Devotional

Tuesday Devotional: Galatians 1

Devotional

bibleRead Galatians 1:6-10

The power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is unique and unparalleled.  The power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ not only has the ability to heal the brokenness of a single human life, but can also heal the brokenness of the world.  This Gospel can and will reverse things we believed irreversible.  To those who have experienced this strength of the Gospel, it is a direct encounter with the living God.  However, due to the sin in our lives, this experience can become overpowered by temptations. We are called out of his presence into a life willing to forget the power we were once so overcome by.  The world allows for and often encourages compromise.  In many instances, compromise is not only welcome but necessary to function as loving neighbors and stewards of the peace in Christ by which we live.  However, to compromise the integrity and truth of the life and message of Jesus Christ is to reject it entirely.  If we compromise the truth of the Gospel we alienate ourselves from the truth that saves us. We take up a position of opposition to the message of salvation, and take on the role of opposition to the mission of Christ and his Church.  The power of the Gospel can and will heal, but only if left in its original state.  The moment the message is doctored in even the slightest way, the power of the message of the Gospel is removed.  Jesus lived and spoke truth. Only the truth he spoke will set us free.  There is no power in a half-truth Gospel.  As Jesus taught his disciples, we as Christians are in this world but are not of it.  As we profess our faith in the cross, we do not identify with this world.  The life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ were of a world of righteousness, justice, love and truth.  This is not a truth we contribute to, or respond casually to.  This truth is the bedrock upon which our entire being is built, and that foundation, once compromised, will ultimately result in the collapse and destruction of everything built upon it.

The church must always welcome and embrace all who come to seek the face of God as it has always been, with love and gentleness.  However, the church must reject entirely those who seek to redefine the Gospel as something it never claimed.  To preach the Gospel in truth is to preach the power of God that can and will change and heal what is broken.  To preach the Gospel of half-truth is to remove God from the equation, and to become a proponent for the advancement of sin and its destructive power in this world.

Tuesday Devotional: 2 Corinthians 2-3

Devotional

Read 2 Corinthians 2:12-3:18bible

The human heart longs for beauty.  We seek it every day of our lives, and we recognize it when we see or experience it.  It is no coincidence that we are taken aback by the beauties in nature or in the human spirit.  While many differences separate us, we all find a commonality in this search for and discovery of beauty.  Found in the message of Christ is the epitome of beauty.  At the heart of the Gospel is the story of a God who has never given up on his children. Due to his desire to witness his love for them manifested and recreated in their relationships with each other, he even sacrificed his own Son to accomplish his objective.  The message of the Gospel is radical and incomprehensible love.  It is heart wrenching self-sacrifice for the undeserving and unfaithful.  It is intimacy, healing and peace.  This Gospel in its essence unaided, unaltered and uncompromised is beautiful and sweet to the one who finds it.  Every human being is seeking this message in the deep recesses of the heart.  But our every attempt to fulfill our desires through worldly means fails, leaving us rethinking our plans to fill this void.  Like a hole in a leaky roof, this void in the human heart can only be filled by something its precise shape and size.  The void is the result of our rejection of the Father’s love, and therefore the only thing that can heal that void is precisely that, the Father’s love.  Other solutions will temporarily mend the wound, but over time weaknesses will cause the gradual deterioration of the heart.

The message and life of Christ is “a sweet fragrance”: however, this fragrance is a delicate one.  In the control of our sinful tendencies, the sweet aroma of the Gospel can quickly become the stench of something we would rather avoid.  The aroma of the Gospel is only preserved through the Word of God, handed down to us through the power of the Holy Spirit.  The aroma of the Gospel, represented in the lives of those who profess faith in it, will only be sweet if the Holy Spirit has transformed those lives as well.  Anything short of this will result in sinful men speaking to sinful men as sinful men, incapable of spreading a message that was not from men to begin with.   Allowing the Holy Spirit to speak for himself, allowing Him to present the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world, will unleash that beautiful aroma that we all crave.

