Devotions

Last year, while camping in southern Colorado, we found a broken cactus branch. The mother plant was a stately specimen, so we brought the branch home to see if we could give it a second life. It took a few weeks to root, but unfortunately, it wasn’t growing. It survived the cold and snow of a Colorado winter and several hail storms in spring, but surviving isn’t the same as thriving. All of a sudden, though, new shoots popped out all over the original stalk, and it began to grow.

Jesus used growing plants often in his parables and analogies for the Christian life, and I suspect his reasons for that went deeper than just giving his agricultural listeners more relatable illustrations. 

In my 60 years of life, I have often come to the uncomfortable understanding that I had a real growth need. At times, I realized I didn’t know how to be a good husband, dad, son or friend. At other times, I crashed and burned in my efforts at work. There were (are) also times when I discover I’m not the spiritual man I thought I was.

I have at least three options when I come to these uncomfortable realizations. The first is to deny reality. This one never ends well, but it’s the go-to response for many people. The next alternative is to acknowledge the issue but delay dealing with it. Lastly, I can choose to do the hard work required for growth. Obviously, this choice is the best, but it also takes the most time and requires the most resources. 

When we don’t feel like we’re growing in a desired area, we must be patient with ourselves and the process. Otherwise, we’ll abort the good work of growth we hope to see in our lives. Remember Christ’s parable to his followers: “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree…” (Matthew 13:30-31, ESV). The results almost always start out small. 

Perhaps you feel like you’ve been through the storms and droughts of life. You may be doing the hard work of growth, but nothing seems to be happening. Don’t lose hope. Growth may be slow, but God is faithful to finish the work he has begun in you.

^{Mark Renfroe and his wife, Amy, have been involved in field missions work for 30 years. Mark served as the area director for Assemblies of God World Missions and currently serves as the chief missions officer for World Challenge.}

In John 4, we see Jesus and his disciples walking near some grain fields. He pointed to the fields and said, “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together” (John 4:35-36, ESV). 

The disciples were perplexed. They saw that the plants were only half grown and thought, “Anyone with common sense can see these fields are nowhere near ready for harvest.” However, Jesus was talking about the harvest of souls for God’s kingdom.

The lesson of the harvest has a broader meaning for our lives. Jesus is telling us, “You don’t have to wait four months to overcome your sin or have a burning passion for me. I have made all those things available to you right now. It is impossible to you in your own strength and ability, but I am expediting all things, and there can be no excuses among those who follow me.”

I have a question for every student or young working person reading this. Do you say to yourself, “I’ll wait until I graduate before I stop drinking”? Maybe you say, “I’ll wait until I’m older to stop sleeping around and settle down in marriage.” Or “I just want to taste a little more of the world before I give my all to Jesus.”

Jesus’s lesson of the harvest fields declares to all who would follow him, “Now is the time.” This lesson of the harvest addresses every human excuse. There is no waiting in God’s kingdom. If you wait four months, the harvest will pass you by. Don’t let any excuse sidetrack you. In Christ’s kingdom, today is the day. Now is his time for his calling on you to be fulfilled.

I offer you a challenge. Write down your excuse on a piece of paper and read it for the last time. Crumple that paper, toss it into the trash and say, “I’m leaving that excuse behind me. I have no more excuses. Jesus says his harvest in my life is ripe right now.”

In my younger years, I compared myself to certain others who appeared to be holy. These people seemed to be aglow, always upbeat, smiling, seeming much more Christlike than me. I never thought I measured up to their holiness, so I prayed, “Lord, make me righteous like Brother So-and-so. How wonderful it must be to live that way for you.”

How wrong I was! These people were not who I thought they were. Indeed, I have learned that nothing is as it appears; no one is quite as evil or quite as good as he may seem. Rather, there is only one man who is truly righteous: Jesus Christ our Lord, and his righteousness is perfect.

If we are in Christ, we have his righteousness, and it is not attributed to us by degrees. No one receives more or less of it; rather by faith, we receive it in its fullness.

