Devotional thoughts - Lent 2013 - Day 36

Today’s Our Daily Bread devotional says in part:

Even when the storms of life hit so hard that we nearly break from the force, the “rain” is not an enemy. Our loving God has allowed it to make us stronger. He uses the water that batters us on the outside to build us up on the inside, so we may stand straight and strong.

That part about the rain not being an enemy made me think about what I heard on the news the other day as they were reporting on a storm system that was rolling through the city.  Before the storm came, the unseasonably warm weather had given way to some cooler temperatures.  Then the storm came with tornado warnings and hail – in some places reportedly as large as baseballs.  As the meteorologists were discussing the pattern and activity of the storm while on the air, they mentioned how rapidly it was moving and dissipating through the parts of the state where the “cold wedge” of air we had been experiencing was present.  In the areas which had been warmer, the effects of the storm were more severe.  They stated that the cooler air which some may have felt was uncomfortable (and therefore unwelcome) was actually a protection during the storm, lessening the storm’s intensity.

Romans 8:28

Amplified Bible (AMP)

²⁸ We are assured and know that [God being a partner in their labor] all things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose.

New Living Translation (NLT)

²⁸ And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

New Century Version (NCV)

²⁸ We know that in everything God works for the good of those who love him. They are the people he called, because that was his plan.

 

LORD, Dear Lord, thank You for Your good and wise plans and purposes for our lives, and for everything that affects us and all of Your creation such that You are glorified and magnified.  I am so grateful that our steps are ordered, and that You work in, for, through, by and even around us.  May Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.  Amen.

… and my journey with Him continues …

Devotional thoughts - Lent 2013 - day 35

Thinking of the reference to consistency in today's My Utmost for His Highest devotional, which says in part:

The final stage in the life of faith is the attainment of character, and we encounter many changes in the process. We feel the presence of God around us when we pray, yet we are only momentarily changed. We tend to keep going back to our everyday ways and the glory vanishes. A life of faith is not a life of one glorious mountaintop experience after another, like soaring on eagles’ wings, but is a life of day-in and day-out consistency; a life of walking without fainting (see Isaiah 40:31). It is not even a question of the holiness of sanctification, but of something which comes much farther down the road. It is a faith that has been tried and proved and has withstood the test.

Lord, may I be (found) faithful ... Amen.

1 John 4:17

Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as He is, so are we in this world.

... and my journey with Him continues ...

Devotional thoughts - Lent 2013 - day 33

Today a song lyric (from “A Mighty Fortress” by Christy Nockels) started playing in my head: “We will keep our eyes on You.”  Reading today’s My Utmost for His Highest devotional later reminded me of this again:

We make it our aim . . . to be well pleasing to Him —2 Corinthians 5:9

We make it our aim. . . .” It requires a conscious decision and effort to keep our primary goal constantly in front of us. It means holding ourselves to the highest priority year in and year out; not making our first priority to win souls, or to establish churches, or to have revivals, but seeking only “to be well pleasing to Him.” It is not a lack of spiritual experience that leads to failure, but a lack of working to keep our eyes focused and on the right goal. At least once a week examine yourself before God to see if your life is measuring up to the standard He has for you. …

Any goal we have that diverts us even to the slightest degree from the central goal of being “approved to God” (2 Timothy 2:15) may result in our rejection from further service for Him. When you discern where the goal leads, you will understand why it is so necessary to keep “looking unto Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2). Paul spoke of the importance of controlling his own body so that it would not take him in the wrong direction. He said, “I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest . . . I myself should become disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:27).

I must learn to relate everything to the primary goal, maintaining it without interruption. My worth to God publicly is measured by what I really am in my private life. Is my primary goal in life to please Him and to be acceptable to Him, or is it something less, no matter how lofty it may sound?

 

… and my journey with Him continues …

Devotional thoughts - Lent 2013 - day 32

I was reminded of a phrase that came into my head the other day in reading today’s God Calling devotional:

My children, I am here beside you. Draw near in spirit to Me. Shut out the distractions of the world. I am your Life, the very breath of your soul. Learn what it is to shut yourself in the secret place of your being, which is My secret place too.

 

True it is, I wait in many a heart, but so few retire into that inner place of the being to commune with Me. Wherever the soul is, I am. Man has rarely understood this. I am actually at the center of every man's being, but, distracted with the things of the sense-life, he finds Me not.

 

Do you realize that I am telling you truths, revealing them, not repeating oft-told facts. Meditate on all I say. Ponder it. Not to draw your own conclusions, but to absorb Mine.

 

All down the ages, men have been too eager to say what they thought about My truth, and so doing, they have grievously erred. Hear Me. Talk to Me. Reflect Me. Do not say what you think about me. My words need none of man's explanation. I can explain to each heart.

 

Make Me real, and leave Me to do My own work. To lead a soul to Me is one thing, to seek to stay with it to interpret mars the first great act. So would it be with human intercourse. How much more then, when it is a question of the soul, and Me, its Maker, and only real Spirit that understands it.

 

"In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness
and in confidence shall be your strength." - Isaiah 30:15

 

“I am your Life…”  The phrase that had occurred to me was, “Christ is your life.”  I found reference to this in part of Colossians 3:4, which says, “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.”  This I will meditate on, that Christ is my life…

 

… and my journey with Him continues …

Devotional thoughts - Lent 2013 - day 29

Have really been thinking about how I live lately - about what attitude I have and am portraying as I go about this life.  While I have thought about this before, it was usually in terms of how my actions would be perceived to others, how God would be represented.  Now, however, the emphasis seems to be on how my heart will be perceived by God.  A “shift”, yeah? (Passion City Church sermon series “Shift” just completed last Sunday – can  be viewed at www.passioncitychurch.com/watch.)

