Category: devotional

Psalm 143:2 – Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you.
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We live in a culture that truly does not understand the verse above. Far more of us would demand that God not judge us because we do not deserve to be judged. Far fewer of us would say that we do not want to be judged by God because we deserve his wrath. But the psalmist who wrote this verse gets it, and if we will learn from him, we will see something of God’s grace.

The psalmist understands that no one—not you, not me, not my sweet old grandmother—has lived a righteous life before God. Every last one of us is guilty of sin in one way or another. Perhaps we have done things that go directly against the commands of God. Perhaps we have failed to do all that we should have done in order to honor God. Either way, we are all guilty of sin before an infinitely holy God. What this means for us is that we are guilty, and we deserve to face the wrath and the judgment of God. Not one of us can ever say to God that we do not deserve his fury.

But God has been so gracious to us. He has withheld his wrath. How do I know that? Well, I’m writing this and you are reading it. If God did not withhold his wrath for our sin, neither of us would have lived to an age where we could have read or written this piece. No, if we got what we deserved from God, all of us would have been cast into hell the moment we committed our very first sin. Yet, God has been gracious. He has withheld his judgment on us. And, he has gone even farther than that. God actually offers to you and to me and to every person in the world the opportunity to be forgiven of our sin before him. How? Jesus Christ, God in flesh, came to this earth and sacrificed his own life as the payment for our sin. IF you or anyone else will put your trust in Jesus completely for the forgiveness of the wrong you have done, God promises both to change your life and to forgive your sin.

Now, if you have not yet come to know Jesus, if you are not sure of whether or not God has forgiven your sin, I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment here, and I’ll happily talk with you about what needs to come next for you to be forgiven by God. But if you have already experienced the forgiveness of God in Jesus Christ, take a look again at the verse above. You and I deserved God’s wrath. You and I have received God’s grace. This is call for celebration! This is how the bad news of our condemnation becomes the good news of grace.

Jeremiah 44:16-18 – “As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not listen to you. But we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we did, both we and our fathers, our kings and our officials, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, and prospered, and saw no disaster. But since we left off making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and by famine.”
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In Friday’s post (see below), we saw from the word of God that the scripture is more sure than anything that we think we have seen or experienced. Even though it is very natural for us to trust our own experiences far more than anything we have read in a book, in the case of the Holy Bible, the book is what is for sure and our experiences are what are questionable.

The verses above from Jeremiah 44 are an excellent example of people using circumstantial evidence to make decisions about what to do. The rebellious people of Judah had fled to Egypt before the final arrival of Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC. Taking Jeremiah with them, they settled in Egypt and continued in pagan practices including worshiping a false goddess they called the “queen of heaven.” God, through Jeremiah, warned the people to turn away from their idolatry and their worship of other gods. But, as we read above, the people refused to listen to the Lord.

Notice, if you will, the reasoning behind the people’s refusal to return to the Lord. When they were practicing their false religion, they were experiencing prosperity. When they stopped their practice of idolatry, they experienced very difficult circumstances. Thus, the people concluded that they ought to return to worshipping the “queen of heaven” instead of worshipping the Lord. They let what they had personally experienced lead them to draw false conclusions about what was true. Assuming that their former prosperity was the blessing of the “queen of heaven,” they failed to recognize the mercy and later chastisement of the Lord. That failure led the people to an incredibly destructive decision, the decision to continue in idolatry.

Now, let’s learn from this event that happened almost 2,600 years ago. As I said Friday, people often trust their own experiences today far more than the Bible. If they have a dream, have a strong feeling, or have a “peace” about something, people often assume these signs to be communicating to them the favor of God. And while I do not want to ignore the possibility of those things being the prompting of God, under no circumstances will those “promptings” ever lead us to a place that is opposed to what is clearly written in the Bible.

Here are some examples:

· A woman has a very hard marriage. Her husband is not loving, not caring, and not even responsible. She prays about her situation, asking God to help her. In her heart, she feels a confidence that God does not want her to be in her marriage. She knows God loves her. She knows God does not want her to be unhappy. So, she asks God if it is Ok in her situation for her to file for divorce. Immediately she feels at peace with the idea. She “knows” that she has heard from God. The problem: she is wrong. Regardless of what she feels, the word of God has not given her freedom to seek to divorce her husband. While there may be reasons that the scripture gives to allow for divorce, being in a frustrating and even unfulfilling relationship is not one of them. Regardless of the woman’s experience, a decision to divorce is a sin against God.

