Acts 11:9-14 ‘The voice spoke from heaven a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to heaven again. Right then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house. He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, “Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.”‘ COMMENTS : Peter required a lot of work and preparation from God before he could be usable. Jesus invested 3 years but even that wasn’t enough. In spite of being with Christ for 3 years, he still was not ready to risk death for Him on Good Friday. Even after the Holy Spirit came and Peter began preaching the Gospel, he still had some lingering prejudices against his gentile captors. Aren’t you glad God chose for His sacrifice and message to apply to Gentiles as well as Jews? To men and women of all colors and nationalities and backgrounds? AMEN. Truth is Jews were not a chosen race for privilege or for blessing but for outreach. God chose the Jews to be His evangelists. What would the world be like now if they had been faithful to their calling. Even when God gave Abraham His covenant the promise to those He would evangelize. Read Genesis 12:1-3 “Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” Abraham was to tell and show the world what God was like and covenant available to them too if they would receive God’s message. Yes, what would the world be like if Abraham would have waited til God fulfilled His promise instead of taking matters in his own hands with Ishmael through Hagar. What if he had shared God’s message instead of just seeking his own gain. What if the world would have accepted that message instead of fighting it? Well, every generation has had the same opportunity and so do we. What would our country be like if revival came? What would our world be like? It starts with God’s people “II Chron 7:14 – “14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”” We can blame others but God is making us accountable for our own choices and actions. Revival starts with us but will not end with us if we are obedient to His calling. The Good News is past failures and sins need not prevent future revival in our hearts as well as in our communities – country – world. The choice is still ours. Past experience indicates revival comes when times are at their worst and when sin is the strongest and worst. Truth likely is things just have to get bad enough before people wake up and realize just what they have lost and come back to God seeking forgiveness and healing. God will not come to us uninvited. So it really is up to us. If we seek God to revive us and make us a usable vessel, than revival will come to us and the possibility and hope of that revival spreading to the lost begins to happen. True they, like we, must make their own choices but how can they if we are still harboring sin and disobedience in our hearts. God does use imperfect servants for His purpose but there are some pre-requisites He requires of His servants. They must surrender to Him and allow Him into their souls to cleanse and guide them. Until we do that, we are the mission field instead of being His missionaries. So which are you and which do you want to be. There is no other choice or place. We are either a mission field or a missionary. We are either lost or found. What could we give up that would bring better gain? NOTHING ! Scripture and past generations are shouting NOTHING IS MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOD’S PRESENCE AND BLESSING!!
Published by donsdevotions
Don McDaniel - Who am I?
Hello everyone and welcome to my devotional journal blog. In order to get acquainted and help you get to know me a bit better before considering following my blog, let me give you some background. I am a 74-year-old male and a retired engineer. I worked for a major supplier of underground mining equipment for nearly 40 years before retiring in 2012. Arlene and I have been happily married since April 1978 and have two grown – married children, one granddaughter and 2 step grandsons. I joined the local United Methodist church at age 12 after accepting Christ as my Savior at age 10 during revival services in that same church in 1961, so I have been a “Born Again” Christian all my teen years and adult life. Christ has helped and guided me all that time. He guided me in choosing my wife and life’s career. My life journey has included regrets and failures, but God has picked me up and protected and spared me from life threatening consequences and dangers more times than I can recall or count. But many I do recall and encourage and motivate me to trust and follow Christ with more passion than ever.
Christmas 2011 our daughter gave Arlene and I each a devotional journal. Journals were books with devotion for each day and space to give personal impressions and thoughts related to each devotion. Her desire was to have a lasting legacy she could refer back to and share with her children and grandchildren especially after we are gone. I was touched by that gesture. My parents and Arlene’s were devout Christians, so we would have greatly treasured having that from them, so we felt a sense of urgency to honor her request. I finished my journal first and returned it to our daughter the following Christmas. I’m glad I did it then because Parkinson’s has caused my hand writing to deteriorate since then. The exercise was such a blessing for me. Discipline of keeping journal helped me gain a deeper walk with Christ and greater discipline in honoring my time of prayer and devotion with Him each day. So, I decided to continue the practice but since I could not find a paper journal I liked, I decided to create my own. I had already been receiving electronic devotions by email every day from several sources, my favorite being “Turning Point” from Dr. David Jeremiah. What I decided to do was to include devotional scripture but add my own thoughts and comments only so there would be no issue of copyright infringement. Creating and maintaining journal by computer also addressed my deteriorating handwriting ability. I started an electronic devotion journal January 1, 2013 and have been faithful to that practice every day since. I prayed about method and level of distribution. My initial intent was to only share it with my two children by email, but quickly discovered others in my family, my church, and friends from work (both retired and still working) who knew me and wanted to be included in distribution when they learned what I was doing. I now distribute by email my daily journal at the beginning of each month to over 150 friends and relatives. God has richly blessed and encouraged me.
