What does your birthday reveal about your spiritual gifts, character, and calling?
This unique devotional uses your birth month and day to guide you through key passages of scripture, using the chapter and verse numbers that match your special day.
What’s inside:
Ancient verses matched to your birthday
month=chapter, day=verse
Reflections on your personality, strengths, and values
Encouragement and inspiration for your walk with the Divine
A powerful tool for self-discovery and growth.
Perfect as a Christmas gift, Birthday gift, personal devotional, or keepsake.
Romans 12:6 We all have different gifts. Each gift came because of the grace that God gave us.
God has given you a very unique and important gift. You have a remarkable level of patience when it comes to the artistic expressions found in puzzles, mosaics, and other unique configurations.
You enjoy finding fractured images in piles of scattered pieces of varying hues. You are sure that when the random jagged edges are fit together properly, these tiny colorful segments of will reveal a beautiful picture of what was meant to be. While others may see chaos and confusion, you see a collection of shapes and colors ready for organization.
From a spiritual perspective, this gift is vital to the advancement of God’s Kingdom.
Many people are broken. You have been gifted with the ability to help others piece together their shattered lives and become the masterpiece that God designed them to be.
Your ability to face brokenness with a logical and non-judgmental approach makes you the ideal candidate to bring the message of wholeness to those who are broken.
In the book of Revelation, chapter 8, there is a direct link between the victory of God during the final days, and the prayers we pray. Billions of prayers are heard and stored up in heaven. It is proclaimed that the victory of God is coming, and it is coming through the prayers of God’s people. So, the question is not whether our prayers are heard and/or answered, but rather, DO WE UNDERSTAND the answers?
King David authored 73 of the Psalms and some of them have a direct correlation with a specific life event. Many are written in the form of praise to God for answering his prayers.
Psalm 34 specifically states that God always hears our prayers, sees us, and cares for us. He is for us.
In verse 17, “The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them.” God hears and will respond. In Psalm 5, we read that God is never indifferent to His people when they call out to Him. “In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation. For surely, O Lord, you bless the righteous; you surround them with your favor as with a shield.”
David is known for His anointing from God Himself, but He is also known as a prayer warrior. Prayer warriors are summoned and gifted by God to pray for others as intercessors for those of us who have difficulty in the area of prayer.
We have all acted as prayer warriors for those on our prayer lists. I can tell you truly that when I am desperate for prayers there are others, I call upon to pray on my behalf.
When the questions as to when my prayer is answered, or how is it answered, or when will I know it is answered, I ask those prayer warriors for guidance. I know that I am too smart to see the obvious, and too dumb to realize the answer. I am confident that God answers but that I just may not understand His answer today.
God is in my life for the long haul, and yours too. For those of you who are often asked to pray for others, it is likely that you have been anointed by the Holy Spirit as an Intercessor. You are called to be a prayer warrior. Friends, family, and acquaintances come to you with their needs, asking you to pray on their behalf.
Sometimes, you receive a prayer request from the Holy Spirit because an intercessor is required. This appeal comes to you as an inner urgency, placed there by God Himself. You don’t always understand why you wake up in the middle of the night with a news story from across the world, replaying in your mind. All you know is that you must pray.
Other times, prayers are requested by those who sense how powerful your prayers are and how seriously you take your ministry of intercessory prayer warrior.
Paul had a messenger of Satan he referred to as a thorn in the flesh. He realized it was to keep him from becoming conceited, but still he asked God to remove it. He asked three times and each time, God told him His grace was sufficient. On that third ask, Paul finally realized there was a higher purpose for the thorn.
He was quite the achiever. He was a writer, and activist, a preacher, and the recipient of divine revelation. Those are some heady titles. Anyone in his position would struggle with arrogance.
Before his conversion, Paul had been a well-educated, well-connected, influential person. Perhaps he had an ego problem all his life. He was ambitious about his political career and eager to gain social standing by stopping the Christian movement. As a Roman citizen, educated in the Pharisaical law, he could advance his political pursuits in the eyes of the religious leaders while also remaining a loyalist to the Roman government. Snuffing out the Jesus movement would have brought him the promotion and respect he deserved.
