Look Up

This is one of the basic truths in the Bible. If you're a believer, nothing comes into your life that hasn't been filtered by your heavenly Father. Your life is not a random series of freak accidents and occurrences and circumstances. God never does anything by accident. He has an appointed time for everything in your life. Even the bad times? Yes.  Rick Warren

Do you look up or around as you negotiate the treacherous waters called life?  One of the greatest lessons I learned over the past few years is to look up.  When I have a question about faith, sorrow, blessings and happiness in my life I look up. God has the answers and he will reveal them to us if we look up instead of around. 

When we look around instead of looking up, we place our faith in ourselves and those around us instead of the One who created us.  Remember the verse in Romans 8:28. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. God has a purpose for each one of us and we can fulfill His purpose or deny it.  He gives us the ability to choose. 

One of the traps of Satan that I frequently fall into is that I often look to those in the world around me to give me answers.  One of the most important lessons I have learned in my life is that every person we encounter is a sinner.  That includes me, pastors, deacons, brothers, sisters, parents and friends.  There is not a single person on this earth who is not a sinner.  Jesus was the only person to ever live on this earth that was sin free.

God is continuously sending us signals.  Too many times we ignore them because we call them coincidence.  God doesn’t work through coincidence.  He works with purpose.  If we want to hear His voice we must look up and pay attention or we will miss an opportunity to glorify Him.

          

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, You know everything that will happen in my life and I know I don’t have all the answers.  It is not by chance or coincidence that things have occurred in my life.  If I pay attention and continuously look up to You for the answers, You will reveal them to me. Sometimes I can’t see what Your plan is for me, but I do wait eagerly for You to reveal it to me.  I praise You Father.   

     

Scripture:  For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.  For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.  For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.

Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.  Romans 8:18-30

Chair Snafu Revisited

Life is a journey, not a home; a road, not a city of habitation; and the enjoyments and blessings we have are but little inns on the roadside of life, where we may be refreshed for a moment, that we may with new strength press on to the end - to the rest that remaineth for the people of God.  Horatius Bonar

Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life's problems fall into place of their own accord.  J.I. Packer

I had another chair snafu; in other words; an out of control situation with my desk chair.  Remember a couple of years ago the story about my desk chair.   If you don’t remember the following is an excerpt from that devotional. 

I have one of those chairs that has a lever that raises and lowers the chair.  I started to notice this week that when I would get to the office and sit down my knees would be above the seat of my chair.  I thought the cleaning people might be lowering my chair so the arms would fit under the desk. 

One of my bosses was in town this week and he normally will come into my office and sit in a chair across from my desk and dictate letters to me.  My computer screen is in the middle of my desk and the chair is directly across from my screen so I can normally make eye contact with him when he is dictating to me.

 

I started to notice that I would gradually get lower and lower until I couldn’t see him over my monitor.  It wasn’t like all of a sudden I was dropped to the floor.  It was just a gradual lowering.  I just kept hoping that my boss wouldn’t notice.  When I first began to notice it I thought I just hadn’t locked the chair in place.  I felt like my chair was a periscope slowly being lowered into the ocean. 

  

Here is where the update comes in.  I was sitting in this same chair not long ago and when I went to sit down the arm rest flew off and fell on the floor.  They say things start at the top and go downhill from there.  I decided it was time to request a new chair before the seat fell off or collapsed.  I picked up the arm and went to find our office manager.  I am now sitting in my semi-used “new” to me chair. 

     

I started thinking as usual about what God might be trying to teach me. Everything that happens in your day can be used to return your focus to God.  I started thinking about all the things I need to get done at work with special projects, the outside activities that I have going on right now and this thought came to mind. 

I am just like my broken chair.  There are going to be things that happen every day that will fall apart, fail or malfunction. I can allow all of these things to adversely affect me, or I can turn to God at those times and rest in Him.  He wants to take my burden if I will allow Him to.  When I am broken and defeated is when He wants me to turn to Him the most, so that I will depend on Him and not myself. 

If you are carrying a burden that is too heavy to carry, lift your eyes up to heaven and lean into the only One who can provide a sanctuary in your storm.

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, as the arm of my chair flew onto the floor; I was reminded that I am as broken as that chair.  You are my constant in this temporary world.  It has been a gradual process, but over the past few years my focus seems to stay more and more on You and what you are trying to teach me in my daily life. You are with me wherever I go and all I have to do is turn to You to be in Your presence.

Scripture: Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”  Joshua 1:7-9

Be Good at Being You

God is preparing His heroes. And when the opportunity comes, He can fit them into their places in a moment. And the world will wonder where they came from.  A.B. Simpson

Have you ever tried to be like someone else?  Maybe you decided you wanted to look like another person or dress like someone else.  We decide that we like the way someone dresses or an outfit they wear and so we go out and buy something similar.  Have you noticed that when you do that the outfit or whatever it is doesn’t look the same on you as it does on the other person?  Part of the problem is that God didn’t create us to be just like another person.  The very characteristics that God created in us to make us different from every other human being, we decide we want to change.  We may be shorter, taller, thinner, so we will never look like another person and that is exactly why God created us the way He did.

