Matthew 11: 28-30
Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
A life serving Jesus is a life of peace and rest… but begins with taking his yoke upon you. Struggle comes when a person sets his yoke aside…
Lord, help me surrender to your ways.
1Samuel 23 records an incident that took place during the time Saul was in pursuit of David.
David was told the Philistines were fighting against Keilah, a town in Judah, and were robbing the threshingfloors. At the report (verse 2), David enquired of the LORD, saying, Shall I go and smite these Philistines? And the LORD said unto David, Go, and smite the Philistines, and save Keilah.
So David and his men (verse 5) went to Keilah, and fought with the Philistines, and brought away their cattle, and smote them with a great slaughter. So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah.
It is amazing that, while David was occupied with staying out of Saul’s grip, and thereby preserving his own life and the lives of those with him, he would have the heart to think of those in Keilah – who were under attack from the enemy.
Where was Saul, and why didn’t he come to the aid of Keilah? Why wasn’t he there fighting the enemy of Israel? Saul had forgotten who the enemy was. He thought David, the chosen of God, was the enemy.
Verses 7-8 read:
And it was told Saul that David was come to Keilah. And Saul said, God hath delivered him into mine hand; for he is shut in, by entering into a town that hath gates and bars. And Saul called all the people together to war, to go down to Keilah, to besiege David and his men.
How many times does a Christian, as Saul did, assault the wrong person?
Husbands, your wife is not the enemy. Wives, your husband is not the enemy. Parents, your children are not the enemy. Children, your parents are not the enemy. Christians, your brothers and sisters are not the enemy.
Satan is the enemy.
Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.
Matthew 9: 35 reads:
And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.
It is pretty awesome to see God touch someone’s life – through the preaching of the gospel and/or through healing or deliverance. But more insight into the heart of God is revealed in verse 36.
But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.
To truly be like Jesus…
Lord, fill me with compassion for others.
Is 17: 10–11 says:
Because you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not been mindful of the Rock of your stronghold, therefore you will plant pleasant plants and set out foreign seedlings; In the day you will make your plant to grow, and in the morning you will make your seed to flourish; but the harvest will be a heap of ruins in the day of grief and desperate sorrow.
Trying to make sense out of a confusing and messed-up world is an exercise of futility. The Bible says, ‘The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord’s; But the earth he has given to the children of men.’ (Ps 115:16)… and from the fall of Adam & Eve, mankind has pretty much made a mess out of everything!
So, be careful when looking at things around you – always look at things through the filter of God’s Word.
In Ecclesiastes, Solomon summed-up life pretty good when he said, ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity…’
…and then ended the book with, ‘Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all.’
Like Isaiah said in the text above, it may look like the plants are growing, but in the end, it is the harvest that counts.
Eph. 4:31 – 5:1 says:
Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore, be imitators of God as dear children.
We are God’s dear children, and as dear children emulate their fathers, so should we our heavenly father – which leads me to what I feel is one of the greatest group of verses in the Bible.
Col 3:12 – 14
Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.
Above all these things? Oh, my. God’s Word is life-changing!
Isaiah 5:8 says:
Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!
I read this verse, knowing the world is filled with people who reply, “Leave me alone,” every time God reaches out to touch their lives – and that there may come a time when he does. I also read, in the Old & New Testaments alike, of strong men of faith whose hearts said the same thing.
In Deut. 29, when Moses was talking to the Old Testament Church shortly before he passed, he said:
You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land – the great trials which your eyes have seen, the signs, and those great wonders. Yet the Lord has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day.
I shudder to think I could find myself in this place.
O God, have mercy on me. Give me eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to perceive.
An amazing insight into life itself can be found in Psalms 90:14. It says:
Oh, satisfy us early with your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days!
For a Christian, truly understanding God’s mercy is the beginning of a satisfied life – a life of joy and gladness. God’s mercy is the reason we can approach him, the reason he hears us when we call upon him, the reason we even exist. Without God’s mercy, we are nothing.
Understanding God’s mercy brings balance to life, brings order to life.
Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but to your name give glory, because of your mercy, because of your truth. Ps 115:1
Leviticus 1 starts out:
Now the LORD called to Moses, and spoke to him from the tabernacle of meeting, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When any one of you brings an offering to the LORD, you shall bring your offering of the livestock – of the herd and of the flock.
…and then he explains how to offer the sacrifice – his way.
Hebrews 10 says we may now ‘enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living a way’, and that we can ‘draw near (to God) with a true heart in full assurance of faith’.
We have access to the Lord through the blood of Jesus, but I wonder if there remains a proper way to approach him. For instance, Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount:
Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
In another spot, in Luke 18, Jesus told the parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector. In the parable, he said the Pharisee ‘prayed thus with himself…’ while the tax collector ‘would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’
Then Jesus said, “I tell you, this man (the tax collector) went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled , and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
As Paul wrote in Romans 12… ‘I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.’
God’s Word is a lamp to our feet, and a light to our paths.
Exodus 25 starts out:
Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: “Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering. From everyone who gives it willingly with his heart you shall take my offering.”
Then Paul writes in Romans 12:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
God knows the thoughts and intents of our hearts. And he receives our offerings, our sacrifices, when we come to him in sincerity, in meekness, in humility.
David wrote in Psalms 51:
O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth your praise. For you do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; you do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart – these, O God, you will not despise.
Lord, show me your ways…
In Matt 23: 29-32, Jesus said:
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’ Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt.
How serious is it when we identify with someone, or something? In the text above, Jesus said those he was speaking to were so aligned that they entered into the guilt of their (the fathers’) actions.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Read it for yourself. 