But as he sat in a prison cell, frustrated with a messenger of Satan, he couldn’t think of anything he’d like more that to have God take it away.
We wonder if this messenger of Satan was one of the guards at the prison. Maybe they had worked together when Paul was a Christian bounty hunter, and the guard was now taunting him about being ‘one of them’. Perhaps the messenger of Satan was another prisoner. Perhaps the thorn was a conspiracy theory that Paul was a double agent, and the Damascus conversion was a clever lie to get the early Christians to trust him so he could infiltrate their secret communities and advance his political career.
No matter who or what his thorn in the flesh was, it caused Paul a great deal of distress. But God said, “My grace is sufficient. It is made perfect in your weakness.”
So, the guy who was prone to conceit found a new brag. He would brag about his own weakness so the grace of Christ could be the driving force behind all he would accomplish. It was hard on his ego, but good for his soul.
He didn’t condemn them for being distracted by their growling stomachs. He didn’t belittle them for showing signs of weakness. He didn’t minimize their hunger by comparing it to His own when He fasted for forty days. It wasn’t His desire to see them suffer to prove their devotion.
In the multiplication miracle of feeding the five thousand, we see that Jesus was happy to give the hungry people as much food as they wanted. They ate until they were satisfied, and there was plenty left over.
By this example, we can rest assured that Jesus is pleased when He is given the opportunity to be generous. He is not stingy or miserly when it comes to providing the necessities of life. He will not withhold the resources needed to fulfill our destinies. We know that He wants us to have everything we need to successfully complete our human journey. However, there are times we may feel uncomfortable asking, for fear our requests might be based upon selfish motives.
As we level up, we learn this is a needless fear. God is a loving Father. He will not give us something that is bad for us. We think back to the days when our children were young, and they asked for candy when it was time for dinner. We didn’t judge or condemn them. We simply said, “No. That’s not good for you,” and then provided them with a healthy option instead. We know that God will do the same for us. He won’t give us anything that will do harm. We trust Him to protect us; sometimes even from ourselves.
We see that during His mission on earth, Jesus never scolded anyone for asking too much or too often. In fact, He stated time and time again, “Just ask. I want to give you what you need. ”
The feeding of the five thousand demonstrated the Father’s heart through the acts and attitudes of His Son. Jesus had compassion on the famished crowd.
He didn’t condemn them for being distracted by their growling stomachs. He didn’t belittle them for showing signs of weakness. He didn’t minimize their hunger by comparing it to His own when He fasted for forty days. It wasn’t His desire to see them suffer to prove their devotion.
They were hungry and He wanted them to be fed. Jesus met their needs abundantly. He provided more than enough. There may have been some who gave up and left early before the miracle arrived. This may account for the enormous number of leftovers His disciples collected after everyone was fed.
We realize it is critically important that we never become one who wanders away, feeling the pressure to fend for ourselves, rather than waiting to see what Jesus is doing.
We know there will be times of waiting. And during those times, we might not have a clear view of what is happening, or how the miracle will unfold, but waiting is part of the process, and we must become willing to put in the time. Knowing Jesus like we do, we can be sure that compassion is His first response.
The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you.
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The face of God shining into your life creates an aura of warmth and light in the atmosphere surrounding you.
This glow of the Spirit illuminates spaces which were once dark and gloomy. People are drawn to your light and hope to experience it for themselves.
The wonderful thing about this light is that it can be shared freely without losing its intensity.
Since the glow of God’s face is like that of the sun, all of creation can bask in its warmth. There is no limit to the number of beneficiaries who can receive the sustenance it offers.
As this warmth and light of God’s face shines on you and through you, healing comes.
Just like the sunshine persuades spring flowers to emerge, you too carry the ability to encourage the colorful expressions of God’s unique design to blossom in the lives of those you influence.
You carry a big responsibility, for without the glow of God shining through you, some who are searching for the light would remain in darkness.
This light you carry is warm and inviting. It brings healing and comfort. It is the grace of God shining on you and through you into a world that would otherwise seem very cold and dark.
Finding Total Recovery in the Words of Christ, "It is Finished!" 