Category: Daily Devotionals

It is the goal of the Christian to live a life that completely fulfill’s God’s purpose. To   understand that purpose we turn to the Scriptures. We read devotionals, we diligently study the text and we repeatedly hear the Scriptural exhortations of others in preaching. We also do our best to memorize the Word, and to seek to apply it in all circumstances. The more we do that, the closer to our ideal we come. But Christians will readily admit that in spite of all of our preparation, we still fall short of the text. 

Put simply, we sin. Thankfully, the Lord forgives when we confess our sins (1John 1:9) and cleanses us anew. As we learn how to overcome temptation and as we grow in maturity, we sin less and less often. But no matter how we try, we cannot seem to fulfill even a short and simple instruction like, “Be holy,” with lasting consistency. Even if that command is repeated throughout Scripture (Lev 11:44, 45, 19:2, 20:7, 1Cor 1:2, Eph 1:4, Heb 12:14, 1Pet 1:15, 16). If that is so with a two-word instruction repeated at least 9 times, how can we hope to live out the entirety of the Word? For those are but two, and the Bible has around ¾ of a million words (give and take a few, depending on the version you are using). 

To be sure, Christ did not fail to live it all out. Of Him, we read, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  Full of grace, and full of truth! Truly Jesus did live out His prophetic announcement in Matthew 5:17, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Jesus fulfilled ALL of the Word. His was complete identification with the whole Word of God, so much so that it is totally accurate to say that He is the Word, made flesh. 

Yet if He is that, what of us? Can we identify with at least part of the the Word of God? If not a command like “Be Holy”, surely at least another, perhaps lesser demanding part of Scripture?

Most Christians have a life verse. Life verses are verses that resonate with our soul – they are useful and significant. Some had a verse given to them prophetically by the one who led them to Christ. For others, it is a single verse that’s repeatedly come to them as they’ve sought God. In both cases it is a verse which has – in addition to its inherent value as Scripture – a deeply personal attraction, a verse that seems to define one’s spiritual purpose in some capacity. We call it a life verse because we find ourselves repeatedly reflecting on it – over and over again throughout our lives. It is as though our whole lives echo it in some way, so that it becomes ‘our’ verse. 

Yet with age, one can look back and see that most often it was not actually we ourselves trying to live out that verse so much as it was the circumstance of our lives that repeatedly reflected it back to us. That is because it is never us who actually live out the Word. It is Christ – living in us by His Spirit – who is actively fulfilling that verse through us. 

Of course, to recognize that is largely a private matter. Others only see that as we speak of our life verse and testify to how we are experiencing it being fulfilled though us. Yet if we can see a verse of Scripture in our own experience and testify to it being so, we can surely know that it is Christ – living in all of us by His Spirit – that purposes to live out every Word of God through His people (the body whole). Including His commands – even up to and including ‘Be holy”! 

That understanding of His Word helps put our eyes on the value of the collective whole, and of the great value in discipling others. For unless the whole body is discipled, the whole body will not accurately reflect Him to a lost and dying world. Therefore the Christ-follower has two obligations: to grow in personal discipleship that His Word can be reflected in us all the more, and to help disciple our brothers and sisters in Christ, that the whole world would recognize Him working in their midst. Amen.

The best obedience is that which develops from love for Christ and attempts to reflect Christ’s own obedience.

J. .E. McDermond

APPLICATION: Intentionality 

What is your life verse? When was the last time you saw that lived out in your own experience? How can you live it out today?

Having spoken to the people about what it means to be blessed of God, and having   exhorted them to live lives that demonstrate His presence, Jesus now turns to the subject of the Scriptures. 

The Jews knew that any student of God must go to the Word of God to better know Him, but what Jesus had been saying to this point did not seem to entirely line up with what they had been taught by Israel’s teachers, who had daily access to the Word. Blessing as they had been taught was associated with wealth and prosperity and the wonder and beauty of the temple, but Jesus had taught them that to be blessed is to be poor in spirit, to mourn and to hunger and thirst for righteousness. Blessing was what you received when you were persecuted for living as God wanted you to live. That was totally counter-cultural to their thinking and virtually everything they had learned.

