Devotions

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.

When scripture says the Holy Spirit “abides” in us, it means God’s Spirit comes in and possesses our bodies, making it his temple. Because the Holy Spirit knows the mind and voice of the Father, he speaks God’s thoughts to us. “However, when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak; and he will tell you things to come” (John 16:13, NKJV). The Holy Spirit is the voice of God to us!

If you have the Holy Spirit abiding in you, he will instruct you personally. Please know that he doesn’t speak only to pastors, prophets and teachers; he speaks to all followers of Jesus. This is evident all through the New Testament as the Holy Spirit led and guided his people, constantly saying to them, “Go here, go there…enter this town…anoint that person…” The early believers were led everywhere and in everything by the Holy Ghost.

The Spirit never speaks a single word contrary to the scriptures. He never gives us a “new revelation” apart from God’s Word. Instead, he uses the scriptures to speak clearly to us. He opens up to us his revealed Word to lead, guide, comfort us and show us things to come. The Word promises us, “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:26-27).

I am convinced God speaks only to those who, like Moses, “come and stand by him.” This means we have to spend quality time with the Lord daily, waiting on him to open our hearts fully to hear his voice, not being rushed in his presence, believing he loves to speak to us. He won’t keep anything from us, and he’ll never allow us to be deceived or left in confusion.

Even in the most difficult times, we’ll enjoy a time of great rejoicing because God will reveal himself to us as never before.