Don's Devotionals: Learning to love God

Proverbs 3:5, 6  Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding;  ⁶ think about Him in all your ways, and He will guide you on the right paths.

Have you ever considered the idea that ‘trusting the Lord’ is a learned skill?  The more we do it, the better we can become at it.  Trusting the Lord comes through making daily choices as to where will we place our confidence.  It frequently involves outward decision making, such as tithing or giving when finances are tight.  We might be faced with situations that appear to require a ‘small’ inappropriate compromise in order to prevent a larger negative – like loss of a job, or a sale or a relationship.

Doing the right thing is important, but trusting in the Lord offers so much more.  Think of the verse where we are commanded not to be anxious over anything (Phil 4:6).  We can do the right thing while being beside ourselves with anxiety and concern.  The children of Israel could have chosen to enter the land in spite of the giants and the negative report of the 10 spies.  They were frightened but they could have still obeyed the Lord.

A most vital component in this process is the relationship we have with the Lord.  The closer our walk is with Him, the greater is our freedom from anxiety and worry in difficult situations.  Consider the following situations and what you are likely to experience internally in each of them:

1. You are lost, driving in a city you’ve never been in; you are in an unsavory area and your cell phone is not working; you have an important appointment to keep – if only you can find it.
2. Same as #1 but your cell phone begins working; so you call your friend you’re meeting with – and get his voice mail.
3. Same as # 1 but you ask someone for directions and they sound a bit confused as they give them to you.
4. Same as #1 but you remember you have a GPS.  You plug it in; enter the address of the appointment; push the go button and you immediately know how to get there and how long it will take.

The point isn’t to go out and buy a GPS – but to recognize how different our state of being can be in different situations.  The more we learn to trust in the Lord, the more we are able to have the peaceful heart response of situation #4 while in situations like #1.

Mark 14:61-62  But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer.  Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?”   ⁶² “I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

When we think of Jesus, what images come to mind?  Depending upon the time of year we might think of the baby of Bethlehem or Jesus upon the Cross.  Possibly we think of Jesus upon a mountain side teaching multitudes or Jesus as the Good Shepherd with a flock of sheep.

We might think of Him driving out the money changers in the temple; walking upon the water; entering Jerusalem to the cheers of the crowd; or at the Last Supper with His disciples.  There are many different images that we have of Him from Scripture.  All of them are rich in meaning and present wonderful aspects of our Lord.

This morning I was struck by the image of Jesus as He describes Himself to the high priest.  He is the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One.  When He told the high priest that they would see Him as the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven, they would have recognized His description as it appears in Daniel 6:13-14,

“In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. ¹⁴ He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.”

John describes Jesus as he encountered Him in Revelation 1:12-16,

“I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, ¹³ and among the lampstands was someone “like a son of man,” dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. ¹⁴His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. ¹⁵ His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. ¹⁶ In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. “

What a glorious picture of our Lord!  He reigns on high!  He is Lord of Lords and King of Kings! He is coming again!  No matter what is going on around us; no matter what the enemy of our souls tries to bring against us – Jesus triumphs over all!!

Isaiah 12:5  Sing to the LORD, for he has done glorious things; let this be known to all the world.

We arrived at the Christian Camp on Sunday that was held in Georgia.  Donna was from North Carolina and I was from Michigan.  We met and were engaged on Monday (see Devotionals for past 2 days).  But the best was still to come.  The Lord had something scheduled for Donna on Tuesday afternoon that would change her forever.

Donna’s attendance at the camp was a last minute occurrence, just like it was for me.  She was invited by a college classmate to go with her to a “dumb old Christian camp” that her folks were making her go to.  The friend’s parents would pay her way to come.  Donna, on the other hand, was excited to come to the camp because God had been wooing her to Himself.

Donna had spent the previous two school years at St. Mary’s in Raleigh, NC- a private Episcopal Girl’s School.  She was there for her senior year of high school and her freshman year of college.  At St. Mary’s she found herself attracted by the Church’s Liturgy and enjoyed being an altar girl.  Both the morning service and Evening Prayers on Sunday were important to her.  She thought the sense of peace and the beauty of the services that she experienced there was as close as she could get to God.

Donna’s honest answer to my question regarding whether she was saved, revealed the fact that she was still in the process of being drawn to God.  In her short time at the camp she was already a bit confused by the way people talked about Jesus.  They spoke of Him as though He was actually there with them.  Donna believed in God but thought of Him as an ethereal being up there somewhere.  When she asked people why they spoke of Jesus in this way, they just smiled and said that she would find out, which did little to help.  Little did she know the miraculous vision that God would give her in order to reveal the Truth to her.

