​Passage of the Day:
“Jesse said to David his son, “Now take for your brothers an ephah of this parched grain, and these ten loaves, and carry them quickly to the camp to your brothers; and bring these ten cheeses to the captain of their thousand, and see how your brothers are doing, and bring back news.”” (1 Samuel 17:17-18 WEB)

I think we can probably all agree that David’s calling was to become the king of Israel. 
However his journey to the throne did not happen instantaneously, but was a turbulent, drawn-out process. 

Today I want to focus on the beginning of his journey. Prophet Samuel had anointed David as king in replacement of Saul.

By God’s sovereign will, the soon-to-be warring armies of Israel and the forces of the Philistines encamped in the region of Judah, where David lived. 

“Now the Philistines gathered together their armies to battle; and they were gathered together at Socoh, which belongs to Judah, and encamped between Socoh and Azekah, in Ephesdammim.” (1 Samuel 17:1 WEB)

When God has a plan for you, He will even orchestrate world events to create an opportunity for you.

As we can see in the passage of the day, God created an opening for David by leading Jesse to send him into the battlefield to deliver a “lunchbox” to his brothers and the soldiers. He was tasked to be a humble delivery-boy.

Maybe you’re feeling like God has prepared you sufficiently and you’re raring to serve the Lord in a grand way. 
“Lord, let me start a revival leading to millions of salvations. I will stand on a huge stage and evangelize for you!”, you might be thinking. 
Or, “Lord, I’m ready for the next level of success. Prosper me and make me a millionaire! I will be generous and plant many new churches, halfway houses, and orphanages for You!”. 

What if the Lord wants to kickstart your calling by starting small? 
Can you put aside your ideals of grandeur, humble yourself like David and be a delivery-boy?
Don’t miss out on becoming king just because serving your brothers with a package of food is something beneath you - in fact, kings are anointed to serve the people, not to be served. 
Thus says the Lord:

“Indeed, who despises the day of small things?...”” (Zechariah 4:10)

“Though your beginning was small, yet your latter end would greatly increase.” (Job 8:7 WEB)

Don’t get me wrong, David wasn’t tasked with a menial job because he wasn’t ready. No, he was. 
He had prior training and preparation from the Lord when he killed the lion and the bear. 
David was able to kill a Philistine giant because the Lord had already taught him how to place all his confidence in Him, not in his own strength. 
All the men of Israel were fearful because they were looking at their enemies and at themselves, but David looked to the Lord. 

“David said to Saul, “Your servant was keeping his father’s sheep; and when a lion or a bear came, and took a lamb out of the flock, I went out after him, and struck him, and rescued it out of his mouth. When he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and struck him, and killed him. Your servant struck both the lion and the bear. This uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, since he has defied the armies of the living God.” David said, “Yahweh who delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.” Saul said to David, “Go! Yahweh will be with you.”” (1 Samuel 17:34-37 WEB)

Before the Lord uses you for your calling, you will undergo a process of training and preparation just like David, where He will teach you how to trust in Him. 
He won’t use you out of the blue - there is an order to the way God does things. 
He will be the Judge of when you’re ready. Trust in His timing, not your own. 

“By faith, Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to share ill treatment with God’s people, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a time; accounting the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he looked to the reward. By faith, he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.” (Hebrews 11:24-27 WEB)

There was a man sometime back who said to me that it’s wrong to seek the eternal rewards when serving God.
He called them “toys” and said that he would rather serve out of pure love for Jesus. 

It sounds rather noble and pious of him, but what does the Bible say about eternal rewards and how we should view them in relation to serving the Lord?

The passage of the day shows Moses in the famous chapter in the epistle to the Hebrews featuring the ‘Heroes of Faith’.
The words of praise for Moses’ faith says that Moses looked to the reward. 
He counted the eternal rewards as far more valuable than the temporal riches that he could enjoy in Egypt, and the Holy Spirit recorded it as a demonstration of his faith. 

If it was wrong to serve the Lord and look forward to eternal rewards, then pray tell me why Moses is applauded for doing so? 
If that were true, he should be condemned for serving God with an ulterior motive and not be celebrated for his faith. 

