. The gun was unloaded. He removed all the BBs and shot it towards the floor a few times. Sure enough, the gun was empty.

So, I posed on the far side of the bedroom like a duck in a shooting gallery. On the third shot, a BB that had been stuck in the barrel dislodged and shattered my glasses into my left eye. After a trip to the ER and several follow-up visits, they at last removed from my eye all the glass.

I trusted David. I still would. He would never hurt me. Likewise, I have faith in God, for I am confident that whatever circumstances, blessings or suffering, it will be for the furtherance of His Kingdom, or to glorify His name, or to perfect my love.

Oh may all who come behind us find us faithful May the fire of our devotion light their way. May the footprints that we leave…

One Minute Memory Verse 

Look to the Lord and His strength. Seek His face always.

 – 1 Chronicles 16:11

 

Previous Memory Verses

Philippians 4:6

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-19 

Rejoice always. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit. –

 

One Minute Bible

Jeremiah 36:31-36 NKJV

Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—  not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord.  But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.  No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

Thus says the Lord,

Who gives the sun for a light by day,

The ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night,

Who disturbs the sea,

And its waves roar

(The Lord of hosts is His name):

If those ordinances depart

From before Me, says the Lord,

Then the seed of Israel shall also cease

From being a nation before Me forever.”

One Minute Prayer

Father, give us the strength to remember the Covenant you’ve written in our hearts. Forgive us the times when we have ignored it. Remember our sins no more.

One Minute Praise

Psalm 13:5-6 NKJV

But I have trusted in Your mercy;

My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.

I will sing to the Lord,

Because He has dealt bountifully with me.

One Minute Wisdom

Proverbs 2:1,2,5 NKJV

My son, if you receive my words

and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; then you will understand the fear of the Lord

and find the knowledge of God.

One Minute Devotion

When I was four years old, I could see the mountains from our back yard in California. I was convinced that, if I tried, I could touch them when I swung high on my swing set. I never touched the mountains, of course.

Many people feel the same way about Christian holiness. Like the mountains a few miles away from the home of my childhood, holiness can be seen. One can swing toward it. One can reach for it. But one can never grasp it. We find ourselves chained in place, and end up swinging back from the mountaintop in endless cycles of gain and loss.

This is a sad misconception of Christian holiness. Holiness is the heart of the relationship between a Christian and the Lord. It is God’s will for us that we be sanctified (1 Thess 4:3). God commands us to be holy (1 Peter 1:13-16). He would not ask us to be holy if it were not possible.

Salvation writes the New Covenant on our hearts. Absolute surrender to God allows Him to work the grace of Sanctification in our hearts and mind, and imbues us with the power to live holy (as He has commanded).

I eventually tried to jump off the swing, in effort to fling myself to the mountain. I landed with a thud just a few feet away, scraping my knees and hands.

If one wants to grasp holiness, then one must let go of the chains that tether us, and trust Jesus. For only one who flings himself into the arms of God will know His holiness. Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, just to take Him at His word…