Do you practice true humility?
23 Mar 26
Today's devotional: taken from YouVersion, Devotions on F.I.R.E. Year One
Readings:
Joshua 9
Joshua 10
Luke 3
But One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose (Luke 3:16).
Do you practice true humility?
I’ve heard it said that humility is the state that when you know you have it, you’ve lost it. Slaves were to loosen or fasten their master’s sandal straps. John the Baptist considers himself unworthy of this role for Jesus. He models sincere humility. First, he directs people away from himself and to Jesus. John exclaims to his disciples, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). John grasps that only Jesus can remove sin. Moreover, he practices the words of the psalmist, “Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt His name together” (Psalm 34:3). Let us say and do the following, like John about Jesus: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).
Employment Point: Embrace John’s mindset and magnify the greatness of Jesus.
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Reflections
“The Israelites sampled their provisions but did not inquire of the Lord. Then Joshua made a treaty of peace with them to let them live, and the leaders of the assembly ratified it by oath.”
Joshua 9:14-15 NIV
- This is a typical example of how we may think we know but in fact we do not. Something which is truly dangerous because it is a reliance on our own strength and not of God’s.
- I think some may argue but how would we know when to seek the Lord? I think the key is to wait and pray. Don’t run ahead of the Lord. At times when we are rushing, we forgot about our Lord and just do things in our usual ways. However, the Lord has told us to be still, and know that He is Lord. So would we be able to put it into practice by waiting for His signal, just like how the Israelites waited for the clouds to lift before moving out?
- Do we not trust our Lord enough to deliver us or that His timing is always perfect, or that His ways and plans are always higher than ours? If it is meant to be, who can stop? Remember Lazarus.. He will never be too late.
“The Gibeonites then sent word to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal: “Do not abandon your servants. Come up to us quickly and save us! Help us, because all the Amorite kings from the hill country have joined forces against us.””Joshua 10:6 NIV
- this is like a “humble yourself and be exalted kind of moment “. Because they sought refuge from Joshua for they fear death and are willing to be servants so long as they live, they were lifted up because they now have a more powerful backing. That is the Lord.
“At sunset Joshua gave the order and they took them down from the poles and threw them into the cave where they had been hiding. At the mouth of the cave they placed large rocks, which are there to this day.”Joshua 10:27 NIV
- Large rocks seemed to have taken some significance in the word. From what we knew, every time someone dies, they will place either large rocks over them or placed in a cave where they are covered by a huge rock.
- I remember in the book of Daniel that when he is thrown into the lion’s den, they also seal the place with a rock and the king’s ring.
- It seems that rocks are used as a symbol to seal one’s fate but interesting to note that it did not seal Jesus’s or even Daniel’s.
- From what I can deduce from these, is that physical things may separate us from one another but the Lord’s arm is never too short. Even if a rock may seem to be an end, to the Lord it is a new beginning.
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The Struggle with Worldliness
BY OSWALD CHAMBERS
March 23
For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? — 1 Corinthians 3:3
People who haven’t been born again in the Spirit know nothing about the struggle Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 3:3. The war between the flesh and the Spirit begins with spiritual rebirth and can only be resolved in one way: we must learn, Paul says, to “walk by the Spirit”; if we do, we “will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16), and our struggle with worldliness will disappear.
Are you contentious and easily troubled? We imagine that no Christian ever is, but Paul says we are, and he connects these qualities with worldliness. Is there a truth in the Bible that instantly irritates you? It’s proof that you’re still worldly. If sanctification is being worked out in you, if the Spirit of God is getting his way in your life, there is no trace of the contentious spirit left.
Whenever the Spirit of God detects something wrong, he doesn’t ask you to make it right; he asks you to accept the light so he can make it right. A child of the light confesses instantly and stands naked before God. A child of darkness is defensive and says, “Oh, I can explain that away.” When the light breaks and you feel convicted of having done wrong, be a child of the light. Confess, and God will deal with it. If you try to excuse or vindicate yourself, you will prove yourself a child of darkness.
How will you know that your worldliness has gone? God will see that you have any number of opportunities to prove to yourself the marvel of his grace. He will send you practical tests, again and again, until you see that you are changed: “If this had happened before,” you’ll say, “I would have been filled with resentment!” When worldliness is gone, it is the most obvious thing imaginable. You’ll never cease to be amazed at what God has done for you on the inside.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
The life of Abraham is an illustration of two things: of unreserved surrender to God, and of God’s complete possession of a child of His for His own highest end.
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Reflections
Not sure if you have experience this before but I did. Experiencing going in circles, having tests repeating itself again and again. I finally came to realised it was not that I was unlucky but it was the Lord trying to help me learn my lesson on surrender. He uses different scenarios to test me and I fail every single time.
