Devotionals...Yes or No?

Henry's play school program.
He decided he was itchy.
This kid cracks me up!







What is your mindset today?  

Is it, "I can't" or "I can"?

Is it, "He won't" or "He's Able"?

I love devotionals.  Some people think that using a devotional clouds the mind or it is a diversion from the Bible.  I think of it as a tool that helps me focus and directs my study for a time.  

I started a 31 day devotion on You Version, yesterday.  It is called, Keep Your Love On: Connection.  This morning I woke up with a "can't do" attitude.  My perspective on the day and happenings around me were a bit bleak.  Then I picked up my phone (devotional is on it) and I clicked the icon.  I read, "I can't. "I have to..." These are the hallmark of the powerless person. 

POWERLESS!!  

I am Kimberly VanDyke, I am not powerless.  I am a child of the King.  

As my grandmother would say, "Powerless, my foot!!!".  

The devotional took me to John 5:6-7
When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, "Would you like to get well?"  "I can't, sir," the sick man said, "for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up.  Someone else always gets there ahead of me."  

Isn't that just like us?  We have the healer standing right in front of us but we don't recognize Him.  We are too busy looking at the bleak circumstances in front of us, we don't see HIM.  Thank God we don't always have to see our miracle coming.  Jesus didn't wait on this man to make a declaration, He healed him.  Verse 8 says, Jesus told him, "Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!"

Amazing, the man was healed, instantly (v 9).  He did as Jesus said and he began walking.  

God has given us the authority in our own lives to bind, lose, pray. 
Matthew 18:19, 20 NLT
"I also tell you this: If two of you agree here on earth concerning anything you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you.  For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them."  
Such a great promise.  Powerless, not at all.  

I know who I am.  This devotional opened my eyes this morning.  I went a little further than the devotional and that's why I use this tool.  God can use the words of people I have never met to lift me out of the "poor me" mentality.  

So instead of "I can't", it's "I can"!

My day is starting to look up.  

An imperfect heart in the pavement outside my house.
Love it when God sends me heart.