Daily Devotion Text

April 16, 2021

Portraits of God

Journal

Review & Prayer

Take time to review this past week’s Bible passages, as well as your journals and DT reflections. Afterwards write a prayer of thanksgiving, repentance, and commitment in response.

By gracepoint
April 15, 2021

Portraits of God

Journal

Bible Passage: Job 38

1 Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and

   said:

2 “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without

  knowledge?

3 Dress for action like a man;

    I will question you, and you make it known to me.

4 “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

    Tell me, if you have understanding.

5 Who determined its measurements—surely you know!

    Or who stretched the line upon it?

6 On what were its bases sunk,

    or who laid its cornerstone,

7 when the morning stars sang together

    and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

8 “Or who shut in the sea with doors

    when it burst out from the womb,

9 when I made clouds its garment

    and thick darkness its swaddling band,

10 and prescribed limits for it

    and set bars and doors,

11 and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther,

    and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?

12 “Have you commanded the morning since your days

    began,

    and caused the dawn to know its place,

13 that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth,

    and the wicked be shaken out of it?

14 It is changed like clay under the seal,

    and its features stand out like a garment.

15 From the wicked their light is withheld,

    and their uplifted arm is broken.

16 “Have you entered into the springs of the sea,

    or walked in the recesses of the deep?

17 Have the gates of death been revealed to you,

    or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?

18 Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?

    Declare, if you know all this.

19 “Where is the way to the dwelling of light,

    and where is the place of darkness,

20 that you may take it to its territory

    and that you may discern the paths to its home?

21 You know, for you were born then,

    and the number of your days is great!

22 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow,

    or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,

23 which I have reserved for the time of trouble,

    for the day of battle and war?

24 What is the way to the place where the light is distributed,

    or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?

25 “Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain

    and a way for the thunderbolt,

26 to bring rain on a land where no man is,

    on the desert in which there is no man,

27 to satisfy the waste and desolate land,

    and to make the ground sprout with grass?

28 “Has the rain a father,

    or who has begotten the drops of dew?

29 From whose womb did the ice come forth,

    and who has given birth to the frost of heaven?

30 The waters become hard like stone,

    and the face of the deep is frozen.

31 “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades

    or loose the cords of Orion?

32 Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season,

    or can you guide the Bear with its children?

33 Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?

    Can you establish their rule on the earth?

34 “Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,

    that a flood of waters may cover you?

35 Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go

    and say to you, ‘Here we are’?

36 Who has put wisdom in the inward parts

    or given understanding to the mind?

37 Who can number the clouds by wisdom?

    Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens,

38 when the dust runs into a mass

    and the clods stick fast together?

39 “Can you hunt the prey for the lion,

    or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,

40 when they crouch in their dens

    or lie in wait in their thicket?

41 Who provides for the raven its prey,

    when its young ones cry to God for help,

    and wander about for lack of food?

Questions to help us go deeper

Reflect on the portrait of God depicted in these passages.

  • What is He like?
  • Reflect on the ways you have experienced this aspect of God.
  • Are there ways that your current view of God needs to be corrected or refined through today’s passage?
  • Praise God for who He is.

Prayer

 

By gracepoint
April 14, 2021

Portraits of God

Journal

Bible Passage: Psalm 40

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

1 I waited patiently for the Lord;

    he inclined to me and heard my cry.

2 He drew me up from the pit of destruction,

    out of the miry bog,

  and set my feet upon a rock,

    making my steps secure.

3 He put a new song in my mouth,

    a song of praise to our God.

  Many will see and fear,

    and put their trust in the Lord.

4 Blessed is the man who makes

    the Lord his trust,

  who does not turn to the proud,

    to those who go astray after a lie!

5 You have multiplied, O Lord my God,

    your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us;

    none can compare with you!

  I will proclaim and tell of them,

    yet they are more than can be told.

6 In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted,

    but you have given me an open ear.

  Burnt offering and sin offering

    you have not required.

7 Then I said, “Behold, I have come;

    in the scroll of the book it is written of me:

8 I delight to do your will, O my God;

    your law is within my heart.”

9 I have told the glad news of deliverance

    in the great congregation;

  behold, I have not restrained my lips,

    as you know, O Lord.

10 I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart;

    I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;

   I have not concealed your steadfast love and your 

    faithfulness

    from the great congregation.

11 As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain

    your mercy from me;

   your steadfast love and your faithfulness will

    ever preserve me!

12 For evils have encompassed me

    beyond number;

   my iniquities have overtaken me,

    and I cannot see;

   they are more than the hairs of my head;

    my heart fails me.

13 Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me!

    O Lord, make haste to help me!

14 Let those be put to shame and disappointed altogether

    who seek to snatch away my life;

    let those be turned back and brought to dishonor

    who delight in my hurt!

15 Let those be appalled because of their shame

    who say to me, “Aha, Aha!”

16 But may all who seek you

    rejoice and be glad in you;

    may those who love your salvation

    say continually, “Great is the Lord!”

17 As for me, I am poor and needy,

    but the Lord takes thought for me.

   You are my help and my deliverer;

    do not delay, O my God!

Questions to help us go deeper

Reflect on the portrait of God depicted in these passages.

  • What is He like?
  • Reflect on the ways you have experienced this aspect of God.
  • Are there ways that your current view of God needs to be corrected or refined through today’s passage?
  • Praise God for who He is.

