August 31 – Wealth, The Illusion (Psalm 49)

“Why should I fear when evil days come, when wicked deceivers surround me — those who trust in their wealth and boast of their great riches?” (Psalm 49:5-6)

IN WORD:
Psalm 49 is a wisdom psalm. It instructs us in the ways of God and warns us of the ways of men. It offers us a picture of the futility of human resourcefulness. It reminds us that those who hold power in this world — generally the wealthy — hold no power over the children of God.
Why would the psalmist fear when evil days come? Because we live under an illusion that our lives are at the mercy of others — the people we are indebted to, those who govern us, the bureaucracies and massive institutions, and more. You can’t fight city hall, and you can’t buck the status quo. When powerful people tell us what to do, we must either do it or come up with the funds to go to court. Since that isn’t an option for most of us, we’re left to swim downstream with the rest of the world. We feel bound by its ways.
The good news of Psalm 49 is that we really are not bound. We are not obliged to fit ourselves into the value systems of money and power. The cliques and clubs of a world gone wrong simply do not matter. They are false categories, figments of the world’s imagination. Status — especially status based on possessions — is an ugly illusion. It will be shattered in the end.

IN DEED:
Why is this a comfort? Because we easily feel discouraged when we view ourselves in the context of a distorted and deceptive world system. It swells with pride in its accomplishments, and we feel left out. But our status is not based on social, economic, or any other system imposed on us. It is based on who we are in Christ. Our value is based on what God has done for us. Our usefulness is based on the Spirit who dwells within us. Our significance is not defined by anything that we can’t take with us when we go. Those who trust in such things will be broken-hearted. Those of us who do not can never be shaken.

“Theirs is an endless road, a hopeless maze, who seek for goods before they seek for God.”
-Bernard of Clairvaux-

August 30 – Inevitable Guidance (Genesis 50:20)

“In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.”(Proverbs 16:9)

IN WORD:
Joseph’s brothers had sold him into slavery. It was an unexpected turn, especially in light of the dreams he had recently had. Those dreams foretold his family bowing down to him. Becoming the property of wandering traders didn’t seem to fit the plan. Neither did his years in an Egyptian prison. Had God abandoned him? Were his dreams really just the product of a self-righteous imagination? How could he be so far off track?
Joseph wasn’t off track. The plans of his brothers for harm fit with the plans of God for good. Though everyone involved was quite unaware of God’s hand, their steps were ordained by Him. He had seen the whole tragedy ahead of time and had woven His plan into it. Or he had seen the plan and woven the tragedy into it. We’re not sure exactly how His sovereignty operates in the self-will of humanity, but we know that it does. Even when life throws the unexpected at us, it is never unexpected for God. He always has a plan.
That’s hard for us to grasp. Sometimes life seems far off course. We think we’re too far astray, or that circumstances are reeling out of control. But we forget: We are children of the God who sees ahead and who has already interwoven His good, sovereign plan with the strange, presumptuous will of human beings. We are not as off track as we think.

IN DEED:
If God’s sovereignty applies to the actions of Joseph’s jealous brothers, it certainly applies to our decision-making processes. We stress and strain over finding God’s will, and it’s important to seek His direction in all things. But if we’ve made that honest attempt and go forward in faith, there is no sense in turning back and wondering if somehow we missed His perfect plan. He has ordered our steps, even when we weren’t sure of them. Long ago, He took our will even when we were willful and used it for His purposes. How much more will He keep us near His plan when we aim at faithfulness? Seek God’s will and determine to pursue it, but don’t stress about your steps. He always puts them in order.

“Thy ways are past understanding, but Thou knowest the way for me.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer-

August 28 – Spiritual Anxiety (Romans 3:21-31)

“He did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”(Romans 3:26)

IN WORD:
The gospel takes a lifetime to really understand. Perhaps we will always be exploring its depths and never finding its boundaries. Though we try to rest in the salvation God has offered to us, it still hasn’t completely sunk in. We try to earn it, if not by legalism then by proving the earnestness of our faith.
How do we compromise the purity of the gospel? Every time we look at ourselves to see if our salvation is genuine, we have compromised it. When we ask whether we’ve done enough good works, we’ve made salvation something to achieve. When we ask whether we believe strongly or purely enough, we’ve made salvation a matter of our own resolve. Either approach will give a deep sense of anxiety; they both base salvation on the fickle heart of a human being.
There is a spiritual angst deep in the heart of many Christians. It is an unsettled feeling that perhaps we have not done enough, believed enough, struggled or sacrificed enough. Paul offers us the cure: God is both the Just and the Justifier. Salvation begins and ends in Him. Everything about it, other than our simple acceptance, is a gift.

