If you’re looking for a year’s worth of daily devotions for 2009, let me humbly suggest My All in All. The title is an old phrase that means the Lord is ALL we need in ALL the situations of life. Here’s a sample devotion (the installment for January 24), based on 1 Samuel 12:20: “Worship the Lord with ALL your heart.”
In Writing About your Life, William Zinsser tells of being stationed in Algeria during World War II. A huge map covered the facade of the post office in Algiers, and France was painted entirely in green. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, Zinsser joined the crowds in the square to watch workmen painting white stretches along the Normandy coast. Week after week, a while bulge spread south to Saint-Lo, and white ribbons ran north to Cherbourg. By August 21, the map was white all the way to the Seine, and eventually the whole of France was under Allied control.
Can you see yourself in that picture?
Before Jesus invades our lives, our hearts are under enemy occupation, but on our own personal Decision-Day, we receive Him as our Savior, and we are justified. A process of sanctification then begins as our thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors increasingly come under His control and we grow in the victorious Christian life.
Satan fights for every inch of territory, and we find ourselves in constant war with the world, the flesh, and the devil–but the victory of Jesus is unstoppable and we are more than conquerors as we increasingly worship Him with all our hearts.
“God paints in many colors,” said G. K. Chesterton, “but He never pants so gorgeously as when He paints in white.”