Transformed by Truth

Scriptures: John 3:16, Romans 5:6-8

The Truth About God’s Love

As young women in today’s society, we go through many different seasons of change. Whenever we experience big life changes, it can be easy to let our relationship with God fall farther down our list of priorities. I encourage you to dive into God’s word and be reminded of his love for you so that no matter what changes come, your faith in Christ will not be shaken. A person rooted in Christ is like a tree in a great storm. Though the tree may bend and sway, it will not break because its roots are firmly planted in the ground! 

The enemy wants you to believe that you have to earn God’s love through good works, but the Bible tells us that the gift of God’s love and grace is free! God loves you so much that he sent his son to earth to die a horrific and gruesome death on your behalf. He made that sacrifice to create a way for us to spend eternity with him. Not only that, but he continues to show us mercy today, even though we still continue to sin against him every day. His love is unconditional! If you are reading this devotional, there is a good chance you’ve already heard this story before. Maybe you’ve already accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Still, I think it is important that we take time to remind ourselves of how amazing our God is for making such a huge sacrifice for sinners like you and me who could never possibly deserve a thing like that. 

Pray – Give thanks to God for all the love and mercy that he has shown us even though we do not deserve any of it. Ask him to show you reminders of his love throughout your day today.

Scriptures: Psalms 139:14, 2 Corinthians 12:9

The Truth About Loving Yourself

Young Christians can easily be their own worst enemies at times by consistently beating themselves down for their failures. Oftentimes, we try to live as perfectionists in a fallen world by dotting every “i” and crossing every “t”, only to ultimately fall short in the end. Eventually, we hit a breaking point when we realize that no matter how hard we try, we will never be good enough. The enemy wants us to think that our worth is tied to our success, which is simply not the case. It’s true that we will never be good enough on our own… but we know that we are made in the image of God and his power is made perfect in weakness! So while our faults may make us look weak in the eyes of man, God only sees an opportunity to use us for his glory. He loves us and wants to use us despite our flaws! 

If the God of the universe, who knows no sin, can love a sinner like you unconditionally, then why can’t you do the same for yourself? My hope is that you will let go of your desire to be perfect and take on an attitude of humility and grace, choosing to love yourself each day despite your imperfections. I know from first-hand experience the immense weight that will be lifted off of your shoulders if you choose to do this. Spending time in God’s word can help you to better understand his love for you, which will naturally begin to influence how you treat yourself. When you see yourself through God’s eyes, you don’t have to constantly worry about being perfect all the time. You get to take your focus off of yourself and start channeling all of that mental energy on loving others! God desires for you to love yourself just as you are and also respect yourself enough to want to strive to be more like Jesus. 

Pray – Ask God to help you see yourself through his eyes so that you may show yourself the same level of grace and love that he has for you.

Scriptures: Psalms 37:7, James 4:8, Luke 10:38-42

The Truth About Being Still

Growing up, I really struggled to spend time with God on a daily basis. Most times when I would skip over reading my bible or praying, it was because I didn’t actually feel worthy of being in his presence. Even to this day, I have this weird tendency where I feel like my bedroom has to be perfectly clean before I can even think about starting my quiet time. There is something so difficult for me about sitting in the middle of a messy room and trying to focus on God. All I want to do is get up and start cleaning, while he wants me to stay still. 

We as Christians often do the same thing in our daily lives. When a problem arises in our finances, relationships, work environments, or personal lives, we want to take control of the situation and fix it on our own so that we can feel proud enough to show God how good of a job we did. This approach is dangerous because it can cause us to miss out on the rewards that come from going about things God’s way. God doesn’t want us to spend our energy trying to fix our problems all by ourselves. He wants us to draw near to him, lean on him, find rest in him, and keep our eyes solely fixed on him. 

Inviting God into your mess can be intimidating, but he only sees an opportunity to strengthen your relationship with him. The battle of the perfectionist is learning that it’s okay to come before God even in messy moments. Remember that Christ’s power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). You don’t have to be perfect to earn God’s approval. He adores you just as you are. All you have to do is step away from the distractions of this life that the enemy has laid before you and be still in his presence. 

Challenge: Read the story of Mary and Martha. Notice how Jesus says that Mary chose “the good portion” by sitting at the feet of Jesus rather than worrying with other distractions like her sister.