IN DEED:
What does it mean that God is both just and the One who justifies? It means that the same One who demands holiness accomplishes it for us. The same One who orders a sacrifice of blood provides the sacrifice of blood. He requires of us perfection; in Jesus, He offers His own perfection in our stead.
The remedy for our salvation-anxiety, whenever it creeps back in, is to fix our eyes on Jesus. Don’t look within at the quality of your faith, and don’t look at the abundance of your works. Look at Jesus. Count on what He has done. Rest in His work. Know that He has satisfied God fully — for you.

“Justification takes place in the mind of God and not in the nervous system of the believer.” -C.I. Schofield-

August 27 – Secret Sins (Psalm 90:8)

“Stolen water is sweet; food eaten in secret is delicious!”
(Proverbs 9:17)

IN WORD:
The truest measure of our spiritual maturity is always found in private moments. When no one is looking, how pure are our eyes? When we are alone, how honest are our prayers? When there is no threat of being contradicted, how accurate are our words? The secret life is the true life. It is who we are before God. He sees all.
Fallen human nature has a universal tendency: We are more concerned with our reputation among others than we are with our standing before God. We do not want friends or strangers to know our deepest secrets, but we have no embarrassment about them with God. Is it because we know He sees and understands? Perhaps so. But when sin is involved, His holy eyes are more grieved than those of any stranger. Yet we fear the stranger more.
That is why Jesus spent a lot of time encouraging His disciples to guard the integrity of their secret life. Their spirituality was to be most honestly lived behind closed doors — the prayer closet, the fasting schedule, the hand that gives tithes and offerings. These are the signs that maturity is real and not just for show. But this is the secrecy we save for our sins.
It is natural for us to keep our sins in darkness and to show off our spirituality. But God doesn’t ask for what comes naturally; He calls for the opposite. We are to expose our sins — confess them to Him and others — and to be humble in our disciplines of the Spirit. Faith will show itself in works, but it will never show off. Sin, on the other hand, will hide itself from others, but it can never hide from God.

IN DEED:
If you are like most, your reputation is sacred to you. You guard it well. But which matters more — your reputation in the world or your reputation with God? The opinion that counts the most is His, and God’s assessment of our secret sins is graver than we thought. Live transparently before Him. Confess them all in naked, heartfelt honesty. Let Him shine in your dark corners.

“It may be a secret sin on earth, but it is an open scandal in heaven.” -Lewis Sherry Chafer-

August 26 – Beyond Pettiness (2 Timothy 2:23-24)

“Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam; so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out.” (Proverbs 17:14)

IN WORD:
What is it in the human psyche that compels us to pursue a matter straight into the heart of a conflict? Do we just enjoy a good fight? For some reason, we frequently feel we must establish truth — as we see it — in even the most petty of disagreements. We often value our opinions more than we value our relationships.
Why is that? What is it that so captures our indignation that we will sacrifice friendships and feelings over something that just isn’t worth it? Blessed are those who do not have a contentious spirit within them, but most people at some time or another have struggled with one. It is human nature. We feel offended when people disagree with us, and we are bent on establishing who is right and wrong; even when there is no right and wrong.
Does this mean there’s no place for conflict? Obviously not. We are called to stand up for what is morally and spiritually right — to a point. Even Jesus was no stranger to conflict, and He is our model. But we must develop the discernment to know what is worth fighting for and what is not. Most of us find ourselves frequently confused on the issue.

IN DEED:
When you sense a conflict escalating, what is your response? Do you take it as a challenge to win? Or can you step back and assess whether it is really worth fighting for? Broken relationships are no pleasure to God. He even inspires the writer to call a quarrel “sin” a few verse later (Proverbs 17:19). Petty squabbles once begun are hard to stop. They do not suit a child of God.
Learn to practice a discipline of restraint. Do not run from an important issue, but neither should you pursue a pointless one. Let relationships become more important to you than petty proofs and problems. God has done so with us. We must do so with others.

