Truth and Everlasting Joy

Yesterday was awful. Physical movement was difficult. Mentally, my thoughts were jumbled. It was not some sort of illness, more like a spiritual war in which the enemy had me in the dirt with his foot on my neck.

I wrote of despair and could not escape it. The words were true but so true also was human helplessness. Whatever God wanted me to learn also escaped me. I wanted to leave this place and go to the promised land of no more sorrow. When night fell, I took two Tylenol and fell asleep instantly. No crazy dreams. No trips to the bathroom. This morning, Monday seemed far away.

Today’s devotions are about enduring pain. It refers to the pain of a flawed marriage and how that endurance helped in other areas of life. But there are other kinds of pain. Loss of abilities. Loss of friends. Loved ones dying. Physical aches. Dementia. Feeling unwanted. A long list.
To His OT people who were barren in the fruit of their calling, God compares them to a widow who lost her partner. He says:

“Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. For the Lord has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,” says the Lord, your Redeemer. (Isaiah 54:4–8)

When despair hits, regardless of the reason or cause, God assured His people that His compassion would win over the horrid sense they had of being abandoned. He promised to “gather them” and this is affirmed even in the NT. God is not done with Israel, no matter how it seems in history and in current news.

In this, I can take comfort. Truth and trust does that. Truth gives me where to put my hope and in whom to put my trust. God has always kept His Word, so no despair can change that. It might knock me to the floor now and then, but the bottom line truth is this:

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:32–39)

My body still feels ‘not good’ but the truth lifts my spirits and tells me that my Maker can remake it. But if it stays like this, He can fill me with His joy anyway. My friends at church are proof of that!

PRAY: God, I thank You for examples of faith that give me hope when the enemy thinks he is winning, friends like BT, JM, L & A, and DD who ignore what their body yells at them and instead listen to the truth You have put deep into their hearts. That ‘surgery’ is not without pain, but it does the job of releasing Your everlasting joy.

Priorities

 

READ Luke 9-12

These chapters note what Jesus values, things that should be vital for me. First, He gives authority to His followers over demons and the power to cure diseases, taking nothing with them but totally relying on Him, a lesson that I also must learn.

Jesus shows His power to take care of daily needs by feeding a huge crowd with only five loaves and two fish, winding up with twelve baskets of leftovers. He can take care of my needs too, and then some.

When Peter realized Jesus was “The Christ of God” and that Jesus must suffer and be killed, and raised again to life, He also revealed His disciples must be willing to die. It is in yielding myself to Him that I receive life in His eternal kingdom. Those who do not know this assume that Jesus was a good teacher who told us how to live, not realizing that Jesus came to give us life, a life that begins with faith and never ends, life that cannot be destroyed by death. Three of them saw Him in His glory on a mountain and were dumbfounded. I am dumbfounded. Seeing the glory of God in the pages of His Book is incredible.

Jesus rebuked an unclean spirit and healed a boy —and “all were astonished at the majesty of God.” Yet even as they marveled at everything He was doing; He told the twelve that He would die — but they didn’t get it and argued who was the greatest. Even as Jesus told them “who is least among you all is the one who is great” they didn’t get it. I pray for those who don’t get it because I know that God must reveal truth about Jesus to them.

“Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 16:17)

In His day, Jesus was accepted by some and rejected by many. Nothing has changed. Is it because “His face was set toward Jerusalem” and the cross? Following Jesus means setting my face to a dying, to putting my hand to the plow and not looking back, as He said. (Luke 9:57-62) Only trusting Him completely makes that a viable option because He says this to me too: “Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves” and “The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me.” (10:3; 16) Being a Christian means counting the cost.

Even success in those battles to share His grace with others is not my greatest cause for joy; rather it is the joy that knows my name is written in heaven.

Jesus rejoices that the Father reveals these truths and His identity to His “little children” for He knows we are blessed to see what others cannot see. But the life He calls me to is not anything like it was before. I am called to love my enemies, do good to those who hate me, and show mercy to needy and broken people. My sinful self prefers to focus on me.

I am called to sit at His feet and learn from Him, a priority over rushing about in service. Some who do the rushing resent this. I am also called to pray with a focus on eternal matters as well as daily needs, and called to spiritual warfare, something many either scoff at or twist its meaning, but it is a real battle. I am to let the light I have shine, not hide my faith, nor get caught up in religious activities that have no value. And never am I to be guilty of hypocrisy — in a world where many prefer deception and pretense.

Jesus even goes so far to say that when talking to anyone, including authorities who might challenge me, I must “not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.” (12:11-12) It is not easy to trust Jesus for words that can mean rejection or death.

Being a Christian means storing up eternal treasure. None of the stuff I have goes into eternity with me. He tells me to remove “Eat, drink, be merry” off my to-do list and trust Him for all daily needs:

And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried . . .  Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. “Fear not . . . for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom . . .  For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (12:29–34)

There is more but as He prods me to think about priorities, then what about Christmas? The gifts, festivities, being with family and friends are great, but the priority is celebrating the deep truth that God came here to live and die and rise again for us — for me, so I will live and die and rise again to be with Him. That is the wonder, and that is what makes Christmas such a joy!