Sunday Devotional ~ How is God not Disappointed in Me?

 

16 Proverbs 24:16a - for though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again

When God chose us to be His, He knew everything we’d ever done and everything we were ever going to do. Nothing we do shocks Him or surprises Him. And nothing we do could separate us from His love. So what happens when we fail to resist temptation. What happens when we sin… again?

16 Joshua 1:9 - Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.

Sometimes our reaction to our sin is similar to Adam and Eve’s reaction in the garden. We made a mistake and we want to hide from God. We don’t want to face Him. How could we be anything but a disappointment to Him? We don’t feel strong or courageous. Instead we feel weak and cowardly. How can we go to Him in prayer and ask for forgiveness again? And again? How can He not get tired of us?

Hebrews 4:16 - Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Come boldly. Don’t let fear or worry hold us back. Without fear, and with confidence, not letting guilt or failure stop us. We didn’t surprise Him, and we cannot hide from Him, so there is no reason to withdraw from Him because we are dirty or broken. In fact, He expects us to come then. It is required. He tells us to “Come…” and wants us to seek Him instead of hiding. He wants us to be focused on Him and take His hand and His help when we fall so that we can rise again.

Our brokeness doesn’t scare Him, and our dirt doesn’t make Him shrink back. He is there to give us the mercy and grace that we need to rise again. Staying down in the dirt doesn’t make us more humble. Self-punishment doesn’t help us to stop sinning. Wallowing in our misery doesn’t get us back on track. Hiding from the Lord doesn’t help us be less of a disappointment to Him. But coming to Him without fear and asking for help is exactly what He wants from us. 

This message is best summed up by the Psalmist in Psalm 139 (1-18):

O Lord, You have searched me and known me. 

You know when I sit down and when I rise up; 

You understand my thought from afar. 

You scrutinize my path and my lying down and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. 

Even before there is a word on my tongue, 

Behold, O Lord, You know it all. 

You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid your hand upon me. 

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; 

It is too high, I cannot attain to it.

Where can I go from Your Spirit?

Or where can I flee from Your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, You are there;

If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.

If I take the wings of the dawn,

If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, 

Even there, Your hand will lead me,

And your right hand will lay hold of me.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me,

And the light around me will be night,”

Even there darkness is not dark to You,

And the night is as bright as the day. 

Darkness and light are alike to You.

For you formed my inward parts;

You wove me in my mother’s womb.

I will give thanks to you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from You. When I was made in secret

And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;

Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; 

And in your book were all written the days that were ordained for me,

When as yet there was not one of them.

How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God!

How vast is the sum of them, they would outnumber the sand.

When I awake, I am still with You.

So then, if God knows everything we were ever going to do, how can we surprise Him? How can we disappoint Him? He already knew everything before we were even born. Yet He chose to love us anyway. He has seen everything we will do or say, and yet He died for us anyway.

No matter what we are going through or how dirty or broken we are, let us still come to God boldly and not hide from Him or let distractions and guilt keep us from Him. It’s my prayer today that we will always look to Him for help immediately upon falling so that we can rise sooner rather than later and keep moving forward, day by day, toward our prize.

Fear of Fasting

 

Whenever I think about starting a fast, my mind quickly jumps to thoughts of unpleasant deprivation. Jesus fasted forty days and nights — yet how did he survive that long without food? Could I survive that long without it? Could I survive that long even in a partial fast?

The Daniel Fast is a partial fast where a person gives up processed sugar and carbohydrates, meat, and dairy for a time so that they can draw closer to the Lord. At this time of year, many people are declaring a church wide fast or doing things individually, to jumpstart the new year and declare it for the Lord.

But could I be capable of such a thing?

Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?  For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’ (Luke 14:28-30)

What if I start and I’m not able to finish? What if I give into temptation and quit early? What if I fall and can’t get back up again?

Fear is full of what if’s - its goal is to get you to be so worried about failure that you never even start a task at all. 

When it comes to fasting, Jesus has told us that we should all fast - He said: “WHEN you fast…” in Matthew 6:16

When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.  (Matthew 6:16-18)

So what Jesus describes here is the cost of fasting. The cost is that we should not look for the approval of others but for God’s approval alone. To remember that fasting is between us and the Lord, and no one else. If we can’t “afford” that, then we shouldn’t even start. Otherwise, we should fast. Talk to the Lord and see what kind of fasting you should do, and how long. The Lord knows what you’re capable of and that we have to crawl before we can walk… and before we can run.

