Sometimes the Word of God touches me deeply, leaving me with little left to say. This morning I came to the following passage without a particular need in mind, yet God knows how I have been burdened and prayed many years for the spiritual life of my children. As I read these words, God again whispered, “This is for you.”
“For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you. “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 54:10–17)
Each day, the Word of God speaks to my heart and life. Yet every now and then, He surprises me with a special “rhema” — Greek for “a word from God that meets a particular need of the moment.” This passage was written to the Jews, yet God can lift it out of its context and drop it into my heart, reminding me that this is the kind of God He is, and this is the kind of things that He does.
I tend to forget that God does things that I cannot see. By doing that, I tend to forget that He hears every prayer and is working on the answer. He urges me to walk by faith, not by sight or depending on results to keep me going.
When He speaks “rhema” to my need, it can be about something in me that I am not aware of, a problem or a concern that He sees and brings to light for my obedience. My need can also be a heavy burden in my heart and He lifts it with a special promise. Or, like today, that need can be a daily and continual desire of my heart that has seen no answer, heard no promise, a deep thing that clings to me. It is less like a need of the moment and more like a permanent fixture. Sometimes it gets me down without me being conscious that I need “rhema” for it. But He knows — and He speaks.
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Lord, You have all the right words today. I know that when You say something, You stand behind it. Your Word is firm and final. You keep it. All I can do is bow my head and be glad. All I can offer is praise for Your faithfulness. Bless You and bless Your sustaining words.
Twenty minutes of Pilates loosens these muscles at bit, but mostly reveal that my body is not what it used to be. Bette Midler once said that after fifty, it’s maintenance, maintenance. Yet even as I age and resent the need for maintenance, I sense some progress and growth in my life.
Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion. (Psalm 84:5–7)
My strength is in God and my heart is on that road that leads to Him and increased Christlikeness. Yes, there are valleys and Baca is a word that means weeping. Yet God brings the water of life to my sorrows and the thought of appearing before Him puts a new spring in each step.
God’s people know how faith changes those waterless and barren valleys into a place of springs. He refreshes His people with showers of blessing even in the midst of our toil and sorrows. He gives us fresh strength as we move forth in obedience.
We also know that life in Christ is not to be stagnant. He gives light. As we step into that light and respond rightly to what He reveals, He gives more light. The New Testament speaks of this growth and change without the poetic metaphor of the psalmist.
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)
The “degree of glory” is about becoming more and more like Jesus. It is having increasing spiritual strength to fight sin and live in righteousness. It is spiritual growth that depends on a strength that is not my own. It is from Him.
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. 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 40:28–31)
This “degree of glory” is also about the peace of God. When I am agitated, fearsome, and worried, my strength is sapped. However, His peace puts my fears to rest and dissolves all worries and cares. Again, this peace is not mine, but from Him.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. (John 14:27)
Each day God gives a fresh supply of grace. My body may not have the strength it once had, but my spirit grows stronger. Because of Him, I am increasing in strength to meet the challenges of life and survive the valleys of Baca.
My only part is obedience. If I act on impulse, or try to be a hero, or think my way will work, the peace of Jesus is not present. The simplicity of trusting God comes from the Holy Spirit, not from my decisions or will power. When I put confidence in myself, I wind up with perplexities and questions. When I trust and obey Him, nothing can come between me and the Lord. Problems from the outside only serve to keep me alert to my need of Him. Faith and obedience also serve to keep me alert to His strength and the delight of watching Him solve the problems. The entire process of grace and spiritual growth points me toward my eternal reward.
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison... (2 Corinthians 4:16–17)
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Lord God, the strength You give is totally superior to even the strength of youth. You renew it as I need it, lifting me above, or taking me through the trials and problems of life. Thank you that I can go from strength to strength.
Not only that, the peace You give is abundantly above the peace of the world (which is a mere absence of conflict) because it sustains me in all situations (even conflict) as I listen to You and obey You. Peace and strength from You are gifts of grace, gifts that come from Jesus who lives in my heart. I am astonished and amazed at such blessing and totally grateful that I’m still growing and even still have room to grow.
