Blog Archives - Toni Writing for The Master

DAILY DEVOTION

7/30/2021

Worship

Toni Smothers

Scripture Reading for the day: Isaiah 2:1-22

Scripture Quote: “And after his care, he uses part of the wood to make a fire to warm himself and bake his bread. Then – yes, it’s true – he takes the rest of it and makes himself a god for people to worship! He makes and idol and bows down and praises it! Then he takes what is left and makes his god: a carved idol! He say, you are my god!”” Isaiah 44:15 (NLT)

            Imagine how sad our heavenly Father must be as he watches us worship all kinds of things other than Him. God is the one who created us, who we ultimately trust and who we look to for security and happiness. We know that He is in charge of our future, yet, knowing all this, we still worship our jobs, our salaries, other people, or whatever, and think more often of them than our Almighty God. Who but a fool would make his own god who can’t possible help with real life issues?

            We should be proud of belonging to God. He deserves all honor and glory and praise. God sent His only son and sacrificed His life, so that we might have life. He has loved us with an insurmountable love. False gods can’t love us and redeem us from our sins. God is the one and only true God and He deserves all of our love and reverence.

Meditation for today: You can stand in the approval of God again - Admit to God that you have made a mistake and tell Him how much you love Him.

Memory Verse: “Jesus replied, You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.” Matthew 22:37 (NLT)

DAILY DEVOTION

7/29/2021

Worry

Toni Smothers

Scripture Reading for the day: Isaiah 41:11-20

Scripture Quote: “God the LORD, created the heavens and stretched them out. He created the earth and everything in it. He gives breath and life to everyone in the world.” Isaiah 42:5 (NLT)

            Do you find yourself sometimes worrying over your circumstances? Did you realize that worrying is sinful? As Christians we must surrender all our concerns to our heavenly Father. He can solve any problem you can give Him - God delivers. When He makes a promise, he keeps it. He is completely trustworthy. He wants to take you to new levels in your life as you hand more and more of your concerns over to Him.

            We must learn to squelch our tendency to be independent and self-reliant. In a society that verbally and monetarily rewards these behaviors, it’s hard to see these traits as less than admirable. When you abide by the world’s rules and deal with things on your own strength, you will eventually face the fact that you are worried over things you have no power to change. God will let you suppose that you have control of those problems, but you will always suffer the consequence of choosing to worry. Until you relinquish total control, God will not take it from you. Why not give Him everything and begin living the abundant life He has for you.

Meditation for today: Relinquish all things into God’s loving care.

Memory Verse: “Don’t be afraid for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.” Isaiah 41:10 (NLT)

DAILY DEVOTION

7/28/2021

Weakness

Toni Smothers

Scripture Reading for the day: John 21:1-25

Scripture Quote: “After breakfast Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon son of John, do you love me more than these? Yes Lord, Peter replied, you know I love you. Then feed my lambs, Jesus told him.” John 21:15 (NLT)

            Would you pick a person that doubted you and betrayed you to be one of your best friends - Probably not? Jesus did and, no matter how often they disappointed Him, He always forgave them. In the end, He placed them in charge of His church. Seems hard to believe that Jesus couldn’t find more suitable or reliable people to represent him - But that’s really the point, we are all unsuitable and unreliable. We just fool ourselves into thinking that we aren’t that bad, that our walk with the Lord isn’t often shaky at best.

            But Jesus loves us just as much at He did Peter. He sticks with us as we stumble along so that it doesn’t matter how many times we lose in life, he has already won our final victory. Jesus was raised from death’s grip and He is alive today and forever more. That is what gives our broken hearts the hope we can confidently cling to.

Meditation for today: The fact that God’s power is displayed in our weaknesses should encourage us. We all fall short of His glory, yet we are still His beloved children.

Memory Verse: “Each time He said, My gracious favor is all you need. My power works best in your weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may work through me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9

July 27th, 2021

7/27/2021

Ultimate Power

Toni Smothers

Scripture Reading for the day: Ephesians 1:1-23 (NKJ)

Scripture Quote: “Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers.” Ephesians 1:15-16

            We were chosen by God before birth. The mighty power of God is available to all believers because of our connection to His ultimate power, through our Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit. This is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and placed him at God’s right hand giving Him dominion over everything. Jesus is the head of our church. If we could fathom the incredible significance of being part of God’s family with His own power given to us as a gift of love, we would never be able to stop praising Him or doing good for His glory.

            Every day we go about our lives occasionally praying and seeking the Holy Spirit’s guiding, but mostly forgetting to do that and forgetting also that God takes pleasure in us and we are precious to Him. We are tempted from every direction and lose our focus on God. We sin, even knowing that the power to overcome is within us. Then we ask God to forgive us. Each day we move closer to an intimate relationship with our Lord and a life that shows an increase in healthy fruit.

Meditation for the day: Remember your Lord and Savior all through the day and continually praise His forgiving grace. Tell someone else about Jesus today.

