Affliction’s Wisdom

As parents it can be very difficult to discipline our children.  You love them, but you know that if you don’t teach them a lesson or discipline them they can get hurt.  That little baby that begins to crawl and start getting in to everything can get hurt very badly, if you don’t put up safety devices or follow them around or tell them “No”.  Discipline is for our children’s own well-being.  If we let them go in to harm’s way they can end up dead.  No parent that truly loves their child wants to see that happen.  Many parents will fear disciplining their children, because they don’t want to damage their self-esteem.  If a parent would weigh out self-esteem vs. death, they would soon see which is more important in the long run. 

God has acted as our loving parent on so many occasions.  He says, “No”.  He teaches the correct things to do.  He pulls us out of harm’s way.  He disciplines us when we are too stubborn to listen.  He does it all for our own good.  Many times we see him disciplining the people of Israel as a nation.  He would use other kings and nations to discipline.  Usually before He did, He would send in a prophet to warn them and teach them the correct things to do.  Many times, like us, they did not listen.  Isaiah was one such prophet.  He had the difficult job of trying to get God’s people back on track and warn them of impending discipline if they did not.  In Isaiah chapters 30 to 32 we see a pattern of Isaiah warning the people, of the discipline and affliction that was coming to them.  Then he would share with them what would happen after the discipline.  He did this back and forth comparison multiple times in those chapters.  It is like he was saying, “I know you will not listen to my warnings and you will face punishment, but have hope it will end and good will come out of it.  Some of you will survive.”  In the beginning of Chapter 30 he warns them then in verses 19-22 he shares some wisdom and hope with them:

(New King James Version)

¹⁹ For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem;  You shall weep no more. He will be very gracious to you at the sound of your cry; When He hears it, He will answer you. ²⁰ And though the Lord gives you The bread of adversity and the water of affliction, Yet your teachers will not be moved into a corner anymore, But your eyes shall see your teachers. ²¹ Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “ This is the way, walk in it,” Whenever you turn to the right hand Or whenever you turn to the left. ²² You will also defile the covering of your images of silver, And the ornament of your molded images of gold. You will throw them away as an unclean thing; You will say to them, “Get away!”

(The Message Version)

^19-22Oh yes, people of Zion, citizens of Jerusalem, your time of tears is over. Cry for help and you’ll find it’s grace and more grace. The moment he hears, he’ll answer. Just as the Master kept you alive during the hard times, he’ll keep your teacher alive and present among you. Your teacher will be right there, local and on the job, urging you on whenever you wander left or right: “This is the right road. Walk down this road.” You’ll scrap your expensive and fashionable god-images. You’ll throw them in the trash as so much garbage, saying, “Good riddance!”

We can take some wisdom and hope from this passage too.  Number one, we need to know that affliction and discipline from God is meant to get us back on track.  It is meant to focus us back on God.  These Israelites would soon throw away their foreign gods and come back to God as a result of their affliction.  The next piece of wisdom and hope that He gives them and us shows that affliction will help us to tune our ears in better to hearing the teachers God is giving us in our lives.  What great hope there is in the fact that God will always provide us wise teachers that we can learn from.  His discipline will never remove the opportunity to learn more about God and His ways.  It will only enhance the opportunities.  We also learn from this passage, that even though we may deserve the discipline, God will hear our prayers and will answer them from within the time of affliction and after.  He will give us grace. 

There is much wisdom we can learn from our times of affliction. The key is to respond and not turn a deaf ear to our teachers and to cry out to God for help.

I Need a Lawyer!

Have you heard about the new app created for Android phones called, “I’m Getting Arrested”?  It is an app that is set up with the ability to text people of your choosing (Lawyer, Spouse, Best Friend, Mom) that you want contacted in case you are arrested.  As the police are approaching you can just tap that app on your Android phone and it immediately sends out the texts as the officers are slapping the cuffs on your wrists.  No longer do you have to wait for that one phone call the police owe you at the jail.  You can let everybody in the world know you have been arrested.  Kind of says something sad about our society.  Do that many people expect they will be arrested?  Shows the direction our world is heading.