Prayer

 

By gracepoint
April 13, 2021

Portraits of God

Journal

Bible Passage: Joshua 1:1-9

1 After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, 2 “Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel. 3 Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. 4 From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory. 5 No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. 6 Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. 7 Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. 8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

Questions to help us go deeper

Reflect on the portrait of God depicted in these passages.

  • What is He like?
  • Reflect on the ways you have experienced this aspect of God.
  • Are there ways that your current view of God needs to be corrected or refined through today’s passage?
  • Praise God for who He is.

Prayer

 

By gracepoint
April 12, 2021

Portraits of God

Journal

Bible Passage: Deuteronomy 8

1 “The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. 2 And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. 3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

4 Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years.  5 Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. 6 So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him. 7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, 9 a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. 10 And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

11 “Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, 12 lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, 13 and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied,

14 then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, 15 who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, 16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. 17 Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ 18 You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. 19 And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish.  

20 Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.

Questions to help us go deeper

Reflect on the portrait of God depicted in these passages.

  • What is He like?
  • Reflect on the ways you have experienced this aspect of God.
  • Are there ways that your current view of God needs to be corrected or refined through today’s passage?
  • Praise God for who He is.

Prayer

 

By gracepoint
April 9, 2021

Portraits of God

Journal

Review & Prayer

Take time to review this past week’s Bible passages, as well as your journals and DT reflections. Afterwards write a prayer of thanksgiving, repentance, and commitment in response.

By gracepoint
April 8, 2021

Portraits of God

Journal

Bible Passage: Psalm 34

Of David, when he changed his behavior before Abimelech,

so that he drove him out, and he went away.

1 I will bless the Lord at all times;

    his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

2 My soul makes its boast in the Lord;

    let the humble hear and be glad.

3 Oh, magnify the Lord with me,

    and let us exalt his name together!

4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me

    and delivered me from all my fears.

5 Those who look to him are radiant,

    and their faces shall never be ashamed.

6 This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him

    and saved him out of all his troubles.

7 The angel of the Lord encamps

    around those who fear him, and delivers them.

8 Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!

    Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

9 Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints,

    for those who fear him have no lack!

10 The young lions suffer want and hunger;

    but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.

11 Come, O children, listen to me;

    I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

12 What man is there who desires life

    and loves many days, that he may see good?

13 Keep your tongue from evil

    and your lips from speaking deceit.

14 Turn away from evil and do good;

    seek peace and pursue it.

15 The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous

    and his ears toward their cry.

16 The face of the Lord is against those who do evil,

    to cut off the memory of them from the earth.

17 When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears

    and delivers them out of all their troubles.

18 The Lord is near to the brokenhearted

    and saves the crushed in spirit.

19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous,

    but the Lord delivers him out of them all.

20 He keeps all his bones;

    not one of them is broken.

21 Affliction will slay the wicked,

    and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.

22 The Lord redeems the life of his servants;

none of those who take refuge in him will be

condemned.

 

Questions to help us go deeper

Reflect on the portrait of God depicted in these passages.

  • What is He like?

  • Reflect on the ways you have experienced this aspect of God.

  • Are there ways that your current view of God needs to be corrected or refined through today’s passage?

  • Praise God for who He is.

Prayer

 

By gracepoint
April 7, 2021

Portraits of God

Journal

Bible Passage: Exodus 20:1-17

1 And God spoke all these words, saying,

2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

3 “You shall have no other gods before me.

4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

13 “You shall not murder.

14 “You shall not commit adultery.

15 “You shall not steal.

16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

Questions to help us go deeper

Reflect on the portrait of God depicted in these passages.

  • What is He like?
  • Reflect on the ways you have experienced this aspect of God.
  • Are there ways that your current view of God needs to be corrected or refined through today’s passage?
  • Praise God for who He is.

Prayer

 

By carmenhsu
April 6, 2021

Portraits of God

Journal

Bible Passage: Exodus 3:1-12

1 Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.

3 And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.”

4 When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5 Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6 And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

7 Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9 And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. 10 Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” 11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” 12 He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”

Questions to help us go deeper

Reflect on the portrait of God depicted in these passages.

  • What is He like?
  • Reflect on the ways you have experienced this aspect of God.
  • Are there ways that your current view of God needs to be corrected or refined through today’s passage?
  • Praise God for who He is.

Prayer

By gracepoint
April 5, 2021

Portraits of God

Journal

Bible Passage: Psalm 32

A Maskil of David.

1 Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,

    whose sin is covered.

2 Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity,

    and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

3 For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away

    through my groaning all day long.

4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;

    my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah

5 I acknowledged my sin to you,

    and I did not cover my iniquity;

  I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”

    and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah

6 Therefore let everyone who is godly

    offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found;

  surely in the rush of great waters,

    they shall not reach him.

7 You are a hiding place for me;

    you preserve me from trouble;

    you surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah

8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;

    I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

9 Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding,

    which must be curbed with bit and bridle,

    or it will not stay near you.

10 Many are the sorrows of the wicked,

    but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.

11 Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous,

    and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!

Questions to help us go deeper

Reflect on the portrait of God depicted in these passages.

  • What is He like?
  • Reflect on the ways you have experienced this aspect of God.
  • Are there ways that your current view of God needs to be corrected or refined through today’s passage?
  • Praise God for who He is.

Prayer

By gracepoint
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