Category: devotional

The following scene unfolds in the book, The Hiding Place, when Corrie’s aunt learns that she has only a short while to live. Her family tried to comfort her with thoughts of how much good she would bring with her to her Heavenly Father. Jans understood better, and her prayer is worth our attention.

***

But our well-meant words were useless. In front of us the proud face crumpled; Tante Jans put her hands over her eyes and began to cry. ”Empty, empty!” she choked at last through her tears. ”How can we bring anything to God? What does He care for our little tricks and trinkets?”

And then as we listened in disbelief she lowered her hands and with tears still coursing down her face whispered, ”Dear Jesus, I thank You that we must come with empty hands. I thank You that You have done all—all on the Cross, and that all we need in life or death is to be sure of this.”

Mama threw her arms around her and they clung together. But I stood rooted to the spot, knowing that I had seen a mystery.

[From: The Hiding Place, chapter 3 (sorry, no page numbers from audio recordings)]

***

Part of becoming a believer in Christ is grasping that you truly bring nothing, absolutely nothing, to the table. You do nothing to earn even a smidgen of God’s favor. His love, his mercy, his allowing of you into his family is 100% of grace.

Jeremiah 2:26-28

“As a thief is shamed when caught,
so the house of Israel shall be shamed:
they, their kings, their officials,
their priests, and their prophets,
who say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’
and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’
For they have turned their back to me,
and not their face.
But in the time of their trouble they say,
‘Arise and save us!’
But where are your gods
that you made for yourself?
Let them arise, if they can save you,
in your time of trouble;
for as many as your cities
are your gods, O Judah.

Today I find myself working through a difficult emotion. As I read the passage above, I find myself convicted, and it is simply unpleasant.

God speaks some very right and very hard words against the people of Israel. The priests, the leaders, all the people have turned their backs on God. Instead of trusting in God, they have trusted in other things. They have bowed down to statues and not to the living God. They have rejected God for the sake of their own desires.

Yet, when trouble comes their way, the people of God suddenly turn and find God again. They cry out to God, “Arise and save us!” However, these are the very same people who felt no need for God earlier. Thus, God responds to them by telling them to go back to crying out to their statues, since those are what they worship.

Now, here is where I was convicted. I need to cry out to God more. It is way too easy to let myself go through the day without really seeking God. Sure, I will pray at the prescribed times, but then I, if I am not careful, will walk through the remainder of the day as if I am the one who can handle it all myself. I act like the child who says, “No daddy, I can do it myself.” I rely on my strength, my wisdom, my education, my giftedness and somehow do not cry out to God.

How different is that from the guys who rely on the statues and their own wits to get them through the day? I don’t think it is as different as I would like it to be. One cries out to a block of wood. Another depends on his own abilities. Either way, both of us are relying on someone or something other than God for the good outcome that we desire.

I am grateful to God for conviction. I need it. It reminds me that I am not “all that.” Conviction makes me hurt, and it makes me realize that something is wrong that I need to change. So, here comes a new day. Here comes a new opportunity. Today, if I am going to please God, I need to look toward him, cry out to him, and depend on him. I am incapable of doing anything good on my own. I am fully in need of his grace to make it through even a moment of this life.

Gracious God, you know how weak I am and yet how proud I can be. You know how often I rely on my own skill instead of relying on you. Help me. Help me to serve you faithfully. I cry out to you. Please forgive me for self-reliance. Please forgive me for not being prayerful enough. Help me to seek you. I know that, apart from you, I can do nothing. I bring no ability to the table. Only through your power, through your Spirit, can anything good happen. So, I ask you to take my life this day and make it into something that pleases you. I ask that you will empower me to serve you faithfully and work through me to show the world how great you are. And lead me to prayer and dependence on you that will keep me close to you always.

Isaiah 54:4-5

4 “Fear not, for you will not be ashamed;
be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced;
for you will forget the shame of your youth,
and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more.
5 For your Maker is your husband,
the Lord of hosts is his name;
and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer,
the God of the whole earth he is called.
.

It has been a little while since I have taken the time to write out some of my thoughts regarding a passage of Scripture from my daily reading. Busyness and excuses aside, I simply have not had the heart to take the time to write in this area lately. However., I need to do more here, to be more disciplined, to write even when I do not feel like it.

