LEAVE ROOM FOR GOD - January 25th, 2014

But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me... Galatians 1:15-16a (ESV)

Chambers devotional references the King James Version of this verse, which begins But when it pleased God...  This slight change in phrasing emphasizes God's timing more than we might notice in some of the other translations.  When it pleased God.  Not when it pleases us.  Not when we hope or expect or sometimes even pray.  But when it pleased God.  I must admit that I sometimes find God's timing frustrating.  But God's timing is not based on hubris, or some sort of tyrannical power-trip, but rather His overwhelming, unfathomable love for us in combination with His omniscient consideration of our past, present and future.

Chambers opens today's reading:

As workers for God we have to learn to make room for God – to give God "elbow room." We calculate and estimate, and say that this and that will happen, and we forget to make room for God to come in as He chooses...Do not look for God to come in any particular way, but look for Him. 

God almost never does things the way I think He will. I see my situations and circumstances solely through the lens of my own experience and somehow fail to take into account the truth of Isaiah 55:8-9:

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.
    “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. 

I sometimes joke that I have such good ideas for God, but He never seems to use any of them.  Sometimes I become so caught up in how I expect (or want) God to work that I fail to see His work unfolding when it comes about in the way HE intends.  As believers, perhaps we should focus less on the logistics of HOW he's working and instead, as Chambers says, simply look for HIM.  Am I immersed in His Word?  Am I praying over my situation?  When the answers there are "yes" then we need to let God work as He will.  He will show up in His time in the way He intends for His purpose.

And let us not forget that God's purpose always takes into account factors that we do not know or understand.  I want God to work in a certain way because of my own perceptions and those perceptions are almost entirely based solely upon my circumstances and/or the circumstances of those I know and love.  But God is all-knowing.  He sees the way my life intertwines with the lives around me and He sees the way my life WILL intertwine with the lives around me.  He knows my past and present, but also my future, and sometimes I forget that part. 

As believers, we were set apart before we were even born.  God saw us in the womb and knew, even when we were but a few cells, who we would be and how He would call us for His glory.  I don't deserve to be considered for this call.  I'm weak, impulsive, self-absorbed and short-sighted so much of the time.  But God, by His grace, chose me, just as He chose you in spite of your faults and failures, and revealed His precious Son so that we could share in the promise of salvation.

THE OVERMASTERING DIRECTION - January 24, 2014

But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you,  Acts 26:16 (ESV)

Paul had a powerful, life-changing encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus that day, and Jesus was clear as to why he chose to reveal himself so dramatically to Paul: "to appoint you as a servant and a witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you." 

Many of us have become so accustomed to Paul the apostle, we may sometimes forget that he was first Saul the Pharisee, whose passionate dedication to his Jewish faith drove him to be a well-known and feared persecutor of the early church.  To say this encounter was life-changing is a gross understatement.  Through it, Paul realized all he had stood for in defending his God was actually persecuting his God.  Black became white, dark became light, heresy became truth, and Paul "was not disobedient to the heavenly vision" (Acts 26:19) but lived the remainder of his life as a servant and a witness to the Gospel. 

Chambers explains:

When we are born again we all have visions, if we are spiritual at all, of what Jesus wants us to be, and the great thing is to learn not to be disobedient to the vision, not to say that it cannot be attained. It is not sufficient to know that God has redeemed the world, and to know that the Holy Spirit can make all that Jesus did effectual in me; I must have the basis of a personal relationship to Him. Paul was not given a message or a doctrine to proclaim, he was brought into a vivid, personal, overmastering relationship to Jesus Christ...There is nothing there apart from the personal relationship. Paul was devoted to a Person not to a cause.

Paul was devoted to Jesus, not "the cause" of Christianity and there is a difference. This has tremendous implications for us as believers in this day and age.  It is so easy to become devoted to a church, a ministry, or a particular teacher and while we should certainly serve in our churches, listen to and learn from theologically sound teachers, and involve ourselves in those causes for which God has given us a passion, our devotion should be reserved for Christ alone.  Our primary focus should always be on nurturing our relationship with Jesus, first and foremost, through time in the Word and prayer.  As we become more and more Christ-like, our service to our churches and our communities is more effective.

My Prayer today:

Heavenly Father, reveal those places in my life where I am more devoted to people or causes than I am to your precious Son.  Help me to grow my relationship with Jesus above all else so that I am a servant and a witness for the Gospel.