Instead of regularly salting my food, I use other spices. Of course, every now and then I crave something salty and dive into cheese twists or a bowl of popcorn.
Salt is vital to human life. Without it, the human body cannot perform vital functions like regulating blood and body fluids and maintaining nerve signals. Salt deficiency can lead to muscular weakness, cramps and exhaustion. Severe salt deprivation can even prove fatal.
In the Bible, salt illustrates some important principles. Since it is so vital to life, it was included in offerings made to God and even used in naming His covenant.
You shall season all your grain offerings with salt. You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your grain offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt. (Leviticus 2:13)
Here, salt stands for permanence and incorruption. Used in this “covenant of salt,” it signifies the everlasting nature God’s promises to His people. Salt symbolizes perpetuity. In other words, I everlastingly belong to Him, and He everlastingly belongs to me!
This Old Testament use of salt to signify permanence is seen in other passages like 2 Chronicles 13:5, “Don’t you know that the LORD, the God of Israel, has given the kingship of Israel to David and his descendants forever by a covenant of salt?” and Numbers 18:19, “All the holy contributions that the people of Israel present to the LORD I give to you, and to your sons and daughters with you, as a perpetual due. It is a covenant of salt forever before the LORD for you and for your offspring with you.”
After the Babylonian captivity, the Jews were allowed to rebuild their city and their temple in Jerusalem. To do that, the king sent out a decree concerning supplies to help them. He included salt.
And I, Artaxerxes the king, make a decree to all the treasurers in the province Beyond the River: Whatever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the Law of the God of heaven, requires of you, let it be done with all diligence, up to 100 talents of silver, 100 cors of wheat, 100 baths of wine, 100 baths of oil, and salt without prescribing how much. Whatever is decreed by the God of heaven, let it be done in full for the house of the God of heaven, lest his wrath be against the realm of the king and his sons. (Ezra 7:21–23)
Every commodity was measured except salt. For this, the supply should meet whatever the need, no matter how much.
As I read these verses and remember some of the others in the New Testament, I think of the grace of God and how He supplies the Holy Spirit to meet the needs of His people. This supply is everlasting and has the purifying and savoring properties of salt. In fact, the presence of the Holy Spirit is vital to my Christian life. Without Him, I cannot do anything in obedience to God, yet He supplies the need, no matter how much.
The New Testament adds a further dimension to the supply of God using the symbolism of salt. One of the most difficult to understand is found in Mark:
And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’ For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another. (Mark 9:47–50)
In the context of the verses prior to these, the idea of being “salted with fire” likely is not about the eternal judgment of hell in verse 48, but more likely the fires of trial and testing in the life of the believer. This kind of “fire” purifies rather than destroys, and is good for me. It prevents me from losing my saltiness and teaches me to live by the grace of God.
That means having “salt in yourselves” is most likely about the humility and dedication to one another that is reinforced by trial and testing. If I lose this salt, I am not easily made salty again, but by maintaining this salt, I can more easily be at peace with others. Purity of dedication to Jesus, not seeking my own advantage and serving others promotes peace. It is part of being salty and could be described as the opposite of a “me first” attitude. When the Spirit of God is in control, that is what happens.
In today’s world, we don’t easily think of salt losing its saltiness, as the above verses describe, but in Bible times, salt came from the Dead Sea and could lose its salty taste if mixed with impure and foul compounds.
You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. (Matthew 5:13)
Again, reading these verses speaks to me of the Holy Spirit. Christians are earthen vessels with a treasure inside. The Holy Spirit dwells in us, and His light and saltiness go forth to purify and preserve to the world. Yet impurity in me can ruin that saltiness. While my everlasting covenant with God cannot change, its effectiveness to a dying world can. This is why God also says,
Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. (Colossians 4:5–6)
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Lord, this was a long study to come down to a simple truth: be filled with the Holy Spirit. I need to always rely on You for the grace needed to be a blessing to those that cross my path. When I crave salt, or even when I do not, I need to remember that the people in this world will perish without Jesus Christ and without the salt You give Your people.
