Cuts Like A Knife

Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” 

When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Acts 2:36-38 

For the first time in nearly forty years, I feel like I can be pulled over by police and not have to worry for my life.  I cannot expect most of you to understand that.  It is not as if I had a view of police that they would always do me harm, but there have always been stories of people who look like me and never made it home to tell about it.  As the flashing red and blue lights come on, I repeat in my head the things my parents taught me.  Smile.  Put your hands in a defensive position.  Speak respectfully.  Answer, “Yes sir,” or, “No sir.”  Make no sudden movements.  Comply at all times.  These are the things most African Americans are taught at an early age.  Why?  Because if you roll the dice and you get the wrong cop on the wrong day, your name becomes one in the news like Philando Castille or Tamir Rice.  When someone would tell you that the police did these types of things all the time, the typical responses were, “He must have done something wrong,” or, “Those things do not really happen.”  The more recent answer was, “Well, you know the news sensationalizes everything to divide us.”  Many did not even believe these things happened until a man named George Floyd was pulled over by police and senselessly murdered for all the world to see.  I literally broke down in tears in my wife’s arm because all I could ever do to be safe was pray that God protected me and my family.  Nothing could guarantee my safety. 

However, something has changed.  Now, people look at me and say, “That really happens?  Kent, I had no idea!”  For the first time, I was not the only one crying.  All of us cried.  Together.  Something had changed that day for most of us, and we can’t go back.  If your spirit was not stirred by the injustice that occurred, then perhaps your heart may be further from God than you realize. 

You see, God’s truth always cuts to the heart, and when it does, we must respond.  As Christians, we are taught to respond with the love of Christ to those who are in pain for as Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4)  As I read Peter’s speech to Israel shortly after receiving the Holy Spirit, he spoke with such passion and conviction.  It felt like one of those stirring sermons where the preacher was in the zone and the entire church was standing and praising.  Peter’s words were so powerful that, “Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.” (Acts 2:41) Remember the last time your finger was cut where the blood continually came out.  You could feel its pain and it was impossible to ignore.  As you can see from today’s verses, Peter’s words ‘cut to the heart,’ and it was impossible for those to ignore God any longer.  Perhaps you too are feeling pain today.  The pain I felt had been there for over forty years.  The pain most African Americans feel has been there for a long time as well.  The goal here is neither to make one feel ashamed nor apologize for any prior views.  It is for you to be aware of the suffering that goes on not only around you but also possibly within you.  God heals all wounds, but healing wounds does not mean to just leave another in pain to God.  We are to reach out to others and love on them as He first loved on us.  Pray for God’s love to be filled in your heart and theirs.  Pour the love onto them as you would anyone else.  Be sincere.  You do not need to be someone you are not, but reach out to someone.  Ask if they are ok and listen. 

God’s love has always been the answer!  We are living in different times, and many of the things that have occurred may cause fear and apprehension.  But I think of the words of Paul that further strengthen this new awakening in our hearts and spirit that can no longer be ignored.  He said: 

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 

Love never fails.  1 Corinthians 13:6-8a 

Let us move forward as God’s children loving, rejoicing, protecting, trusting, hoping, and persevering for victory is already ours.  Where is your heart today?  How have the events of the past week caused you to think of God’s purpose in your life?  My prayer is that God’s spirit cuts like a knife in our hearts to make changes for His Kingdom.  Amen. 

Have A Heart

And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. 10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”

But Moses implored the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people.  Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’”  Exodus 32:9-13

Loretta, my wife, is wonderful in so many ways.  She loves me despite my flaws, and is a great mother and grandmother.  One of those things that has driven me crazy all these years is how she advocates for our children when they have done something wrong.  She knows that I come from a family of disciplinarians (my Dad was in the military, and my mom should have been 😊), and as such, they had very little tolerance when I did anything wrong.  So, as my children failed to meet an expectation or did something clearly out of the guidelines of what they were supposed to do, I was ready to come down with an iron hand.  Then, here comes that artist known as my wife.  “Kent, you can’t be so hard on him all the time,” or, “You have to see things from her perspective,” she would say.  “Seriously?!?!?” I responded.  After a lengthy back and forth, I often relented to her sound advice.  It’s not that I did not have strong conviction.  Trust me.  She will tell you that.  Nonetheless, it is her heart for our children that has always won me over.  In fact, it is how she won me over for when people tell me how big of a heart I have, I humbly deflect their kind words saying, “If you think I have a heart, you should get to know my wife.”

