Devotions

Jesus rejoiced over us before the world was made. He anticipated coming to dwell in us and making us His habitation. And He rejoiced that we would cling to Him, forsaking all others. We would seek Him daily and spend quality time with Him. He would share His secrets with us, and we would unburden our hearts to Him. We would delight in His ways, searching His Word for revelations of His righteousness, and we would tremble at the revelations His Word gave us.

The Bible states clearly that Jesus expected us to be His habitation. So, are you fulfilling His expectation? He anticipated spending a lifetime with you so is your intimacy with Him increasing? Or, do you neglect Him for days on end?

Your Bridegroom had in mind to draw you close to Himself. He wanted to open His heart to you, to have sweet fellowship with you daily. He longed to show you many things, things no one else had seen. He desired to mold your life, to bring forth the fruit of the Spirit in you. And He wanted to take away your weaknesses, your fears, your feelings of inadequacy.

In turn, you were to be a delight to His heart—by your tears, your intimacy, your clinging devotion. Your words to Him were to be those of a bride: “I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste” (Song of Solomon 2:3). “Let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice” (2:14).

The very thought of this relationship with you caused Christ to rejoice long before the world was created. Yet, now that the time has come to enjoy that relationship, you neglect and ignore the Lord. You have time to watch television, shop, surf the Internet, garden—but you have no time for Jesus. I ask you, Do you believe He will inhabit the heart of a bride who is bored with Him? Why would He continue to dwell in someone who has no time to be with Him, talk to Him, listen to Him?

Here is a solemn warning: Jesus will not abide in those who neglect and ignore Him. You may object, “But I love my Lord. I haven’t given Him the cold shoulder.” The fact is, if you have neglected prayer and His Word for weeks at a time—if you have no private, intimate relationship with Him—then you have made your statement. You have declared, “My actions prove I don’t have a passionate love for Jesus. My family, career and personal desires come first.”
 

The psalmist David waited daily to receive word from God and he delighted in the word he received. He testified, “I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word” (Psalm 199:16). “Thy testimonies also are my delight and my counsellors” (119:24). “I will delight myself in thy commandments, which I have loved” (119:47). “Thy law is my delight” (119:77). The literal Hebrew meaning of this last verse is, “I enjoy your Word.”

Proverbs 8:34 says, “Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors.” What is the gate referred to here?

The psalmist gives us the answer: “Open to me the gates of righteousness: I will go into them, and I will praise the Lord” (Psalms 118:19). I believe these “gates of righteousness” are also the “strait gate” Jesus speaks of (see Luke 13:24). They refer to anyone who turns daily to God’s Word to learn His righteousness.

Such a believer is determined to walk upright before the Lord. He gets excited at every revelation that points him on the path to a holy walk. He tells himself, “I want truth in my inner man. I know I won’t get it just by listening to sermon tapes or reading books. I have to wait patiently on the Lord so that He will open His gates to me.”

Faithfully, God’s Holy Spirit comes out to meet this believer every morning. And He invites him inside, whispering, “Welcome, friend. Let Me show you something new today about God’s righteousness.”

What does it mean to “wait at the posts of my doors”? This refers to every believer who trembles at God’s Word. The phrase comes from Isaiah 6, when the prophet waited at the doorposts of the temple, longing to hear from God.

As Isaiah stood there, he heard the seraphims singing, “Holy, holy, holy,” the skies ringing with their praises. Then suddenly, a mighty voice boomed forth from heaven, a voice so loud and clear that it shook everything: “The posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke” (Isaiah 6:4). Isaiah is an example of someone who “waits at the posts of my doors.” This believer longs to hear God’s Word.
 

In John 2, Jesus enters the temple for an act that will signal the beginning of His public ministry. (His earlier miracle at Cana, turning water into wine, was not a public declaration.) What takes place next is quite dramatic:

“The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.’ His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me’” (John 2:13-17).

What Jesus did here was more than radical. If you wanted to announce your ministry, would you go into a megachurch and start turning over tables and driving people away? Jesus was up to more than just showing His authority. He was demonstrating that He was about to turn things upside down in every way.

