Category: Daily Devotionals

I no longer call you servants. Instead, I have called you friends. John 15:15

Many of the slaves freed after the Civil War returned to their former owners. Now knowing how to handle their freedom, they chose to continue living in slavery because the mindset of a slave was firmly embedded in their psyche. Though they had been offered a new life, fear of the unknown was too intimidating.

Through his death, Jesus made us free yet many of us have never left the familiarity of our old life to investigate the new one He offers in His far away kingdom. What could be more frightening for a poor maiden who thinks she’s deeply flawed than to look in the eyes of a prince and accept his love? Yet doing so is her ticket to the life she privately dreams of.

Jesus paid for my freedom with His life! Can you imagine his grief when I continue to think and act like one in captivity? He’s calling out, “Come out of the slave quarters. Move into the big house with me. Sit at my table. Let me serve you. Oh, by the way, I’ve put your name on the deed to my inheritance. Everything I have, I share with you.” It takes humility to accept such a gift if I know that I’m undeserving and can do nothing to earn it. I will initially squirm in my seat at the banquet table. It will take some time to dance in the reality that I’m rich. The only thing that melts my protests of worthiness and the pride of self-hatred is perfect Love.

But there is also a second deadly response. If I believe I am a pretty good person, I’ll feel entitled to the favor Jesus extends. At the announcement that I’m an heiress, I’ll flaunt my position and look down my nose at less fortunate sinners. You know the saying, “She’s a princess?” That means I’m self-centered, entitled, spoiled, and arrogant. My greatest need is to see my sinfulness first, be reminded of my need for a Savior, and then accept His love with abject humility.

If I’m afraid of intimacy, self-hatred or self-exaltation is usually the cause. Figuring out which one plagues me is the most important thing I could do on this calendar day ‘in the life’ . . .

At your loving gaze, will I be tempted to look away? Why? Show me. Amen

When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own. John 16:13

Look, one person of the Trinity is teaching us about Himself. He says that the Trinity, though three distinct parts of God, acts in perfect unity. No one who experiences the Spirit will come away feeling differently than if he experienced Jesus or His Father. What one of them feels and what each of them believes are all consistent within the person of God.

Not so with us. The Fall in the Garden fractured the internal world of humanity and we’ve been divided ever since. Because we’re fractured, we’re inconsistent and unstable and we don’t always recognize it. Without the help of the Spirit, we will fail to really know ourselves. Who we think we are is often radically different from what we portray to others. They experience our inconsistencies and it’s usually painful for them. I can say one thing but convey another. My words don’t match my face. I have chuckled at family vignettes in which a parent says to a child, “I can see that you’re angry.” He replies, “I’m not angry!” but his yelling and his cherry red face betray him.

Growing into the image of Christ is all about allowing the Spirit of God to show me where I am sinfully divided. It is giving Him permission to bring every corner of my soul into the light of His grace and then asking Him to change each part so I may also live in unity. As I come to know firsthand the beautiful ways the Trinity works together, the ways they complement each other, and as I appreciate God for always being the same, for always being stable, I will covet that for myself. I will desire for others to experience me that way.

Self-disclosure empowered by the Spirit can be painful but the rugged introspection pays off. No longer will I say one thing but do another. I will live in peace and harmony within myself and with the God who lovingly created me to bear His image, the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Work in me, O Spirit, to make me unified with Your Spirit internally. Graft me into Your perfection through sanctification. Amen

Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “Come down from the cross if you are the Son of God!” Matthew 27:39-40

The majority who saw Jesus crucified thought He was weak. If He had exerted His power by saving Himself from the cross, they might have spoken of His strength. But would we then have a Savior! His accusers’ perception of what was weak and what was strong was entirely wrong. They were living life in the moment. They were not able to see that the power was in the cross, bringing about a death most humiliating.

God has appeared feeble to me. Like those who hurled insults, I cried out, “If you are God, come down and change this.” Yet the sources of pain that caused me to demand deliverance became the very things through which the power of the cross was showcased. Where I was weak, through Christ I am strong. Where my heart bled, through Christ my scars bear the handiwork of His grace and glory. The things I thought would destroy me have, in essence, saved me. All of them were really the doorway that brought me to the end of myself and to the beginning of new life.

