Ever Present

Psalm 139--O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain 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, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! I try to count them—they are more than the sand; I come to the end—I am still with you. O that you would kill the wicked, O God, and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—those who speak of you maliciously, and lift themselves up against you for evil! Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?  I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

 

God has created each and every one of us for a unique, noble, and enormous God purpose.  We have been equipped even since He formed us in the womb to face every obstacle in life, to conquer every challenge presented to us, through our faith and belief in Him.  Our Lord is steadfast and unchanging—He continually reveals Himself to us in increasingly intimate ways.  He knows us better than we know ourselves, and He wants us to know Him to the same depths.  He is always with us, experiencing as we experience—He has made our pain His pain.  We can never be alone because His Presence endures forever.

Today as you pray and meditate on His Word, thank God for His Steadfast Presence.  Rejoice in His perfect love for you, His Creation.  Pray that He would guide you in fulfilling His good and perfect will in your life.  Praise Him for forming you and calling you to a purpose in this life, and pray for wisdom, knowledge, and strength to trust Him to empower you to overcome all obstacles and challenges as you fulfill His mission.

Do Not Fear, Only Believe

Mark 5:36—Jesus said…”Do not fear, only believe.”

Jesus said these words to the leader of a synagogue who had come to Jesus pleading for his daughter’s healing.  While Jesus was enroute to the leader’s home, they received news of the daughter’s death, and Jesus instructed her father not to fear, but rather to believe.  The news of his daughter’s death must have been devastating to this man.  He had so desperately sought after Jesus for His healing power, and he was making all human efforts to save his precious child.  Yet, his efforts were not enough.  Have you ever felt the same way?  Have you ever cried out to God to save a situation?  The futility of our own humanity can be frightening.  That moment when we understand that we truly have no power—no  control—that  is the moment fear takes over.  Our bodies have a physical visceral reaction when it seems like our hopes are dead.  This fear feels impossible to control.  But Jesus tells us not to fear, only believe.  We must believe that Jesus can redeem, restore, and transform any seemingly hopeless situation.  That belief can conquer and tame any fear.  That belief has the power to release fear from within.  When we make the choice to believe despite our fear, we make space for God to make us whole.

Today as you pray and meditate on His Word, consider your fears.  Is there something you are trying desperately to salvage?  Do you fear that your own human frailty cannot save it?  Pray to God for a believing spirit.  Rejoice in His Love and Devotion toward you.  Praise Him for His redeeming power and lift up your fears to Him with a prayer that they be replaced with sincere belief in the redeeming power of the Lord.

True Love Does

1 Corinthians 13:1-3--If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Throughout the Bible, we are guided by commandments, and we are told to keep God’s Word.  When Jesus came, though, He told us that the greatest commandment is for us to love God and one another.  We can easily fall into a trap of “being good” by merely following the rules.  For most, it’s not all that hard to check off the box that says “thou shalt not steal” or “thou shalt not murder.”  And when we are followers of the commandments, it can become easy to distance ourselves from those who do not follow the commandments.  We tend to judge them (even if we say we just disagree and that God is their final judge).  The choice itself to disagree is a judgment of them that interferes with our ability to show them love.  Loving other people has very little to do with the euphoria we feel inside.  It’s nothing at all like what the media portrays when people “fall in love” on screen, emotions that are usually portrayed physically.  We’ve come to believe in a myth that love is about feeling euphoric.  Agape love, God’s love, is about showing kindness and serving others, especially others who would reject us.  Others who aren’t necessarily pleasant.  Love is the only thing that can heal the hurt and voids inside others.  As humans, we are all incomplete.  The joy of Christianity is that we have been made whole in Christ Jesus.  We demonstrate that wholeness and express our love for God when we serve and love others.  That message of whole and complete redemptive love can never be expressed when we take a know-it-all attitude about what is “going to happen” on judgment day.

Today as you pray and meditate on His Word, praise God for His perfect love for you and every part of His Creation.  Rejoice that He fills you with the Holy Spirit so that you may extend His Love to the darkest corners of the Earth.  Pray that He would remove any tendencies toward judgment of others so that you might act in love and service, revealing His true and perfect place in your life.

Complacency is Your Enemy

Proverbs 2:3-5—If you indeed cry out for insight, and raise your voice for understanding; if you seek it like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures—then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.

