Day 311

It's been a hectic few months going to Korea, moving out etc etc...and I noticed that my intimate, personal time with God has been lacking as a result. I may have gotten too busy for myself and lost a little focus but I thank God for providing me with some devotionals and good company that sharpens me and helps me reflect on my shortcomings as His servant. If anyone still reads this, please keep me accountable as I'm closing in on my goal of reading the bible in a year. Weird that it's flown by like this but I know that I've grown so much this year and the Word is in me more than ever.

Luke 16-18

The Parable of the Persistent Widow found in chapter 18 really hit me.

¹Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. ²He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. ³And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.'

⁴"For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, ⁵yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!' "

⁶And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. ⁷And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? ⁸I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"

This text encourages me to pray and not give up just as Jesus had intended it to do. I have tasted how powerful prayer has been in my life and how quickly God answers, but just a few distractions here and there have hindered my prayer life. One verse that portrays the detriment that distractions has to me is Galatians 5:9 "a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough." Am I going to let a few distractions derail the power of prayer in my life?

If anything, in the last month, I've learned what it means to guard my heart more. Without intentional intimate time and prayer to God, I've seen how sinful and needy I am of God's grace. I see glimpses of my old life knocking at my door and it is a harsh wake up call to how powerful sin is. In the end though, I'm reminded of the cross and the hope and restoration it gives me. I pray that I would keep praying, that I would persevere, and that His love would continue to be the thing that gives me purpose in my life.

Day 255

Jul 13: Daniel 1-3

Reading the first few chapters of Daniel reminds me of the identity we should have in Christ. If we truly believe ourselves to be liberated servants of Christ, we will always be exalting his name and proclaiming his glory. We will not miss a chance to witness about His goodness or evangelize about his nature.

In chapter 2, King Nebuchadnezzar is growing impatient trying to interpret his dream and no one can help him out. Daniel prays about this and the dream is revealed to him. When the king asks Daniel if he can interpret it, Daniel states: "No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries."

Before Daniel even interprets the dream, he sets it up, he plants the seed to make sure the king knows that this power is from God in heaven. Once the interpretation is explained, King Nebuchadnezzar replies, "Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries."

Are we setting up our God like this? Do we plant seeds wherever we can? Do we truly have the mentality that we are servants of Christ? If we really analyze our day to day lives, there are probably many opportunities for us to at least plant seeds into the hearts of our friends, our co-workers, and random strangers. As servants of Christ, this is our job. This is a challenging chapter but a necessary one. I pray that God would give me boldness everyday, that He would help me look at these opportunities as a means of worship and praise, as a way to bear fruits for his kingdom.

Day 254

Jul 12: Ezekiel 36-38

Chapter 37 is the chapter that has the story of the Valley of Dry Bones. I love this story because it shows the hope that God gives us, that even when we are super dry in our spiritual lives, we can be revived through God's Word and Spirit.

What is needed for this revival to happen though, is honest assessment about our current state, and the realities of that present life. If we are struggling with lots of things and are in a dry spell in our lives, but don't realize it, there will be no healing and renewal that can occur. We need to come before God, knowing that we are totally depraved and expose ourselves to our sins as ugly as they might be. When we realize this and we are true to ourselves and more importantly true to God, he will bring the healing and revival that we need so much.

Vs 4 says, "Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!" and vs 14 says "I will put my Spirit in you and you will live"

It's important to see that God's word and Spirit are so necessary in this revival. God is the one that is bringing us this transformation, not ourselves. We need to cling and love his Word passionately and allow the Spirit to enter and move in our lives.

I pray that we would we learn to be honest with God. What can we really hide from him? Does he not know us more intimately than even we do? Although we want to feel like we are in control of our lives, we need to realize that being dishonest about our current state only makes us suffer more in the end. Bringing our total depravity before God shows great humility; we trust that He will be the one that renews us as our power comes directly from the eternal strength that He has.

Day 228

Jun 16: Jeremiah 30-43

Theology leads to doxology. The more knowledge we have of God, the more we want to praise and worship him. This has been tugging at my heart the past week and the more I dwell on it, the more I see how true it is.

Because we have a God that is perfect and good, when we come to know more of his being, we will naturally want to praise him more. Essentially, this means that we are limited in our ability to worship God, when we have lacking knowledge of him. An analogy I thought of that kind of illustrates this is our speech. We are limited in our speech by the vocabulary we know. We can't speak words we do not know and hence we can only go so far in our speech because of that. Likewise, if we only know 10% of God, we can only worship up to that 10% we know of him. However, if we know say 75% of our God, we have that much more knowledge and basis to praise him from. We'll never know God to the fullest extent, we'll never know 100% of him, but we should strive to know all of his goodness in order to exalt his name as much as possible. What that also means is that God, through the holy spirit, is a never ending giver of knowledge. I read somewhere that the knowledge of God is like a treasure chest with no bottom to it. There is no limit to the amount of knowledge God can release to us through the Word and Spirit if we are continually seeking. How amazing is that?

Jeremiah 33:3 - "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know" The first word there is CALL. How can we find something if we're not looking for it? I pray that I may seek out more knowledge and understanding of God every day, so that I can praise and worship my creator better than I did the day before.

Day 219

Jun 7: Jeremiah 12-14

In chapter 12, Jeremiah gets pretty angry and upset at his people and society:

vs 2b "You are always on their lips but far from their hearts. 3 Yet you know me, O Lord; you see me and test my thoughts about you. Drag them off like sheep to be butchered! Set them apart for the day of slaughter!"

God wisely answers; vs 5 "If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?"