We cannot live in the moment, child of promise. Things are not as they appear. We cannot judge whether or not God is powerful by looking at our present circumstances and setting up a criterion by which God must prove Himself. We need only look back to see that He already did that. And we need only look ahead to see that He is a King who will rule throughout eternity. What could be more powerful than His cross, our own cross, and future glory that awaits us all!

Your plan for me is redemptive, Lord. I trust you with my life today. Amen

And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. Luke 4:13

After having made three tries and failed, the devil departed from Jesus. A defeat didn’t end his attempts. The retreat only meant he went to the shadows to regroup. Luke says that he departed from Jesus until another opportune time. When would be an opportune time?

• When his mother and brothers thought he was under demonic influence.
• When he was called the illegitimate son of Mary.
• When Judas betrayed Him in the garden.

King David reinforced the truth of this experience with different wording. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the LORD was my support. Psalm 18:18  

Nothing has changed. Today, the devil still looks for fainthearted saints. He waits to see ‘blood in the water’; knowing that a weakened enemy is more easily taken down. Don’t expect your worst battle on a good day. It’s on an awful day, when you don’t feel like fighting, that you need to put on your armor.

Jesus had an advantage we don’t have. He knew Lucifer in heaven. He knew his passion for power and revenge. He knew that three defeats in some wilderness wasn’t going to send him away for good.  He was out to take God’s people down to the very end of the age, if possible. God has allowed him to have limited power until that final victory but it’s always under the umbrella of God’s promises of redemption and glory.

What’s the bottom line? We have to know how to fight when we’re weak. 1.) Clothe yourself in the Word. 2.) Pray, pray, pray! 3. ) Live holy. 4.) Rest in God’s love and favor. Remove one of these and there’s a chink in our armor. Without the word, we’ve abdicated our sword. Without prayer, our communication lines to power and authority are crippled. Without holiness, we’ve opened doors to the kingdom of darkness. Without resting in love and favor, we’ll experience a loss of resolve to do the first three. I mean, why bother!

No matter how tough it got for Jesus, no matter how hot the temptation, no matter how bloody the path, our Savior never forsook the Word, prayer, holiness, and an assurance that He was indeed God’s beloved Son ~ destined for glory.

If ever it were time for me to walk in Your footsteps, Jesus, it’s in this. Amen

 

Save

SaveSave

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”  John 20:29

It’s hard to trust something or someone that you can’t see.  Jesus knew that and and said that those of us who place all our confidence in Him will be blessed.  Faith can erode quickly when we see no evidence of an invisible God.  I knew what it’s like to arrive at a place where I had no confidence in Him anymore.  I ceased to see the vastness of God but the issue was not about a God who had grown anemic; it was about how the enemy had deceived me through my adversity. He lied and I bought it.  I had fallen into the black hole of unbelief.  I found myself on a dead end street until faith was restored.

Now that I’m older, here’s what I’ve learned.  At the point where belief and unbelief meet at the fork in the road, self-preservation is born.  When I believe God to be impotent, I rise to the occasion to take care of myself.  In arrogance and in fear, I conceive ways to cope in order to survive.  This is all a reaction to the lie that God is powerless.  I do not realize that my plans, oaths, and new alliances will be wasted.

What is the battle plan?  1. Confess my unbelief and my fears.  2. Ask God to comfort me and give me faith.  3. Force-feed the Word into my heart.   4. Go back to the specific place where belief ended and unbelief was conceived; ask the Holy Spirit to speak to me about that tenuous place so that I can understand and learn from it.

Jesus is tender with my wounds.  He is the gentle healer.  His heart is for me but I must be tough on my sin of unbelief.  Healing comes when I find the corresponding truths from God’s Word that confront my specific lies.  I begin to live differently when I recite God’s Words out loud.  (“I once believed _________ but God said ______________.”)  This takes time.  There must be a daily resolve to keep embracing what God says by asking Him to write His Word on my heart.  What follows if I am diligent?  Spiritual prosperity.  An enlarged view of God.  The glorious freedom that comes from living in truth.

You meant it!  “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”  I believe.   Amen