(Photo credit)
In a year of weather extremes, we are astonished at the mild winter here, the winds of hurricane force in places normally not known like Calgary and Scotland, and flooding in Thailand and again in Pakistan. Cities in the south get snow, cities in the north are without it.
In times past, the pagans credited their gods for all phenomena that they didn’t understand, like mountains erupting and pouring out molten lava, or the shaking of the earth and mountains splitting into pieces. Today, to say God is behind the weather is determined as naive and unscientific. Instead, weather experts look for reasons for why our weather is odd, citing warmer oceans, a change in wind patterns, etc.
Yet who is behind those reasons? If global warming exists, can anyone really believe that puny man has anything to do with it? We are like ants on a mountain, like grains of sand in the ocean. No matter our boasts and enlarged view of ourselves, compared to the power of God, we are nothing.
Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain and a way for the thunderbolt, to bring rain on a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man, to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground sprout with grass? Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew? From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the frost of heaven? (Job 38:25–29)
(God) it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses. (Psalm 135:7)
When he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth. He makes lightning for the rain, and he brings forth the wind from his storehouses. Every man is stupid and without knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols, for his images are false, and there is no breath in them. (Jeremiah 10:13–14)
I looked out this morning at frost and sunshine, together producing beauty that artists can only copy not create. We pour pollutants into it, yet the air is crisp and clean, the light unhindered and warming the window panes. I might be able to turn up the thermostat to heat my house, but I cannot change winter to summer nor can I stop the wind with a single word.
O LORD, what is man that you regard him, or the son of man that you think of him? Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow. Bow your heavens, O LORD, and come down! Touch the mountains so that they smoke! Flash forth the lightning and scatter them; send out your arrows and rout them! (Psalm 144:3–6)
He stood and measured the earth; he looked and shook the nations; then the eternal mountains were scattered; the everlasting hills sank low. His were the everlasting ways. (Habakkuk 3:6)
The everlasting God can shake the earth, even the nations. He can scatter mountains and sink the hills. He can do all this because He alone has that kind of power. He also has wisdom and righteousness. His actions are grounded in an everlasting character, an unchanging nature.
I do not understand all the ways of God, but I could never say that the weather is without reason or pattern, without a part in His divine plan. He promised seed time and harvest. He sends rain and snow and sunshine and moves the earth as He wills. Instead of marveling at the weather, I should be in awe at the power of the Weather-Maker, my Lord and Almighty God.
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Lord, I’m thankful to Your Word that tells me You are sovereign. I’m also glad for my mother who used to say of the weather (and passed to me her attitude), “We must need it or we wouldn’t be getting it.” I do not like being too cold or too warm, yet You control the thermostat of this world. I do not like going out in storms or hearing of those suffering because of weather, yet You are able to keep safe or destroy. You are wise and Your doings are based on Your righteous character. Keep me from complaining about weather. Don’t let it rule my attitude or my life in any way. Instead, keep my heart grateful for all that comes from Your hand. Fill me with a spirit of awe — You are in charge of all things.
A Christian brother said something about his idiosyncrasies. It seemed to me that he was almost proud of being ‘different’ yet at the same time using that word as an excuse for not trusting God with some issues in his life. Since hearing him, I’ve been thinking about the difference between quirky personality traits and behaviors that are rooted in lack of faith.
For instance, personality is the child who dances to imaginary music without trying to impress anyone, or the clerk in the store that asks you how you are and really means it. From what I am reading, personality describes the real me — without any “I wants” attached. It is tied to non-sinful traits that make me different from others. One example is spiritual gifts. Those gifted in teaching love to collect information. Those gifted with compassion are usually hugging everyone.