“I have never yet known the Spirit of God to work where the Lord’s people were divided.” -D.L.Moody-

August 25 – Praying An Agenda (Numbers 24:10-14)

“Balak’s anger burned against Balaam. . . . ‘I summoned you to curse my enemies, but you have blessed them these three times.’ “(Numbers 24:10)

IN WORD:
In the strange story of Balaam and Balak (Numbers 22-24), we read of a king convinced that it must be the divine will to save his people. He summoned Balaam to pronounce a curse against Israel’s coming horde. We marvel at Balak’s inability to understand. Poor simpleton; he just doesn’t get it. Blessing and cursing is not about his personal agenda; it’s about God’s. Balaam even tells him the rules up front, but Balak simply can’t get it out of his head that if he pays enough, pleads enough, and promises enough honor, the sorcerer will be able to establish the divine will all by himself. Obviously, he can’t. Balaam can only do what God tells him to do.
Balak is an easy target for our contempt. What a fool! But aren’t we often similar? Isn’t that how we approach prayer? We try to persuade God to bless our own agenda. We come up with a plan in all confidence that it’s surely God’s will. We miss a crucial step in the process. The first item of business in any prayer request is not to ask God to defend our position, establish our plans, or fulfill any other aspect of our agenda; it’s to ask Him what His agenda is. Balak’s bull-headedness led to utter frustration. Are you utterly frustrated, too?

IN DEED:
How often do you pray for your agenda without consulting God for His? Are you absolutely sure that what you’re asking for is a part of God’s plan? We don’t have to know every aspect of God’s will before praying, but we must pray with an understanding that His will, believe it or not, may contradict ours. We simply must forsake our assumptions and be open to that. Never be a Balak in disguise, using prayer as a sanitized form of sorcery. Use it to get yourself in line with the divine program. Then, pray your heart out.

“You cannot alter the will of God, but the man of prayer can discover God’s will.” -Sadhu Sundar Singh-

August 24 – Exposed Motives (Psalm 139:23-24)

“All a man’s ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the Lord.”(Proverbs 16:2)

IN WORD:
In our constant quest for self-improvement, we focus on the things we do. As we grow spiritually, we measure ourselves by our actions. We’re preoccupied with outcomes, and as long as those are improving, we think we are improving.
But God has a different agenda. He looks at our motives. In fact, Jesus was particularly harsh with a group of legal experts whose deeds were right but whose motives were wrong. The outward behavior, while important, could be ruined by misplaced intent. God wants internal integrity. If that is there, deeds will follow. But it is entirely possible for us to appear right on the outside and be hollow on the inside. Jesus referred to that phenomenon as “whitewashed tombs” — a beautiful exterior masking the death within.
The problem with our perception of ourselves is that we are rarely discerning enough. All of our ways seem innocent to us; we think our intentions are good. But God calls for a closer examination. Are we acting out of self-interest or a passion for God and His Kingdom? Are we focused on our reputation or on His? Are we disciples for the long haul or because we want something soon from God? The answers aren’t as easy as we might think. We cannot arrive at them ourselves. We must be illuminated by the Holy Spirit. He must shine heavy doses of reality into the hidden purposes of our hearts.

IN DEED:
David asked God to search him and know his heart (Psalm 139:23-24). He knew that his intentions mattered to God. He knew well enough that he needed a more objective assessment than his own. There is always more to our designs than we see.
Do you want God to expose your intentions? Ask Him to. He who is motivated by holiness and compassion wants you to share His desires. He wants His motives to become yours. He wants you to share in a purity deeper than you can ever imagine.

“It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it.” -A.W. Tozer-

August 23 – The Spiritual Side of Money (Luke 16:10-15)

“If you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?”(Luke 16:11)

IN WORD:
There is an unexpected subject of which the Bible speaks in more than 2,300 verses. It is referred to more often than heaven, hell, salvation, or many of the other key doctrines of our faith. To have been given such attention in the word, it must be of great interest to God. But the topic is often considered un-spiritual. The topic is money.
Mammon. That un-righteous stuff that implies that we must account for every ounce of productivity, every moment of work, and every act of service because we do not trust each other. Think about that: We only have money because we need to keep track of the things we’ve done and the products we’ve traded.We can’t rely on others to be fair, so we’ve established a system of fairness. We’ve placed value on various currencies and used them to keep track of what is due to us. We compete with others for the limited resources at hand. We have money because we fell.
Heaven won’t be like that. If we were to speak of heaven in human terms, we could trust everyone to freely provide their products and services because we would freely offer our products or services. The store would give us its goods because its workers would trust us to give ours. There need be no accounting in heaven, because all things are abundantly available and everyone is completely reliable.
The fatal flaw in philosophies such as communism and socialism is that they seek a heavenly economy in an ungodly society, and that just won’t work. But we’re under no such illusion. Money is inherently corrupt because of the context in which we live. Our use of it, however, is intensely spiritual.

