Peace From Obedience

"And the Lord gave Solomon wisdom, as he promised him:and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon; and they two made a league together." (1 Kings 5:12)

Solomon lived the beginning of his reign over Israel according to God's commands. He carried on David's alliances and lived up to the name of being his father's son. Because Solomon obeyed God, he had prosperity and peace. 

I find that whenever I'm doing the right thing and living the right way, my life seems peaceful and perfect. Even when I'm faced with trials, I'm not shaken as much as I would have been if I had been living sinfully.

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Conviction of the Intention

2 Samuel 23:15-17
"And David longed, and said, Oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem,

which is by the gate! And the three mighty men brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David:nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the Lord. And he said, Be it far from me, O Lord, that I should do this:is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? therefore he would not drink it. These things did these three mighty men."

This ties in with the previous devotion. Here, David had just been in battle with the Philistines and he becomes thirsty. 

His flesh has a desire and it specifically desires the water from the well of Bethlehem. He could have asked for water from any well but it had to be from that well. 

So 3 devoted men went out to get the water. However, they had to go through Philistine territory in order to get it for David. 

No doubt they had to fight their way to the well. They risked their lives because of David's fleshly desires. 

When they return from their "quest", David discovers the struggle they went through and he feels so guilty for the risk he had put these men in, just for water. 

Now his spirit is kicks in and convicts him. David allows the spirit to overpower his flesh. 

The Matthew Henry commentary brings up a very interesting point: the potential for the blood of these 3 devoted men to be on the hands of David because of a desire of the flesh might have brought up the tormenting memory of what he did to Uriah because he wanted Uriah's wife, Bathsheba. So the thought of possibly repeating that scenario disgusted David that he didn't want anything to do with that water and offered to to the Lord and instantly repented for what he did. 

So what happened here was he recognized the danger of his flesh and countered it with his spiritual conviction and repented for the sin that could have happened but didn't. He still felt responsible for the unshed blood of these men because there was potential for them to get harmed.

What he did was the right thing. So often I find myself thinking that if I didn't commit the sin then I haven't done anything wrong. But even the potential for the sin to happen is bad enough. 

Jesus warns us about our thoughts in the book of Matthew. He says how if we even think hateful thoughts, it's as if we committed murder against that person. If we have sexual thoughts towards an unavailable person, then that is just as bad as committing adultery. Thoughts and intentions are just as bad as the actions themselves. 

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Repentance After Conviction

2 Samuel 24:10
"And David's heart smote him after that he had numbered the people. And David said unto the Lord, I have sinned greatly in that I have done:and now, I beseech thee, O Lord, take away the iniquity of thy servant; for I have done very foolishly."

This was after David ordered his men to randomly number the people in his kingdom. No one knows for sure what the sin was in numbering the people.

Some believe that he did it illegally. 

Most people believe that it was his pride that was the great sin; He wanted to know how great he was by the number of those under his rule. 

Nonetheless, there is something we can learn from David: Once he was convicted of his sin, he confessed it to God and repented.

How often do we ignore the convictions of our sins just so that we can claim ignorance when questioned about them?

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It's Not the Physical Cross

Yesterday, during the service of the Lord's supper, I was thinking: what makes the cross so special?

Then I thought, it wasn't the cross that made Christ's sacrifice unique. 

So often we only limit Christ's sacrifice to the contents of the earthly cross. If it was the cross alone that made the death of our Saviour so special then every innocent soul that had been condemned to the death of the cross is worthy of our worship. It wasn't the stripes on his back or the crown of thorns on His head either, though all these things fulfilled prophecy of the coming Messiah, but even those things should not be the center of our worship. 

Then my mind went to the question,

How did Christ save me?

And the answer was: He took upon himself the punishment for my sins.
Just that answer sounds significant... though not significant enough.

So my mind took a more specific route for defining what happened that day on the cross:

God is holy, so even the act of promising someone something good and not being able to fulfill that promise is punishable in His sight. His only form of punishment is not earthly (that will be taken care of on its own) but is more spiritual: the only just punishment a holy God can give us is spiritual death. 

Just for that empty promise, we have to face the wrath of God...GOD'S WRATH...the God that is beyond our galaxy! How intense is that? And this is all only for an empty promise! Now imagine a lie!

God calls "lying" a sin He DETESTS. So imagine the wrath God must have against liars! We are ALL liars, and so we would have to face this scary wrath.

My mind, then took a more global path...

Jesus had to endure the WRATH OF GOD that was stored up for me...but He didn't die ONLY for me...
He died for every single soul that ever existed and will ever exist in this world. Just paying the price for my sins must have been unbearable!

The countless times I have sinned...

If there was a bank account for the number of sins I've committed, it would be overflowing! The amount of wrath God should have against me is inconceivable...but Christ had to endure the wrath that God had for every unholy and imperfect inhabitant of this earth!

