Archive for Pictures of God

A Clear Choice

2015-08-07 Devotional with Hymn, Pictures of God No comments

from the devotional book, PICTURES OF GOD

Deuteronomy 11:26-28; 30:15-20

God always takes the initiative to bless us, but the final choice is always ours. We have to choose to receive His blessings.

“See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse.” (Deuteronomy 11:26, NASB)

But what sense does that make? Wouldn’t everyone choose God’s blessing rather than His cursing? No, for we make that choice by the attitudes and actions we choose:

“See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse:
the blessing, if you listen to the commandments of the Lord your God…
and the curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of the Lord your God.”
(Deuteronomy 11:26-28, NASB)

To dramatize the choice, God selected a valley with a mountain on each side — Mt. Gerizim on the south side and Mt. Ebal on the north side. He appointed six tribes of Israel to stand on Mt. Gerizim, representing God’s blessings, and six to stand on Mt. Ebal, representing God’s curses. As they stood there, the specific blessings of obeying God were read, followed by the specific curses of disobeying Him. The people were given a clear choice. (See Deuteronomy 27 & 28; also Joshua 8:30-35.)

Centuries later, Jesus presented the same clear choice. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:24-27), he told the story of two different men, each of which built a house. The wise man built on rock, the foolish man built on sand. The wise man weathered life’s storms, while the foolish man met with complete disaster. Both had heard God’s word and knew it. The difference was that the wise man chose to act on what he knew, while the foolish man did not.

God is eager to bless, eager to give, eager to be close to us. But we decide our relationship with Him by the choices we make. In our daily lives, we either choose Him or choose to ignore Him. We choose life or death, blessing or cursing. One day those choices will be forever.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Free to Chose
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You Are the Blessing

2015-07-30 Devotional, Pictures of God No comments

from the devotional book, PICTURES OF GOD

Father, how You long to bless Your people with all Your best!
And You Yourself are the gift You most long to give.
You are the prosperity that You pour into our souls.
You are the peace, the harmony, the completeness, the well-being
with which You would fill us and our world.
Your own Spirit is the blessing that You would
breathe and
speak and
sing
throughout all we are
into every corner of the universe.

Father, in You, we are cradled in Your
unfailing love and
absolute dependability.
You are unfailing love.
You are absolute dependability.

In You we possess all things.
In You we possess all the riches of reality
rather than this world’s passing illusions.
You are All-in-all,
the Source,
the Goal, and
the Giver.
Whom do we have in heaven but You?
And on earth, what could we ever need but You?
In life,
in death,
in all the world,
in all eternity,
there is nothing we could want but
the blessing You will soon give in all its fullness:
Yourself.

The Lord Bless You

2015-07-23 Devotional with Hymn, Pictures of God No comments

from the devotional book, PICTURES OF GOD

Numbers 6:22-27

One of the most familiar blessings in the Bible is also one of the earliest. After God had delivered His people from slavery in Egypt, He spent 40 years leading them through the desert wilderness, testing them, teaching them, and forming them into His own people. During those years He gave this blessing to Moses and asked him to give it his brother, Aaron, and to Aaron’s sons, God’s priests in Israel. God told them to speak this blessing to the people of Israel:

The LORD bless you, and keep you;
The LORD make His face shine on you,
And be gracious to you;
The LORD lift up His countenance on you,
And give you peace. (Numbers 6:24-26, NASB)

God delights to bless His people, and He wants us to know that He delights to bless us. But more than that, He wants to put His blessing in our mouths. He gives us chances to speak the Lord’s blessing over the lives of others, and to be blessed by God through the words of others. God wraps His people in the giving and receiving of His blessings.

But here, what specific blessings does God ask to be spoken by and to His people?