Perhaps there were many listening to the beatitudes wondering if Jesus was veering away from the Tenach (the holy Scriptures). But now He says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Jesus’ original audience understood that when someone referred to the Law and the Prophets they were referencing all three parts of the Tenach – the Law (the Torah), the Writings (the Ketuvim) and the prophets (the Neviim). Taken together, these books form what Christians call the Old Testament. Jesus is saying that He did not come to replace the Scripture with His own Words, but rather to fulfill the Scripture as it was already known in its entirety. 

That is a powerful endorsement of the Old Testament as sacred (something He is about to address in much greater detail), and a powerful statement of His own purpose as being in complete alignment with the Old Testament. Jesus is saying that He has a high view of Scripture. That view aligned with what the Jews were taught, and something the Samaritans could not refute (even though they only recognized the first five books of Moses). Yet the things that Jesus taught surely seemed mind-blowing to the crowd gathered before Him. They had never looked at the Scripture that way before. It was all quite striking. 

Even more striking was His latter statement about fulfilling Scripture. It is obviously a prophesy, and a confoundedly blatant one at that. Jesus is saying that He and all He would do sums up everything the prophets wrote in years past! He is saying that His future life and actions would literally fulfill ancient prophesy. To His audience at the time it was an exceedingly boastful comment. But to us on this side of the cross it has profound implications. For we are called to be like Jesus. 

It should be obvious to all that what eternal God said long ago is just as valid today as it was in days long past. God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He exists outside of time, so all He says is true throughout time. We who identify ourselves by the Name of God surely know these things. But do we? Does every decision we take reflect our faith in what God has said? Even more importantly, does the way we live life demonstrate our faith in Scripture? Are we seeking to ‘live out’ the Word of God the way Jesus purposed to live it out? 

These are critical questions for us, just as they were for His audience that day. Jesus is exhorting His listeners to take God’s Word to heart, not simply learn about it and claim its promises. After all – to live out the Scripture is experience the truth of the beatitudes He already explained. To know the blessing of God is seek to live out His character even if that brings persecution and hardship in the moment. It is also to make God and His ways known, so that He might make His Name great. Such is the way of blessing. And if Jesus came to do just that – live out the Scripture – we who call ourselves by His Name must do so as well. 

Let all Christians, but especially Christian preachers and teachers […] first study the Scriptures for themselves, then live the Scriptures for themselves, and [only] then teach the Scriptures to others.

William Jones

APPLICATION: Intentionality 

How does what you are planning on doing today reflect the truth of God’s Word and the reality of His Kingdom?

God’s followers are the salt of the earth, and as such act as salt in our ungodly  world.  Through us two things happen. The culture around us tastes His presence through our words and actions, and by our prayers and presence we preserve our ungodly world from imminent judgment. But that work only happens when we act like Christ. Christians who don’t speak of Him, don’t act like Him and don’t pray for the unsaved don’t have the same effect. They are like salt still in the saltshaker. Jesus doesn’t want that for us. To express that point, He continues, “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.”

Salt is hidden in the earth and the sea, and must be bought to the table through significant effort. But light needs no mining or processing. By nature it cannot help but flood the landscape and illume all. Indeed (apart from man-made lasers), light is always diffuse. It spreads out in every direction, and even a ‘beam’ of light created by the sun shining through clouds is seen far outside that which is directly below. Light is meant to provide sight, and it is meant to provide sight to all who see.

A city on a hill has similar characteristics. It is built on a hill so that its citizens can see far beyond its walls, and so that those who look for it can find it easily. It can even be used as a landmark for travelers who pass by. These things are not only not hidden, they are impossible to hide. That is Jesus’ point, that trying to hide it would be completely counter productive, “Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”  

The Christ-life is not a life meant to be hidden. It is a life meant to be lived in the open. A life meant to be seen by all -so that the light of God living in each of us by the Spirit of God – might be clearly visible to everyone. Not only those we intentionally interact with, and not only those we encounter by circumstance, and not only by all who so much as glance in our general direction, but by everyone in vicinity of our lives. When a Christian is present in a society, everyone should know that the kingdom of heaven is nearby and that the gospel is accessible. 

