Devotions

Not long ago, I was reading this verse and realized something. “Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O Lord, God of hosts” (Jeremiah 15:16, ESV). I get joy out of God’s Word, even though the process of allowing it to work in me is not necessarily that pleasant.

I believe this is especially true of the Book of Psalms. Some people treat this book of the Bible like poetry and say things like, “How beautiful these poetic songs are!” Other people go into Psalms as an intellectual pursuit or academic research. If we honestly go into Psalms, though, it’s a study of our own hearts. It’s a study of our own relationships and how we’re working with them.

On a personal note, I've noticed that I take pleasure in being in my study at home with my Bible and books. Being created as an introvert means I take great pleasure in being alone. I’m just totally at peace reading in the quiet.

Well, my wife is more social, so she wants to have guests over. If we have company, I’m engaged and happy for them to be there for about the first hour or so. After a while, though, I’ll look at the clock and say, “Shoot, it’s 7 o’clock. They’re still here. I hope they leave soon.” If any of our guests are reading this, bear with me until the end of the story here. I realized as I was reading the psalms that this went beyond just my personality. Isolation and lack of being comfortable in other people’s presence is not okay. I started seeing “Okay, there's something wrong here. I'm hiding from something in my own heart.”

Instead of dealing with some of the painful history I've had in my life, I was repressing it to some degree and then feeling uncomfortable in my own skin and therefore uncomfortable around other people. It was easy to hide, but I was not being relational like the Psalms teach us to be. We’re not just to love God but also to love others as ourselves. If we're truly loving God, we're going to love others. There’s a joy and delight to these commands, even as they do hard work in our hearts.

When my youngest one was small, it was one of those Saturdays. We hadn’t gone to the grocery store, so everybody that day was asking, "What are we having for lunch?" Everybody was getting peanut butter sandwiches. That was it. If you're a good parent, that's what you do. So we've lined them up on the table. One child was outside; two kids were in the basement; my youngest, Lauren, was in the kitchen.

I leave to get the other kids, then I came back in the kitchen, and every sandwich had a hole in the middle, a hole the size of a tiny finger, every one of them. I asked, "Lauren, where did those holes come from?”

She immediately said, “Christian did it.”

“Well, Christian's outside. Who put the holes in the sandwiches?”

“Anna and Grace.”

“They're in the basement. They couldn't have done it. Lauren, I’ll give you one more time, and then you're going to get a spanking.” We didn't do timeouts.

Without missing a beat, she said, “Jesus! Jesus came.”

“You're telling me that Jesus came out of heaven to put his finger into everyone's sandwiches then ascended back to heaven?” I just looked at my little three-year daughter and said, “Liar.”

What's crazy is when we get scared, we get dumb; and when we get dumb, we tend to blame Jesus when our trials are really a test that he's bringing us through. You start interpreting ‘hard’ as God fighting against you when it's actually God teaching us something.

Think about this for a second with Job. He just lost 10 children. His home was gone. His prosperity was gone. He had an angry wife. He had nothing, and his body was filled with disease. He was angry at God. He shaved his head. He was made-himself-bald level of angry. On the other side, though, he said, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6, ESV).

Don’t blame God. If you misinterpret the bitter and all you do is pursue after sweet, then life has no meaning. God loves you and says, "Let me take the ingredients from past, present, and future and bring those together.” What he has on the other side of this struggle is something so much greater than anything you could ever create.

^{After pastoring an inner-city congregation in Detroit for thirty years, Pastor Tim served at Brooklyn Tabernacle in NYC for five years and pastored in Lafayette, Louisiana, for five years. He became Senior Pastor of Times Square Church in May of 2020.}

I asked the Holy Spirit to give me a one-paragraph description of faith so that the boys in our Teen Challenge drug center could understand it. I have a book in my library that uses over three hundred pages to define faith, and I never understood it. Frankly, I don’t think the man who wrote it understood faith either.

Moses once asked the same questions we ask: “Who am I? Who is God? Describe him.” God answered Moses in two words. “God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ And he said, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, “I AM has sent me to you.”’” (Exodus 3:14, NKJV). According to modern thinking, God oversimplified himself.

Can you imagine Moses telling people when they ask, “Who sent you?” that “I AM sent me”?

