What Does He Want? (Friday Devotional)

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”

- Psalm 119:105

People go to extreme lengths to find out what their best future looks like—what job they’re “supposed” to take, who their “supposed” to marry, where they’re “supposed” to live, etc. Pursuing knowledge of what the future holds, some turn to psychics and soothsayers who offer vague pronouncements about what is to come. More analytical minds map out as many hypothetical outcomes as they can imagine and give themselves migraines trying to decide the right decision for every possible scenario.

Not only are Christians susceptible to this desire to know their best future now, they baptize it. Certain that God has one specific, set destiny in mind for every person (and fearful of deviating from it), many Christians will go to extreme lengths to ensure they’re making the correct life decisions. For some that means closing their eyes, pointing to a Bible verse at random, and drawing inspiration from its contents. For others it means waiting for a sign from above, however innocuous that sign may seem to others, and counting on it to point them in the right direction. These flawed methods, though grounded more in superstition than mature faith in God, nevertheless point to a valid, faithful question: how do I know what God wants me to do?

Scripture tells us that the word of God—whether the spoken word of the Lord’s still, small voice; the written word of the Bible; or the incarnate Word of Jesus Christ—is the source of direction in the life of the believer. The psalmist compares God’s word to a lamp, illuminating where you should go; it shines a light when all you see is darkness. By listening to God in prayer, by reading the God-breathed words of Scripture, and by observing the actions and ethic of Jesus, the Word made flesh, you are able to better discern where God is leading you.

When seeking the will of God in your life, you don’t have to turn to elaborate rituals or convoluted procedures to know what God calls you to do. He is not a trickster who reveals His will in riddles; rather, He has abundantly revealed Himself through the words of the Bible and the actions of Jesus, and He continues to show us His will day by day in the Spirit. If you want to know what God wants from you, it’s not about finding the right mechanism you can control—it’s simply about listening to what He says.

Into the Unknown (Friday Devotional)

“Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.”

- Genesis 12:1-4

We hadn’t seen a sign for half an hour. The road had long ago narrowed to one lane, and a tight one at that. To top it off, the 4G signal on our phones, the signal that had been giving us directions up to this point, had abandoned us several miles back. As the car continued to climb the mountainside, never going faster than 20 mph, it was hard to believe we were going the right way.

Lindsey and I were headed to a hiking trail in the Great Smoky Mountains, one recommended to us by a park ranger the day before. It was remote, he’d said, not one of the trails most park visitors attempted, largely due to its distance from the park’s visitors center. That was appealing to us when he told us about it, but as we now made our way up the mountain, we understood others’ hesitation. Climbing the mountain road in our rental car with no hint that a trailhead was near, pressing deeper and deeper into a wilderness we were unfamiliar with, we couldn’t help but wonder: why didn’t we stick with what we knew?

This is the kind of question that must have dogged Abram even in his obedience. While we often focus on the promises God makes in this passage, that Abram will be blessed and his enemies cursed and that he will be a blessing to all the families of the earth, the Lord does not shy away from the demand he is placing on his servant. Abram is commanded to, at age 75, start over—to leave behind his “country and [his] kindred and [his] father’s house”, all for a land he has never seen and to which God hasn’t yet given him directions. His call is to leave behind the known for the unknown.

Moments like these, when your comfortable status quo is threatened by the beckoning of an uncertain future, are perhaps the truest test of your faith in God. When you hear the Lord calling you to make a change, the easy choice is to clamp your hands over your ears and shout, “I can’t hear you!” After all, you think, God has blessed me where I am, so why would he possibly want me to go somewhere else?

One of the greatest threats to faith is such complacency. When you assume you’re spiritually where you need to be, when you’ve closed yourself off to the idea of God changing you, you can no longer claim to be in His will. Especially when your way seems safer and more comfortable than God’s way, faith is what compels you to follow Him instead of leading yourself.

Surrendering your life to the Lord is not a decision you make once, it is something you choose to do every day, every moment. When you know God is calling you to make a change—to serve when you would rather sit, to reach out when you would rather keep to yourself, to forgive when you would rather hold a grudge—which is more important to you, your comfort or His will?

Fighting Fear (Friday Devotional)

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We loved because He first loved us.”

- 1 John 4:18-19

Fear has an outsized influence on decision making. Sometimes this is a positive thing: you fear losing steady income, so you save; you fear gaining weight so you eat in moderation. Fear of the worst case scenario can keep your basest instincts in check.

But more often, fear does not enable self-control, it cripples it.  When you are afraid, instead of thinking rationally and reasonably, you simply react. Instead of holding to what you know is right, you jump at what feels safe. Fear has a way of causing you to think, say, and do things which would normally make you cringe.

Common sense says that you reduce your fear by improving your safety, or at least your feeling of safety. But the unfortunate reality is that a new menace always seems to be right around the corner, whether familiar or in a new form. No matter how much security your provide yourself, no matter how many threats you eliminate or prevent, fear always tells you that you’re a step behind and that danger could strike any day now.

