Try A Little Kindness

eDevotion

Encouragement for your daily walk with God 

In my “Big Book of Sermon Illustrations,” the following story is under the category of “KINDNESS:” 

Two men going opposite directions on a narrow mountain trail met each other head on. With a steep cliff on one side and sheer rock on the other, they were unable to pass. The harder they tried to squeeze past one another the more frustrated they became. The situation seemed hopeless until one of them, without saying a word, simply laid down on the trail, allowing the other man to walk over him. 

That’s the idea behind biblical kindness. It doesn't mind getting walked on if it is to the benefit of someone else. It’s the very essence of the Greek word translated “kind” in 1 Corinthians 13.4 — “useful,” “serving,” or “gracious.”

Did you know that God has shown kindness to the world? Sure enough! He did so in providing salvation to mankind lost in sin. “At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” [Titus 3.3-5]. 

When Jesus said, “Take My yoke upon you…for [it] is easy,” the word translated “easy” is the same word used in 1 Corinthians 13.4 “…love is kind…”

As a Christ follower, you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. You are saved, washed, renewed by the Holy Spirit. So, be anxious to show kindness to others. We live in a world that desperately needs kind people. Won’t you be one of them!

Love is patient, love is kind…  1 Corinthians 13.4

Free Indeed

eDevotion

Encouragement for your daily walk with God 

It is a gross misunderstanding to think of freedom as the lack of restraint. The freedom that Christ earned for us isn’t liberty that leads to licentiousness. By no means!

I once had a friend, a pastor’s son, who, as a teenager, was tired of living under the “rules and regulations” of his father’s house. He decided to join the Army. He told me, “I’m not going to keep letting him tell me what to do!” I don’t know what he was thinking, but it seemed to me that the Army wasn’t the place to find the kind of freedom he was looking for.

Or take the student who says, I’m tired of school, especially the teachers telling me what to do and what to study. I’m done, I want to be free. I’m going to quit going to school. It stands to reason that dropping out of school doesn’t make one more free, but actually limits the freedom of choosing a good college or applying for a higher paying job.

Or consider the addict in a 12-Step program who says, I can't stand these people telling me, “Take this step.” “Take that step.” I’ll just stop coming to the meetings. I’ll be better off. I’ll be free.

Freedom isn’t casting off restraint; freedom is the power to choose responsibility. Freedom in Christ isn’t freedom from obedience, but freedom unto obedience. In Christ, you are free from the bondage of sin. You are no longer its slave. You are now free to live an abundant life in Christ, in obedience to His Word. 

So if the Son [God’s Son, Jesus] sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8.38

In God’s Image

eDevotion

Encouragement for your daily walk with God 

I read an article about DNA the other day and, quite frankly, it was astounding. It’s in a field that I know little about and the details are staggering. Here’s my take away:

Your body consists of over a hundred trillion cells. Inside those cells there is about six feet of tightly interwoven DNA that is directing every cell to be where it was designed to be, and to be the kind of cell it was designed to be. That DNA is formed from a pattern of cohesion of four basic building blocks assisting amino acids in forming proteins. We can’t fathom how those proteins could possibly come together to form something so complicated and spectacular as your human body, aside from knowing that inside every cell there is a machine so complicated it is beyond comprehension.

OK, did you get that?! Let’s go a step further because another wonder of your being is something beyond the physical, your soul. Call it consciousness or your mind, but whatever you call it, evolution cannot account for it.  

There is a theological explanation, however: You are the absolute pinnacle of creation. You are more than a sophisticated, fleshly machine. According to the Bible, you are more than a “being,” you are a “living being,” something not said of the animal world. After His creation of the first “living beings,” God sat back and said, “That’s very good!”

The reason is, we were created in the “imago dei” — the image of God. We are, in some smaller way, an expression of His glory. Sure, we’ve fallen short of that glory because all have sinned [Romans 6.23]. It’s also true that we are marred and fractured by sin, born in sin, the Bible says [Psalm 51.5]. But, we were made in the image of God nonetheless.

It brings no honor to God to malign what He has made in His own image. God celebrates you as His masterpiece. You should do the same. There is no room for pride there. Take an honest look at yourself… what is there to be prideful about? It’s humbling isn’t it, to think that you were made in the image of God? You’re God’s representative on earth!

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Genesis 1.26-27

God Speaks in Christ

eDevotion

Encouragement for your daily walk with God 

There is a sense in which the opening verses in Hebrews unlocks the entirety of God’s Word. He began with the emphatic statement that, in these last days, God has spoken in a superior way, He has spoken through Jesus, His Son. Please don’t overlook that wonderful truth. God has spoken! The Creator, the final authority in all matters has spoken. Don’t doubt it for a moment. 