One of the things that advertisers do is they make commercials that cater to what we don’t like about ourselves.  They tell you that if you buy whatever they are selling, you can look just like the person on TV.  I saw a commercial yesterday where there was a close up shot of a man and a woman.  The woman was attractive but the guy had long sideburns, bushy eyebrows and a long scraggly beard.  I didn’t even have the sound turned on and I could tell what the commercial was about.  All of a sudden the guy pulls out this little shaving gadget and runs it over his beard and then they flash to the next picture and the guy is clean shaven and the woman is looking at him adoringly and running her hand across his smooth face.

We are bombarded daily with things that can make us look better to the world.  We can have brighter, whiter teeth, long flowing locks, fewer wrinkles and just about anything that man can create to make money.  The problem is we begin to forget that we are God’s creation.  Each person on earth was uniquely created by God for His purpose. If we are always trying so hard to look or be like someone else, we will never become the person God created us to be.  Be good at being you.  God created you especially for His purpose and trying to be something other than what He created will hold you back from being everything he meant you to be.   

          

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, I am guilty of the very thing I talk about in this devotional.  You created me in Your likeness yet I try to change the things you created in me that make me special and different.  Help me to be good at being me.  If I understand that You created me as a unique individual created for Your purpose, then I will understand that the only thing I can be great at is being me.

Scripture: Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”  So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis 1:26-28

An Abundant Life

abundant  1. present in great quantity; more than adequate; oversufficient: an abundant supply of water.

By a matchless parable our Lord there taught us that all believers are branches of the Living Vine, and that, apart from Him we are nothing and can do nothing because we have in us no life.  A.T. Pierson

What do you consider an abundant life?  Do you have or live one? 

When I looked up the definition of abundant the phrase that struck me was “oversufficient”.  If you look at that from a worldly perspective, most of us have an oversufficient life.  We have a home, plenty of food to eat, cars to drive and sometimes we have multiples of some things in our life. 

If we look at it from Jesus’ perspective we have an oversufficient life in things that are not important.  Jesus came so that we would have an abundant life but His coming wasn’t so that we could have more stuff.  Isaiah 55:1-3 offers a definition of what an abundant life means from a heavenly perspective. 

“Ho! Everyone who thirsts,

Come to the waters;
And you who have no money,
Come, buy and eat.
Yes, come, buy wine and milk
Without money and without price.
Why do you spend money for what is not bread,
And your wages for what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
And let your soul delight itself in abundance.
Incline your ear, and come to Me.  Isaiah 55:1-3

If I am living my life from a worldly perspective instead of a heavenly perspective, I will never see the abundant life Jesus offers.   

       

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, You promise that I can have an abundant life, yet too many times my idea of an abundant life is very different from what you intended. I thirst for You and You promise Living Waters.  Thank You for Your Son who died so that I may live abundantly, not with the satisfaction of life here on earth, but the satisfaction of a life with You in Heaven.  

    

Scripture:  Jesus the Good Shepherd

Then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.  I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.  The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.  John 10:7-10

Fog

In order to know God, we must often think of Him; and when we come to love Him, we shall then also think of Him often, for our heart will be with our treasure.  Nicholas Herman

The kingdom of heaven is worth infinitely more than the cost of discipleship, and those who know where the treasure lies joyfully abandon everything else to secure it.  D.A. Carson

This week it has been rather humid around the Dallas area so on my drive to work there is a lot of open slightly hilly land where the fog will form and hover just above the ground.  I find fog interesting because you can see it obscure trees, cars, buildings and anything it covers.  The thing is if you were to walk across the field where it hovers even though you can’t see past it you can walk through it. 

The fog made me think of God’s wisdom.  Anyone can have knowledge.  It is not so easy to gain wisdom.  Wisdom is like the fog that hovers over the ground obscuring whatever it surrounds.  When you open the Bible there is treasure beyond our comprehension.  Notice I said “beyond our comprehension” not beyond God’s.  God tells us he will give us wisdom if we search for it. 

The problem with our search for wisdom is that we give up too soon and we don’t take the proper tools for our search.  Here is an analogy to put it in perspective.  If you are mining for gold, what tools would you take with you?  You might take a chisel, hammer and a pan to put the pieces of rock in.  But if instead you decided to take duct tape, a string and a lawn chair, you won’t find much gold.  You’ll be able to fix anything, tie it up and have a place to sit while you do it, but you won’t come away with much treasure. 

