Press the arrow to listen to “Stand in Awe of You” by Phillips, Craig and Dean.
Scripture “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 1 Corinthians 7:13-14
Observation
There is one simple summary of Solomon’s classic prayer: When life gets hard, don’t harden, be humble. There are many stages of this prayer: pray, seek, turn. But the first step is to humble.
Usually when life gets hard, we harden. We become self-reliant, calloused and defensive. At best we think it is up to us. At worst we imagine that God is mad at us. Either way, we turn to ourselves for answers.
But when we chose to soften in hard times a chain reaction begins. Instead of turning to ourselves for answers, we pray. Instead of turning to others, we seek God’s face. Instead of perpetuating wrong choices, we turn.
Application
Could it be that hardship is an invitation to re-calibrate? This invitation comes from our Lord who wants to soften toward us. He wants to hear, forgive and heal. But first we must humble.
Prayer
Father, I want to stiffen in hard times. Please help me to humble. Amen.
Worship as you read this devotion by pressing the arrow. Song: Audio Adrenaline Ocean Floor
Scripture Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, Peter this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny three times that you even know me.” Mark 14:30
Observation
How would you treat a friend if you knew in advance that he would soon deeply offend you? Would you snatch the welcome mat from your front door? Would you let caller ID protect you from his phone calls? Jesus experienced this problem with Peter, for the Lord knew in advance of Peter’s soon coming triple denial. Though he knew the worst about Peter, nevertheless, Jesus prayed the best for his life.
It is amazing not just that the Lord accepts us in spite of our past; it is also astounding that he loves us knowing our future. He accepts us knowing full well we will offend him again. That is true love.
There are two similar but different words at work here. The first is to “forgive”. Forgiveness has to do with releasing the hurtful actions of the past. The second is to “forbear”. Forbearance is another dimension of forgiveness because it looks into the future. When we have come to know one another well, sometimes too well, we can have a sense of a person’s vulnerabilities and a hunch of how they will offend us again. Forbearance is the choice to forgive in advance. It is the decision to make allowances for the weaknesses of others.
At its core, forbearance is the choice to know others not by their weaknesses, but by their strengths. Jesus did that for Peter. He said elsewhere that he ahd prayed for Peter and when he was restored he was to restore his brothers too. Even though Christ knew Peter’s fatal flaw he still chose to know Peter as a rock of strength for others.
Application
If we are forbear with others, we must start with a wide-eyed acceptance of their weaknesses and finish with a premeditated choice to forgive. In fact, it should take us even further to pray preemptive prayers to help guard them from their own sins and to pray the best for their future. Love is not just releasing the past but bracing another for the future. Forbearance is the choice to scuttle immature views of forgiveness that suggest we will never be offended again. Instead, we need a buoyancy to process the future offenses of those we love; that is the step beyond forgiveness into forbearance.
Prayer Father, sometimes I find myself in conversations where I am critiquing the performance of others rather than praying for them. You have not given me discernment to judge others but to pray better for them. Help me to pray prayers that protect others from their own actions. Amen.
“The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone? Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.” Luke 20:17-18
Observation
A person must be rocked to come to Jesus. We want to avoid the stumbling stone because we want so very much to be a whole person to come to Christ. We want to present ourselves at our best with every ability sharpened and shined ready for his inspection. But the Lord Jesus Christ will not accept anyone in pristine presentation. That spit and polish is not of him; that kind is all of us. He will have none of self-righteousness. Instead Jesus offers to rock us to come to him.
We avoid this first step in coming to Christ because we don’t value what he values. The Lord cherishes broken pieces and if nothing else is available he will settle for the pulverized dust left over from our stupidity. Broken people are what the Lord wants and so he gives to each of us the gift of setbacks, hardships, disappointments, frustrations, embarrassment, and so on to get us into shape to be remade by him.
