Devotions

Last Sunday our daughter and son-in-law came to visit. They brought their dog, Bennie, with them. It was Bennie’s birthday, He turned 15, which I guess in dog years is about 105. He’s showing his age. He’s deaf now, and has problems with his feet and hips, but his face is young and still full of joy

Bennie seemed to enjoy my 86-year-old husband’s attention and often returned to sit by Bob. Watching these two “old gentlemen” made me smile and I thought of the joy that can be found in the most simple of pleasures.

“Lord, you are my portion and my cup of blessing, you hold my future. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places: indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance …. You reveal the path of life to me, in your presence is abundant joy, at your right hand are eternal pleasures.” [Psalm 16:5, 11 HCSB]

Across my 79 years, I have experienced trials, just like most of us. Yet, despite trials, my life has been resplendent with pleasures. The greatest of these were the simple ones, and perhaps none so great as simply experiencing the presence of the LORD amid the trials.

There were times when I felt as if God had pulled me onto His great lap and hugged me, wiping away my tears and softly whispering that He was with me and always would be.

And to know that the “lines have fallen for me in pleasant places,” – that God has given me salvation and a promised inheritance – is the best of all.

It was 53 years ago this month that I surrendered my life to Christ Jesus. I was 26 and did not yet realize what an awesome salvation that I had in Him. With the arrival of each August over the years, I have come to rejoice more and more. Knowing God’s favor upon His children should produce a glorious response in us.

“Let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them sing joyful praises forever. Spread your protection over them, that all who love your name may be filled with joy.  For you bless the godly, O Lord; you surround them with your shield of love.” [Ps 5:11-12 NLT]

“The Lord is good, His mercy [love] endures forever” is the theme of the Old Testament. That song was sung at the dedication of Solomon’s temple, repeated by the psalmists. It was sung by Jehoshaphat’s army as they went in to battle and by the people who returned from captivity at the completion of the foundation for the post-exilic temple. It was acknowledged by Jeremiah and by Daniel.

In the New Testament it was Peter who reminded us that the Lord is good. “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.” [1 Peter 2:2-3 NIV]

Have you tasted that the LORD is good? If so, there should be a joyfulness that stretches far beyond circumstances and trials. There should also be a loud rejoicing that expresses that joy so that others might hear and come to “taste” that the LORD our God is Good!

August, the month in 1973 in which I surrendered my life to Christ Jesus as LORD and Savior, always reminds me of how precious that salvation is – and what my future holds!

Jesus told His disciplines in John 14 that He was going to prepare a home for them in the Father’s Heavenly House and had reserved their rooms in that house. He also told them, “You know the way to where I am going.” 

When He said that, Thomas told Him that they didn’t know where he was going, so how could they know the way. Jesus’ response is one that every Christian can probably recite. “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” [vs 4-7 NLT]

Jesus’ statement is one of the most crucial statements regarding salvation ever uttered. Either what He claimed was the absolute and perfect truth, or He was a madman. We can be assured, that the resurrection of Christ Jesus following His crucifixion (one of the most attested to events in history) was God’s confirmation that Jesus was exactly who He said He was, God’s Son—the Way, Truth, Life—and the ONLY avenue to the Father.

That truth both narrows and expands salvation. It narrows it by denying the claim that there are many paths to God. There is one path, a narrow one, and it goes through Christ Jesus.

In another way, however, it expands salvation to “whosoever believes.” We don’t need to belong to a certain ethnic group, a certain denomination, or a certain country to be saved. We don’t need to trace our linage or worry about our gender or social status or education. We simply come to Jesus as Lord and Savior. What a glorious salvation! Amen&Amen

Ever get discouraged? Ever think that you will never reach maturity in Christ? I do. Every time I do something dumb, I remember how flawed I am – how so unlike my Savior and LORD.

When that happens, I need to remember the promise of God found in 1 John 3:2: “Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is.” [NLT]

Five words burst forth in that chapter and give me hope … “we will be like Him!”

