Here are devotions written by Pastor Larry Merino, and his ministry team.
I pray they speak to your heart, the way they spoke to ours!
Check back often for new devotions
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Wrestling with God
The other day a friend said to me, “I am trying to follow God. But the people in my family are mean to each other, and a lot of things in my life aren’t going the way I would like them to. I think that God isn’t helping me very much and then I feel like I am wrestling with God. Is it wrong for me to wrestle with God like this?”
Sometimes when things go wrong in our lives we wonder what God is doing. At times like that we may wrestle with God and question if He is really helping us. That’s a good time for us to remember a man in the bible who actually did wrestle with God. His name was Jacob.
One night God visited Jacob in the form of a man and the two of them wrestled all night long. While they were wrestling, God injured Jacob’s hip so badly that he had to walk with a limp for the rest of his life. But Jacob won the fight.
In the morning Jacob said to the man, “I won’t let you go until you bless me.” (Genesis 32:26) So God told Jacob, “I will bless you by changing your name to Israel. The name Israel means, “You have wrestled with God and won.” (Genesis 32:27) That’s when Jacob realized he had been wrestling with God.
God didn’t get mad at Jacob or kill him. Instead, God was very close to Jacob during the struggle and even ended up blessing him. The greatest blessing that God gave Jacob came many years later. Jesus Christ was born into Jacob’s family. And because of Jesus, Jacob could have eternal life. And so can we.
Like Jacob, we don’t have to be afraid to wrestle with God. God doesn’t get mad at us when we question Him or when we struggle with the way things are going in our lives. If we don’t give up, and if we stay close to God, He will stay close to us. He will use our problems and questions to give us a blessing.
Can you think of any ways God could use our problems and questions to bless us? How would you answer the person who asked, “Is it wrong for me to wrestle with God?”
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We are closer to God than we think
Does it seem to you that it is hard to get close to God? Maybe you are a little afraid to have Him know too much about you and what you do. Or, perhaps you think He has more important things to do than bother with you.
But we are closer to God than we think. God already knows all about us. One man in the bible, who knew a lot about God, wrote the following, “Lord, you have examined me and you know me. You know everything I do...You see me, whether I am working or resting and know all my actions. Even before I speak, you already know what I will say. You are all around me on every side; you protect me with your power.” (Psalm 139:1-5)
According to this, God is thinking about us all the time. That can seem a little scary, until we realize that God does this because He loves us. We don’t have to be afraid of Him. He watches over us because He created us and He wants us to stay close to Him. As the Psalmist says,
“You created every part of me, you put me together in my mother’s womb.”
The man who wrote this Psalm was very close to God. But he had also made a lot of big mistakes in his life. That didn’t make him afraid of God, instead he praised God for knowing more about him than he could imagine.
“Your knowledge of me is too deep; it is beyond my understanding.”
God wants us to be close to Him forever so He sent His own Son, Jesus, to save us. That’s beyond our human understanding, but it is wonderful, and it is true.
We are closer to God than we think!
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Sharing the burden
The other day a Gypsy man, who is a friend of mine, had to go to the hospital because he had some problems with his heart. Many other Gypsy people, from all over the state, came to see him. In fact, so many Gypsies came to the room to see him that the nurses got very upset. They wondered, “Why do so many Gypsies always come when someone is in the hospital?” And they wanted to kick every single person out of the room. The nurses didn’t understand how important it is for Gypsies to have their people in the room. They didn’t realize that Gypsies never leave the sick person alone. This man’s family needed to see him and let him know that they were there.
The longer I am a Christian, the more I am convinced that this idea of being together is from Jesus. It’s in the bible. In Galatians 6:2 it says, “Help carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will obey the law of Christ.” The Gypsies came to the hospital because they believed that they had to be there to share in this man’s suffering. They didn’t have to say anything or know all about medicine to help that man receive healing. They just had to be in the hospital so that they could actually take some of his suffering burden on themselves. Jesus tells us that when we do things like this, we are being like Him.
You see, Jesus understands about taking on the suffering burdens of others because that is what He did for us when He died on the cross. The bible tells us, “Jesus took on all of the suffering that should have been ours. He carried all of the pain that we should have carried… He was wounded and beaten because of our sins. We are healed because of the punishment He suffered. We are forgiven because of the blows He received.” (Isaiah 53:4-5)
Fortunately, there was a nurse at the hospital who knew something about Gypsies. That’s probably because she knows my wife and me. So she was able to explain to the other nurses that this man needed his people. Then a few of them were allowed to stay with the man. Later that nurse told me, “Pastor Larry, these people really understand what Jesus meant when He said we should help carry each other’s burdens! They are a wonderful example.”
I agree. Now, don’t you wonder what else you might find about Gypsies in the bible?
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