Devotional

“The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knows those who trust in Him” (KJV) Nahum 1:7 

Have you ever had a chance to stand straight and then fall backward into the arms of a friend who catches you? That was a lesson of trust. I remember the feelings I had. I was reluctant to try this experiment and nervous when I went through with it. I knew it was highly likely my friend was going to catch me as he said he would. But I also knew that sometimes friends can think it’s funny to not catch you! In addition, I knew that if I was to hit the floor I would survive.  

When we trust in God we are falling back on Him in a similar manner. The same emotions I described above accompany us as we trust God. It takes quite some courage and can make us feel extremely nervous. We may not question that he would not catch us just to be funny, but we do question whether we are hearing him right when we do trust him. Will he really catch me? Did he really promise that? What happens if I’m not caught? The answers to these questions are not as easy to see as they are in my allegory. We could get hurt.  

No matter how we feel inside, as believers we trade our understanding for the truth of the word of God.  Only by trying it out do we every see that he is there to catch us. One of those truths is the fact that he says if we pray, we must believe that he is capable of dealing with them, and then treat our prayers like he’s working them out. If something doesn’t work out, we should be surprised because there is a good reason why a prayer was not answered.  

Of course we need to pray according to what is acceptable to him. When we do so it keeps our focus on our current responsibilities and relieves stress because we know he is at work in the background. Our faith must be applied for today. God is at work now. If we look only at the future, we miss important steps and opportunities in the here-and-now.  

Through trusting and leaning on Him we extend those roots of our relationship that continues to abound. He is your super fortress, impenetrable. In days of trouble He is strong and He is good. Keep the faith. All things are working together for the good of those who love him.

“To the elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied” (KJV) 1 Peter 1:2 

We have been chosen to live today, in this time, for this day.  Some did not wake up this morning to see today.  It’s not something to take for granted. It is an unpleasant reality, but a reality nonetheless. There is providential purpose in your life, which only you have been elected for. 

The evidence of sin becomes more visible as we age. These bodies get a wrinkle here, a blemish there, and before we know it – what happened to me? This evidence tells us that there is a date set for “mission complete.” And that mission is beyond us. My pastor says that a woman should be so lost in God that a potential husband has to seek God to find her. Our mission is that: it is in the hands of God. To both receive it and to work it requires seeking God.   

It’s not a complicated mission, but rather so simple that we have complicated it. God has chosen us to come to him amidst our struggles, imperfections, and he loved us as we were still in our sin. Does he not take that approach to those who are still lost? The consequences for our hard-headed actions are all too real. However, he is not like man. He cares deeply enough that he took the fall for our actions. How many would lay down their life for a friend, let alone a stranger and enemy – which we were without Christ. 

Have you ever taken the blame for something you didn’t do for the betterment of those around? I read a story about some POWs who were held at gunpoint because the guards were missing a tool that could easily be used by the prisoners for escape. They said they would execute the lot of them unless someone confessed to taking it. No one confessed. They started shooting. Finally, one prisoner confessed and he was beaten to death. A bullet would have been better. A short time afterwards, the guards found the missing tool. 

From the beginning, God’s thoughts have been actively pursuing our souls, and also the souls of those who do not believe all around us. He has not drawn us to him for our own individual or personal fulfillment. There are no lone members in his body. He has elected us to set captives free, help the blind to see, to plead the cause of the voiceless, and has given us his Spirit to separate us from the demise of the world. 

He will lead us into intimacy with him and into the full meaning of the power of the cross.  It is not what we think. It is not according to our previous understanding. We must let go of those things that a new understanding may come afresh. Oh, that he may bring us into grace that loves the souls enough to tell the truth of the gospel while taking some heat in pulling them out of the fire. May your peace be multiplied!

“For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous” (KJV). Romans 5:19

To decisions: Adam and Jesus.  By Adam, we all were thrown into this mess of sin because of his choice.  By Jesus, we all are born into righteousness because of his choice.  Adam used his own judgment and council. Jesus used the council of the Word of God and the Spirit of God. By Adam taking his own thinking and the consultation of third parties that wasn’t God (Eve by the flesh: the serpent by spirit) he fell into sin being tricked, taken advantage of, and put in bondage by his own curiosity.

On the very positive other hand, we have Jesus who obeyed God even as he faced certain death. I cannot imagine how difficult that would have been because it would never be possible for me to do it! As a result, Christ found himself in the glory of God.  Look at what obedience can do for an entire people. Look at what obedience can do for our families and our relationships. It is far more real than we think.

By one person being righteous, God would have spared Sodom and Gomorrah.  Abraham took the role of intercessor, not wanting anyone to perish, and pleaded with God that he would spare the city. If there would have been one righteous, the city would have been spared. By one righteous person he spared the human race through Noah. And more glorious than this, he spared the entire human race, past, present, and future, through Christ: whoever will believe.

If we will say yes to the Lord and walk in his way, no matter what our past has been, our decision will have a profound effect on ourselves and everyone around us!  If disobedience created the problems in the world we face, obedience is the answer that will change our path toward restoration. Keep sensitive to his Spirit, his unctions. Slow it down a bit. Walk every more wisely. You have an effective comforter and counselor in His Spirit. Talk and also listen, and be blessed.

“And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof” (KJV). Revelation 21:23,

The sun and the moon were created to separate the day from the night and to use to track signs, seasons, days, and years (Gen 1:14-19). It is incredible that we will no longer need them in the restored earth. The need to separate darkness from light is no longer an issue when in the presence of a holy God. In his light there is no darkness at all (1Joh 1:5). Time will not matter the same as it does to us now. There will be no need to track it. Redemptive history will meet the completion of future redemption.  

Submission to his Holy Spirit places pain, strife, rebellion, at his feet leading to the increase of our happiness.  If He brought us to these situations in our lives, he intends to lead us to successfully navigate them. If this holy city is what is waiting for us in the Spirit, why do we insist on focusing on things we now see in the physical? It’s because in part that we don’t believe God is at work through them. Why is there suffering, for example? That can’t be God, can it? Yet, our redemption was delivered through the ultimate suffering servant: our Lord Jesus.  

But then you’d have to consider the things that characters like Joseph had to go through. Do you know that one could claim that he brought some of it on himself? He wasn’t exactly humble around his brothers with the dreams the Lord gave him. He was already a daddy’s boy. His brothers easily viewed it as trying to exalt himself over them. Succession and inheritance were a big deal back then. It was the order of things. To go outside of that was disrespectful. Many stories are not in the cannon of Scripture. There are many people who believed God, trusted in God, and were quite frankly drug through the mud in their lives without a written record.  

Heaven and all its hosts are in complete submission to God.  Blessed are the meek, they have an inheritance the prideful do not. Blessed are the peace makers who receive hostility and undeserved suffering, they will be called the very sons of God. Believe. Only believe that He is able to work through our problems; not with squeaking by but with victorious overcoming of obstacles. When we submit to him without contingencies we find that God is not a man that he should lie. Eventually, our problems will flee seven ways from before us as we don’t let up in allowing him to lead us to the victory!   

The bible says to pray and believe in what we ask. Believe that there will be a performance of it. There is a pathway that is fully lit by the glory of God!  His light will never set! His light is empowerment to chase all shadows away. As sure as there is night, there is day! And surely there is a day where God himself will be our light! Amen, Saints. Amen.