Devotions

One thing that every person wants is to be whole. We want to feel confident in who we are and the purpose for our lives. Christians and people of all ages ask the questions: Who am I? What is my purpose in life? What am I called to? If I'm called to something clearly, can I do it effectively? Can I bear witness to the glory of God in a way that truly impacts the world? Does my life have meaning and will my future hold all that God has for me?

Let’s examine an oft-overlooked passage of scripture. It’s going to seem strange at first in this conversation about identity, but I think it’s very important, far more than we may realize. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean” (Matthew 23:25-26, ESV). The inside of our cups hold sin but also brokenness. Not always but often, our sins are methods of compensating for our wounds rather than taking our brokenness to God for him to heal.

Now I want to ask you a different question. What does God feel about you? Many of us live up here in our mind, but these things are in our heart. We can quote scriptures that God loves and accepts us, and we’re forgiven and cleansed in the beloved. We can believe these things in our minds, but our heart is telling us a different story.

If we don’t see God correctly or trust him, we won’t allow him into the deepest parts of our hearts that need healing and cleansing. We won’t let God clean the inside of the cup.

Someone who has allowed Jesus to start working on the inside of the cup can go through horrible external situations and still be unmoved in their faith because their identity is truly in God. Let’s start allowing Jesus to examine the inside of our cup. Let’s trust him enough to allow him to start lifting painful, broken things out of us and restoring us so that we have room for the peace and power he’s longing to put inside us. We all want that, right?

When I was at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, playing basketball many years ago, there was a saying in the locker room, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” What does that mean? It means that if you’re not in shape and you’re tired and your legs aren’t strong, you’re not going defend or shoot properly. You’re going to be falling over, and your balance won’t be right, or if you have to get low and guard someone, you’re going to just cheat and wave at the ball and not stay in front of your man.

You take a shortcut. You don’t do what you should do. Why? You’re tired, fatigued. It’s true in the spiritual realm too. I was down in Mississippi recently, and someone told me about a need. “You know, the warden and inmates would love for you to come down with the Brooklyn Tabernacle singers and hold an outdoor rally.” All 2,300 inmates, including the death row. When we went down, I talked to one of them, and these guys were in the same cell twenty years, one hour outside a day.

Before Christmas, though, I found out about something more practical that they needed. The prison chaplains came to me and said, “You want to help the inmates, you could bring down boxes with a toothbrush, toothpaste, a bar of soap and deodorant in each one. Pastor Jim, that would mean so much.”

Now I felt like I had a thousand things on my mind and the needs of the church, but God put it on my heart, “Just because you’re busy preparing sermons and devotionals and all of that, don’t give up. You have a chance to do good, so do good! Don’t give up and say, ‘Let someone else do it.’” So, I started looking into it. An organization, who had heard about my research, called me and said, “Hey, we’ve got 2,300 toothbrushes, tubes of toothpaste, bars of soap and deodorant.” Isn’t that God being so good?  

“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9, ESV). In other words, let’s not get tired or fatigued. You could do something good today. Call somebody, encourage somebody!   

_{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.} 

Paul said, “In him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28 NKJV). Men and women of God live within this very small circle. Their life, their every move, is wrapped up only in the interests of Christ.

To know nothing but Christ, there must be a continual flow of revelation from the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit knows the mind of God, then that well of flowing water must be a continual, never-ending revelation of Christ. It awaits every servant of the Lord who is willing to wait on the Lord quietly, in faith believing and trusting the Holy Spirit to manifest the mind of God.

Today we need his infallible word, a true and living revelation. Samuel had that word from God, and Israel knew it. When Samuel spoke, of all the voices in the land his came through and not one word fell to the ground.

Today multitudes are trying to sift through all the voices to hear the clear word of God. Saints of God are getting weary of a barrage of voices while finding only a few kernels of truth. You too might be in a dark place right now. Christ alone is the light! That light alone dispels the darkness.

Peter said, “And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Peter 1:19).

