Devotions are life-changing

Joshua 1; Psalms 120–122; Isaiah 61; Matthew 9

When I became a Christian, my sister told me to read the Bible until a truth stopped me, then write it down. Now, most of that writing is in digital form but I have a stack of journals filled with the results of that excellent advice. Sometimes I get carried away in the writing yet God continues to change my life. Today, I’m noting what ‘stopped’ me in the above daily reading passages.

Joshua 1. Joshua replaced Moses as leader. His name is the Hebrew form of Jesus. Moses represents the law, and Moses just died. Salvation by law-keeping did not work. Now the people needed a Savior. While Joshua was not Jesus, I read this chapter as if it were the Lord telling His Son what He must do as the leader of His people. Jesus was sent as fully man and lived here as ‘the Son of man’ so these words were appropriate. Too long to put here, but I am humbled by the reminder that while here, Jesus as fully man relied on His Father just like I need to rely on the Lord.

“No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” (Joshua 1:5–8)

I am to do the same as both Joshua and Jesus — focus on the will of God and obey it!

Psalms 120-121. The first psalm is a cry for deliverance as the writer is aware of living in land of liars. I feel like that. The news each day contradicts itself. The world seems to be in chaos. “I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war!” (Psalm 120:7). As the next psalm says, “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” (Psalm 121:1-2) The next verses also answer my distress:

The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. (Psalm 121:5–8)

I am also to “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!” (Psalm 122:6) for there is blessing and glory to God in being concerned for peace among His people.

Isaiah 61 is a foretaste of what Christ will do for His people and a description of His love for righteousness. The author says that he greatly rejoices in the Lord because:

“He has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations.” (Isaiah 61:10–11)

Victory is coming. Jesus came — bringing that righteousness that all nations are experiencing. The Christian life does not make the news but that does not mean God’s people are absent or idle. Works of mercy are happening in homes, neighborhoods, hospitals, prisons. Wherever God’s people are, the example of Jesus is also.

Matthew 9. This chapter is about mercy. Mercy is doing for others what they cannot do for themselves. Jesus healed those who were paralyzed and helpless, called to Himself those hated by others, raised the dead, opened blind eyes, loosened mute tongues and sent His disciples out to have the same compassion and draw others into His kingdom.

APPLY: Being a Christian is not about following rules but about being like Jesus. His realm of ministry was a small part of a big world yet what He did changed lives and changed history and the world. Even though it will never make the news, may I be courageously obedient to what He is saying to me today. Focus, trust, pray, be merciful, do/go what and where He asks and rejoice in Him.

 

 

 

 

Not my work, but Thine be done

The world's tallest man-made structure is the 829.8 m (2,722 ft) tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. I don’t know the height of the Tower of Babel, but every time I see a photo of the Burj Khalifa, I’m reminded of what God thought about that earlier structure.

Sometime after the flood, the people were migrating eastward. They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” They used brick for stone and bitumen for mortar and said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”

The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the people had built and said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” He did it and they were dispersed from there over the face of all the earth, and they stopped building the city. (Genesis 11:3–8)

Not only had they disobeyed God who told them to fill the earth, this folly added to the mess sin made of the human work ethic. We love/hate work.

By the time of Solomon, his conclusion was that work was meaningless. He said, “I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil.” (Ecclesiastes 2:18–21)

Solomon later figured out a more meaningful attitude, but those words and those towers stuck in my mind today. How long will that tallest tower last? What does God think of it. And what does God think of my work? When it is finished, it will go to someone else. Will they preserve it? Or will it wind up in the trash? Will it have any value at all, or will that value be short-lived?

My husband and I talked about the value of what we do in this life and concluded with much the same idea as Solomon did. What is the meaning of work? Everything that we do or produce cannot go with us. Some toil of some people might change the lives of the next generations, but for the most of us, our work leaves less impact and has little significance. However, this was not a depressing conversation. We both agreed that the work that lasts and makes a difference is the work of loving God through our actions of loving others.

Today’s NT reading says ‘amen’ to that: “And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matthew 9:35–36)

Jesus again shows us how to live and how to work. I can easily look at the crowds who are like He described and ignore them or be annoyed with them. But Jesus shows me a better way, a better work.

He also told the crowds that followed Him, “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” (John 6:27) When they asked how they could do the works of God, He answered, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” (John 6:29)

The bottom line for me is that anything I hope to accomplish better be God-given, God-directed, and done in faith. Otherwise, like those great towers, it will mean nothing and could even mess with history in a negative way. Jesus wants me to labor for that which lasts forever, just as He did. Toward the end of His life, He prayed, “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.” (John 17:4) When I step into His presence, I’d like to be able to say the same thing.