Wednesday Morning Devotional

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, and he ate it.  – Genesis 3:6

I wonder if kids are as fascinated with trees today as I was.  I used to love to climb them.  I thought it was so cool to go as high in a tree as you could possibly go and just look at the world around me.  When riding in the car as a kid, I remember being amazed at how the trees close to the road seemed to zip by so fast while the trees far away moved so slowly.  I had completely forgotten about all that until my first airplane ride.  Everything moved slowly, yet I was going 400+ miles per hour.  Crazy.

According to the Word of God, a lot has happened at trees.  God told the first man, “The day you eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you shall surely die.”  It was the first conditional statement ever given.  We are in a fallen, sinful state because of one single action done by one single man.  The day he ate, death was brought to the human race.  You and I will draw our last breath one day.  On that day, we will stand before a holy God and be judged.  “It is appointed unto man once to die, and after this the judgment.”  (Hebrew 9:27) It almost doesn’t seem fair that everyone is born condemned because of the actions of one person.

Thank God something else happened at another tree.

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.  By his wounds you have been healed.  – 1 Peter 2:24

Six hours one Friday afternoon.  That is how long Jesus was on the cross.  The Bible says it was from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m.  It also says at noon it got really dark.  Jesus said these words, “My God, why have you forsaken me?”  It is the only time Jesus talks to the heavenly Father and refers to Him “God.”  Every other time, He calls Him “Abba,” or “Father.”  This was the moment that Jesus dreaded.  He did not dread the nails, the lashes, the crown of thorns, the mocking, the being spit upon, the being hated by His own people . . . He dreaded the separation from His Father.  Just like you and I, sin separates us from God.  Unlike you and I, Jesus had no sin.  The sin that separated him from his Father was yours and mine . . . not his own.

You see, just as all humans were filled up with sin the moment Adam ate, any human who prays to Christ can have their sin emptied on Him.  Sin can be transferred off of you and onto Him.  He really did give His life that you and I might live.  In three hours, He inhaled the sins of the world. All who would ever humble themselves and say, “Lord, I need you” would be made brand new and restored to that wonderful condition before the fruit was eaten from that first tree thousands of years ago.

You can’t do anything about what happened at the first tree.

But, you sure can do something about the second one.

Receive Him today.

He really is the best thing this life offers.

Later

Adam

Have you ever seen two kids grow up in the same home and wonder how in the world they could be so different?  In the story of the Prodigal Son, Jesus creates quite a contrast between two sons raised in the same home by the same father.  One son, the younger, is extremely immature and gets Dad to give him his inheritance prematurely.  He proceeds to move far away from home, and then burn through the money with wasteful extravagant living.  The older brother is a rule follower.  He claims that he “never once broke the rules.” (Luke 15:29)    When the younger son finally comes home, the older son becomes angry.

This story that Jesus told pretty much describes us today.  There are a lot of Christians wasting their lives with prodigal living, and there are a lot of Christians who are professional rule followers, or at least they think they are.  There also are some, though it be a much smaller percentage, which have the heart of the Father. They simply want to bring people into a real deal relationship with the Father.  In this story, it is really important to see that neither son really knew their dad. I have been each son for certain periods of my life.  If you call yourself a follower of Jesus, you must evaluate your heart and see if you are like either of these sons.  If you are, you must go directly to God, repent, and begin a real authentic relationship with Him.  The story makes a very clear point; God is always, always willing to receive you.

“I am no longer worthy to be called your son, make me like one of your hired servants.”  — Luke 15:19

This verse says so much about immature Christians today.  When I first received Christ in my life at 16, I did not believe that a loving Heavenly Father was receiving me.  I believed that I was simply being forgiven for my sinful ways.  I also believed God was very strict and that I needed to start trying harder and doing better.  I still wonder why I thought this way.  Looking back, I think I looked around me and looked at other Christians to figure out how I needed to live.  Most of the Christians that I knew lived clean, followed the rules, and never sinned . . . or so I believed.  I can’t remember anyone ever telling me that they themselves struggled to live out this Christian life.  So many would preach against sin and were quick to point out mine.  For some reason, I just couldn’t stop coming back to God for forgiveness. Even though I was miserable, I really believed in my heart that He was the only way to be saved.

If I had really studied Luke 15, I would have known.  All the Father wants from me is to come home to Him, allow Him to cover my filth with His robe of righteousness, and enjoy Him.  The only thing the Father was interested in doing was celebrating the fact that His son came home.  If this is really the way God is, all I had to do as a prodigal who came home is celebrate with Him.  Not follow rules, not do better, not try to adjust my behavior . . . just enjoy being home with the Father.  Following the rules would come much, much later, and I would follow them because I wanted to, not because I felt forced to.

We don’t teach this in church.  We have preconceived ideas of what it looks like to be a Christian.  Most of it probably comes from what we heard and were taught growing up.  I guess it is just easier to teach conformity to the rules.  The major, major problem with this is that there are prodigals refusing to come home because they honestly believe Christianity is impossible.

