30 Day Challenge - Day 1

So there are a ton of people on Facebook who are doing this 30 Day Challenge thing. Each day you post a picture of a different event or significant thing in your life. It's pretty cool, I must admit, but since I'm old and married, my 30 Day Challenge photos would probably be rather boring and uninteresting. So I decided to do a different 30 Day Challenge. I decided to make up my own challenge. Since I have a hard time staying consistent with reading my bible every day, I figured I would make a challenge where I had to read my new devotional book (which I love) for 30 days straight and write about it.
The devotional book (for those that are curious) is by Smith Wigglesworth. I bought the book after someone brought it to school one day. I read a few devotions from it (there's one every day) and just found it so empowering. The words and power this man spoke were amazing. I felt so 'built up' and encouraged every time I read one of the devotions. It was awesome. I was pretty consistent with reading it at first, but as with any book, I put it down one day and haven't picked it up in a while.
I feel strongly about reading the devotionals in this book and that's why I decided to create my own 30 Day Challenge. I feel like it will help me get through the next couple weeks before I go into labor and help calms any nerves that might creep in.
So here I go. The first devotional I read was yesterday (February 21, 2011). The title was "A Lame Man Healed" and the verse that went with it was from Acts 3 (Acts 3:6 to be exact). The devotion talks about Peter and John and how they were uneducated and poor, but they knew Jesus and had been with Him, and were therefore, powerful. They spoke miracles and healed the lame man sitting in front of the temple.

Peter and John had nothing, but they had faith and the Holy Spirit and essentially, God. Is there anything else we need in this world if we have those things? What it really comes down to is that we do not need the things of this world. They are temporary and will leave us feeling empty. I would rather have the Holy Spirit and know God the way these men did, then have all the money in the world because eventually that money would disappear, but God would not.

And how awesome is God that He would give these men such power? Especially when Peter denied Jesus three times?! God continually shows us His mercy. How often do we mess up, yet God continues to love us, bless us, and have mercy on us...even though we don't deserve it? God always amazes me.

Another thought came up when I read this devotional. If you saw Peter and John walking down the street, would you give them a second glance? My answer would be no. They would probably look a little 'messy.' Their clothes would have been torn and they may have smelled kind of funny. Their shoes would have probably been worn and they probably wouldn't have adorned the latest designer shades. Yet we highly regard these men when we read about them in the bible because they performed miracles. Just a thought.

Smith Wigglesworth leaves the devotional with this: "He will lead you into nothingness, but when you are in nothingness, you will be in power. He will lead you into weakness, but when you are in weakness, God will be with you in might. Everything that seems weak from a human perspective will be under the control of divine power."