Devotions for Dieters

Serious about the Word

Isaiah 7-8, Ephesians 2
Key Verse: Isaiah 7:9

The phrase, "Is that your final answer?" has recently become part of our lexicon. The hope of winning a million dollars seems to be the key to a highly watched television program. Repeatedly there is the tension and anticipation of a contestant saying, "Yes, that is my final answer." After a dramatic pause he is then told if his answer was correct.

Isaiah gave King Ahaz the final answer. It was the word of the Lord, a prophecy, one that the Lord would confirm with a sign. What more could a person ask for than that? God's word, confirmed!

Still, man being what man is, with a hesitancy to declare that something is his "final answer," can waver. So Isaiah, in a very straightforward way, said to Ahaz, "If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all" (7:9).

This is an either/or statement, not a both/and. It is a one-way street. Our faith is to be our final answer.

We need to study the Bible, learning what it says so we can live what it teaches. That will bring blessing and confidence. And as we correctly understand and apply the Word of God to our lives, we will be able to stand. It is a stand we take in faith, but not in a blind faith. It is a faith based on the revealed Word of God.

Isaiah will not come knocking on our door, giving us new revelation. Isaiah is in our home, though! He brings us God's message in written form. Continue to read, learn and live the Word. Make it your "final answer."

Joshua 6:3-5

It's a Mystery to Me

In speaking of things beyond our understanding, the famous orator and statesman William Jennings Bryan declared, "I have observed the power of the watermelon seed. It has the power of drawing from the ground and through itself 200,000 times its weight. When you can tell me how it takes this material and out of it colors an outside surface beyond the imitation of art, and then forms inside of it a white rind and within that again a red heart, thickly inlaid with black seeds . . . when you can explain to me the mystery of a watermelon, you can ask me to explain the mystery of God."

Joshua was faced with the mystery of God as well. Upon hearing the plan given by God, surely someone must have asked him, "How will marching around a wall, blowing trumpets and shouting knock down that wall?" Certainly it was beyond understanding. But the mysteries of God usually are.

Divine mysteries abound. We don't understand how a child could be conceived without a father, but it happened (Luke 1:34). We can't comprehend how an infinite God could be housed in a finite human body, but He was (Col. 1:15). It's beyond our comprehension that one man's death could pay for the sins of the world, but it did (Rom. 5:18). We don't understand, but that's okay. God's mysteries are not for us to explain; they are for us to accept by faith and act upon.

If you're struggling to understand a mystery of God, don't trouble yourself. The real issue is not whether you understand; it's whether you are willing to obey.

Good Medicine

Psalm 107 contains four vivid pictures of sin and salvation. In today's passage, the psalmist likens sin to a disease and God's Word to medicine: "Fools, because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, were afflicted.... He sent His word and healed them" (vv. 17,20).

Disease starts secretly. It enters your body secretly and grows secretly. Then it begins to sap your strength, rob your appetite and weaken you. Unless something is done, it will kill you.

So it is with sin. People play with sin without realizing its danger. That's like treating cancer or AIDS lightly. Sin brings death. To be healed, we need the medicine of God's Word.

Scripture can heal the brokenhearted. It can heal those who have been ravaged by sin, who have rebelled against the Lord. But the sick have to reach out by faith and admit their need (Matt. 9:12). We have to admit that we can't help ourselves and that no one else can help us.

Medicine can be expensive and even hard to obtain sometimes. But the Word of God is free and available. It can cure every malady of the soul.

* * *

Perhaps your life has been ravaged by sin and you have yet to admit your need and reach out to the Lord for help. Never delay treatment for your soul. Read the Word of God and ask the Holy Spirit to apply its truths to your heart.

You Are Part of His Treasure

Ephesians 1: 16-18

From Ephesians 1:18 it is apparent that we are more than a mere inheritance of Christ.

Paul emphasized the kind of inheritance we are to Christ in the words "riches of the glory of his inheritance." Believers are an inheritance of glorious riches to Christ.

This reveals to us what God considers to be of greatest value in the universe. It is not the planets or stars; it is people. God created the universe by His might and power, but He purchased mankind by His precious blood.

This universe will someday pass away, and God will create a new heaven and a new earth. But man, who has been redeemed by Christ, shall abide forever! This reveals how important believers are to God.

No wonder God is going to display the exceeding riches of His grace through us in ages to come (2:7). This is why Jesus desires to present the Church "to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish" (5:27).

When we consider the marvelous truths of what God thinks of us as believers, it causes us to be filled with praise because of our wonderful Saviour.

Although there are times when, humanly speaking, there is only despair, we are able to lift our eyes to Christ and know that He is working in us to accomplish that which will bring glory to Him.

So it is important that we do not become discouraged with circumstances; these are the very tools that God uses to make us more like Christ.

"Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ" (Col. 3:24).

Discouragement

And when the men of the city arose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was cast down, and the grove was cut down that was by it, and the second bullock was offered upon the altar that was built.

