Delightsome Land

Grace. It’s what I crave most when my guilt is exposed. The very thing I’m hesitant to extend when I’m confronted with the guilt of others — especially when their guilt has robbed me of something I consider valuable. Therein is the struggle, the struggle for grace. It’s this struggle that makes grace more story than doctrine. It’s this struggle that reminds us that grace is bigger than compassion or forgiveness. This struggle is the context for both. When we are on the receiving end, grace is refreshing. When it is required of us, it is often disturbing. But when correctly applied, it seems to solve just about everything. Contrary to what is sometimes taught, the opposite of grace is not law. God’s law is actually an extension of grace. The opposite of grace is simply the absence of grace. To say that someone deserves grace is a contradiction in terms. You can no more deserve grace than you can plan your own surprise party. In the same way that planning voids the ide

Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. — Matthew 6:34 On peaceful days I feel in absolute accord with the will of Christ. Other times, when a sense of frustration sweeps over me, I am anxious about where Christ is taking my life. The difference always boils down to trust, and trust always swirls in the realm of the future. Are you frustrated about your future? Do you doubt that God’s plan is the best plan? I have never doubted that God’s plan is the best plan for my life, but I don’t always like it. Sometimes a rebellion rises up within me, and I want a break from God’s plan — to see things take a different direction. Do you ever get frustrated because you would like to lead a more important life, a more exciting life, a more rewarding life? These desires are the embers of ambition. God can initiate our ambitions, or we can do it on our own. If you are frustrated, if worry over your plans consumes your thoughts, your ambitions

He has brought down rulers from their thrones... [and] has sent the rich away empty. — Luke 1:52–53 I grew up in the church, and at a young age, I came to the conclusion that Jesus was “nice.” My grandmother had one of those old-school, nice Jesus paintings hanging on her wall in an ornate frame, in which Jesus is sitting on a boulder holding a perfectly white little lamb, his blond locks flowing around his serene face and manicured beard. This Jesus was nice, and I understood I should be nice too. This niceness was much vaguer than kindness, for kindness is costly, truthful, and loving. Niceness, on the other hand — at least the way I understood it — was always appropriate, unfailingly polite, never disagreeable, and certainly not upsetting in any way. As I grew older and began to look around the church, this niceness morphed into respectability, underpinning the way I understood that Christians should interact with wider society and the government. After all,

“Be patient!” If you are a parent, you’ve said this more than once because rare is the person who is born patient. We want what we want, and we want it now. The Connection Between Patience and Suffering So what is patience? A combination of definitions that I found during my research is this: patience is doing something in a careful way over a long period of time without hurrying. After studying many definitions, my brain was still hungry for a little more information, so l looked up the root word of patient and found that it is the Latin word patiens , which is the present participle of pati , meaning “to suffer.” Finding that little bit of Latin trivia helped it all make sense to me. Now I understand why sick people are called patients — and why it so often feels like suffering when we have to wait. Teaching some of our busy little ones to be patient is another reminder of the connection between patience and suffering. It can be as difficult as trying to stuf

Faith is believing what God says. Some people think faith is like taking a leap in the dark, that faith is blind. But the Bible says it’s the opposite. Away from God we are in the dark. That’s when we are blind, stumbling around. John Newton was a notorious slave trader — but coming to know Jesus changed him forever. He spent the rest of his life working to free slaves and wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace”: “I once was blind,” he sang, “but now I see!” When we come home to God it is not a leap into darkness. It is a magnificent leap into light — the light of God’s love for us! "Jesus [said], 'I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.'" — John 8:12 (KJV)

But Thomas said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in His hands… I will not believe.’ — John 20:25 As Christians, we are all familiar with the story of Thomas, which we usually understand to convey the lesson that doubt is the opposite of faith and is therefore sinful and wrong.  Can doubt be seen not simply as faith’s wimpy opposite, but instead as a sign of a faith that is alive, vibrant, and in authentic relationship with God?  For today’s devotional, let’s take a closer look at the scriptural story of Thomas to see if that is really what the scripture teaches, or if there is more to the story. The disciple named Thomas speaks only twice in the Gospels. A lot of Christians give Thomas — whom many call “doubting Thomas” — a bad rap, not so much because of what the Gospels say about him, but because of the faith-law that gives doubt a bad rap. In the gospel of John, when Jesus appears to the disciples after His resurrection, no one recognizes Jesus right away. M

