Daily Devotional #1,650

I made a mistake. It certainly isn’t the first time I’ve made a mistake, but I’m going to be up all night trying to  make up for it. I have been preaching one chapter at a time through the New Testament. I interrupt for special  messages during different times of the year, but as soon as possible, I come right back to that schedule. We are  in the last chapters of Revelation and I just got back after being gone for a couple of Sundays. I jumped right in  
and was pretty motivated to get back into the swing of things. I led a devotional for our leadership team  meeting with the chapter of scripture and was going to try to finish the message up yesterday. I sat down and  looked at my notes and what I had typed and it just didn’t flow right. And I looked again at the last message  that I had preached before vacation and suddenly I realized that I had been preparing to preach on the wrong  chapter! There are 260 chapters in the New Testament and I skipped number 257. I had made a commitment to  follow this plan and I’m not going to cheat on it here so close to the end! So I’m working on the message for  the correct chapter. We all make mistakes and we end up paying for them one way or another. For me, I’ll get  less sleep, but a lot more Bible and some good time with the Lord. But there are mistakes we make in life that  are not so easily corrected. And they often rob us not of a night’s sleep, but of our peace, or a close relationship  with God or even lead us to miss this gift of eternal life through this Jesus of the Bible. Jesus was once  confronted by some religious leaders who presented him with a “trick Bible question”. They didn’t really want  to know the answer…and they didn’t really want to know of God’s wonderful love and grace, they just wanted  to embarrass Jesus. Jesus didn’t miss a beat but shot back at them with this “Your mistake is that you don’t  know the Scriptures, and you don’t know the power of God.” If we are going to live well on God’s team we  need to know the Scriptures and we need to get to know God on a personal basis. And when do, we will find  out that in this life there is a principle that underlies all that we understand about our human journey. And that  is that with people…it is impossible. Not so with God. With God all things are possible. That’s the power of  God. And that’s a verse from the Scriptures…the Bible. No matter where you are or what you’ve done with  and in your life, God has a big eraser for those mistakes we make. With the God of the Bible we can be  forgiven and we can start again. Don’t be a slave to a mistaken world view, lifestyle or personal belief. Don’t  let your mistakes define your life here and now or in eternity. Seriously check out the Scriptures…and get to  know the power of God. I’m stopping now, because I’m going to have to get to work on the right scriptures for  this Sunday…and I’ll be depending on the power of God to get it all done well and in time! You do the same.  Here’s our Bible verse for today… 
Matthew 22:29 NLT Jesus replied, “Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know  the power of God.  
Remember I’m praying for you!  
With love, PJ