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He will not constantly accuse us, nor remain angry forever. Psalm 103:9
Are you afraid of God? I don’t mean a healthy respect for God and his power. I mean a nail-biting, goose-bump raising fear of God.
There are two extreme answers to that question. One is to focus so much on the ‘God is love’ idea that we see God as a kindly old grandfather type. You know the kind of guy that wants nothing more than to hang out at the ice cream shop with you and give you all the ice cream you can possible hope for.
The other extreme is to be so terrified with the concept of an almighty, all knowing, all powerful God that you walk on eggshells your entire life because you ‘know’ that one small slip and you’ll be spending eternity in hell!
God isn’t some cop looking to catch us at doing something wrong, nor is he an ogre hoping to keep us miserable our entire lives. On the other hand, he isn’t an eternal Santa Clause whose only goal in life is to give you nice presents and keep you happy.
God has rules. But his rules aren’t to make you miserable, but to help you be the very best you can be. He wants you to excel, but he also knows that certain lifestyles and certain activities may seem fun at the time but will cause problems in the future.
Zephaniah 3:17 says “For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”
When you fail (notice I said ‘when’ not ‘if’) don’t forget that God isn’t concerned about pointing out your faults or making you feel guilty. When we fail we remember how we failed last time. God doesn’t keep score. Rather than pointing a finger at us to accuse us, he puts his arm around us to guide us along the way. He delights in you even though you fail. He sings joyful love songs to you. We need never fear coming into God’s presence because we bring a smile to his face every time he sees us.
God’s goodness guides us and never condemns us because of his great love for us.
PRAYER: Father God, thank you for your patience with me. I confess that many times my failure is rebellion more than mistakes. Help me to see your goodness in the midst of my struggle and accept your guidance for my life. In Jesus name, Amen.
“He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases.” Psalm 103:3
“I used to believe in God when I was little,” the man in the airplane seat next to me said, “but as I grew older and saw the mess this world is in, I changed my mind. IF there is a God, and IF he’s good, then t
here wouldn’t be so much sickness and war.”
Even those of us ‘Christians’ can get sucked into questioning whether God is really good or not. Especially when we watch our homes being destroyed, or get a bad doctor’s report, or lose our jobs, stand beside the grave of a loved one who ‘died too soon’, or are served divorce papers.
Forgiveness is one of those areas in which it’s easy to forget Gods’ goodness. When we play the comparison game and see our own weakness it’s easy to think God won’t forgive me because I’ve let him down too many times. When we look at our own sin, more than God’s grace, we can live in defeat emotionally and physically.
The good news is that God’s goodness isn’t dependent on circumstances or our own behavior. God’s goodness is dependent solely on his character. God is good because God is good, not because of anything we’ve done.
Psalm 103:3 is a great reminder of that. The psalmist writes “He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases.” He doesn’t just forgive some of those sins. He doesn’t wait to see if we really mean it when we confess. He doesn’t have a score card. He forgives because he is good!
Don’t allow the mistakes of your past keep you from experiencing God’s goodness. You can never out-sin God’s grace. His forgiveness is like a healing balm for the pain of your failure.
God is good because he good. His goodness is shown through forgiveness.
PRAYER: Father God, I thank you today for your goodness even in light of my failures. Forgive me for the times I doubt your way is best and choose my own way. Empower me with your Spirit to live in the victory your grace can give. Amen.
Search for them as you would for silver; seek them like hidden treasures. Proverbs 2:4
Several years ago I was attending classes at a University about two hours away. I would leave Sunday night and return on Friday. One Sunday, I was just getting ready to leave. The car was packed and all I needed to do was grab my wallet and be on my way. THAT was the problem. My wallet had disappeard!
We looked in every conceivable place and a few other places as well. Some were checked numerous times. I HAD to have that wallet in order to leave. Nothing else mattered at that point. Finally I resigned myself to the fact that it may have been dropped in a park we were at the day before. Most likely someone had found it and taken my cash and credit cards. Trying to find it in the park would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
I called the credit card company and was in the process of canceling my card when all the sudden, my wife called from the other room, “Found it!” Somehow my wallet had fallen off the bed and gotten weirdly wedged between the frame and the mattress. How she happened to see it there remains a mystery. However, the crisis was averted and I was on my way in a matter of minutes, very relieved at the outcome.
The things we see as the most important are the things we search for the hardest. When we make knowing God a priority, he responds by revealing himself more fully. Growing deeper into God takes more than casual church attendance or quick, thoughtless prayers. Growing deeper in God means spending as much time with him as we possibly can by spending time in his word, spending quality time with his people and serving him with our God-given gifts.
