Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all you who hope in the Lord.
Psalm 31:24
Recommended Reading: ROMANS 3:21-26 “21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”
COMMENTS: We have spoken often of importance of a personal relationship with God both for us and for Him. By receiving Christ as our Savior, we gain not only a personal relationship with Him, but with the Father and with the Holy Spirit. We separate them because each is revealed to us in different ways and purposes, but they are all bonded together as one God. They think and react alike and are constantly in communication with each other. You and I can’t understand such a concept, which only confirms God is not a creation of man’s imagination as other religions. We have the only God who can be comprehended but can be reached. No other religion reveals a God of such love or a god who sacrificed for his creation. Every other god has limits and flaws because he was created out of the imagination of flawed humans. We can’t understand God nor can we understand His ways and timing. Some things we pray for we can know are also His will and be confident He will answer yes. But even then, He may answer “wait” or “not yet” or “Soon” or “later”. The reasons elude us but because we can not understand how our prayers interact and affect others and their prayers us. We can imagine how answering our prayers will impact others nor what preparations He must do in the lives of others first before granting our requests.
Requests like salvation for our loved ones or being a witness to our family and neighbors or co-workers is His Will. Healing diseases and injuries and illness is His desire but since He knows the impact of healing or delayed healing, He very well may withhold healing in order to persuade or bring greater blessing. How often has hardship drawn us closer to Him out of desperation or necessity. How often has good times or peaceful times causes us to forget Him and allow other duties or tasks or people to distract us from needed time with Him.
Well, maybe we can’t fully understand Him, but we can love and trust Him. We can know Him thru the recorded life and conduct of Christ in scripture. We can know Him thru the indwelling Holy Spirit revealing to us His attributes and desires. We can know Him thru His creation and relationship in creation like family and love of a parent for a child. The evil corruption in creation is very evident but God goodness is still very evident too and serves to draw us closer to Him. We should not blame Him for evil. We need to blame the real culprit, satan and his demons. You may have said God could have prevented it but consider importance God puts on free will for His creation. Satan had a choice to follow God or rebel. God allowed satan to tempt the angels in heaven and 1/3 chose to follow satan. We all have such choices to follow satan and make evil stronger in the world or follow Christ and be at war with satan.
He assures us He will return one day and stop satan and bring His kingdom, which rules in heaven, to earth. On that day, evil will be removed from earth and life here will be as God intended and not as satan corrupts.
We serve an awesome God. He is so worthy of our praise and worship. He is so worthy of our devotion and obedience. He gives us far more than He asks of us, and even what He asks of us brings us joy and life. God brings joy and peace and love and life. Be encouraged, present circumstances fool us into thinking bad times will last forever. GOD WILL PREVAIL AND WE HAVE A VERY BRIGHT FUTURE – A FUTURE WITH HIM – A FUTURE THAT WILL NEVER END!! It doesn’t get any better than that even if we only face misery while on earth. But misery is generally brief and followed by peace for a time until next time of trial. Don’t be discouraged, you are not alone. Others face hardship too, but even more. God is always with those who seek Him and let Him abide in them. Look around at those who know this to be true. Notice how well they deal with hardship and conduct their lives. They are not special, they are just walking closer with One who is Very Special!!
“Our salvation is fastened with God’s own hand, and with Christ’s own strength, to the strong stake of God’s unchangeable nature.” Samuel Rutherford
If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 222 blog posts I have made plus a link to my devotional journal material archives from 2013 to present.
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/
My hope and prayer is, they will become a source of encouragement and tools in ministry for you.
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 