Tuesday Devotional: 1 Corinthians 1

Devotional

bibleRead 1 Corinthians 1:10-17

It is far too easy for us to place unjustifiable importance and honor on those men and women who lead us, while forgetting the role they play within the framework of spreading the Gospel of the one and only Jesus Christ.  There was only one sacrifice.  There was only one redeemer.  There was only one who became a servant to all in a mission to save all.  Church leaders, called to instruct others in the Gospel, are by nature sinners like you and I.  They could not save themselves, and required the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Becoming distracted by leaders and forgetful of the man Jesus Christ bypasses the necessity of faith in the life of a Christian.  Following a human requires little to no faith in the gospel: they are physically in our presence, we can hear their words directly as they speak them, and they can likewise hear ours.  We are tempted to accept these leaders as advisers with good stories and useful life lessons, and not representatives of Jesus Christ.  In fact, it is quite possible for one to attend church, read the Bible and pray without the deeply personal need for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  When we hope in man and not Christ alone, our transformation in the image of Christ is cut off at the source. We will never truly change, we will never be free and we will never truly have life in its purest form.  No man can change another man and make him new.  Only the work of Jesus Christ, and faith in Him as Savior, Lord and God can do that.  Church leaders are stewards of this love story of God and his children, but they are not characters in the story.  They, like us, have been given the story, blessed by it and now share it with others.  We must never forget the purpose of this story, that its focal point is always Jesus. By His name and by His stripes we are healed.

Tuesday Devotional: Romans 1

Devotional

Read Romans 1:18-32bible

“Punishment” is often attributed to God long before “love” or “grace.”  The wrath of God is far more interesting a headline than his humble sacrifice and endless love for those who have not loved him.  For many, the creator God is an authority figure to his inferior creation, small beneath his heavy hand.  In this vertical perception of holy hierarchy, there is far too much room for rules and consequences and far less room for love and grace.  While God has established his law and standards and there are indeed consequences to breaking them, the punishment of God is often misunderstood.  As most of us experience punishment, an act of disobedience is swiftly followed by an act of punishment intended to end the disobedience.  This is reactionary punishment.  While this approach to punishment is effective, the punishment of God is typically far more lesson driven.  God’s desire is not limited to putting an end to our misbehavior, but shows us how our misbehavior has terrifying effects on not only our own lives but others as well.  When punishment is associated merely with our own actions, isolated to us as individuals, we learn obedience and punishment in a system of self-preservation and self-service.  Godly wrath and punishment is far broader and more terrifying.  God’s punishment intends to show us that with freedom to seek the satisfaction of our human desires, we are capable of far more destruction than one single act.

Will a child learn and understand the consequences of stealing the car keys and driving the family car more if stopped before leaving the driveway, or if allowed to drive around the city for a single hour?  The first is a warning of things that could have been.  The second is an experience of consequences.  The second leaves no room for hypotheticals or what ifs.  It locates the disobedience directly within the consequences.  Therefore, the punishment of God in terms of letting us carry out our desires without correction is far more terrifying than a direct rebuke by the Lord Almighty before a false step is taken.  However, in this way we are better able to understand the purpose of his law when we face our own destructive tendencies.  Only by experiencing the dangers of our own nature can we not only accept but desire his laws, decrees and protection from ourselves.  Save us from ourselves, Lord God Almighty!

 

Tuesday Devotional: Acts 2

Devotional

bibleRead Acts 2:42-47

When we consider the Church as “the body of Christ” we must understand one thing and one thing alone: “of Christ.”  Without these last two words a church is simply a building, little different from any other structure. These words capture something holy, capable of transforming the world we live in. “Of Christ” indicates that a body of believers needs only one focal point, to be a product and a reflection of Christ.

First, a fellowship of believers “of Christ” wholeheartedly devotes itself to the Word of God, and stewards that Word in the world.  This first requirement is not to be taken lightly.  Just as Jesus Christ taught that man does not live on bread alone but on the words of God, this word of God is life.  We must understand that with the word of God is life, just as there is life in nutritional sustenance.  In the same way, lack of God’s Word brings death just as a life without food will cause the body to shut down.

Devotion to the Word of God does result in clarity, purpose, and direction, but more important than these, it is the means by which we enter into a deeper and more complete understanding of God himself.  Without this personal understanding of his character we will never fully trust and faithfully love him.  Devotion to the Word provides a path to follow and the hindsight for where we have already been and God always was.  It reunites us with our first Father, giving us insight into where we came from: we were created to be like him, with him and to be loved by him.

Second, a fellowship of believers must reflect the character of Christ.  This character is always aware of worldly temptations and their effect on the gospel of Christ.  Few worldly temptations throughout Scripture garner more warning than money.  Money has the power to displace the value God created us with and substitutes its own deceptive, illusory perception of value.  The closer we move in partnership with money as our primary end, the further we distance ourselves from God as our ultimate authority.  A fellowship of believers can change the world through money by approaching it as a means to transform this world, but they must be united in the truth that the power of money should only be measured in how fast it is being applied to a need.  Uniting both of these characteristics is love, the essence of Christ himself.  This love is in all and for all, is charitable and supportive.  Furthermore, this love is not a character trait.  It is the character of a believer transformed by the love of Christ. And in a group of believers, this character multiplies, yielding a body of believers overcome by the love of God, resulting in “the body of Christ.”