Not “we might be like Him,” or we “could be like Him,” or we will be a little like Him.” No, “we WILL be like Him!”

We became “God’s Children” when we surrendered our lives to Christ Jesus. Our adoption into the Family of God was all because of Him. Now … we have the amazing promise that we are not only “related” to Christ Jesus, God’s Precious Son, but there is coming a time when we will “resemble fully” the One who loves us so much!

The flaws will stay in the grave. Our old nature will not follow us into glory! We WILL Be Like HIM! Amen&Amen

I wrote a little about Christian maturity in yesterday’s post. Jesus gave us a peek at what constitutes Christian maturity in the Parable of the Seed and Sower. After telling the parable to the crowd, His disciples gathered around privately with Him and asked Him to explain it. You can read the parable in Luke 8:4-15.

Jesus described the seed that fell among the thorns, “Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity.” Then He went on, “But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.” [v14-15 NKJV]

In those two sentences Jesus described what we see in the lives of the immature and the mature. The immature are those who are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures. They are those who bear no fruit “to maturity.”

Years ago, a neighbor planted fruit trees next to his house. When I walk by in the spring, I see the buds. Now they are rich with peaches, pears, and apples. After a few initial dormant years, they have born rich fruit every year since.

Jesus told the disciples that when seed falls on good ground it is received, kept, and fruit is brought to maturity. When the spiritual seed of God’s Word falls and takes root in our hearts, we should begin to bear fruit—Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. [Gal 5:22-23]

It’s simple. No fruit = No maturity. Fruit = Maturity.

Nothing does more for my spirit than talking about the LORD to the people of the LORD. I especially love talking about the things that will help us mature in Christ. There is one man in the New Testament who models Christian maturity.

Epaphras was a fellow worker of Paul. While Paul was imprisoned in Roman, Epaphras ministered to the church at Colossae in his stead. Then he brought a report on the health of the church to Paul in Rome. Paul was so cheered in his heart by what he heard that he wrote the wonderful epistle to the Colossians, which Epaphras took back with him to his flock.

Perhaps what Epaphras should be most noted for is his prayer life. Paul writes of him, “He always prays earnestly for you, asking God to make you strong and perfect, fully confident that you are following the whole will of God. I can assure you that he prays hard for you and also for the believers in Laodicea and Hierapolis.” [Colossians 4:12-13 NLT]

It was the desire of Epaphras, and of course Paul, that those they ministered to would stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. That brings me back to a question of what constitutes Christian maturity. The word Paul used is teleios (tel’-i-os). It is sometimes translated as “perfect” and means to be complete in labor, growth, mental and moral character, etc.

Maturity comes when we can stand firm in the will of God, no matter what His will brings into our lives. It means we are fully confident of the goodness of God even when beset with trials and surrounded by evil. It is so much more than merely years spent since our conversion – we can be saved for decades and still not be mature. Maturity requires determined cooperation with the Spirit of God in our lives to become more like Jesus every day. Amen&Amen

Psalm 24:8:  Who is the King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty; the Lord, invincible in battle. [NLT]

Psalm 140:7: O Sovereign Lord, the strong one who rescued me, you protected me on the day of battle. [NLT]

Recently I read a devotion I had written in 2013. It contained the thought that “God is not weakened by what weakens us.” (I have no idea whose original thought that was and I haven’t been able to find the author.)

“God is not weakened by what weakens us.” Upon an initial read, we’d all agree with that statement. God, after all, is all-powerful. The Bible is resplendent with the power of our God. Whether Old Testament or New, we see our God acting on behalf of His people with strength and might. He is, as the Psalmist writes, “The LORD strong and mighty … invincible in battle.”

Yet, in our daily walk with God, we often act as if we don’t know that to be true. We think that what diminishes us has also diminished our God and that He is unable, or at the least, unwilling to be strong on our behalf. But as the Psalmist also wrote, The LORD is “my strong one who rescued me …protected me on the day of battle….”

