The Greatest Joy

Last night my knee was bothering me and I complained to God that unless this was healed, I could not go on. This morning He rebukes me for idolatry of good health and comfort. I can easily criticize others for making comfort their god, but He wants me to look in the mirror. I can easily write how God is enough, no matter what, but He shows me that when the ‘no matter what’ is painful, I’m full of hot air. I know the facts — God is enough — but when push comes to shove, emotions so easily pull the train and faith becomes the caboose or gets left behind.

He speaks with this statement: Our souls are of such a divine origin that no other joy but God can ever satisfy them. God made the soul for this high destiny, and His object, therefore, in all the discipline and training of life, is to bring us to the place where we will find our joy in Him alone.

To do that, He must “stain our pleasant pictures and thwart and disappoint our brightest anticipations. He detaches us from all else that He may attach us to himself.” This is not God being mean or unkind. He wants me to be truly joyful in Him, not in “the good life” or His many blessings.

As today’s devotional says, this does not mean that all my friends must die or my prosperity will be taken away, but that my joy will not come from inner or outward causes. Only from Him. He wants me to come to the end of everything that is not God in order to find my joy in Him alone.

It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” (Isaiah 25:9)

I’ve been looking to Him to give me joy and He is waiting for me to get this right, to seek Him for joy, not seek well-being or anything else to make me joyful. His disciplines are leading me to this:

Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God. (Psalm 43:4)

Again, today’s devotional sums it up well. I know that God is always seeking to make Himself my “exceeding joy” but until I have been detached from all earthly joys and am ready to find my joy in Him alone, I must still wait for Him. I was assuming the delay was God’s, but realize that it is God who is waiting for me.

PRAY: Jesus, in years of Bible study, much of my slow learning is because I tend to rely on myself, a pitiful excuse for being slow and stubborn, for thinking I know better than You. You show me over and over that self is dead and I need to let that fact be part of what pulls me through the years. You make me love the verses that say I am alive in You, yet living them is another story. Some say that “letting go and letting God” is a Christian cliche, but reality, it is a huge part of being able to experience Your great joy. Forgive me for holding on to my ideas of what will make me happy and enable me to rest in You, my greatest joy.

 

Waiting for a bigger change . . .

The election is over but not the hoopla nor the pundits’ predictions of what will happen next. My hubby and I were disappointed in the outcome, but as he said, minority governments do not last too long before another election is called. This too shall pass. We just need to wait.

For a long time, my personal perspective on historical matters mostly focused on details. However, as I study the Bible, the Lord is helping me take more of a big picture view. Instead of being bothered by the here and now, I’m looking at the long-term, the plan of God for all time. It is far more hopeful than today’s headlines.

The Gospel is a great example. It was planned before the world began and promised in the Garden of Eden to the first people when they sinned. It was worked out in a long preparation time as God showed His people that they could not save themselves. Finally the time came and Jesus arrived, died for our sin, rose again and ascended to heaven . . .

Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:24–28)

His sacrifice was perfect, the culmination of what the previous sacrificial system pointed to and the fulfillment of God’s promise to send a Savior, a Messiah who would deliver people from their sin. Not only would He come for that tremendous task, He will come again — for a different reason. He will return to take those who believe in Him into the fullness of the salvation He has secured!

Those in the Old Testament were told that this first event would happen:

It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” (Isaiah 25:9)

After salvation came through faith in Jesus Christ, those believers of the New Testament were told the second event would happen and how we are to live while we wait for it:

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. (Titus 2:11–14)

I have no idea when Jesus will return. Is the waiting difficult? Some days it is, but only because I want the peace and grace He will bring. I am excited that He will return even though I don’t know when.

This morning I chuckle that in a few years we will have another election that will perhaps have a different outcome. Waiting for that is a challenge. Waiting for Jesus is much easier and brings more excitement to my heart. The reason? I trust that the results He promised will certainly happen. He did exactly what God promised He would do the first time He came, so I know He will do exactly what He promises to do the second time. He will come and He will reign.

I’m totally anywhere near that certain about the promises made by the politicians!

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Thank You Jesus for Your faithfulness. You keep Your Word and I can count on You for every promise You make. You also give me all I need to wait patiently for You to answer prayer, come to my aid, direct me in how to live, and be content until You return.

 

Today’s thankful list . . .

- the on/off switch on my desktop failed but after I prayed, it worked.

- a really good hair stylist who is a blessing to me.

- fresh veggies, even in October.

- my hubby who helps me with household chores.

- a very good sewing machine.

- finally starting to understand my smart phone a little bit.

What are we waiting for?

Most of the time, waiting is about standing in line, or anticipating a delivery, or about some frustration over an event or person that is slower than we want them to be. One day this week I was particularly tired. I thought of God’s promise about waiting for Him and as I was praying (waiting on Him) I asked for energy. My request was based on this promise:

Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:30–31)

God kept this promise and I had increased energy all day. Today’s devotional is about this very thing — waiting on the Lord. The word is used 135 times in the Bible and with varying slants, but basically it is about putting my hope in God and trusting His promises. The prophet Jeremiah says this:

The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. (Lamentations 3:25–26)

For the Jew, God was One, the Law was the revelation of His will, and life was under His authority with an expectation He would intervene and save them from their trials. They continually waited for that to happen and when Christ was born, they and their world were prepared. This was called “the fulness of time.”

The New Testament complements the OT, completing God’s revelation and clarifying to the Jew. It included Gentiles in the family of God (the Church). Both OT and NT record the promises of God and how the people were waiting in hope for their fulfillment.

It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” (Isaiah 25:9)

For many, salvation meant freedom from political oppression. Others seemed to understand that there was more to their redemption than that, people like Simeon, Anna and Joseph of Arimathea . . .

Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. (Luke 2:25)

And coming up at that very hour she (Anna, eighty-four and a prophetess) began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. (Luke 2:38)

Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. (Mark 15:43)

After Jesus was crucified by those who wanted a king rather than a Savior, He rose from the dead and met with the disciples. Again, He told them to wait.

And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” (Acts 1:4–5)

The Lord also explains that we not only wait for the Holy Spirit but also the great changes that will come as a result of salvation and believing in Him:

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:19–23)

We are to “wait for it with patience.” (Romans 8:25) and even though believers experience salvation instantly, there is more — Jesus will return and we are to wait for that:

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, (Titus 2:11–13)

And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:27–28)

Oh, Lord Jesus, when You come, there will be great changes including “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” (2 Peter 3:11–13) In the meantime, I’m to live a holy, godly life as I wait for You.