Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
TO PONDER
Come on Paul! Glorying in your suffering? You have to be joking, or masochistic!
OK, having got that off my chest, what is Paul really trying to tell us?
Just about every achievement or ability we have in life is brought about by some training. Consider training for a sport, learning a trade, studying for a profession, learning a musical instrument. All these require dedication to the process of developing the skills required. They nearly all require a teacher of some sort and the application of time to achieve the required level of proficiency. Some of us enjoy the development process, especially as we learn new skills and abilities. But, sometimes, the process is not so enjoyable and we have to push through to achieve our goals. Hopefully, having achieved some level of proficiency, we can get some level of enjoyment out of practicing our profession or competency.
When we struggle with the learning process, it is very helpful to have a fellow “traveller” with us to share the struggles with and encourage one another. And it also helps have a vision of what we are trying to achieve, to keep us focused on the task at hand.
What Paul is trying to say here is that God has a vision of what we can become if we let Him work in our lives to develop the characteristics He wants to develop in us. If you think about it, our whole life on this earth is aimed at developing our characters in preparation for our new life in eternity. God is working to remove from us those negative characteristics such as selfishness, anger, pride, jealousy and developing in us the characteristics of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Unfortunately, God doesn’t wave His magic wand and suddenly we are the wonderful people He wants us to become. Rather, He takes us through the training process we call life, letting us face situations through which He brings about the changes. And through all this He is revealing Himself to us so that we get to know Him and the love He has for us.
When we read through the second half of the book of Acts in the Bible, we find that Paul experienced some pretty horrific experiences as he surrendered his life to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit in his life. He had come to develop a strong trust in God working through all these experiences, so, in spite of the pain he was experiencing in his body, he was able to still experience joy in his soul as he saw God at work through what he was experiencing. So what Paul wrote about glorying in his suffering was not theoretical, but lived experience. And it wasn’t actually glorying in the suffering itself, but what God was achieving through the suffering he was going through.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, there are times when life is hard and we don’t know where to get the strength to carry on. Thank You for Your promise to be right beside us during these difficult times. Please open our eyes to see Your presence and to know the peace only You can give. Amen
Today's devotion written by Charles Bertelsmeier, LifeWay Epping
I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.
TO PONDER
Is it possible to be at peace with yourself and the world when everything around you seems to be falling apart?
Most of my adult life I have lived in Sydney. Many of the places I have lived are under the flight path of aeroplanes using Sydney airport. Even though the noise from the planes in some of these places was so loud all conversation had to cease, I never felt threatened by the presence of these planes. However, in the days immediately after the hijacking of planes in America and the planes being flown in the towers of the World Trade Centre (just over 24 years ago), I experienced a nervousness each time I heard a plane in the vicinity of where I was and I would look up to locate the plane. I knew the fear was irrational, but the effect of the video of the planes flying into the towers had a strong destabilising effect on me and many other people.
As we listen to the news each evening, we will be exposed to the suffering of many people due to the selfishness and self-centredness of those in positions of power – from people in our own neighbourhoods to people in distant countries. Although what we generally see is not threatening us immediately, we can easily become discouraged by what we see in the general direction of the social and political environments of our world. And even if we are not negatively impacted by the social and political outlook, it can be financial, relationship and/or health issues that are threatening to take away our sense of peace.
It may seem counter intuitive that we can find comfort and assurance in Jesus’s advice to us that the world we live in will not always be the safe, secure place we may have experienced to date and we hope it will continue to be. The difference is that Jesus took all this negativity onto himself and dealt with it. He then promised that He would ALWAYS be with us in whatever was happening in our lives. He would protect us and guide us through these episodes, always working to grow us in our relationship Him, growing us in trusting His love and presence. He does this because He loves us deeply and wants to bless us richly with knowing Him as our loving Heavenly Father. He wants also to offer us the joy of being part of His mission in this world to bring that same relationship to other people.
A simple picture to help us understand this. You are walking along a muddy track after it has been raining heavily. You could be concentrating down on the mud that you are squelching through, or you could look up and enjoy the beauty of the rainbow in the sky and the beautiful sunset.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, we have to admit that we often take our focus off You and what You are doing in our lives. We let what is happening around us distract us from Your promises to be with us in whatever is happening to us. Thank You for Your faithfulness to Your promises to always be with us. Amen
Today's devotion written by Charles Bertelsmeier, LifeWay Epping
Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.
