Devotional for God’s Family – 1
Ephesians 1:3 (ESV): Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
Father, today I pursue You. I want you more than anything this life has to offer. There is so much that a person can have in this world, but only You truly satisfy. I can go in any direction with all the choices that are around me.
Some of those choices are upright and good. I can show You how much I love You by what I choose. I can be involved in many good and great ventures to build Your kingdom. I can go to the gatherings of the church and be there all the time. I can go on trips around the world to tell others about You. I can serve and give more than anyone else if that is what You want me to do.
Other choices that are available to me are to choose those things that make me feel good. I can remain angry and hurt because of the wounds of this world. I can dive into the deep end of sin and reject truth and embrace lies and openly harbor deceit so that I can live the way I want to live. I can skirt the edges and hold onto smaller sins and pretend that You are ok with it.
Matthew 22:37 (ESV): You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
Lord, You have given me choices. I choose to give you my heart. This is the most precious thing I have. I give it to You. You made my heart. You know how it works, I don’t, I just use it. You knew my heart before any person walked this earth. My heart is Yours, You purchased it with the blood of Your Son, Jesus.
Lord, in the simplicity of this day, I choose neither sin nor works, I choose You as if I knew how to do that. You have chosen me. In that I can want You, draw me into Your place.
1 Peter 2:9 (ESV): But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
God, minister to my heart so that I can choose You. I have no ability to be good and right if I am separated from You in my living. Left to my own ways, I will always walk away from You. Hold me fast in Your love and keep me right where You want me to be. I do not choose sin and I do not choose works to prove my love to you. I choose You.
Speak to me this morning. I sit silently and wait upon You. I release all the care of this world. All of the weight that is mine, I give my heart to You and ask that I would be able to sit and wait upon You. You do not dread to be with me. You are not a doctor on the other side of the door dreading to come in and work on me yet again. You are no mechanic who has many cars to fix before the day is done and I am the last. You are not weary of me. You are not rushed for time.
You are not frustrated or put out because I need Your ministry in my heart. Your resources of love and care are not stretched thin. Your skin is not thin and you are not fed up or agitated with me.
Your door is open and You are not too busy. You are not preoccupied with other projects in front of me, only looking up from time to time.
There are papers on Your desk and tools all over Your office, leg braces and arm casts…all opened and used, well used; ready and accessible. You keep them like trophies. I know they are mine and I can remember how you would come along side me in times of trouble. And I remember wondering how I got through things. Now I see the braces and the splints. I see the gauze and the Band-Aids.
In the corner of Your office is a pile of chains, ropes and handcuffs. Some have barbells linked to them and are very heavy. And written on them are the vices and sins that I clung to so tightly. Some are dusty and old, rusty. And some have collected no dust at all. Laying on top of the pile.
There is so much going on in Your office. I see pictures on the wall. Pictures of people. Many pictures. Every one of these I know and some I have forgotten about. These are people that I have loved. The walls are full of people. There are more people than the walls can hold, but the walls seem to hold them all. Many pictures.
It occurs to me how blessed I am in this life to have known so many people and the opportunity to share life together, some so short and some such a very long and wonderful time.
There are plans and strategies laying on Your chair. There are machines and mechanisms that I can’t even describe, things far too elevated for me to understand. I see top secret and classified folders, some that are opened and some sealed. My name is written on them, I see they are about me. You perfectly execute plans according to Your will weaving my life in and through Your master plans for the whole world.
Your desk is piled high with love notes and presents…for me. It looks like my birthday or the best Christmas ever. I didn’t bring anything for You. And You simply smile and sigh deeply as if blessed by my ignorance and naivety. Somehow I realize that the only thing You want is my heart. The only present You want from me is my heart – in whatever condition I bring it to You, if yielded, You will make it what it needs to be for Your satisfaction.
So, this place where You have set up shop is actually my heart. I am not in Your office, this is our meeting place. This is my heart, our heart together.
Lord, change me. I yield my heart to You. Keep working on me. Bring everything You want into Your workshop…my heart. I put Your name on the outside, on the door. This belongs to You. Thank You for choosing me and blessing me with Your sweet presence.
Devotional for God’s Family – 2
Revelation 3:20-21 Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.
Inside of God’s office, which is our heart, there are fascinating things happening.
When you walk into a financial planner’s office and sit down to talk, there is a hope for a future and a sense of direction given from a financial perspective. It is important and personal; yet, it doesn’t compare to another kind of office. Think on the other hand about walking into a surgeon’s office. This person is going to cut on my body and if she doesn’t, I won’t survive, and if she doesn’t do a good job, I might not have a better future.
Your heart is an office of sorts, a meeting place between you and God. The Holy Spirit lives in your heart, He calls that His home. His work bench and tools are there. His credentials and resources are there too.
The office of God is our heart. He wants to have conversations as deep as any surgeon would have with you. So often we want the facts and logistics, “God, work here, work there, do this and that.” We ask God to do things and rightfully so, He has told us to ask Him for these things.
