The best Preacher . . .

While I can talk big about having pure motives and being a person of integrity, sometimes my talk and my thoughts do not match. Too often I find my mind wandering into patterns of thinking that I had before Christ came to save me from that nonsense. It happened yesterday and this morning God brought me up short with this passage:

“Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ! — assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:17–24)

God preaches to me from these verses, quickly and to the point, even using three points with alliteration. He tells me what is wrong and what I need to do about it.

• Cause of my problem: a drifting mind is hardness of heart leading to corruption because of deceitful desires.
• Cure of the problem: not through ‘trying harder’ but through confessing and putting off the old self for which Christ has died.
• Change required: begin again, remembering who I am and putting on the new self, created to be like Christ.

I hear You, Lord. Thank You and there is more . . .

Today’s devotional talks about gods who cannot save compared to the one true God who provides perfect righteousness. While these Scriptures are from the Old Testament, they are true for Christians who struggle with drifting and hard hearts. Deceitful desires are related to idolatry — relying on people or things that cannot save that pull me away from the true God:

“Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, you survivors of the nations! They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols, and keep on praying to a god that cannot save.” (Isaiah 45:20)

“Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it. Listen to me, you stubborn of heart, you who are far from righteousness: I bring near my righteousness; it is not far off, and my salvation will not delay; I will put salvation in Zion, for Israel my glory.” (Isaiah 46:8–13)

God promised to save His people from their sin and sent His Son to fulfill this promise. Jesus died to give new life, to give His very self. The New Testament tells me I have the mind of Christ and the Lord intends that I think with it and not drift back to former patterns of life that cannot save.

These days, as my prayer habits become more intense and focused, so do the plans and power of Satan in his efforts to side-track me with all sorts of lies and deceitful thoughts. God warns me to press on, but also to spend quality time with other Christians . . .

“But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” (Hebrews 3:13)

Fellowship is more than coffee and cookies in the church basement. It is sharing the life of Christ with one another DAILY, and when we do, we hear God’s voice in spoken words as well as through the inner nudges of the Holy Spirit. For this reason, personal daily devotions are good, yet verbal input from others has power to soften hardness and expose deception.

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Jesus, I am glad today is Sunday. Devotional time with You is precious and needed, but I also need to hear exhortation and encouragement from Your people. I look forward to whatever else You want to say to me that will help me get rid of that nagging old self and walk in that is already mine — that marvelous newness of life.