Day 8

Planned for God's Pleasure

"Because of God's great mercy to us, offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God dedicated to His service and pleasing to Him. This is the true worship that you should offer." Romans 12:1

A question was asked of Jesus: "Lord, what's the most important command in the entire Bible?" (Matthew 22:36) Jesus said, the most important thing …

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself. Matthew 22:37-39

We were created by God for a purpose, to love him. We show that love to him by loving our neighbor. Loving God, loving neighbor, require a tremendous sacrifice in our lives. Jesus showed his love to us by offering himself as a sacrifice so that we can live with him eternally. We are to worship him - and worshiping him means loving our neighbor. To say we love God but not love our neighbor is to be a fraud. This requires that we rethink what true worship is - it is NOT an activity that we do once a week at "church". Rather, it is how we live our lives 24/7 in being a living sacrifice to God being dedicated to serving him by following his command to love our neighbor.

Gracious Lord, help me show my love to you by loving my neighbor, as unlovable he or she may be at times. Just like how you love me. Amen

Point to Ponder: I was planned for God's pleasure

Verse to Remember: The Lord takes pleasure in his people. Psalm 149:4a

Question to reflect and respond to:

1. What common task could I start doing as if I were doing it directly for Jesus
2. To serve "neighbor" is to serve that person as I would serve Jesus. How will this change your view of neighbor?
   

Day 9

What Makes God Smile?

Noah was a pleasure to the Lord. Genesis 6:8

Have you ever seen pictures of Jesus depicted as smiling? Our idea of Jesus is often limited to the agony of the cross. We seldom imagine Him laughing or pleased.

We were created by God for His pleasure. When we live in our purpose and assignment, we bring pleasure to God. The book of Genesis tells how God was grieved and regretted creating man (Gen. 6:6), but there was one man who made Him smile. Noah was a pleasure to God.

There are five characteristics from the life of Noah that made God smile.

1. When we love Him most. Difficulty in relationships develops when we are not in intimacy with the Father. To love Him most is to love Him consistently. Relationship with Him is what God wants most.
2. When we trust Him wholeheartedly. Even when it doesn't make sense. Halfhearted faith doesn't please God. Noah didn't know what an ark was. Noah had never seen rain. Noah couldn't gather the animals into the ark on his own. Trusting God completely means having faith that He knows what is best for us. What is it that God is asking you to completely trust Him with?
3. When we obey Him completely. Noah received very detailed instructions. Partial obedience is disobedience.
4. When we praise and thank Him continually. The first thing Noah did after he left the ark was to build an altar and worship God. In giving praise to God we are filled.
5. When we use our abilities. Every activity except sin can be done to bring pleasure to God.

God is looking for people like Noah.

Heavenly Father, help me to be obedient to you in all things and trust you in and through all things so that I can bring joy to you. Amen

Point to Ponder: God smiles when I trust him.

Verse to Remember: The Lord is pleased with those who worship him and trust his love. Psalm 147:11

Question to reflect and respond to:

1. Since God knows what is best, in what areas of my life do I need to trust him most?
   

Day 10

The Heart of Worship
I WILL REST YOU

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will rest you. Matthew 11:28

The heart of worship is surrender.

To surrender means to give everything up to the Lord. Lay it all down. Lose the right to yourself. Surrender means you lose your right to handle yourself on your own. Let God be your all. In the middle of everything, lose and forfeit your rights to the Lord. By all means, do not fix yourself. Do not try in yourself to get it together. If you get it together, that means you are the savior. Do not try to work what is dead back up into life. You cannot squeeze life out of the region of death inside of you.

Life must come from the outside. In resurrection, Christ as the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit. Life originates in Him. So we must let Christ inject life into our dead condition. We must receive the life. We must allow resurrection life to give life to our mortal bodies (Rom. 8:11).

Surrendering is not merely a once-and-for-all experience. It is continuous, day by day. Our life only exists for Christ ??" to contain Him, to be filled with Him, and to express Him. His resurrection life that has passed through every battle and conquered death itself now becomes our portion.

Surrender means coming to Christ just as you are.

