Don's Devotionals: Learning to love God

Matthew 6:1 “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

President Reagan had this wonderful plaque on his desk: “There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.”  The receiving of credit is a very important part of our culture.  It’s like earning grades in school.  We grow up expecting our efforts to be recognized.  Early in my sales career I experienced the disappointment of not being recognized.  The top salesperson was publically recognized each month, except they forgot to do it the first month I finished on top.

One aspect of this is the negative response most of us have when credit is given to someone where it isn’t deserved, i.e., someone has been cheating and then getting recognized for excelling.  Or in the workplace, to see someone recognized when someone else was primarily responsible.  What do we do if we are the ones who receive credit for that which is done by someone else?  Do we speak up and re-direct the credit where it belongs?

More importantly, are the good things we do linked to a desire to receive recognition?  Are we at peace with knowing that the Lord knows what we do?  Jesus warns us here of the problem of doing the right things we are supposed to do, but with an eye to receiving credit for them – to be seen by men.  The issue to me isn’t the idea that we lose the reward from our Heavenly Father, but the fact that our motivation is tainted by this desire to have our efforts seen.  It is bad for us and displeasing to Him.

The Lord wants our motivations to be centered in the joy of pleasing Him.  Living our lives in accord with Scripture and the leading of the Holy Spirit brings the joy of knowing that every action is an expression of our love for God.  Instead of the need to ‘be seen by men’, we live our lives to bring glory and praise to our God.   Matthew 5:16 speaks powerfully to this, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”  That is the motivation that we want to fill our hearts!

John 15:5  “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

Picture a large sailboat, out at sea, with sails unfurled and moving gloriously with the wind.  (Hopefully imagining this doesn’t make you seasick!)  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be on such a ship, on such a day, with a group of dear ones?  Wow – what a great time that would be!  Donna and I have been able to do this very thing a couple of times and the memories we have are ones we treasure.

But take a moment to think about all of the needed ‘ingredients’ in this adventure.  What must we have to make it happen?  First we’ve got to have a sizable body of water for sailing on.  Then we must have a sailboat big enough to handle the group of friends that are going on the adventure – and a crew to sail it.

We would like to have a beautiful day with a strong breeze.  How about doing the sailing amidst a group of islands with beautiful scenes to behold – and a group of dolphin accompanying us?  Of course we want to have something wonderful to eat, so why don’t we make it a morning sail and we enjoy homemade coffee cake and coffee and orange juice as we sail.  Can’t you just picture enjoying one another, the breeze, the sea spray, the beauty and the wonder of it all!?

In considering the necessary ‘ingredients’, does anything seem to be missing?  Not at first glance.  But there is something absolutely essential that is taken for granted in the above items.  Without this ‘essential’ the adventure doesn’t happen – except that we sit on the sailboat, wherever it is, and enjoy the scenery, the food, the breeze and one another – but we don’t go anywhere!

What is this essential – that is taken for granted to be there?  Answer: Sails.  And what is a sail?  A piece of material extended on a mast to catch the wind and propel a boat, ship, or
other vessel: “all the sails were unfurled”.

From God’s perspective, walking in His ways is as much as a given for Christians as sails are for a sailboat. Just as a sailboat won’t go anywhere without sails, Christians who don’t walk in His ways won’t ‘go anywhere’ either.  This is why we are more and more hearing the term Jesus Follower.  This is how we remain in Him!  This is how we bear righteous fruit!  Sailboats with sails = Christians who obey Scripture (Jesus Followers) = the adventure is on!!

John 15:5  “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

Have you ever thought about how wonderful it is to do things right?  To be told, “Good job!”  To have people express their gratitude for what you’ve done or for whom you are?  Boy, talk about something that puts a spring in your step!

Yes, such comments can lead to pride, but they also can lead to us experiencing a heartfelt gratitude for what God has done and is doing in our lives.  Importantly, they can be such an encouragement to do more ‘right’ things; to be more of a ‘right’ person; and in the context of today’s verse, to bear more fruit.  Better still is the desire God gives us to learn what those ‘right’ things are and do them more and more.

