Week 31 Devotions

July 30 - - How frustrated God must get when He sees how we stubbornly persist in our sinful habits, completely oblivious to His demonstrations of love and forgiveness. The apostle Paul describes in the New Testament how bad people can become. “They refuse to acknowledge God, so He abandons them to their evil minds and lets them do things that should never be done....They are fully aware of God’s death penalty for those who do these things, yet they go right ahead and do them anyway. And, worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too” (Romans 1:28,32). Paul goes on to say that those who claim to love God are often no better than those who don’t. “You may be saying, ‘What terrible people you have been talking about!’ But you are just as bad, and you have no excuse!.....Do you think that God will judge and condemn others for doing these bad things and not judge you when you do them, too? Don’t you realize how kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Or don’t you care? Can’t you see how kind He has been in giving you time to turn from your sin? But no, you won’t listen. So you are storing up terrible punishment for yourself because of your stubbornness in refusing to turn from your sins” (Romans 2:1,3-5). Why is it we see the wrongs others do, but are blind to our own? Why is the obvious so hard for us to admit? In the Old Testament, God labels our sinful rebellion and our constant wandering from His love in pursuit of idols and gods that can never respond to us, as adultery. “You are like a restless female camel, desperate for a male! You are like a wild donkey, sniffing the wind at mating time. Who can restrain your lust? Those who desire you do not even need to search, for you come running to them! Why do you refuse to turn from all this running after other gods? But you say, ‘Don’t waste your breath. I have fallen in love with these foreign gods, and I can’t stop loving them now!’” ((Jeremiah 2:23-25). In spite of our unfaithfulness to Him, our God is faithful to us. In our search for happiness, in our desire to find intimacy, we turn to every source but the One who will not force Himself upon us, the One who proves His love over and over, and the One who longs to be in relationship with us. The Lord beckons to each of us, “come back to me, and I will heal your wayward hearts” (Jer.3:22). When we have exhausted ourselves in our selfish pursuit of fulfillment, when we have wasted away our dignity by chasing lies, the truth still remains, “only in the Lord our God will we ever find salvation” (Jer.3:23). Like the parable of the prodigal son, there reaches a point in our desperation that we finally see the truth for what it is. May we turn to the Lord now, and in doing so, experience the many blessings He has promised those who love Him and are faithful to Him. August 2 - - “How long must the wicked be allowed to live, and in many cases, even thrive?” That is a question we have probably all asked ourselves and/or God, at some time. It is also a question the prophet, Habakkuk asked of God. God had put up with the wickedness, the idolatry, and the unfaithfulness of the Israelites a long time, much longer than any of us would have. The Lord’s reply to Habakkuk? “Look at the nations and be amazed! Watch and be astounded at what I will do! For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn’t believe even if some-one told you about it” (Habakkuk 1:5). God was going to use the evil Babylonians as an instrument of punishment to the Israelites. To be sure, the Babylonians would think they were conquering the Israelites for the same reason they conquered so many other nations before, because their military was so superior. But, God assured the prophet, the Babylonians would eventually be defeated because of their own sins. We can look back over history and see how God fulfilled both of these events. The Israelites were eventually conquered by the Babylonians and the Babylonians were eventually conquered by the Persians. God’s ways are not always in accordance with how we would do something because God’s thoughts are quite higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8&9). We see the world as though looking at a poor reflection in a mirror (I Corinthians 13:12). Because God sees all and God knows all, and because God sees the past and the future as though they were the present, His ways of doing things rarely match how we would do them. But, His ways are always the right ways, and the just ways. Faith is simply trusting God, no matter what happens in our own lives individually, or what happens all around us. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek His will in all you do, and He will direct your paths” (Proverbs 3:5&6). You see, “the time will come when all the earth will be filled, as the waters fill the sea, with an awesomeness of the glory of the Lord” (Habakkuk 2:14). There will come a day when the wrong will be made right, and the righteous will be rewarded. In the meantime, we would be wise to simply trust the Lord and obey Him.