Before we received Christ in to our hearts, we were arrested.  When we believed in what He did for us on the cross and with His Resurrection, we were set free.  He became the “propitiation” for us.  In other words, He was the atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Yet, still to this day when we commit a sin, the devil is up in Heaven making accusations against us.  Telling God what a failure we are.  Yet not to worry, we have an app just like the “I’m Getting Arrested” Android app.  Except no action is needed on our part.  It is an even better app.  Jesus is our Lawyer, our Attorney, our Advocate stands up for us.  He faces the devil and reminds Him that we have been forgiven and cleansed by His sacrifice.  As an “advocate” He pleads our cause before the court.  Read I John 2: 1-2.

¹ My little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ the righteous One. ² He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world.

What an encouragement to know that if we do stumble in to sin, we have an advocate pleading our cause.  There is not one thing we need to do or be worried about.  God is not going to change His mind and send us packing off to jail (Hell).  What a praise!  A Lawyer we can love!

 

It Just Doesn’t Add Up!

Balancing a checkbook can sometimes be a nightmare.  You think you have been faithful to entering every check or debit made.  You think you have entered every deposit.  You work your way through the reconciliation process and to no avail.  Your checkbook still doesn’t match the bank balance.  It just doesn’t add up.  Your short money and now it is time to pay bills.  You look and look and still can’t see what is wrong and yet you know you can’t just write checks knowing you have an inaccurate balance in the checkbook.  So what do you do?  Do you write the check and risk it bouncing?  Do you run out and take a high interest loan at a rip off place?  Or does common sense tell you to keep on working on it until you get it to balance and then you can make a good decision?

In our walk with the Lord we need to be balanced.  We need to be accurate.  We need to have our lives matching His definition of what our life should be.  We can’t have one thing going on in our lives, when God’s Word says that it is wrong.  God is the Light and we are children of the Light.  God is the truth and we are to be children of the truth.  When are living lies in our life or walking in any bit of darkness, we are not being the children of God.  God cannot have fellowship with us when we are busy pretending that we are living a right life and we do not obey Him.  The Apostle John reminds of all this in I John 1: 5 – 6.

⁵ Now this is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in Him. ⁶ If we say, “We have fellowship with Him,” and walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth.

We can’t show up to church once and a while and smile our way through the message and say “Amen!”.  That is not walking in the Light.  We cannot cheat, steal, lie, cuss, hate, watch porn, listen to crummy lyrics in our music, party once a week or other ungodly things.  To be children of the Light we need to be walking in the Light in every area of our lives.  It is just common sense to realize that God Almighty, who is perfect and sinless in every way would not want to hang out with us, when we are walking in sin.  It just doesn’t add up.  So it makes even more common sense that if we want to be effective children of Light in this World, we need to be walking in the Light in every area of our life.  We will be able to keep in fellowship with our Lord and grow in Him even more when we do so.

Now is the time, not tomorrow.  Use some common sense and balance your spiritual checkbook!

No More Stumbling in the Dark!

“No more stubbed toes or stumbling in the dark! Let your feet light the way with LED lighted slippers” is the slogan for the new LED Slippers out on the market.   You know how it is, you get up in the middle of night and stumble to the bathroom stubbing your toes on everything you can.  Now with these slippers you can see your way to the bathroom with ease.  When we received Christ in to our hearts, it was like slipping on a pair of those comfy LED Slippers.  We should no longer stumble in the dark.  However, being we are humans, most of us still do stumble.  Sometimes it is because we aren’t wearing those slippers God has given us to light our way on His straight and narrow path.  We think we can do it on our own.

Sometimes we think that God doesn’t belong in certain areas of our life.  We leave Him out of our work life.  Or we leave Him out of our school life.  Or we leave Him out of family relationships.  Or we leave Him out of our political opinions.  When we leave God out of any area of our lives, we are asking to stumble in the darkness.  We need His comfy LED Slippers on all the time.  We need Him shining Light everywhere we go and in every relationship we have.  Unfortunately, when we don’t keep God in our relationships, we are more likely to get in to fights and disagreements.  Anger and bitterness can grow towards others and sometimes even hate.  When we hate others, we are in sin.  When we are in sin, we cannot be walking in the Light.  God is love.  He is not hate.  We have Him living in us and we are representing Him in this World.  Our hatred towards others does not demonstrate that God is love.  We have taken off our comfy LED Slippers and stumbled in to darkness.  Read I John 2: 9 -11.