On the other hand, individuality is tied to the natural person. It is who I am with my fleshy desires and traits. It is all about being my own person, calling for my rights, excusing my sins with, “This is just the way I am.” When considering these words of Jesus, a Christian needs to know the difference between personality and individuality.
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24–25).
Because individuality is confused with personality, and because individuality is held on to so dearly, this verse is often confusing and misunderstood. It is also often disobeyed.
Jesus did not ask me to stop being me. He wants my life saved, not destroyed. To do that, He asks me to take up my cross and die to my selfish and demanding nature. Then, when my individuality is gone, my true personality is free to emerge.
A few weeks ago someone taking care of her aging mother remarked that the woman’s feisty, controlling way of life was vanishing and she was becoming more compliant, softer, quieter. While taking care of her became easier, it was “hard to see her personality vanishing.” My response surprised both of us. I said, “Maybe what you are seeing now is her true personality.”
This agrees with what I’m reading today. Individuality is a mere husk surrounding and hindering the personal life. It is “all elbows” and awkward, with a tendency to separate and isolate. It is the “I want it now” characteristic of a spoiled child. The only way that a person’s true personal life may come out and be brought into fellowship with God is by dropping individuality, even putting it to death.
The reading goes so far as to say that individuality counterfeits personality as lust counterfeits love. God designed human nature for Himself; individuality debases human nature for itself because it is independent and self-assertive, hindering our spiritual life more than anything else. The one thing in me that refuses to be reconciled to another, even to God, is my individuality.
God wants to bring me into total union with Himself, but unless I am willing to give up my right to myself, He cannot. When Jesus said, “Let him deny himself” He meant to deny this independent right to myself, allowing the real life, the new life I have in Him, a chance to grow.
Sadly, confusing the two can be a way to avoid growth. If I should say about any of my individual (and self-centered) traits, “Oh, that is just the way I am,” then I am making an excuse for sin and thwarting the work of God in my life.
On the other hand, my personality, which makes me distinct from everyone else, is too much for me to understand. Others see it but I cannot evaluate it. This is for God who made me and is remaking me, just as seeing and getting rid of that sinful husk is also the work of God and the Holy Spirit.
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Lord, I started out this devotional time in frustration over others who assert their individuality and use it to excuse their sin. However, You turned my thoughts around and encourage me to examine myself. Am I doing the same thing? Whenever I make excuses for sin, or think that my sinful nature is just part of who I am, I have forgotten the great and precious promises that come with saving faith. You do love me ‘just as I am’ but You also love me too much to leave me that way. Thank God, thank God.
On my list of people for whom I pray, there are a few who worship God but are not believers in Jesus Christ. They pray, go to a place of worship, but have never shown the spiritual fruit of genuine faith.
I’ve made an assumption that these dear folks are most difficult to reach because they seem to assume that they are on a right footing with God. This day, God shows me that I should not make any assumptions. Their spiritual condition is not about what they are doing or not doing, but that nothing is impossible with God.
And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us. (Acts 16:13–15)
When Paul wrote this, he was in Philippi. This woman, Lydia, lived in Thyatira which was nearly 300 miles away and across the Aegean Sea. Was it a coincidence that she was in Philippi on a river bank with Paul that day? God is good at arranging “coincidences.”He had her where He wanted her to be.
This was a Sabbath day, the Jewish day of worship. She was interested in God and went where prayer was made. While she was not in a “church,” yet she was in some type of relationship with others who prayed. How did this happen? I’ve no idea, but I do know that God excels at putting people in places of grace.
The Lord had a plan for Lydia, and it was about where and when, but more significantly, it concerned her heart. Salvation is not about what we do or where we are, but that our hearts are open to the God who wants to enter our lives. So, the most significant work of the Holy Spirit is that “the Lord opened her heart.”
Lydia did not open her own heart, nor did her prayers do it. Paul did not do it either. This is something only God can do. He alone has the key that unlocks the human heart — that He might gain admittance. As Spurgeon says, He is the heart’s master as well as the heart’s maker.