God has a heart for us.  My focus today is on the relationship between Moses and God.  The Israelites had grown restless from Moses being in the mountains talking with God and assumed that he must be gone.  Thus, they needed a new god to worship.  Aaron built a Golden Calf from gold jewelry they had given him, and the people worshipped it as if it were God.  If you question how bad a sin this was, remember I wrote about how God set the stage telling Moses, “Remember, you must not make any idols of silver or gold to rival me.” (Exodus 20:23) (see https://trdailydevotional.blogspot.com/2020/03/you-dont-want-none-of-this.html).  It is a bit funny because one can see God having this ‘I told you so’ moment with Moses.  Now, God is ready to dare I say ‘go nuclear’ on the Israelites ((T)hat my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them).  But like Loretta strolling up to me when our son got suspended for fighting, Moses pleaded his case to spare the Israelites.  It is pretty amazing to hear as we have watched Moses grow from this soft spoken man who claimed to be a poor speaker and asking God, “Who am I,” to a man who actively petitioned God to spare the Israelites from His rightful wrath.  Moses knew God was right to be angry and righteous to punish His people with death.  But Moses’s heart for them and the journey they had gone pushed him to advocate for them and remind God of His promises to them.  There are a couple of things we can take from this.  First, remember the promises the Lord has made to us.  The appeal Moses made had a logic through the prior promises He made.  And second, love onto others.  We can’t go to God on behalf of others without loving them.  Many Christians will say the heart is bad noting Jeremiah 17:9 (The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?).  However, David was a man after God’s own heart (see 1 Samuel 13:14), and Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” This implies that if your heart seeks God, all good will flow from it.

God wants not only our minds but also our hearts.  Paul summarized this so well saying, “If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing (1 Corinthians 13:3).  When James said, “Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works,” (James 2:26) the ‘good works’ is defined as action through love for Christ.  This is what it means to have a heart for God, and Moses had a huge heart for God and His people.  Therefore, let us be inspired to have a heart for God to serve Him and others.  How can you keep your heart focused on Him?  What practice will you keep ensuring your heart is for God?  My prayer is when we look at others and their struggles, we put on a Godly lens and have a heart.  Amen.

Trapped

“You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one.
You do not want a burnt offering.
The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit.
You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.
Look with favor on Zion and help her; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
Then you will be pleased with sacrifices offered in the right spirit— with burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings.
Then bulls will again be sacrificed on your altar.”. Psalms‬ ‭51:16-19‬ ‭NLT‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

My wife is really smart.  She understands that I am often not motivated by her pointing out how wrong I am about a certain thing.  She also understands that I love her more than anything, and the best way to get what she wants is not to push for her way.  Instead, she shares how it affects her.  She knows that a psychological wall always comes up when it focuses on her wants, but it comes down when she appears in need or despair.  Now some might view this as being manipulative, but they do not know her.  She would never take advantage of this liberty.  Why?  Because she loves me, and it’s her unconditional love for me that ultimately breaks me.  I thought about this when thinking about God’s will for my life.  By giving my life to Him, I agreed to serve Him.  In serving Him, it means that I at times will be broken out of His love for me.  Sometimes, it is simply breaking for what makes His heart break (see the Devotion ‘Heartbreaker’).  But other times, He just pushes me to where I am trapped with nowhere else to go, and there is nothing left but for me to go to Him.

Committing to God means that we have to accept that He will break us to build us up into the people that will follow Him.  While reading these verses, I realized David was in this place of utter submittal to God.  He recognized where he was wrong, but to admit guilt to God wasn’t enough.  He understood God wanted more than just repentance. He wanted all of David that not only included a repentant heart but also a broken one.  Our heart fights hard to do things its own way only to become trapped in a corner by what God wants with one of two choices.  The first is to fight with all its might to keep its ways, sinful and not, and maintain its comfort.  The other choice is submission, which is what God ultimately wants, and through submitting, a person is shown God’s favor.  We must always be careful in our repentance for our sins.  Repentance is what God wants, but not as an act or as someone once told me a ‘check mark on our check list.’  He wants us to feel the weight and gravity of our guilt and sinful nature.  It is this ‘brokenness’ that brings us closer to the heart of God, and if we understand who David was, this verse underlines why he is called a man after God’s heart.

Brokenness to God is a sign of strength.  Not weakness.  We may focus on always being strong, but brokenness says that our source of strength is God.  He is our Alpha and Omega.  When we acknowledge this and realize that we are neither the beginning nor end of our greatness, only then will we truly be able to achieve all things because we are fitting into God’s image.  Not our own.  What is it that God might be trying to break you from?  What new area of your life are you willing to surrender to Him?  My prayer is that we embrace God’s love for us even when He corners us and we find ourselves trapped.  Amen.

Heart & Humility

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
       be pleasing in your sight,
       O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.  Psalm 19:14

The topic of prayer has recently come up in my journey.  Not just from the standpoint of my own prayers but more into the thought of praying the right prayer.  When I was a younger Christian (if you consider being 40 ‘young,’ I heard a gentleman talk about prayer life saying that God is all knowing, and even if you are not good at prayer, he understands your heart.  And He will hear your prayer and request.  As I’ve grown older, I heard more complex teachings on prayer.  For example, the sermon at my church this week gave me three key takeaways.  My pastor said that prayer is defined by the entire Bible and not just a few verses.  Second, it is about connecting with God and not about what we get out of it.  Finally, it is an act of obedience and not desperation.  These points were very helpful in understanding what a prayer life should be like.  My confusion however focused on what I first learned.  If my prayers are not really good, can my prayer life be?  The answer is in the humility which you present it with.