Then I read this passage for today: “for you will forget the shame of your youth.” How many of us live with regrets? How many of us still live with a feeling of being less than what God intends for us because of things we cannot go back and change? How many of us feel the sadness of wasted years, of foolish decisions, of sin?

To read God say to us that we will forget the shame of our youth, then, is something that is beyond amazing. Our sin was so great. We had earned for ourselves the wrath of God. We had earned for ourselves the fury of an infinitely perfect, infinitely holy, infinitely righteous judge. Our mistakes, our sin, our foolishness were inexcusable. In fact, God did not excuse them. Instead, if we know Christ, God punished those sins, pouring out his fury for our evil on Christ who willingly and intentionally took upon himself our guilt in order to satisfy God’s fury and allow us to experience God’s mercy for God’s glory.

The result of Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice is more than simply having us set back on neutral ground before God. In 2 Corinthians 5:21, God tells us that he made Christ, who knew no sin, to become sin on our behalf so that we might in turn become the righteousness of God. Thos who confess their sin and cling to Christ as their only hope of being right before God have more than forgiveness, they have God’s promise of perfection. Paul talked about this as the awaiting crown of righteousness for all who have loved Christ’s appearing in 2 Timothy 4:8.

This morning, I celebrate in my heart. I have been a fool more times than I could ever count. I have earned wrath and judgment. For God to then tell me, “for you will forget the shame of your youth,” is for me to hear God speak to me in promise of something totally joyous. I cannot look back on foolishness with any joy. However, I can look back and know that God has forgiven me, that he is changing me, and that he will perfect me in Christ. This motivates me to serve him more and more, to faithfully follow his word, to look forward to that future grace of being made truly righteous in Christ.

Psalm 138:1-2

1 I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart;
before the gods I sing your praise;
2 I bow down toward your holy temple
and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness,
for you have exalted above all things
your name and your word.
.

What is the most important thing in all the universe and beyond? What is most important to God? These questions are not asked often enough, and their answers are not generally given clearly enough. So, let me make it clear, even if it may confuse some. God’s top priority is not the good of mankind or my general happiness. God’s top priority is God’s own glory.

Look above at verse 2. God has exalted above all things his name and his word. There you have it. What has God lifted higher than anything else? It is not that God has lifted higher than all things that I be happy, that the lost be saved, or that the government allow prayer back in schools. God is not exalting that I be made wealthy, that I live my best life now, or that the needy be fed. God’s number one priority is himself.

Of course, to the uninitiated, this concepts seems utterly evil and selfish. Hold on a moment, though, as that is an incorrect assessment. That God is the number one priority in the universe is clear from the verses above; but this does not mean that God is somehow uncaring about other important things. God cares very much about the salvation of the lost, about the wellbeing of his children, and about whether or not the nations honor him. God cares greatly about the hungry being fed and the poor being cared for. Those things are simply not number one on his list.

Remember that the first of the Ten Commandments is that we must not have any gods before the one true God. God will not allow us to worship, to set as the highest priority and offer devotion to, something that is less than him. God is the highest, the greatest, the most glorious being in existence. If God were to allow us to worship something less would be for him to allow us to love something infinitely less worthy, infinitely less beautiful, infinitely less satisfying than he is. For God to allow us to worship something less than him or for him to set something less important than him as the number one priority of the universe would be for him not to love us but actually to hate us, as he would be allowing us to try to find our satisfaction in something that cannot satisfy. allowing us to waste our lives in futility instead of giving us the best would not be loving, and this is why God must make himself the number one thing in the universe and beyond.

So, is it offensive that God has exalted above all things his name and his word? It will offend those who think that they should be the center of the universe and that God should be displaced. But for the person who recognizes that God is the greatest, the highest, the most worthy, God’s centrality is a great gift from him. God allows us to find joy in his glory, and this joy is the joy that, unlike any other, can fully satisfy our souls.

So, would you like to be happy? If so, stop fighting against the fact that God is the number one priority of the universe. Instead, find out how marvelous it is to see God’s glory, his beauty, his majesty. God created you to display his glory (that’s part of what it means to be made in God’s image). You will never be truly happy until you are doing what you were created to do. So, as John Piper has argued in so many beautiful ways, make it the focus of your life to seek your own happiness in the one way that will truly satisfy your soul: find your joy in the glory of God. As Piper says, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.”

