Thursday Devotional - Where's Your Zeal?

We often describe James as very eager. He is zealous and passionate about so many things! However, he often needs redirected. 😊

Last week we saw how Paul grieved (in the first part of chapter 9) over the Jews’ lack of belief. Here, he continues to share his heart’s desire and prayer for their misdirected zeal.

Romans 10:1-4       Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. ² For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. ³ Since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. ⁴ Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

(Romans 9:31-32   but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. ³² Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone.)

Paul says Israel pursued righteousness by the law instead of by faith and submission to God. They were zealous, but not with the right focus!

Do you know anyone who is eagerly and passionately striving for something you know they will never attain or master? Maybe they have the wrong focus. Maybe it’s a kid with a particular sport. Maybe it’s a teen or adult pursuing a relationship that won’t turn into anything or won’t satisfy like they think.

What are you and I zealous about? If we eagerly and passionately pursue God through faith in Christ, our zeal won’t be wasted. He will give us lasting satisfaction!

Alice

Understanding The Process

So now that you know God (or should I say, now that God knows you), why do you want to go back again and become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world?  You are trying to earn favor with God by observing certain days or months or seasons or years.  I fear for you. Perhaps all my hard work with you was for nothing.  Dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to live as I do in freedom from these things, for I have become like you Gentiles—free from those laws.  Galatians 4:9-12a

When I was a child in elementary school, I learned how to do algebra quickly.  In fact, I got so good at it that I would do it in my head.  That carried me all the way to freshman year in high school, where I started to struggle.  The thing was I could figure in my head the answer because it became second nature to me.  However, I was not able to understand why that was the correct answer.  I had to learn the process that went with it.  Thus, I was slower than my peers that year.  However, once I understood the process, I was doing college level math by my senior year.  This very much reminded me of my journey with God.  When I was saved, I became His child, but I did not jump from ‘saved’ to Heaven.  I needed to understand why He valued me and to serve Him out of love and not obligation.  We know Heaven is the final destination and ‘answer to our math question,’ but we still must go through the process of learning His purpose for our lives here in this world.

We must focus on process of growing through Christ.  Many accept the gift of grace failing to go further to understand who He is.  They carry on just knowing that He saved them, but focus on doing things as an obligation toward salvation.  In those cases, we fail in our relationship with Christ because we do not deepen it or to Paul’s point, “earn favor with God by observing certain days or months or seasons or years.”  Others focus on feeling emotionally connected with God without building enough substance Biblically.  They experience little change in their life, and thus, they eventually fall toward spiritual stagnation, which eventually diminishes the emotional connection altogether.  However, a true life changing spirit filled journey is not only action-oriented but also creates a transformative change of heart.  Paul was bringing this awareness to the Galatians.  He encouraged them to live a life free from the bondage of obligations and to replace it with one of love for God.  If we love God, we surrender ourselves to Him, but it is not surrendering to bondage.  Instead, it is freedom from the bondage of sin, guilt, disappointment, sorrow, and any other inhibitor of joy you can think of.  We become selfless driven to act on His behalf and love others as He loves us.

To know God is simply not enough.  We must be willing to invest our time and energy into growing that relationship.  Paul’s fear was clear in today’s verses.  We should not settle for a life continuing as is and just accepting grace, and we should not do what God says just because it is written.  Let us live free focusing on learning more about who God is and letting our love for Him drive us toward obedience.  What steps in your journey might you have ‘skipped’ past?  How will you continue to build on your foundation of Christ to forge a deeper relationship with Him?  My prayer is that we embrace our journey of faith looking to understand the process.  Amen.

Tues Devo: Memory

Hello,

The memory is a powerful thing. Our memory influences decisions about what to do or not do again. Clear memory adds in motivation, and an aligned rationale (true whether we are influenced to start or stop – and whether it is good or bad). We can use our memory to help us push through challenging times. We can use it to not lose sight of whom we are aligned to, and where we are going. There are several instances in scripture of God remembering. I know He can’t forget, but I see this term with Him as meaning “taking action because He didn’t forget”.

Some examples:

Genesis 8:1 “But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided.” (NASB)

Genesis 19:29 “Thus is came about, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot lived” (NASB)

Genesis 30:22 “Then God remembered Rachel, and God gave heed to her and opened her womb.” (NASB)

I pray we are all encouraged to spend some time remembering whom we follow and what He has done for us today.

Have a blessed day,

Will Hill

Hiding behind laughter

Proverbs 14:13

Even in laughter the heart may ache, and rejoicing may end in grief. 

A friend of mine shared this verse this morning and I thought it was perfect timing.  Many people really know how to hide behind a smile or a laugh even when going through a tough time, yet at the end of the day, it does not help them through what they are going through.  Yesterday, was a very rough day for me.  My husband had to be to church an hour early as he was doing the sound, so we planned to take two cars.  My son was not wanting to listen to me at all.  I had all I could take and there was no way for me to hide behind a smile or a laugh.  Instead, there I was at church, tears flowing from my face.  I had one lady that stopped to try to comfort me and said that someday I would look back at all of this and laugh. 

While at the moment, her words just added to the heartache, today I can thank God that he has given me that child and while there will be days where I want to hide behind laughter, I have a God that holds me through all of it and things do not have to end in grief. 

My prayer today is that you will know the love of Jesus Christ so that you do not have to hide behind laughter and end with grief.