Are you a surrendered person? Come to Him just as you are. God wants to be your all. The Lord's words in Matthew 11:28 are so significant and help give us purpose: "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden." The word "labor" is in the present tense and can be translated "all you who are laboring." It means you are under the inward effort of trying to overcome either this thought or that feeling or trying to deal with a certain environment. You are just laboring. There is a standard in your mind of what you know you should be, and then there is the real you. When you start comparing the real you to the standard, you immediately begin toiling and laboring over your condition. If this is your case, then the Lord's words are for you. All those who are laboring and are heavy laden are invited to come to Him.

"Heavy laden" means this is a state or chronic condition that one lives with. The Lord is saying, "Come to Me, all you who are in the middle of a chronic condition." You are living in a state of being weighed down because of the accumulation of cares, anxieties, and accusations that have piled up on you. It is expecting a better performance, a better track record. When you do not meet up to your expectations, you are disappointed, and the result is that you are weighed down. You are weighed down not because the Lord has weighed you down, not because He has imposed something upon you, but because you are carrying within you a religious system of self-expectation.

The Lord says, "Come to Me, all you who are in the middle of that and feel the weight of that." And He says, "I will rest you." He does not say, "I will give you rest," as the King James Version translates it, but "I will rest you." The word "give" is not in the original language. Many of the different translations bring out exactly what the Greek says: "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will rest you." I will rest you. This means "I am the One that does the resting of your life. And you will find rest for your souls."

"I will rest you." This is what He does in the middle of everything. He wants to be the One who handles our weak and tired-out souls. Even the emphasis in the original is "I, I Myself, will rest you." Also, the Greek word for "come" means more than just the usual word for come. It means "Come now, come quick." It means to come in the midst of some kind of environment, in the middle of something, indicating that the Lord senses the urgency of relieving us of our laboring and heavy condition. He is saying, "Come quick! I will rest you."

Has He been doing this in your experience?

Call on His name, be open to Him, complain to Him, talk to Him, lay everything on Him. Do not try to handle things yourself. Just handle Him. Come to Him. Open up and pour out to Him, and He will rest you. This is our resurrected Christ. He is present and available and wants to come to us ??" all the time.

Gracious Father, rest me in you. Pickup all that I have been lugging around. Fill me with your presence and peace and purpose. Amen

Point to Ponder: The heart of worship is surrender. "I will rest you"

Verse to Remember: Surrender your whole being to him to be used for righteous purposes. Romans 6:13b

Questions to reflect and respond to:

1. What am I carrying around that I need to surrender to God?
2. What does God want to "rest you" in your life?

Day 11

Becoming Best Friends with God

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. John 15:15

Jesus Christ, What a Friend!

If you have some church or church school background you may be familiar with a Hymn I learned in First Grade in the Lutheran one room school house on my father’s farm in Frankentrost, MI. It's a hymn that has stuck with me as one of my favorites even to this day. It's the hymn "What A Friend We Have in Jesus"

What a Friend we have in Jesus, All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry Everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry Everything to God in prayer!

When I was a kid at school we had to memorize hymns and the words (although written for song) took on a new force as we spoke them out loud "What a friend we have in Jesus; all our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege it is to carry everything to God in prayer."

Today, I may be driving along to my next appointment on a busy day and I find myself reciting this old hymn to myself and it becomes an inspiration to me "O what peace we often forfeit; O what needless pain we bear; All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer." The words lift me right there and remind me that my friend (Jesus) is always with me.

The story behind the Hymn gives it a fresh meaning. The writer was an Irishman, Joseph Scriven born in 1820. Shortly before he died a neighbor asked him how he came to write the hymn. It may surprise you to learn it came out of great personal tragedy.

At the age of 25 on the night before he was due to be married his girlfriend accidentally drowned. From this indescribable grief came "What a friend we have in Jesus all our sins and griefs to bear," in another verse “In his arms he'll take and shield you, you will find a solace there". How easily he could have gone the other direction to bitterness and hardness of heart but he had the courage to look to God and as a result he experienced the indescribable comfort God can be, 'what a friend' God can be. "What a privilege it is to carry everything to God in prayer."

