to believe it, should I conclude that was what God was saying, but I didn’t understand it. That is, until God stepped in for a moment in time and shifted my perspective.
I felt God’s grace in my life this morning, and the means was an empty gas tank, a few flowers, and God’s Spirit reaching out to touch me. That’s not the usual means of grace, but God often proves he can work through unexpected things.
(You can find the flower pictures from this devotional on the back cover of this book.)
July 9
Love
If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love, I have become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don’t have love, I am nothing. If I dole out all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but don’t have love, it profits me nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (WEB)
This is one of those passages (and the rest of the 13th chapter) that is good for me to read in an unfamiliar translation. In the NIV, I have read these verses so many times that I do not take the words in and allow them to saturate me and soak me with their truth and wisdom...with their love.
It is the love part that I so often glide through in search of some meat when it is love that is the power and core of God Himself! It is love that brought Jesus up from His knees in Gethsemane and set his path unswervingly to Golgotha. It is love that kicks satan and his buddies every time they bring selfishness, bitterness, unforgiveness, and pride and we choose compassion, joy, gentleness, and humility instead.
When was the last time you read 1 Corinthians 13 or Song of Songs? How about John 17 where Jesus intercedes for us? It is love that is in every letter and period. From Genesis to Revelation we are shown the many facets of God’s love. Even in the discipline and consequences there is love, the perfect love of a Father for His child. And as His disciple, I am to follow this love; be an ambassador of His love. I am not to store that love for some rainy day. I am not to just soak it up and lock it inside myself. It is to flow through me, untainted by me. I am just a conduit of God’s love to others who do not truly know Him or are too scared to meet Him. It is His unconditional and extravagant love that will ‘woo’ them to come closer to ‘taste and see that God is good’! (Psalm 34:8)
Take time today to soak in God’s love. Read the following verses and then go spill them on someone!
Love is patient and is kind; love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud, doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is complete has come, then that which is partial will be done away with. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known. But now faith, hope, and love remain-these three. The greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:4-13 (WEB, my emphasis)
July 10
I Hate Snakes!
Now the serpent was more subtle than any animal of the field which Yahweh God had made. He said to the woman, “Has God really said, ’You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?’”
Genesis 3:1(WEB, my emphasis)
A friend shared a recent snake adventure with me by email. I can’t imagine that I have not vigorously shared with her how much I HATE snakes but her ‘snake killing’ story was an acceptable one to me because ... the snake dies! Now for all you ‘circle of life’ and reptile lovers out there who do not share my view of snakes, I want to say that I am aware of their function in the food chain but that does not diminish my negative view of them one wit!
The first time I read through the Bible I was very gratified to learn that God had chosen to give satan the physical body of a snake in my first introduction to him in Genesis. I thought it a rather appropriate type-casting myself! And God promises there that the serpent will be crushed. (Genesis 3:14-15) As I read on and found that a snake on a stick was an icon of healing in Numbers 21 after God used venomous snakes to bite and kill the disobedient Israelites, I turned the pages quickly and tried not to dwell on that story.
For a time in my spiritual life I gave too much time to thinking about how much I hated the subtle, slimy serpent known as satan. I gave him far too much credit for what I saw in the world instead of acknowledging that we allow the consequences through our own poor choices. I truly allowed my hate to have more ‘air’ time than the love that was in me and in my life. Jesus said that all the power that He had been given was passed on to me to make disciples (Matthew 28). He also said that whatever I bound on earth would be bound in heaven. The snake is bound up and laid out so I can run over it with my spiritual tank! And run over it again, again, again, again, and AGAIN! How do I run over the snake?
I sing praise to my Lord! I raise my hands and dance for joy about what the Lord has done for me every day! I am kind to someone. I have compassion for someone. I choose to focus on Jesus and take time in my day to just sit at His feet and listen...quietly. I know you can think of some other ways that kick, toss, and generally give satan a nasty black eye!
1 Corinthians 10 says we do not wage war with weapons like guns and knives. We are in a spiritual war. There is no ’neutral’ option. You can either follow Jesus and survive battles, win battles, and be on the promised victorious team – or you can be a part of the collateral damage. There is no staying out of the fray! Satan wants us under his feet! When we choose Jesus and follow Him – it is satan who is under our feet!!!
I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation, the power, and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ has come; for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them before our God day and night. They overcame him because of the Lamb’s blood, and because of the word of their testimony. They didn’t love their life, even to death. Therefore rejoice, heavens, and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and to the sea, because the devil has gone down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has but a short time.”
Revelation 12:10-12 (WEB)
First – I overcome anything satan thinks he can do because I am the child of the King and I testify about what Jesus has done in my life even to the point of dying with joy because that only brings me eternal life! Second, the devil is really angry and he doesn’t have much time. OK. Then let’s turn our backs on him and kick some dust in his face for as long as he has left!
July 11
Time
