I AM

A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

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Malachi 4:2

But for you who revere my name, 

the sun of righteousness will rise

with healing in its wings. 

And you will go out and leap

like calves released from the stall. 

We had a very late Spring this year. The days that the sun came out were very few and far between. I know on the days the sun did come out it seemed to bring with it a sense of healing and refreshment.
The relief from all that had been grey and terribly dreary. On those days people were out and abou almost like the frisky calf in the verse above that would leap and rejoice in its warmth. The verse above talks about those who revere or honor God’s name. He is called many names but what He calls himself is “I AM” In those two little words are contained the answer to everything we would ever need.  They are so small that they are easy to over look and so we must by faith add to those words, the thing we need. I am your provider, I am your healer, I am the vine, I am the God who breaks through, I am Salvation, I am peace, I am your healer... 
 “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward. ” Gen 15:1
“I am the LORD, who brought you out Gen 15:7
“I am God Almighty ; walk before me and be blameless. Gen 17:1
I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Gen 28:15
Exodus 3:14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.
Exodus 3:15 This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.


I  and AM are two very little but very power filled words. I stopped in Exodus but you could keep going and find our more places where God says I Am and the words that follow.

Can we even begin to wrap our wee minds around something so big - I think we miss a lot of what God has provided for us because we look at God through our own limitations and failures.
My kids and I have been watching the science fiction show called Dr. Who. In the show the Doctor has a time machine space ship that is designed to blend in and go un noticed as a police call box. When you open the door to that ship it is massively bigger on the inside. I AM is like that - it blends in and it is easy to miss among so many other words. If however you enter into them you will find how vast they really are. Just in those two little words is so much of God to discover that in our life times I am sure we can barley scratch the surface. If I reverence “I Am” and don’t just focus on the words that follow and my own lack and neediness there is healing and reason to rejoice. In Him is all that I need, all I will ever need. As we spend time with I Am each day, more and more we begin to realize that he really is everything we need. John 14: 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

Things to Ponder:
How many I Am verses can you think of or find in the Bible?

Did you find the I Am verse that corresponds to your present need - Write down and begin to stand on it.

Prayer:
Dear Lord,  Thank you for truly being “ I Am”. Thank you for more and more revealing yourself to me. Thank you for always being available to me. For helping me to humble myself before you and to be able to admit that everything I need is found in you.  Rise up in me with healing in your wings and take me to a new level of trust and faith in you.

The Cup, The Pitcher, The Well and the Stream

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A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

John 7:38
Whoever believes in me,
as the Scripture has said,
streams of living water
will flow from within him.”

When I was a new believer I was satisfied by getting my cup filled each week at church. Soon I found that serving others was fun and I got a bigger cup and then a pitcher to serve others during the week. I found that I was spending a lot of time running back to get more water for my pitcher.  I began to wonder if it was possible to stay connected to the source of the water. I believe it is
Revelation 7:17 For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd;
he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Yes this is another message on abiding but it is also about hearing God. You may not feel like you are good enough or worthy enough to go directly to the thrown room of God, none of us are. Jesus has made a way for us to enter into the very thrown room of God. Our access to the thrown room is our acceptance of what Jesus has done for us on the cross. He has atoned for our sins. It is not about us being good enough it is about us accepting what He has already done on our behalf.
I think these feeling of not being good enough are often what keep us out in the desert searching for the next well of refreshing. We fill up our cup or our canteen and travel on through our week hoping we will have enough water to make it back to the well on Sunday. We may believe in Jesus and hunger and thirst for more of him but we have not figured out how to connect directly to him or how to stay connected to him. Even the woman at the well in  John 4:11 -12  says “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”
Jesus did not need a cup or a pitcher to draw water from the well. He is and was the very stream that flows from the presence of God almighty.
I love the verse from Isaiah 12:3 With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. Do you realize that if you are saved and have accepted Jesus you can become one of the wells of salvation. It is a joy to draw water for others from that well from the places of abiding in His presence. Some times wells get filled up with dirt. They may not be dug deep enough for times of drought. My topic this week is about abiding and hearing God. You can take your cup or canteen or pitcher and go to a well. A church or to another believer who is abiding and get your cup filled by the revelations that they share as a result of their time of abiding with the Lord. We can hear God speak through others who know him.  There was a time in my Christian life when everyone I knew was running all over the place to find the next place where God was moving. They wanted to go find the places where revival was happening and soak up as much as they could at those meetings. I never wanted to chase revivals. I’m not saying that it is not wonderful when God is moving. I wanted my own deep abiding relationship, my own personal daily revival in the transforming presence of Jesus. I wanted to become a well in the desert or like be like the oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor spoken of in Isaiah 61.  In Jeremiah 17: 7-8 it says “But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought it never fails to bear fruit.  I have sought out that deeper relationship with Jesus. It starts by making time to spend with him. I stopped coming with my list of prayer needs and started coming because he became my very best friend. Every deep friendship where one is known and knows that other person starts with both parties being willing to be open and honest and willing to listen. That relationship is not possible if you don’t make time to spend together.
 