Complacency is your enemy.  We are foolish to believe that it’s possible to “arrive.”  So many of us think that life would be perfect if we just had a better job, more income, the perfect spouse, or _____[you fill in the blank]_____.  We think of life as a destination, but really it is all about the journey.  Ask yourself what you are seeking – is it a certain kind of Earthly lifestyle? Do you want to attain a particular standard of living?  What are you goals?  The Lord tells us that when we seek Him, everything else will fall into place.  Our finite minds cannot possibly contemplate the magnitude of God and His magnificent creation.  But if we seek Him and seek to understand our place in it, He will reveal His Wisdom to us.  The treasures of Heaven are not physical like the treasures we know here on Earth, yet they are far more valuable.  We should seek God’s treasures of Wisdom, Love, and Relationship with even more fervor than we seek Earthly success and treasure.

Today as you pray and meditate on His Word, consider what you are seeking.  Be honest about what occupies your heart, your thoughts, and your mind.  Pray that God would fill the voids you feel, and ask Him to fill you with desire to seek Him over other Earthly treasures.  Pray that He would give you insight that you might understand your purpose and essential role in His Master Plan. Rejoice in the energy He gives you to be diligent in your pursuit of Him.

Are You Good?

Mark 10:18-19--“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”

Our life here as humans is not about figuring out how to be “good.”  That is an impossible task because only God is good.  In this passage, Jesus recognizes that the man talking to Him sees His Divinity—the man could not label Jesus “good” unless He recognized Jesus as God Himself.  For us, though, even when we know and keep God’s commandments we are still incapable of being “good.”  Does that seem disheartening?  To me, it is a wonderfully freeing concept to think that I am loved even though I am not good.  What Jesus is really saying here is that life is not about labeling right and wrong, good and bad.  These labels tend to interfere with our ability to be compassionate and empathetic with ourselves and others.  Demanding goodness of ourselves and others is an impossible burden that leaves us wanting, feeling like failures, and riddled with disappointment.  When we move past the label of “being good,” when we truly know that merely keeping the commandments is not enough, then we are positioned to live compassionately, invested in love for God’s whole creation.  That is when our hearts open to the work of the Holy Spirit.

Today as you pray and meditate on His Word, praise God for loving you for you, free from labels.  Rejoice that He has freed you from the shackles of having to be good.  Pray that the Holy Spirit would fill you with God’s goodness and lead you to live compassionately toward others.  Ask God to free your mind from the labels we so naturally want to place on others – pray for God’s eyes that you may see others as He does, as pure individuals in need of love and kindness.

Be Still

Psalm 46:10—“Be still, and know that I am God.”

We humans can be such busy bodies.  We think we can control everything that happens around us.  To be sure, God wants us to take responsibility for our behavior, and we must learn the natural consequences of our choices.  But there are times when we just need to let go.  Times when God knows best.  Times when we need to just stop trying to control, and we need to let God’s plan unfold. 

Today as you pray and meditate on His Word, prayerfully consider those aspects of your life where you are trying to control every detail.  Ask God to help you see where you are standing in His Way.  Pray for guidance and wisdom in letting go of the things you really cannot control.  Rejoice in the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit.  Ask God to reveal the path you must take and to teach you how to balance doing with letting go.

I Trust You

Psalm 59:16—But I will sing of your strength, in the morning I will sing of your love; for you are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble.

What great comfort there is in knowing that at the end of the day, everything is in God’s hands.  It can be easy to feel lost, out of control, or like you are on the brink of failure.  But God is in control.  What seems like failure to us is opportunity to God.  What seems like weakness to us is strength to God. What seems like defeat to us is a new beginning to God.  When we feel broken, that’s when God is just getting started taking us to the next level.  We don’t have to understand all the pieces, we just have to say yes to God and move forward one step at a time.  When we praise God, we essentially say, “Hey God, I don’t have this figured out in the slightest, but I TRUST YOU to take care of me.”

Today as you pray and meditate on His Word, praise God in the midst of your brokenness.  Offer Him the pieces of your soul as a living sacrifice.  Declare that you trust Him completely, in His infinite wisdom, to always lead you to those places where you can live into the best you He designed.  Rejoice in the comfort of His Strength, Power, Unending Love for you, His perfect creation.