Yes, Jesus was capable of a 40 day fast. But without the kind of abiding relationship that Jesus had with the Father, we would not be capable of that sort of feat. And this kind of abiding relationship is fertilized through fasting and prayer. Without absolute reliance upon the Lord, we are not capable of feats of faith and fasting, bringing our flesh under God’s control, but it is one of the ways we cultivate our reliance upon the Lord.

God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13b)

So if God has promised to provide a way out of temptation when it comes, and to not let us be tempted beyond what we can bear, then we can step out in faith and do the fasting we need to to draw closer to Him. Pray about it, decide on a set amount of time and type of fast, and then trust in the Lord to help you endure it, to draw closer to you, and not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear. Today it is my prayer that I will be braver than my fear of fasting. 

God is in the Details vs. The Devil is in the Details

As Christians, we know that Satan is out there trying to replace God, and in this phrase, he is doing just that. The origin of this phrase is attributed to 19th century French novelist, Gustave Flaubert as "Le bon Dieu est dans le détail" translating,  “The good God is in the details.”

The meaning of this phrase was that one should pay particular attention to details, to not let your work or study be only about the big picture, but also about the smallest points. As believers, we often find God at work in the details of our lives. According to Luke 12:7, God knows the number of hairs on your head. Do you know the number of hairs on your head? I don’t. Not to mention that the number of hairs on your head changes daily as you lose a few or grow new ones. Yet, He knows.

As our creator, God knows every detail of our lives down to the smallest particle. Science is still in awe of how the smallest particles of our make up are so detailed, and how as we get stronger microscopes, we find even smaller particles exist. So God is very much in the details, and if we are paying attention and living for Him, we’ll see Him there and make certain that we don’t miss Him.

But in modern days, this proverb has been twisted. Replacing God with the devil wasn’t even part of the common vernacular until the 1960’s. And instead of talking about the need to pay attention to details when creating something, it’s speaking of the need to pay attention to the details when purchasing something, or taking something on. It’s talking about how the seller or creator is trying to hide things or con the purchaser into taking on something that he’ll find out isn’t as solid, as good, or strong as he thought it was when he was looking at the big picture.

The phrase is now referring to the evil that we will find when we look in the details of what has already been made. This is a sad turn of events. Because society has turned toward selfishness, and putting one’s own needs and wants above everyone else’s, we forget how detail-oriented God is. He hasn’t forgotten. If we are working to please the Lord instead of ourselves, we’ll make sure that our work is done honestly and that every detail is taken care of in a positive manner. A believer is not out to con others because he knows that God sees every detail of what we do and knows our heart, and there are no secrets from Him.

I know that I will purposefully be changing this phrase back to its original meaning in my life. Details matter. When we are creating, we should pay attention to the details to be sure that we glorify God with what we’re making. If everyone would feel this way, there would be no need to worry about fraudulent details instead.

Sunday Devotional ~ Making Room for God

 

He must increase, but I must decrease. (John 3:30)

As Christians we want more of God in our lives—more of Jesus. We are selfish for Him to give us greater, bigger, and more extravagant blessings. It reminds me of one of the old hymns we sang at the small church my family attended when I was younger:

Showers of blessing,
  Showers of blessing we need;
Mercy-drops round us are falling,
    But for the showers we plead. (Daniel Webster, 1883)

Yes, we are thankful for the drops of mercy we receive from the Lord, but we all want showers of blessing. And we know that our God is capable of doing this.

God is able to do far more than we could ever ask for or imagine… (Ephesians 3:20)

But exactly how do we get more from Him? By making room. We make room by decreasing—decreasing our wants, our desires, ourselves, and giving that space to the Lord. There is no such thing as “awkward silence” with the Lord. Silence is golden. It’s by waiting to hear from Him that we receive His word and His blessings. But do we want those things enough to give up things that might seem good to us now, but hold us back from receiving even better from our God? Do we let making ourselves comfortable take preference? Do we fill our time, our minds, our bellies so full of things that we provide that we don’t allow the Lord to provide even better?

I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. 

Open your mouth wide and I will fill it. (Psalm 81:10)

Instead of trying to fill ourselves up and doing our own thing, and making our own way, let us take a moment to allow ourselves to be empty and then allow God to fill us up. We may just find out that His showers of blessing were just one step, one choice away. While we’ve been busy trying to find a way to fill the void in us with other things, God has been waiting for us to just turn to Him.

Today my prayer is that we open ourselves up to God. That we make room for Him in a new way. If we listen to the Holy Spirit, He will tell us where we’ve been failing to make room. Then all we have to do is let go of that thing and allow God to fill us up!