Daily Encounter: A Week-day Devotional by a staff of ACTS International.

Monday, July 31, 2023

"Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded."¹ And as James says about a double-minded person: he is "unstable in all he does."²

Someone has explained how, in the frigid waters around Greenland, "Countless icebergs float around. Some are tiny; others tower skyward. At times the small ones move in one direction while their gigantic counterparts go in another. Why is this? The small ones are pushed around by the winds blowing on the surface of the water, but the huge ice masses are carried along by deep ocean currents."³

In our day there is great pressure to go with the crowd, to be politically correct, to do the convenient thing regardless whether it is right or not. The reality is, however, unless we have deep roots in God, we too can easily be swayed by the "popular winds of the moment" and be "double-minded and unstable in all we do."

Think of Jesus, he never worried about being politically correct, or pleasing the crowd or the religious leaders of his day, or even King Herod for that matter. His only concern was to do right and please God, his Father. He did right regardless of the consequences. For you and me to make a difference we, too, need to stand for truth and do right regardless of the consequences. To do this we need backbone. As the saying goes, any dead fish can float down the river but it takes a live fish to swim against the flow. Furthermore, he who stands for nothing will fall for anything.

Suggested prayer: Dear God, please help me in this day and age to stand for truth, the principles of which are found in your Word, the Bible, and to always do right regardless of the consequences. Give me the courage to live only to please you in all that I am and do as did Jesus. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen.

1. James 4:7-8 (NIV).
2. James 1:8 (NIV).
3. Author unknown.

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