Questions:
What are some ways you could find to develop your friendship with Jesus?

The Reason You Do Not Hear

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A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

John 8:47 (NIV1984)
47 He who belongs to God hears 
what God says.
The reason you do not hear is 
that you do not belong to God.”

I’ve been asked recently about hearing God. Its a topic far bigger than one post could possibly cover so I will try and break it down into little bites of truth. So lets start at the beginning and try and understand why you might not be hearing God.

If you are trying to hear God and do not belong to him - you don't hear because you don't belong to God. Its not because He is not speaking or calling unbelievers to come. You are not listening. It says in Revelation 3:20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” God is knocking and calling but it much like all the radio signals that are out in the airways, you can’t hear them unless you are tuned into the station. The acceptance of Jesus is like the radio being tuned to the station broadcasting Gods voice. He is both all loving and he is just. We have a big problem called sin. The beginning of the journey is to realize our good works, our sacrifice, or rituals are not enough to fix the problem of sin so we could  reach God.   It says in Acts 2:21 "And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” You won’t call on him or open the door to him as long as you think you have no need for what he offers. The following passage illustrates that it is not about being good enough. It is all about believing and turning to Jesus.  In Luke 23:39-43 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”
That guy was a bad man deserving his sentence for the crimes he had committed. He did not do most of the stuff that we include in "getting saved". He never said a sinners prayer or walked to the alter in a church. He never got baptized or took communion.  He did not have time to learn the Bible or amend in any way the wrongs of his life. Yet Jesus said he would be with him in paradise. All he did was believe Jesus was innocent and asked Jesus to remember him when he came into his kingdom.
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

My posts are written mainly for believers, to encourage them in their walk with Jesus. So this may seem like a repeat of things you already know. If you are a believer you should be able to hear God and I will look at some possible reasons in future posts, why you might be struggling. Perhaps however, you have friends who are asking you questions about God, I hope this helps.  The starting place for hearing God is to believe, just like that thief on the cross. In John 10:25  Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father’s name speak for me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.” The thief on the cross did nothing more than believe.  In that moment he was “tuned” into Jesus by believing and was able to hear his voice and he followed Jesus right into paradise. He heard the knock, and he answered the door in that moment Jesus came into his life. He would come into yours too.
Prayer:
Dear Lord,
I hear you knocking and calling. Like that thief on the cross I suddenly realize that you did not deserve death on that cross. I call to you - remember me Jesus, I need you. God sent you in his love and you took the punishment to satisfy Gods justice. You took on the punishment my sins deserved. I turn to you as my God and as my saviour. Tune my heart to hear your voice that I may follow you today and every day until I follow you into paradise.

Abiding In Christ

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Abiding in Christ
A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

John 15:4 (NIV1984)
Remain in me, and I will remain in you.
No branch can bear fruit by itself;
it must remain in the vine. Neither can
you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

I think this subject has become one of my life messages. I have learned this the hard way and seen many sincerely committed people burn out in serving others. The Lord wants us serving but in order to do so we have to remain in Him.
Most of us are fairly detached fro the agricultural process of planting and harvesting. We mostly get our fruit and vegetables from the grocery store. When Jesus told the story of the vine and the branches most folks ad first or second hand knowledge of planting and harvest. It was just how everyone functioned in that time. You grew your own food or you worked for people who did. I suppose today Jesus might use examples from technology. Unless you are connected to the internet with a clear connection you won’t be able to use your phone or your computer to get much done. Both the story of the vine and my example of the internet are about being connected to the source. That connection starts by establishing a relationship with Jesus. How much time you spend connected to Him in your daily life has a lot to do with how much fruit you will produce in your life. 

One of the benefits of abiding or connecting to Jesus is spiritual fruit. There were many years in my own life that I though my natural talents and abilities were enough to sustain ministry work. I’m not saying I never spent time connecting with the Lord in his Word or in prayer or quiet before him.. I did. I would mainly get filled up by this sermon or that book or that conference and I would give out what I had to give but then wonder why I was feeling burned out by the demands of ministry. I was getting my fruit from the market. I was not really connecting directly on a continuing basis with the source. I suppose that is how many Christian continue to live, they get filled up on Sunday and perhaps get enough in their basket to share with their family and close friends.  It is a good place to start but I found that I just could not keep up with the demands of others who where spiritually hungry and thirsty. I might show them where I was getting fed and hopefully they would come and get fed too.
Still I found myself often busy serving on Sunday’s and during the week and relying on others to feed me was not enough. I had to find the source and get connected directly.  I don’t come to church to get fed. I come to church to serve, to do that I have to be able to feed myself during the week. This is true of pastors and other ministry leaders. However what often happens is that the demands of ministry become so great, there is just so much to do and so much need. The time apart with the Lord little by little becomes less and less. Before you know it you are wondering why you are exhausted and burned out and being attacked by the enemy. I’ve seen a lot of good people crash and burn out before they even realized what was happening. Picking up the peaces after such crashes is pretty messy. The bigger the ministry the more people who are directly and indirectly effected. The enemy knows this and works over time to keep ministry leaders so busy serving and doing good stuff and away from spending time with the Lord. He knows it is just a matter of time till they will crash and burn.