Think of sports, hobbies, relationships, work – our goal is to do them well.  The reality is that more often than not, the wrong is eliminated simply by doing the right!  Being kind eliminates unkindness; being patient eliminates impatience; being thoughtful eliminates thoughtlessness; being generous eliminates stinginess; being loving eliminates being unloving; being other-oriented eliminates self-centeredness.

Then as we bear these wonderful fruits of righteousness, the Holy Spirit asks us, “How would you like to do them even better?”  “How would you like to bear more fruit?”  To which, we reply.  “Oh yes Lord! Show me how!”  And He does so, in a most affirming way.

There’s an old song that Bing Crosby made famous: Accentuate the Positive.  The first three lines are

You’ve got to accentuate the positive
/ Eliminate the negative / Latch on to the affirmative

This is the point!  Our attitude about repentance goes through a significant switch.  Instead of its focus being our wrong doing, the focus becomes “Eliminating the negative” so we can “Latch on to the affirmative.”  It becomes a vital tool in the hands of the Holy Spirit to enable us to bear more of His righteous fruit.  The more fruit we bear the more joy we have and the more we glorify our God.  It’s not about us.  It’s all about Him.

Luke 8:24b, 25  He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. “Where is your faith?” he asked his disciples. In fear and amazement they asked one another, “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.”

Fear and amazement!  This was the response of the disciples to this demonstration of power and authority even though they had already seen Jesus do all manner of healing miracles and deliver many from evil spirits. We’re not talking about healings that only the person who was healed would know if the pain went away.  The miracles included those paralyzed, leprosy, withered hands, and demon possessed.  Think of the magnitude of the miracles that would attract thousands to pursue Jesus.

They had seen these miracles first hand, yet the disciples were stunned by seeing the storm, the wind and the waves obey Him.  Mark uses the word terrified to describe their response and Matthew describes them as being amazed.  Somehow this was different for them.  Maybe it was the magnitude of what responded.  Having life come to paralyzed limbs or wholeness to a withered hand appeared small in comparison to a storm that was threatening their lives immediately becoming calm.

I think of the word wonder.  The wonder of seeing and experiencing the miraculous power of God.  Have you thought of this aspect of our God recently?  Hopefully, you have experiences in your life that left you breathless and in awe of what God had done.  In fact just the memory of such experiences can bring goose bumps or tears.  Think of the powerful testimonies and answered prayers that you have read and heard and ponder the wonder-working power of our Lord and Savior.

If you don’t have memories of such experiences, ask your Christian friends to share ones that they have or read about them.  There are lots of books available that recount inspiring experiences with our God.  Also, and most importantly, look to Jesus and ask Him to allow you to experience such wonder and awe.  The Christian life is the most wonder-filled life that can be lived.  Let us rejoice together because we get to live it.

Psalm 130:6  My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.

About 25 years ago, in our Sunday service, a song based on this verse was being sung.  The words of the song were describing a passionate longing for the Lord that I didn’t have.  In the distress of this realization, I went forward in the midst of it being sung and spoke to our rector who was leading worship.  I told him, “I can’t sing this song because it doesn’t describe me.”  When the song ended, I was so blessed by his words of wisdom.  He commented, “When we sing songs that don’t describe us, let the song be a prayer that you are asking to become true of you.”

God used this experience to create within me the desire to become passionate for Him – with a passion that was palpable.  I began searching for verses in the Psalms that communicated passion to me – and I found many of them.  Another verse that particularly struck me was Psalm 42:1, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.”  I wanted to have my soul pant for the Lord.  These verses then became the focus of my “Lord make this me” prayers.

My passion-meter or “passiometer” as I have referred to it, was not budging at all when this began.  No passion was being reflected within me as I read and prayed the passion verses that I wanted to become true of me.  Week after week; month after month; year after year, I prayed these verses throughout the Psalms.

As time went by, I was thrilled by the realization that the Lord was doing it.  He caused passion to grow within me so that I could honestly say that these verses were now describing me. I hadn’t “arrived” but my “passiometer” was now registering passion within me as a Geiger counter recognizes radiation.