  • God is keeping us. He is always watching over His people. Read Psalm 121, which is a beautiful picture of God keeping constant watch over those He loves.
  • The Lord not only turns His face toward us, but He causes His face to shine on us. His face is the light of His love, and it beams on all of us and each of us. We are the focus of His joyful concern and personal care.
  • God is gracious toward us. He works to give us His very best, even though we don’t deserve it.
  • The Lord blesses us with His peace – not only with relief from conflict, but with harmony, fruitfulness, and complete well-being in Him.

Look particularly at v.27. This blessing, and all the blessings of God that we speak to each other, are not empty, pious wishes. They are God’s blessings. God has decreed the well-being of His people. We are simply His instruments, His spokespersons, speaking His blessings into the lives of others.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: God Blesses His People
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Jesus Models Forgiveness

2015-07-16 Devotional, Pictures of God No comments

from the devotional book, PICTURES OF GOD

Read Luke 23:32-48

“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34, NIV)

Imagine that you are Jesus on the day of His death. Look around. Who do you see?

  • the religious leaders, proud, self-righteous, angry, blind to their own murderous jealousy
  • Judas, a close friend whose heart had wandered and who turned you in for a few pieces of silver
  • the disciples, who lived with you for three years then fearfully deserted you in your time of trouble
  • Pilate, who sensed the truth but was too weak to act on it
  • Herod, who held your life in his hands but was only concerned with his own entertainment
  • sadistic soldiers, to whom you were cruel sport
  • a thief hanging next to you, taunting You in an effort to save himself
  • the crowd of people, a mixture of mindless mob and curiosity seekers.

In short, you’re surrounded by humanity. To them, you’re a criminal, a blasphemer, a financial opportunity, a pawn, a scapegoat, a fool, a buffoon. Your pain is their afternoon’s entertainment. You’ve given yourself for these people, and they’re crushing you with their indifference, injustice, torture, humiliation, and the most agonizing death they can devise.

Every fiber of your being is screaming in pain and begging for relief. You are in your final moments. What is on your mind?

Most people being crucified would have filled their last hours with angry curses and bitterness. Read Jesus’ words. Listen as He speaks them. What is on His heart during these moments?

Forgiveness. Forgiveness fills His mind, His heart, and His words. Forgiveness for the proud, the cruel, the ignorant, the fearful, the weak. Forgiveness for us.

In Him, pain and injustice never overwhelmed love. In His final moments, with His final life breath, He completed His beautiful portrait of our loving, forgiving Father.

The Unforgiving Servant

2015-07-09 Devotional with Hymn, Pictures of God No comments

from the devotional book, PICTURES OF GOD

Read Matthew 18:21-35

Jesus taught about forgiving others most vividly in His parable found in Matthew 18:21-35.

In the ancient world, slaves could become highly responsible and trusted members of the household, and thus a huge debt owed by a slave was plausible.

To understand “ten thousand talents” (v.24), consider this. One talent was what a laborer might earn in half a lifetime. The slave could not have paid this debt in five thousand lifetimes. Ten thousand talents was approximately three hundred tons of silver. But ten thousand was the largest numeral for which a Greek term exists, and a talent was the largest measure of money. Thus when Jesus, the master storyteller, talks about ten thousand talents, He is using the largest amount of money He could express. In our current slang, He might say that the servant owed a gazillion dollars.

The one hundred denarii owed by the second slave was only about three to four months wages, or 1/600,000 of the first servant’s debt. In asking for relief from his debt, the second slave used roughly the same words as the first (vv.26, 29). The response was different only because of the unforgiving heart of the servant.

In the end, their generous master would forgive a huge debt. But he would not forgive his servant’s refusal to share his generosity. The unforgiving servant wanted “justice,” so he got it.

Paul put the same teaching this way: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32, NIV).