There are only two choices to come to Christ: either to be broken or to be pulverized. The Lord prefers the first option for us. That involves us stumbling over the person of Christ and being broken by the discovery. Jesus is the only man who is fully human for his life has fully pleased God. We will always think ourselves competent and complete until we find him.
But if we somehow manage to slip by Jesus or to dust ourselves off and rush on into foolishness then eventually the rock will fall on us and pulverize us. On the other side of Jesus are consequences. If we will not face up to Christ we will meet others who will force us to meet up with ourselves. Hopefully those encounters will bring us back to Christ.
Application
I’m a normal human; I cherish my “together” moments. They are the diplomas on my walls and pictures on my shelves. But Jesus does not cherish these as much as the memory of my need for him. My brokenness is beautiful to him for then he can do what he does best: be a Saviour.
Prayer Father, your Son is a Saviour and I need saving, so we make a wonderful combination. I need your help. I will not even bother to dust myself off. Just as I am I come to you. Amen.
Scripture See, I care about you, and I will pay attention to you.Ezekiel 36:14
Observation God’s people bruised in exile in Babylon lived with the trauma that their lives were ruined and it was their own fault that it had happened. Their condition was not unlike many who discover part way into life what life is all about.
I’ve seen divorced men in their 30’s coming back to church only just discovering what marriage is about.
I’ve worshiped with prisoners in prison who have faced themselves in a concrete prison wall and found God in a locked room.
I’ve seen it in myself when I reflect over 25 years of full-time ministry and wince over the mistakes I’ve made that showed me at times things inside of me that I didn’t want to see.
Because Jesus is our Savior as well as our Lord, we find him not just in the highest place in the throne of lordship authority, we also find Christ saving souls at the bottom. God’s people found him in exile. We will too when we look into the mirror and finally see the person who has been giving us the greatest problems in life.
Listen to the voice of God to those swimming in the grounds at the bottom of the coffee pot of life, “See, I care about you, and I will pay attention to you.”
The Lord says two things to us when in the basement of our failures; when at last we discover how to live life but have no life to live.
First, when nothing seems to be happening the Lord is up to something.He cares about us. He is paying attention to us. The people who thought God had forgotten them in fact had their picture on God’s refrigerator door.Okay, okay, so the Creator of the universe probably does not have a Frigidaire, but get the picture.We really matter to God, and when he sees us at the bottom looking up he begins working on plans to rescue us.
Second, God makes our finish line his starting point because change begins wherever we chose to turn around.Any road can become homestretch if we just about face in the right direction. What a wonderful gift repentance is! I marvel at this gift from God. No animal can repent. Dogs can’t. They can make you feel like they have repented but deep in their doggy hearts they still want to do it their own way. Forget about cats. They don’t even pretend to repent. But humans stand alone as the only creatures who can change from the inside out. Only God can do that and repentance is a beautiful thing when it happens.
Application God is here and he is willing to start with me right where I am.He brushes past my failures and says to me, “See, I care about you, and I will pay attention to you.”
Prayer Father, today I know that you are gracious and merciful, but only my repentance allows you to show that grace and mercy to me. Lord I believe that you care for me and are attentive to my need.Let change begin in my life right where I am no matter the condition around me.Amen.
Scripture “Then David’s anger burned greatly against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the LORD lives, surely the man who has done this deserves to die. He must make restitution for the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing and had no compassion.” Nathan then said to David, “You are the man! Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” (2 Chronicles 12:5-7, 13).
Observation
Nathan used a bunker buster that day in King David’s court.
Bunker busters were one of the stars of the Gulf War. Basically a canon barrel packed with TNT, dropped head first from an airplane, these missiles can pierce bedrock and concrete to knock out an enemy hide out.
Nathan dropped a bunker buster into David’s life that day.
Kingship had encrusted David’s heart with a concrete shell. Underneath the reinforcement, there was still the tender flesh of a poor shepherd boy. But over the years of hardship and significance, David had developed a callous around his tender heart.
