Don's Devotionals: Learning to love God

Matthew 7:1  Do not judge, or you too will be judged.

Judging others can be a bit like having termites in the house – the problem can be there for a lengthy time before we become aware of it.  Then we have to discover how extensive the problem is and deal with it.  A powerful example of judging wrongly comes from CS Lewis’ book, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

In a house on an island, Lucy discovers a Magician’s book that offers her all kinds of opportunities – not all of which are appropriate.  She speaks the words of a spell that will enable her to know what her friends thought of her.  As she’s looking at the pictures in the book, she is aware that she is seeing and hearing two classmates, Anne and Marjorie,
speaking about her on a train back in England.  The conversation does not go as she expects.

Anne asks Marjorie if she is going to continue spending so much time with Lucy; she asserts that the last term (at school) Marjorie was crazy about Lucy.  Marjorie replies that
she wasn’t crazy about Lucy, saying, “I’ve got more sense than that.  Not a bad little kid in her way.  But I was getting pretty tired of her before the end of the term.”

Lucy explodes with indignation calling Marjorie a “Two-faced little beast.”  She then realizes that she’s talking to a picture in the Magician’s book, but still is distressed by
this perceived betrayal by her friends, particularly Marjorie.  Lucy had really befriended Marjorie, but she now wonders if her other friends are the same.

A few minutes later, Lucy sees Aslan in the room with her – He had been there all the time.  He speaks to her about eavesdropping on her two friends and how she had misjudged Marjorie.  Aslan tells her, “(Marjorie) is weak, but she loves you.  She was afraid of the older girl and said what she does not mean.”

We are too prone to snap-judgments, and thinking we know why someone did something.  Doing so is sin and has such significant consequences – spiritual and otherwise.  Instead of judging, we must release things to the Lord and look to Him. I thank God for how He has used this scene to warn and keep me from making the mistake of judging others.  Pray that He will do likewise for you.

To God be the glory great things He hath done!  46 years ago today!

Thanks to what can only be described as the miraculous intervention of God, we were engaged 2 hours and 15 minutes after we met!  We’ve joked that the reason it took so long was the first hour was in a meeting and the second hour was at dinner.  God supernaturally communicated, independently to each of us that we were His choice for each other and were to be married.  It’s as though we had been betrothed to each other without ever knowing it.

God imparted (in computer terms, think “downloaded”) knowledge, understanding, wisdom and a passionate affection for each other – into each of us.  He not only imparted this to us, but He gave us the incredible experience of a manifestation of His presence as confirmation to us as we sat on a park bench together in prayer.  He gave us in a moment what many don’t experience in a lifetime.

“But what exactly happened?” is a response we have received when friends and acquaintances hear about this.  Neither one of us knew that we were coming to this Christian camp in Georgia until the last minute.  Donna, from North Carolina, was invited by a college classmate to go with her to a “dumb old Christian camp” that her folks were making her go to.  Donna, on the other hand, was excited to come because God had been wooing her to Himself.  I received an invitation to come and be one of the youth counselors just one week before the camp began.

On the second day of camp, as I approached the auditorium for the afternoon meeting, I saw David, a young man I had met there the day before.  As we were talking, up walks this lovely young lady named Donna.  She too didn’t know hardly anyone there, but like me, she had met David the day before as well.  So she joined us and we went in to the meeting.

After sitting down in the auditorium, I asked Donna if I could ask her a personal question.  She said yes, being curious what I would ask.  I asked her, “Are you saved?”  She replied, “If you tell me what you mean, I’ll tell you what I think.”  I then said, “If you were to die or if Jesus returned, would you go to heaven or to hell?”  She gave me the answer when she said, “I’d probably go to hell because I haven’t done anything good enough to go to heaven.”  I knew I wanted to tell her about Jesus.

During the course of the meeting, the speaker said something funny and everyone laughed.  While we were laughing Donna looked at me and there was a bright glow around my head.  She was startled by it and wondered what it was? I was totally unaware of this phenomenon.

The three of us went from the meeting to the cafeteria to have dinner.  David sat to her left but the thought struck me to sit across from Donna so I went around the end of the table, put my tray across from her and sat down.  As I looked up, our eyes met and my heart exploded with “THAT’S HER!”  I was beside myself, not knowing what to do – except play with my food for the rest of the meal because my appetite was sure gone.  A stunning, tumultuous event was going on inside of me.

The rest of the story tomorrow….

Hebrews 12:1-2a  In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, ²but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son,…

If someone were to ask you what the primary purpose of prophets in the Old Testament was, what would your answer be?  Looking at this verse, you might say they were raised up to speak what God wanted said.  That’s true but that’s not getting to the heart of it.

Think of who they were speaking to; what they were saying; and why it was being said.  The prophets were speaking to the Israelites – the descendents of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob.  They were typically telling them to repent, come back to God and obey His commands.  The reason these things were being said was two-fold: 1) They were God’s people and 2) They were not walking in His ways.

But there is so much more to it than that.  God loved them and wanted them to love Him
in return.  He wanted His people to be blessed not cursed.  The fact that they were the children of Abraham was important, but the crux of the issue was how they lived their lives.  Did they walk in His ways?

Now we have Jesus.  He offers the opportunity, through faith in Him, to become God’s people to all mankind – not just the children of Israel.  He provides the Holy Spirit to those who believe in Him so that they can walk in His ways and be His people.  We need to understand that this is so much more than what we do on Sunday mornings.  Our involvement with a local body of believers is merely the tip of the iceberg.  It is the other 95% of our lives where we communicate our love – or lack of love – to our God.

We must grasp the fact that God’s desire now is the same as it was then.  He wants His people to love Him – to walk in His ways – to reflect His glory.  He wants the world to see His reflection in His people.  In the Old Testament they were not born again.  They still had to contend with their sinful natures.  But we are new creatures in Christ Jesus.  We
have such an advantage over them. While we still struggle with temptations and sin, we don’t have our old nature as a deck stacked against us.  Let us re-commit ourselves to saying Yes to His Spirit and His word as they call us to live lives worthy of our God.