Verses for today…

Yesterday was filled with blessing as we worshiped with others, sang praises to God, listened to a challenge to yield our all in serving Jesus, and shared with others what God is doing in our lives. We visited our granddaughter, and even though she had surgery to reset her arm the day before, she was cheerful and thankful. 

I should have woke this morning full of joy, but that was not so. I felt discouraged and useless, without purpose and emotionally drained. Songs of praise didn’t help. Prayer for unsaved family didn’t help. Reading verses and devotional thoughts left me in the same empty place. However, my online Bible opens with an index and includes a daily verse, this time Isaiah 54:11 and God gave me this:

“O afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in antimony, and lay your foundations with sapphires. I will make your pinnacles of agate, your gates of carbuncles, and all your wall of precious stones. All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children. In righteousness you shall be established; you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come near you. If anyone stirs up strife, it is not from me; whoever stirs up strife with you shall fall because of you. Behold, I have created the smith who blows the fire of coals and produces a weapon for its purpose. I have also created the ravager to destroy; no weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed, and you shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their vindication from me, declares the Lord.” (Isaiah 54:11–17)

This passage is near the end of this prophet’s section on comfort after many chapters about God’s judgment. While I’ve not felt under judgment, daily news and situations in the world feel like the entire planet is on a downward slope. The perks of yesterday were like dropping into God’s living room and escaping the bad news for a short while. But as soon as that was over, so went my peace of mind. I felt the affliction and lack of comfort described in this passage, but not the emotions that might go with being decked out in precious jewels.

But then, verse 13. I have this verse in the middle of a photo of my children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. This is God's precious promise, that my family will have peace as God teaches them.

And here it adds more promises that God makes to His people, promises that the Scriptures tell me I can claim for myself since I am a child of God, by faith like the faith of Abraham. The first is that God will establish me, take me far from the oppression I often feel, and remove me from fear and terror — taking them away.

Next, any strife will not be from Him and it will fail because He has weapons against such things, even those who are against me. My vindication is from Him and my heritage — as His child. The prophet may be speaking of physical opposition and battles, yet this covers the spiritual wars against His people whose exterior situation is without strife but the enemy strikes against our minds.

Yesterday I was thanked for prayers that God answered, asked for help that God enabled me to give, and was given words to encourage others. The enemy doesn’t like that, yet if I put his name into the above passage as the weapons and negatives Isaiah points out as defeated, my heart is lifted again. The truth is: Jesus wins, and because He says “I will. . . . .” then I win also. 

And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. (Revelation 12:10–11)

PRAY: Jesus, You are my joy and delight. You overcome the negatives that threaten me, whether their source is bad news, worries and concerns, fearful emotions, or the lies whispered by Satan to take my focus away from You. No weapon that is fashioned against me shall succeed. Because of You, this is my heritage and vindication. You are my righteousness and I am an overcomer and also a winner! How wonderful to belong to You and hear You speak.

 

Why learn doctrine?

Early church teaching was not enough. Personal Bible study was not enough. I went to Bible school in my 60’s. It was not enough. I completed a Master’s degree in biblical and theological studies. It was not enough. Now I’m reading Stephen Charnock’s two-volume, “The Existence and Attributes of God.” It is not enough. The hunger to know God and the desire to know the whole counsel of God remains.

Paul said, “I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.” (Acts 20:27) What is it?

John Piper says when the foundation of what I knew cannot see everything, a deeper foundation is needed. It sees and feels everything, and he lists cancer, nuclear weapons, environmental crises, terrorism, abortion, burned-out cities, broken marriages, bummed-out kids, depression, but that deeper foundation does not fail or allow me to break or sink into despair. It allows me to be joyful, no matter what:

Again I will build you, and you shall be built. . . .  Again you shall adorn yourself with tambourines and shall go forth in the dance of the merrymakers. (Jeremiah 31:4)

How does God build His people to dance, no matter what? Piper points out, “This is the whole counsel of God. If you intend to dance in the April sun, just remember, either you do it with your eyes closed or you do it on the great granite tableland of the whole counsel of God, also known as doctrine.”

Yesterday I thought much about dying and leaving this world. Those thoughts threatened my joy, even as I watched a cheeky squirrel running back and forth along the fence, even as I nearly completed a bright blue and yellow quilt, even as I had a brief but blessed online communication with my oldest grandchild. But doctrine brings joy back:

“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets. (Luke 6:22–23)

How can this kind of treatment feel like a blessing? Because my hope is in a reward secured by Jesus Christ and trusted because of the faith He puts in my heart — and this is doctrine. Without it, there is no leaping for joy when hated, excluded, reviled, and spurned as if an evil person.

I’ve seen how all that I see (as it pounds against my awareness because of modern technology) requires a deeper foundation, a greater understanding of this God in whom I trust. How can He bless me in this messed up world? How can joy remain as friends are diagnosed with stage four cancer, bombs fall in cities filled with terrified humanity, earthquakes destroy thousands at a time, terrorists kill at random, babies are aborted by the millions, divorce rates rise, children are abandoned and homeless, even godly pastors suffer depression, and many in my family seem headed to hell?

Doctrine. The God who can give me joy in this mess here will take me to the greater reward of eternal joy. It does not matter how twisted this world becomes because He will usher in a forever that is marked by eternal joy.

PRAY: Jesus, I just taste it here, even in the hurt of what I see. Your joy is not the same as the ‘happy, happy’ of this world for it floods my life here no matter what the latest news says, or hearing prayer requests that desire comfort without asking for the grace to leap for joy even when You do not remove the pain. Doctrine. It tells me about You and the more I know about You, the more I can think and speak of Your glory and blessing, and jump for joy even when my body yells a bit because it now creaks when I leap!

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.