This toughened barrier encases us as we grow older and more important too. David had become comfortable with his office. He had worked his way to the top the hard way. He now could delegate to others what he himself once did. He could enjoy the luxuries his hard work had earned him. He could make the rules and bend the rules and no one would ask questions. He was a king without a press corps, how convenient was that! People said nice things about him and believed the best about him and he believed it himself. He had learned the skill of the poker face and the politician’s smile so that few knew what was really happening on the inside.
David was very much like any middle aged successful businessman. Life was complicated and ethics were complex. What is most remarkable is not just that David could keep the whole Uriah and Bathsheba affair under wraps, but that he could keep the guilt from touching his sensitive secret sensors. The highest price of deceiving others is self-deception, for eventually the cost of lying is that we believe our own lies, no longer hear the voice of God or the guilt that can change our heart.
Enter Nathan and the bunker buster. Nathan tells a tear jerking story of an evil villain, a poor family and a pet lamb that the bad guy roasted on his Webber. It was about as infuriating as the thought of making sushi out of Nemo. (Sorry if that is a little too graphic. I’m just trying to help you to grasp how Nathan’s story made David feel.)
David was a shepherd before he was a king. Shepherds in Israel did not primarily raise sheep to eat but for milk and wool. Each member of the flock had names like Fluffy, Curly, Skippy, and so on. The story of a pet lamb on the spit touched something that David had long forgotten.
There is in every human heart a season of time we were tender to the voice of God. For David it was his shepherd days, where he sang songs to the Lord in the open field. For you maybe it was your mother’s prayers at bedtime, or laying under the stars, or that gifted Sunday School teacher, or someplace God spoke to you before you learned how to be so caught up in the cares of life that you became careless.
As one reads the story of David, Bathsheba and Uriah it reads like a police report. “The accused stalked the victim, perpetrated consensual conjugal activity, followed with covert assassination of a military officer through the abuse of political office.” To David the whole Bathsheeba and Uriah affair was like a parking fine. It was no big deal to him. A good lawyer would solve the whole thing.
But Nathan brought in the bunker buster. Before Nathan ever brought the words of accusation he first wanted to expose David’s tender heart. In the same way the Lord will work with us to peel away the leather layers of indifference to reach the days when we said yes to the Lord and then asked where he was taking us.
If Nathan had strutted into the throne room with the evidence, David probably would have found a way to eliminate the prophet. Instead Nathan wisely opened the heart and then gave the judgment. In the same way the Lord works with us. He has a way of peeling back the layers of our insensitivity and helping us to see our adult actions with a child’s heart again. What was grey now looks black and white. The triggers that can open a human heart to repent can seem odd on the surface, but like Nathan’s story they take us back quickly to simple times.
Application
The more complicated life becomes the more simple we need to make the access to our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Whenever we feel smug we need to dig down through the layers to expose our heart to the Lord. We don’t need a bunker buster to do the work. In fact we really don’t want a bunker buster. We can be as Jesus called us, to come to him as a little child with a tender conscience. The longer I follow Jesus the more I need to appropriate this word.
Prayer
Father, I offer today to you not just Philip McCallum the man but deep inside the little boy nicknamed Flipper who ran to you as soon as you came to me. Life gets complicated but it is not that complex. It is you, it is me and there is what I’m doing with my life. Keep my heart tender to respond before Nathan shows up at my door. Amen.
I'm Phil McCallum, a husband, father and most of all one of the people Jesus loves. I'm privileged to serve Evergreen Community Church in Bothell, Washington as Senior Pastor where people love enough to believe "it's all about relationships." In 1982 I made a vow to read God's word daily and apply it to life. Each day I write out my reflections. Some days I post those on my blog. It's a little personal but it's my hope it will stir you to go deeper still. Learn how I do my devotions. These are my thoughts and not necessarily those of the ministry I serve. By the way check out the computer study Bible Glo. I highly recommend it.