The book of Judges recounts the history of Israel during the centuries which followed the conquest of the land of Canaan. These were checkered years in Israel's history, which frequently saw relapses into idolatry. After each time Israel turned aside from the Lord, Jehovah would graciously raise up a judge, who was a military not a judicial leader, to bring His chosen people back to Him. The cycle of relapse, repentance, and restoration occurred frequently during these turbulent centuries.

The narrative of Judges 6 opens with a record of the renewed idolatry of Israel. This time judgment came from the Midianites who swept down through the plain of Jezreel, terrorizing Israel as far south as Gaza. They did not permanently occupy the land, but each harvest season they would arrive unexpectedly and plunder the harvest. What spoil they could not carry away they destroyed. So insecure were the Israelites that they lived in dens, caves, and strongholds to seek safety for their possessions and for themselves.

But suddenly things changed. An angel of the Lord appeared under the great oak by Ophrah, a little township on the southwestern border of the territory of Manasseh. There Gideon, the son of Joash, was beating out wheat with a stick. He did so secretly and with constant apprehension that a wild band of Midianite bedouins might sweep down on him, taking his grain and his life.

Gideon is typical of many believers today. Although the angel of the Lord called him a "mighty man of valor," Gideon's clandestine operations at his father's winepress did not exhibit great valor. For seven years his people had been oppressed by the enemy and this mighty warrior was despondent and discouraged. The angel of the Lord appeared unto him at his lowest ebb to encourage him.

Gideon was startled at first by this stranger, not certain who he was. When the angel proclaimed that the Lord was with him, Gideon's questioning response was, "If the LORD be with us, why then is all this befallen us?" (Judges 6:13). Gideon believed that if Jehovah had not withdrawn Himself from Israel, the present Midianite calamity would never have occurred. As well, this mighty man of valor, like Moses of old, questioned why the Lord would choose him to deliver Israel. His family was poor in Manasseh and he was the least of his father's household. But in the midst of Gideon's concern the Lord God promised, "Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man."

Gideon was still not convinced. How did he know this person was really the angel of the Lord? Thus Gideon asked for a sign and the angel of the Lord flash-fired the flesh of a kid and unleavened cakes which Gideon had placed on a rock.

Having felt the hand of God upon his life and claiming the promise of divine presence and power, Gideon proceeded to be the delivering judge of Israel. At the command of the Lord he threw down the altar of Baal his father had built. In its place he built an altar unto Jehovah God. "And when the men of the city arose early in the morning behold, the altar of Baal was cast down, and the grove was cut down" (Judges 6:28). Who had done such a thing? The answer--Gideon, the son of Joash. The fearful men of the city stormed the house of Joash and demanded that he hand over his son to be slain. But the acts of an encouraged Gideon bred encouragement in the heart of his father as well. Joash challenged the men to allow Baal to plead for himself, if he truly was a god. It was becoming increasingly evident to the men of Ophrah that Baal was not a god to be feared, as was Jehovah.

All that was necessary for a discouraged people to rise up against their oppressors was for the heart of one man to be impressed with the presence and power of the Lord. How much the Gideons of the twentieth century need to recognize the still small voice of the Lord saying to them, "Surely I will be with thee." Be encouraged and let God do something courageous through you today.

MORNING HYMN
Take my life and let it be,
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee
Take my hands and let them move,
At the impulse of Thy love,
Take my feet and let them be,
Swift and beautiful for Thee;
Take my voice and let me sing,
Always, only, for my King.

Author: Elisabeth Elliot
Source: Keep A Quiet Heart
Scripture Reference:

Do Not Forecast Grief

Sitting one still and sunny afternoon in a tiny chapel on an island in the South, I thought I heard someone enter. A young woman was weeping quietly. After a little time I asked if I could help. She confided her fears for the future--what if her husband should die? Or one of her children? What if money ran out?

All our fears represent in some form, I believe, the fear of death, common to all of us. But is it our business to pry into what may happen tomorrow? It is a difficult and painful exercise which saps the strength and uses up the time given us today. Once we give ourselves up to God, shall we attempt to get hold of what can never belong to us--tomorrow? Our lives are His, our times in His hand, He is Lord over what wil1 happen, never mind what may happen. When we prayed "Thy will be done," did we suppose He did not hear us? He heard indeed, and daily makes our business His and partakes of our lives. If my life is once surrendered, all is well. Let me not grab it back, as though it were in peril in His hand but would be safer in mine!

Today is mine. Tomorrow is none of my business. If I peer anxiously into the fog of the future, I will strain my spiritual eyes so that I will not see clearly what is required of me now.

"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof"--and the work thereof. The evil is not a part of the yoke Jesus asks us to take. Our work is, and He takes that yoke with us. I will overextend myself if I assume anything more.

God chains the dog till night; wilt loose the chain
And wake thy sorrow?
Wilt thou forestall it, and now grieve tomorrow,
And then again
Grieve over freshly all thy pain?
Either grief will not come, or if it must,
Do not forecast;
And while it cometh, it is almost past.
Away, distrust;
My God hath promis'd; He is just.
--George Herbert, "The Discharge"