Day 28 – Darkness Must Flee!

Devotional for Day 28 – 2 Sept 2013

Reflection by Debra Monterosso (America), Prayer by Dr. Glenda Lattimore (Australia)
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Reprinted with permission of Pastor Jeff Daly – Comments to jdalylaw@aol.com

Intention: As Christians living within a dark culture that promotes death, we need to move our light out into the open. We need to move from the shadows into the light of God’s truth.

Scripture: Give glory to the LORD your God, before he causes darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while you look for light, he turns it into the shadow of death, and makes it gross darkness (Jeremiah 13:16 KJV).

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me (Psalm 23:4 KJV).

Reflection: DEATH…to some it sounds so finite, scary and dark. In our ‘Culture of Death’ life is not highly valued. Through abortion, our culture seeks to exalt personal ‘convenience’ over the life of another. Through euthanasia it seeks to rid itself of the weakest among us. Through marriage re-definition, it seeks to remove the life potential that comes from the union of a man and a woman.

Jesus came so we can have LIFE and have it more ABUNDANTLY (John 10:10). So it is not enough to say Jesus came to bring us LIFE – He came to bring us LIFE in ABUNDANCE. If you want to see the Devil’s fingerprints on society…look for death in a life lived with no abundance but instead with ‘paucity’ (or poverty). What does this look like? Mother Teresa said it well: “It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”

Truly, the Church has been the ‘Walking Dead’ in terms of our societal apathy to this mindset. We have elevated one individual’s life over the significance of another. This is the exact opposite mindset of the Christian life which should seek to consider oneself as less important than another and to pour out oneself in sacrifice to God, family and society.

LIFE…Christ uses the parable of a seed dying in order to release the potential for many seeds. He said, “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.  But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (John 12:24). Once we give our human secularist mindset over to God, He will take the horror from death and turn it into a sprouting seed for new LIFE. Darkness and death must flee in the face of the Son and His promise for new LIFE. For the repentant Christian…

It’s time to die!

Prayer: Lord, please keep our hearts pure before You as we read of these sins. Fill our hearts with mercy for “they know not what they do”. We know too that we are all equally in sin without Your saving grace. But we join with You, Lord, in grieving over these sins, and we minister to You in Your grief as our Elohim God, the Creator and Giver of all life. 

Heavenly Father, please lead us in Your way in dismantling the labyrinths of Satan in our laws and culture. We repent for the sins of these lawless ones Lord, and ask that You bind every demonic power and cleanse and redeem us all with the blood of Jesus.

Please turn the hearts of everyone back to You, Lord, by the power of Your Holy Spirit. May the spiritually blind see, the spiritually deaf hear, the spiritually lame walk, and the spiritually dead be resurrected into New Life.  Amen.