What battle are you facing? I have friends and family who are at this moment facing health battles. I know others who are battling financial issues, aging issues, loneliness, grief, and opposition. It matters not the type of battle; it matters only that our LORD is mighty in it and that “He will keep you strong to the end so that you will be free from all blame on the day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns. God will do this, for he is faithful to do what he says, and he has invited you into partnership with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” [1 Corinthians 1:8-9:  NLT]

Amen&Amen

There is a “Happy Chapter” in the Gospels. It’s Luke 15. Reading that chapter in the NLT, I found numerous ‘Happy Words’—joyfully, celebrate, happy, along with multiple occurrences of rejoice and joy. That really presents an interesting spin on a chapter that is often called the “Chapter of the Lost.”

There are three parables in that chapter, the Parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Lost Son. Maybe they should be renamed the Parables of the Found Sheep, the Found Coin, and the Found Son. It seems to me that the main thrust of those parables is not how they were LOST, but how they were FOUND!

Happiness and rejoicing abound in that chapter. Not just the happiness of the Shepherd, the Woman and the Prodigal’s Father, but also the rejoicing and happiness in heaven. Jesus said, “In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!” [vs 7 NLT]

There is a celebration – a party – in heaven every time a lost sinner is saved. I can just imagine the angels dancing with delight and the saints of all the ages singing and shouting. Even the LORD God Almighty gets into the fun. (If you believe that God is too dignified to do that, you need to re-read Zephaniah 3:17.)

“For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.” [NLT]

Twenty-seven years ago this month, my life did an about-face. I hadn’t been feeling well for a long time and I was extremely fatigued. My doctor ran a battery of different tests, and all came back negative. Finally, she ran a test for Diabetes and that came back with an A1C of 14.6. (At the time the normal range was 4-6.)

With the diagnosis, she said I should start on medications immediately. I asked for a month. In that month I researched everything about Diabetes 2 that I could find. I read up on medications and their side effects. I found out what Diabetes 2 does to a body. And I learned what I needed to do (change my diet, exercise, and lose weight).

So, I embarked on a new path. I was diligent about what I consumed. I began to walk, initially managing only one block out and back, but before long I was doing three miles on my lunch break. Over the next 12 months I dropped 110 pounds. My A1C dropped in the first month to 10.3 (that’s 43 points!), then to 7.6 a month later, and finally settled in around 5.0.

When I look back on that time now, I know my reaction to the diagnosis could have been much different. Many go into denial, some refuse to even try to manage, some head straight to meds. I am thankful for that “bad news” as it gave me a new and much improved life.

Fifty-three years ago this month, I received another kind of “bad news.” I learned that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” That “bad news” (that I was a sinner) drove me to the foot of the cross, to the “Good News” found in the loving arms of a Savior who was waiting for me with an armload of grace and a heart full of love. That “bad news” prompted me to find a new and eternal life in God’s Good News. [Romans 3:21-26]

How easy it is to complain! Complaining is the norm in our society. We complain about everything. We have ‘expectations’ and if someone or something doesn’t live up to them, we let the world know!

We aren’t the only society that loves to complain. The Israelites were pretty good at it too. Numbers 11:1: “Soon the people began to complain about their hardship, and the Lord heard everything they said. Then the Lord’s anger blazed against them, and he sent a fire to rage among them, and he destroyed some of the people in the outskirts of the camp.” [NLT]

Complaining had dire consequences for them – it will have dire consequence for us also.

Paul calls believers to be different from society. “Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.” [Philippians 2:14-15]

Still, it is easy for us to pick up a spirit of grumbling and complaining when trials and difficulties come. When that happens, I strive to remember that my sins far outweigh any trials that may come my way.

If my LORD never rescues me from another trial or difficulty, I will still serve and praise Him for He has rescued me from the shame and guilt of multitudes of sin. Amen&Amen