Jesus Himself taught about eternal rewards, and told the listeners to lay up for themselves imperishable treasures in heaven instead of temporal treasures on earth. 

““Don’t lay up treasures for yourselves on the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consume, and where thieves don’t break through and steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21 WEB)

If it were wrong to seek eternal rewards, then He wouldn’t have taught that. He would just say to focus on Him, love Him without desiring any reward other than Him. 

Passage of the Day:
“She said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and have not told me where your great strength lies.” When she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, his soul was troubled to death. He told her all his heart, and said to her, “No razor has ever come on my head; for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will go from me, and I will become weak, and be like any other man.”” (Judges 16:15-17 WEB)

When you saw the title of this devotional, you may have wondered, “What can I possibly learn from that evil, traitorous woman?”

If you really meditate on the text, you will realized that she did something worthy for us to emulate, except in a good way. 

To give you a context about Delilah, she was a Philistine woman whom Samson (a judge who was anointed with great physical strength) fell in love with. 

The lords (leaders) of the Philistines bribed her to find out the source of Samson’s great power. 
Fueled by greed, Delilah proceeded to repeatedly ask Samson to tell her his best-kept secret. 

In the passage of the day, we see Delilah nagging so much that Samson was annoyed to the point of death. 
This woman knew how to “press-in” and “persist” - something that we need to apply when we pray. 

What motivated Delilah to be so dedicated to her mission? 
Her eyes were set on the reward that lay ahead of her. 
She was promised a generous amount of silver in exchange for her betrayal. 

“The lords of the Philistines came up to her, and said to her, “Entice him, and see in which his great strength lies, and by what means we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him; and we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.”” (Judges 16:5 WEB)

She trusted that the lords of the Philistines would fulfill their end of the bargain so much that she didn’t give up, even when Samson lied to her three times:
She had put in the effort to arrange three ambushes for Samson and they all turned out to be failures. 
Delilah had great faith in her would-be rewarders.

When we pray, do we ask with unbelief in our hearts, or are we like Delilah, who had complete faith in the sureness of her reward? 

The Bible says that we must believe that God will reward us when we seek Him - whether in prayer, in studying God’s word or in service to Him. That kind of faith pleases Him. 

“Without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing to him, for he who comes to God must believe that he exists, and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6 WEB)

Delilah bugging Samson for the answer she wanted reminds me of Jesus’ “Parable of the Widow and the Unrighteous Judge.

“He also spoke a parable to them that they must always pray, and not give up, saying, “There was a judge in a certain city who didn’t fear God, and didn’t respect man. A widow was in that city, and she often came to him, saying, ‘Defend me from my adversary!’ He wouldn’t for a while, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God, nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will defend her, or else she will wear me out by her continual coming.’” The Lord said, “Listen to what the unrighteous judge says. Won’t God avenge his chosen ones, who are crying out to him day and night, and yet he exercises patience with them? I tell you that he will avenge them quickly. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”” (Luke 18:1-8 WEB)

To draw a comparison, Delilah is like the widow and Samson is like the unrighteous judge. 
By repeatedly coming to him with her request, Samson eventually gave her what she wanted. 

If you study the parable carefully, Jesus said that God will quickly avenge the saints who are crying out not once a day, but “day and night”! 
Pray and keep on praying - don’t give up until you see what you’re believing for. 

The Apostle Paul admonished his mentee Timothy about the grave danger of pursuing the trappings of wealth at the expense of his faith.

In 1 Timothy 6:10, Paul did not sugarcoat it - “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” 
​
A majority of divorced couples today cite financial issues as the main reason or at least a catalyst for their separation.

In most of these cases, it could be about financial impropriety by either spouse, a lack of open communication or even the frustration of unachieved goals - they are not on the same page when it comes to how to manage money in marriage. 

Either way, it all goes back to the failure to acknowledge God’s sovereignty in all things, including finances. By placing Him at the center, you can be able to build a strong culture of financial management and consequently, a much stronger home.