But sometimes the wrongs done to us wound us on a deep, emotional level. We want to forgive, and perhaps we have forgiven on a rational level, but we continue to have ill feelings about the person who wronged us. If you struggle with this:

  • Pray sincerely for the person every time they come to mind.
  • Realize that the God you love, loves that person very much and understands them. Put their wrong on His account, and you will still owe Him more than you can ever pay.
  • Bitter, angry thoughts are Satan’s temptations, pure and simple. Refuse to embrace them. Pray for God’s help every time those feelings arise.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: The Joy of Forgiveness
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Forgiving Others

2015-07-02 Devotional, Pictures of God No comments

from the devotional book, PICTURES OF GOD

Matthew 6:9-15

Notice that the Lord’s Prayer puts a condition on God forgiving our sins:

“Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.”
(Matthew 6:12, NIV)

If we want our sins forgiven, we must also forgive those who wrong us. This is so important that immediately after the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus emphasizes that one point:

“For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” (Matthew 6:14-15, NIV)

Why would our Father, so anxious to forgive us, put such a condition on our forgiveness? Why must we forgive others in order to be forgiven? Why are the giving and receiving of forgiveness inseparable?

  • We cannot embrace forgiveness as the solution for our sins without embracing it for others as well. Either forgiveness is the solution for sin or it isn’t.
  • Forgiveness cannot flow to us until it can flow through us.
  • Until we grant forgiveness to the one who wronged us, we too are enslaved by their sin. We who were wronged continue to suffer – we suffer lovelessness, resentment, anxiety, anger, and more. We cannot enjoy the blessing and freedom of forgiveness until we both receive it for the wrongs we do and give it to those who wrong us.
  • We tend to excuse our wrongs and blame others for theirs. Jesus urges us to do the opposite: excuse others and be more aware of our own failings.

An unforgiving heart is an unloving heart. It is a heart diseased with self-centeredness and bitterness. We cannot enjoy an open Father-to-child relationship with our forgiving God if we refuse to both give and receive forgiveness.

My Plans for You

2015-06-25 Devotional with Hymn, Pictures of God No comments

from the devotional book, PICTURES OF GOD

Jeremiah 29:11-14; 33:3-9

When you are forced to discipline your children, you want to make sure they know that you still love them. God is the same. The deep, long-term sinfulness of His people forced Him to punish them severely. But God wanted them to understand how much He still loved them. For that reason He had His prophet Jeremiah write them a letter while they were in exile in Babylon. Here is a portion of that letter:

“For I know the plans I have for you…plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 29:11-13a, NIV)

In the midst of their sin and its punishment, God had plans for them. He was working to draw them back to Himself, to prosper them, to build a future for them.

The same story is told in Jeremiah 33. Even while telling of His horrendous judgment on them, God was dreaming of all the wonderful things He would do to restore them. You can hear the excitement in His voice:

“I will cleanse them from all the sin they have committed against me and will forgive all their sins of rebellion against me. Then this city [Jerusalem] will bring me renown, joy, praise and honor before all nations on earth that hear of all the good things I do for it; and they will be in awe and will tremble at the abundant prosperity and peace I provide for it.” (Jeremiah 33:8-9, NIV)

God is excited and passionate about all the beautiful things He can do for His people. His deep desire for them is always complete forgiveness, renewal, and overflowing blessings. His heart is always love, even while that love must be expressed in stern discipline.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Your Ceaseless, Unexhausted Love
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Our Pursuer

2015-06-18 Devotional with Hymn, Pictures of God No comments

from the devotional book, PICTURES OF GOD

Isaiah 65:1-3

When pursuing His wayward children, God doesn’t protect His dignity. He isn’t coy. He doesn’t play hard-to-get.

“I said, ‘Here am I, here am I,’
To a nation which did not call on My name.
I have spread out My hands all day long to a rebellious people,
Who walk in the way which is not good, following their own thoughts,
A people who continually provoke Me to My face.” (Isaiah 65:1-3, NASB)

They have wronged God, yet He takes the initiative to make their relationship right again. While they blindly, stubbornly ignore Him, He continues to pursue them, calling out, “Here I am! Here I am!”

Many believers have looked back on their conversion and have seen God this way: before they knew Him or cared about Him, even while they ran from Him, He patiently, persistently pursued them.

