Experiencing God Day By Day (44 page)

Test all things; hold fast what is good.
Abstain from every form of evil.

1 Thessalonians 5:21–22

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old fast to what is good, or the world will take it away. Satan is the relentless enemy of good. When he saw that what God gave Adam and Eve was good, he set about to take it away from them. When he saw that King David was pleasing to God, he attempted to destroy David's relationship with God. Never take the good in your life for granted. If you do not hold on to it firmly, it may be lost.

People will challenge the good that you are practicing. They may criticize you for your moral stand, your child rearing, your use of money, or your involvement in church. Time pressures will attack the good in your life. Your time to pray, study Scripture, be with your family, and serve in your church will all be pressured by the many other time demands you face. You may give generously to your church and other Christian causes, but you will be tempted to spend your money selfishly and minimize the good you are doing with your finances.

Scripture reveals the solution for holding on to what is good—abstain from every form of evil. Evil robs you of what God intends for you. A spouse and family are great blessings, but the evil of adultery can rob you of the good that God has given. Prayer is a wonderful gift from God. Yet sin robs the power of prayer (Isa. 1:15). If you will not abstain from evil, it will rob you of the good things God has given. God's commandments do not restrict you: they free you to experience God's best. Diligently abstain from every form of evil, and you will be free to enjoy every good thing God has for you.

For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the
knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

Hosea 6:6

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o amount of activity for God will ever take the place of a heart that is right with Him. Through the ages God's people have been persuaded that they could please Him through their service and their offerings, regardless of their heart condition. King Saul offered generous sacrifices, hoping God would overlook his disobedience (1 Sam. 15:22–23). David may have assumed that after all he had done on God's behalf, God would overlook his sin (2 Sam. 12:7–15). Ananias and Sapphira thought that their generous gift to the church would compensate for their deceitfulness (Acts 5:1–11). Paul was certainly one who had thought his zealousness would please God. After his conversion, however, he concluded that even if he had faith to remove mountains, gave all he had to feed the poor, and offered his body to be burned for the sake of God, and yet had a heart that was not right, it would all be for nothing (1 Cor. 13:1–3).

We are susceptible to the same misunderstanding as all of these people were. We can be deceived into assuming God is more interested in our activity for Him than He is in the condition of our hearts. God has consistently made it clear that He will not be pacified by even the most generous offerings and zealous service if our hearts are not right with Him (Mic. 6:6–8). No matter how much we do in God's service, regardless of how active we are in our church, no matter how honorable our reputation in the Christian community, He will not overlook a sinful heart. His desire is that we devote ourselves to knowing Him and loving Him with all of our hearts.

Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap in mercy;
break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord,
till He comes and rains righteousness on you.

Hosea 10:12

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he people of Hosea's day had become hardened to God's Word. They had heard it many times before and had grown apathetic to what God required of them. God's solution was for them to break up the fallow ground of their hearts. They were to allow Him to soften their hardened hearts. When the earth was dry and crusty, the farmer would plow to loosen the soil so it was receptive to the seeds and the rains that would give life to the crop. Likewise, God's people were to break up the sinful barriers in their lives that prevented God's Word from penetrating their hearts. Then, said Hosea, God would give life and refresh them by raining down on them in righteousness.

As Christians, we must continually cultivate our hearts and minds so that they are receptive to whatever God tells us. John the Baptist exhorted those around him to prepare for Jesus’ coming. We, too, can remind others to prepare their lives so that God's righteousness will penetrate and fill their lives. We can urge them to repent when we see sin sinking into their lives. We can share the joy that God's Word brings us and encourage our friends to seek God's will also. We can tell of the blessings that have come to us as a result of our obedience. We can help to break up the fallow ground in the hearts of those around us.

Hosea admonished God's people to seek the Lord until His righteousness rained down upon them. We should immediately cultivate our heart whenever it starts to become hardened toward God. If we keep our hearts prepared, we will be ready when God's Word comes to us.

For who has despised the day of small things?

Zechariah 4:10a

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he world loves the spectacular. God has proven that He is certainly capable of the extraordinary, but He often chooses to work through the ordinary and seemingly insignificant. In this way He demonstrates His love and His power.

Throughout history, God's answer to a critical time was to send a baby. Isaac, Moses, Samuel, John the Baptist, and Jesus were all born as answers to a time of need. When God delivered the Israelites from the Midianites’ oppression, He intentionally used an army of merely three hundred men to defeat a vastly larger army. When Jesus selected His first disciples He could have enlisted a multitude to follow Him, but He chose twelve. When He fed a multitude, five loaves of bread and two fish from a boy's lunch were sufficient in the hands of the Lord.

Jesus compared the kingdom of God to a mustard seed (Matt. 13:31–32). The mustard seed was the smallest seed known to the Jews, yet it grew into an enormous tree. He also likened God's kingdom to leaven that is hardly noticeable but raises the entire batch of dough (Matt. 13:33). When children came to Jesus, His disciples assumed they were an annoyance and chased them away (Matt. 19:13–15). But Jesus said that in order to enter His kingdom, people must approach God as a child.