And just thinking about the age we live in now! People define our age as being worse than the days of Sodom and Gomorrah! People sin countless times in one HOUR!

So Christ had to pay for all the sins that are happening now, that already happened, and the sins that

are to come until the rapture in that one moment in history!

God poured out ALL of His wrath on one man! Just thinking about this makes me cringe and cry at how filthy and unworthy I am to have this Man, this Jesus Christ, bear my sins and my guilt and my shame upon Him!

It's not worth it to consider committing a small sin intentionally because it will not have a huge impact! That sin adds on to the pain that Christ...my beloved Christ had to endure!! Those small sins aren't worth adding to the wrath God poured out! Just this thought brought new light to the amazing significance of Christ's sacrifice.

It's not the cross that should be the center of our worship...but the spiritual event that occurred during that dark hour; the outpouring of all of God's wrath on an innocent and perfect Son Who is the only One worthy of life. He received death that day, while we got life. We are such selfish and filthy human beings if we decide to live for ourselves after this beautiful sacrifice that took place on our behalf.

But don't get me wrong! God is no tyrant! It was His plan for this to happen! He didn't want to pour His wrath on us! But He would have had to because He is a just Judge. So He came up with a plan, the only plan that would work, so that we wouldn't have to face this painful wrath. 

He did this because He loves us. And He wants to have a relationship with us. 

God is so merciful and we don't deserve the honour of being His children and don't deserve to be in the likeness of His Son... and yet we have the opportunity to be. 

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Children of God

"He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God."
John 1 : 11-13

Just reading this verse this morning showed me how easy it is for us to receive a title of such high reputation, "children of God". One would think that it would be a hard process, to be identified as a child of God. If God were to go through a legal adoption process, God would have had to read a profile about us to see if He likes first, and then He would come and spend some time with us to see if our personalities appeal to Him, that is, if we even pass the first stage. God is holy and we're sinful so our profiles probably wouldn't pass the first test. However, if we miraculously passed that stage, He would then see our sinful state for Himself and would surely be disgusted. Well if we miraculously passed that test then He would have to pay a large sum of money for us and fill out a lot of paperwork. That's quite a lot of children to pay for and fill out paperwork for. But God doesn't go through that process in order to adopt us. God's adoption process contains only one step: us believing in Him. That's it! He doesn't need to look at our profiles in order to choose who He wants and who He doesn't want. He accepts all!
Imagine going to an adoption center and whichever child wanted to be with you, you adopted. You will need to buy a load more of houses to house all of those kids because orphaned kids want to be loved. 

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Are You Wood From the Vine?

"Then the Word of the Lord came to me, saying: 

"Son of man, how is the wood of the vine 'better' than any other wood, 

the vine branch which is among the trees of the forest? 

Is wood taken from it to make any object? 

Or can men make a peg from it to hang any vessel on?

 Instead, it is thrown into the fire for fuel; 

the fire devours both ends of it, and its middle is burned. 

Is it useful for any work? 

(Humor) INDEED, when it was whole, 

NO OBJECT COULD BE MADE FROM IT. 

How much LESS will it be useful for any work when the fire has devoured it and it is burned?" Ezekiel 15:1-5

The Lord makes mention how USELESS the grape vine wood is and He then later goes on to say that the Israelites are just as useless because of their unfaithfulness. Not only are they useless wood, but they're useless 'burnt' wood. That's quite the burn, eh? He even hints some sarcasm (for lack of a better word) when he says that they are useful for nothing and when he asks Ezekiel the rhetorical question "how is this wood better than everything else?"when in fact, it's the worst type of wood, according to the Lord. Now, the Lord makes a strong emphasis here on how being unfaithful makes you useless to Him because well you're not surrendering all to Him. Just like I said yesterday. It makes you susceptible to the darkness. Darkness=enemy of God.

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Never Too Far Gone For God

"Even if I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; 

even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me; 

even the night shall be light about me.
Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee;
But the night shineth as the day:
The darkness and the light are both alike to thee."  

Psalm 139: 9-12

There is nowhere you can go, no depth which you can fall in life that will make it hard for God to reach out to you. As Christians, we have the Spirit of God with us always because He dwells within us. This means that even in the darkest moments of our lives, God can bring us into the light because we have the absolute and true Light within us! We're never too far gone. 

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Power and Faith

"And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people."
Acts 6:8     

For the majority of my life I believed that if a person had power it would be inevitable that they use it for evil, no matter how good they were before they had power.
(ie. David with Uriah) 

Power isn't necessarily evil. Stephen had power, but applied his power to his faith and the results were considered to be "great wonders and signs", according to the Word of God. We shouldn't avoid having power, but we should embrace it according to our faith and use it for the ministry of Christ.   

"...And they (the opposition) were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke".
Such a wonderful outcome!

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