He later left his homeland of Ireland and moved to Port Hope, Canada. He found Jesus to be his best friend and decided to give his life to be a friend and a help to others. He became known as the "Good Samaritan of Port Hope." Out of tragedy he grew close to Jesus. Out of tragedy he found PURPOSE. Out of tragedy he Made a Difference!

The central message of Christianity is that Jesus Christ is a personal friend, not imaginary, not a philosophy, not a moral code nor a creed of beliefs. Jesus gives you himself, He wants to live in you, He wants to be with you, around you, He wants to have an every day walking, talking relationship with you.

When you became (or become) a Christian – for most through Baptism – you didn't just become one of his followers, you invited him to be in you. Jesus took up residence in you. You were therefore "resurrected" into a new life in Him. (Romans 7:4) This is Big News, please don't think of it as religious jargon, your life has been made New (2 Corinthians 5:7). It is not just a fresh start, it is not just a clean slate...it is a new person.. a new creation…the new you…the you you were always meant to be! God gives us the Holy Spirit, that is the new life… and St Peter, quoting Jesus, likened it to being “born again.” (1 Peter 1:23). It doesn't mean we loose something of our human nature, to become a 'holy Joe,' it doesn't mean we give up our natural human abilities. God transforms our nature and our abilities to their full-created potential. With Christ in us we are able to have that friendship with God through Jesus. (John 1:12) We are people now with a PURPOSE. "What a friend we have in Jesus."

Gracious Father, my truest friend. Thank you for loving me, as unlovable as I am at times. Thank you for living in and through me, for giving me purpose! Amen

Point to Ponder: God wants to be my best friend.

Verse to Remember: Friendship with God is reserved for those who reverence him. Psalm 25:14

React to the blow statements::

1. No place is any closer to God than the place where you are right now.
2. Your goal is not a feeling, but a continual awareness of the reality that God is always present.

Day 12

Developing Your Friendship with God

Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. James 4:8

Coming near to God was an expression that was used originally of the priest drawing near to God. “Even the priests, who approach the LORD, must consecrate themselves, or the LORD will break out against them." Exodus 19:22 What a wonderful and fearful concept that we can draw near to God - into His presence. “…let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.” Hebrews 10:22

The Jewish Talmud had a saying "God goes out to those who approach Him." But the New Testament has a new and better idea. God going out to those who do not deserve Him. “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:6-8 But even though He has come for us, He does not take us by force. He wants a willing servant and so He pleads with us and gives us the choice to initiate by drawing near to Him. We come not by merit but rather as beggars before a holy God who without his invite we could never be friends.

Hands and Heart

You cannot have the one without the other; they are one and the same. They are but two aspects of the same action. Hands and heart symbolize deeds and thought. Out of the heart comes that which defiles a man. Actions come from the heart but actions also affect the heart. You cannot commit sin without its stain defiling your soul. “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10 Developing our friendship with God requires that we recognize that we have sinned against God – acknowledge that sin – and be made pure by HIM and FRIENDS AGAIN – all is forgotten! WOW

Abba Father, Most Holy God, thank you for allowing me into your presence. When I think of all that you have done, the incredible universe you have made and hold together by your word, I am amazed you invite me into your presence. Thank you for knowing me and having a plan for my life. Thank you for giving me PURPOSE. Help me to live with humility and grace before others as I seek to glorify you in all things. Through Jesus I pray. Amen

Point to Ponder: I’m as close to God as I choose to be.

Verse to Remember: Draw close to God, and God will draw close to you. James 4:8

React to the below statements

1. Genuine friendship is built on disclosure -authenticity.
2. God always acts in your best interest, even when it is painful and you don't understand it.
3. We can be friends with God, but never His equals.

Day 13

Worship That Pleases God

"Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." John 4:23-24

Mention the word worship and a variety of things may come to mind: a sense of God's presence during a church service, a Christian prostrate before God's holiness, or a congregation singing to the music of an organ and piano (or maybe a pulsating band). But is worship synonymous with an event - a specific activity done at a specific time? True worship, by its very nature, is not a spectator sport, nor is it entertainment. Certainly, the term worship can include some of the events named above, and many others as well.