The following afternoon after we met and were engaged, Donna was in the little chapel for a meeting.  After the teaching, people were being prayed for to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to become more effective Christians.  When she was prayed for, nothing happened to her as it had for the others in the room.  She was sitting in the front row of this small chapel and was too embarrassed to get up and walk out so she just sat there.  There was an empty life-size wooden cross hanging on the wall in the front of the chapel and as she sat there looking at it, God gave her a vision.

She saw Jesus nailed to the cross—so clearly that she felt that if she could have stood, she could have touched him!  As she looked on, she noticed blood dripping from His hands and feet.  Suddenly it was personally real to her that Jesus had died for her!  She began to weep and couldn’t stop as she realized that Jesus had loved her enough to die for her, not just “the world” but her, personally.  Later she recalled experiencing the feeling of being in a waterfall, only the waterfall was inside her rather than outside her.  Afterwards she says she felt scrubbed clean on the inside.  Nothing was the same again.  She was a different person.  Though she couldn’t articulate it clearly, she knew it was true!

To God be the glory great things He hath done! (August 25, 1969)  Continued from yesterday…

After my incredible encounter with Jesus the previous fall, I received some wonderful advice about praying for my wife.  The leader instructed me, “I want you to pray for your wife – but don’t pray, ‘God, send me a wife’.  I want you to pray for her like this.  Lord Jesus, I thank you that you have the girl I am going to marry.  I pray that she will come to know you – that you will protect her and bless her.  Thank you that you are preparing us for one another.  I acknowledge that in your time and in your way, you will bring us together.  I commit her and our relationship to you.”  So I regularly began praying in this way for the unknown girl who would be my wife.  This was the framework of my declaration of “THAT’S HER!”

When we finished dinner, David asked Donna to go with him to take some film to be developed.  Great was my relief when she said no.  After he left, I asked if we could go for a walk and she said yes.  Even though I was beside myself with what was going on within me, I wanted to tell her about Jesus and how I met Him.  She wanted to find out what was the glow that was around my head in the meeting.

I was telling her about Jesus while we walked but my mind was in a whirlwind.  There was a popular song at the time with the line, “Then I went and spoiled it all by saying something stupid like I love you.” And it was running through my mind.  We walked to a stone bench under the pines next to a stone chapel and sat down.  What was going on within me was so consuming I finally couldn’t continue talking.  So I said to her, “There is something I have to tell you.”  Donna said, “Go ahead.”  I replied, “I love you.”  She replied, “I love you too.”

At that point, I said, “Let’s pray.”  My prayer was simply this, “Lord Jesus – If this is not of you, stop it.  But if this is of you, please confirm it.”  And “heaven landed with a thud!”  That is how I have described it for 56 years.  We were immediately surrounded and embraced by a manifestation of God’s presence!  He imparted (downloaded) everything into both of us – the knowledge, the thrill, the excitement, the affection, the commitment, the utter joy and the complete settledness.  It was done!!  We knew, sitting on the bench praying, that God had chosen us for each other and we were to be married.  We belonged to each other.

From that moment, there has never been any doubt that God chose us for each other – not the slightest doubt – ever!  I always knew that I was capable of loving someone.  I never dreamed that anyone could or would love me the way Donna does.  This was and is something beyond my wildest dreams.  Later I discovered that Donna had been proposed to by a friend the weekend before but had to tell him no.  She was unable to say she loved him.  She could only say that to the man she knew she would marry!

God impressed on us we were to be married – He didn’t say get married.  I still had my senior year of college to go and He knew that I needed to be loved not married.  Now I was able to focus on my studies.  We were married 13 months later just following my graduation from college.

Tomorrow – Donna’s amazing vision of Jesus on the cross the next day….

1 Peter 3:15  But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,

Imagine sitting in any kind of class or gathering where the speaker/instructor belittles a particular belief. If there is an individual in the group with that particular belief and he makes it known, the focus likely shifts to him.  Typically it probably isn’t mean spirited, but more in the category of “Oh my!  How can anyone still believe that??!!”  Laughter, polite ridicule and condescension are a powerful combination.

Unfortunately if the person proves to be resistant to the ‘accepted wisdom’ or political correctness, the speaker/instructor can manipulate the nature of the atmosphere to become more aggressive, ‘seasoned’ with anger, intimidation and biting ridicule.  In a classroom setting, a subtle intimation can be communicated that good grades are not obtained by those with such beliefs.

This phenomenon can occur over a vast range of subjects depending upon the views of the speaker and the group.  Consider some topics: abortion, homosexuality, same sex marriage, voter IDs, enforcing immigration laws, government healthcare, God, Jesus, faith, evolution, the Bible, the list is long.  If we are that person and the recipient of such treatment, how we respond is critical.