When someone with authority speaks, it makes all the difference in the world. I’ve sat with people in hospital waiting rooms while their loved ones are in surgery. You hear the angst in their conversation — it’s duration, the risks, the prognosis of recovery. Hands are wrung. Nerves on edge. Then, the surgeon appears with the good news, “Everything went well.” In a split second, the atmosphere changes. Why? The authority has spoken. When the authority whose opinion has the ultimate say-so has spoken, it trumps every other opinion. 

God has spoken. No one made Him speak. He didn’t have to speak. He could have sat in cosmic silence if He had wanted to. But He spoke, and in many ways. But ultimately, or may I say, once and for all, He spoke in Christ. Everything that God wanted to express, He said in His Son — about redemption, holy living, and hope for the future. 

The take home is this: if you had nothing else but Jesus, you have everything you need! God has expressed Himself fully in Christ Jesus.

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom also He made the universe. Hebrews 1.1-2

Sabbath Rest

eDevotion

Encouragement for your daily walk with God 

It was the last day — the seventh day — the final day of creation and nothing was created. That’s because God had finished His creative work on the sixth day. The seventh day, God took a break. He didn’t have to. He wasn’t tired from the work, you know. Let’s say, He celebrated His completed work; He blessed it and called it the Sabbath. 

Adam and Eve were actually the last thing God created. That was the sixth day; so their very first full day of engagement with the world was on the Sabbath. It was that first seventh day that God released Adam and Eve to their vocation. They could not begin their work until God had finished His work. 

The same is true of Christ followers. Your greatest work will flow from resting in the finished work of Christ on Calvary’s cross. The more you rest in Him — trust His promises, surrender to His sovereign grace, obey His Word, rely on His strength — the more you will accomplish for Him. 

The Sabbath was to foreshadow the fullness of God’s redemptive work through Christ so that we could work for Him not for love, but from love, worry-free of condemnation. With wide-eyed amazement at the goodness of all He has created, we can fearlessly represent Him here on earth. 

Here is your assignment today, dear Christ follower: Be immersed in Sabbath consciousness. Christ is our Sabbath and has ended the need to strive for God’s acceptance. As with Adam and Eve and God’s finished work, Christ’s finished work is the beginning of our new life in Him. All productivity in the Christian life flows from resting in Christ’s finished work.

Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. Genesis 2.1-3

Rest Up

eDevotion

Encouragement for your daily walk with God 

I find it interesting that the author of Hebrews calls the Promised Land a place of “rest.” Once they crossed the Jordan River, it seems to me the Children of Israel were constantly in a battle with their enemies. The Land flowing with milk and honey was also flowing with Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Gergashites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

Rest? You’ve got to be kidding! The Promised Land was more like a battlefield. How could it possibly be a place of rest? The answer lies in the biblical notion of rest. Biblical rest is not inactivity. You can be filled with worry while lying on a hammock in paradise and have no rest. You can be at peace in the middle of a challenging task and be completely at rest. 

Here’s the Good News the author of Hebrews wanted you to know: REST is available in Christ. When you trusted the finished work of Christ, you were accepted by God. Nothing more is needed for your salvation and wholeness. 

Where there is Good News, there is rest. To keep experiencing real rest in Jesus, keep your heart full of Good News. Jesus died for your sins so that you don’t have to. In Christ, you have every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies [Ephesians 1.3]. That’s the Gospel truth!

There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. Hebrews 4.9-10

God, Our Father

eDevotion

Encouragement for your daily walk with God 

J.I. Packer penned these dramatic words in his classic work, Knowing God: “What is a Christian? The question can be answered in many ways, but the richest answer I know is that a Christian is one who has God for his Father.” What a stunning declaration!

I don’t know if you ever thought this way about it, but God was Father before He was Creator. The only way we can understand God is by His self-revelation in Scripture, a revelation in terms of relationship. He is, within His Triune nature, relational: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — long before He created anything.  

Some say that man has foisted fatherhood on God after reflecting on the earthly version of fatherhood. But Scripture says the exact opposite: earthly fathers are made in the image of the Heavenly Father. “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every father in heaven and on earth is named” [Ephesians 4.14-15]. 

Now to the punchline. If God is your Father, He is both your authority and advocate. He is superior to you, but utterly for you at every point. He is superior in wisdom, power, and resources and is more than willing to help you. That’s what a good father will do. 

Sure, God could altogether crush you, shame you, or abandon you, but He has chosen, instead, to link Himself eternally to you through Christ. Now, you can enjoy abundant life [John 10.10], and the full inheritance of His riches in Christ [Ephesians 1.3].

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Matthew 6.9