C.S. Lewis testified to such a God in his spiritual autobiography, Surprised by Joy. But perhaps the most famous testimony is a poem whose very title portrays such a pursuing God: “The Hound of Heaven,” by Francis Thompson (1859-1907). It opens this way:

“I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him…
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after…
With unhurrying chase
And unperturbed pace.”

The poem seems difficult and dated to modern readers, but it poignantly captures how God shamelessly chased His rebellious child. The child fled out of fear and ignorance, afraid of the God who only wanted his best. God pursued him as a hunting dog would, never giving up.

That is the God who pursued you…and still pursues your best. He is pursuing your neighbor, your co-worker, the person ahead of you in traffic, and that one who seems a million miles away from Him.  He is pursuing your children, and He’ll pursue their children, and their children’s children, always calling out “Here I am! Here I am!”

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Seeking Me
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David and Bathsheba: Renewal

2015-06-11 Devotional, Pictures of God No comments

from the devotional book, PICTURES OF GOD

2 Samuel 12:14-25

Lust. Adultery. Deceit. Murder. Abuse of power.

David had set a dreadful example for God’s people. What’s more, instead of being God’s light to the peoples around Israel, David had shamed God’s reputation among them (2 Samuel 12:14). As a result, God decreed that the sorrow and death David had brought into his home would begin with his newborn son. The child would die. And he did.

But here is where the story takes an amazing turn. One might have expected that David’s illicit union with Bathsheba would be cursed, or at least that no good fruit would come of it. The opposite happens. The Lord blesses their union with another child, a boy, and the scripture says specifically that “the Lord loved him” (12:24).

The child was Solomon. His name comes from the Hebrew word “shalom”, meaning “peace”. He was also given the name “Jedidiah”, which in Hebrew means “loved of the Lord” (12:25). Of all David’s children, he was selected to inherit the throne at David’s death. God chose him to build His house, the temple, and God blessed him with wisdom and riches beyond imagination. What’s more, the Messiah would come from Solomon’s line, from the line of David and Bathsheba.

What a marvelous story of God’s forgiveness! While David’s sin had destructive consequences, God also blessed his line with compassionate, life-giving renewal. This is a foretaste of what God would do in Jesus Christ:

Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. (Romans 5:20, NASB)

David and Bathsheba: the Sin

2015-06-04 Devotional, Pictures of God No comments

from the devotional book, PICTURES OF GOD

2 Samuel 11:1-5

After a long conflict with Saul and Saul’s son, David was fully and finally king. God had firmly established his rule and had promised that his dynasty would last forever. David was a success.

But the challenges never stop as long as we’re in this life. This challenge came from a totally unexpected source. The Tempter rarely enters with a trumpet fanfare. Notice how David’s sin begins:

  • Apparently he has gotten too comfortable in his success. This story falls in the middle of protracted wars with one of Israel’s enemies, Ammon. When spring comes, the time for the war to begin again, David isn’t at his post as head of the army. He leaves the work to his general and stays home.
  • David has taken a nap, then gets up and walks around the roof of his house, looking out on his neighbors. He sees Bathsheba bathing.
  • A look yields to lust, and lust yields to outright sin. “Sow a thought, reap an act.”
  • Bathsheba becomes pregnant. His private sin is about to have public consequences.

We all face temptations. They will change, but they will never go away in this life. But remember:

  • Though the Tempter makes sin seem so pleasant, note Jesus’ warning in John 10:10 – Satan comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. That is always his agenda. Steal, kill, and destroy is what he is attempting to do to you!
  • The sin you’re being tempted to taste is deadly poison. Don’t savor the flavor, even for a moment. It is loss, regret, pain, slavery, and death.
  • Sometimes Satan will try to make the temptation seem overwhelming and yielding seem inevitable. But God always provides a way of escape:

No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13, NASB)

Turn to God immediately. Don’t wait.

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