Don's Devotionals: Learning to love God

James 1:2  Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,

The house we’re living in backs up to a school yard that has a ½ mile walking path.  The other day I was walking on the path at a very brisk pace.  In one corner the path has a slight incline in it.  Walking at a leisurely pace it might not be noticed, but at the rate I was going it was noticeable.

There are other places to walk that go across hilly terrain that are a bit more taxing.  At the far end of the spectrum are paths or trails in the mountains that are very rigorous.  In Colorado a very popular trail is the Pike’s Peak Incline – a railroad tie stairway up the mountain.  Ed Smith, one of our EVPs here at Williamson Christian College, has taken groups to Nepal to climb to the Mt. Everest Base Camp that is at about 17,590 feet.  It takes about 2 weeks to hike there and back.  It’s not only a rigorous climb but because of the height, there is altitude sickness to contend with.

When considering today’s verse, using the illustrations of hiking, many of us only think of it in terms of big or rigorous trials – like encountering mountains.  We tend to perceive it as being instructed to have joy when we encounter mountains to climb – not the little hills or inclines.  But that severely limits this verse and our accountability to this command.

Again, thinking in terms of hiking terrain, the ‘trials of many kinds’ in today’s verse applies to everything from ‘a slight incline’ to going to the Base Camp’.  No matter how small the ‘incline or hill’ we are to have joy.

Maybe the word ‘trial’ throws us.  Consider some words used in other translations instead of the word trials: temptations; tests; challenges; troubles.  Think of all the ‘little’ things that occur everyday we encounter and we have to deal with.  The little ‘tests’; the little ‘troubles’; the many temptations to respond in situations unrighteously – these are the heart of this verse.  These are the places where our joy is to be evident.  Do we respond with joy – or with annoyance, frustration or anger?  These are the places that prepare us for the ‘big’ trials.

In looking at other versions of today’s verse, two in particular really stood our.  Please consider these as you go through your day:

• Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. (The Message)
• Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. (New Living Translation)

Proverbs 11:5  The righteousness of the blameless makes a straight way for them.

The Lord wants a man to be a farmer so He gives him a farm.  He provides him all the tools, equipment, seed, fertilizer and instructs him how to do everything.  The Lord also provides him with willingness, ability, health, strength, sunlight and rain.  He even expresses the desire to assist him in everything.  When the man is obedient and he produces a wonderful crop, whose crop is it?

The crop provides food, money, great blessing and more opportunities. The man’s actions produced it, so in one sense it is his.  Even the Lord considers it the man’s as He gave it to him.  But without the Lord choosing him and giving him the opportunity, he would have nothing.  The man has a choice to make – and he will make a choice.

If the man claims the crop as his own, pride is at work.  His primary view is there would be no crop without his hard work and obedience to the Lord; his attitude is one of “it is mine”.

On the other hand, the man recognizes the goodness of God and has a heart filled with gratitude for the great blessing from the Lord.  Even though he worked hard, he knows he would have nothing without the Lord’s generosity and blessing.  His view is one of humility – everything that He has belongs to the Lord.  He is merely a steward of it.  His concern is how to use the blessing in a way that pleases the Lord and is an instrument of blessing to others.  It is all His!

The fascinating thing is the Lord considers the crop, the farm, everything to be his – the man’s.  The Lord gave it to him.  The issue is the attitude of the man: pride or humility.  Likewise, when we consider the righteousness associated with the obedient and righteous acts that we do, we have a choice to make.  Is the righteousness our own?  Or is it His?

Exodus 19:18 Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently,

Can you imagine the excitement, wonder, awe and fear that we Christians would experience if God manifested his presence like this before us?  This is our God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Holy One of Israel.  We have His Spirit within us and we belong to Him.

This verse describes what the Israelites saw and experienced.  After spending their lives as slaves in Egypt, God rescued them miraculously.  They were witnesses to the supernatural plagues that He sent upon Egypt.  They experienced His presence daily in the cloud and pillar of fire by night.  They experienced the parting of the Red Sea and walking through it.  They knew that God considered them His.