TO PONDER
Some of the people the Apostle Peter was writing to were experiencing various levels of persecution because they identified as Christians. This persecution ranged from being mocked for their beliefs and lifestyle, experiencing isolation from family and society, and being subjected to unfair treatment or punishment. To some extent, the “problem” the Christians presented to the society of the time was their different life style; instead of living selfishly for themselves, at the expense of others, they lived out the love and acceptance they received from Jesus: sacrificial love and acceptance of one another, ignoring ethnical, political and social boundaries.
We all need love and acceptance. It is critical to our development as children. As we grow up and become independent of our parents, we find groups in which we are accepted and confirmed in our beliefs and attitudes. If we cannot find these groups where we naturally fit in, we will be pressured (or we will pressure ourselves) to change so that we do fit in. If our group is focused on a selfish and self-centred lifestyle, we will be welcoming confirmation from within our group that our selfish attitudes are valid.
If, on the other hand, our group is Christ centred, we will find encouragement to be very sensitive to the needs of others and extend Christ’s self-sacrificing love to them. It will probably be evident that we are motivated by Christ’s will and purpose for us. This can have one of two impacts on people outside our group. They may be attracted to the group so that they too can experience this love and acceptance first from the Christians and then, as they learn more about Christ, experience the love, acceptance and healing that Christ offers.
On the other hand, they may be threatened by what they see practiced by the Christians since it shows up that their selfish lifestyle only has benefit for themselves and doesn’t give them the affirmation they are seeking. They may feel so threatened that they actively try to disrupt the Christians, leading to the persecutions we mentioned above.
So, as Peter wrote, we should not be surprised when persecutions, at some level, come our way because we live the love Christ has empowered us to live. But we are not alone in dealing with these attacks on us. As we are reminded over and over again in our devotions this week, God is with us through the Holy Spirit living in us to keep our focus on His plans and purposes for us. As we focus on God’s plans and purposes for us, through talking to and listening to the Holy Spirit, we will be lifted above the negativity to experience the joy of being involved in what God is doing in and around us.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank You for the gift of Your Holy Spirit living in us to “brand” us as Your children. Please help us not to feel discouraged or threatened when we are rejected by others for living Your love in our lives, but instead to experience the joy of being a member of Your family. Amen
Today's devotion written by Charles Bertelsmeier, LIfeWay Epping
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.
TO PONDER
Imagine you are lying on a hospital bed in excruciating pain. You beg the nursing staff for something to relieve the pain, but are told that you have received all that they are allowed to give you, and you have to wait until the doctor arrives to reassess your situation and then prescribe some additional medications or treatments. You ask when the doctor is due and are advised that it could be 30 minutes or even an hour. I can only imagine how long that time will feel like while you wait.
Now imagine that when the doctor arrives, they advise that there is nothing more that they can do and you will have to live with your pain for the rest of your life. Then today’s verse will not be any comfort to you, and in truth it was never meant to be. What you need now is relief from your excruciating pain and to begin down that path is a second opinion from another medical professional. Of course, like the psalmist we read about yesterday, you will commit the situation to your loving Heavenly Father for Him to work through the situation to bring you comfort and healing.
So, what is today’s verse all about. We know that the revelation to the apostle John was given during a time when the church was suffering from a lot of persecution. Many Christians were losing their lives because of their faith. Indeed, the revelation includes the description of many horrific events in the lives of people on this earth. But God’s message is not that we have to grin and bear it on our own until we die or the end of the world comes, and we then finally reach paradise where everything is lovely, but rather that He is with us, beside us, every moment of every day with His love and support.
It is interesting that when we concentrate on trying to deal with something unpleasant, it is a real struggle and we will generally feel defeated. However, if we are distracted by something pleasant or which absorbs our attention, the intensity of our pain can be greatly reduced. And that is one of the ways God works to bring us relief in our struggles. He has things He wants us to be involved in, with Him beside us, guiding us with His Spirit. The peace and fulfilment this brings, lifts us above our pain and struggles in the here and now. And this is not just diversion therapy; it is part of growing in our relationship with the Heavenly Family and growing in trusting God’s love and purpose for us.