IN DEED:
Have you considered the emphasis your Father places on your use of money? Or have you wrongly seen it as peripheral to the spiritual life rather than a central means of grace? Use it often, but use it well. It is a deeper spiritual issue than you might have thought.

“One fifth of all Jesus had to say was about money.”
-Billy Graham-

August 22 – Prayer & Poverty (Psalm 82:3-4)

“If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered.”(Proverbs 21:13)

IN WORD:
When most of us cite hindrances to prayer, we mention the obvious: sin, misplaced desires, doubt, enmity with others, and the like. Few of us recall verses like this one that makes God’s response toward us contingent on our response toward others. But the Scripture is clear, and the book of Proverbs and other Old Testament passages are quite emphatic about it: God is intensely compassionate toward the poor, and His followers must be as well.
There’s logic behind that. Those who really understand what God has done will reflect His grace in their attitude toward the oppressed. In a very real sense, we were all broken and destitute. We needed compassion and restoration, and God gave it to us. He is the One who gives to the poor. He urges us to recognize our poverty so we will be blessed by His grace (Matthew 5:3; Luke 6:20). Anyone who understands that and accepts it must go and do likewise. Otherwise, we are guilty of an extreme hypocrisy. We receive mercy without extending it. We take but do not give.
We may be content to help the poor whenever we encounter them, but God is more intentional than that. He seeks them out, just as He sought us. He is the Provider who meets the needs of those who cry out to Him, and often, He meets their needs through us. We must be available.

IN DEED:
So how does our reaction to poverty enhance our prayers? Those who understand God’s compassion for the needy — those who have experienced it and then represent it to others — are best able to understand God’s will and pray with passion for His purposes. The heart of compassion that beats in God’s Spirit is the heart of compassion that beats in us. That puts us in deep fellowship with Him. And deep fellowship is what prayer is all about.
Are your prayers going nowhere? Check your concern for the poor. Does it reflect God’s? If not, seek a change. Those who meet others’ needs will see God meet their own.

“He who wants anything from God must approach Him with empty hands.” -Robert C. Cunningham-

August 21 – Prayer & Purity (James 5:16)

“The Lord is far from the wicked but he hears the prayer of the righteous.”(Proverbs 15:29)

IN WORD:
As much as we’d like to think that there is no correlation between our sin and the depth of our prayer life, the biblical witness is clear: The sin in the heart affects the prayers of the mouth. There is a cleansing that must happen before we enter the throne room of God. There is an emptying that must take place before God occupies the throne of our heart. The interference must be dealt with so the communication will be clear.
God takes sin seriously, far more seriously than we do. A heart that tolerates it is in no condition to commune with the Holy One. If prayer is fellowship — and it is — there can be none of it when a corrupt soul tries to get intimate with a spotlessly pure God. Like oil and water, there is no intermingling between the Holy and the profane. Sin and prayer do not mix.
The principle raises a serious concern for us. We know deep down that we are sinful. How then can we ever pray? By the purifying that comes through Jesus. He has made us clean. He has opened the curtain at the entrance to the Holy of Holies. We may enter in and fellowship with the righteous God. But we take this for granted. Perhaps we thought that it was a once-for-all event, that salvation implied a permanent cleansing. It does, of course — we are forever seen as righteous in God’s eyes. But that righteousness must be lived if faith is to be vibrant. A disobedient soul will find little in common with the Lord of all creation. Some know their position in Christ but will not live it. Prayer cannot thrive in such a context.

IN DEED:
Have you ever felt that your relationship with God, while genuinely secure, functions awkwardly? Do your prayers seem out of sync with his will? By His mercy, God is calling you closer. You must drop your sin to draw near to Him, but it is an infinitely worthwhile exchange. Sin hinders prayer and fellowship. Confess it, repent of it, right your wrongs, and get closer to the heart of God.

“As long as we meddle with any kind of sin we shall never clearly see the blessed face of our Lord.”
-Julian of Norwich-