Happy week, Family!🍔
Moving forward, I will update the prayer requests on a weekly basis by adding any new requests. You can write down the requests to keep from week to week or refer to older devotionals for previous prayer requests.
This week, we are praying for:🧎🏽♀️
•Seth, that he might remember to practice proper posture and to keep his feet flat to prevent any further curvature in his spine. May God infuse his little body with strength and power.
•Torrey, who is at home fighting Covid pneumonia in both lungs and needs supernatural healing. We praise God that everyone in the house has now tested negative for Covid, including Cassandra and Elijah, who had previously tested positive. Praise God for His goodness and mercy!
•Arnold, who has recovered from COVID, and is back at work. May God continue to heal him and walk with him.
•Ellie, who is fighting Covid. Let’s pray for a speedy recovery. Ellie is grateful that her two sons tested negative. May God continue to protect them.
•Norma’s friend, Johnny, who is in the hospital and in need of a touch from the Lord.
•Carole’s grateful for how God has answered her prayers regarding the custody of her grandson, Elijah. The first phase of the case is over and she is happy to know that Elijah is OK. She is also requesting that everyone keeps praying so that the custody case will be resolved soon.
•Alejandro, that he might be protected while on deployment and overseas. May the Lord keep His angels in charge over Alejandro and his shipments until they return home in the summer.
•Skylar, Heaven Lee, Jackie and Doris. May God move in their lives in mighty ways!
•Julissa, A young lady suffering from mental health issues and currently wanting to end her life. May the Lord deliver her from this battle and give her victory and a sense of her worth to God.
•Stacey, Charen’s dear friend , who joined us for service on Sabbath morning. May God move in her life this week!
•John Vega, who is still awaiting results of his tests. We are praying for good results and know that he is in God's hands.
•Tracy, Norma's friend Who is undergoing chemo treatment for her cancer. May God give her strength and healing, because it has not been easy for her.
This evening’s devotional was submitted by Kevin. 💙
For who can eat and who can have enjoyment without Him?
I wish you all a very Happy New Year! Happy New Year is an often-heard, post-Christmas statement of encouragement and well-wishes. To be sure, everyone desires a happy new year … but how does a person actually experience a happy new year? What is the key to having 2021 really be a happy one for you, BESIDES the long awaited end to COVID?
Many people equate happiness with money and materialism. To them, happiness begins with a million dollars. Others equate happiness with good physical health. To them, happiness is an in-shape body hitting on all eight cylinders. Still others equate happiness with personal achievement. To them, happiness is a big promotion, or graduation, or a milestone achievement.
Years ago, I read a true story about tennis star, Boris Becker. He was the youngest man to ever win Wimbledon, achieving victory in 1985 at the tender age of seventeen. In the late 1980s, Becker was on the mountain top of fame, fortune, and personal achievement. Yet, he was so unhappy that he found himself on the brink of suicide. Becker was quoted as saying, “I had won Wimbledon twice before, once as the youngest player. I was rich. I had all the material possessions I needed. It’s the old song of movie stars and pop stars who commit suicide. They have everything, and yet they are so unhappy. I had no inner peace. I was a puppet on a string.”
Isn’t that amazing? Becker had all the things the world says will make for happiness, yet he was so incredibly unhappy. Could it be that true happiness is not found in health, wealth, and achievement? You won’t find it in the gym, the yoga studio or in a green smoothie. It isn’t found in a board room, the bank or a check from the lottery commission.
The Bible makes it clear that true happiness comes when you and I are right with God. When we are yielded to Christ and His will, then we can experience true happiness—inner peace and unspeakable joy.
Are you right with God today? Are your sins confessed to Him? Are you living surrendered to the casing of Jesus Christ in your life?
Blaise Pascal, the seventeenth century mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and philosopher astutely said, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.”
Let me encourage you to take a very careful and sober inventory of your life today. Are you trying to fill the inner vacuum with health, wealth, achievement, or something comparable? Those things will never make you truly happy; they will never satisfy the deep longings of your soul. The only One who can do that is Jesus.
Let’s start this year off right by entrusting our lives fully to King Jesus. Give Him first place in everything …for He has promised that it is the key to true happiness.
“Seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness, and everything else will be added to your life.” Matthew 6:33