'Tis Better to Be Kind than Right

Colossians 3:12—As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.

Recently I heard someone say, “It is better to be kind than to be right.”  So often, we get caught up in what we want, in what we believe, in what we want to control.  And we lose the ability to empathize and understand another perspective.  We are all linked, we are all connected.  Throughout the New Testament, Jesus tells us to love others, and we demonstrate love through kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.  The next time we feel the urge to insist on our own way, we should hearken to Christ’s message and remember that it is indeed better to be kind than to be right.

Today as you pray and meditate on His Word, praise God for His kindness and love.  Rejoice in the compassion, mercy, and grace He shows for His Creation.  Pray that God would fill your heart with kindness.  Ask Him to fill you with patience so that you can let go of any desires to be right and replace those with the desire to be kind.

Got Wisdom?

1 Corinthians 3:18-21—Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours.

Back over the summer, one of my friends who is atheist arrogantly sneered, “I don’t need to believe in God – I get why some people might need that, but I’m not so insecure that I need to.”  This person is a very intelligent and accomplished person, and her words made me feel sad for her because she is allowing her mind to interfere with her heart.  This passage in Corinthians is speaking to just this type of worldly wisdom.  There are times when we are tempted to think we know best.  We might even believe that God is out of touch with modern society.  That God’s way could never work in our day and age.  But God is wiser than we could ever dream of being.  What we think we know is foolish compared to how God knows.  We must be ever diligent and take great care to avoid relying on our own understanding.  Instead, we must lean into God, trusting God, listening to God, and living the life God has laid out for us.

Today as you pray and meditate on His Word, ask God to reveal those areas of your life where you lean more toward worldly wisdom.  Ask Him to replace those thoughts with His Wisdom.  Pray that you would be flooded with the Holy Spirit and infused with spiritual understanding.  Rejoice that God abides in you and pray that your life is a testimony to His Love for you.

God Imitator

Ephesians 5:1-2—Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

What a challenge to be an imitator of God!  It’s hard to live in love sometimes.  It can be exhausting to put others first and love them, especially when you might not be feeling loved in return.  As humans, we tend to justify our acts of withholding love from others.  We might say they are undeserving.  Or that they have hurt us, so now we can hurt them.  We might make them a pariah because their behaviors don’t conform to our standards.  We might exclude others who do things we don’t like.  But if we think about Jesus’ example, he never ever did that.  Every single time the disciples tried to protect him by keeping others away, he rebuked them and said, “No!”  He wanted the people to come to Him.  The children, the prostitutes, the lame, the sick, the poor, the sinful.  He surrounded Himself with the outcasts of society, and He showed them love when no one else could or would.  That is what it means to be an imitator of God.

Today as you pray and meditate on His Word, worship God as the lover of all mankind.  Take a moment to listen to “Unlovable” by Plumb and let those words speak to your soul.  Declare your desire to imitate God and pray for the Holy Spirit to speak to your heart and lead your every action.  

Be Disciplined

1 Peter 1:13—Therefore prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed.

Spiritual growth, like growth of any kind requires discipline.  For example, if want to grow our minds, we must be disciplined in our studies.  We must read, write, reflect, question, and ponder.  We must be diligent in setting aside time to learn.  If we want to grow healthy bodies, we must be disciplined about what we eat, how we exercise, and how much we sleep.  The same is true of spirituality.  We must set aside time to read God’s Word, meditate, and pray.  We must be disciplined and intentional about building loving relationships with others so that we can grow a loving relationship with Christ.  When we lead disciplined lives, we create room for miracles because we don’t have chaos fluttering about.  Discipline creates space for God to transform us into new creatures.

Today as you pray and meditate on His Word, commit to creating building in discipline to foster your spiritual growth this New Year.  Praise God for His grace and mercy.  Rejoice in the renewing of your spirit and open your heart to receive the Holy Spirit.

New Life in the New Year

Monday:  Isaiah 1:16-17—Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.