 

Tuesday Devotional: John 2

Devotional

Read John 2:1-11bible

All the miracles of Jesus Christ, while differing in context, exhibit similarities.  First, they address an immediate need.  In a culture where wedding celebrations were often a weeklong affair, preparation for entertainment that lasted the duration was paramount for the host families.  Failing to provide for the wedding guests throughout the celebrations would be a humiliation and embarrassment.  Although it appears that Jesus had no intention on displaying his power and glory at this point in time, he was aware of was the present situation and the need for assistance.  In the same way that the heart of Jesus went out to the widow who had just lost her son in Luke 7:11-17, his heart went out to the families facing this humiliation, and he acted.  Jesus never sought self-protection or self-glorification.  With every miracle he brought more attention to himself as the Messiah, which was a claim punishable by death.  After many of his miracles he instructed the healed to not announce his role in the miracle.  His heart sought the healing of others at the expense and sacrifice of his own comfort or safety.

Secondly, the miracles of Jesus always use what is available, what is present, to remind us that he is with us and is all around us.  We were never meant to assume that faith in him meant only to seek him beyond the world we live in.  We must understand that we are in this world but not of it.  His miracles help us understand that his healing power is present in this world and can change it with what he has already provided.  The miracles are in us already, and around us daily.  They are simply sitting idle, awaiting the releasing power of the Holy Spirit, which can change jars of stone and well water into the finest wine.

Lastly, the miracles of Jesus release a quality and experience that exceeds anything we have ever experienced before.  His healing is not a return to normalcy, but an entry into new life.  A life healed by the miracle of Jesus Christ is not simply improved.  A life healed by the miracle of Jesus Christ is made new in the most unexpected ways.

 

Tuesday Devotional: Luke 2

Devotional

bibleRead Luke 2: 8-20

The story of how the Messiah entered human history is not a good one.  This meaning that if one were to create a story of salvation and supernatural global rescue, the story centered on Bethlehem is unacceptable.  From the announcement to shepherds, to the baby in a manger, the Bible’s account defies our worldly literary standards.  On the surface, from a worldly perspective, there is no power in this story.  There is no immediate action.  There is no flash.  But at the heart of it is the true nature of God, representative of all he is and claims to be. The Messiah enters the world following the precise guidelines that God has always followed: humility, sacrifice and patience.  In a world obsessed with class, status and power, God announced his Son’s arrival to lowly shepherds in the field.  These shepherds were not consumed by the material world, men seeking their own glory.  These were men of little means, men who served.  The message of a humble Messiah, born of humble means, was not lost on these men.  As shepherds, they understood the power in service, sacrifice and love.  Unbeknownst to them, they had been trained and prepared long before that fateful day to understand and receive the message from the angel without hesitation or doubt.  They were prepared to listen and understand.

In a world moved so easily by the presence or even implication of power, God sent his Son into the world as an infant.  This was not a man on horseback with armor and might.  This was an infant, more fragile than most.  This was not power in intimidation but in utter humiliation. The Savior of the world did not come with brute force, but ready to be loved for who he was and is, before any words were on his lips to convince us of that.  Rather than love that can be taught, his love can only be perceived and experienced.  In a world with such a longing for immediate solutions, God chose to send the salvation of the world in the form of an infant, unable to do anything for himself, with no indication of when that salvation through him would ultimately be revealed.  There was nothing swift about this gift to the world.  Only the presence of the promised salvation.  He was here.  That is all.

In so many ways, the story of the Messiah is unbelievable, but it complements its purpose perfectly.  God came into this world to change it, but that change is only brought about when we adjust to him.  The story of the Messiah is not how man would imagine it.  That is because man didn’t.  It is a story for us, but not by us; it requires us to listen but then to understand that God is not man.  His will and purpose is not our own.  He is God, and he is with us, but thankfully for us all he is also wonderfully unlike us.

Tuesday Devotional: Mark 1

Devotional

bibleRead Mark 1:21-28

The world is a mystery that has inspired and driven humanity, from the scholar to the young child, to question and ponder the difficult questions it poses.  In seeking answers, we all develop our own understandings or reach our own answers to satisfy our curiosity, no matter how unreasonable they may be.  Our many questions lead to comparatively much shorter list of answers. In a landscape so barren of sure foundations, to adopt a position of authority and confidence on any topic is received with suspicion and criticism.  Unless, that is, the answers to our questions are accompanied by both power and undeniable truth.