Luke 8:23-25

23 and as they sailed he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger. 24 And they went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm. 25 He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”

Just a quick thought. Who is Jesus that he can calm the raging seas?

Psalm 89:8-9

8 O Lord God of hosts,
who is mighty as you are, O Lord,
with your faithfulness all around you?
9 You rule the raging of the sea;
when its waves rise, you still them.

Jesus is the LORD, that’s who he is; God in flesh,

Luke 7:40-43

40 And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.”
41 “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.”
.

There are times when preachers and other Christians are tempted to minimize the severity of human sinfulness. Perhaps this comes from a rejection of the biblical understanding of man’s depravity, his total inability to do anything that pleases God apart from God’s intervention (cf. Isa. 64:6; Rom. 3:10-17). Perhaps it comes from the preachers’ desire to be thought kind, loving, positive, or relevant. Perhaps it comes from a lack of biblical teaching on God’s holiness and wrath for sin.

Whatever the reason for their style of teaching—and I certainly would not say that they intend this outcome—, Preachers who fail to emphasize the extent and severity of the problem of man’s rebellion against God do more harm than they realize. We see this truth illustrated in Luke 7:40-43. In the context of this passage, a sinful woman weeps and worships Jesus. The religious teacher in whose home Jesus is sitting is condemnatory, thinking that Jesus would not ever allow such a sinner to be in his presence. The main point of Jesus’ response to this teacher is to show him that God forgives sinners, and the greater the sin of those sinners, the greater is the glory of their forgiveness.

A fair point to glean from this passage, however, is the importance of our understanding the severity of our sin. If the one who is forgiven more loves more because of the extent of his or her forgiveness, it must also be true that in order for us to love more and glorify God more, we must understand the severity of our sin and of God’s total hatred of our sin.

If a teacher never emphasizes to you that your sin is grievous, detestable, and disgusting to God, you will not grasp how amazing it is that God forgives you. If a teacher makes it seem as though God has never been angry at you for your sin, you will assume that being forgiven is really no big deal. If you are never taught that your sin, even your smallest sin, is an infinite offense to an infinitely holy God which deserves an infinitely terrible punishment, you will not grasp that the glory of your forgiveness is infinite too.

So, it is good to remember the severity of your sin and to understand the extent of God’s wrath that had formerly been against you. Only then can you grasp how wonderful is your forgiveness. Do not allow a temptation to sound ultra-loving or open-minded make you fail to see how great is the forgiveness of a sinner who had earned God’s hatred but who receives God’s love and grace.

Over the past month, I have spent around six hours sitting on panels in which Christians ask the “Hard Questions.” What I have discovered is that Christians of all ages, all backgrounds, and all social classes have questions for which they want to hear honest and biblical answers. Our two hour panel at First Baptist Columbia was well-received, and we ran out of time long before we ran out of questions. Our panel at Lakeland Baptist Church in Carbondale brought a flood of texted questions from high-school students in southern Illinois. At Super Summer, we spent three hours answering questions, and left a mountain of questions unaddressed simply due to a lack of time.

The questions on these panels have covered such a wide variety of topics, theological, ethical, moral, philosophical, etc., that it is nearly impossible to summarize any one discussion. Some types of questions have included:

· How can we trust the Bible?
· Why does God consider homosexuality a sin?
· Can a Christian lose his or her salvation?
· Is listening to Christian heavy metal OK?
· Which is true, free will or predestination, Calvinism or Arminianism?
· How should I understand dinosaurs from a biblical perspective?
· Questions about end-times, the rapture, the antichrist, etc.
· Does a man who never hears the gospel get a second chance to receive Jesus after his death?
· Is this or that activity morally wrong?

So, faithful blog readers (both of you), I’d like to hear from you. What would you like to hear biblically answered? If your church had a “Hard Questions” panel, what would you ask? What questions do you hear other Christians really wanting to know an answer to?

Leave a comment, and let me know. Perhaps I’ll even try to tackle some of your suggestions in a future post.