““And to the angel of the assembly in Sardis write: “He who has the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars says these things: “I know your works, that you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and keep the things that remain, which you were about to throw away, for I have found no works of yours perfected before my God. Remember therefore how you have received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If therefore you won’t watch, I will come as a thief, and you won’t know what hour I will come upon you. Nevertheless you have a few names in Sardis that did not defile their garments. They will walk with me in white, for they are worthy.” (Revelation 3:1-4 WEB)

Recently I received feedback from some other Christian bloggers that the things I write are too radical and they feel uncomfortable about it. 
This is a good chance to share what God’s word says about the life we’re supposed to enjoy as believers. 

In the early church, Jesus spoke to the church of Sardis through the Apostle John, rebuking then for their works which appeared holy and spiritual to men, but was actually dead in God’s eyes. 
There is a type of Christianity today that believes in Jesus’ ability to save from hell and then nothing else. 

People who adopt this approach to their faith treat Jesus like their cute and cuddly comfort toy - when they get bruised by the trials of life, they hug little “Jesus” while crying in their bed, and when they feel better, back into the bed “Jesus” goes, until the next time it’s needed like a bandaid on a wound. 
It’s like they take a shrink gun and - ZAP, a mighty lion shrinks to the size of an adorable kitty. 
Then they proceed to kill it and stuff it, allowing it to retain the outward appearance, but it has become completely lifeless. 

““Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and unrighteousness. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the platter, that its outside may become clean also. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitened tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.” (Matthew 23:25-28 WEB)

During Jesus’ time on earth the scribes and Pharisees were doing exactly that. 
They shrank God’s commandments and ordinances into a perverted, manageable version. 
It seemed to be religious but it lost all the original meaning, purpose and power. 

Today, we have Christians who just want to share the positive, ‘feel-good’ things about God and Jesus in sermons, on social media and in person, but totally reject anything miraculous or supernatural about the Gospel. So apparently according to their beliefs, Jesus’ death at the cross allows us to receive salvation (which they think can be lost if one sins), but not provision, not healing, and not spiritual gifts. 

They say “God bless you” to appear pious, but they’re just acting polite and cordial. 
The blessing is more for themselves to look good than for anything good to happen to the recipient of those words of blessing. 
They say “Praise the Lord” to sound holy, not that they’re really thankful to God or want to involve Him in anything more than the one hour gathering on Sundays where they put on a mask to “grin and bear it”, acting as though they’ve got everything in life under control. 

​About the Author of this Guest Post:
​Jemmy is a trained psychometrician with an expertise in Child Psychology and has over 10 years of experience working in primary education with a special focus on gifted children. He is a contributor with IQ Test Centre, an organisation for IQ testing of children between 5 and 16 years old. Read more of his content on his website, and on his Facebook account. 

The parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14) tells us the story of three servants, each set on their way with a number of talents.
When the servants return, two come bringing gain and have multiplied the talents given to them by their master.
They are praised but the third one, who so feared to lose his given share that he buried it, is cast out, for he brings the master nothing more than that with which he set out.

This parable can be understood, today, in the most literal sense: talents are given to us for cultivation, to be nourished and to be multiplied.
Any parent who sees signs of giftedness in his or her child might need to consider this as a talent, one they should nurture and not bury.
Let's take a look at how to raise a gifted child within the Christian faith.

The parable of talents reminds us that we should cherish the gifts within ourselves and others.
Raising a gifted child means, on one hand, that we should embrace their gifts and help the child pursue and develop them.
Whether it is in the arts, the sciences or somewhere else, a talent should be nurtured.
This can mean that the parent should provide opportunities for the child to practice their talent and encourage it, for in this way their gift is honored.

However, honoring and nurturing the gift doesn't mean reducing the child to their ability.
Many parents are enchanted with their children's gifts or view them as the only thing that matters.
This can lead to a lopsided development, especially in regards to the emotional and social aspects of life.
Children who are very smart can still struggle with making friends, fitting in, and developing the capacity for good relationships.
Often, this occurs because children might be “out of sync” with their peers, so it is important to help children manage these aspects of their life and ensure that their life is fulfilled.

​Passage of the Day: 
“For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as Christ’s apostles... For you bear with a man, if he brings you into bondage, if he devours you, if he takes you captive, if he exalts himself, if he strikes you on the face. (2 Corinthians 11:13, 20 WEB)

Hi dear reader, you may or not be aware that I help to steward a Facebook group for the Lord which has more than 400k members and growing by the thousands daily.
These members are looking for sincere and true teachings of the gospel of grace. They are hungry for spiritual food, looking for Biblical content that edifies them and helps with the challenges they are facing in life. You're most welcome to join the group! 