The New Year is a time to set new goals and resolve to live better.  It’s a time for spiritual cleansing and resetting to begin anew.  It marks the time when the days are becoming longer once again and we are making our way toward Spring and a time of new life.  God does not call us to be perfect, but He does call us to connect with him through our handling of others.  We are to be good and kind, seeking justice for the oppressed.  We are supposed to help people who can’t help themselves, even when they might be behaving in ways we don’t like.  We might not agree with their ideologies.  We may not understand why they do what they do.  But our calling is not to understand them – our calling is to rescue, defend, and plead for them.  We are to love them through our actions.  Jesus came to reconcile us to Him, and He came for every single person on this Earth.  So, it’s never our place to shut anyone out for any reason.  Our only responsibility is to show love through our actions.

Today as you pray and meditate on God’s Word, praise Him as the God of inclusion.  Thank Him for including you in His great plan on this Earth.  Commit yourself in this New Year to be a beacon of light for Him.  Seek out justice actively and be good to everyone around you – especially those who are more challenging to love.  Rejoice in God’s unconditional love for you and share that love to all those around you.

3 Ways to Snuggle Up with God

Psalm 56:1-4—Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me; all day long an attacker oppresses me; my enemies trample on me all day long, for many attack me proudly. When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?

A great paradox of life, is that as we grow in faith, the persecutions in our life often increase, too.  One of the many reasons for this is that the people around you, the world, your friends, and your family, often will not understand your transformation.  They are used to interacting with you in a certain way, but as a Christian you have been changed in a way that you can never completely go back to who you were.  Change is frightening for people – it rocks their world.  Even if they are happy for you, they may lash out when they don’t know how to relate to you anymore.  God offers us solace and peace when we are persecuted.  How does He do this?  There are at least 3 ways we can curl up in God’s arms.  1. Read His Word. He offers us comfort through His Word by revealing how many others throughout time have endured many of the same persecutions we endure even now.  God never left their sides, and He will never leave ours either.  2.  Relate to others who know Him.  I have found over the years that God always places exactly the right person in my path.  There are times when you might feel afraid or anxious, and God brings along an old friend or a new relationship that reveals the Holy Spirit to you in such a special way.  The Holy Spirit moves through all kinds of circumstances and uses others to ease our spirits.  We are really not alone, and we can feel surrounded in His Love by being open to the love He sends us through certain people.  3.  Pray.  Prayer is not just a time when we are talking to God.  Prayer is a conversation with God.  A conversation necessarily involves give and take, talking and listening.  God does speak to us during our prayers if we are silent and listen.  Finding a quiet place in our mind is essential to hearing God.  Sometimes, He will even talk to us in our sleep through dreams or in that half-awake place late at night or early in the morning.  As Christians, we should train ourselves to listen to God when we pray so that we might find comfort, peace, and illumination.

Today as you pray and meditate on His Word, thank God for His abiding comfort and peace.  Pray that He would reveal Himself to you through the Holy Spirit.  Thank Him for making you different through the blood of His Son, and praise Him for the persecutions that push you closer to Him.  Ask Him to make you fearless in His Power and to fill you with His Love.

Seeking Approval

2 Timothy 2:15—Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

What glory awaits us in this New Year?  Only time will tell as God reveals Himself perfectly to us in His own divine way.  Our task as Christians is to continually seek Him.  We have been blessed with a great gift of truth, but we must study His Word to know Him and understand His truth ever more clearly.  In all we do, we should ask if we are bringing glory to God and honoring Him with the choices that we make.  Will we always get it right?  Of course not – if we could always get it right, there would be no point to having a God.  We will always need his grace, mercy, forgiveness, and salvation.  But the point is that we ought to try, and in trying we grow increasingly intertwined with His Divine Love.

Today as you pray and meditate on His Word, contemplate how well you know God.  Resolve to know Him better in this New Year.  Discover in yourself a person worthy of His approval, and pray for the protection and guidance of the Holy Spirit the whole year through.  Give thanks to God for His steadfast love, and pray that He would continue to reveal His truth to you as you grow in your personal relationship with Him.