· A young man desperately wants to be loved. He is a Christian, but still struggles with his singleness. One weekend, he meets a beautiful, fun, and sweet young lady who is clearly interested in him. The girl is not a believer in Christ. As they get to know one another, they find that they are both romantically interested in each other. Eventually, the young man even begins to think that she might be “the one.” He prays about it, asking God to let him know if there is anything wrong with him marrying the girl. Nothing in his heart or life circumstances says to him that there is anything wrong with the relationship. So, with complete peace in his heart, he proposes marriage. The problem: the Bible expressly forbids Christians from marrying non-Christians (2 Corinthians 6:14). No matter how he feels in his heart, this young man sins against God by breaking God’s explicit command.

· I find myself in a conversation with a person, and a clear opportunity to share the gospel presents itself. For whatever reason, I decide that the timing is not right, and so I simply continue talking about meaningless things like sports. While my “feelings” lead me to avoid the difficult conversation, God has commanded me to share the gospel with all nations. I sin against God if I do not listen to his word above my feelings.

On and on we could go here showing example after example of how we often fail to obey God’s word while looking for some other means of understanding his will. I’m not trying to pretend that this is always easy. But I do want us to think clearly. God leads us primarily through his written word. Other factors may play a part in how we think, but they must never lead to a decision that is contrary to what is revealed in the scripture.

1 Peter 2:2-3 -Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
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One of the most predictable times around my house for quite a while now has been mornings with my son. Josiah is now almost 9 months old, and he’s quite a joy. While he is constantly learning new things and doing new things, he has one constant: his eating. Whether baby food or apple-juice or milk, this little guy wants to eat when it is time.

Peter is drawing on the hunger, the single-minded and all-encompassing hunger, of babies when he makes his call to us in 1 Peter 2:2-3. He tells us to be like little hungry babies longing for milk. But the milk to which he refers is the milk of spiritual nourishment. Peter wants us to long for solid doctrine, prayer, and the word of God. And he wants us to long for it as much as any screaming baby you have ever heard longs for food.

And notice, if you will, what it is that Peter uses to qualify his statement. He calls us to long for spiritual nourishment if something has happened. We are to long for God if indeed we have tasted that the Lord is good. The first step to making a person long for God is for them to see that experiencing the presence of God is good. If a person does not find God desirable, prayer, Bible study, spiritual disciplines, worship, and the like will not draw them at all.

Today, ask yourself if you have truly tasted that the Lord is good. Do you long for God at a level similar to how you long for the desserts at a Thanksgiving banquet? Do you long for God as much as a steak dinner? Do you hunger for the presence of God in your life? If you do, it is likely that you have already understood that it is good to be in God’s presence and to experience the joy of glorifying his name.

But what if you do not really care? What if you are not truly that concerned about the things of God? I think that, in such a situation, it is fair to assume that you have never truly tasted that the Lord is good. Perhaps you do not know him. Perhaps you have simply forgotten the joy of being in his presence and glorifying his name. In either instance, it is crucial for your soul that you again return to the Lord. It is crucial that you experience something of his glory. It is crucial that you taste and see that the Lord is good. And then let that taste drive you to long for the presence of God.

How do you do this? My first suggestion is to worship the Lord. Look at his word, learn about his character, and give him praise for who he is and what he has done. Take time to prepare your heart for worship on a Sunday morning through prayer and Bible study before you get to church. Then, when you arrive, truly offer God the praise due his name. See if that does not heighten your hunger for more of the presence and glory of God.

James 3:5-6 – So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell.
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In today’s reading, I have my own personal rebuke from the Lord, one to which I will do well to listen. Of course, this chapter opens with the reminder that not many of us should presume to be teachers, because teachers will be subject to a stricter judgment (James 3:1). Then, just in case my heart is not already recognizing my own weaknesses, the word of God calls to mind the way that we might sin with our mouths.

How easy it is to sin with idle words. How easy it is to join in a conversation that is just a touch too silly, too cynical, too cruel, too crude, too abrasive, too winy, too close to gossip, etc. It is so simple to think that we are never the ones guilty. It is so simple to think that, when we talk in evil ways about others, we are seeking the greater glory of the kingdom, but when others enter into the same sort of conversation, we think of them as gossips, trouble-makers, and harmful to the church.

If these thoughts convict you as they convict me, then it is time to join with me in repentance. We must not allow ourselves to be dragged down by our own tongues. We must not allow our own lives and ministries to suffer because we speak with pride. We must not dishonor God by joining in conversations that serve no godly purpose and which do not result in the bettering of the church. This is not to say that no conversation can ever contain an analysis of needs for change. However, if we are not working as instruments of that change, we need to be careful not to be stirrers of strife instead of makers of peace.

