Devotions

We are all creatures of habit. We usually get up at the same hour, eat the same breakfast, make the same drive to our place of work and listen to the same radio station during our commute. We face endless repetition in our daily routines. That’s just life. While it may not seem like it at times, there is real maturity and growth in being faithful and responsible day by day, week by week, year by year. 

The same might be said for our spiritual lives. On Sunday mornings we go to church, sit in the same seats, and sing the same praise and worship music. Even our prayers can sound the same. We are tempted to wonder, “Am I really doing anything profitable for the kingdom of God? I’ve been doing the same thing over and over, but there is very little variety to it.”

Growing in grace does not mean doing more or greater things for God. True growth comes in doing the same things again and again with heart assurance that we are doing everything for him. It’s like learning to write in the first grade. You begin with looping circles and lines, forming big letter. But after a while, the letters become smaller and closer together and eventually you learn to put words together and form sentences. Even though you have been doing the same repetitious things, the whole time something worthy was being accomplished.

In your Christian walk, it takes much grace to keep going when you are tired, broken, downcast or afflicted. In fact, it takes more grace to stay steadfast in those times than it does when everything is new and fresh and exciting. It is wonderful to know that we can trust his Word and know that he is with us.

I encourage you to serve him faithfully and watch the Lord bring you into a new place of peace, trust and purpose.       

Occasionally I awaken in the middle of the night with a free-floating anxiety. The “accuser of the brethren” whispers, “You’re no good; you’re worthless, a burden to others. Look at your history, how many times you’ve messed up.” Satan loves to torment Christians but when Jesus came, he declared, “That ends right now!” Then he adds an amazing reassurance: “Don’t think that I will ever accuse you to the Father” (John 5:45).

As God’s people, we sometimes can actually accuse ourselves. Paul says, “They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts . . . and their conflicting thoughts accuse . . . them” (Romans 2:15).  Who is Paul talking to here? It is the Christian who is still trying to live out vestiges of the Old Covenant by striving to please God on his own. This Christian tells himself, “I’ve done well in the Lord all week so there’s no reason I can’t put together another week like this one.”

Others may accuse us, as happened in the case of the adulterous woman when the religious leaders brought her to Jesus and demanded that he accuse her, too. But how did Jesus answer her — and his own — accusers? “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7). Jesus turned the spotlight where it belonged: on their own sin. And one by one they went away (see 8:9).

Voices may scream in our ears but when they do, we will hear another voice above them all: “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (John 10:27).

Be still and hear the voice of the Holy Spirit saying, “Jesus has set you free.” May God help you to build on the firm foundation that is based on the glorious love of Jesus — and rejoice in his wonderful grace! 

When babies are born, the hospital staff immediately checks for certain vital signs. Good breathing, a robust cry, adequate weight are all indicators of a newborn’s strong physical health. Likewise, spiritual vital signs can tell us how healthy we are. And the most vital sign of all is love.

When we become born-again believers in Jesus Christ, we receive a new heart and spirit. This is nothing less than the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us. Without Him, there is no true Christian experience. “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ” (Romans 8:9).

Since the Holy Spirit in us is God, and since God is love, then the essence of the one dwelling within us is divine love. No wonder Jesus said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35).

When the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Colosse, he told them how he thanked God when he learned of “the love you have for all God’s people” (Colossians 1:4). Notice the spiritual health of that congregation. It wasn’t measured in attendance figures or magnificent buildings but in what really counts before God — love. And not just love for some people who were easily lovable or with the same ethnic background. No, he rejoiced in their reputation for loving all the people of God.

Too often, if people are “different” — meaning not our color or ethnicity, or not a part or our congregation or denomination — their plight in life rarely touches our hearts. God sent Jesus into a world that was as different or “other” to His holy nature as one could imagine. His Holy Spirit enables us to “be imitators of God . . . and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:1-2, emphasis added).

Jim Cymbala began the Brooklyn Tabernacle with less than twenty members in a small, rundown building in a difficult part of the city. A native of Brooklyn, he is a longtime friend of both David and Gary Wilkerson.  

Many Christians measure their spiritual lives by the way they feel and they are convinced they are not growing spiritually. They regularly attend church, hear God’s Word preached, read their Bibles, and diligently pray. But they feel that they’re not making much progress. One saint told me, “I used to weep easily before the Lord but now I’m not as tenderhearted as I once was. I’m simply not growing.”

The apostle Paul likens our spiritual growth to the growth of our bodies. He says our souls are nourished in the same way we are physically: “The Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God” (Colossians 2:19).

Simply put, as you trust and abide in Christ (the Head), a never-ending measure of his life is pumped into your soul. Jesus is a constant life-force in your being, a living stream that never shuts down. Therefore, his life is constantly flowing into you, even when you are sleeping. He provides a fresh supply of his life to you every day, no matter how you feel on the outside.

Jesus is the bread sent to us from heaven to build up our spiritual immune system against sin of all kind. We may not see outward signs of this (just as we do not see our physical body’s immune system growing stronger). But God’s Word promises that all who love Jesus will grow stronger in their spiritual immunity.

Think about it. At times you will be tempted, but over the years you have found a growing power to resist the world’s seductions. You may think your growth is fixed, with no forward motion. But God has given us this covenant promise: “Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God” (Psalm 92:13).  So be encouraged — you are growing! 

The apostle Paul assured the Thessalonians that they had learned how to walk pleasing before the Lord. “You received from us how you ought to walk and to please God” (1Thessalonians 4:1). Paul had begun with this exhortation: “That you should abound more and more” (same verse).

To abound means to increase. Paul was saying, “You’ve been sitting under sound gospel preaching so you have a solid foundation beneath you. Therefore, you ought to be increasing in grace in all things — in your faith, your knowledge, your love.”

Paul also spoke of such abounding to the Corinthians: “As you abound in everything — in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all diligence, and in your love for us — see that you abound in this grace also” (2 Corinthians 8:7). In other words, “God’s Spirit has wrought major changes in your life. Therefore, you ought to be giving more of yourself in all ways — in your time, your finances, your talents.”

These passages make it clear that everyone who has been fed God’s Word is expected to grow in grace. God has endowed gifts to pastors, teachers, prophets, evangelists for the express purpose of causing his church to grow. And we, as believers, are expected to increase in knowledge and grow in him so that we are not carried away by any false things.

Jesus himself speaks of a constant increase in our lives: “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). Proverbs echoes this: “The path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day” (Proverbs 4:18). And even Job declares, “The righteous will hold to his way, and he who has clean hands will be stronger and stronger” (Job 17:9).

The promises of God are yours today! He wants you to have a constant increase of faith, hope, love and giving in your life.