The experience of the Israelites who saw and heard this on Mt. Sinai was dominated by fear.  In response, Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.” (Ex 20:20).

There is a strong message in this scene for us – as Christians today.  This is our God and He hasn’t changed.   On the one hand He can be frightening beyond imagining.  On the other, He tells us not to be afraid.  He tests us, far more than we think He does.  We experience His incredible love through Jesus yet He offers us the opportunity to fear Him in order to keep us from sinning.  I think of the Apostle John falling down as though dead upon seeing Jesus in Revelation 1:17.  Jesus then put his hand upon John and said, “Do not be afraid.”

The fear of the Lord must be a vital part of our lives.  It is one of the most important gifts that He has given us. It is not just awe and respect – it involves recognizing God for who He is.  It is not in conflict or at odds with the love of God that we have experienced in Christ Jesus.  It is the opposite side of the same coin.

Proverbs  8:17  I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me.

Donna and I are going to celebrate our 41^st anniversary this year.  They have truly been wonderful years and my heart is to learn to love her more and more with each passing day.

But in the early 90s we went through a time of difficulty that could have ended our marriage.  I loved Donna, or so I thought, except I was doing all kinds of things that were a mass of contradictions.  I would tell her of my love, take her on dates and trips, buy her cards and flowers, help around the house, etc…

On the other hand, I would walk away from her when she was talking to me or just ignore her.  I would lose my temper with her.  My frustrations with work were taken out on her.  My anger would flare and she got so she never knew when I was going to vent or even why.  There was no infidelity or physical abuse – it was all thoughtlessness, carelessness and blindness on my part.  All too often I was a real jerk.  This all exploded out as my oldest son John and I were leaving for a few days on the Outer Banks.  Fortunately, a Northeaster arrived just as we got there so I got to face this situation instead of fishing.

I have a notebook from that weekend with pages of things I was doing wrong – things that were communicating “I don’t love you!”  These things were effectively undermining and obliterating all the good things I was doing that were speaking of my love.  God in His goodness turned me every way but loose that weekend.  He opened my eyes and let me see all the contradictions between my expressions of love and the actions of my life.

The Lord just did a wonder in me at the beach, and I needed it because I came home to a very hurting wife.  Fortunately, our commitment to Jesus and to each other trumped everything.  The Lord provided a marvelous Christian counselor who was priceless.  Although it took months, the Lord brought us through.  Our marriage wasn’t put back together – it was transformed – from a caterpillar to a butterfly!

This experience with Donna had a profound impact on my relationship with the Lord.  It made me aware of how blind I could be – how my expressions of love could be negated by my actions.  The good things I do being trumped by my sin – sin I could be blind to see.

Loving God is the most important thing we can ever do.  We don’t want anything in our lives that undermines that.  We want to love Him more and more.  The marvelous thing is that the more we genuinely love Him, the more we experience His love for us.

2 Corinthians 1:4  who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

Our God is such a wonderful God.  I never cease to be amazed that we get to experience His love in such wonderful ways.  Some of the very richest times with Him are when we are experiencing difficulty or pain.  In those times, He calls us to turn to Him and find the comfort that he has for us.

Today’s verse describes Him, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, as the One comforting us in all our troubles.  Sometimes He is simply a quiet presence there with us – enabling us to share our burdens and pain with Him.  His presence can be like an arm around our shoulders, simply holding us close.  As we recognize that He is with us, we make the choice to receive His comfort, which is a tangible blessing to us.

Learning to do this is so important because it enables us to comfort others with the comfort we received from Him.  Troubles are a part of life, and He wants us to be blessings to one another and those around us.  Sometimes we are able to share wisdom or insight that brings this comfort.  Other times it might be just listening – being there with them and sharing in their hurt or sorrow.

Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The winner was: a four-year-old child, whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman, who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman’s yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.

When his mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy just said, “Nothing, I just helped him cry.”