So the Bible offers a different formula for driving out fear, one that is not intuitive but works nevertheless: love. Rather than reacting to fear with anger and rash decisions, God says to respond to fear by worrying less about your own well-being and more about how you can help another’s. We see this lived out in the ministry of Jesus, who spent his days surrounded by the diseased and the demon-possessed, but who reached out instead of recoiling. We see it in his preaching, where he proclaimed the good news even while some of his listeners plotted his death. Ultimately, we see it at the cross, where he gave his life so that we might be saved. In moments when Jesus would have had every right to fear for himself, he thought first of others.

Love does not promise safety and security—after all, Jesus’s supreme example of love resulted in his crucifixion and death. But it does promise that you can face even the most frightening challenges without fearing them. Instead of cowering in the face of your dread, love empowers you stand up for others. Instead of condemning those you see as threats, love enables you to see them as people created in the image of God. Where fear wounds, love redeems.

In a world that sometimes seems to grow more frightening every day, God’s message remains the same: “there is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear.” When you are afraid, instead of grabbing at the low rung of anger and spitefulness, may you reach for the higher ideal of Christ, who responded to fear with compassion, mercy, and grace. May the cross serve not only as your salvation, but as your example—that even when things are at their scariest, loving like Jesus can only bring victory.

Quite a Show (Friday Devotional)

“So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.”

 - Matthew 5:23-24

Some days you just have to fake it. You wake up exhausted and unmotivated, but you’ve got a big presentation to give at work, so you muster up some phony enthusiasm. It’s a night when you just want to sink into the couch and watch TV, but you have a dinner party to attend, so you force a smile and act like you couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. We’ve all been there—sometimes for the sake of appearances, you channel your inner actor and put on a show.

Sunday morning may be when this happens the most—no matter how stressful the morning has been up to that point, when you walk through the doorway of the church, you’re all smiles. No matter what kind of week you’ve had, when someone asks you how you’re doing, your stock answer is “great.” And no matter what grudges you’re holding, what anger you’re feeling, what arguments have shaped your week, you walk into the sanctuary to worship as though nothing ever happened.

While this kind of pretending may fool your fellow believers, the Bible makes clear that God wants no part of it. In teaching about anger, Jesus says that you have an obligation to set things right with your fellow believers before you can expect to set things right with God. You cannot present yourself to God as pure in heart while simultaneously resenting a brother or sister in Christ, because He sees right through the act that fools others.

What God desires is not followers who smile for the camera while seething underneath. What He wants is for your devotion to Him to extend to all areas of your life, including and especially your relationships with others. If you would be generous with Him then you must also be generous with others; if you would show Him love then you must show others love; if you would be forgiven by Him then you must forgive others. You cannot compartmentalize faith by giving God your best and everyone else your worst. May you instead follow Jesus in all that you do—not just when it’s time to put on a show.

What Sort of Year Will It Be? (Friday Devotional)

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

- Luke 4:18-19

With 2016 now upon us, this is the time when many people map out what the new year will look like. Resolutions are made, activities are planned, priorities are reassessed, and routines are implemented, all in an effort to ensure that this year is an improvement on the last one. This is the year, we proudly proclaim, that a bad habit finally bites the dust or that a better one takes hold; this is the year that everything changes.

Our Lord himself made such a proclamation 2,000 years ago in his hometown of Nazareth. Standing in a crowded synagogue, he read from a scroll bearing the words of the prophet Isaiah, words that prophesied a time when one anointed by God would grant freedom from want, captivity, sickness, and oppression. This anointed one, or “Messiah”, would usher in “the year of the Lord’s favor”, the era of jubilee. His arrival would signal the inauguration of the kingdom of God.

None of this was foreign to Jesus’ audience, who knew this text well and looked with hope to its promised future. But Jesus made news—and enemies—when he rolled the scroll up and looked to those seated around him. “Today,” he said, “this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” The implication was clear: Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, and the year of the Lord’s favor had begun.

The people in the synagogue that day responded to that message the same way so many do today—they rejected it outright. Jesus did look like the Messiah they imagined; he did not have the regal bearing or military training for such a role. He was nothing but a blasphemer with delusions of grandeur. Their rejection of Jesus foreshadowed the day when a different crowd would demand his crucifixion for making the same promises.

Today, believers recognize the truth of what Jesus said that day in Nazareth, that he was and is the Messiah. He came offering salvation from the afflictions of this world, including the ultimate cause of those afflictions, sin. Through his life, death, and resurrection, the kingdom of God has been ushered in, and it will one day be consummated with his return.

But while we are quick to acknowledge the truth of the message, we can be slow to accept the responsibility it places on us as Jesus’ disciples. If he came so that the oppressed could be freed, then surely we have an obligation to assist them. If he came so that the captives could be released, then surely we have a responsibility to those in chains. If his gospel is for the poor, then how can we ignore the least among us?

There are plenty of goals you can set for the new year, plenty of changes you can make. Maybe for you this is the Year of Productivity or the Year of Losing Weight or the Year of Quitting Smoking. But before you devote all of your energy and resources to your own goal, remember that Christ has already given this age a label: the year of the Lord’s favor. As his follower, may you surrender yourself faithfully to his goal, desiring that this new year is not only happy, but blessed.