The My Utmost for His Highest devotional speaks of this in terms of surrender:

Salvation does not mean merely deliverance from sin or the experience of personal holiness. The salvation which comes from God means being completely delivered from myself, and being placed into perfect union with Him. When I think of my salvation experience, I think of being delivered from sin and gaining personal holiness. But salvation is so much more! It means that the Spirit of God has brought me into intimate contact with the true Person of God Himself. And as I am caught up into total surrender to God, I become thrilled with something infinitely greater than myself. …

If we are truly surrendered, we will never be aware of our own efforts to remain surrendered. Our entire life will be consumed with the One to whom we surrender. … In fact, you will never know anything about it until you understand that John 3:16 means that God completely and absolutely gave Himself to us. In our surrender, we must give ourselves to God in the same way He gave Himself for us— totally, unconditionally, and without reservation. The consequences and circumstances resulting from our surrender will never even enter our mind, because our life will be totally consumed with Him.

And - in being “totally consumed with Him” - the Our Daily Bread devotional reminds that …

…we are all called to be a living testament of Jesus’ work on our behalf. No matter the outcome, from a heart of gratitude for God’s gracious gift we can tell others what Jesus has done for us.

… so that we each, like Paul (from 2 Timothy 2:10, KJV), would be determined to “… endure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.”

… and my journey with Him continues …

Devotional thoughts - Lent 2013 - day 28

I began the day thinking of how patient, and loving, and merciful, and forgiving, and gracious and kind God is toward His children, and has been , is ever toward me.  This was, as usual, highlighted in my life by situations in community where I am feeling (and sometimes acting) other than patient, or loving, or merciful, or forgiving, or gracious, or kind toward someone for any supposed infraction of any of my perceived rights.  And this did, as usual, shine the light on all of the ways that I still am so far from true Christ-likeness.

With this mindset, I am certainly challenged in reading today’s My Utmost for His Highest:

Peter began to say to Him, ’See, we have left all and followed You’ —Mark 10:28

Our Lord replies to this statement of Peter by saying that this surrender is “for My sake and the gospel’s” (10:29). It was not for the purpose of what the disciples themselves would get out of it. Beware of surrender that is motivated by personal benefits that may result. For example, “I’m going to give myself to God because I want to be delivered from sin, because I want to be made holy.” Being delivered from sin and being made holy are the result of being right with God, but surrender resulting from this kind of thinking is certainly not the true nature of Christianity. Our motive for surrender should not be for any personal gain at all. We have become so self-centered that we go to God only for something from Him, and not for God Himself. It is like saying, “No, Lord, I don’t want you; I want myself. But I do want You to clean me and fill me with Your Holy Spirit. I want to be on display in Your showcase so I can say, ’This is what God has done for me.’ ” Gaining heaven, being delivered from sin, and being made useful to God are things that should never even be a consideration in real surrender. Genuine total surrender is a personal sovereign preference for Jesus Christ Himself. ...

True surrender will always go beyond natural devotion. If we will only give up, God will surrender Himself to embrace all those around us and will meet their needs, which were created by our surrender. Beware of stopping anywhere short of total surrender to God. Most of us have only a vision of what this really means, but have never truly experienced it.

 

 

O LORD, thank You for all of the ways, all of the times You shine Your light of truth on my situation, on my heart.  Thank You for Your work in me that I might be conformed to the image of Your dear Son.

… and my journey with Him continues …

Devotional thoughts - Lent 2013 - day 27

Attended a memorial service for a 2 month old baby girl today.  In my crying out to the LORD about the situation, it was as if He told me, like Jesus told John the Baptist in Matthew 3:15, “Suffer it to be so now...” Earlier, I had thought of, then seen the verse in 1 Thessalonians 4:13 (AMP):

¹³ Now also we would not have you ignorant, brethren, about those who fall asleep [in death], that you may not grieve [for them] as the rest do who have no hope [beyond the grave].

So I really wasn’t surprised to hear the verse during the eulogy.  Grieving, suffering – there seems to be a lot of that going around that is affecting me deeply.  Even more so as I consider the coming recognition this month of  “Good Friday” – marking Jesus’ suffering and dying on the cross …

Later, the message of the Our Daily Bread devotional – to be thankful in all things – and the following urging of the My Utmost for His Highest  devotional both spoke to the way in which we should face difficulty as children of God:

If we do not apply our beliefs about God to the issues of everyday life, the vision God has given us will never be fulfilled. The only way to be obedient to “the heavenly vision” is to give our utmost for His highest— our best for His glory. This can be accomplished only when we make a determination to continually remember God’s vision. But the acid test is obedience to the vision in the details of our everyday life— sixty seconds out of every minute, and sixty minutes out of every hour, not just during times of personal prayer or public meetings. …

Watch for the storms of God. The only way God plants His saints is through the whirlwind of His storms. Will you be proven to be an empty pod with no seed inside? That will depend on whether or not you are actually living in the light of the vision you have seen. Let God send you out through His storm, and don’t go until He does. If you select your own spot to be planted, you will prove yourself to be an unproductive, empty pod. However, if you allow God to plant you, you will “bear much fruit” (John 15:8).

It is essential that we live and “walk in the light” of God’s vision for us (1 John 1:7).

… and my journey with Him continues …