600 tornadoes in April – Massive Damage in Tuscaloosa, Alabama After Tornadoes Hit – Death toll reaches 124 in Joplin; 1,500 Reported Missing – – Another outbreak of tornadoes rips nation’s heartland – Violent thunderstorms kill 9 in Okla., Kan., Ark., last night.

Luke 6:47, 48  “As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. ⁴⁸ They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.”

How do we respond when the flood comes?  When the torrent strikes so hard that we are in a daze trying to grasp what has happened.  Recently, except for Japan, we have been dealing with tornadoes and violent storms.  How do we respond when friends and family are among the victims – whether experiencing damage or death?

Is God unfaithful when Christian loved ones are killed by such storms – or all they possess is devastated?  In our pain, do we cry out to Him in anger that He allowed such a thing to happen?  Do we find ourselves concluding that never again will we trust Him?  If these are typical of the responses we make, then our spiritual houses are not built upon rock – they are built upon sand.

When we truly put the words of Jesus into practice in our lives, they have a profound impact.  We become unshakeable.  No matter what happens we are secure in Him.  He sustains us; comforts us; and enables us to find our peace in Him.  We are enabled to trust our God even when we don’t understand and are overwhelmed by the ‘torrent’ that has hit us.

There is no fault in our God!  There is no unfaithfulness.  No matter what happens He is there for us and with us.  In the most difficult times we have the opportunity to respond in faithfulness to Him.  Fortunately He forgives our shortcomings when our responses are less than they should be and enables us to repent and replace the ‘sand’ in our foundation with ‘rock’.

The storm system of these latest devastating tornadoes is moving eastward.  Today the threat exists for more such storms in the Mississippi and lower Ohio Valleys.  If they strike us, may we be found to have our lives built upon the rock.

1 Corinthians 16:14   Do everything in love.

This verse today is particularly interesting because of something we will get to in a moment.  It instructs us to do everything in love.  Think about that.  What is excluded from everything?  And how do we do everything in love?  What exactly does it mean?

But something else struck me about this verse.  Do we men have a tendency to view a statement like this as being more feminine?  Is it more “manly” to talk about the armor of God – shield and sword and breastplate?  Think of Mel Gibson as William Wallace in Brave Heart when he was riding back and forth challenging the men to fight.  “I am William Wallace! And I see a whole army of my countrymen, here in defiance of tyranny. You’ve come to fight as free men… and free men you are. What will you do with that freedom? Will you fight? “

Or how about Aragorn, who in Return of the King, challenges the men just before the last battle in front of the gates of Mordor?  Aragorn begins by saying, “Hold your ground, hold your ground! Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day.”

There’s no question that we have been strongly impacted by our culture.  We’ve also been affected by a lack of understanding of what love really is.  The interesting thing that I referred to about this verse, is it’s context – specifically, verse 13 in front of it.  Today’s verse is the last item in a list of five specific commands given by Paul.  Picture yourself in a group of believers being challenged with these five commands:

• Be on your guard
• Stand firm in the faith
• Be men of courage
• Be strong
• Do everything in love

Wallace and Aragorn were talking to men about to fight with swords and spears.  We must recognize that we too are in a battle – a spiritual one – and that a primary weapon that we are to live with and fight with, is love.

Matthew 5:16  Let your light so shine before men that they may see your moral excellence and your praiseworthy, noble, and good deeds and recognize and honor and praise and glorify your Father Who is in heaven. (Amplified)

Think of it!  We have the opportunity to live our lives in such way as to bring praise and honor to God.  We get to live lives of righteousness and do good works that bless others and honor Him.  We get to be extensions of Him.  We don’t do it out of obligation – but out of love and gratitude for the amazing life that He has given us in Jesus.

Think of the attributes of people you interact with in normal situations.  Those attributes that you like – patience, kindness, goodness, love, truthfulness, helpfulness, honesty, humility, gratitude to name a few.  Isn’t it refreshing to interact with people whose lives are characterized by such qualities?  Whether you’re at work, or in a store or wherever – how noticeable it is when those around us demonstrate such positive traits.