The vision of the future paradise where all our pain and struggles will be banished is just a part of the gift God gives us to keep us focused on Him and not on our struggles and pain.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank You that Your Holy Spirit is living in us to support and encourage us each moment of today, each moment of tomorrow and each moment of each day until our life on this earth ends. And thank You for the wonderful picture You have given us of our future home with You where we will be in Your loving presence every day. Amen
Today's verses written by Charles Bertelsmeier, LifeWay Epping
Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief.
TO PONDER
Psalm 31 was written by David. Although we know a lot of details of David’s life and the number of times his life was in danger, we don’t know if this psalm relates to any particular episode in David’s life. The psalm can be divided into three parts. At the beginning, David confidently asks for God’s help in dealing with the issues he is facing. He doesn’t beg or plead with God, and he doesn’t argue that he deserves anything from God. His requests to God for help are based on God’s character – God’s goodness, God’s love, God’s faithfulness.
In the middle of the psalm (including our referenced verse), we learn of the anguish and suffering that David is experiencing. David feels weak, helpless, alone and in fear for his life.
Then David boldly declares his trust in God and commits himself into God’s care, confident that God would look after him and bring him safely through this time of trial. David ends in praise to God for His love and faithfulness.
We often struggle with why God allows bad things to happen in this world, especially to people who have committed their lives to following Jesus, the Son of God. In trying to understand, I like to think of a sail cloth shelter over a children’s playground. In strong wind, that sail cloth needs to be anchored well to solid foundations in the ground or it will be blown away. Similarly, we need some strong anchors to cling to when we are buffeted by adversities in life. The first anchor is the promise of God’s love for us, unconditionally. No matter how we think we have failed to live the life we think God expects of us, He still loves us deeply. And this brings us to the second anchor. Everything that God allows to happen in our lives He is using to draw us into a closer relationship with Him.
Sometimes the events in our lives are used by God to help us understand that we actually cannot cope by our own abilities, that we don’t have all the answers, or the direction we are trying to go in life is not the direction that God knows is good for us. What God is looking for in us is our trust in is love and purpose for us and to willing follow where He wants to take us. And that includes the amazing relationship He wants to have with us as we get involved in His family business.
It's really, really hard when we are struggling to cope with what is happening to us, racking our brains for ideas of how to escape from the mess we are enveloped in, to stop struggling and hand it all over to God, thank Him for His love and listen to His encouragement and guidance for the way forward. One obvious way to help is grab your bible, turn to the psalms and read how the psalmists over and over again, struggled with life but found that encouragement and comfort that God wants to give us.
Prayer: Loving Heavenly Father, thank You that I am precious to You and Your love to me is unconditional. Thank You that no matter what is happening in my life, You are beside me, to guide me, teach me and grow me into living as Your beloved child, a precious member of Your family. Amen
Today's devotion written by Charles Bertelsmeier LifeWay, Epping
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.
TO PONDER:
Why isn’t God obvious? What doesn’t God just prove himself and just appear to me or do an amazing miracle to prove his existence?
These are some of the things that have been said to me in the past and I get them, kind of.
In 1 Corinthians 1:22-23 Paul says that some people ask God to prove himself with signs (miracles) and others want God to intellectually convince them into believing in him, Paul then gives his argument to those people, “Christ was crucified”!
See if God was obvious, if he “proved” himself beyond doubt, if he appeared in front of you in his fullness, his complete “glory”, we would follow God for the wrong reasons.
In today’s verses Paul is writing to the Colossian church, a new church made up of both types of the above people and he says to them that the unobvious/invisible God was made visible through Jesus, through God coming to earth, as one of us.
The creator of everything, the reason for everything joined creation as one of his own creations to show us the creator.
To discover God we need to look towards Jesus to see an image of the invisible, and then follow him.
PRAYER:
Almighty Creator God, I thank you for your obviousness, for allowing me to seek you, to answer your loving call to follow, to discover more of you everyday. Amen.
