Today's Devotional

 

November 19, 2007

                                                                                  

Subject:   The Store Is Full; Your Grocery Cart Is Empty 

1 Samuel 10:19 - "And ye have this day rejected your God, who himself saved you out of all your adversities and your tribulations..."

Acts 13:52 - "And the disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Ghost." 

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Last week I was inspecting my cadets.  During the inspection, I usually query the cadets about general knowledge and sometimes personal information.  I asked one particular cadet, how he was enjoying being in ROTC.  He replied, "well I'm not getting anything out of it."  Without hesitating I responded, "Cadet _____ if you go into a grocery store and walk the aisles, never placing anything in your grocery cart, does that mean that the store is empty?"  He knew where I was coming from as I began to make an analogy about having "leadership on the shelf of our grocery store."  I told him that the problem was that he was simply walking through the grocery store of ROTC.  He needed to grab some things off of the shelf.

That's often the way we are as believers.  We think Christianity doesn't work, but the real problem is that we've not taken hold of what it has to offer.  We reject the principles of scripture and then expect Christianity to work.  We reject God because He's old fashioned and we expect to be blessed like they were in the "old days." 

God's grocery store is still open for those who want to shop there.  However, it's not enough to just shop there.  You need to grab some items off of the shelf, take them home, open them up and put them to use in your life.  If you do that, you'll soon find that His store is indeed full and so too shall you be with the joy of the Lord.   

Carlen