As Jesus began to speak in the Capernaum synagogue, both of these elements were present.  His teaching came with an authority that confidently knew, not a presumptuous attempt spurred by curiosity.  He spoke with an understanding of a time before any of our problems existed.  More convincingly, his teaching came with the power to reverse the problems of this world that demand our attention and inquiry.  In his being was simultaneously the answer before the problems and the answer to the problems.  The teachings of man cannot access the before and after, and thus are left in infancy.  The teachings of philosophers and religion can begin to understand, but are left far short of the ability to confidently explain and resolve.  The synagogue of Capernaum was filled with certainty.  The God of the ages was present. There was no doubt for those watching and listening that this was new, this was different.  This was not of man.  When the Holy Spirit is unleashed in the minds of men there is nowhere else to look.  The work of the Holy Spirit demands attention, and receives it, because the power and truth of almighty God always comes with healing.  The fear of the Lord does not terrorize, and the people in that synagogue were not feeling terrorized.  Their fear of the Lord was that of awe and amazement.  In the presence of something so supernatural there is no other reasonable human response.

Tuesday Devotional: Matthew 1

Devotional

Read Matthew 1bible

Over the course of life one develops certain expectations.  We develop standards and scales by which we measure everything we encounter, about people, about ourselves, about life in general.  Often these expectations are not misguided or unreasonable.  They are based on our personal experience of patterns that we in turn come to expect.  We rely on these expectations, although at times they confine rather than liberate us.  For many, the expectation when approaching the word of God is that two things will be inevitable.  First, the words will be uninteresting and irrelevant.  Second, the presence of God will be present only to the imagination.

At first glance of the New Testament, in Matthew 1, those expectations seem to be verified with the famous “begats.”  A list of difficult names to pronounce that, without background knowledge, feels distant and unnecessary.  However, upon closer examination of this list one discovers a rather different message.  Found within this list of begats is a range of people who, when grouped together, make up the complete and complex spectrum of human character, background, status and record.  This list is best represented with one word: “imperfection.”  This list of begats, that introduces the world to the life of Jesus Christ and the Gospel, not only defies the expectations that the word of God will be uninteresting and irrelevant, but exceeds even the best of expectations implied by a gospel of blessing and salvation.  This list is the open-door policy of a God who has been gathering his people long before we personally emerged into this world, a God who does not seek a people cut out of a perfect cloth.  Rather, He has been seeking to gather a people honest with their imperfections and totally overcome by his perfection.  This list actually defies the idea that God’s presence and influence are only of the mind by presenting a God pursuing his people personally and directly throughout the ages.  The quotation from Isaiah confirms this: the son of the virgin will not only be the savior of the world but will be “Immanuel,” “God with us.”  This chapter, from the list of begats to the declaration of Immanuel, shows that the God of the Heavens has always been with us. His desire is to always be a God “with us.”

Tuesday Devotional: Malachi 1

Devotional

Read Malachi 1:6-14bible

Most of the “religion” found today is purely an illusion, something man has created in order to serve himself.  Religion, for some, is a means to get what you want in life.  For others, it is a guideline of how to do the “right” things in this world.  Some use it as a standard of judgment and legislation that can control the good and bad of this world beyond the powers of our political and judicial systems.  Religion to many people has nothing to do with God and has everything to do with themselves.  It is a means to retaining control of their own lives, and being served and rewarded in the process.  Only when looking at the words of the Lord will one begin to notice the horrifying hypocrisies and delusions that religion in our world has often demonstrated and promoted.  To many believers in religion, God is no more real than Santa Claus or the legends of Genies in Lamps.  He is an image of hope or an encouraging figure of goodness and power that we all wish were true but, due to his radical claims, can’t possibly be.

Although religious people spend hours worshiping this God, they remain unchanged as a result of a complete lack of faith.  If God is God, he has to be understood and approached as God.  If God is God, we are nothing compared to him.  If God is God, we cannot escape him.  He is everywhere and knows everything.  If God is God, without him we have nothing and deserve nothing.  If God is God, he knows what is best for us better than we ever could ourselves.  If God is God, his words are stone and will last beyond our final breaths in this world.  If God is God, he deserves all that we have without any compromise or bargaining.  The truth is, many people have never genuinely approached God in these ways.  For many, God has less value to them than their boss, their family, their president, their celebrities of pop-culture, and ultimately themselves.  In many ways, God comes last.  God is the scramble for a few loose coins in the pockets of those caught off guard by the incoming offering basket on Sunday at church.  He is an afterthought. An inconvenience.  A burden.  In ignorance of the Word, one can maintain this position of complacency and disrespect.  But in the presence of his Word, this position is unacceptable and inexcusable.  God cannot be God while allowing us to reduce him to an insignificant figure standing in our over-powering shadows.  If he is God, we are always and ever in his shadow, and cannot see the realities of this world in any other way.