Today's devotion written by Danny Brock, LifeWay Westside
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
TO PONDER:
I remember as a small child laying in the sun on a summer day, staring into the sky, identifying various objects created by the shape of the clouds and suddenly becoming overwhelmed by the immensity of the sky as I wondered how I didn’t fall off into space. I had to go inside to escape the thoughts.
Today’s verse is probably my favourite verse, or at least in the top five verses I obsess over.
In staring into creation we can see God’s divine nature, we can experience God.
Creation was an act of God’s grace, an incredible, overwhelming, extravagant, act of his love and grace. God didn’t need the earth, God didn’t need the cosmos, and God definitely didn’t need mankind to meet a deep deficiency. The beauty of the incomprehensible trinity is that God was never lonely, never needy, always love.
Ephesians 1:3-6 tells us that before there was a before, before time existed, before creation, He had already chosen us to share in his unreasonable hospitality, his unfathomable love, his uncountable blessings.
The fine-tuning phenomenon of the cosmos points to a creator, the universe was specifically designed to support life to an infinite degree, if one of the constants of the universe was even slightly askew life, especially conscious life would not exist but God’s divine nature is extravagantly displayed within the beauty of creation.
The colours, the grandeur, the music of nature all were a display of God’s loving amazing grace.
PRAYER:
Creator God, I thank you for the act of your amazing grace displayed in your creation, creation which was finely tuned for me, finely tuned so I could share in all of your blessing. Amen.
Today's devotion is written by Danny Brock, LifeWay Westside
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
TO PONDER:
I am pretty confident that most people have heard of the term “Confirmation Bias” but maybe I am wrong, that could just be my confirmation bias peaking through…
Well, what about “False Consensus Effect,” or “Social Proximity Effect,” or “Information Filtering,” or what about “Group Identity”? All of these terms give an explanation into how most of us arrive at our belief structures.
So basically, we tend to believe what the people we hang out with believe. I know, you have come to your beliefs through deep thought, study, exploration, and struggle through doubts. But most people don’t really “believe” what they believe, they borrow others belief structure.
Today’s verse says we have to believe God exists and we have to earnestly seek him. The Greek words used here translated to “faith” and “believe” are the noun “pistis” and the verb of the same word “pisteuō” which carry more than just intellectual, or passive “belief,” the word signifies confidence, trust, reliance on, adherence to someone or something with the implication of actions towards that trust.
All of the above is to build into the crux, the essence of the required (strong word for a Lutheran) belief needed; to “earnestly seek,” not a passive acceptance, not a borrowed thought from a friend but an active trust, an earnest reliance in God, a belief structure that has personal cost, refined through struggle, inspired by grace.
PRAYER:
Almighty God, I repent for my lack of faith, for my passive belief, for not trusting you with my all. I thank you for your grace shown in my weakness, when my faith is passive and weak your love for me holds strong drawing me deeper into your loving embrace. Amen.
Today’s devotion is written by Danny Brock, LifeWay Westside
From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.
“His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. (NLT)
TO PONDER:
A few years ago I wanted to “challenge my faith”, so I set out to read some of the most popular books written by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, two of “The Four Horsemen of New Atheism”, and spoiler alert, I was VERY disappointed.
“God is not Great” by Christopher Hitchens left me even more sure of my faith. And then I moved onto “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins and literally threw my hands in the air with, what I considered to be, a very shallow set of beliefs (or lack of belief).
Today’s verses are from Paul’s debate in the Areopagus with some of the leaders of the city of Athens where he challenges their many religions and introduces them to “the Unknown God”, the God who “gives life and breath to everything”.
He argues that their many beliefs/religions are a response to this Unknown God’s immediacy to themselves and the rest of humanity.
Paul then nails his thesis of God’s proximity to the door with the statement of God’s proof, raising Jesus from the dead.
The shallow faith of the man-made gods in Athens and “New Atheism” are further proof of the existent of the “Unknown God”, the God in human flesh spoken of by Paul. The shallowness of those faiths can’t explain the meaning and purpose of life which can only be filled by the Unknown God being known in Jesus and is the only one who can explain why.
PRAYER:
Almighty God, I thank you for never being far from me and your proof of Jesus who was born, lived amongst us, died on the cross to restore your relationship with humanity, and was resurrected as proof our eternity with you. Amen.