If you feel far away from God, He is right there waiting for you to make a move towards Him.  He doesn’t want you as a hired servant.  He is not looking for someone who follows rules perfectly.  He’s looking for sons and daughters who enjoy being at home and celebrating with Him. He will not force Himself upon you, but He sure will love all over you the moment you decide to come home.

Come home!

Next week, I plan on writing about the other brother.

Later

Adam

“Why have you come down here, and with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness?” – 1 Samuel 17:28

“You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him, you are only a young man, and he a warrior from his youth.”  — 1 Samuel 17:33

“Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks? Come here, and I’ll give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals.”  — 1 Samuel 17:43-44

There are so many voices that tell us what we can and can’t do.  The story of David and Goliath teaches us that the more things change, the more they say the same.  If you ever decide to step out on faith and trust God completely with your life, you will not lack for voices of opposition.  In the first verse I used, the voice was David’s own older brother, so he had opposition from his family.  The second voice was king Saul, so the government discouraged David from stepping out in faith.  The last one was from Goliath, his enemy . . . no surprise there.  There were literally no human voices encouraging David.

Yet, he believed God did and still could do the types of miracles He had done in the past.  He knew the story of Gideon.  He knew the story of Samson.  He knew that God was with those who dared to place their lives in His hands.  Armed with only a sling and 5 stones, God used David to triumph over the Philistine.

It is interesting how before I preach or write one of these WMD’s how I get bombarded with voices. “Nobody reads these things anyway.” “You didn’t prepare enough to preach.” “You’re not smart enough to preach.” “God is not with you.”  “These kids aren’t going to listen to you.”  It is all so crazy.  Fortunately, I have done it enough now that I have been given a great weapon of my own.

Right before I preach, I listen to those same voices.  Here lately they have become a lot less intimidating, because I know I’m about to use my weapon.  Right before I preach, I like to find me a little corner in the church, kneel down, and completely agree with a lot of what those voices say.  “Lord, I’m not smart enough, I don’t know that I have prepared like I should, I can’t make anybody listen . . . but I do trust you, and I love you.  Will you fill me with your Holy Spirit and use me?  Speak through me, Lord.”

Thank God my trust is not in myself . . . my trust is in Him.

Trust in Him today.

Later

Adam

For you have ben called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters.  But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature.  Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.  – Galatians 5:13

I’m sorry I skipped posting last week’s devotional.  I did have a good reason.  I went to Kentucky and preached to 78 middle-school students.  The stuff we’ve grown extremely accustomed to like the Internet, television, and cell phones are all pretty much cut off for the week. In the two years that I’ve gone there, I’ve realized just how important it is for me to be there.  It is like this giant spiritual reset that you didn’t even know that you needed.  It is kind of wonderful.

I’ve learned something about Christian kids.  Many of them feel like they have disappointed God.  They seem to think that they have done something that has damaged the relationship and God is mad at them, or at least is withholding Himself from them as a result.  I don’t know when it actually hit me, but I was changed fundamentally as the week went on because I felt this way as a Christian too, especially in my younger days.

I preached over and over that our sin should drive us to God, not away from Him.  I tried to change the mindset that God is quick to punish when we do wrong.  There are certainly examples in the Bible where we could make the argument that He is this way, but we are also clearly taught that God is compassionate, gracious, and slow to anger (Psalm 103:8).  Why do we all go through spells of not believing this?  Even when I sin now as an adult, I immediately begin to think that God isn’t going to speak through me when I preach.  Something in me screams that God can’t work through me anymore.

The verse I’ve chosen for today says we are free.  I believe it means that we are free to not have to be the morality police all the time. We don’t have to sit around and let everyone know what they are doing wrong.  By the same token, we don’t have to sit around and evaluate our own performance and think that God has abandoned us because we are performing poorly.  I will make this easy . . . we are going to sin. God is constantly perfecting us and making us brand new by this crazy awesome restoration process called sanctification.  If you recognize that you are using your freedom to indulge in too much worldly things, then you simply stop feeding that nature.  Hence, Paul says, “don’t use your freedom to satisfy the sinful nature.”

The last line is what I’ve never thought of until recently.  Over the past 27 years of being a Christian, I thought when I sinned that I was supposed to just feel awful for it and be sorry.  I think God has called us to freedom from that as well. Yes, we are to repent and let God know that we agree with Him that we have been overindulging and it has kept us from Him.  Afterwards though, we are not to beat ourselves up over and over again and think that God is done with us and can’t wait to get even with us.  We are to actually receive the forgiveness and restoration that He offers.  Paul tells us the opposite of indulging our flesh . . . serving one another in love.

I spent a lot of this summer doing very little.  Indulging my flesh by watching movies, playing games on the Internet, sleeping too much, and just time-killing.  Nothing that anyone would look at and say, “Sinful!!”  I just used my freedom to satisfy my sinful nature and let it keep me from God’s presence.  At camp, I met some kids who have done the same thing.  What was the answer?  We were to spend a week together serving one another.  I might have thought that I was there for them, but it turns out I was there for me.

