“You shall have no other gods before Me . . . . For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God.” EXODUS 20:3, 5
God is admittedly a jealous God. He cherishes His people’s affections and will tolerate no rivals. He is not content to be a priority in your life; He wants to be the priority. God demands your exclusive devotion. He does not abide unfaithfulness or attitudes and habits that threaten His central place in your heart. Take a quick inventory. What is competing for God’s foremost position in your life? Look at your calendar . . . Mentally review your financial commitments . . . What do you see about yourself and about the priority God is in your everyday life? In what ways are you investing in your relationship with the Lord? Or are you busying yourself in inconsequential activities and earthly pursuits? Now consider the objects of your devotion. Has your love for someone made that person an idol? Are you longing for riches or the success and security that the world offers? What keeps you from loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? God is a jealous God: He wants your devotion. His Spirit can grow that kind of love in your heart. Why not lay your bad attitudes, destructive habits, and false gods at His feet today? - Blackaby Being Still With God
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Your house.
One thing I have desired of You, Lord, that I will seek: that I may dwell in Your house all the days of my life, to behold Your beauty, and to inquire in Your temple. I am blessed when I hunger and thirst for righteousness, for I shall be filled. You have filled the hungry with good things, and the rich You have sent away empty. You satisfy the longing soul, and fill the hungry soul with goodness. You are the bread of life. He who comes to You shall never hunger, and he who believes in You shall never thirst. How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! Therefore we children of men put our trust under the shadow of Your wings. I am abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house, and You give me drink from the river of Your pleasures. For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light I see light. The goodness of being in Your presence, Lord God, satisfies now and will satisfy forever.
Great is my love for You.
PSALM 65:4; PSALM 27:4; MATTHEW 5:6; LUKE 1:53; PSALM 107:9; JOHN 6:35; PSALM 36:7–9 - Dr. David Jeremiah Life-Changing Moments with God
To look at the theme of recent days you would do well to consider, my Dear Reader, that God's trying to tell the world something about the state of their hearts as well as His thoughts concerning them.
I am still reading in Ezekiel this morning as well. The Lord Jesus is still prophesying and Ezekiel is still telling the generations to come what's going to happen. He also tells Israel just why He's going to do what He is- because of His Great Name. Not due to their name nor their righteousness, but on account of His Name He will act.
When I read devotionals from two different people and they connect, that's a God thing.
When the devotional is in perfect alignment with what He's been saying for a while now, it should garner our attention.
The first today has the questions, the second has the prayerful response to making us think.
So lets break it down.
What is competing for God’s foremost position in your life?
Look at your calendar . . . Mentally review your financial commitments . . . What do you see about yourself and about the priority God is in your everyday life?
In what ways are you investing in your relationship with the Lord?
Or are you busying yourself in inconsequential activities and earthly pursuits?
Now consider the objects of your devotion. Has your love for someone made that person an idol?
Are you longing for riches or the success and security that the world offers?
What keeps you from loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength?
God is a jealous God: He wants your devotion. His Spirit can grow that kind of love in your heart.
Why not lay your bad attitudes, destructive habits, and false gods at His feet today?
I write what I am lead to write. It's upon you to see if these things are so. If what is written about the state of the heart from God's perspective offends you then maybe the Spirit is striking a nerve that is meant to get your attention.
You cannot live life with blinders on. You cannot please your Savior and ?. You, like the famous passage states quite clearly...you must choose this day whom you will serve.
As bluntly as this is...or may even sound corny but read it in all seriousness.
Idols are Satan's creation to turn the hearts of mankind away from God.
Idols abound in our civilized world. They are found before you are even fully awake to take on the day. They are on your radio, your television, your phone, in your home, in your every corner of your world. Idolatry is real and alive today as it was in the centuries it took to write the Bible.
The love and devotion we expend to anyone or anything else that Biblically belongs to God shows the presence of an idol. Be it person, place or thing.
Everything from A to Z, everything that can cross the mind and heart of man or woman can become an idol that causes hearts to stumble and to turn from God. Read it for yourself in the Bible. If the teachings of the New Testament tell us what they do as to how to be transformed by what? "The renewing of your mind..." To borrow a famous phrase...you have to unlearn what you have learned to grow in Christ Jesus. You have to do as the Disciples did. You must learn new priorities. You must decide, daily, to follow Jesus. You must put off the old self and its practices and put on the new self. Filled with songs, hymns and spiritual songs. Get it yet?
We who are in Christ, in order to be Holy as He is Holy...have to decide daily, hourly, by the minute...to follow Jesus with a whole heart. Sanctify the Lord Jesus Christ in your heart. God's Will is our sanctification. He prayed for your sanctification.
You have read the questions already that you need to ask yourself.
It's up to you to be real with yourself and God. It's not upon me. I have pointed the way as I am lead to write. You need to ask God to reveal the truth to you about you.
Ignorance of things isn't an excuse. If every single knee will bow and every single tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord...what manor of person ought we to be in the here and now?
As Blackaby says to ask...where has your time, energy, money gone in your life? Do you promote Jesus in your life or are you a walking billboard for an idol? The truth of the Bible says you will do one or the other. Your clothes, your speech, conduct, will either be of God or of the world.
In my solitude times of these weeks leading up to moving into our new home, God's been doing a number on my mind and my heart in forcing me to see what isn't going to work in my life for His sanctifying work in me. He's showing me the real me that needs to change if I am going to have the sanctification that is His Will for me. In the last year much has changed in my life leading up to this. Much pain has been worked through. No doubt more will come as the Spirit continues to clean house in my heart and mind to bring me to where I am to be in Christ Jesus.
No comments:
Post a Comment