Deeper Devotional

Read Deuteronomy 8:1-20; Psalm 106:1-48
Our reading today chronicles God’s dealing with Israel and their response to Him. It is a picture of God’s love and faithfulness in the face of Israel’s rebellion and turning away from God. We can see how God kept His covenant promises and worked His plan on their behalf.

Yesterday we looked at the fact that God has been working in your life to bring about His will for you and to transform your life “for His good pleasure.” There was some homework to make a list of all the ways that God has blessed you in your life. Then to make another list of all the difficulties and hardships that you have had to overcome. Finally you were to make a third list of how God has used these events in your life to shape your character and make you the person that you are today. (If you want to – take a look back at June 29th’s devotional “God’s Call.” ) Consider this question: “Did you grow more spiritually in times of hardship or in times of prosperity.

As you consider how God has used the events in your life to mold you, also ask yourself, “What lessons have I learned about God, about family, about relationships, about who I am, and about my character?” What do I see God doing in my life for the sake of His kingdom? Take a moment to write them down.

Philippians 2:13 (NASB) for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

God is always at work in us and around us. When we think about serving God, we somehow think that we have to devise something to do. Our call is not to devise something, but to align ourselves with what God is already doing. Our prayer is not necessarily, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” but rather, “Lord, let me see what You are doing around me already and how You would have me be a part of it.”

But to hear God’s direction, we must be willing to be totally submitted to doing it. To be used of God requires absolute surrender. Consider the life of Abraham. God promised him that he would be the father of a mighty nation. God gave him Isaac, but then told Abraham to sacrifice him on Mount Moriah. God tested Abraham to see if he was totally committed to following the will of God, and then He spared Isaac. God also gave Joseph a vision of being a great leader, and then had him sold into slavery and thrown into prison. Moses was rescued from the bulrushes and raised by Pharaoh’s daughter in Egypt, but he had to spend forty years as a shepherd in the wilderness before he became the leader of Israel. David was called from being a shepherd to be the king of Israel, but first he had to run for his life for many years to escape from being killed by King Saul.

Abraham became the father of Israel. Joseph became a ruler in Egypt. Moses became a great leader and deliverer of Israel. And David became the greatest earthly king that Israel ever had.

Some might say, “But I don’t want to become a Moses or a David or a Joseph, because I don’t want to be tested like that! But I have a surprise for you. God has been at work in you since your creation to bring about His will for you. Our verse for today tells us as much. You may not be a Moses or a David, but God is working a plan in your life.

Here is some “homework” for you: Make a list of all the ways that God has blessed you in your life. Make another list of all the difficulties and hardships that you have had to overcome. Pray that the Lord will bring these things to your mind. Make a third list of how God has used these things in your life to shape your character and make you the person that you are today.

Read Ephesians 2:8-10

In Pastor Nate’s e-mail “This Week at KPC,” he mentions the three basic ways that we grow spiritually:
1. A regular devotional study of God’s Word;
2. Stay involved in a small group; and
3. Being involved in some type of Christian service.

We find it rather easy to follow the first two disciplines, but the third involves time and some risk. What we do not realize is that God has a calling on our life. The early Puritans believed that every Christian has a calling because every Christian is a minister. We look at ministers as the “hired professionals.” We have become lax in the idea of “hiring” others to do what we feel uncomfortable or ill-equipped to do ourselves. While having a full time staff person to train, organize and oversee ministry is critical, it does not relieve us of our responsibility before the Lord to be in personal ministry ourselves. If we step back, not only do we lose the blessing of personal ministry, but we fail to grow spiritually. It is through personal ministry that we encounter God at work and find Him revealing Himself to us.

In our reading today Paul reminds us that we owe our salvation to the undeserved favor of God. That is why we call it grace. Grace is at once the objective, operative, and cause of our salvation. The medium of salvation is faith, which is also its necessary condition. Faith however is not a quality, a virtue, or a faculty. It is not something that man can produce. It is a response evoked by the Holy Spirit.

In case faith should be in anyway misinterpreted as man’s contribution to his own salvation, Paul explains that it is nothing of our own doing but everything is a gift of God. The theologian, William Barclay says that “The whole process comes from nothing that we have done or could do.”

But salvation is not an end in itself. For our last verse tells us that we are God’s workmanship; God’s poem; God’s work of art. We are “made a new creation,” in Christ Jesus. The Greek word used here ktizō is used only of God and denotes the creative energy He alone can exert. The life of goodness that regeneration produces has been prepared for believers to “do” (Greek – peripateō, “walk about in”) from all eternity. The way has already been set out before us. All we have to do is “walk about in it.”

The point here is that God has “made a way” for you just as he did for Abraham, for Moses for Joshua, and for David. This week we will look at a way of exploring all that the Lord is doing in your life as He calls you into His service, to be a part of what He is doing to bring about His Kingdom.

As you pray today, ask the Lord to open your heart to His call to you.