Paul said, “For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

John said, "His kingdom [Satan’s] became full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues because of the pain" (Revelation 16:10).

Your good works won't dispel that darkness, and our preaching on social issues won't cut through it, either. None of your personal experiences will do it. I'll go a step further to say that even binding the powers of darkness won't work without the light of Christ shining forth. All darkness vanishes in the light of God's glory! Let us study Christ alone in the secret closet. We serve the same God and are taught by the very same Holy Spirit as all others who have known Christ in fullness.

Since the cross, all spiritual giants have had one thing in common. They were in close communion with the Lord; they became lost in the glorious vastness of Christ, and they died lamenting they still knew so little of him. So it was with Paul and the disciples; with many early church fathers like Luther, Zwingli and the Puritans; with the pious English preachers; and with many godly leaders today.

Every one of these giants shared the same ruling passion: an ever-increasing revelation of Jesus Christ. They cared nothing for success, ambition or worldly fame. They prayed not for things, physical blessings, to be used or for anything of self. They prayed only for a fuller revelation of the glory and vastness of their Lord.

Satan is displaying greater power, and hell is unleashing its fury on this generation. The enemy strongholds are much more fortified, powerful and entrenched than in any past generation. Without a doubt, Satan is revealing himself to the world as never before; and he is becoming better known, less feared and more accepted.

A basic Bible knowledge of Christ will not be enough in this final war! Knowing about him is not enough. We must seek a greater revelation of the Holy Spirit. That requires spending time at his table. You get to know him only by being in his presence, sitting with him, hearing his voice and waiting on him for divine wisdom. Busy, preoccupied people seldom get to know him.

Paul was committed to an ever-increasing revelation of Jesus Christ. All he had of Christ came by revelation. He said, “By revelation he made known to me the mystery” (Ephesians 3:3 NKJV). The Holy Spirit knew the deep and hidden secrets of God, and Paul prayed constantly for the gift of grace to understand and preach “the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8). Paul said we have access to these glorious riches in Christ. In speaking of God's eternal purposes, he said, “In whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in him” (Ephesians 3:12).

God is looking for believers who will seek a revelation of him that is all their own, a very deep personal intimacy that unlocks “the unsearchable riches of Christ.”

What is it that our Lord wants most from those who claim to be devoted to him? What would bless and please him? Shall we build him more churches? More Bible schools? More homes and institutions for hurting people? These are all worthwhile and needed, but he who dwells not in buildings made by hands wants much more than that. Solomon thought he had built an everlasting temple for God, but within years, it was in decay, and in less than four hundred years, it was destroyed.

The one thing our Lord seeks above all else from his people is communion at his table. He desires a place of oneness and time of intimacy, a continual coming to him for food, strength, wisdom and fellowship.

This generation has a limited revelation of the Lord Jesus because so many are missing from the feast of communion with the Lord. Few know the grandeur and majesty of such a high calling in Christ Jesus.

We mistakenly get our spiritual joy out of service rather than communion. We are doing more and more for a Lord we know less and less about. We run ourselves ragged, burn out and give our bodies to his work, but we seldom keep the feast. We are too casual about the Lord's table, not serious enough about taking our place to learn of him.

Paul speaks of spending three separate years in the Arabian desert. They were glorious years, sitting in the heavens at the table of the Lord. It was there that Christ taught Paul all he knew, and the wisdom of God was made manifest in him. Conversion was not enough for Paul. A one-time supernatural vision of Christ and miraculously hearing his voice from heaven was not sufficient! He had caught a fleeting vision of the Lord, and he wanted more.

Something in Paul’s soul cried out, "Oh, that I might know him!" No wonder he could say to an entire Christian system, "For I am determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2 NKJV). He was saying, “Let the Jerusalem Judaizers keep to their legalism. Let others argue their points of doctrine. Let those who seek to be justified by works wear themselves out. But as for me, I want more of Christ!” Beloved, we should have the same desire.