In ancient societies, everyone knew everyone else. Partly that was on account of the nature of small towns, a culture that valued and expected hospitality and on account of the lack of any kind of mass media. In our present day the great majority live anonymous in cities. Most live isolated lives with almost all of their attention consumed by obligations and mass media. Those living ‘within sight’ are therefore no longer those nearby by distance, but those nearby by influence. 

That doesn’t change who we are, it just changes who ‘sees’ us. In many cases, on account to media, that group includes those living in other countries, those living outside our timezone and even our timelines. After all, almost all of those in Christ’s day are forgotten on account of the lack of record. But the content we create today is almost entirely digital. That means that much of what we say and produce will speak for our character and Christ’s glory for years after our demise. 

Never does our light shine as brightly to the glory of God as against the backdrop of our darkest hour of suffering.

John R. Bisagno

APPLICATION: Intentionality 

Your light shines. Who does your light shine upon?

As He begins His sermon on the mount in chapter 5, Jesus teaches his crowd  of followers the goal and purpose of life. He starts that work with the beatitudes. One must first recognize one’s own spiritual poverty before God, because to be poor in spirit is a prerequisite to gaining the kingdom of heaven. One must mourn, for to gain God’s comfort is to first loose sin, then sinful behavior, then one’s own plans and purposes. One must have humility, for God opposes the proud and He does not reward the haughty. One must hunger and thirst for the things of God or one will not persevere. One must be merciful and pure or one cannot expect to draw others to the Lord. Jesus spends 2/3 of His beatitudes on these points. 

In the last third – even though He is only beginning His sermon, Jesus already begins to teach about the need to take what you’ve gained from God and give  it to others. The Christ-life must have an evangelical priority. One must be willing to suffer and sacrifice for Christ’s sake to be fruitful in His Kingdom.

To this end Jesus tells us that to be a peacemaker is to spread God’s peace to others. To so live a right life before others that they cannot help but respond means that some will respond negatively, so we must understand that persecution for righteousness sake as a positive. Moreover, to be persecuted for Jesus’ sake is to so identify with Him that others are not just witnessed to, but called to a decision point by our words and deeds – and again some will react negatively, even violently. 

Obviously violence done to oneself – or insult or slander – is not the goal. But the goal is to so identify with Christ that others cannot help but decide on Him for themselves. It should be as though when you are around, people can taste heaven’s reality right here on earth. Or as Jesus puts it, “You are the salt of the earth.”  That is the goal of life – to become ‘salty’ through identification with Jesus so that wherever you are, you bring the taste of heaven, and to stay that way through every circumstance. 

Obviously, salt by nature is always salty. It cannot help but be salty to the taste, and virtually nothing anyone can do to it can stop it from being salty. Yet it can be diluted. In fact, if one puts enough other ‘stuff’ with it, it can completely cease tasting salty. Virtually every soft drink in the world has sodium chloride (salt) in it, but they don’t taste salty at all. There is so much water and sugar and other compounds in them that they taste overwhelmingly like something else. 

Unfortunately many Christians live that kind of lifestyle. They ‘taste’ like something other than heaven to the world around them. They do not cause those around them to consider God or the kingdom of God. The salt Jesus meant them to be has been so watered down by their own priorities and worldliness that they can’t be used to ‘salt’ the people around them anymore than pouring a can of soda on the ground can ‘salt’ the earth. 

That is a significant problem demanding much repentance. It is impossible to draw people to God if you do not season the environment you are in. What good beyond ourselves are we then, if that is the case for us? For as Jesus noted, “But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.” 

Christian salt has no business to remain snugly in elegant little ecclesiastical salt cellars; our place is to be rubbed into the secular community, as salt is rubbed into meat, to stop it going bad. And when society does go bad, we Christians tend to throw up our hands in pious horror and reproach the non-Christian world; but should we not rather reproach ourselves? One can hardly blame unsalted meat for going bad. It cannot do anything else. The real question to ask is: Where is the salt?

