DAILY DEVOTIONALS: 11.26.22

When Life Doesn�t Make Sense - by Greg Laurie � www.harvest.org For our present troubles are small and won�t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! �2 Corinthians 4:17 https://harvest.org/resources/devotion/when-life-doesnt-make-sense/Listen When my granddaughter Stella was a toddler, I took her to a frozen yogurt store. She had been learning to wipe her mouth with a napkin, and it was fun to watch her take abite of yogurt and then wipe her mouth. But then she saw a napkin on the sidewalk and reached down to pick it up. �Stella, no!� I said. �That�s a dirty napkin. Let�s get you a clean napkin.� She looked at me in confusion. She didn�t understand why that napkin wasn�t good enough. But I understood because I was a little wiser than she was. The same is true of our relationship with God. He is wiser than we are. And when God tells us not to do something, it�s for a good reason. Even if we�re going through something difficult right now, we must realize that God loves us. The apostle Paul wrote, �For our present troubles are small and won�t last verylong. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!� (2 Corinthians 4:17 NLT). Satan, however, will challenge this truth. That was the case with Job, whose friends basically said, �God must not love Job. Otherwise, these calamities wouldn�t have befallenhim. Job must have committed some gross sin.� Yet the very opposite was true. God said of Job, �He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless�a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil� (Job 1:8 NLT). Satan used the same approach in the Garden of Eden when he said to Eve, in effect, �If God really loved you, He would let you eat from any tree in the garden.� But that wasa lie. We must realize that God loves us and is always looking out for our eternal benefit ----------------------------------- Thanksgiving "Being enriched in every thing to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God." (2Corinthians 9:11) The themes of praise and thanksgiving are very prominent throughout Scripture. The word "praise" and its derivatives occur over 330 times, and "thanks," with its derivatives, over 150 times. When applied to our relation to God, "thanks" are given to Himfor what He has done for us, and "praise" for who He is and what He has done for the whole creation. If frequency of occurrence were an indicator, we might conclude that thanksgiving is important and praise-giving is twice as important! In any case, every Christian believer has a tremendous amount to be thankful for. As in our text, we have been "enriched in every thing to all bountifulness," and it is sad to hear so many complaints and laments coming from Christians who feel they deservemore and better than they have already received from God's good hand. We are told that the Lord Jesus, instituting the Lord's supper, gave thanks, all the while knowing that the very elements He was blessing spoke of His body that would soon be broken and His blood that would soon be shed. No wonder, therefore, that the apostlePaul reminds us: "In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you" (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Whether in bountifulness of material blessing or in the invaluable school of suffering and discipline, we can please God by a thankful heart and life. A key evidence that a Christian is truly "filled with the Spirit" is that he or she is habitually "givingthanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Ephesians 5:18, 20). May God's Spirit "cause through usthanksgiving to God!" ----------------- OurHope “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which isour hope.” (1Timothy 1:1) Paul, in his opening salutation to Timothy, makes it clear that the Christian’s hope is not just in Christ but is Christ! In the New Testament, the term “hope” does not refer to some vague wish but to a confident expectation of something (or someone) sure tocome. It focuses especially on the promised return of Christ to complete His great work of redemption. It is specifically called the blessed hope. “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus2:13). It is also a living hope, for God the Father “hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1Peter 1:3). Furthermore, since Christ is our hope, it is a saving hope. “For we are saved by hope” (Romans8:24). It is a glorious and joyful hope. It recognizes the present truth of “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians1:27), so that we “rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Romans5:2). It is not a blind hope but a reasonable hope, one founded on solid evidence, and every believer must “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you” (1Peter 3:15). Finally, this hope of the imminent coming of Christ, when at last “we shall be like him,” is a purifying hope, for “every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1John 3:2-3). It is also a stabilizing hope, “which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast” (Hebrews6:19). In every way, God “hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace” (2Thessalonians 2:16). HMM -------------------- TheNames of the Men “And these are the names of the men that shall stand with you: of the tribe of Reuben; Elizur the son ofShedeur.” (Numbers1:5) These are the first entries in several long lists of names here in the book of Numbers—all names of men in the 12 tribes of Israel. We know nothing about most of these men except their names, so it’s natural to wonder why God had Moses include them in the inspiredScriptures. In fact, this is one of the objections that skeptics and liberals have raised against the doctrine of verbal inspiration of the Bible. What possible spiritual or doctrinal or practical purpose could be accomplished through these lists of names for any futurereaders of the Bible? And there are, indeed, many such lists of names. For example, the first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles consist almost entirely of names. Then there are the lists in Ezra 2; Ezra 10; Nehemiah 7, 11, and 12; Romans 16; and others. Information is included about some of these people, of course, and even the meaning of the names may warrant speculation about their parents’ hopes for the children. But there is also another very cogent reason for God to have included all these names of relatively less significant people in His book. He wants to assure us that He is interested not only in the Abrahams, Daniels, Pauls, and other great men in His Kingdom,but also in the Elizurs and Shedeurs and Bills and Kates in His spiritual family. There are many millions of names “written in the Lamb’s book of life” (Revelation21:27), and the heavenly Lamb—the Lord Jesus Christ—is also the Good Shepherd that “calleth his own sheep by name” (John10:3). The names in His book here on Earth are an assurance that He knows and calls us by each of our names in His book in heaven. HMM ----------------- OurHiding Place “For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hideme; he shall set me up upon a rock.” (Psalm27:5) There are times in the life of each believer when the trials become overwhelming and the whole world seems to be falling apart. Without the Lord, it would be impossible to escape, but with the Lord there can be safety and restoration, for He can be our precioushiding place until the storm is done. There are many gracious promises to this effect in His Word, and we need only to claim them to experience them. The “pavilion” in our text is best understood as the tent of the commander-in-chief, well-protected and away from the battlefront. Surely, we aresafe there. “Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man: thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues” (Psalm31:20). There is a wonderful Messianic promise in Isaiah 32:2: “And a man [that man is Christ!] shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” There, sheltered from the storm, our gracious Lord gives comfort and sweet counsel until we are able to face the tempest victoriously. “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD,He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust” (Psalm91:1-2). One of the most beautiful of these promises introduces David’s great song of deliverance: “The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and myrefuge, my Saviour; thou savest me from violence” (2Samuel 22:2-3). HMM ------------------ TheOnly Way “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John14:6) This is surely one of the best-known, best-loved, most important, clearest, yet most profound verses in the Bible. There is no other way to come to God except through Christ, no other truth than that which is founded and centered on Christ, and no other eternallife except the life of Christ imparted to the believer through faith in Christ. All who teach otherwise are “thieves and robbers” of the soul, for Jesus said, “I am the door” (John10:8-9). There is no other door to heaven and no other Shepherd of the sheep. He is the only “light of the world” (John8:12) to illumine a world otherwise blackened by sin. “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2Corinthians 4:6). He is “that bread of life...the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever” (John6:48, 51), and there is no other such life-sustaining eternal food for the hungry soul. Likewise, He is the “living water.” “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink” (John7:37-38). No other water satisfies. He is also the one “true vine” in whom we must abide for fruit-producing life. He said, “For without me ye can do nothing” (John15:1, 5). The Scriptures have made it abundantly plain that there is “none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts4:12). There is no other way; the Lord Jesus Christ is the all-sufficient way, and the perfect way, to God. It is not that He shows the way; He is the way, and all who want to come can come to God through Him. HMM ------------------ UltimateHypocrisy - by Greg Laurie � www.harvest.org �So, Judas came straight to Jesus. �Greetings, Rabbi!