It is frustrating to go through those times, irritated at myself, suffering so much and also from burnt outs, only to realise I have been using my own strength, my own knowledge and my own ability to solve problems and challenges. No wonder I spent a good few years stuck in the situation.
Those times felt like wilderness but yet He never gave up on us and is always with us. It felt like the times I run in circles were the times He was teaching me to relearn. Once I start to relearn, everything changes and it was as if the door opened to welcome me back to His arms. No more striving but just flowing, no more struggling but just relenting. And it was only then my eyes were open to understand what it meant by relying on our own strengths and also what it meant by going to Him, all who are weary and burdened and He will give us rest.
Indeed, His yoke is easy and His burden light. And this we can only experience if we follow His methods to do things. Not our will but Yours be done.
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Lent devotion Day 34/53
taken from YouVersion, Lent for Everyone
Lent for Everyone is a devotional created and written by N.T. (Tom) Wright. For each day of Lent, there is a reading chosen from the Gospel of Matthew, plus a reflection by Wright. These readings have grown out of a project encouraging Lent reading in Northern England. This is the second in a three-volume series based on the Revised Common Lectionary of the Church of England.
Today’s reading:
Matthew 24
WEEK 5: MONDAY
Browsing in an old library the other day, I came upon a book of cartoons from the late nineteenth century. They were political satires, commenting on the affairs of state of the time. Several different politicians were lampooned; all sorts of issues were obviously 'hot' at the time, with new laws some didn't like, the possibility of an unpopular war, and so on.
That much I could understand. But beyond that I couldn't go. I'm not a nineteenth-century historian, and I needed one right then to explain to me why this politician was drawn as a bird and that one as a zebra; why that particular law was unpopular; who was advocating the war, and who was resisting it. Several of the cartoons I couldn't even begin to understand. They had obviously been important in their own day, and would have had an instant impact. But without help I couldn't make head or tail of them.
Something of that same feeling of helplessness when faced with other people's symbols and images comes over us when we read ancient texts like Matthew 24 (which we do twice, today and tomorrow). What is the 'desolating sacrilege'? Who are these people who have to run away? What are these false prophets? What on earth is 'the coming of the Son of Man'?
Fortunately help is at hand. At the beginning of the chapter Matthew has made it clear that this is Jesus' answer to a double question. At the heart of it is Jesus' own solemn prophecy (verse 2) that the Temple is to be destroyed. We might have guessed from his action in driving out the money-changers that, like Jeremiah half a millennium earlier, he was denouncing the Temple and prophesying its fall, just as in the previous chapter he had denounced the Pharisees and warned of their imminent judgment. And, frankly, it didn't take much insight to see that if Jesus' contemporaries went on plotting and scheming against the power of Rome, sooner or later Rome would lose patience and send in the troops. So the disciples asked him when all this would happen — and what would be the sign of his 'coming', his royal enthronement, and of 'the close of the age', a cryptic way of saying 'the time when God finally does what he's promised and makes all things new'.
The difference between Jesus' prophecy of these forth- coming events and the speculations of his contemporaries was that he had a sense of his own role, his own fate, his own future being somehow bound up with it all. He wasn't just a spectator, a voice warning of danger. He was the one around whom Israel's God was re-ordering his people. He was the reality to which the Temple had pointed, the place and the means of God dwelling in person among his people. And he, like many others in his time, believed that this was the moment for the prophecies of Daniel to come true. Pagan hordes would place a blasphemous object in the Temple. Their armies would sweep through the holy land, and there would be no point in trying to hide in Jerusalem in the mistaken belief that it couldn't fall. The only solution would be to get out and run. And, in and through it all, there would be the 'coming' of the 'Son of Man'. Not his 'return', as many have supposed; as in Daniel, the 'coming' is his coming to God in vindication. He will be exalted; the Temple will be destroyed.
All these things, Matthew undoubtedly believed, took place within a generation. Jesus was exalted as sovereign over all (28.19); the Temple was destroyed in ad 70. But wise readers ever since have seen this specific prophecy as resonating out in wider circles. One day there will be an even greater moment of judgment and mercy, at the time Jesus called 'the renewal of all things' (19.28). Pondering and praying our way through the turbulent first century can give us a clue to how we should be, faithful and prayerful, in our own day and beyond.
TODAY
Make us, gracious Lord, faithful and patient as events unfold around us, always eager to shelter in your protection and celebrate your victory.
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Let’s pray:
As events unfold before us Lord, and as the world becomes more churned in turmoil, we want to praise You Lord for Your forewarnings that things like this will come and we should not be much surprised by it. Instead, help us to draw nearer to You even more than we should for we do not know the time when it will happen. Help us to focus on the being more than anything else. In Jesus’s name we ask and pray. Amen 🙏🏻
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