This all happened during the Passover season. At the first Passover, Jewish families had to slay a lamb as a ritual sacrifice, draining the blood and applying it on the doorframe of their house. The idea was that when the angel of death arrived and saw the blood marking the door, he would pass over that home. It was a symbolic ritual that reenacted God’s saving deliverance of Israel from Egypt, when He set His people free from all bondage and slavery.

Now Jesus came on the scene as the Lamb of God whose sacrifice would provide our deliverance from the curse of sin. John the Baptist was aware of this, having already declared of Him, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). In less than three years’ time, the world would behold Christ’s finished work as the sin of all humankind was laid upon Him.
 

Even as a boy David knew the power and protection of God. Grown men cowered at the sight of Goliath, the giant, but not David. He took on the giant with nothing but a slingshot in his hand and brought him down. He faced lions with his bare hands and bears with nothing but a spear. God took a small, insignificant country boy, a shepherd, and turned him into a mighty warrior-king!

No ruler had the kind of love and respect that David enjoyed. The people adored him, his servants obeyed him without question, his wives fulfilled his every need and desire. What man has ever lived in such blessing, such favor, such grace and approval from the Creator?

Yet all of that paled in comparison to his relationship with God. He loved God with a passion and worshiped Him with abandon. Even in the midst of his many duties, David spent hour after hour writing songs and poems to God, singing to Him from his heart, courting the Creator of the universe as one lover courts another. All the gold and silver and riches in the world meant nothing to David compared to his relationship with God. That was the secret to his power. That was what made David such an awesome ruler and king.

David knew without any reservation that he could no nothing without God. He knew that God provided the strength in his bones, the blood in his veins, the wisdom in his mind, and the courage in his heart.

“It is God who arms me with strength,” wrote David, “and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights. He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You give me your shield of victory; you stoop down to make me great. You broaden the path beneath me, so that my ankles do not turn. I pursued my enemies and crushed them; I did not turn back till they were destroyed. I crushed them completely, and they could not rise; they fell beneath my feet. You armed me with strength for battle; you made my adversaries bow at my feet” (2 Samuel 22:33-40, NIV).

Nicky Cruz, internationally known evangelist and prolific author, turned to Jesus Christ from a life of violence and crime after meeting David Wilkerson in New York City in 1958. The story of his dramatic conversion was told first in The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson and then later in his own best-selling book Run, Baby, Run.
 

God had heard the Israelites’ cry, and He had shown mercy to them, turning their mourning into mirth and allowing them to shout and rejoice. And now He called them to gather for yet another meeting.

If Israel’s joy was to be maintained—if it was not to be lost once again—God had to dig a little deeper. Certain areas of people’s lives still weren’t conformed to His Word. Yet the Lord had allowed everyone to rejoice for a season, because He wanted them to know they were secure. Now, during this state of acceptance and joy, He asked them all to commit to a greater separation from the world.

God said to these joyful souls, “I am well pleased with you. You have revered My Word, repenting of your sin, rejoicing in My mercy, and promising to obey Me. Now, it’s time for you to act on My love. I want you to separate yourselves wholly and break away completely from the worldly influences that have crept into your hearts and homes.”

You see, while the Israelites were in captivity, they had become cozy with the heathen, slowly adopting their language and ways. Israelite men had married heathen wives, and Israelite women had purchased heathen husbands with dowries. The Israelites had also allowed unsanctified things to become a part of the worship in God’s house.

Beloved, we can’t go on to fullness in Christ if we don’t increasingly separate ourselves from this world. If we’re not becoming more heavenly minded and less like the unsaved people surrounding us, we’ll slowly lose all the joy of our repentance.

Israel didn’t want to lose their great spirit of rejoicing so they assembled again to obey God on this matter: “The seed of Israel separated themselves from all strangers, and stood and confessed their sins” (Nehemiah 9:2).

“They . . . entered into a curse, and into an oath, to walk in God’s law. . . that [they] would not give [their] daughters unto the people of the land, nor take their daughters for [their] sons” (10:29-30).

How do we maintain the joy of the Lord? We do it the same way we obtained His joy in the beginning. First, we love, honor and hunger for God’s Word. Second, we continually walk in repentance. And, third, we separate ourselves from worldly influences.