My point is we all need to stay connected to Jesus. If we are not regularly abiding in Him we won’t be producing fruit. Vines that are cut off from the source quickly shrivel and die. This is not just true for ministry leaders, we should all be leaders in the making. We have all been created to produce fruit but we must stay connected to the vine to be fruitful.

Prayer
Dear Lord,
I want to be directly connected to you. I don’t just want the left overs from someone elses time spent with you. Help me to know you more so that I have left overs to share with others who are starving. Help me lead them to become directly connected and seated at your banquet table.

The Blind Man

I am thrilled that my friend Mark Kenney has sent us another excellent post. I know that some of you reading this are struggling with health issues and are in need of other miracles. You are welcome to comment so our growing family of readers can join you in praying for your need.

~ Margot

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The Blind Man

A Devotional by Mark Kenney

 John 9 5-7
  While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
 After saying this, he spit on the ground, 
made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes.  
“Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” 
(this word means “Sent”). 
So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

The blind man in scripture undoubtedly cried out to God for his sight several times in his life. When a strange man he had heard fables about came up and rubbed spit laced mud on his face I'm reasonably confident he wasn't thinking God had answered his prayer for healing in that moment.
How sad for him if he stayed critical and just wiped the mud off right there.

He had to get to the pool!

On the way to the pool, everyone he knew and many he didn't know all saw him with mud on his face and all saw that he was blind. They all saw he was helpless to even get to the pool on his own and needed others to assist him. His decision to obey was really a decision to get absolutely and completely out of any and everything comfortable or familiar and do a task that was very emotionally challenging to himself.

Some people reading this have been all caught up in the fact that they have mud on their face. They are caught up in the fact that God's most recent instruction will most likely embarrass them to others. The Lord would say to you... stop focusing on the mud and get to the pool!
The only thing the devil can do to keep you blind is to keep you focused on the mud. If instead you will ignore the mud and get to the pool, there you can wash the mud off and reveal your awaiting miracle!

Dear Lord, 
Help me get my focus right. Remind me of any instructions you have given me that I brushed aside because they seemed too embarrassing.  Help me be obedient to do the things you are calling me to do. Help me to not worry about the mud and help me get to the pool where your miracle answers are waiting for me.

The Great Love of God

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The Great 
Love of God
A Devotional by Margot Cioccio






John 15:2
He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

I try to be led by the Holy Spirit when I am writing and I try to communicate the Father’s heart of love for you dear reader. That if he in his great wisdom could come up with a way to fix the brokenness caused by Adam and Eve in the garden, He can set right the things in your life as well. He drove them out of the garden not because he was mad but because he loved them and wanted to protect them from eating of the tree of life. If they had done that they would have been lost forever. God in his mercy sent them out from the Garden and then began to work a plan in which justice could be satisfied and the broken people he loved could be redeemed. Justice and mercy are both satisfied by Jesus being willing to go to the cross. No one took his life he laid it down and made a way that we could be right with God.

To try and get to God on your own strength is like trying to swim from Alaska to Hawaii. There is no one who is good enough. Jesus has made a way but He won’t force us to choose it.  Did you know there was only one rule in the Garden and that rule existed so love could exist. God from the very beginning gave us a choice to love him by doing things his way.  It is His great love and kindness that leads us to repentance.  He does not ask of us more than, that out of thankfulness we would give Him our life and allow Him to guide and direct it and allow Him to sit on the throne of our heart.

I’m not sure why I am sharing the very basics of faith with you. Maybe you have believed but have looked at God from the wrong angle and see him as one who stands and shakes his finger of wrath at you, ready to squash you like a bug for the things you have messed up.
We all mess up but I believe He stands there with arms of love and tears in his eyes saying “look I have a better way, won’t you let me help you, won’t you let me heal you, let me remove these filthy rags and wash you. Let me set things right for you.”

Things to Ponder:
How do you see God? Full of Love or full of Wrath?
Ask the Lord to help you see His great love beyond what you have experienced to date.

Prayer:
Dear Lord,
Help me to not resist you. Although you must prune what is dead or damaged in my life. I trust that you will also coat those places with your healing ointment.  Cause there to soon be new and healthy growth coming forth in my life. I know that it is your love that wields the knife that prunes away the dead and damaged parts not your wrath. I choose to trust you and to allow you to prune my life.
Thank you for loving me in this way.