If you are like me and tend to judge others based on their behavior, or maybe you judge yourself based on your own behavior and decide that it is lacking, then Paul tells us the perfect solution:  Get out there and serve one another.  If we stay busy serving, then we aren’t busy indulging our flesh.

Later

Adam

And he went outside and wept bitterly. – Luke 22:62

I would think that Peter would say the worst thing he ever did was deny Jesus three times.  When a grown man as tough as him is weeping bitterly, that says a lot.  We know from reading on that he thought his relationship with Jesus was over.  When the three ladies went to visit the tomb of Jesus and found it empty, the angel said, “Go tell the disciples, and Peter.” The angel knew that Peter thought it was over for Him.  It had to ignite a small spark in Peter’s heart to know that he was mentioned specifically by name.

Here is what I’ve been pondering with all this:  If you could erase the most hurtful things you’ve ever done, or even the most painful things you’ve ever experienced, would you do it?  Looking back, I’ve done terrible things that I assumed would separate me from God.  The demons jump in so quickly with their voices, “It’s over for you . . . you’ve gone too far.”  Yet, on the other side of these poor choices is grace, forgiveness, and love that is absolutely impossible to experience outside of a relationship with God Himself.

I have been in a really dark fog for the past several months.  I really don’t know when or how it started, but I know that I allowed the darkness to descend upon me.  It seemed to strip all desire to do the things that I do for Jesus.  I didn’t want to write, didn’t want to preach, didn’t want to study, and didn’t even want to pray.  The only saving grace was that I didn’t want to let go of Him.  I would take long walks and just imagine being in His presence.  It was actually nice to just be with Him and not really have to say anything.

To make a really long story short, a couple of weeks ago, the dark fog just lifted.  It is amazing the level of darkness we will allow as long as it slowly gets darker and darker.  When it lifted, I could see myself holding on to Jesus for dear life. For maybe the first time in my life, I was holding on to Him and only Him.  I had no trust whatsoever in my own goodness or my own religious activities.

Peter had to feel a bit like I did.  When the performance aspect of his religion was taken away from him, he thought it was over.  I can’t imagine the darkness and despair that he was in.  I feel so sorry for him because he honestly thought his savior was dead and couldn’t speak to him anymore.  I have the privilege of knowing Jesus came back to life and restored Peter fully.  I know that Jesus never once said a single negative word about what he did.  He never made him feel the least bit guilty. He simply asked, “Do you love me?”

Why should I think that He would treat me differently?

Lord, you know that I love you.  Thank you for every trial and temptation that we go through that forces us to hold on to you and only you for dear life.  The light on the other side of the darkness is so bright and so wonderful. Help me never take my eyes off of you and help me never let go of your hand.  Most of all help me never be convinced that you have taken your eyes off of me and have stopped reaching out for me.  You are amazing, God.

Later

Adam

You study the scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life.  These are the very scriptures that testify about me. – John 5:39

I have been completely obsessed with this verse for over a month now.  Jesus, once again, is getting on to the religious people.  It is amazing how much He jumps on these guys. These guys are probably equally amazed. I mean they have to be saying in their hearts, “We know and study scriptures, we pray, we give, we are in church every week, why is Jesus not ok with us?”  All of those things are not bad things, unless you think they make you a good person and therefore worthy of eternal life.

I have been on a mission lately to verify that my trust is in Christ alone.  My Bible study began to make me a bit arrogant and started to feel more like I was doing it more and more to come up with something cool than just spending time with My Lord and hanging out with Him.  That is the very thing I think He is saying to me right now, “Adam, I’m glad you like My Book, but it is supposed to lead you to Me.”

How many religious duties do I perform with no regard as to whom I’m doing them for?  I’ve had this thing for the past couple of years where I do not eat before I preach.  I declare a fast basically from supper the night before until after the sermon.  At first, that drew me so close to Him and I felt such power.  As time went on, I just trusted in the fast and the fast didn’t lead me to Him.  It still worked.  I believe He used me just as much, but He is letting me know today that I completely began to miss the point.  I will fast on these days again, but I’m going to drop that for a while.  I remember the first Sunday that I ate on Sunday morning.  I was like, “I can’t break my streak!”  That has to be the garbage thinking Jesus was condemning in this verse.  I want my trust to be in Him.  I want to know Him.  I want to be led by Him and to Him.

I really think Christians need to beware.  Ask yourself if in any way your eternal hope is placed in your service to God.  There are people that believe that because they attend church regularly that they are good to go.  There are people that believe that because they play on the worship team, teach Sunday School, greet, preach, read the Bible, study the Bible, give to church, give to charities, and perform many, many other religious duties that this proves that they are a good person worthy of everlasting life.

Be absolutely sure that when you draw your last breath here on Earth that you are clinging on to Jesus for dear life . . . not “well, I’m a good person.”

Lord, help me to know You, like really know You.  Draw me as close to You as You ever have in my life. Let me not put my trust in anything that I do, but only in what You have done.  There is and never will be another like You.

Later

Adam