Devotions

I believe in you. Most of those ten things God wants us to remember on that old magnet in Bob’s office were straight forward … even though God has taken me in unexpected directions as I think about them. This one, however, really stopped me in my tracks. I believe in you.

 I believe in God, but does God believe in me? Me, with all my faults, failures, sins. Me, with all my fleeting doubts, unknowns, and missteps? Me?

There is a passage in 2 Corinthians 5 where Paul speaks a truth that is very familiar to most Christians — that we are a new creation in Christ and that the old person has passed away. This happened because God reconciled us to Himself through the work of Christ Jesus. Paul goes on and says that God has committed to us His message of reconciliation. Then he makes one astonishing statement. “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.”  [vss 17-21 NIV]

An ambassador is one who speaks for a government, a nation, a monarchy. He takes the message of a ruler or leader and delivers it to others. An ambassador is trusted to deliver not his or her own message, but the message given by the leader. The power of the message does not rest in the ambassador, but in the ruler or nation that he or she represents.

God has committed to us His own message of reconciliation and He has sent us out, into this world, with that powerful message. He is making His appeal to the lost through us, His ambassadors. The power is His. The message is His. But amazingly, He has entrusted that message into our keeping. With the committal of that message, with the calling of us as His ambassadors, He is saying, I believe in you.

I am for you. “If God is for us, who can be against us?” [Romans 8:31 NIV]

Ah, that little word IF? That little word IF makes us wonder, doesn’t it. IF is filled with doubt, uncertainty and the unknown. IF is a gamble. Our lives are filled with IF’S. What if I lose my job? What if I lose a loved one? What if I get cancer or heart disease? What IF’S can fill us with fear and doubt. What IF’S can paralyze us and keep us from living life as we should.

Is that what the Scripture implies … that we are uncertain about God being for us? Is it a gamble to trust God to be for us? No! That’s not what is implied here. In fact, this question is not a question at all – it is a statement. SINCE God is for us, there is no one strong enough to be against us. We can trust that statement.

 The next verse gives the reason why we can trust that statement. Romans 8:32: “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”  [NIV]

Once again this really isn’t a question. It’s a statement of promise and truth. God did not spare his own Son, but gave Him up for us all, now he will also, along with the giving of His Son, graciously give us all things.

 I am for you.  No IF’S about it!

I love You.  “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him belong. They are weak but He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me.”

I used to sing this song to my children when they were small, and I’ve sung it to my grandchildren also. The simplest of all truths — Jesus loves me. And yet perhaps the most difficult to make real in our lives.

Does God really love me? How many of us have asked that question. Oh, maybe we haven’t expressed it out loud, but we’ve wondered. When difficult times arise, when unexpected tragedies happen, when bad things happen to good people that little nagging doubt arises … does God REALLY love me?

 Romans 5:8: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” [NIV]

While we were living as enemies of God, God demonstrated His love for us by giving us His Son. In that giving God changed us from enemies to family. In the death of His son, He gave us life.

Does God REALLY love me? Yes, God REALLY loves you. We find evidence of that love on a hill called Calvary.  God’s love flows from a blood-stained cross into our life each day. God’s love rises from an empty tomb and promises eternity in His presence — God REALLY loves you and me!

I will be with you. What a delightful promise! Two Scriptures immediately came to mind. In the Old Testament, God’s promise to Israel in Isaiah 43:1-2: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.” [NIV]

In the New Testament it is the promise in Hebrews 13:5: “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” [NIV]

I will be with you. God has promised to be with us, to never leave or forsake us. That is a promise that I cling to often. Yet … there is so much more. God with us. Matthew 1:23: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”-which means, “God with us.” [NIV]

The God who is with us is the God who walked in our sandals through this dusty earth. He is the God who left glory and all the prerogatives of being God and came as a baby to abide with us. He understands our humanness because He was cloaked in it. He was tempted as we are (but without sin). He knows what it means to be rejected, misunderstood, persecuted, hungry, exhausted, forsaken. This God who promises I will be with you, who knows what it is like to BE us, laid down His life FOR us.

So, when God says, I will be with you … He was, He is, and He always will be Immanuel.

I will provide for you. When I saw this on the magnet in Bob’s room my mind went immediately to the Scripture in Philippians 4:19: “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” [NKJV]

But when I began to think about God’s provision the Lord took me to Genesis 22 instead. Abraham was being tested by God … called to do something that makes most of us recoil in horror … offer his son Isaac to God as a burnt offering on Mt Moriah. God knew Abraham’s depth of faith but needed Abraham to understand that also.

Abraham and Isaac climbed up the mountain with everything necessary for the burnt offering, except as Isaac noted, there was no lamb. Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” [vs 8 NIV]

And of course, God did exactly that. As Abraham raises the knife, God restrains His hand and provides His own lamb in Isaac’s place. I will provide for you.

 Isaac’s greatest need at that moment that knife was raised was for God’s faithfulness to provide a lamb in his place. Our greatest need for God’s provision is the same as Isaac’s. We need God’s faithfulness to provide the Lamb that will take our place. As God was faithful to Abraham and Isaac with the ram caught in the bush, God is faithful to provide for us His very own Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”  [John 1:29]

I will not fail you. That’s the second of 10 things I want to remember about God.  He will not fail us.