Jeremiah 23:22 – But if they had stood in my council, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their deeds.
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In Jeremiah 23, God is pronouncing woe on the evil shepherds of his pasture who are destroying his sheep. In Jeremiah’s time, there were men who were supposed to be spiritual leaders of the people. These men refused to tell the people the truth. Instead, for the sake of gain and popularity, these men told the people whatever they wanted to hear. When men did evil, these leaders would tell the people that God would not be upset. When the people did what was contrary to the word of God, the leaders would tell them that their actions were fine.

God points out in verse 22 that the men who are telling everyone that they can live in whatever way that they choose are not speaking from him. God tells us that anyone who has God’s counsel will declare God’s word to God’s people. Any leader who has God’s counsel will be honest enough with the people of God to tell them when they are failing to obey the word of the Lord. Anyone who has God’s counsel will work, using the word of God, to turn the people of God back from evil and toward God’s ways.

This passage was encouraging to me as a pastor this morning. It reminds me well of what my job is. My job is to present the word and the ways of God to the people of God in order to turn the people of God away from sin and toward righteousness. I may not be good at much else. But, if I am to be a faithful shepherd over this little flock (working under Christ, the chief shepherd), I am going to have to present the word of God to the people of God in order that they might walk in the ways of God.

Perhaps you are reading this but are not in a pastoral position. That’s fine. You can encourage your shepherd to be a good one too. Encourage him when he preaches the word of God faithfully. Encourage him, and let him know that you want nothing more than to hear the word of God as God intended it to be heard. Do not assume that he knows that you appreciate his teaching; tell him. And pray for him that God will empower him and encourage him to keep going. And, if for some reason you are listening to a man who refuses to bring the word of God to the people of God, you need to make it a goal to encourage him toward being the kind of shepherd that God says has his counsel, a shepherd who preaches his holy word.

One more thing: make no mistake, this passage is about the inspired word of God. Later in the passage God makes a comparison between those who actually speak his word and those who are merely proclaiming dreams or feelings that they supposedly have had. Do not look for your pastor to communicate to you things that are not written in the Bible. While I do believe that God will, by his Holy Spirit, direct his servants to certain points of truth in his word, I do not assume that this means that your pastor should regularly be receiving new revelations from God. God has given us his word. The Bible is complete and perfect. We dare not add to it. So, encourage your pastor to preach that word of God and not his own gut feelings about things.

Jeremiah 20:9 – If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.
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Often people wonder about the mysterious call to ministry. We often hear tell of young men who felt a call to ministry at a particular time in their lives. To others, however, this concept may seem difficult to understand. What happened? What did those men hear?

I think that Jeremiah 20:9 is a great example of what happens when a person is truly called to ministry. Jeremiah, in the middle of his work, clearly wanted to stop saying what it was that he had to say. People were not impressed with his words. The messages that God had been giving to Jeremiah were causing others sorrow and earning Jeremiah punishments. Yet, when it was all said and done, Jeremiah could not stop speaking the words of God. No matter what the cost, no matter what the circumstances, Jeremiah had to speak God’s words. The message of God was burning inside Jeremiah, and he could not rest until he had shared God’s word with the people.

How does this relate to the call to ministry? Simple. Those who are truly called to ministry can not do anything else. This is not to say that one called to ministry lacks the skill to do work in the business world; rather, it is to say that the person called to ministry is compelled by God to serve him and him alone.

I still recall a particular moment in my own life when I recognized my own call to ministry. In a college class at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, a professor asked us if we really wanted to program computers for the rest of our lives. Though I had done well in my classes and could have certainly gotten a job in the field, I knew without question that I could never be happy in life unless I was serving the Lord in some sort of full-time ministry. I simply knew that nothing else would satisfy me other than helping others to know and worship our God. While many serve the Lord very faithfully in byvicational ministry (serving a church while working in a secular workplace), I knew that God had something different for me. This calling is not better than the calling of others, just different.

Now, many years removed from that moment in college, I still find that the power of God compels me to continue. His word is still life-changing, powerful, and perfect. His people still need to hear his word taught. Though I am a weak and often broken vessel, God still has chosen to use me to proclaim his word to his people. This is a great joy to me. Even though ministry can be hard, sometimes devastating; I still can do nothing else but proclaim the word of God to the people of God for the glory of God.