John Stott

APPLICATION: Intentionality 

By your presence, words and actions, what flavour are you seasoning your environment with?

Jesus has already said that you are blessed if you are persecuted on account  of your own  righteousness in His 8th beatitude. In His 9th and final beatitude He gives a greater blessing to those who are persecuted on account of Himself. “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”  

Jesus mentions being insulted, persecuted and slandered. One wonders if Jesus’ comment here was based on His remembrance of what the writer of Chronicles said regarding the fall of Jerusalem, “The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place. But they mocked God’s messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord was aroused against his people and there was no remedy.” To be mocked (insulted) and despised (persecuted) and scoffed at (slandered) is most uncomfortable and unpleasant – but this is historically how the ungodly treated those who represented God rightly. Therefore when they treat us the same way, we are – in a way – identified with them. We already know that, because Jesus has already said that the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are persecuted on account of righteousness. Nevertheless, now Jesus tells us that a great reward in heaven is ours if we are insulted, persecuted and slandered, for His sake. Those who are so treated not only have a place in the kingdom of heaven, but they are to be rewarded when they get there, and greatly so – for they did not only identify with the prophets (which is an honor all on its own), but with Jesus Himself. 

In saying this, Jesus is laying out a number of implications to those who are listening; Firstly, that He Himself is a greater prophet than all prior prophets. Secondly, that the suffering the prophets endured on account of their obedience to God was not in vain, but produced for them an eternal blessing – a reward in heaven. Thirdly, that if one enters into that same work – of calling people to be reconciled to God (and now much more so through Jesus), that a great and eternal reward is to be gained. So much so in fact, that one can and should rejoice and be glad in the here and now even in the midst of the insult and persecution and slander! 

It is a good thing to be persecuted for living a life that is right before God. It is quite a better thing to be persecuted for being actively involved in the work of God. Such is the work that Christ calls us to, for He purposes us to bless us far more than we deserve. So He does not assign a 9-5 job, but a life of so living for Him that those around us are brought to a point of decision – either they will say yes to Jesus and enter the kingdom of heaven with us, or they will deny the spiritual reality of His presence and so seek to work actively against it (and therefore us, as the embodiment of His presence). 

If you had to make a choice, you ought to wish rather to suffer for Christ than to enjoy many consolations, for thus you would be more like Christ and more like all the saints. Our merit and progress consist not in many pleasures and comforts but rather in enduring great afflictions and sufferings. If, indeed, there were anything better or more useful for man’s salvation than suffering, Christ would have shown it by word and example. But He clearly exhorts the disciples who follow Him and all who wish to follow Him to carry the cross.

Thomas à Kempis

APPLICATION: Intentionality 

When was the last time you were insulted, or persecuted, or slandered for Christ’s sake?

Coming to the 8th beatitude, we find Jesus exhorting us once more toward having the kingdom of heaven, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  One immediately recalls the first beatitude, where He said that being poor in spirit would result in having the kingdom of heaven. Here He says that being persecuted for righteousness has the same result. The connection between humility (a right view of one’s standing before God as being poor in spirit) and righteousness (a right standing before God as He sees it) is not to be overlooked. 

Of course, to recognize who He is and to stand rightly before Him requires that one must acknowledge Him in both speech and in action. And it is that – the acknowledgment of God in action – that results in persecution.

As the late AW Pink once put it, “Who would have thought that a man could be persecuted and reviled, and have all manner of evil said of him for righteousness’ sake? And do wicked men really hate justice and love those who defraud and wrong their neighbours? No; they do not dislike righteousness as it respects themselves: it is only that species of it which respects God and religion that excites their hatred. If Christians were content with doing justly and loving mercy, and would cease walking humbly with God, they might go through the world, not only in peace, but with applause; but he that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution (2 Tim. 3:12). Such a life reproves the ungodliness of men and provokes their resentment.” 