Whenever the devil sees something belonging to God growing big, he will almost certainly send his workers of iniquity to infiltrate God’s camp. 
When the early church was growing exponentially, false believers like Ananias and Sapphira came amidst the church, bringing ulterior motives and wicked plans with them like an infectious plague (Acts 5:1-11). 
God had to strike them dead in order to protect the unity and healthy growth of the church in its infancy stage. 

During the Apostle Paul’s time, there were people who pretended to be apostles. They saw the churches growing and envied the influence that the true apostles had. 
As Paul wrote in the passage of the day, these people were just proud people looking to exalt and enrich themselves at the expense of the spiritual health of the church. 
They were deceivers and indirectly working for the devil to mislead true believers who couldn’t see through their hypocrisy. 

Through the Apostle John’s writing, Jesus also stated that He knew there was such a problem going on in the church at that time. 
On top of that, He made reference to testing someone to see if he is truly an apostle. Through this test, it is possible to tell whether someone is lying about being an apostle. 

““I know your works, and your toil and perseverance, and that you can’t tolerate evil men, and have tested those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and found them false.” (Revelation 2:2 WEB)

It is important to know how to conduct this test because people are still pretending to be apostles today. 
Not having the true revelation of God’s word, they seek to impress men by claiming this honorable title for themselves. 
I have since deleted everyone I saw in the Facebook group who calls himself an apostle, for the sake of safeguarding God’s true flock. 

Read more original devotionals like this one and get exclusive Bible-based content on our Patreon page - welcome in advance to the amazing community of Bible-believing, revelation-seeking Christians! ​

“How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, “I will ascend into heaven! I will exalt my throne above the stars of God! I will sit on the mountain of assembly, in the far north! I will ascend above the heights of the clouds! I will make myself like the Most High!” Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the pit. Those who see you will stare at you. They will ponder you, saying, “Is this the man who made the earth to tremble, who shook kingdoms; who made the world like a wilderness, and overthrew its cities; who didn’t release his prisoners to their home?”” (Isaiah 14:12-17 WEB)

Hi dear reader, the passage above is God’s prophecy of judgment against the King of Babylon, not Satan:

“that you will take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, “How the oppressor has ceased! The golden city has ceased!”” (Isaiah 14:4 WEB)

Another proof that Isaiah 14 is not directly talking about Satan is because it says that the souls in Sheol (hell) will ponder and ask “is this the man”. Man - not devil, fallen angel or demon. 

However seeing the pride that oozes from the five “I will” statements in the passage, it’s undeniable that Satan was working behind the scenes, using the King of Babylon for his own demonic agendas.

I believe that each of the 5 points of the pentagram (star) which the occult uses for their magic spells, represents each one of the arrogant “I will” statements. 

The star itself represents “morning star, son of the dawn”, in reference to Satan, the false god which those who practice the occult knowingly or unknowingly worship. 

Through the passage, we can also infer Satan’s main mission: He is working to develop a way to gain access to heaven on his own terms, so that he can usurp God’s throne and change his fate (of being thrown into the lake of fire at the end of time). 

Read more original devotionals like this one and get exclusive Bible-based content on our Patreon page - welcome in advance to the amazing community of Bible-believing, revelation-seeking Christians! 

“Pharaoh got up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians, and there was a great cry [of heartache and sorrow] in Egypt, for there was no house where there was not someone dead. Then he called for Moses and Aaron at night and said, “Get up, get out from among my people, both you and the Israelites; and go, serve the LORD, as you said. Take both your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and go, and [ask your God to] bless me also.”” (EXODUS 12:30-32 AMP)

Reading the account of the plagues of judgments done by God in Egypt, I feel really frustrated by the stubbornness of Pharaoh and his refusal to let the children of Israel go. 

I believe that there is a very important reason for God allowing Israel’s deliverance to be dragged out like this and not an immediate, decisive one. 
He is teaching us a principle of deliverance from bondage. 

Out of all the plagues that God did through Moses and Aaron in Egypt, only one of them is a picture of Jesus.

