October 16, 2025 Devo

I remember hearing a speaker say one time, “There’s not a lot of difference between success and failure.” And that’s true. But those “little” differences are HUGE! Our verse today reveals that truth so well. The keyword in today’s passage is a word that can so easily slip past us. It’s the word, “CONTINUALLY.”
Think about it with me. Many of us seek the Lord. We do it when we have a bad report from the doctor. We do it when we find ourselves in a tough bind financially. We seek Him when our marriage is falling apart or when we lose our job. We seek Him when we’ve blown it and are overwhelmed by guilt and shame. Those are the moments when we KNOW we need God’s strength, God’s help, God’s healing, or God’s grace.
But how often do we stop seeking Him once the crisis is past? Once our health gets better, we quickly forget about what God did. Once our financial or marital crisis is over, we take the wheel and push God into the passenger seat. When we get that new job, or get past the consequences of our failure, or graduate from our mandated recovery program, it’s easy to believe we can take it from here. But we can’t.
If there is one lesson God has taught me along the way, it is that I don’t just need God for a “moment” or even a “season” of my life. I need Him in EVERY moment, EVERY season, and EVERY SINGLE DAY. That means I can’t just seek Him when I’m in trouble. I need to CONTINUALLY seek Him day after day after day. This is the “abiding” that Jesus talks about in John 15. He is the Vine, and we are the branches. Apart from Him, we can do nothing. It’s only when we abide in Him, seeking Him with all our hearts day after day, that our lives bear the kind of fruit God wants us to bear, and we live the successful, victorious lives we’re capable of living.
Paul said it this way, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” You know that broken, humble attitude you have when you’re seeking God for His grace? You know that desperate sense of helplessness you feel when you have nowhere to go but to God? You know that deep sense of need you have when you realize that if God doesn’t show up, all is lost? That’s the attitude you have to have EVERY DAY. Because out of that awareness of our “weakness,” we seek God wholeheartedly. And that’s what not only makes us strong, it KEEPS us strong! That’s God’s Word for you today.