Ironically, it is their resentment is actually the recognition of your blessing. The ungodly can see and know that you have blessing, on account of the way you live, what you say and how you act. They see and observe and immediately have an internal witness that you are blessed. The persecution then happens because they so resent that you should have the blessing of God and they not. To the ungodly this is injustice, for they believe the devil’s lie that though they refuse to acknowledge God they should have blessing all the same. Believing that lie, they believe the next – that if they persecute you, they will gain a sense of satisfaction. They will be frustrated in that also of course, but the persecution comes all the same. 

Of course the believer is already blessed before the persecution begins, but the persecution itself is also a blessing. As Paul said, “…we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” And as Peter said, “But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.” The believer who is so persecuted because of righteousness is then understood as simultaneously blessed with God’s peace, presence and power, with perseverance, character and hope, with the Spirit of glory and of God. That is a lot of blessing!

Yet as many of the blessings we already have in Christ, while the persecution persists and the saint suffers, those blessings must be received in faith. For while the blessings are more real than our physical selves, but they are not yet physically realized. The suffering saint must daily – sometimes hourly, sometimes every minute – look to the absolute truth of God’s Word. And this is what God says of Himself, “those who hope in me will not be disappointed.” Great is that blessing indeed!

We must not be disappointed if the tides are not always equally high. Even at low tide the ocean is just as full.

A.B. Simpson

 APPLICATION: Intentionality 

There is solace with God, even in those days we feel let down by Him. Remember Isaiah 49:23! 

It is a sad reality that in our time, the word “peacemaker” is slang for a big gun. Some   even speculate that having nuclear weapons ready for use at the push of a button is what has enabled mankind to avoid a 3rd world war. The irony of the acronym used for that philosophy (mutually assured destruction, or MAD) is not lost on the disciple of Christ. Weapons can never ensure peace, they can only cause temporary obedience on the part of the one threatened by them. The creation, storage and handling of a weapon can therefore never be constructed as peacemaking in anything but sarcastic terms. But what then is peacemaking? Because in Matthew 5:9, Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.”  

In just a few verses of Psalm 34, the Psalmist encapsulates what it means to be a child (son) of God, “Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.”

Anyone who wants to know the fear of the Lord must firstly turn from evil and instead do good. One must also hold one’s tongue from evil and one’s lips from spreading mistruth, and then seek peace and pursue peace wherever possible. That the Lord (through the Psalmist) addressed this admonition to his children might give cause to consider such action a minimum of behavior for anyone who claims to want to know God at all. Especially because a personal mission to seek peace and pursue it must start with ensuring personal peace between God and oneself. Without that, peace with others is only as practical as having allies when you are on the loosing side of a war. But if one has peace with God, it is possible to have peace and at the same time give that peace to others. Indeed, Jesus does exactly that much later on (John 14:27).

Of course, Jesus is the ultimate peacemaker. As Ephesians notes, “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.” 

A peacemaker then, is someone who spreads this message, thereby bringing peace to those who have no peace. For pursuing true peace is the motive and desire of every peacemaker, and it is the impartation of peace from someone who has peace that brings peace. That is to say, you cannot give to someone that which you do not have to give. Those who have peace with God can and must impart that peace to those who are yet without. 

Those of us with peace have significant motivation to give that peace to others. Both because the need is urgent, and because the reward is great. For surely all can see the the need is urgent; Just as two countries at war need resolution lest more die, and a couple at each other’s throats need resolution lest they tear the family apart, and a person without God’s peace is in danger of hell. Moreover, the reward is very great. For to impart God’s peace to others is to be known as a son of God: It is to earn the reputation of a good name, and to know confidence in your own relationship with God as His child.

Amen.

When Our Lord speaks peace, He makes peace, His words are ever “spirit and life.” Have I ever received what Jesus speaks? “My peace I give unto you”—it is a peace which comes from looking into His face and realizing His undisturbedness.

Oswald Chambers

APPLICATION: Intentionality 

What are you bringing to those around you?

James writes, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights.” So it is, and the gifts of God are many! Peace, righteousness and joy. Mercy, justice and abundance. Grace and love and every spiritual gift – and these are but the first fruits of knowing Him! If that be so (and it is), then what of the source of all that blessing? Surely the greatest blessing of all is not the gift, but the giver Himself! 