Our faith identifies such situations as opportunities not victimhood.  Christ is our rock and it’s upon Him that we stand.  Sometimes we might hesitate to speak up because we don’t want to be a recipient of the verbal attack.  That might be wisdom or it might be fear of what people might think of us; or fear of persecution.  Maybe we’re just too casual with our faith and feel too inadequate to speak up, or to stand with another believer.

We have a hope that is grounded in eternal reality.  We must be prepared to express our faith in ways pleasing to God – not attacking those who oppose but sincerely allowing our light (His light within us) to shine.  We must be spiritually and prayerfully prepared to glorify our Lord when such opportunities arise.

John 12:42-43  Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; ⁴³ for they loved praise from men more than praise from God.

We have this problem today that we encounter everywhere –  and it is a major problem.  In Scripture it is reflected by Nathanael’s blunt comment to hearing Philip excitedly telling him about Jesus of Nazareth, the one written about by Moses and the prophets, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” (John 1:46)

Substitute the word Christianity into Nathanael’s sentence for Nazareth and couple it with an attitude of condescension and we have the problem we are facing nearly everywhere in Western Civilization. It’s in academia, business, media, government, courts – basically everywhere.  It’s similar to evolution in that it’s poor theory that’s accepted as true (I will deal with evolution this coming week).  Religion is viewed as a waste if your ‘given’ is there is no God.

But this perception and accompanying attitudes don’t exist in a vacuum.  They are rooted in forces that have no doubt as to the deadly threat posed to them by scriptural Christianity that is truly lived out. Most of the world has no idea they are pawns in the hands of evil powers. Paul addresses them in Ephesians 6:12,

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Their goal is to stamp Christianity out!  Do anything to keep Christians from tapping into the power they truly have in Christ.  In the face of this politically correct societal dismissal, the issue becomes how are Jesus followers going to respond?

Unfortunately, when our walk is weak, we have a tendency to follow the path painfully described by today’s verse – we respond out of fear because we love the praise of men more than the praise of God – OUCH!  That’s why we have been provided with the armor of God and the command to put it on. (Ephesian 6:10-18)  This armor is vital to being strong in the Lord and able to stand.

When we stand, we don’t respond with anger, shaking our fists at those who oppose us.  But we stand strong and secure in our Lord with our response reflecting our faith, rooted in righteousness and glorifying Jesus.  At times we’ll suffer negative consequences, but even then we must do so with fruit of the Spirit attitudes.

After all, our joy and our lives are centered in pleasing God – not men.

Hebrews 1:3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

I have really enjoyed some of the Indiana Jones movies.  A couple of my favorite scenes are in The last Crusade when they get to the cave and encounter the old Crusader still guarding the ‘Holy Grail’ – believed to be the cup used by Christ at the last supper.  There is only one problem – the room has a whole bunch of cups without any indication which is the right one.

Of course the wealthy, learned leader of the bad guys insists on choosing and picks out a magnificent ornate cup, in his mind worthy of the Lord.  He drinks from it expecting some sort of heavenly wonder but unfortunately he chose the wrong cup.  He ages a few hundred years in a few seconds and is no more, to which the old Crusader responds, “He chose poorly.”

Due to the wounding of Indy’s father (Sean Connery), Indy has to choose quickly among the cups.  The story line attributes miraculous power to the cup – like the Ark in the Old Testament – and Indy needs to get it to his father to heal the wound that would kill him.  Well, Indy learned from the bad guy’s mistake and scours the table for the cup of a carpenter and chose a very humble plain wooden cup; to which the old Crusader responds, “You chose…wisely.”

We find ourselves in a world filled with gods – all being represented as the true God. When we look at all of these competing gods, how do we know what He (the True One) looks like?  This isn’t simply an intellectual exercise – this is true reality!  While He doesn’t put a gun at our head or a sword at our throat forcing us to choose, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

The good news is that the One True God didn’t leave us to our own devices to figure out which ‘cup on the table’ was Him.  He has made everything available for all to ‘choose wisely’.   He even works with us to guide us in the path that leads to finding Him.  He has communicated that it’s not His will that any should ‘choose poorly’!

Fortunately, He has given us a vibrant, living picture of Himself.  He even enables us to recognize that it is Him – we then, simply have to choose.  And when we do, He confirms our wise choice by allowing us to experience the wonder of Him.

Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being!  When we become His, He begins the transforming wonder whereby we become like Jesus.  The more we are transformed, the more others will see Jesus when they see us – and they too will be drawn to Him.