I AM who? What do you need?  Deliverance? I AM deliverance. Faith is God saying, “I AM” and my answer that “HE IS.” Faith simply accepts God’s description of himself. God says, “I am delivering you from the storm.” I say, “He is delivering me from the storm.” Faith is taking God at what he says.

What is the storm in your life? How do you face it? Ask the Lord to give you faith to believe. Ask him no matter what happens, no matter what conditions you face. This is how Paul wrote, “Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:11-13).

I believe that the moment faith gripped Paul, he was content. He was in the center of God’s will, and he had the promise of God. He had prayed through. It didn’t matter what happened from that moment on; God had taken the sting out of the storm. He can take the fear out of the storm for you too. Will you let him? God is not about to let you go under. Ride out your storm.

What does it mean to behold the Lord’s glory? Paul wrote, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18, NKJV). Paul is speaking here of devoted, focused worship. It’s time that’s given to God simply to behold him, and the apostle quickly adds, “Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart” (2 Corinthians 4:1). Paul makes it clear that beholding the face of Christ is a ministry we all must devote ourselves to.

The Greek word for beholding in this verse is a very strong expression. It indicates not just taking a look but “fixing the gaze.” It means deciding “I won’t move from this position. Before I do anything else, before I try to accomplish a single thing, I must be in God’s presence.” We’re to “fix our eyes” this way, determined to see God’s glory in the face of Christ. We’re to shut ourselves in the Holy of Holies with one obsession: to gaze so intently and to commune with such devotion that we’re changed.

The Greek word for changed here is “metamorphosed,” meaning “changed, transformed, transfigured.” Everyone who goes often into the Holy of Holies and fixes his gaze intently on Christ is being metamorphosed. A transfiguration is taking place. That person is continually being changed into the likeness and character of Jesus.

Maybe you come often into the Lord’s presence, yet you may not feel yourself changing as you spend time shut in with him. I tell you that you can know a metamorphosis is taking place. Something is surely happening because no one can continually behold the glory of Christ without being transformed.

Note the preceding verse in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians: “The Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Corinthians 3:17). Do you see what Paul is saying here? He’s telling us, “When you’re beholding the face of Christ, there is freedom to be changed.” By being in his presence, we give the Spirit liberty to govern our lives, to do with us as he would. It’s an act of submission that says, “Lord, my will is yours. Whatever it takes, transform me into the image of Jesus.”

After exalting God’s Word at length, David concludes one of his psalms with this verse: “Let my soul live, and it shall praise you; and let your judgments help me. I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments” (Psalm 119:175-176, NKJV).

David was saying, in essence, “Please, Lord, seek me out the way a shepherd searches for a lost sheep. In spite of all my biblical knowledge, preaching and long history with you, somehow I’ve strayed from your love. I’ve lost the sense of rest I once had in you. All my plans have failed. Now I realize I’m totally helpless. Come to me, Father. Seek me out in this awful, dry place. I can’t find you on my own. You must find me. I still believe your Word is true.”

David knew he’d strayed from God’s rest. He knew the Lord’s love should have been imprinted on his heart during his previous crises. Once again, he had forgotten about God’s love for him. He cried out to the Lord, begging him to seek out his lost servant.

Now the shepherd had come after David again. As David heard his name called, his heart was comforted. He realized, “My shepherd knows me by name.” David found himself being led down the hill into the green valley. Once he reached the green pasture below, Jehovah Rohi (the Lord my Shepherd) said to him, “Lie down now. Go to sleep, and rest your weary soul. Don’t worry. I’ll be at work, taking care of everything.”

It’s important to note here that David’s circumstances hadn’t changed. In fact, scripture says, “Lord, how they have increased who trouble me! Many are they who rise up against me” (Psalm 3:1). However, David had been restored to God’s love. Now he could say, “Salvation belongs to the Lord. Your blessing is upon your people. Selah” (Psalm 3:8). He testified, “No more self-made plans. No more sleepless nights, trying to work things out. I eagerly enter into my shepherd’s love. I welcome his open arms toward me.  And I’m going to lie down in his rest. I am going to sleep peacefully in his unconditional love for me.” This is the rest that we can also find, if we cry out for our shepherd to rescue us.