So it is. The blessing of God’s presence far exceeds every other blessing, for from Him comes all we need and all we were made for. It is life itself to be near Him, for He is life. 

To be relationally close to God is peace, to be emotionally close to God is joy, to be spiritually close to God is true life. It is the deepest sense of peace, the greatest joy, the highest honor – to be close to Him in every sense of the word. To be physically in His presence is an unimaginable honor. To look upon His face is the most profound blessing a created being can experience. So when Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God,” we can know that the pure in heart are blessed indeed! 

Being pure in heart is not something that we are born with. Nor is it something you gain without thoughtful intention. Though it is entirely of God’s own volition, it is yet a condition that we’ve mindfully chosen and sought after. As the Psalmist wrote long ago, “Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false.”  Indeed, Hebrews tells us that without holiness no one can see the Lord! For this reason it is imperative to guard one’s heart and ensure that wickedness has no place in it. Proverbs warns us, “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.” 

When we do watch over our hearts – when we practice the spiritual disciplines of reflection and rest in God’s sight – we find that His still small voice calls us ever deeper with Him. Not all still themselves long enough to hear that, even though He gives all who seek Him opportunity. But those who do inevitably find themselves entering a season of repentance. We should expect as much. Asking the Spirit to search our hearts will always result in Him finding something that is keeping us from going deeper with Him. How could He not? We are fallen beings living in unredeemed flesh, and the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. How could He not find something more when He plumbs the depths of our wispy souls? There is always something else of us to loose, and something more of Him to gain. 

If anything, this is the great take-away, the greatest nugget of wisdom from the book of Job. For Job – righteous as he was, needed to repent of his own sense of righteousness in the end: “Then Job replied to the Lord: ‘I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

By God’s great mercy to us, we do not need to suffer loss as Job did to come to that conclusion. We can take time to seek His face and we can prayerfully ask His Holy Spirit to search us. Seeking His face may be uncomfortable for a short season, but it results in the most profound blessing. For when we do see ourselves for who we really are and so repent, He is ever gracious to receive our repentance. He removes the sin from us, and we gain purity of heart. Made more like Him, we see Him clearer than ever before! 

When we suspend our own activities and get down at the foot of the Cross and meditate there, God brings His thoughts to us by the Holy Spirit and interprets them to us. […] We can never get those thoughts for ourselves. They are the free gift of God for anyone and everyone who is learning to pay attention to Him.

Oswald Chambers

APPLICATION: Worship 

Seek Him in prayer.

Generally speaking, no one wants to be evangelized. To be told that your  belief system is  flat out wrong is  – in a word – demeaning. To be told that a stranger at your door has a better belief system is offensive. There are always some, but very few actively want to be told how to know God. 

But everyone wants the Kingdom of God. Everyone wants what the Christ-follower already has. For world over, everyone wants peace. Civic peace in their neighborhoods, relational peace in their homes, peace of mind in their hearts. Everyone wants peace!  Likewise abundance. Who will say “No” to rain in season, and sunshine in season and a great harvest?  Who will turn from abundance? Who does not want all they need and then some? Everyone wants blessing! Everyone wants peace. 

And everyone wants justice. That they get what is rightfully theirs, and that others do not abuse them or their loved ones. This is a fundamental human desire – it goes to the core of our being. Everyone wants justice, and everyone wants blessing, and everyone wants peace. Everyone wants health and joy and the sweet sense of having done rightly (righteousness). Everyone wants what the Kingdom of God is. 

The problem is that we are all sinners, and every one of us is a wrongdoer. We do not deserve the Kingdom of God. Wrongdoing mandates justice, and that justice will be to our own great hurt. We may want justice for others, but we are in much need of mercy for ourselves! 

Now, mercy is not mercy if it is an obligation. Mercy is mercy when it is unwarranted. Everyone wants compassion, grace and love when they’ve been wronged and when they’ve wronged another. Everyone wants mercy for themselves, just as much as they want peace, blessing and justice for themselves! 