However, a larger concern transcends this narrow idea of worship - a concern deriving from how the word is used in the New Testament. Instead of thinking of worship simply as an event, the New Testament writers take the worship terminology of the Old Testament and transform it, applying it to all of life. Words and concepts such as "worship," "sacrifice," "temple," and "offering" - words which to the original readers would carry vivid overtones of specific institutional events - are used to describe the overall lifestyle of the Christian. No longer is worship something that takes place in the temple in Jerusalem, regulated by various rules and administered by properly appointed priests; it now describes the total life orientation of the person who has placed his faith in Christ and been transformed by the work of the Spirit. The familiar words of Romans 12:1 provide a clear example of this: "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship" (ESV). When the word worship came to mind, Paul wanted the Roman Christians to think not of the slaughter of bulls and goats in the temple in Jerusalem, but of their own lives, unreservedly given in service to God, in view of the magnificent mercy provided through the cross of Christ.

Worship should reflect this biblical concern - spirit and TRUTH. True worship cannot occur apart from an understanding of who God is (Acts 17:23), and therefore every aspect of worship must conform to the truth of God's Word. To believe God is to worship God. Martin Luther (1483-1546)

Lord, let my life be an act of worship that reflects the Truth of your Word, the source of all my Purpose in you. Amen

Point to Ponder: God wants all of me.

Verse to Remember: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Mark 12:30

React to the below statements:

1. If worship is mindless, it is meaningless.
2. Which is more pleasing to God right now - my public worship or my private worship? What will I do about this?

Day 14

When God Seems Distant

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?" Hebrews 13:6

I recently ran into a lady that was a member of my church. She had been active once but in recent months had drifted away. She told me that after suffering numerous personal and family problems God had become distant to her. She felt that she had lost contact with him.

My response was as follows: “Not only now but even in the future, there will be times when God seems distant; when it looks as if God has forgotten and does not care; when prayers go unanswered and life is difficult. At such times you must learn to hold on to fellow Christians. Your difficulty is that you tried to hold on to God alone, and man was never intended to live in isolation with God. We were created to be people in community with other believers. It is in the community of God’s people that God comes to us, that God comforts us, that God speaks to us. Sometimes he is silent because he wants us to be back in community and not in isolation. As Jesus said, “I am hungry, did you feed me?” (Matthew 25:31-46)….He also says, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” Revelation 3:20 What fellow Christian has been knocking at your door that Jesus is working through to speak to you? What person in need has been put before you? Could God be coming to you through them?

Response when God Seems Distant

Remember that the truth is what God says, not what you feel. Hebrews 13:5
God told Joshua three times: “I will not fail you or forsake you.” Deuteronomy 31:6, 8 Joshua 1:5
See Psalm 27:10; Isaiah 46:3-4; Matthew 28:20

Remember that there is always more going on than meets the eye. Hebrews 11:3
Daniel 3:1-30; 2 Kings 6:11-19; Matthew 18:10

Please God by asking for faith. Hebrews 11:6
Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

See 2 Corinthians 5:7
Believe your beliefs and doubt your doubts.
Never let what you don’t know get in the way of what you do.
Never doubt in the dark what God has shown you in the light.
Never make major decisions in the darkness. Isaiah 50:10-11

Love God by obeying him. John 14:21
He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me.
When you don’t know what to do, do what you know to do.

Dear Lord, help me to know that in the times when you seem distant that you are still there. Help me to see you in others that are in need and in those who you send to comfort me. Help me to rest in the assurance of that which I know about you in your Word. Amen

Point to Ponder: God is real, no matter how I feel.

Verse to Remember: For God has said, “I will never leave you; I will never abandon you”. Hebrews 13:5

React (and share) to the below statements:

1. How can I stay focused on God’s presence, especially when he feels distant?
2. The deepest level of worship is praising God in spite of pain, thanking God during a trial, trusting him when tempted, surrendering while suffering, and loving him when he seems distant (Ps. 43:2).