Editor's Note: For those of us who aren't familiar with Jewish traditions, Passover is an eight-day festival which is celebrated from the 15th to the 22nd of the Hebrew month called Nissan. The dates on the American calendar change every year. This year Passover is Friday, April 22 (Shabbat, or Sabbath) in the evening through Saturday, April 30 after sundown. Today's devotion looks back at what happened during Jesus' last Passover on Earth. * * * If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. — John 13:14–15 NKJV Of all the times we see the bowing knees of Jesus, none is so precious as when He kneels before His disciples and washes their feet. It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for Him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He now showed them t

On that very day Abraham [did]... as God told him. - Genesis 17:23 Instant obedience is the only kind of obedience there is, for delayed obedience is disobedience. Each time God calls upon us to do something, He is offering to make a covenant with us. Our part is to obey, and then He will do His part to send a special blessing. The only way to be obedient is to obey instantly - "On that very day," as Abraham did. I know we often postpone doing what we know to do, and then later do it as well as we can. Certainly this is better than not doing it at all. By then, however, it is at best only a crippled, disfigured, and partial attempt toward obedience. Postponed obedience can never bring us the full blessing God intended or what it would have brought had we obeyed at the earliest possible moment. What a pity it is how we rob ourselves, as well as God and others, by our procrastination! Remember, "On that very day" is the Genesis way of saying, &qu

I practically tackled my husband when he walked through the door. Earlier in the evening I had almost finished Bible time with my kids when my then four-year old son told me he wanted to ask Jesus to take away his sins and come into his heart. We waited until my husband got home from working late and then the three of us prayed together.  What a dear memory we had together that night, as my son accepted Jesus as his Savior. But even as we finished praying, I knew we couldn’t stop there. There is so much more for him to learn and understand, and even when he is able to grasp every beautiful detail of the plan of salvation, he will need us to show him how to follow Jesus. If we believe that Jesus paid for our sins on the cross and rose again to save us, that knowledge should affect how we live. But, it’s not always easy to follow Jesus in our everyday lives when there are so many influences pulling us opposite directions. My son doesn’t know any of these struggles n

The Virture of Wisdom In Proverbs chapter 9, we see two distinct opportunities. We are all students trying to pursue a journey of wisdom. The choices we make will determine if we end up with the virtue of wisdom or the vice of folly. The teacher in Proverbs personifies the virtue of wisdom and vice of folly. Much like we personify liberty as Lady Liberty, here the writer is personifying wisdom and folly. We need to identify with these passages as students of the patterns being described. The woman of wisdom is described in verses 1-6: Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn out its seven pillars. She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine; she has also set her table. She has sent out her servants, and she calls from the highest point of the city, “Let all who are simple come in here!” she says to those who lack judgment. “Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways and you will live; walk in the way of understanding.” — Proverbs 9:1-6 Now

I Am the Risen One who shines upon you always. You worship a living Deity, not some idolatrous, man-made image. Your relationship with Me is meant to be vibrant and challenging, as I invade more and more areas of your life. Do not fear change, for I am making you a new creation, with old things passing away and new things continually on the horizon. When you cling to old ways and sameness, you resist My work within you. I want you to embrace all that I am doing in your life, finding your security in Me alone. It is easy to make an idol of routine, finding security within the boundaries you build around your life. Although each day contains twenty-four hours, every single one presents a unique set of circumstances. Don’t try to force-fit today into yesterday’s mold. Instead, ask Me to open your eyes so you can find all I have prepared for you in this precious day of Life. The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who wa

A life devoted to things is a dead life, a stump; a God-shaped life is a flourishing tree. — Proverbs 11:28 Blessed are those who trust in the Lord...They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they go right on producing delicious fruit. — Jeremiah 17:7-8 It All Starts with God For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible... everything got started in Him and finds its purpose in Him. — Colossians 1:16 Unless you assume a God, the question of life’s purpose is meaningless. — Bertrand Russell, Atheist It’s not about you. The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness. It’s far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions. If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must b

So Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and called it The Lord Is Peace. — Judges 6:24 One of God’s names in the Bible is Yahweh-Shalom , which means the Lord is Peace. The Hebrew word for peace, shalom , means wholeness in all of life, completeness, welfare, safety. God is our source of all of these blessings. Philosopher Cornelius Plantinga explains shalom like this: “In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness and delight — a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, a state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creator and Savior opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom He delights.”1 That’s what we long for in our journey toward physical and spiritual health: flourishing, wholeness, and delight. Picture the doors flung open and our Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6) welcoming us into a place. Food For Thought The Prince of Peace welcomes us to a place of flourishing, wholeness

Love... bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. — 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NASB How long must I put up with you? Jesus’ actions answered His own question... Until the rooster sings and the sweat stings and the mallet rings and a hillside of demons smirk at a dying God. How long? Long enough for every sin to so soak my sinless soul that heaven will turn in horror until my swollen lips pronounce the final transaction: “It is finished.” How long? Until it kills me. * * * My parents were not too big on restaurants. Partly because of the selection in our small town. Dairy Queen offered the gourmet selection, and everything went downhill from there. The main reason, though, was practicality. Why eat out when you can stay home? Restaurant trips were a Sunday-only, once-or-twice-a-month event. Funny, now that I am a parent, the philosophy is just the opposite. Why stay home when you can go out? (We tell our daug

Learn to relate to others through My Love rather than yours. Your human love is ever so limited, full of flaws and manipulation. My loving Presence, which always enfolds you, is available to bless others as well as you. Instead of trying harder to help people through your own paltry supplies, become aware of My unlimited supply, which is accessible to you continually. Let My Love envelop your outreach to other people. Many of My precious children have fallen prey to burnout. A better description of their condition might be “drainout.” Countless interactions with needy people have drained them, without their conscious awareness. You are among these weary ones, who are like wounded soldiers needing R&R. Take time to rest in the Love-Light of My Presence. I will gradually restore to you the energy that you have lost over the years. Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and you will find rest for your souls. Exodus 33:14; Matthew 11:28-29

This is one of the moments in Old Testament history that I would have loved to see for myself...  Twenty years had passed since the time Judah and his brothers sold Joseph into slavery. He had no way of knowing that Joseph had risen above a series of misfortunes to become the prime minister of Egypt. During Joseph’s rise to political power, he engineered a massive government food campaign to store up grain reserves for seven years in order to survive a predicted seven-year famine. Consequently, starving multitudes from all over the Mediterranean world choked the roads and harbors of Egypt, hoping to buy food. The famine hit Jacob’s family especially hard. So hard that he sent Joseph’s brothers to Egypt for provisions. He refused to send Benjamin, however. His youngest son was Rachel’s only surviving son. Having lost Joseph, he couldn’t bear the thought of losing another favored son. After a dry, dusty journey, Joseph’s brothers stood among the throngs of people seeki

The heavens were made when the Lord commanded it to happen. All the stars were created by the breath of His mouth. He gathers together the waters of the sea. He puts the oceans in their places. — Psalm 33:6-7 (NIRV) I grew up on Long Island, the largest and longest island in the continental United States. It stretches east-northeast from New York Harbor into the Atlantic Ocean, just below Connecticut and Rhode Island. My family lived twenty minutes away from the both the north and south shore so we went to the beach as often as most people go to their local park.  Many of my childhood memories include feeling sand between my toes, collecting shells, and playing with horseshoe crabs. Now I live in New Jersey. Although the drive to the beach is a bit longer, I’m able to share the wonder of the ocean with my children. When summer schedules allow, we jump in the car and head to the Jersey Shore. My kids love to swim in the water and discover the treasures washed ashore

Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. — Colossians 3:13 Ruth Graham, whose marriage to Billy lasted over sixty happy, God-glorifying years, was often heard to say, “A good marriage is made of two good forgivers.” Her comment, while true for every marriage, applies especially to a Love and Respect couple, because forgiveness is the ultimate strategy for halting the Crazy Cycle or, better yet, for preventing it from getting started. A paraphrase of today’s verse says it all: forgive each other as Christ forgave you. We know we should forgive, but between the knowing and the doing there can be a big gap. And when you are sitting on the unforgiving side of that gap, you can pay a price. Jesus warned His followers of how big that price can be when He taught, But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. — Matthew 6:15 Was Jesus saying that unforg