Jesus Always

A friend shared a devotion the other day that I enjoyed so I thought I would share it today.  I do not know the source so I apologize for not giving credit to the actual writer.

Jesus Always

My Love will never let you go!  It has an eternal grip on you.  You live in a world that is unpredictable and unsafe in many ways.  As you look around, you see landscape littered with broken promises.

However, My Love is a promise that will never be broken.  Though the moutains be shaken and the hill be removed, yet My unfailing Love for you will not be shaken.  The prophet Isaiah is painting a picture of dire circumstances: quaking mountains and disappearing hills.  No matter what is happening, My Love is unshakable.  You can build your life on it!

Sometimes My children believe I care for them but still find it difficult to receive My Love in full measure.  I want you to learn to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is My Love for you.  Ask My Spirit to empower you to know this Love that surpasses knowledge.  Break free from faulty self-images so you can view yourself as I see you – radiant in My righteousness, wrapped in luminous Love.

Isaiah 54:10

Though the mountains be shaken
    and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
    nor my covenant of peace be removed,”
    says the Lord, who has compassion on you.

Ephesians 3:16-19

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,  so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,  may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,  and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Isaiah 61:10

I delight greatly in the Lord;
    my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
    and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
    and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

Thursday Devotional - Faith and Superiority

As we talked last week, if we have true saving faith, then there’s no place for boasting. If there’s no place for boasting, then there isn’t any place for superiority either.

Paul points out in Romans that faith eliminates human prejudice, like between the Jews and Gentiles. God is God of both. He justifies both by the same faith.

Romans 3: 29-30         Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. 

The Jews thought they were better. They worked hard to prove it, too. Superiority divides, but faith unites. Faith stops discrimination. God saves all sinners the same way, by grace through faith in Jesus. No believer is more God’s child than any other believer.

Are any of my sisters’ biological children more of a grandchild to my parents than my children? No! They may have come first (and biologically), but they aren’t better. My parents love all of them the same. How much more does God love each of His children the same?!!

 

Where do you and I think we are better or worse than someone else? 

Or who do you and I think is beyond receiving God’s justification?

Is there someone you and I would be upset to see in Heaven?

We were all guilty before God, yet God pronounced you and me not guilty, if we’ve placed our faith in Jesus!

Romans 3:22      This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile.

Alice

Perfect Peace

Open the gates to all who are righteous;
    allow the faithful to enter.
You will keep in perfect peace
    all who trust in you,
    all whose thoughts are fixed on you!
Trust in the Lord always,
    for the Lord God is the eternal Rock.  Isaiah 26:2-4

I would like to share something that many of you might be startled by, and I rarely share these stories because it’s hard for me.  Hard because I typically prefer not to touch topics based on race.  Someone decided they would, and would attempt to use God to point this out.  A gentleman told me that I should be thankful that (please forgive the language) white people gave me the gospel, and I should be thankful ‘his’ people had shown my people who God was.  I had a choice right then and there.  I could lash out in bitter anger.  Or, I could choose to respond with God’s heart and wisdom.  I chose the latter responding that even if his claim were true, God is big enough that I am pretty sure He would have gotten the word of Christ to me.  After that response, he said that I clearly have a hatred for white people because I would not acknowledge that fact.  I simply smiled ending the conversation saying, “That’s interesting.  I will make sure to tell my white pastor that.”  You see, it does not bother me that there are people who would hate me just simply because I am a black man.  As long as I find peace with God, I can respond with His love in my heart and wisdom in my mind.

Finding peace with God can lift you up beyond your situation or circumstance.  There are many who say God sees us all the same.  I agree with that idea with the understanding that while He sees us all the same, He made us different so that we would not see Him the same.  I’m sure there is that ‘What’s Kent talking about now’ thought in your mind.  Here’s the thing.  There are differences in races.  In fact, I would say that God intended us to be different culturally because He is too big to see from just one perspective.  He is peace to two people but for two different reasons.  One may be because He provides peace from an unjust world.  Another may be because He provides peace when the world doesn’t make sense.  Two different views, but yet, the same awesome and amazing God.  Remember our stories of how we came close to God are rarely the same, but yet, we all ended up under the same umbrella.  Perfect peace does not explain our journey.  It is our destination.

God is our perfect peace.  Whether it is due to our falling short in one area or suffering duress in another, God is always there to pick up, comfort, strengthen, and reinforce us.  Our difference does not make one more or less perfect than the other.  It makes us all perfect under Christ for He is the perfecter of our faith.  Let us all choose to embrace each other’s difference realizing this is what God truly intended.  How can one’s different story of faith be of encouragement to you?  How can you be more embracing culturally of another’s view of the same loving God?  My prayer is that no matter who we are, we embrace God’s perfect peace.  Amen.