When you go into the office of a surgeon, it is a different kind of meeting. When a surgeon starts talking about what is needed and how she is going to operate, we tend to remain silent and listen. We never burst on the scene and tell the surgeon what they are going to do, we sit quietly and ascertain the scope of what is necessary. We hang on every word so that we can understand how serious and life threatening the operation may be. We wonder what our life will be like after the surgeon has done their work.
We certainly do burst on the scene with God, don’t we?
We are quick to tell him the places where it hurts and doesn’t work right.
Oh, how He has the answers. Sometimes though, the answer is not a quick check-up or follow-up conversation. The Lord at times will speak to the need for surgery.
Please listen when God talks. Please understand that God will never ever stop you from talking. What a kind-hearted God He is. He waits patiently until we are done, and when we are open, He will speak. Numerous times in the letters from Jesus to the Churches in Revelation 2 and 3, Jesus says this at the end of His statements, “To him who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
What is it that Jesus is trying to convey?
If we could only listen more and talk less.
I believe that Jesus completely understands. I believe He sees the troubles we face and knowing how He made us, He sees that we are so apt to talk first and listen second.
Even though our mouths are going, He never stops working.
John 5:17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”
I am so guilty of this next thought.
I want outpatient work done and God wants inpatient work done. If I can lightly address the thing I need to without breaking stride in the objectives I have, well then, I am that much better and closer to accomplishing what I need to do.
There are those times when Jesus wants us to stop what we are doing for Him and be worked on. When is the last time that you signed the consent papers for God to do surgery on you?
Maybe that is why Jesus asked this man in great need of healing this crazy question.
John 5:6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?”
Here is another way of asking the question, “Will you come in for the surgery?”
“Do you have time for me to heal you?”
“This is my workshop, I live in you. I need to do some renovation, but I need you to be in agreement with me that the renovations need to happen and that you will allow me to do them.”
Can you check in with the Lord today and do a little listening? Is there something that you need to consent to that He is wanting to repair? He is there, in His workshop, your heart. He sees everything and is ready to start, are you?
Lord, I open my heart to You and give You permission to do what You want to do. My heart is Your home, I am the tabernacle of God, Your Spirit lives within me. Please keep working on me and help me see my great need for You. Thank You Jesus for doing what You do.
Devotional for God’s Family – 3
Philippians 4:8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
What pictures are on the walls of your heart?
Most of us, unless we go to a museum we don’t usually stand in front of a picture and stay there unless for some reason attention is brought to it by us or someone else. When that happens, we will look at and experience the picture longer than we normally do.
Sometimes we leave pictures of the past hanging on the walls of our heart and we don’t think much about it at all. And until attention is brought to them, we pass right by without a care in the world.
I have said this before to you, the Devil is an opportunist! He thinks that it is wonderful that you have old pictures hanging on the walls of your heart. We say we don’t want the old behavior, but we keep the pictures around in our hearts, I am not exactly sure why we do, but we do.
One reason I think we do is in our old life, those experiences brought meaning to us. Even though sinful, we assigned significance to them and we don’t let go of them in case we need them in the present and future.
Or, perhaps the pictures hanging on the wall that only we can see epitomize pleasure or comfort. We keep them around and the Devil waits for opportunities to remind us or ensnare us to the old ways.
Maybe it is lust or pride. Maybe it is food or bitterness. No matter what is hanging on the wall of your heart…it has got to go. We have captured images that, to this day, hang around and down deep inside our flesh hopes that they will be realized.
Those old pictures need to be taken off the walls and thrown away.
Your heart is where the Holy Spirit lives and He has no desire at all to see those old pictures on your/His walls.
Those old pictures represent agreements with the Devil. Really, they do. If I kept a picture on an old girlfriend in my dresser draw and hid it from everyone, wouldn’t I be giving myself permission to look at it and remember the significance and pleasure of that relationship?
When I got married all ties to past women were thrown out. All emotional ties to others became prohibited. I no longer gave myself permission to draw any form of physical and emotional intimacy from other women. By keeping old pictures on the wall of my heart, I open the door for the enemy to revive things that I said were dead.
When I decided to follow Jesus, the Holy Spirit became the interior designer of our shared space, my heart.
I am using old relationships as an example for you to search your heart for the pictures and painting that you may have kept around for old-time sake.
When we leave old stuff on the walls of our heart and we do not renounce it, call it what it is and remove it, it has a tendency to come back and capture us.
Here is the Apostle Paul’s thought on the matter.
2 Corinthians 10:53-6 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.
Paul is telling us point blank that we have the power given to us by God to take those old pictures off the walls.
Do it!
Psalm 139:1-5 O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
Listen to the Lord, take time for Him to speak to you regarding what is in your heart. He wants to make a very pleasant and satisfying place for you and Him to dwell together. He knows what He is doing and He isn’t going to stop until you yield to Him or you confine Him to a corner.
Lord, thank You that You want to be present in our hearts. Praise Your name today Jesus! You sent the Comforter from the Father to live in us. Praise Your name Father for from Your heart has come the vision that man and God should dwell together forever! Praise Your name holy and wonderful God, because it is so, not by our hand, but by Your love and foresight. Thank You Lord for all that You have done for us. Lord, make our hearts Your home. Point to the pictures that must come down; and put up new pictures of Your victories and exploits!
Blessings
Pastor D
