Selective Listening (Friday Devotional)

“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face shine upon us, that Your way may be known upon earth, Your saving power among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, O God, let all the peoples praise You.”

- Psalm 67:1-3

Sometimes you only hear the part you want to hear. The child who is promised ice cream if she cleans her room may forget to pick up her toys, but she won’t forget the promise of sweets—that’s the part she heard. The teenager whose parents tell him they’ll buy him a car if he keeps his grades up, pays for his own gas, and works a part-time job hears only one thing: I’m getting a car! This pattern continues even through adulthood—we are quick to hear and remember a promise, but we don’t always make out the sounds of responsibility. We hear only what we want to hear.

One of the times we most commonly practice this selective listening is when we read Scripture. In the passage above, the opening words—“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face shine upon us”—are likely familiar to you. You’ve heard them in invocations, seen them on wall decorations, and perhaps even claimed them as a personal prayer. Asking God for His blessing is both a good and a common prayer for many believers.

What is rarer is a knowledge of the words that follow. The psalmist asks for God’s blessing at the outset, but when you keep reading, you get a better understanding of why: “that Your way may be known upon earth, Your saving power among all nations.” God’s blessing is requested not for selfish motivations, not for health or wealth or power, but so that others might know God. The prayer for blessing, seemingly about what God can do for the psalmist, is actually grounded in a desire to see others flourish.

It is easy to selectively hear the Bible’s promises, to cling so tightly to the joy of salvation and the hope of eternal life that you miss the responsibilities of discipleship. Psalm 67 can serve as a reminder that the believer’s prayer for blessing should start with these words: “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” May you seek God’s help in all things—not so you would be glorified, but so that He would be through you.

Defending Your Territory (Friday Devotional)

“And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.””

- Acts 11:16-18

I cringed when I first saw the big German Shepherd standing on his owner’s lawn, noticing he wasn’t leashed—I had hoped for a leisurely run around the neighborhood and now I worried I was about to be chased back to my car instead. But contrary to my expectations, he didn’t come rushing toward me—in fact, he didn’t move at all. I stared at him and he just stared right back at me, silent and stock-still.

I cautiously jogged toward his lawn, and while his eyes never left me, he remained motionless as I approached. Finally, I arrived in front of his lawn and crossed the invisible line in the sidewalk that put me in his territory. It was at that moment, and not a second sooner, that he started frantically running around the front lawn in a circle, barking loud enough to wake people three streets down. Startled, my jog turned into a sprint and I zoomed past his lawn, and when I passed the fence line of his house, the barking suddenly stopped. Still running, I looked back and saw him, just like before, glaring at me silently…daring me to walk in his territory again.

That’s the natural, impulsive response when someone unfamiliar enters a space you thought was yours—make a lot of noise, run yourself ragged, do whatever it takes to get them back where they belong. Whether a family tradition, a room in the house, or the makeup of a club, all of us have those things in life that are ours, things that we will not allow to be changed without our permission. We defend them with a kind of territorial, even tribal, zeal, ready to protect their sanctity at any cost. You can look, we seem to tell others, but you can’t touch.

That attitude has infiltrated the church since the first century, with well-meaning believers showing more concern for the church’s defense than its growth. Too often, new believers and their ideas are greeted not with love and hospitality, but suspicion and resentment. They are unfamiliar, after all, and until they prove themselves, they bear more resemblance to invaders than family.

Acts 11 offers a correction to that mentality. Fellow believers, no matter how different from you in belief or practice, are your brothers and sisters in Christ, servants of the same Lord as you. The tie that binds us together is not a creed or a tradition, but the Holy Spirit which God gives every person who declares Jesus as Lord.

In an age of division and strife, there is an ever-present temptation to lash out at those whom you feel are threatening your faith—even when it is their faith too. Instead, following Jesus’s example at Gethsemane, God’s people should be concerned not with creating wounds, but healing them, with reaching out in kindness instead of lashing out in fear. Rather than giving in to the pull of polarization, may you respond to your fellow believers, even those with whom you disagree, with the love of Christ.

Words and Works (Friday Devotional)

“If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

- John 10:37-38

Words, when used effectively, have tremendous power. As argument they can persuade. As oratory they can inspire. As poetry they can even change the way you see the world. Much like music, the right words put in the right order can move people in ways they cannot explain.

But words also have limits. Though they can inspire action, they are no substitute for it. Words are the starting gun for every movement, but are rarely what sustains them. Only when paired with deeds do words reach beyond the hypothetical and into real life.

The ministry of Jesus offers a golden balance between words and works. From the Sermon on the Mount to the conversation with Nicodemus to the parables, the four gospels offer us plenty of memorable words from Jesus that explain his message and its effect on our lives. We treasure these words, we memorize them, we draw inspiration from them. We are eager to hear from Jesus.