Scriptures: 2 Timothy 3:16-17, John 15:26, Matthew 5:14-16, Jeremiah 1:4-19

The Truth About Being Prepared

We might talk ourselves out of sharing about Jesus with others because we feel like we are unqualified. The enemy tries to make us feel like we can’t pour into others because we aren’t close enough to God ourselves. In these moments, we have to remind ourselves that being a Christian is not about trying to live for God on our own strength, it’s about letting him live through us. Meaning that God never intended for us to enter the narrow gate alone (Matthew 7:14). Instead, he desires to walk alongside us and give us the wisdom necessary to complete the plans he has for us. After Jesus ascended into heaven, God sent us the Holy Spirit as a gift for us to depend on! Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, meaning that God’s spirit is always with you and will fill you with the right words to say when the time comes. 

The bottom line is that we need to step aside and let God use us. Stop getting in your own way by trying so hard to be perfect and righteous all by yourself. Instead, lean on Christ and let him use your imperfections for his glory! 

Pray: Ask God to fill you with the Holy Spirit so that you may be equipped for every good work that he asks of you. 

Challenge: Read Jeremiah chapter 1 and see firsthand how God can equip someone who feels like they aren’t qualified to be used by God.

Scriptures: Ephesians 5:15-16, James 4:14-15

The Truth About Your Time

Too often I find myself feeling like a failure at the end of the day because in my mind I did not manage my time “well enough.” I may have run out of time to go to the gym that day, I may have accidentally fallen asleep while studying, or I may have missed my morning quiet time with God. In these moments, I have to remind myself that life is far too unpredictable for anyone to be able to manage their time perfectly. What matters most is not how well you manage your time, it’s what you do with the time you are given. God gave us our time here on earth as a gift. If you truly want to use it for his glory, then you are going to have to give up your control over it. 

So maybe instead of focusing on how I failed myself by skipping the gym, I can be proud of myself for the vulnerable conversation that I had with my mentor at lunch that day. When you give your time over to God, you have to accept that things aren’t always going to go your way. You have to trust that his plan is better than your own! 

As young women with busy schedules, it can be very easy to fall into a habit of going through the motions of our daily lives by simply checking off boxes on our to-do lists. God did not intend for us to live life this way. He desires for us to give him our time so that he may take it and use it to complete his work. He wants us to be intentional in everything that we do! When you try to hold on to all of your time and manage it on your own, you will only find yourself feeling overwhelmed and defeated. But when you surrender your time to the Lord’s will, he will use every bit of it for his glory! 

Takeaway: 

Lie: I am a failure because I struggle to manage my time well. 

Truth: My time on earth is a gift, and God is still working in me and using me even in the moments that don’t happen according to my plan.

Scriptures: Colossians 3:23-24, 1 Corinthians 10:31, Mark 12:41-44

The Truth About Motivation

Whenever I babysit, I often find myself having to bribe kids to convince them to behave. For example, I’ll tell a group of siblings that they can only have dessert after dinner if they can make it the entire day without fighting… Most of the time, this method works great, and the kids are super well-behaved! I leave the day thinking that we’ve made a lot of progress in improving their behavior, but then the next time I watch them, they are just out of control as before. Why is this? It’s because this time they didn’t have any incentive to motivate them. Turns out, while my reward system worked well to improve the kids’ behavior, it did nothing to improve their character. 

You and I are a lot like this. Oftentimes, we too need rewards and incentives to motivate us to go the extra mile. There is nothing wrong with a healthy dose of motivation, but sometimes we need to check our hearts and evaluate where that source of motivation is coming from. We need to ask ourselves, “Am I working to glorify God, or am I just trying to make myself look good?”

It can be very easy to do good things for the wrong reasons because in most cases, no outside person could possibly know whether or not our heart is in the right place. I know I caught myself several times early on in college doing good things simply because I wanted my peers to like me, or because I was seeking validation from my professors. Just like the little kids that I babysit, my behavior was good, but my character, and more specifically, my integrity, was lacking. The definition of integrityis to do the right thing even when no one else is watching. The next time you go out of your way to do something good for others, consider checking your heart first by asking yourself, “Would I still be willing to do this thing even if no one else knew about it?”. 

Challenge: Read the story of the Widow’s Offering found in Mark 12:41-44. Consider the question, are you truly giving God the best of what you have to offer like the Widow did? Or are you simply contributing what you know will look good in the eyes of others?