God in His goodness allowed me to see that I was missing such an important attribute that He wants growing in me. He desires me to become more and more passionate for Him.  He gave me a plan and the determination to pursue it so He could bless me by answering it.  He will do the same for you.

Psalm 42:5 Why are you downcast, O my soul?  Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and ⁶ my God.

Have you noticed that difficult situations can have a strong impact upon us particularly if they drag on and on?  (Even more difficult has been the past three years with the coronavirus where our world has never experienced anything like it.)  Difficult situations can wear us down.   Consider being in a boat without power at sea that is drifting with the current towards a reef.  The sound of the waves pounding the reef are harbingers of the doom that is about to smash our boat and us to smithereens.  It’s just a matter of time…

Think of being overcome with distress and ‘downcast’ as the boat drifts nearer the reef. But then an unseen voice cries out to us, “You are in a sailboat!” We respond, “So?”  The voice speaks again, “Put up your sail!”  (Let’s assume we are really dense)  To which we reply, “What will that do?”

The voice answers, “The wind is blowing away from the reef – and it is stronger than the current!”  We obey the voice and put up the sail – and as we do, the wind catches it and moves us away.  The reef and pounding waves are still there but we are not at their mercy.

At this point, instead of thinking this is a dumb illustration, consider how often we succumb emotionally and spiritually to the stresses in our lives instead of looking to Christ.  Through our hope and trust in Him, He provides the ‘sail’ and the ‘wind’ to take us to spiritual peace and security; He frees us from being downcast and overcome with fear.

With our focus on Jesus, let us walk in faith, His wisdom and trust.  We are not at the mercy of our circumstances!  In the midst of whatever we find ourselves in, Jesus is our hope, our joy and our strength.  Let us look to Him.

Lamentations 3:22-23 The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness.

These verses make me think of a pastoral picture.  Think of a large flower garden with the morning sun upon it.  There is a breeze blowing and rain is falling upon the garden from a small cloud above it.  Sunshine, rain, a breeze and flowers blooming providing both enjoyment and a place to labor.  It is a picture of freshness, vitality, beauty and joy.  Day by day God’s provision is there.

That picture is such a thing of beauty to me, just like the marvelous realities that these verses describe!  God’s love for us is fixed and unchanging and unending.  It never ceases.  It doesn’t depend upon us thinking it’s there.  It is there for us to experience – to trust in and to enjoy.  It’s like the air we breathe, it’s there. Think of the times when we feel the wind blowing upon us.  The air, that we typically don’t see or feel manifests itself in a way so we feel it.  God does the same thing with His love for us.

Likewise His mercies – they never come to an end and are new every morning.  Think of the manna – the bread of Heaven – that came down every day for the Israelites when they were in the wilderness.  Each day they could only take what was needed for that day.  Tomorrow’s manna, came the next day, not today – except on the 6^th day when God supplied double because the 7^th day was the Sabbath.  His mercies are never ending and there for us each day.

Consider that it is impossible for God to be unfaithful.  If we think that He is or has been unfaithful, we’re simply wrong.  Think of situations when you have been faithful to someone or experienced someone being faithful to you. Faithfulness is such a blessing – something so important to be able to count on.  In our times of need, God is always there.  He’s always faithful.  The blessings He offers if we but have the eyes to see and the sense to turn to Him.

Be a blessing to God each morning by recognizing and being thankful for His love, His mercies and most of all, for Him.

Nahum 1:7  The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble.  He cares for those who trust in him,

Have you thought about the question, “How do I demonstrate to the Lord that I trust Him?”  Particularly as we contend with the radical changes in our culture due to responses to the coronavirus and the rejection of Judeo-Christian values going on around us. Trusting God is supposed to be a way of life for Christians, but how do we know that we’re actually doing it?  Is trusting God one of those things where we can just take it for granted that we’re doing it – only to discover that we’re not?  Is this something we have to be intentional about?

We heard a powerful message that was one in a series on what the good news of the gospel really is.  The focus was upon having a life that tastes the goodness and power of God and that demonstrates dependence upon the Lord.  The primary way this is done is through prayer.  And prayer is something that defines who we are – much more that it being a weapon to be pulled out in times of need.

