Don's Devotionals: Learning to love God

Romans 13:10  Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Over the years I have been greatly helped by focusing on the importance of biblical love.  Love always takes priority.  While we are free in Christ, our freedom is always constrained by love.  It is to be a guiding principle in our lives.

While scripture gives us many ‘dos and don’ts’, love should not be primarily viewed that way.  A helpful illustration comes from raising children.   Donna and I had the good fortune to receive wonderful teaching on raising children right after our marriage.  One of the most essential things we learned was to focus on the principle of obedience and disobedience.

Our sons were taught to obey what we told them to do – that disobedience brought discipline.  For instance, if one boy hit the other, he was not disciplined for ‘hitting’ his brother.  He was disciplined for disobedience.  We would take him aside, and say to him, “You have been told not to hit your brother.  Did you obey us?”  He would say no and acknowledge he had disobeyed.   The discipline was never focused on the specific action the child had done.  It was always focused upon the principle of disobedience.

If they broke a window by throwing a ball in the house, they weren’t disciplined for breaking a window.  They were disciplined for disobedience because they knew they had been told not to throw balls in the house.  Lying is disobedience.  Cheating is disobedience.  This idea is huge.  Children learn the principle rather than a big list of dos and don’ts.

Likewise, we must learn the principle of love as defined by scripture (not by our culture).  The more we understand what constitutes love, the greater is our ability to apply it in every circumstance we find ourselves in.  God’s word is so essential to this process.  The more we grow in love, behaving in an ‘unloving’ manner becomes as recognizable and inappropriate for us as disobedience is for children.

Lamentations 3:25  The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him;

This morning as I was considering what I would write, my mind was filled with lots of  stuff.  We have a lot going on and my mind was just cluttered with details and concerns.  As I was trying to focus upon the Lord, the following song began playing in my mind.  Mentally, I stopped and just listened – allowing the words and music to minister to me.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases  – His mercies never come to an end –   They are new every morning – New every morning – Great is thy faithfulness O Lord – Great is thy faithfulness

It’s a lovely song and its impact upon me was significant.  I experienced a settling calm that was like the Lord saying, “Peace – be still.” to the storm in my thoughts.  I thought of how the first rays of dawn dispel the darkness – and the beauty of a sunrise.  The  turbulence in my mind just faded away.  But it was more than just having a sense of peace in my mind so I could better do the task at hand.

It was Him.  It was experiencing Him and His goodness to me.  The peace was and is a blessing – but far greater is the blessing of being captivated by who He is.  Think of the ten lepers who all were healed.  One – a Samaritan – came back to Jesus praising God and he threw himself at Jesus’ feet.  The healing was wonderful but foremost, he had to express his praise to God and his thankfulness to Jesus.

May we all more deeply recognize that our hope is in the Lord.  Today, may we more deliberately look to Him and seek Him in the midst of our daily life.  If we do, we will experience a heightened awareness of His goodness and His presence with us.  The fact that the Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him is not just a theological truth – it is an experiential reality for us to enjoy each day.

Here is a link to this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJbXDoK_AAs

Acts 9:31  Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord.

Have you ever lived anywhere where the drinking water was too unpleasant to drink?  In such situations a couple of alternatives are available.  One is to get bottled water and many people do that.  The other is to get a good water filter system that removes all the unpleasantness from the water.  Think about traveling overseas and the issue of whether it is wise or safe to drink the water?  There’s a lot more to it than just the taste and smell of the water.  Water that might seem fine can be a disaster to drink, that’s why it pays to be careful.

There are other water issues to be concerned about depending upon where you live and the water source. Suppose you have the water tested and discover that there is ‘stuff’ in the unfiltered water that can and will hurt you.  But the good news is the testing also confirms that a quality water filter system removes those negatives; making the water safe to drink.  It’s just a matter of maintaining the filter system.

In this situation, with the filter system, the water is safe to drink.  Without the filter system, there are negatives in the water that will hurt us even if there is no bad taste or smell.  Water is important and it pays to be careful.  With this in mind, it’s important that we recognize that the fear of the Lord is a vital component of our spiritual filtering system.  There is a lot of deadly stuff out there in our culture that doesn’t ‘taste’ or ‘smell’ bad.  But it’s stuff that can kill and destroy.

We must also remember that we play a key role in our spiritual filtering system.  We have to pay attention to it and provide it with God’s Word so that it is fully operational.  We have to care! There is a very key verse in Numbers 32:23 that is a Biblical principle that we tend to forget but it’s still there: “your sin will find you out”.

That begs the question: “What is sin?” and the answer to that leads to specifics in every area and aspect of our lives.  Fortunately, the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life in the motivational aspect of our lives in this realm.  It is life producing and the more we respond to it the more it protects us from things we must avoid.

Reread today’s verse.  The fear of the Lord was what they lived in.  It is healthy and positive and vital to our life in Christ Jesus.  We are to live in it too.

NOTE: Continue to pray for Israel!

2 Timothy 3:5a  having a form of godliness but denying its power.

Consider these questions: 1) Is the Church a victim of the degenerating culture that surrounds it?  Or 2) Is it the other way around – is the surrounding culture reflective of the Church having a form of godliness but denying its power?  Jesus taught that we are the salt and light of the world.  Salt and light prevent decay and darkness.

The context of today’s verse is Paul’s warning to Timothy of the godlessness of the last days.  Some of that godlessness is inevitable but to what extent is it reflective of ‘unsalty’ Christians – or Christians who too often turn off their ‘light’?  A major issue we have to deal with is selective obedience (or selective disobedience).  This results in having a form of godliness but denying its power.

The power of the gospel of Jesus Christ is beyond anything we can imagine.  But how we choose to respond to His gospel is critical.  Let’s look at the older brother in the well known parable in Luke 15 of the lost son.  Upon the younger brother’s return and seeing the response of his father:

²⁸ “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. ²⁹ But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. ³⁰ But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’  ³¹ “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. ³² But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”

The older son has been ‘obedient’ for years, everything the father has is his and he has always been with his father but his negative response could not be more different from that of his father.  Who are his bitterness and accusations focused upon?  He’s more upset at his father than he is with his brother.  Over the years, outwardly everything might have looked fine, but inwardly the older brother was so far from where he should or could be.  The brother’s return and his father’s response revealed the reality of where he was.

The point of this is that the same thing can happen to us.  We can look good on the outside – having a form of godliness; but inwardly we can miss so much because we selectively respond to Gods’ word – resulting in a denial of its power.  Unfortunately we can be blind to this reality occurring in our lives.