We are to measure ourselves by his righteousness alone and not by anyone else’s supposed righteousness. “For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves. But they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise. We, however, will not boast beyond measure, but within the limits of the sphere which God appointed us—a sphere which especially includes you” (2 Corinthians 10:12-13, NKJV).

Paul is saying here, “There’s a rule you can use to measure yourself. It is this: Everyone who truly repents and believes in the perfect righteousness of Christ, who comes to him in faith, believing in his work on the cross, is made perfectly righteous in the sight of God. You may not have everything worked out yet. There is still a daily work of sanctification through the power of the Holy Spirit, but you are accepted in the beloved, imputed with the very righteousness of Christ.”

Dearly beloved, it is time you stopped putting yourself either up or down as measured against others. God has imputed to you the full measure of the perfect righteousness of Christ. “Till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).

By Adam’s sin, we all were made sinners; by Jesus’s sacrifice, we are made righteous. Jesus ransomed us and paid the price so that the devil would have no claim on those who repent and trust in Christ and his completed work.

All along God knew that man could not keep or fulfill his divine law. He had instituted the law to bring order to the human race, lest we destroy ourselves. The law was for our own protection; it was to make us realize that in our own strength and righteousness, we could not stand before a holy God. The law was a mirror God held up to us, saying, “Let me show you what I expect, what my justice requires. Here is my law and here is where you’ve failed, where you’re living in sin. You have failed at this point…this point…and this point. No one is righteous enough to fulfill my law.”

The Pharisees tried to fulfill the law. They observed more than 600 regulations, from the washing of hands and pots to refusing to touch a Gentile. They tried to keep all the law, believing that one day they could stand before God and say, “I kept all your laws. I did this, this and this. Now you are obligated to save me.”

However, no one can expect his good works to merit justification. God’s Word answers, “If you’ve failed just one point of the law, you’ve failed the whole law.” If you expect God to accept you for your good behavior, forget it! You’ll never be able to keep the whole law.

Because we couldn’t meet justice’s demands to fulfill God’s law, Jesus came to earth and perfectly fulfilled the law of God. He never failed one point of it, and he did it all out of pure motives of love. “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil” (Matthew 5:17, NKJV).

When Jesus ascended to the Father, his perfect obedience had fulfilled all the demands of the law, and his blood was presented in full payment for our sin. Here stood a man in the presence of God whose righteousness was perfect and therefore acceptable to the Father.

When Elijah went up to heaven, he left Elisha his cloak (see 2 Kings 2:11-13). Likewise, when Jesus went up to the Father, he left us his own garment which is his perfect righteousness. He cast it upon us as surely as Elijah cast his garment upon Elisha. The prophet’s action was a type and shadow of what was going to happen when Jesus was translated to the Father. Indeed, we are heirs to a wonderful garment of righteousness that covers us completely, making us acceptable in God’s holy presence.

This garment is our inheritance, and God expects us to value it. He expects us to seek after it, to be willing heirs to his legacy. You may remember what happened when King Ahab came against Naboth, coveting his vineyard. Naboth valued his vineyard so much that he rejected Ahab’s offer to buy it, saying, “The Lord forbid that I should give the inheritance of my fathers to you” (1 Kings 21:3, NKJV). He was saying, “God forbid that anyone should take my inheritance from me. It’s mine!”

I believe the most important thing you can seek from God is the understanding that this inheritance is yours, and it is waiting to be claimed. The knowledge of the perfect righteousness of Jesus will put you on a rock that is unshakable. It will end all your useless struggles and put you in God’s presence justified and accepted.

God has provided you with an inheritance whereby you can stand before him with perfect righteousness in Jesus Christ, and you should want it. It should be an inheritance nobody can take from you. No lie of the devil should be able to remove it from your spirit; no man should be able to steal it from you, and no emotion should drain you of it.

Because God said it, you must lay hold of it! You need to seek it, go after it, allow your soul no rest until you get your hands on it. “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matthew 6:33).