Our words and hearts must be in alignment with each other for our prayers to really be worthwhile.  You see, you really can’t have a solid prayer life unless your heart is into it.  That is why a person who is born again and seemingly ignorant on the right way to pray to God can be more impactful than the most studied of prayer warriors.  Reading the Psalms of David are a great reminder of what a successful prayer life would sound like.  I was reading a historian’s viewpoint on David’s writing of the 19^th Psalm.  They said the chapter is twofold talking first about how great God is and how he is Lord over all things.  However, the second part is a bit of his own introflection.  David wrote:

How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart?
    Cleanse me from these hidden faults.
Keep your servant from deliberate sins!
    Don’t let them control me.
Then I will be free of guilt
    and innocent of great sin.  Psalm 19:12-13

 It’s as if to say, “I know I am not you, God.  Help me be a good man and not a worldly one.”  This shows the humility of David understanding that while he is King of Israel and a great man, he is a servant of God, and as such, needed Him to help make the right choices so that he will be blameless.  How often do we go to God with this kind of heart?  One that acknowledges His greatness and our weakness?  This was why the closing of the 19^th Psalm was perfect.  We want our prayers to fully see who God is, and to look upon Him knowing we simply cannot make it without Him.  This is the heart of a believer who is fully connected with God.

Our prayer life is a simple reminder of our relationship with God.  It keeps it real because it is above a ritual that we mark off and more personal than practical.  Do not let your prayers just be an idle act.  Make it meaningful and impactful as a true act of worship, appreciation, and adoration for the one true living God.  Are your prayers heartfelt or just going through the motions?  What changes can you make to improve on your prayers and prayer life?  My prayer is that we go to God frequently with two key ingredients; heart and humility.  Amen.

Heart Smart

“Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal.  Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.  Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.”  Matthew 6:19-21

One of my challenges as a Christian is taking God’s word too literally.  I am not here saying that what is written is not true nor that it should not be followed.  What I am saying is that we must always be careful not to take the words of God outside of their context and be prudent to discern its intent.  Here is an example.  This past week, my pastor used this verse:

The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? Jeremiah 17:9 NLT

Now in reading it, one might appear to believe that the heart is a bad thing, and thus, we must be ‘head smart’ whenever we are following God’s word.  Now I am not questioning the pastor’s use of this verse, and there is truth to being ‘head smart.’  However, we note that Samuel said to Saul about David, “for the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart. The Lord has already appointed him to be the leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command.” (1 Samuel 13:14b)  So this ‘heart’ thing can be very complicated.  Where does God want us?  Are we following His word above our heart?  I think of things my doctor would say about a healthy diet.  He talks about watching my sugar level and lessening my cholesterol intake.  These tips are as one spaghetti sauce label would say ‘heart smart.’  In that same vain, the answer to these questions lie in our intake of the right things toward having greater wisdom of what God wants from us.

A heart that is filled with love for God will make godly decisions.  The verses in Jeremiah do not necessarily say that the heart is bad.  Instead, it should be viewed as a warning.  It is to ensure that we are not blind to times where our heart is driven to do things that are not what God wants.  Think back to when you were a child, and your parents gave you a punishment for wrongdoing.  At the time, you probably felt emotions ranging from anger toward them to disappointment toward yourself.  Now ask yourself, “How did your parents feel?”  Do you think it brought them joy to discipline you?  Of course not!  Fast forwarding to today, we realize that they did these things out of love.  Not that they wanted to see us sad or take things away.  Their hearts were toward helping us grow to see what was right and good.  In that same way, God’s word will challenge us where at times we will be sad and disappointed when we do not follow His word.  That is a true measure of whether our hearts are in the right place.  David struggled in many ways.  But he recognized when he was wrong, and his heart broke for those things that God’s heart broke for.  That’s why David was a man after God’s heart, and likewise, it is what Jesus was getting at in today’s verses.  If we treasure those things that God treasures most, our hearts will follow His will.  It does not mean we will be perfect.  But like David, we will recognize our failures, and turn to God both in repentance and for forgiveness.

A heart for God is a great thing!  It guides us into following those things that God would ask of us, and it keeps us on that narrow and righteous path that Jesus spoke of (see Matthew 7:13-14).  There will be times where our hearts strings will be pulled.  Sometimes it is God, but other times it is our own wants.  Our goal is not to ignore those feelings.  Instead, we must look to God and His word for greater understanding, then apply it toward serving Him with love and compassion for others.  That’s what He wants for us.  Do you pause when your heart strings are being pulled?  How can you ensure that you heart is filled with God’s intent?  My prayer is that we focus on filling our hearts through His word to ensure that we are indeed ‘Heart Smart.’  Amen.