Christians often accept the adage “the bigger the better.” We measure success by the number of people involved in our ministry. We seek spectacular displays of God's power. We must learn to view success as God does. God is interested in the heart; He is pleased with obedience.

This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: “Not by might nor
by power, but by My Spirit,” says the Lord of hosts.

Zechariah 4:6

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od's word came to His people at a critical time. They were a despondent, disillusioned people who faced a daunting task. They had been exiled in Babylon for seventy years. During this time they had witnessed the strength of the most dominant military power in their world. They had watched the Babylonian army marching off to conquer other nations. They had seen the wealth and splendor of the Babylonian king. When Babylon was in turn conquered by the Persians, the Israelites saw an even greater superpower emerging on the world stage.

As the Israelites returned to Jerusalem after seventy years in captivity, they found their city in ruins. Their magnificent temple had been destroyed. The city walls had been torn down. They had no resources to rebuild their splendid city. As these former refugees looked at the mammoth task before them, they realized their poverty and weakness, and they became greatly dismayed. Then came God's Word! He promised that they would, indeed, rebuild their city. But, He told them, the rebuilding would not be accomplished by their own power and resources but by His Spirit.

There will be times when obeying God will lead you to impossible situations. If you look at your own skills, knowledge, and resources, you will become discouraged. However, when you became a Christian, God placed His Spirit within you. You now have the resources of heaven at your disposal. The success of your endeavors will not depend on the way you use your own resources but on how you obey the Spirit of God.

As His divine power has given to us all things that
pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge
of Him who called us by glory and virtue.

2 Peter 1:3

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s a Christian, you have everything you need to live a holy and abundant life (2 Pet. 1:3–11). Your intelligence, your education, or your family background do not determine the holiness of your life. Everything you need to live a victorious, joyful, and abundant life is found in the Holy Spirit who resides within you (Gal. 5:22–23).

According to Peter, each Christian, by faith, has access to these qualities: goodness, knowledge of God, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love. It would be of no use to inherit a fortune if you did not know it was yours. Likewise, it is of no benefit to inherit everything necessary to become like Christ if you do not claim it.

If we continue to lack self-control when God has made it available, we rob ourselves and those around us. If God is willing to instill brotherly kindness into our behavior, but we never display it, people will suffer needlessly as a result.

The key to all that God has made available to us is our faith. We must believe that God wants to build these qualities into our lives. In the Gospels, Jesus related to people according to their faith (Matt. 8:13; 9:29; 15:28). He rewarded genuine faith by granting salvation and healing. If He met unbelief, He did not reward it (Mark 6:5–6).

Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God,
command that these stones become bread.”

Matthew 4:3

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s John the Baptist raised Him from the water, Jesus heard His Father's affirmation, “Well done!” Immediately afterward, Jesus spent forty days fasting in the wilderness. There Satan met Him and presented three temptations.

First, Satan enticed Jesus to use His divine power to transform stones into bread. It seemed like a logical thing to do. Jesus was hungry, but He had a much greater need to follow His Father's leading. The Father had led Him to fast; Satan sought to persuade Him to eat.

Next, Satan tried to convince Jesus to use Satan's means to accomplish the Father's ends. “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down” (Matt. 4:6). Jesus understood that this would be presumption, not faith. It would be attempting God's work in the world's way.

The final temptation Satan proposed for Jesus to achieve God's will was by worshiping Satan (Matt. 4:8–9). In return, Satan offered to give Him all the kingdoms of the world. By compromising, Jesus could gain a powerful ally and achieve His mission without suffering the cross. Jesus knew that only God was to be worshiped, and to worship Satan would not bring instant success, as Satan promised, but devastating failure.

As you seek to follow God, temptations will inevitably come. Sometimes they will come immediately after a spiritual victory. Jesus relied on God's Word to see Him through the temptations that could have destroyed Him and thwarted God's plan. He has modeled the way for you to meet every temptation.

Enlarge the place of your tent, and let them stretch out
the curtains of your dwellings; do not spare;
lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes.

Isaiah 54:2

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hen God comes to a life in power, it is always a time of rejoicing and expectation for the future! Isaiah described this experience as similar to that of a child born to a previously barren woman. The child's arrival changes everything! Whereas the dwelling place might have been large enough for two, it must now be made bigger. The child's presence causes the parents to completely rearrange the way they were living.

Isaiah proclaimed that when God comes, you must make room for Him in your life. You must “enlarge the place of your tent” because God's presence will add new dimensions to your life, your family, and your church. You do not simply “add Christ on” to your busy life and carry on with business as usual. When Christ is your Lord, everything changes. Whereas before you may not have expected good things to come through you or in your life, now you should have a spirit of optimism. You ought to expect your life to become richer and fuller. You can anticipate God blessing others through your life. You can look for God to demonstrate His power through your life in increasing measure.

As a Christian, how do you make room for Christ in your life? You repent of your sin. You allow Christ the freedom to do what He wants in you. You watch eagerly for His activity. You live your life with the expectancy that Christ will fill you with His power in the days to come and will “stretch” you to do things in His service that you have never done before.