� he exclaimed and gave him the kiss� �Matthew 26:49 https://harvest.org/resources/devotion/ultimate-hypocrisy/Listen Why was it especially wicked for Judas Iscariot to betray Jesus with a kiss? In the culture in Jerusalem at that time, there were many ways that a person could greet someone. They could kiss the other person�s feet, which was what people who had beenconquered in war, who were slaves, or who were meeting a monarch did. Ordinary people would kiss the back of the hand of the person they were greeting. But to kiss someone on the cheek then and embrace them was a sign of close affection and love, reservedfor those with whom one had a close relationship. That was how Judas greeted Jesus. And the original language implies that Judas kissed Jesus repeatedly. A literal translation would be, �He smothered Him with kisses.� Judaskissed Jesus again and again. It was ultimate hypocrisy. We say, �That�s so wrong. It�s so sinful!� Yet one of the definitions of worship is �to kiss forward.� Therefore, it�s not much different from when we come to church and liftour voices in song to God yet live in a way that�s not right with Him. Those who go to great lengths to look the most spiritual or more committed to God than other people are actually the most wicked. In reality, they�re contradicting their appearanceby the way they live. God would rather that we didn�t sing a word in worship of Him than to sing loudly and contradict it by the way we live. This doesn�t mean, however, that if we have sinned,we shouldn�t worship. If this were the case, we would have very quiet worship services. But if we�re deliberately doing the wrong thing again and again without any desire whatsoever to repent, that offends God. And it�s not much different from what Judas didin the Garden of Gethsemane. ---------------------------- CalledBefore Birth �But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother�s womb, and called me by his grace, To revealhis Son in me, that I might preach him.� (Galatians1:15-16) There is great mystery here. Paul was the human writer of much of the New Testament, yet he also claimed divine inspiration. �I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was Itaught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ� (Galatians1:11-12). It was only a short time before, however, that Paul had been bitterly opposing that gospel. �Beyond measure,� he said, �I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it� (Galatians1:13). Eventually, he was converted and began to preach �the faith which once he destroyed� (Galatians1:23). Yet, during all his years of fighting God�s truth, he had already been separated unto God and called by His grace even before he was born, as our text reveals. His teachers in the synagogue, his studies under Gamaliel, and even his anti-Christiancrusades were all being orchestrated by God to develop Paul into the unique person he would be, the great Christian whom God could use to write much of His own written Word. Paul�s epistles were thus truly his epistles, derived from his own experience, research,study, reasoning, and concerns. At the same time, they came out as God�s Word, inspired by the Holy Spirit, free from error and perfectly conveyed from God to man, because God had Himself ordained and planned all Paul�s experiences and abilities and had implantedall these concerns in his heart. And so it was with all the human writers of the Bible. God�s Word (like Christ Himself) is both human and divine, yet meeting all our needs. This is mysterious indeed, but well within the capabilities of our omnipotent and gracious Creator. HMM ------------------------ GivingThanks for Christian Friends �We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers.� (1Thessalonians 1:2) We all have much to be thankful for. It is certainly appropriate to give audible thanks for our daily bread, whether in private, at a family meal, or in public at a fine restaurant. In fact, Jesus set the example. When He miraculously fed the multitude besidethe Sea of Galilee, He began with a prayer of thanksgiving. �He took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them....And they did all eat, and were filled� (Matthew15:36-37). It is good to give thanks for our food and shelter and clothing, but the blessing of having Christian friends is even more thankworthy. The first letter to the Thessalonians was possibly Paul�s first Spirit-inspired letter to Christian friends, and Paul beganwith a testimony of thankfulness to God for them (see the text above). When Paul wrote to the Philippians, he began similarly. �I thank my God upon every remembrance of you� (Philippians1:3), and to the Colossians he started the same way. �We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you� (Colossians1:3). The same when he wrote his epistle to the church at Corinth. �I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ� (1Corinthians 1:4). Even when writing to the Christians at Rome, whom he had not yet met personally, he wrote: �First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all� (Romans1:8). He also thanked God for his personal friends Timothy (2Timothy 1:3) and Philemon (v. 4). Throughout our Christian life journey, we develop lasting Christian friends and can thank God for all of them. What a blessing to have such friends, and how fitting it is to give God special thanks for them at this time. HMM -------------------