Scriptures: Philippians 4:4-8, Proverbs 16:9, Romans 8:5-6, Romans 8:28

The Truth About Anxiety

The years when you transition out of childhood and into adulthood can be a very overwhelming and anxious time. Many young women go into new experiences with high expectations and then find themselves feeling totally helpless when things don’t go the way they planned or don’t satisfy them like they thought they would. Anxiety is a very prevalent issue within our culture these days. The truth is that anxiety is the natural result of what happens when we put our trust in anything short of God’s plan for our life. When we put our trust in God’s plan, we will never have any reason to worry that things won’t go our way… because we have already decided beforehand that we want things to go his way! 

I can think back on so many times in my life when I wasted energy worrying myself to death over how something would work out only to find that God had a perfect plan all along. Chances are, you can probably relate! Romans 8:28 tells us that God works all things together for good for those who love the Lord. When we set our doubts and fears aside and truly believe that, that is when we can finally find the peace that surpasses all understanding! God provides peace to those who set their focus on him rather than on the world. I once heard a worship leader say it best when she said that “repentance” is really just another word for agreeing with God. My prayer is that you will repent from your worries and agree with God when he promises that he has everything under control! 

Challenge: Make a list of things in your life that you frequently find yourself worrying over. Pray and ask God to help you let go of those fears and trust his plan instead.

Scriptures: Philippians 4:11-13, Matthew 6:19-21, Acts 16:25-34

The Truth About Joy

The world will tell you that your purpose in life is to find something that makes you happy and chase after it. Happiness is the goal. Unfortunately, so many people go through life chasing after the things of this world only to realize that nothing is ever enough to satisfy them in the long term. The truth is, happiness is a temporary feeling. No matter how hard you try, it just doesn’t last forever. You will have days when the things that once made you happy don’t satisfy you like they used to. Joy, however, is different from happiness because it is not just a feeling, rather, it is a state of mind. To have joy means to be content in all circumstances. In a world where so many things seem to go wrong, it can be hard to find joy. That is why we have to lean on Christ and trust that he will satisfy the desires of our heart. 

One way to find joy in unfortunate circumstances is to recognize things that you have to be grateful for. Taking time to be grateful redirects our hearts by reminding us of where all of our blessings come from. One of my favorite hymns is, Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus, because I love the line that says, “and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.” It’s true that when we keep our eyes focused on our provider, the things that we lack begin to lose importance to us because we realize all we have to be grateful for. 

Pray: Pray and ask God to supply your sense of joy even when things don’t go your way. This won’t be easy at first, but over time your natural thought process will begin to change, and choosing joy will become easier and easier. 

Challenge: Read the story of Paul and Silas in prison in Acts 16:25-34. Notice how the other prisoners were listening to them as they praised God. This shows how choosing joy can influence others in a positive way!

Scriptures: John 15:5, Galatians 5:22, 2 Peter 1:3-11

The Truth About Abiding in Christ

The definition of the word abide is “to accept or act in accordance with.” In order to act in accordance with something, you have to focus on it. Where your focus lies will determine the thoughts you entertain, and those thoughts will influence the decisions you make. Therefore, in order to abide in Christ, it is imperative that you keep your focus on him above all else. 

As Christians, we are in constant spiritual warfare with the enemy, even when we don’t realize it. Satan knows exactly how to plant seeds of doubt in our minds that distract us from the truth, leaving us more vulnerable to our temptations. Have you ever noticed how when you tell a little kid they aren’t allowed to do something, they typically can’t seem to get that thing out of their head and eventually just have to do it? The same thing can happen to us. When we put so much focus on the things we know we aren’t supposed to do, we can lose sight of why we shouldn’t do those things, and end up doing them anyway! So rather than focusing all of our energy on conquering our sins, we should abide in the vine and allow him to transform the fruit that we produce. Jesus promises that if you walk by the Spirit, you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. (Galatians 5:16) 

To bear the fruits of the Spirit in your life, you have to put Jesus first! If you try to live righteously all on your own, you will risk missing out on the amazing relationship with the Lord that he has for you. One that is free of the shame and frustration that comes from trying to reap eternal life by ineffectively sowing to your own flesh. (Galatians 6:8) 

Bottom Line: In order for the branch to bear fruit, it must stay connected to the vine. Remember that Jesus is the source of all love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. 

Challenge: Read all of 2 Peter 1:3-11. Give thanks to God for “his divine power has granted us all things that pertain to life and godliness.”

