Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a FANTASTIC weekend serving Jesus!
This week’s devo is “Benefits” written by Kathy Rowell! Please take the time to read as she shares her heart with us!!
I hope you have an amazing day!!
Benefits – Kathy Rowell
It’s a beautiful day to serve the Lord today! Enjoying the crisp mornings and changing of the leaves as we speak!
You know, there are times when we have our own personal devotions, we can hurry to get it done, because we have a full day ahead of us! One day I was in such a hurry, I went to grab my ‘knee highs’ – opened the drawer, grabbed the toe of what I thought was a knee high and it just kept coming out! haha! I had mistakenly bought panty hose instead of knee highs! Not good ladies / friends! But this one of many particular devotions got my attention and still has it! Psalms 68:19 says,” Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah.” Immediately my mind went back to the ‘profession of faith ‘ that I had made!
I grew up in a Bible church and remember many times my heart being stirred – I’d go forward and pray, thinking I wasn’t doing something right or enough! Years later – got married, my Pastor husband was saved at his brothers church during his first revival. (His intention was to be a support to his brother) By this time we had 2 sons – We started attending Calvary Baptist in Tremont, IL. where; he was baptised, now taking his family with him to church. Fast forward from ’78 to ’83 during a February camp meeting at our church, I became under such conviction. So much so, I had someone get my Pastor (Virlgil Graham) out of the services and come to the nursery where I was serving. He asked me if I was saved, and for the first time, I had to admit, “I don’t know”! He told me to read John and I John – I started to read and the whole time I’m reading, it was like, I knew what I needed to do! I got up to go get my Pastor – got to the nursery door, and stopped – leaned over the bottom half of the nursery door, and starting praying! First thing I did was Thank the Lord for showing me my lost condition and my need to trust Him! I was gloriously saved on Feb 25, 1983 at 9:15 pm! I remember – it felt like my top half had walked away! Asked the other nursery worker if she heard what I had just done! Then I went and got my pastor and hubby to let them know and rejoice with me! Kathy became a different person, wife, & mother that night!
When I made just a profession, Kathy was the same Kathy before she prayed -NO BENEFITS – but when the precious Holy Spirit convicted me of my lost condition and need to trust Christ as my Saviour, my life was immediately different! I had a love for everyone and everything! Christ at that moment ‘loaded me with benefits’! Love, Mercy, Grace, Forgiveness, and the list of benefits goes on more than I can put here! I almost let ‘what will people think if I get saved’ send me to Hell, because I was a ‘practicing Christian’ at the time -had been out soul-winning trying to share the gospel so others might be saved- my husband was in ministry -but I was as lost as a jaybird! I am daily grateful for the Holy Spirit, for my salvation, the pleasure of getting to serve the Lord with my Pastor hubby here at Bethel ! As Evangelist Jack Parchman would say, “Do you know, that you know, that you know, Heaven is your eternal home? “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved” Romans 10:13 If you’ve trusted Christ as your Saviour, think of and be thankful for all the benefits that became yours the day you were saved! Psalms 103:1,2 – “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his Holy name. Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all his benefits.”
https://www.sappsolutely.com/devotions/benefits-kathy-rowell