⁹ The one who says he is in the light but hates his brother is in the darkness until now. ¹⁰ The one who loves his brother remains in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him. ¹¹ But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and doesn’t know where he’s going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

We have let hate blind us.  We are not good to God as blind servants.  We cannot reach others who are still in the darkness, when we are too busy ourselves stumbling in the darkness.  Jesus himself said in Matthew 15:14, “Leave them alone! They are blind guides. And if the blind guide the blind, both will fall into a pit.”  He further explained that what is inside us comes out of us and if it is bad that comes out of us, then we are of no use to those looking to us for guidance.  So, if you have hate on the inside towards others, you can be of no use in God’s Kingdom work. 

We need to remember to walk in His Light and keep His love in our hearts towards others.  Follow His instructions and do not stumble into the darkness of hate.

Wrinkles and Spots

Ever had to get dressed for work in the dark?  You tried not to turn on the lights so you wouldn’t wake your spouse.  You rush out the door and arrive at work and walk in and someone points out a spot on your shirt.  You go to look at yourself in the mirror in the restroom and discover that your clothes are wrinkled too.  How embarrassing is that?  Maybe you even find out you have mismatched colored socks on.  It’s amazing what a little light will do.  You can see so much more when the lights are on. 

That’s why it is very important as Christians to turn on God’s light in our lives.  We need to be in His Word regularly.  It is like turning on a light switch.  God’s Word reveals so much truth to us.  It shows us the spiritual spots and wrinkles in our lives.  Unfortunately, seeing those spots and wrinkles can be frustrating and embarrassing.  Others might even find out about our spots and wrinkles.  In those cases, we have to remember two things.  It’s not important what others think, it is only important what God thinks of us.  We are to be pleasing Him and not people.  Secondly, we need to remember that we are equal with them.  We are sinners just like they are.  We are all going to sin.  We are all going to have spots in our lives that we need to clean off our spiritual wardrobe.  We cannot hide in the dark.  The Light lives in us now and God cannot have darkness in fellowship with Him.  We cannot lie about our condition.  God is all knowing.  So keeping the light off (not doing Bible Study, not fellowshipping with other Christians, not attending worship) will do no good.  God can see our spots in the dark.  We need to clean our spots off by confessing them to the Lord.  We confess so that we can show God that we own up to our sin.  We confess to show Him that we want to turn from our sin and walk in His Light.  We confess so we can restore our fellowship with the Lord.  We confess to remove the darkness so His Light can shine brightly through us.  Read I John 1: 5-10.

⁵ Now this is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in Him. ⁶ If we say, “We have fellowship with Him,” and walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. ⁷ But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. ⁸ If we say, “We have no sin,” we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we say, “We have not sinned,” we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

Wisdom is to turn on the light and make sure you don’t have any wrinkles or spots.  Now go turn on the Light!

The Hand of God

This picture was accompanied by an article in April 2009 from the Telegraph.co.uk website that said,

“What appears, with a little imagination, to be the outstretched fingers were created by a spinning neutron star known as a pulsar buried deep inside the fist, which releases energy as it rotates. Although the pulsar itself is only 12 miles in diameter, the cloud or nebula that it produces stretches across 150 light years of space. The X-ray image was recorded by Nasa’s Chandra observatory which is circling 360 miles above Earth taking images of high-energy locations across the universe, such as the remnants of exploded stars. Dubbed the Hand of God, following on from an ‘Eye of God’ image released by European astronomers in February, the nebula pictured in the new X-ray was produced by the pulsar B1509, which is about 17,000 light years away.”

I always think it is great when men, who may not be God-fearing, see something in nature and some how equate it to God.  Those are special moments when I think God puts a little visible reminder of himself out there for us to see.  We always think we are so smart and so powerful as men and yet if we would just look around we would see the mighty hand of God working in our universe.