Memory Verse: “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.” Ephesians 3:20

daily devotion

7/23/2021

Triumphant Faith

BY Toni Smothers

Scripture Reading for the day: Psalm 146:1-6
Scripture Quote: “yet with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God.” Romans 4:20 (NASB)
            There must be great care taken to hold dear to your heart and strengthen as you can that marvelous gift from God, which is your faith. To seek blessings from our loving Father, we must have faith in the saving grace of the son, Jesus. Only faith can give you a vision of your hope fulfilled and only faith can cover your sinfulness before your perfect Father, God.
            Prayer can not find its way to God except through faith that trusts God listens to His own. Faith knows that prayer is a mighty force sent up to God by a righteous man and no one is righteous without acknowledgement of their need for forgiveness, along with faith in the forgiveness freely given to the repentant.
            Faith links us with divinity and eternity and gives us a unique perspective of this world we live in. The faithful know that they will share in Christ’s victory over death and sin. The enemy wants us to think that we can loose our salvation when we sin. It is only our faith in God that preserves us from the devil’s lies. Nothing is impossible to anyone who has faith in Jesus, as long as we trust in Him and hold fast our faith.
Today’s meditation: Hold onto your faith with all your strength, realizing always that your faith is the difference between life and death.
Memory Verse: …”Be faithful until death and I will give you the crown of life.” Revelation 2:10b (NASB)

DAILY DEVOTION

7/22/2021

There Is Power in the Word

Toni Smothers

Scripture Reading for the day: John 6:26-29
Scripture Quote: “They are not part of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” – John 17:16-17 (NASB)
           If we try to live our lives according to the precepts in the Bible, that is our presentation to the world that God’s Word is true. We don’t ever need to preach or hammer others with Scripture if we become a live demonstration of what we claim to believe in. The amount of impact for Christ that we have depends on the message we project on a day-to-day basis.
            In Jesus’ prayer for His disciples He shows us the importance of putting God’s Word in our hearts because it is essential to becoming the person that God has created us to be. Place great importance on God’s Word and read it each day. If we truly want to feel the power of God in our lives, we will make reading the Scriptures our top priority the first thing each day, before any other distractions, so that we can begin applying it to our daily experience.
We can let our lives be a living testimony of God’s truth to all people around us by living out what we believe so that others may see Christ in us.
Today’s meditation: After your Bible reading today, ask yourself what God wants you to do or change as a result of what you have read and find a way to apply what you’ve learned in a practical way.
Memory Verse: And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” – Gal. 4:6 (NASB)

DAILY DEVOTION

7/21/2021

The Holy Spirit
Scripture Reading for the day: Ephesians 1:15-20

Scripture Quote: “I will ask the Father and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” John 14:16-17 (NASB)
Worldliness is not a list of external taboos – drinking, smoking, dancing, whatever. Worldliness is an attitude of acceptance and tolerance of the fallen world’s way of defining life. As Christians we must seek to view the world with our hearts sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Only then can we understand the dangers and temptations that often slip their way into our lives before we even realize it sometimes. God doesn’t want us to follow a bunch of arbitrary rules and miss out on good times and a happy life. But true happiness is found in and through the Holy Spirit.
Know that your enemies are the devil, the flesh and the world, who do not want you to abstain or resist their lures. Believers are comforted and guided by the Holy Spirit who brings joy and peace and will help us know when we are in God’s will.
Today’s meditation: “Praying in the Spirit is but cooperating with the will of God and as such, prayer is always victorious.” E.M. Bounds
Memory Verse: “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me.” John 15:26 (NASB)

DAILY DEVOTION

7/20/2021

DAILY DEVOTION

7/20/2021

DAILY DEVOTION

7/19/2021

Suffering & God’s Comfort

By Toni Smothers

Scripture Reading For The Day: Job 5: 1-11

Scripture Quote: "but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance, and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us." Romans 5: 3-5 (NASB)

               Have you ever wondered how God feels when one of his children suffers? Does he feel the same as we do when we comfort our own child in illness or despair? I think that he must. Although He is the one parent who has the power to alleviate suffering, so often he does not. Instead, He refines us as we endure this life’s hardships, permitting our suffering. It is all part of the design and yet I know that God suffers with us.

               How would our faith grow if everything were peachy-keen and we had little or no need for God’s help? If our faith were never put to the test, would it remain? How can God's children grow stronger in spirit, and closer to Him, without trials? And how much more does our faith increase when we do see His Almighty intervention on our behalf or feel His Mighty Comforter sustaining us as we somehow find the strength to endure? It is the trials and sufferings we experience that teach us God’s continuous presence in all our circumstances and our dependence on God in our weakness – And by all this we grow and are strengthened.

Today’s Meditation: God holds us within the palm of His hand.

Memory Verse: For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. 2 Corinthians 1:5 (NASB

2 Timothy 3:16-17New International Version (NIV) 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work

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Bio: Toni Smothers has written articles for “Total Health”, “Let’s Live”, “People In Action” and “The North American Mentor” magazines. She is a member of the Faithwriters.com writing community and was previously the editor for the teen section of their on-line magazine. She has written many programs, sermons, and skits and has edited several websites. Additionally, she has answered hundreds of questions for GotQuestions.org, a biblical resource site. Here is just one of their many testimonials: "Thank you for this insightful website! I was able to look up many questions I have asked over the years since becoming saved. The site is easy to navigate and gave me so much biblical background for answers that I feel my armor has been strengthened. You and your staff be encouraged to continue to speak the truth for God's glory." When Toni is not writing, she can usually be found cuddling with her 10 pound, furry, Morky muse, 'Sweet Pea.' Toni Smothers studied homeopathy extensively and became a proficient layman. She wrote about homeopathy for “Total Health” and “Let’s Live” magazines. Smothers describes her experience befriending a refugee family from Laos in her article published in the travel magazine, “People in Action.” Additionally, “American Mentor” magazine has published some of her poetry. Smothers drew upon her fun experiences as a youth pastor to provide the needed insight to function as the editor of the teen section of “Faithwriters” magazine and she is a member of the Faithwriters.com writer’s community.

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