But today, just like in the days of John 10, there are those who need more from Jesus than words. For those who would see him as little more than a speaker with delusions of grandeur, Jesus points as proof to his works and asks if they are from God. “Even though you do not believe me, believe the works,” he says. The sick are healed, the multitudes fed, storms calmed, sins forgiven, grace extended, dignity restored—these acts of power and compassion and love are far from incidental; they are illustrations of the power and compassion and love of God in Christ. If some would not hear God’s word from the lips of Jesus, perhaps they would see it in his works.

As you seek to follow Christ, it is helpful to remember that the gospel is more than verses to memorize, doctrines to learn, and belief statements to sign. Ultimately, the gospel of Jesus Christ is found in the meeting of words and works—when you can not only explain Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross, but can also live sacrificially, when you can not only explain the love of God, but show it. There are those who need not just to hear the gospel, but to see it—if they will not believe your words, may they believe your works.

Living Your Future (Friday Devotional)

“Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders; they numbered myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, singing with full voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing, “To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!””

Revelation 5:11-13

Everyone has an ideal future they visualize for themselves. It could feature a four-bedroom house in the country, a passport filled with stamps, an award ceremony in which you’re giving the acceptance speech, or any number of other possibilities—whatever your dream, you know it so well it almost seems real. It’s something you’ve pictured dozens if not hundreds of times, and you can rapturously envision how you would feel if you were to achieve it.

The issue then becomes how to attain such a future. Successful people, from bestselling novelists to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, are all used to receiving the same question from people who dream of achieving their level of success: what should I do to someday get where you are? The frequent reply comes in the form of another question: what are you doing now to get there? The future you visualize, at least according to those who have achieved their own dreams, is not something you stumble upon or that just happens magically—it is something you should be preparing for now.

In Revelation 5, John receives a vision of heaven, of thousands upon thousands surrounding God’s throne and singing in unison, praising Christ as worthy of all honor and glory. It is a beautiful, overwhelming picture of both the present and the future—of what takes place in heaven today and what all believers will one day experience for themselves. For thousands of years, Christians have looked to this promise with hope, looking forward to the day when they will fully know the presence of God and their voices will join the eternal song.

But like any other dream you might visualize, it is important to ask: how are you preparing now for the heavenly future you want someday? The tendency is to separate eternal life in heaven from life on earth today, to believe that the two are entirely separate realities with no bearing on one another, but if the Christ who reigns in heaven is the same Christ who lives in you, then surely there must be some overlap. In Christ the kingdom of God has come to earth, so your song of praise to the Lamb need not wait until after death—you can start rehearsing it today!

Life looks different when you see it as a preparation for surrounding the throne. From the way you go about your work to the way you raise your children to the way you talk about people who are different than you, everything you do becomes an act of worship. When undertaken with intentionality, no interaction is insignificant; every moment is an opportunity to share the love of Christ in word and deed, to worship in spirit and in truth. May the hope of heaven not just be something you visualize, but something for which you prepare today.

Life on Loan (Friday Devotional)

“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.”

- 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

When I was growing up, no Saturday was complete without a trip to the library. Every week, my brothers and I browsed the shelves eagerly and then plopped down in a big, comfortable chair to survey that week’s bounty. After a while, Dad would let us know it was time to go, at which point we’d gather up our chosen stack of books and check them out for the next week. Checking out, reading, returning, and (for particularly lengthy stories) occasionally renewing library books was a regular part of the week; we were experienced library patrons.

So we learned early on that there was a big difference in how we were expected to treat library books compared to the books we owned. If it was one of our books, we were welcome to dog-ear pages, write our names on the inside cover, or basically do anything we wanted with it—after all, it was ours! But library books were to be treated gently, like fragile treasures. We knew never to leave them outside, to keep up with them at all times, and to handle them with the utmost care. The reason for this difference in treatment was obvious: library books didn’t belong to us.

In writing to the church in Corinth, Paul advises followers of Christ to regard our bodies in the same way. The natural tendency is to think of the body as inherently yours—you are born with it, you have it your entire life, and you don’t give it up until death. What could more obviously be your property than the one thing in life no one can take away from you?

But 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 prompts you to look at your life—not just your body, but also your thoughts, your ideas, and your dreams—from a holier perspective. Your life is not so much a right as a gift, bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ so that God might be glorified through you. Understood this way, every believer should feel a powerful sense of both responsibility and urgency—this brief life, this mortal body, these were given so that you might contribute to the eternal work of the kingdom of God.

Some approach the world with a fierce independence, wanting to live on their own terms and rely on others as little as possible. The worst thing in the world, they think, would be if they had to depend on anyone but themselves. But the believer recognizes that in an ultimate sense, we are dependent, that every person needs the grace of God in order to sustain and save them. Your entire life, from the breaths you take to the words you speak, is God’s to give and take away, and yours to use wisely. So as you work, think, interact with others, and decide how to spend your time today, may you never forget to whom you belong.