Daily Devotional For Sunday, March 30, 2025
Today is Sunday and it is time to go celebrate and praise the Lord with other disciples of Jesus Christ. Isaiah 26:3 says, “You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!” (NLT). I don’t know if you have learned this, but control is overrated and exaggerated. The truth is we have very little control over anything, other than our own lives, attitudes and responses.
I remember the Covid Pandemic came in 2020. There were quarantines, lockdowns, closures and relational separation in families. Older family members in nursing homes were barred from seeing family members. People in the hospital were barred from having visitors. It was a horrible time because even churches shut down due to the government’s warnings. I will never do that again no matter what our government says. Due to all the leaks, we have learned alot about what they were not telling us as well as what they overplayed.
It was worse than the Great Depression to me because even in the Great Depression, people still got to socialize, work, and go to church. What we all learned through the Covid Pandemic was that we were no longer in control. We live in a culture where we actually have control over our own reality and futures. If we can dream it, we can do it. What a myth that is also. There are many things this is not true for in life and learning to live with that reality helps us have some control over our attitude and actions to it.
I really believe if we all believed that the only one really in control is God, our lives would be happier, have less stress and anxiety and be more fulfilled. All of God’s ways are good whether we see it, believe or accept it. We live in a world of unexpected loss and death. Did any of you see or know ahead of time the events that would unfold on September 11, 2001? Probably not, but we had to deal with the fall out from that.
Because we live in a world of sin and death, our best option is to rely upon God when it seems the world or our lives are out of control. God not only knows and sees the past and present, He sees and knows the future. I say all the time, "History is His-story” and it is. God is moving everything to a final end one day. This is why we can rejoice with the psalmist in Psalm 18:30, “God’s way is perfect. All the Lord’s promises prove true. He is a shield for all who look to Him for protection” (NLT). Meaning we can say, “God, this did not take You by surprise. You are still in control. You are still good. And all your ways are perfect no matter what happens.”
God is in control. He is and as people of faith, if we do not believe this, then we will get swept away by the raging rivers of doubt, despair, bitterness and resentment. Once God moved us to give our lives to Him through Jesus Christ, we gained something – eternity. This means we can rejoice in what 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 says:
“That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. (17) For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! (18) So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever” (NLT).
Paul’s point is that no matter what happens to us, in the end, we will. God truly is the author of peace, not the author of panic. He’s the author of calm, not confusion, and the author of rest, not stress. He will keep you and me in perfect peace, whose minds are steadfast, and whose trust is in Him.
Questions To Consider
- When life does not go the way you play, how do you typically respond and why?
- When was a time in your life that you had a situation that was happening to you and you had no control over it, but you turned to the Lord. What happened and what lessons did you learn from this?
- Even when you think you have been misled about a particular situation that seems out of control, what can you count on for sure?
Scripture To Meditate On: Psalm 145:14, “The Lord helps the fallen and lifts those bent beneath their loads” (NLT).
Prayer To Pray: “Dear Jesus, when life comes at me, help me to come right to You. When life seems unfair, let me trust in Your fairness. When life seems out-of-control, help me to remind myself You are still in control, that history is “His-story.” Help me to remind myself that the goal of life is not to live a long, healthy and prosperous life, but to live a godly, holy and righteous life that brings You glory and people to Christ. I love You Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”
I love you Southside!--Pastor Kelly