David wrote this in Psalm 8:1-4 “¹ O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. ²From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. ³ When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, ⁴what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? ⁵You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. ⁶You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: ⁷all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, ⁸the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. ⁹O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

David saw God’s care and provision for mankind very clearly.  David saw God’s hand in the heavens above.  What a mighty God!  Yet, David, knew that God paid attention to his creation, man.  David saw the work God provided man to do.  God gave us his creation to care for.  Even as lowly as we are compared to our Maker, God still gave us glory and honor. 

Are you looking around you and taking time to see the mighty Hand of God at work?  Are you taking time to find out what work He has for you to do in His creation?  Remember your are His “Handy” work and He created your for His purpose(s).  What an encouragement you will receive from God when you take time to look at His handi-work and find where you fit in to it all.

If You Love Me Then You Will Obey Me

^“9“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ¹²My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. ¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command.” (John 15).  John 15 is a wonderful passage.  It teaches us many things.  Jesus is the source of every good thing in our life.  He is our life and power source.  He is the sap that runs through the vine.  We are the vine.  Without Him we can not bear fruit.  John Chapter 15 makes it very clear that we need to depend on Him and that He wants us to bear fruit for Him.  This passage also makes it clear that obedience is the way we show we are God’s friend and that we love Him.  If we don’t obey what is written in His Word, then we are not a friend of God. 

We need to take some common sense approaches to evaluating our relationship with God.  First we need to regularly read scripture and get to know what the Lord says through His Word in the Bible.  We really also need to take time to think about our lives.  Is our life matching up to the Word?  Are we obeying God in every area of our lives?  Take an inventory of your life.  Check out each area.  What is going on in your relationships?  Are you getting along peacefully with everyone?  Have you worked to reconcile relationships?  Are you in a relationship that is not scripturally correct?  Are you treating your body like God’s temple?  Are you serving the Lord?  Are you worshipping the Lord?  Are you gathering together with other Christians regularly?  Are you giving to the Lord’s work?  Are you helping others in need?  Are you kind to others?  Are you working at your job as unto the Lord?  God holds us accountable for every area of our lives.  We can’t just live the way we like or live in a lifestyle that makes us feel good.  If we learn something in the Bible, then we are held accountable for what we learn.  Whether we learn from a Sunday School Teacher, a Pastor, a Christian friend, a radio message, or a blog, we are held accountable for what we have been taught by the Lord.  So the challenge is to inventory your life, analyze it, and then match up what you are doing with what you know the Lord says about it in scripture.  If you are unsure, then ask a solid Christian friend or your Pastor.  Or blog us about it.  Or e-mail us in private at wisejunction@mindspring.com

Jealousy is Good?

We have all heard stories (or maybe even experienced personally ourselves) about a jealous husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, best friend, neighbor, classmate, or family member.  Jealousy is seen as a very negative thing.  It usually leads to harm of self and/or others.  So you might think I am crazy for saying this, “Jealousy is a good”.  The Merriam-Webster’s dictionary would even disagree with me, “1 a : intolerant of rivalry or unfaithfulness b : disposed to suspect rivalry or unfaithfulness 2 : hostile toward a rival or one believed to enjoy an advantage 3 : vigilant in guarding a possession”.  I say jealous is good, because God gives us His own example in His Word. 

Nothing God does is bad.  It is usually us humans that make things bad.  Exodus 34:14 “Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” One of God’s names is even “Jealous”.  Why would God, who is the ultimate good and sin free, be named Jealous or be jealous?  Many times in the bible we see the people of God, whether it be the Hebrew people or Christians, be equated as God’s wife or bride. One example is seen in Revelation 19:7 “Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.  This is a reference to the Christians as Christ’s bride.  When a man marries a woman, he is taking her as his own.  They are to become one.  They are becoming totally committed to each other.  No longer will they date and see others.  The will spend their time with each other.  They will be devoted to each other.  On earth when a man becomes jealous of his wife, he is suspicious that she is being unfaithful.  He thinks she is spending time with someone other than himself.  The reason this thought would bother the man is because he loves her so much and he can’t stand the thought that she is not showing love and devotion to him.  Instead she is sharing it with someone else.  This jealousy usually leads to spying, bad actions and words.  God, like a husband, loves us so much, that it is heart wrenching for Him to think of us being devoted to someone else other than Him.  The difference between man and God is that He is holy and pure.  He will not let His jealousy turn in to sin like man would.  It is a good thing that God is jealous of us.  It demonstrates how important to God our relationship is with Him.  He loved us so much in the first place that He gave His Son for us.