Lydia heard Paul speak, but she heard more than his words. She heard the word of God preached, and the Bible says this hearing is the avenue for faith.
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. (Romans 10:17)
At that point, Lydia believed and Christ entered her heart. The evidence of saving faith and of her changed life is in the passage. First she obeyed the simple command to be baptized. Genuine faith never does this to gain salvation, nor is it forced on anyone. It was a simple act of obedience that shows her heart was listening and responding to the Lord.
The second outward evidence was love for the people of God. She showed grateful kindness to the apostles by offering them hospitality. This love to the people of God has always been a mark of a true conversion, the evidence of someone whose heart has been opened.
Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. (1 John 4:8–13)
The story of Lydia encourages me. As I pray for those who are devout and do religious things, yet have no evidence of saving faith, I am assured that God can deliver this one-two punch by putting them in the right place at the right time, and then opening their hearts to hear His Word. Nothing is impossible for God.
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Lord, You again bless me with a simple truth. You are in charge and can draw people to Yourself. You can prepare people to hear Your Word and put their faith in You. However, I need an open heart too, so that this truth permeates my prayers for those who are religious but are very much in need of a saving relationship with You. God, grant open hearts to all of us.
Some of my prayers have been offered up to God almost forty years, but without answers. Give up? In myself, I would, but it seems these are prayers that must be prayed. Perhaps they are desires from the heart of God, given to me as a burden to take back to Him in prayer.
I was not thinking about my prayer list when I asked this morning that He would speak to the need of my heart today. He surprised me with this . . .
Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him. For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. (Isaiah 30:18–21)
God is waiting too! He waits to answer those prayers. He has those answers stored up and at the right time, I will see and experience His grace. He blesses those who wait for Him. He may send adversity and trials, but He does not hide Himself from me. He gives exact directions and bids me to wait on Him because He is waiting to bless me.
Spurgeon has good things to say about delays in answers to prayer. He reminds me that this is biblical. Jacob did not get the blessing from the Lord until he wrestled all night for it. A Syrophoenician woman asked and Jesus seemed to turn a deaf ear for a while. Paul asked three times that his “thorn in the flesh” might be taken from him. God never did that, but promised that His grace would be sufficient.
Unanswered prayer has reasons. Sometimes God shows His power and sovereignty so I will know He has every right to give or withhold. He is not a doting father who spoils every whim. I need to respect that.
Sometimes the delay is to increase my desire, even to see my necessity more clearly. Then I will value the answer even more when it does come. God wants a grateful heart, but how often I have been blessed only to quickly forget His grace and go on to ask for another blessing?
Also, God may see something in me that needs correction. While it seems I am waiting for His answer, He could be waiting for my obedience. Also, the Bible says, “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened” (Psalm 66:18) so unconfessed sin can block prayer. God is more interested in my character than in doing all that I ask. If I want Him to listen to me, I need to listen to Him.
Another reason is that I might be placing some small reliance on myself instead of trusting entirely in the Lord Jesus. Do I think I can ensure the answers to my prayers by something that I do? Or even by praying the right words? Do I have the audacity to tell Him how to answer me? Sometimes I have, and am ashamed for being so confident in my own ideas. The answers are always up to God, not me. My faith must be in Him, not in anything else.
God sometimes makes me wait that He may more fully display the riches of His grace. Spurgeon says, and I agree, that my prayers are filed in heaven. If they are not immediately answered, it is not because God has forgotten. In His perfect time, He will show His glory — to my delight and satisfaction. Unanswered prayer is never a reason to stop praying.
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Oh Lord, You always know how to encourage and bless me. Even if the answers are delayed, Your heart never changes. You know far more about the burdens and the people on my prayer list than I do. You know what needs to take place and how best to answer each prayer. Change my life so I am a better listener. Give me patience to wait for You as You wait to bless me. Your Word says You can do “exceedingly abundantly above all I can ask or imagine” and for this, the wait will be worth it.