Prayer expresses our dependence, our helplessness and trust in our Lord.  It is a continuation of our acknowledgement of our need for God that we experienced when we were born again.  It is a daily acknowledgement and recognition that we need Him in all the areas of our lives – not just those where we feel needy.

The primary purpose of prayer is not to ‘get’.  It is the life-blood of our relationship with Him.  He wants us to have times set aside for Him AND times throughout the day where we talk with Him in the midst of all we are doing.

While He encourages us to make our needs known to Him, He wants us to develop an ever-richer relationship with Him.  The amazing thing is the reality of how many of our ‘needs’ disappear because they are dealt with by our thriving relationship with Him.  And for those needs that don’t, He is our refuge.  He enables us to walk wisely and in obedience through those needs.

Proverbs 16:3 Roll your works upon the Lord [commit and trust them wholly to Him; He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will, and] so shall your plans be established and succeed. (Amplified)

Yesterday I wrote about this verse and how God will cause our thoughts to become agreeable to His will when we commit what we do to the Lord.  One of the wonderful things that God does with this is put us into ‘divine appointments’.  I was reading in my journal from several years ago about how God did exactly this with my wife Donna.

It was Sunday June 24 and we were living in Colorado Springs.  On this particular day Donna had a ‘bee in her bonnet’ about going to look at a new subdivision of 24 homes in Manitou Springs.  Upon arriving there she recognized the salesperson as Jill – someone she had worked with at a different subdivision when Donna had a job as a temp employee.  They talked and Donna wound up sharing the events in her life since they had worked together – particularly focusing on her termination the previous August of her job as a sales coordinator with a wonderful new home builder.

Donna shared how much she loved her job – and how she cried all the way home after being told they had to let her go (due to the downturn in the real estate market).  But she recognized that she had two choices 1) blame God and react negatively, or 2) recognize that God was closing one door but others would be opened.  She shared with Jill how she chose to look to God, making the right faith response.

The very next day, Jill was let go by her employer.  She just could not get over the fact that
Donna had been there less than 24 hours earlier talking to her about that exact experience!  Jill had never had anything like that happen before.  They both were so blessed by this Divine Appointment.

It’s important to recognize that it became a Divine Appointment because of what was shared.  If Donna hadn’t shared her experience, the opportunity would have been missed.  But by doing so, Jill was able to experience the Lord’s love and concern – plus through Donna, He showed her the way to go and an example to follow.

Proverbs 16:3 Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. (NIV) –

(Amplified Bible):   Roll your works upon the Lord [commit and trust them wholly to Him; He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will, and] so shall your plans be established and succeed.

There’s the story of the two guys in a boat way out in the ocean.  The one says, “Man – look at all the water!”  The other replies, ‘Yeah – and to think that’s just the top of it!”  Words have meaning – and those meanings usually involve a whole lot more than we might think.  It’s amazing how life changing words in scripture can be when we understand the depth of meaning that they have.

When I first read this verse in other versions of the Bible it seemed like a simple, straightforward recipe for success.  In order to succeed, all we have to do is commit what we’re doing to the Lord.  That seemed pretty simple to do.  But what exactly does it mean to commit something to the Lord?   What about all the times when our plans are unclear or we’re questioning what God wants us to do?  And doesn’t God’s idea of success sometimes differ from what we think?

When I first read this verse in the Amplified Bible it seemed to jump off the page.  I saw what was involved in committing my way to the Lord!  But more than that, the verse describes how God would respond and impact our thoughts, our plans and their development!  The understanding that “He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will” is priceless to the committed believer.

We want to do His will in every area of our life: personal, family, business, faith, …  We want our plans to conform to His plans for us.  We want every decision we make – from the big ones to the little ones that fill our day – to be consistent with a Christ-centered life.  This verse contains the promise and blueprint of how it can happen.

By embracing this process, the Lord will grow our confidence in Him.  We will see the quality of our decisions and lives improve.  The more we commit our way to Him; the more we allow Him to transform our thoughts and plans – the more we will experience the ‘God-results’ that He has for us.  (‘God results’ = God’s idea of success)