Your Father is earnestly seeking to reveal himself to you more fully. The enemy will do whatever he can to keep you from that source of power. Make your relationship with God a priority.
PRAYER: Father, my simple prayer to you today is that you would reveal yourself to me in ways I’ve never seen before. In Jesus name, Amen.
Cry out for insight, and ask for understanding. Proverbs 2:3
“She’s leaving for home tomorrow. I don’t want her to go. I love her, but she says we’ll never work out. What can I do?”
That phone call happened over ten years ago but I still hear the panic in his voice. My friend Bill (not his real name) was several years younger than I was. He was just starting out in life and had finally met the girl of his dreams, although she may have referred to it as a nightmare, not a dream.
Bill had a heart of gold but his youthfulness often got him in trouble because he would often act first, think later (and rarely listen). The woman of his dreams had moved to the Midwest for the summer to stay with a friend and see if things could work with Bill. Obviously, things weren’t going well.
As Bill and I talked on the phone I gleaned a few more details about the situation. His girlfriend told him that the summer had been one of frustration and futility. She was going home because it was obvious things would never work out between them and she didn’t want to waste her time trying to get Bill to listen to her.
I’m no ‘Abigail Van Buren’ but I told Bill that if he really loved her he needed to sit her down, ask her to tell him what needed to happen to make things work, and keep his mouth SHUT. This was not an easy skill for Bill. He would often revert to making excuses, or defending himself or pointing out other people’s weaknesses. Silence and listening weren’t a skill he excelled at.
My advice must have worked. Ten years and three kids later Bill and his bride are happily married. I’d like to take credit, but my advice really wasn’t magic. Each of us need to learn the skill of listening in our relationships with each other and especially with God.
Proverbs 2:3 tells us to “Cry out for insight, and ask for understanding.” If you are like me, my prayers are often a list of requests for myself or others. I pray for things and events, but not insight and understanding.
It’s interesting that Solomon would pen this proverb. He chose insight and understanding over power or wealth because he knew that with insight and understanding the rest would probably naturally fall into place.
Bill learned a valuable lesson each of us need to learn. We serve a God that is all-wise and all-knowing and his desire is to share with us what he knows so we can make wise choices in life. We will learn far more about God by listening to him than talking to him. Using his word as a foundation be deliberate and passionate about coming to him. Hebrews says we can approach the throne of grace with confidence, not timidity. (Hebrews 4:16)
PRAYER: Father God, life at times confuses me. Other times it scares me. Help me learn how to listen to you so that I can gain the wisdom I need to approach the issues I’m facing in life. Thank you for your passionate desire to help me through. Amen.
Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding. Proverbs 2:2
Those of us from my generation remember a time when just changing the channel on the television set was a chore. Not only did you have to get up and walk ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE ROOM and manually turn a dial, once you found the channel you wanted you had another dial to turn which was called various things. The one I remember was fine tuning. You see, back then you had to adjust the tuner ever so slightly to get the clearest picture. Since I always lived in rural areas, the challenge was even trickier some days.
Sometimes we need to ‘fine tune’ our lives spiritually as well. Just as the ‘TV waves’ strayed from time to time, so do we. One of the first things an orchestra conductor does is to listen to the musicians to make sure every instrument is in tune. A good conductor can hear even the slightest variance and that makes all the difference in the performance.
Knowing God as he is requires us to constantly check our attitude according to the tuning fork of his Word. It’s too easy to play the comparison game. It’s safer to follow the religious dogmas and creeds, than it is to measure our lives according to the standard of God’s will. Those standards are clearly spelled out in his Word and exemplified in the life of Jesus Christ.
“Good enough” and “Close is okay” is never an attitude God uses. Everything he does is perfect and he calls us to perfection. Fortunately, he also empowers us to live as perfect as we can through his Holy Spirit.
A daily prayer I’m trying to implement in my own life is an adaptation of what the Psalmist says in Psalm 139. ‘Father, today yourself to me in a way that will direct me to live more closely to your will. Amen’
The real beauty of that short prayer is that your Father want’s to reveal himself to you and he’ll never ask you to change something without empowering you to change. It’s really a matter of trust. If you believe he loves you, you can trust the path he leads you down.
PRAYER: Father, there are so many times I’m distracted by the world or waver in my love for you or others. Show me where to change and how to change. Then, empower me with your Holy Spirit to fine tune my heart to yours. Amen.
