The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9
Recommended Reading: 1 TIMOTHY 2:1-7 “ I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— 2 for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3 This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. 7 And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a true and faithful teacher of the Gentiles.
COMMENTS:
A leper approached Jesus and said, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” Jesus touched the man, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed”—and he was healed (Mark 1:40-42).
II Peter 3:8-10 “8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”
Satan tempts us to believe evil in the world and sickness and death and hardship and tragedy with good and not so good people alike is evidence that God either does not exist or is indifferent or unable to prevent or heal / remove such hardships and tragedies and difficulties. The bible is full of examples of longsuffering – delaying judgment or intervening to heal or cure the sick and afflicted. Longsuffering in stopping evil and expediting good. Satan is good at deceiving us into believing that the world’s problems are God’s fault for not doing His job. BUT THE FAULT DOESN’T LIE WITH GOD BUT WITH SATAN! Sickness and death and misery and evil inflicted on good people are all inspired and empowered by satan and his demon angels.
God allows evil to flourish for a time because He gives all His creatures free choice to choose Him or to follow satan’s temptations. He warns us and enables us to resist temptation and discern good from evil, but He will not force His Will or desires on us. We must choose to follow Him and His wise council. We must seek His help during weaknesses in order to receive strength to overcome. He desires our love and faithfulness because we want to, not because of compelling “have to”. Love never works by force, but only by free will. Love never works by deception or trickery or intimidation or scare methods.
But history repeatedly proves to us that God will not tolerate evil to go unrestrained at all and will not allow evil to flourish even within boundaries forever. Yes, He may allow such for longer than we prefer or would do if given option. No, but that is because God is longsuffering, even working hard to give even seasoned evil doers’ opportunities to repent. Consider examples like even Nebuchadnezzar repeated warning to repent until he finally did. You see, God has an eternal perspective and is working hard so all have opportunity to discover Him and repent and receive forgiveness through Jesus’ blood. Consider how many times you ignored or delayed His nudge to repent but He came back again and again until you finally surrendered. What if He had only offered once? You and I would still be lost in our sins.
Sure, there are some so evil that we would not consider them a mission field or worthy of Christ’s mercy. But based on God’s standard and Christ’s perfect example, NO ONE INCLUDING YOU AND ME ARE WORTHY! God didn’t lower His standard to include us. He provided a way to make us worthy by what He did and not by what we did or do. No, we are still not worthy. But the is the beauty of the Gospel. No one gets special privilege. We all have same opportunity and same gift of eternal life and heaven. Not by deed but only by accepting His Gift of redemption. By such, no one can claim to earn or be worthy of God’s favor or attention or His Love. But there is enough of God’s Love for any and all willing to receive it. We just need to give us our selfish – prideful self to make room for His Love and mercy. Stop and think, heaven wouldn’t be nearly as wonderful if we could enter any other way. It is also the only way for God to transform us and prepare us for heaven. Truth is, those denied heaven will only have themselves to blame because they chose that path. But our mission is to give as many as we can as many opportunities as we can. Our words are enough, but our lives give credibility to our words. We must live what we believe and the only way to consistently do that is daily surrendering to Him and seeking His Holy Spirit to continually guide and helps us make wise choices and resist satan’s tricks and schemes. Some are better at doing that than others, but we can only make progress if we make it a goal and focus on that goal even when we fail. Giving up is not an option when times and situations are hard. They’ve always been hard but anything worthwhile usually is, right?
God is willing for any who want to be saved to come to Him (John 6:37; 7:37). The question is never whether God is willing but whether man is willing.
“God is far more willing to save sinners than sinners are to be saved.” J. C. Ryle
If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 440 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/ 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.
My hope and prayer are, my blog and devotional materials 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
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