It is not good when a spouse evokes jealousy in their spouse.  We are hurting them.  We should do whatever it takes to show them our total love and devotion.  That is why we married them.  We let temporary pleasures draw us away from them.  It can be anything from an activity we spend too much time doing or another person.  Our focus should be loving our spouse and fulfilling their needs.  That’s what we committed to when we married them.  The same is true of our relationship with God.  We need to think of Him as our jealous spouse.  He committed to us and we committed to Him when we became Christians.  We need to show our love and devotion to God by removing anything from our life that would draw us away from Him.  Just like your spouse, are you spending time with God?  Just like your spouse, are you talking each and every day to Him?  Just like we spend time getting to know about our spouse, are you spending time getting to know God through His Word.  If you want to bless or exalt the Lord, as scripture tells us to, then be zealous for Him and your relationship with Him.  Put some time and energy and commitment in to it.  God, like our spouse, should be number one in our life.  Is your job, your hobbies, your TV, your money, your friends more important to you?  Do you give those things more time than you give God?  We can take away some instructions from this concept of our jealous husband, God.  Be Zealous for our Jealous God.  Jealousy is Good!

Don’t Ignore the Living God He’s Bigger Than You

I heard a famous preacher say, “Don’t ignore the living God, He’s bigger than you.”  Wow!  What a statement!  What a thought provoking idea.  We really forget sometimes who God is.  It also goes to show us that once again God works through so many different avenues to get His point across to us.  I say that because this week I also heard another biblical teacher say, “Do you really believe what you believe about God?”  Most Christians are taught the basic character traits of God.  He is love.  He is kind.  He is our provider.  He is just.  He is truth.  Our list can go on.  And yet, most Christians don’t really live like they truly believe these things about God.  We really forget how big He is and that He is truly all the things we have been taught.  We all need to start living our lives in honest belief of what we have learned.  If we believe God is our provider, then why do we worry about what we need.  If we believe God is love and loves us, why would we not trust Him when allows things to happen our lives that may not make sense to us.  If we know God is Omnipresent, then how come we think, speak and act the way we should not.  We also believe that the Holy Spirit comes to live in us, when we receive Christ.  If we really believe that, then why do we live in sin, weak and powerless.  As the one preacher put it, “You have the awesome dwelling power of the Spirit at work in you.”  God is bigger than us, we shouldn’t ignore the work he is doing in our lives or the work he asks us to do.  If He asks us to do something, then we must accept that he knows what He is talking about.  If He asks us to do something, then we must trust Him to provide what we need to do the job.  So, do you really believe what you believe about God?  If you do, then wisdom says don’t ignore Him.

But these are written so that you may believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and by believing you may have life in His name.   John 20:31

But I confess this to you: that according to the Way, which they call a sect, so I worship my fathers’ God, believing all the things that are written in the Law and in the Prophets.   Acts 24:14

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.    Romans 15:13

When Abram was 99 years old, the LORD appeared to him, saying, “I am God Almighty. Live in My presence and be devout.    Genesis 17:1

¹⁷ The LORD answered Moses, “I will do this very thing you have asked, for you have found favor in My sight, and I know you by name.” ¹⁸ Then Moses said, “Please, let me see Your glory.” ¹⁹ He said, “I will cause all My goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim the name Yahweh before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” ²⁰ But He answered, “You cannot see My face, for no one can see Me and live.” ²¹ The LORD said, “Here is a place near Me. You are to stand on the rock, ²² and when My glory passes by, I will put you in the crevice of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. ²³ Then I will take My hand away, and you will see My back, but My face will not be seen.”    Exodus 33:15-23

This Week – Oct. 10 – 16, 2011

Unfortunately, due to some unforseen circumstances we are unable to post new devotionals.  We encourage you to read some of the archived devotions.  We will be back next week with new devotions.