I am concerned with the state of our church and nation, and world for that matter, believing we are living in the end times the prophets of old and Christ have talked about in scripture, so time is short. I desire to be true to my Savior and a witness to help others come to a saving knowledge of Him and equipped to share His Good News too. If my journal can encourage and help others, I believe God wants me to share it. I struggled, for a time at first, because I know many others keep similar journals but only for their own edification and do not want to share them because they are private.
However, Christ has stirred my heart to share it as a witness tool.
Our son and daughter have a long-time friend who grew up with them who we also befriended nearly 25 years ago. He had a lot of family problems, so would gravitate to our family as a refuge and eventually thought of us as his adopted parents and he as our adopted son. We lost contact with him for some time when he grew up and left home. He traveled around the U.S. and eventually ended up in Ukraine where he resided for next 10 years. He had to return to the US to renew his visa and took opportunity to recommend I begin a blog of my devotions and helped me set it up. He is also an active blogger and has been an email subscriber to my journal for several months, so he has been suggesting I expand my distribution by starting a blog to get broader exposure. After reflection and prayer, I concluded God was in this, so he is helping me set up my blog site. This brief autobiography is my first entry.
He returned to Ukraine, then resided there until circumstanced made him decide to move back to US with his young son. This biography was my first post February 29, 2016 .
I have published 600 posts from 2016-2023 automatically sent to all my Facebook friends, published on WordPress to be accessible to anyone curious or seeking a deeper walk with God. I decided to take a sebatical to prepare for a new chapter. In 2014 I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease which affects patient ability to walk, drive, do physical work, and eventually talk. By mid 2023 it became evident our home for last 42 years (previously owned by my parents for previous 44 years and by my mother's grandparents for 39 years before that) would eventually not meet my needs so we decided to sell it and move into 1st floor of a duplex we also owned that was the town school from 1855-1913. Likewise, the property was requiring more maintenance that I was no longer able to keep up with. 2023 involved selling our home and moving into apartment next door and then in early 2025 an opportunity to move closer to our daughter and granddaughter in Kentucky which was completed in May 2025. For a number of months I have been seeking direction seeking God's direction and timing to return to blogging as my journey with Parkinson's continues to unfold with God's guiding hand in mine.
I hope and pray my devotions will continue to be a blessing for you. God certainly has become closer and more real to me since started this blog in 2016. I have spent time with Him studying scripture and praying and listening and writing this journal. I will continue seeking God’s help and will welcome your input to make this site as meaningful as I can and true to God, who is motivating me to create and maintain it. I will also welcome input in order to make format more meaningful going forward.
Don & Arlene McDaniel
In His Service,
Email: mcdanieldonald769@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Don1951
If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 600+ blog posts I have made plus a link to my devotional journal material archives from 2013 to present (https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com/2016/03/02/link-to-dons-devotional-journal-entries-2013/ )
You may also access my Facebook page and request to be my friend and automatically receive my daily journal publications daily. My Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/Dondevotionals/ Many thanks to a pastor and dear brother in Christ in Nepal who set up the above Facebook page to help and encourage and give opportunity for more to explore and use my devotional blog materials. View all posts by donsdevotions
donsdevotions 
Thank you very much brother Don for this devotion.May God continue doing good work in you.
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¿Qué tal?
Me parece muy lograda tu veredicto sobre este proyecto.
Desde hace ya tiempo me encuentro muy motivado con esto e intento aclararme un poco
las dudas sobre este tema. La participación que has producido me
ha semejado muy agradable, sin embargo creo que se podría indagar un poco más y de igual modo
poder disipar diversas dudas que aún estimo.
De todas maneras, mil gracias por tu colaboración.
Estaré interesado a próximas difusiones que ejerzas.
Muchas gracias.
Un saludo.
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Thank you for your comments. I invite you to read my other blog posts and possible to access my archived files through the older post called “Link to Outreach Resources + Don’s Devotional Journals 2013-2016” You may use and share as wish. I am afraid I was not able to read your comment but translated it to English by a word translator. If you have other concerns or need for clarification, i invite you to contact me directly and, if possible, to converse in English if can. My email address is “dmcdaniel12@verizon.netL”
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