Fortunately, we can trust God to be merciful because God is full of mercy by character. Deuteronomy 4:31 says, “For the Lord your God is a merciful God.” Our cry for mercy is not unheard. God – in His mercy – acts, forgiving and restoring even though we do not deserve forgiveness, nor restoration, nor blessing nor peace, nor any other good and perfect gift. The Scriptures reveal this: God is merciful, and he hears our cries for mercy. 

But if He acts that way, we who are made in His image ought to act that way too! The Kingdom of God is not a place where one receives and receives and receives, without reciprocation. The Kingdom of God is a place where God’s people act as God acts. If God is merciful – and He is – we His people must be merciful too. If God gives peace – and He does – we His people should seek to do likewise. If God is just – and He is – we His people should be just also. If God blesses – and He does – we His people should bless also. 

Our actions toward others both demonstrate the level of our understanding of His work toward us, and unlock greater capacity to receive from Him what we have given to others. In fact, it may even be said that without showing at least mercy to others, we cannot expect to receive mercy from Him Perhaps it is with this in mind that Jesus gives us the fifth beatitude; “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”  Amen.

God is good, immutably good. He desires not the death of the sinner, but the death of sin.

Leighton Pullan

APPLICATION: Intentionality 

Who have you shown undeserved kindness to most recently?

One can hardly count the number of movies that built around a revenge  theme. The plot  is usually some variant, but the main points are the same: Hero or hero’s significant other is unjustly attacked/hurt/framed or killed, hero’s situation does not provide appropriate recourse to justice, hero strikes back and despite all probability of failure, succeeds in vanquishing the antagonist at last. The viewer usually feels a mix of relief that the bad has been eliminated, and gladness or elation that justice was done. 

The problem with such movies is that they twist our sense of righteousness into a celebration of violence. We conveniently forget that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezk 33:11). And if God doesn’t, His children shouldn’t either. 

But we do. We forget that vengeance belongs to God (Deut 32:35). We shouldn’t take it upon ourselves. But we want to. That unrighteous want nudges against what is sometimes a very thin line between acting in righteous anger to stop or avoid greater injustice and inflicting punishment as vengeance. 

Anger is a strong emotion because it is built into us by design. God despises injustice and gets angry when He sees it, and those made in His image do too. Precisely for this reason it is easy for our enemy to prompt us to use that emotion unrighteously. Just as Satan prompts us to mistake lust for love, so he prompts us to mistake human vengeance for righteousness.  

So when Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled,” He isn’t condoning a sense of vengeance. Rather and quite the opposite. He is condoning those who have a profound sense of God’s ways and a deep sense of longing for them. The point is the essentially the same as the last three beatitudes – that those who want the Kingdom will find it. Those who long for God’s ways will find that desire satiated – fully, completely and in overwhelming abundance. 

The question this beatitude dares to ask is whether we truly long for God’s ways. If not, we will find ourselves continuing to long for satisfaction. But if so – if we really hunger for it (the word here is peinōntes, meaning to strongly desire to eat) and if we really thirst for it (the word here is dipsaō, meaning to strongly desire to drink) – we will be filled. Completely satiated, as we are filled after the heartiest of Thanksgiving dinners. 

The good news for those who long for God’s kingdom and God’s ways is that we will find that our desire for rightness does not led us to starvation and drought, but to an overflowing peace at realizing God’s grace and care for us. We find we are given a portion of His peace in the here and now of daily life as the Holy Spirit comforts and consoles us and gives us strength to keep seeking for right-ness, even among the injustices of our present world. Yet we will find the deepest of satisfactions in the days to come – at the manifest realization of His Kingdom in all its physical reality and glory.

Friends, those days we will yet see. We will see them with our own eyes. Amen

And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!

Job (from Job 19:26–27)

APPLICATION: Intentionality 

What are you truly hungry for? What do you thirst after?  It has been said, ”You get what you focus on, so focus on what you want.” That isn’t always true of life in this fallen world, but it is more than true of those who seek God.