Remember that wonderful Scripture in Lamentations 3:22? “Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.” 

 God’s compassions will never fail us.  But what exactly did Jeremiah mean when He referred to God’s compassions.

The OT word for ‘compassions’ in this instance is racham.  Racham means compassion.  (In our English that is kindness, concern, care, consideration.)

Racham also refers to tender love, mercy, pity, and surprisingly something else.  Racham refers to the womb as cherishing the fetus.

As the womb envelops, protects, nourishes, and treasures the fetus until the fullness of time for that child to be born, so God’s compassions envelop, protect, nourish and treasure us until the fullness of time when we will be brought into His presence.

He will not fail us. Amen

I will bless you. This is the first of the 10 things God wants me to remember—at least according to the magnet I found on Bob’s gun cabinet.

The first occurrence of the words I will bless you is recorded in Genesis. God’s main promise (covenant) to Abraham began with those words. “I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore.” [22:17 NIV]

This promise of blessing was given to Abraham despite Abraham’s sins and failings. God kept His promise and Isaac was born. Some of God’s promises are contingent upon our response. Those are the “if/then” promises; if you do this/then I will do that. However, many of God’s promises do not depend on our character but on His faithfulness, and this promise to Abraham was absolutely dependent on God’s faithfulness.

The promise of blessing to Abraham is also referenced in Hebrews. The writer of Hebrews tells us that God did not promise this blessing only to Abraham but also gave His promise and oath to “the heirs of promise.” While Isaac and his descendants are the first of these heirs, all believers are included in the promise as “Abraham’s [spiritual] seed.” [Hebrews 6:14-20, 11:9, Galatians. 3:29]

God even confirmed His promise with an oath. In an oath the greater always witnesses for the lesser, and in this instance, there is no greater one than God, who cannot lie, and who always keeps His promises. God has promised to bless us as spiritual descendants of Abraham.

Too often we trivialize blessing, God blessed me with a good parking space. We need to remember the depth, width and length of the blessing that is the foundation of all blessing, that blessing which flows through the greatest descendant of Abraham, Jesus Christ.

I [we] have been blessed in Christ, that’s God’s promise, that’s God’s oath…I will bless you.

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” [Rom 10:9 NIV]

If you are reading this devotion this morning more than likely at some point in your life you did exactly what Paul wrote in Romans 10. You confessed that Jesus is Lord, you believed that He died, was buried and rose from the grave. And you know that through that confession, you are saved now and will be with Him one day.

Jesus is Lord.  Lord, NT:2962, kurios (koo’-ree-os); from kuros (supremacy); supreme in authority. Jesus is Lord. He is the supreme authority over and in our salvation. Salvation, of course, is our greatest need, but I wonder what would happen if we, His church, started claiming and confessing His Lordship over more than just our salvation.

What if we started seeking His Lordship over our bodies, our minds, our wills? What if we started claiming His Lordship over our jobs, our families, our finances, our marriages? What would happen if we started claiming His Supreme authority over our churches, our neighborhoods, our politicians, our scientists, our doctors, and our lawyers?

I wonder if we are stopping short of what God’s great will is. Jesus said that we are to pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We acknowledge with our minds that God’s will is the supremacy, the Lordship of Christ over all things, but are we praying that way? Are we expecting God’s Spirit to move in answer to those kinds of prayers? Or, are we stopping short? Something I am surely going to be thinking and praying about today.

I wrote a few days ago about fear. It is ugly and can pop up at any moment. I had an event that caused fear to rise in me. I spent a day fearing what the outcome might be, but the following morning I surrendered that fear to the LORD Jesus and I accepted His love and peace.

I found out a few days later than fear does not like to remain surrendered. It likes to re-appear and attempt once again to immobilize. That must be why there are so many Scriptures addressing fear in the Bible. God knew we would need each one!

I was looking at a few “fear” verses this morning and my heart grabbed hold of Psalm 27. “The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?” [vs1 NKJV]

The LORD, the LORD God Almighty is my light and my salvation. I accepted His invitation to be HIS more than one half century ago. Since I belong to the LORD, to God Almighty, is there anyone on earth that I should fear?

Is there anyone on earth greater than my LORD? Is there anyone on earth that is stronger than my LORD? Is there anyone on this earth that can overpower God’s love for me? No.

So, “Of whom shall I be afraid?” No One! Praise the LORD.

There is so much wrong with this world. I support the Tim Tebow Foundation, and I am often overwhelmed with sorrow when I read some of the stories told by the children that it rescues from slavery and exploitation around this world. But I don’t have to go to other parts of the world, I can find that same evil in my own backyard.

There are so many unanswered questions. Whenever we hear about tragedies, about how cruel people can be, about how evil often seems to flourish unhindered, we are confronted with the question … “Why does God allow this to happen?”

I truly wish I could answer that in a way that satisfies everyone, but that is not possible. What I can say is that no matter what I see in this life, I believe.

Evil things will happen, still I believe.

This world may be horribly broken, still I believe.

Illness, suffering and death may come, still I believe.

I believe God is Good.

I believe God loves us.

I believe Jesus died to take away our sins and opened the way to God our Father.

I believe Jesus is coming again and that one day all will be made right.

I believe.

“I know the One I have believed in and am persuaded that He is able to guard what has been entrusted to me until that day.” [2 Timothy 1:12 HCSB]