What's going on in this passage? Jeremiah is just straight up complaining. Although his motives for complaining are most likely out of holy anger for the evil doings of his fellow people, he is looking for a quick solution, he is looking for God to just wipe these people out.

Our generation definitely relates to this. In a society filled with technological advancements, we're so used to having things done quickly that we have no perseverance or grit. We burn out easily and give up easily, not seeing things through to the end.

As Christians, this poses big problems on our ministries and our walk with God in general. We may stumble often, quit our ministries, give up on relationships, maybe even leave the church. Instead of relying on our own strengths though, we must rely on God to fill us. We shouldn't hold back or be fearful of burn out or exhaustion in serving because it is exactly in those times that God will take control and show us why He is so sovereign. Do we doubt that God will fill us when we are serving his kingdom wholeheartedly? Do we doubt that he'd leave us hanging, exhausted and wiped out for serving him?

In 1 Kings: 18-19, Elijah is busy serving God, putting on the spectacle at Mount Carmel, showing up all the false prophets of false gods as God brings fire down on the water drenched altar that Elijah set up. After this, Elijah runs away as Jezebel hears of the news and is out for his life. Elijah was really afraid and comes upon a broom tree "and prayed that he might die. I have had enough, Lord, he said. Take my life" What does God do then for the exhausted and burnt out Elijah? He sends an angel and feeds him twice and "strengthened by that food, [Elijah] traveled forty days and forty nights."

God's provision for Elijah here is pretty astounding. Elijah goes from complete exhaustion and despair, to being able to travel forty days and forty nights in a matter of an afternoon. How great is God's power in our lives? What do we have to fear? When we plug into the eternal power source that we have in God, we can serve wholeheartedly without a worry in the world.

Day 214

Jun 2: Jeremiah 6-8

A lot of the chapters I've read of late have been somewhat depressing and dark. An example of this is Isaiah 24:3 "The earth will be completely laid waste and totally plundered. The Lord has spoken this word." Also in Jeremiah 8:13 God states, "I will take away their harvest, declares the Lord. There will be no grapes on the vine, there will be no figs on the tree, and their leaves will wither. What I have given them will be taken from them." The pattern is consistent, God's people continually turn their back on Him, and God keeps telling them to repent through his prophets. Jeremiah in particular confronts the people for having false religions and as a result predicts the curses that will be put on them from breaking God's commandments.

Although a lot of the chapters have been gloomy and discouraging, the message of the Gospel should be the thing we are focusing on and we should be encouraged instead. God loved us so much that he already had a rescue plan in place for us in Jesus. Isaiah first prophesies of Jesus in chapter 7:14, "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel." His name means, God with us. How much more encouragement do we need to fix our eyes on God as He has sent His only son to save us? Instead of neglecting God's voice in our lives as the Israelites did, we should read the Word, learn from their mistakes and our own mistakes, and know that God is with us in everything we do. We don't need any more proof or assurances because we have the cross and we are already redeemed through it. I think reading about the failings and shortcomings of the Israelites through the major and minor prophets will be rough, but reading about Jesus and how he saved us in the new testament will be that much sweeter when I get to it.

Day 193

May 12: Isaiah 1-8

Finally on Isaiah! I've been waiting to get to this book because I know how much there's going on in it. Reading psalms, proverbs, song of solomons was great and all but I need to get back to some old testament stories.

Something we all think about, something that a lot of people struggle with these days is vision, purpose and ultimately our calling from God. As Christians, we all want to know how we can serve God with our lives and sometimes it drives us crazy when we don't feel that this is revealed to us. I think this is ok initially, after all, what is more important than our calling through Christ? Sooner or later though, we must turn our attention away from ourselves and onto God. In Chapter 6 of Isaiah, God shows us how we can get our calling.

King Uzziah, a good king has just died, and Isaiah is worrying about the future of his country when God reveals Himself to him in a vision, "seated on a throne, high and exalted." At the sight of this, Isaiah immediately cries out, "Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips." An angel then comes down, touches his mouth with a live coal and says, "your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for." Then the famous verse comes when God asks, "Whom shall I send?" and Isaiah owns up to the call saying "Here am I. Send me!"

Pastor Jae has preached on this passage a few times and it's awesome. Our calling comes through 3 simple steps. First, God reveals Himself to us. Then, we see who we are, and finally God heals us and gives us our calling. Isaiah sees God in his vision, immediately realizes he's a sinner, an angel of God heals him, and finally God anoints him as one of the most influential prophets of the old testament.

Another example that shows this exact sequence is found in Luke chapter 5. Peter, as a professional fisherman, had been fishing all night and didn't catch a thing. Jesus comes along, tells him to toss his nets a different direction and Peter ends up catching so many fish that his nets started to break. Peter kneels down and says, "Go away from me, LORD, I am a sinful man." Then Jesus says to Peter, "Don't be afraid; from now on you will catch men." Peter sees who God is first, sees himself as a sinner, and then Jesus gives him calling, just as he did for Isaiah.

It's amazing that everything we do, still needs to be about God. For us to know OUR calling, we must know GOD first. I think a lot of us, including myself, have directed this attention to ourselves first. We ask God what we can do, instead of asking what HE wants us to do. We still have our own selfish agendas and convince ourselves that God wants to use us in the areas that we want to be used instead of being open to His will first. When will we learn that even our own calling is really dependent on God?

I have been trying to be open to this area of my life more and my trip to Cali to see Dr. Kim reinforced what I thought God had been revealing to me lately. Dr. Kim repeatedly told me to serve the church wholeheartedly to start, quoting Ephesians 5:25 also which states, "Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." I am gaining more and more faith that future visions and purpose will be revealed to me while I am serving the church. I pray that I may just continue to seek after Him and know Him first and trust that all else will be given to me.