God’s Word is as great as He is.  It is a treasure beyond compare to what we have on earth. The smartest scientist, theologian or person with the highest IQ cannot match what is in God’s Word.  When we realize that nothing we do or create will even come close to what God’s Word can do; we are on the path to finding an amazing treasure.  Knowledge is great, money is green, but the treasure in God’s Word: PRICELESS.

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, as I drove by the fog near the freeway, I thought of You. You give me the book that contains amazing treasure.  If I don’t get past the fog that obscures my vision of You, I will never find the hidden treasure in Your Word.  If I search Your Word diligently, You will reveal great things.  Thank You for giving me the opportunity to have wisdom.  What I do with it can change the world.  

Scripture: The Value of Wisdom

My son, if you receive my words, and treasure my commands within you, so that you incline your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding; yes, if you cry out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures; then you will understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding; he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk uprightly; he guards the paths of justice, and preserves the way of His saints.

Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity and every good path. When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you, to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things, from those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness; who rejoice in doing evil, and delight in the perversity of the wicked; whose ways are crooked, and who are devious in their paths; to deliver you from the immoral woman, from the seductress who flatters with her words, who forsakes the companion of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God. For her house leads down to death, and her paths to the dead; none who go to her return, nor do they regain the paths of life—so you may walk in the way of goodness, and keep to the paths of righteousness. For the upright will dwell in the land, and the blameless will remain in it; but the wicked will be cut off from the earth,
And the unfaithful will be uprooted from it.  Proverbs 2:1-22

An Abundant Life

abundant  1. present in great quantity; more than adequate; oversufficient: an abundant supply of water.

By a matchless parable our Lord there taught us that all believers are branches of the Living Vine, and that, apart from Him we are nothing and can do nothing because we have in us no life.  A.T. Pierson

What do you consider an abundant life?  Do you have or live one? 

When I looked up the definition of abundant the phrase that struck me was “oversufficient”.  If you look at that from a worldly perspective, most of us have an oversufficient life.  We have a home, plenty of food to eat, cars to drive and sometimes we have multiples of some things in our life. 

If we look at it from Jesus’ perspective we have an oversufficient life in things that are not important.  Jesus came so that we would have an abundant life but His coming wasn’t so that we could have more stuff.  Isaiah 55:1-3 offers a definition of what an abundant life means from a heavenly perspective. 

“Ho! Everyone who thirsts,
Come to the waters;
And you who have no money,
Come, buy and eat.
Yes, come, buy wine and milk
Without money and without price.
Why do you spend money for what is not bread,
And your wages for what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
And let your soul delight itself in abundance.
Incline your ear, and come to Me.  Isaiah 55:1-3

If I am living my life from a worldly perspective instead of a heavenly perspective, I will never see the abundant life Jesus offers.   

       

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, You promise that I can have an abundant life, yet too many times my idea of an abundant life is very different from what you intended. I thirst for You and You promise Living Waters.  Thank You for Your Son who died so that I may live abundantly, not with the satisfaction of life here on earth, but the satisfaction of a life with You in Heaven.    

  

Scripture:  Jesus the Good Shepherd

Then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.  All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.  I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.  The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.  John 10:7-10

Final Exam

“When you understand that life is a test, you realize that nothing is insignificant in your life.”  Rick Warren

Do you remember when you were in school and it came time to take a test, pop quiz or final?  I think it is interesting that the words used for testing our knowledge are kind of alarming.  When you had a “pop” quiz you knew you were in trouble.  The majority of the time it meant you weren’t prepared and when they told you when your “final” would be, it kind of opened the door to anxiety and stress.  A pop quiz was intended to test your knowledge at that moment.  It was used to determine if you were listening in class. 

If you think about it, a pop quiz wasn’t the final determination if you passed or not.  The final exam determined if you went on to the next grade. Our life as a Christian is full of pop quizzes and tests.  If we learn what we need to know from the Bible and live it we will pass the final.  The problem with pop quizzes and tests is that if we don’t know the material we will fail.   

The Pharisees and Sadducees were examples of a people who didn’t understand that their life was a test.  They continually tested Jesus without realizing that he was revealing to them the very answers that would be on the final test.  They wanted a sign from heaven that proved that Jesus was who He said he was.  

 

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, we will go through many tests in our lifetime.  I pray for Your guidance so that I can pass the final test.  Help me to learn from Your Word and to show others that they too can pass the final as long as they turn to You for the answers. 

     

Scripture: Do not quench the Spirit.  Do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.   1 Thessalonians 5:19-21

The Pharisees and Sadducees Seek a Sign

Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven.  He answered and said to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites!  You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” And He left them and departed.  Matthew 16:1-4

Then the Pharisees came out and began to dispute with Him, seeking from Him a sign from heaven, testing Him. But He sighed deeply in His spirit, and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Assuredly, I say to you, no sign shall be given to this generation.”  Mark 8:11-12