That plague is the last one, the “Death of the Firstborn” where every household of the children of Israel (in short) was instructed to roast an unblemished lamb, eat it, and paint the blood of the lamb on the doorpost and lintel of their house.

The lamb represents Jesus the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”. There are many lessons about Jesus to learn from the Passover lamb: 

“Tell all the congregation of Israel, ‘On the tenth [day] of this month they are to take a lamb or young goat for themselves, according to [the size of] the household of which he is the father, a lamb or young goat for each household. ~‘Now if the household is too small for a lamb [to be consumed], let him and his next door neighbor take one according to the number of people [in the households]; according to what each man can eat, you are to divide the lamb. ~‘Your lamb or young goat shall be [perfect] without blemish or bodily defect, a male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. ~‘You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to slaughter it at twilight. ~‘Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel [above the door] of the houses in which they eat it. ~‘They shall eat the meat that same night, roasted in fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. ~‘Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted in fire--both its head and its legs, along with its inner parts. ~‘You shall let none of the meat remain until the morning, and anything that remains left over until morning, you shall burn completely in the fire.” (EXODUS 12:3-10 AMP)

1. The lamb should be completely consumed if not the remaining meat should be burn completely in the fire. We need to consume (believe) all truths about Jesus as declared in God’s word, not just pick and choose the parts we like and think are believable. 
2. The lamb must be unblemished, male and a year old, just like how Jesus was sinless, male and a young adult (33 years old) when He died on the cross for our sins. 
3. The lamb is to be taken on the 10th day and kept till the 14th day of the month. That’s 4 days in between. Prophetically speaking, a day is as a thousand years to the Lord. So 4 days is 4000 years. According to Sir Isaac Newton and Bishop Ussher, they calculated the time between Adam’s creation till Jesus’ death to be about 4000 years! For 4000 years, the Son of God was in heaven, not living among men, and after that, He finally appeared in the likeness of sinful flesh and dwelled among them to die for their sins. 
4. In Hebrew, it literally says that lamb is to be slaughtered between the two evenings. From 12 noon to 3pm, darkness covered the land while Jesus hung on the cross, causing the first ‘evening’. The darkness left after Jesus died at 3pm. At 6pm was the second evening. Jesus died between two evenings! 
5. The blood of the lamb painted on the two doorposts and the lintel forms the Hebrew letter “Tav” which is a pictogram of a cross. The lamb which is sacrificed is represented by the first Hebrew letter “Aleph” (which is a pictogram of a sacrificial ox). Together Aleph Tav forms the meaning of “the sacrifice on the cross”, and it also means “The First and the Last”, “Alpha and Omega”, all referring to Jesus! 
6. The whole lamb must be roasted in fire, and eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. The full wrath (fire) of God for all the sins of the world fell upon Jesus at the cross. Jesus is a sinless and perfect sacrifice (unleavened bread). In the Bible leaven represents sin. Jesus bore our curses (the bitter herbs). Herbs are grown from the cursed ground.  
7. The lamb cannot be eaten raw which is to wrongly say that Jesus never received the punishment for our sins. The lamb cannot be eaten boiled in water which is to wrongly say that Jesus’ work at the cross is not a finished work, that He did not bear the full punishment for our sins and that there remains some unpunished sins. 

God passed over every household that had the blood of the Passover lamb on its doorposts and lintel:

“For the LORD will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel [above the entry way] and on the two doorposts, the LORD will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to slay you.” (EXODUS 12:23 AMP)

Pharaoh, which represents the devil, only let the children of Israel go after the final plague which involves the Passover lamb (Jesus). 

​Hi dear reader, the Bible teaches us as believers to abstain from every form of evil - no exceptions! 

I’m so thankful that we are not alone in this, but as the passage of the day says, it is the God of Peace who sanctifies us and helps to keep us separated from evil things. 

Under the New Covenant, God supplies us with the desire and the grace to live a holy (set apart) life for Him! 

I used to really enjoy watching horror movies in recent years after I got over the fear of them through a cool mental trick that I believe God gave me as a form of practical wisdom. 

However just this week, I received the revelation that I have to abstain from horror movies too because it is definitely evil.