Blog Posts - Toni Writing for The Master

DAILY DEVOTION

7/14/2021

Spiritual Blessings

By Toni Smothers

Scripture Reading for the day: Ephesians 1:1-14

Scripture Quote: “I have never stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly, asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you might grow in your knowledge of God.” Ephesians 1:16-17 (NLT)

            We are blessed in Christ and have all the benefits of knowing God. As adopted children, chosen for salvation, we have every spiritual blessing - God’s forgiveness, insight, the fruit of the Spirit, power to do God’s will and the hope of eternity with Jesus. Those Christians, who pursue an intimate relationship with Christ on a daily basis, can have all these spiritual blessings now. They are not supposed to be seen as some far off prize but as our treasure here on earth.

            We can know without any doubt that we are set free from the law and from death and have become pure and holy in Christ – No condemnation awaits us. We will be made alive at the resurrection to sit with Christ in the heavenly realms. We are deemed justified through Christ and can come with joyful freedom and confidence into God’s presence. How can we ever stop praising our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?

Meditation for the day: “Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me. Spirit of the living God fall afresh on me. Break me! Melt me! Mold me! Fill me! Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.” David Iverson

Memory Verse: “And now God is building you, as living stones, into His spiritual temple.” I Peter 2:5 (NLT)

DAILY DEVOTION

7/13/2021

Love

Toni Smothers
Scripture Reading for the day: I Corinthians 13:1-13

Scripture Quote: “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.” Ephesians 5: 1-3 (NASB)

In the church community, believers commit to fellowship of people who honestly love one another. We seek the meaning of the gospel as our guide in all issues. We are imitators of our Lord and seek peace and want to build up the body of Christ.

Outside of our church, we can set aside some of our personal time to be used to help others in need, just as Jesus did. Though those we help may vary, the principle is always the same - By being an example of God’s love for all people, we affirm the strength and love Jesus has given us. Everyone needs mercy, but sometimes tangible assistance is needed too. There are people with great lack in housing, food, employment, and personal dignity. We are sometimes needed to help in the form of a “hand-out” and sometimes in the more lasting “hand-up.”

Christians can never be an idle or a stingy people – The Lord has called us to a higher standard. God, who has given us everything we have in the first place, knows our hearts and minds and he also looks for cheerfulness in our attitude toward giving of our resources.

Today’s meditation: Open your heart to sharing God’s love - Become the person God intended you to become.

Memory Verse: “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” I Corinthians 13:1 (NASB)

DAILY DEVOTION

7/12/2021

Salvation

ByToni Smothers

Scripture Reading for the day: Acts 10:30-43

Scripture Quote: “Peter told them, you know it is against the Jewish laws for me to come into a Gentile home like this. But God has shown me that I should never think of anyone as impure.” Acts 10:28 (NLT)

The good news of Christ is for everyone. Peter would not normally have approached a Gentile, but God’s message was clear: The Good News of Christ is for each person, and there can be no barrier, whether language, culture, prejudice, geography, economic level, or educational level, to prevent our telling others about Christ. So Peter was obedient and went to the Roman, Cornelius, giving him a brief but powerful sermon.

God is perfectly just, but because He is perfect, He recoils from our sin. Jesus lived a perfect life and gave the ultimate sacrifice, which pleased God. By faith we can claim God’s approval of us through Jesus. All who hear and accept the Gospel are set apart for God’s purpose. God caused Jesus to be a living Savior and friend to all people. Sin separates us from God, but Jesus’ victory over death gives us His pardon and peace.

Meditation for the day: “But in fact ‘Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father’ (Romans 6:4). The success of his suffering and death was vindicated. And if we put our trust in Christ, we are not still in our sins. For ‘by the blood of the eternal covenant,’ the Great Shepherd has been raised and lives forever.” John Piper, ‘The Passion of Jesus Christ’.

Memory Verse: “The Jewish believers who came with Peter were amazed that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out upon the Gentiles, too.” Acts 10:45 (NLT)
His peop

DAILY DEVOTION

7/9/2021

Sacrificial Love

By Toni Smothers

Scripture Reading for the day: Matthew 18:21-35

Scripture Quote: “But I say love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For He gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and on the unjust too. If you love only those who love you, what good is that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much.” John 3:16-21 (NLT)

            Yes, even the most corrupt of individuals loves someone else. Love is not achieved in its truest sense, though, until it is given in the face of rejection or bitterness. To find compassion and to offer prayers for an abuser’s soul takes the kind of love obtained only from a perfect God. We are incapable of that depth of love on our own. We must decide to try to love the offensive person and then let God’s love strengthen ours and filter through us.

            There are so many times in life that we are hurt by others, either intentionally or inadvertently. God really does want us to cherish love so much that we are willing to sacrifice anything, including our hurt feelings or pride in order to hold love up as the ultimate demonstration of a life changed by Christ’s sacrifice.

Meditation for today: “The master magnet of the gospel is not fear, but love. Penitents are drawn to Christ rather than driven.” Charles Surgeon

Memory Verse: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so I long for you, O God.” Psalm 42:1(NLT)

daily devotion

7/8/2021

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

7/6/2021

There Is Power in the Word

By 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

7/5/2021

The Holy Spirit

Toni Smothers

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

7/5/2021

The Blessings Of A Repentant Heart

By Toni Smothers

Scripture Reading for the day: 2Kings 22:14-20

Scripture Quote: “Oh what joy for those whose rebellion is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight! Yes, what joy for those whose record the LORD has cleared of sin, whose lives are lived in complete honesty!” Psalm 32:1-2

            We are all guilty of not living up to the standard our Christianity dictates. There is no legitimate excuse we can offer in our defense except that we are often weak and fall short of the glory of God. We have no recourse, no where else to go but to the throne of God, speaking the truth of our actions with a repentant heart. We feel the burden of our sinfulness and plead for His forgiveness. On the basis of God’s steadfast love, we can be confident that He will forgive us, if we are truly sorry.

            Forgetting our sin altogether is the most remarkable aspect of God’s forgiveness. We try as Christians to forgive others that have sinned against us, just as Jesus tells us to in the model prayer He gave us. But even our grandest efforts do not erase our memory. To God, our wicked, bankrupt behavior is absolutely removed and forgotten forever. What an incredible blessing a repentant heart receives.

Meditation for the day: “Slow are the steps of repentance, but swift are the feet of forgiveness. God can run where we can scarcely limp, and if we are limping toward Him, He will run toward us.” Charles Spurgeon

Memory Verse: “Against You, and You alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in Your sight.” Psalm 51:4a

DAILY DEVOTION

7/5/2021

DAILY DEVOTION

7/2/2021

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 5 pound, furry, Chihuahua muse, “Princess 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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