Unfortunately, all too often, we experience the negative attributes of people, particularly in difficult situations, or when they are rushed or simply preoccupied.  More difficult still is when the ones acting negatively are Christians – or claiming to be.  The question then becomes how are we going to respond?   Will it be as they are treating us?  Or will we treat them the way we wished they were treating us – in the way Scripture instructs us to?

It’s amazing what kindness can do when it’s offered in response to unkindness; – or patience to impatience – helpfulness to selfishness – honesty to dishonesty – courtesy to rudeness.  Sometimes the only affect will be within the conscience of the ill-mannered person as they walk away thinking about your positive behavior.  Other times, it can produce an immediate change where they respond positively.

But the issue isn’t really them and their behavior.  The issue is us and the attributes we demonstrate to those around us – day in and day out.  What kind of co-worker, friend, relative, spouse, parent, neighbor, teammate, classmate, lab partner are we?  The more our lives are characterized by Godly attributes, the greater the positive impact on those around us will be.

These Godly attributes are the praiseworthy, noble, and good deeds we all can do. They are vital components of the light we are to shine forth.  They bring honor and glory to our God and blessing to all those around us.

Luke 10:33  But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.

Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan in answer to the question, “Who is my neighbor?”  The story was used by Jesus to help his questioner identify who his neighbor was, since we are commanded to love our neighbors as ourselves.  When Jesus finished, the questioner rightly concluded that of the three travelers, the Samaritan was the neighbor of the man who fell into the hands of the robbers, because the Samaritan had mercy on him.

Our focus today is on the Samaritan – not the other two who failed to respond.  Note that when the Samaritan saw the man in need, he took pity on him.  It wasn’t a matter of the Samaritan having an internal argument within himself on what was the right thing to do in this situation.  His kindness and generosity were expressions of his life. The Samaritan was a loving man.

We Christians want to be the same kind of loving people that he was.  We want our love to be genuine – a love that moves us to respond with right hearts.  This is something that we grow in.  By responding to the situations we see, He opens our eyes to see more.  God is working within each of us so that kindness and generosity will be natural responses that we make to situations we encounter.  This is how we love those around us – how we love our neighbors.

Do you realize that we can be the answer that God sends in response to the prayers of those in need around us?  That’s want He wants!  Maybe they don’t pray or think about God, but because of the kindness through us, they will take note of our love and wonder where it comes from.  Think of the joy and honor of being asked by someone, “Why are you so different?  Why are you so thoughtful and kind?”  To which we can answer, “Let me tell you about Jesus.”

Matthew 5:14  You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.

Years ago a wonderful Christian friend of ours named Hal was hired to manage a type of music store by a major corporation.  They informed him that they were giving him a young salesman who had all kinds of potential but it wasn’t being realized.

This was due to a problem he had – he was forever witnessing to employees and customers about his Christian faith.  He was more interested in witnessing than he was in doing his job.  Hal was informed that this was the young man’s last chance.  If he didn’t turn it around, he would be fired.

Hal called the young man into his office.  After talking a bit, he asked the young man to take the lampshade off the lamp that was on an end table next to them and to turn the lamp on high so that the light was at its brightest.  He then had the young man look directly at the light and Hal asked him to describe what he was experiencing.  The young man complained that the glare of the light was uncomfortable to look at.

Hal then put the lampshade on the lamp and asked him to now describe his experience.  He said that the light was attractive and pleasant to look at.  Hal explained that with the lampshade, he was seeing a glow.  Without the lampshade, he was seeing a glare.  A glow attracts and a glare repels.

The same was true of his Christian witness.  God wanted his witness done wisely, so that it was a glow – not a glare.  It was also critical that his manner of working not compromise or undermine the testimony of his faith.  By witnessing the way he had been doing and by not doing his job, he was coming on with a glare.

Fortunately, the young man was teachable and embraced the wisdom from Hal.  He became the star salesman that everyone knew he could be, and importantly, he eliminated the compulsiveness of his witnessing.  He was still able to share his faith, but with Hal’s help he did so in a manner that drew people to him and to the Lord rather than pushing them away.