The Discipline of Endurance
Read Hebrews 12:11-12
Our reading today tells us that “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. (Hebrews 12:11) Notice that the writer talks about training. He uses the analogy of an athlete who uses the hardship of physical training to condition himself and build his strength. Too often we confuse discipline with punishment. Discipline can be about gaining experience, problem solving, developing skills, wisdom and knowledge. It can be about avoiding sin, avoiding bad relationships. (Psalm 1:1)

The writer says that the fruit of God’s spiritual discipline is righteousness; it is knowing and doing what is right, it is building character. As we have looked at the context of learning discipline in the midst of hardship, the question is, “Can we make right decisions and remain faithful to God’s Law in the midst of hardship? This was the test that God continually gave to Israel in the wilderness and a test that they continued to fail. (Deuteronomy 8:2)

We are encouraged not to grow weary. Earthly trials actually testify to the fatherly discipline of God. Such trails call for a response of endurance, and we are cautioned against rejection of this character training. The Greek term for discipline is paideia. It was the common term for child rearing through instruction, training, and correction. However, here the text’s focus is on the call for perseverance. Therefore we, the readers should not be discouraged when we face trials because they discipline us and strengthen us.

In the closing verses of the text the writer uses poetic Old Testament language perhaps intentionally drawn from Isaiah and Proverbs (Isaiah 35:3-4; Proverbs 4:25-27) to encourage us to be healed so that we might complete the race set before us.

The Discipline of Adversity
Read Hebrews 12:3-12
Our earlier reading of reflection for the week was Hebrews 12:7-12. Let’s look again at these verses in more detail and in their context. The writer talks about suffering as a part of discipline which is used for our benefit by a loving heavenly father. This may seem like a strange statement until we consider this application in our own experience of raising children.

Too often we seek to protect our children from any hardship. In our affluent permissive society we want to shield our children from any adversity or trial. We want life to be easy for them. We make decisions for them so they will never make a mistake. We give them “things” so they will never have to do without. We take them everywhere to do everything so that they might experience everything. We think that we are providing them the best of everything.

But the writer of Hebrews says that if we do not allow them to experience the true hardships of life then we treat them as illegitimate children. (Hebrews 12:7-8) What does this mean? In Biblical times many Roman nobles had illegitimate sons, who were financially supported but left virtually without discipline. On the other hand, the son of a nobleman’s legal wife, who would carry the father’s name and inherit the estate, was subjected to a training regimen comparable to slavery. (Galatians 4:1-2)

The hardships of life come in a variety of forms. The writer recognizes that there is sin in the world and thaere are those who would afflict us. Certainly the readers of Hebrews in the early church knew persecution. He tells us to consider how Christ suffered for sinners although He was the Son who deserved no suffering. (Hebrews 2:10) We too are perfected through suffering.
Our earthy fathers disciplined us for a short time during the limited period of their earthly lives based on their limited wisdom. But our heavenly Father’s discipline is planned by His infinite wisdom for “our good” that we might share in His holiness. (Hebrews 12:10) It makes us Holy even as He is Holy (1 Peter 1:15-16).

Consider that your role as a parent is not to protect your children from every adversity in life, but to walk with them through it that they might be strengthened and learn to walk with Christ through it, being conformed into His image in the process so that they might be perfected in their faith.

As you pray today, seek to understand any adversity that you might be facing and what disciple you might be facing as a child of God. As a parent pray that you might have the Lord’s wisdom to walk side by side with your child through life’s adversity that they might be strengthened.

An Advocate With the Father
Read: Exodus 33:12-23

If we are to discipline our children we need to be able to affirm them and reassure them of our love for them as well. One of the ways that we affirm our love for our children is that we spend time with them. If children are confident that we love and value them then they are willing to receive our discipline as well.

In our reading today, God threatens to leave the people and send an angel in his place because the people have broken the covenant. (See Exodus 32:7-9). Yet Moses pleads for God’s grace and covenant mercy, by repeatedly asking for precisely what God threatened to withdraw: the revelation of His own Presence. Moses’ faithful persistence in intercession was grounded in God’s covenant promise of divine-human communion (Exodus 6:7, 19:5-6; Genesis 17:7).

In Exodus 33:12-13 we see that Moses made some very profound statements to the Lord: “See, You say to me, ‘Bring up this people.’ But You have not let me know whom You will send with me. Yet You have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found grace in My sight.’ 13 Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight. And consider that this nation is Your people.”

God had affirmed Moses and it was because of their close personal relationship that Moses could appeal to God for His grace. Moses knew that Israel had broken the covenant when they made the golden calf. He knew that they were a stiffed neck people. He could only plead God’s grace and covenant mercy.

God’s response is “My presence will go with you and I will give you rest” (Exodus 33:14). And God goes even further to confirm the covenant of Hhis presence by revealing even more of Himself to Moses and He passes by and allows Moses to personally see His Glory. (Exodus 33:22-23)

A personal relationship with God is important and that relationship is available through Christ Jesus. Jesus is our mediator before God even as Moses was a mediator before God for Israel. We can have that same personal relationship with God that Moses had. If we are to walk before God in obedience, if we are to live under His discipline, our relationship with Christ is crucial. Christ is the way to know who God is. Christ is the way we know and receive the love of God. (1 John 2:1)

As you pray today, take the time to grow close to Christ. Take the time to commune with Him.