Scriptures: 1 Corinthians 10:13, John 16:33, Matthew 4:1-11

The Truth About Temptation

You may have it said that, “God won’t give you anything you can’t handle.” This saying comes from a verse found in 1 Corinthians. The verse reads, “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.” People often like to take this verse out of context and run with it, neglecting the second half of the verse. If you look closely, you will see that the next half reads, “but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape”. This means that God will never give you anything that you and he can’t handle TOGETHER. Our way of escape from temptation is found in him! It’s not something we find on our own strength. Therefore, we can find hope in knowing that we serve a God that doesn’t leave us to fight our battles alone. He knows the way out! All we have to do is trust in him and let him guide us to victory. 

Notice the first line of 1 Cor. 10:13 which reads, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.” That means that you are not alone in your struggle! Remember that there is no shame in being tempted by sin, even Jesus was tempted while he was here on earth. Sometimes God allows us to be tempted by sin so that we can be reminded of our need for him. What matters isn’t what you are tempted by, it’s how you respond to the temptation. Will you give in? Or will you die unto yourself and your fleshly desires and choose to do things God’s way instead? 

Challenge: Read the story of Jesus being tempted in Matthew 4:1-11. Notice how Jesus uses scripture to fight off temptation. Consider what verses you can cling to when you are tempted.

Scriptures: James 1:2-3, Romans 5:3, Acts 9:1-19

The Truth About Growth

The story of Paul’s conversion is found in Acts chapter 9. This story recounts one of the biggest spiritual transformations recorded in the Bible. Before Paul’s infamous missionary journey began, he despised Christians and even plotted to murder them. It was on the road to Damascus that the Lord blinded him and confronted him for his evil doings. In verses 15-16, God tells Ananias, a follower of Jesus, that Paul was a “chosen instrument” and that he would have to suffer for the sake of proclaiming Jesus’ name. During Ananias’ visit with Paul, the Bible says that scales fell from Paul’s eyes, restoring his sight, and that he regained his strength and was baptized. 

Growth is not easy. Really, it’s probably one of the most uncomfortable processes a person can ever go through. And the funny thing about it is that you normally never even realize you are growing until after you have come out of it. Still, as believers, growth is vital to our walk with Christ. It’s how he transforms us to become more like him. So whenever you are feeling a little bit of pressure in your life, or feel like you are being squeezed, you can find hope in knowing that you’re growing! 

Paul had to literally go blind to grow into the person that God had called him to be. His transformation perfectly exemplifies how suffering eventually produces character, which produces hope! 

Challenge: Ask God to either place you in an environment or surround you with people that will stimulate growth in your life. Chances are, the process will be super uncomfortable, but the outcome will leave you thankful and with a greater perspective on life than you had before.

Scriptures: Hebrews 4:12, Psalms 119:105, Matthew 4:4

The Truth About Reading Your Bible

I’ll be the first to say it, reading the Bible is hard. It’s something that I neglected to do for a long time. In the earlier days of my walk with Jesus, I didn’t read my Bible primarily because I wasn’t really aware of the benefit that can come from reading scripture. Once I finally did start reading my Bible regularly, it was mostly out of moral obligation because I felt like it was something I was “supposed” to do to be a good Christian. Still, I didn’t really understand what I was reading or what I was meant to get out of it. 

Last year, I went through a period where I was disappointed over something that didn’t go my way, and I found myself thinking things like, “Maybe God changed his plan?…” It was at that moment that the Holy Spirit convicted me, and opened my eyes to realize that I had been making lots of overgeneralized assumptions about God’s character that weren’t at all based in scripture. I knew that if I wanted to know God better, I needed to get deeper in the word. 

I like to think of the Bible as a love letter from God to us. He gave it to us as a gift to help us know him better and also know how we are meant to walk in his ways. By reading scripture, we have the opportunity to learn from other people’s mistakes and victories. Most importantly, we have the opportunity to understand firsthand the passion of Christ and know just how much he loves us. The world will tell you that the Bible is an ancient document and therefore not applicable to today’s society. The truth is, the word of God is living and active. It is just as applicable today as it was when it was written. The Bible is our sword of the Spirit. It’s how we fight against the tactics of the enemy and have discernment over the intentions of our hearts. 

Challenge: Read 1 Timothy 4:6-16. Recognize the value in training yourself for godliness. Continue to do so by spending time in God’s word each and every day!