June 14 – Unburdened (Philippians 4:6)

“An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up.”(Proverbs 12:25)

IN WORD:
One of the most persistent problems for Christians is anxiety. One of the most consistent exhortations in Scripture is for us to not be anxious. It’s a curious contradiction, isn’t it? Or perhaps it makes perfect sense. God’s command for us not to be afraid, not to be anxious, not to fear, and to be strong and courageous is so complete and frequent for a reason: He knows that fear will be one of our worst problems.
Why is God so concerned with our level of anxiety? Because, as this proverb says, an anxious heart weighs a person down. It is a heavy burden. It is the antithesis of the abundant life that Jesus has come to give us. It will cripple us from doing God’s will and enjoying His presence. When we are absorbed in the threat of difficult circumstances or difficult people, we are not absorbed in God. When we fear the things that seem to steal our lives away, we are placing them on a higher pedestal than the One who gives us life.
God emphatically does not want us to be weighed down. He may give us many responsibilities, but He does not burden us with them. His burden is light, because Jesus is the Burden Bearer. And as long as we are anxiously stressing over our burdens, we are not letting Jesus bear them. We simply cannot experience His strength while bearing the weight of life in our own strength. We must choose one or the other. We must choose the burden-bearing God.

IN DEED:
What is the solution to our anxiety? There are several, prayer ranking first among them. But the proverb gives us another: kind words. Let your life be full of them. Tell them to yourself. God’s truth is kind to you, after all; rehearse it often. Tell them to others. God’s primary vehicle for expressing Himself in this world is through people. Verbally demonstrate His kindness to others. And when others offer kind words to you, accept them. God has sent them to you. Accept them, and do not be anxious.

“Beware of anxiety. Next to sin, there is nothing that so troubles the mind, strains the heart, distresses the soul, and confuses the judgment.” -William Ullathorne-

June 13 – An Obligated God (Job 41:1-11)

“Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.”(Job 41:11)

IN WORD:
Imagine a father giving his daughter an extravagant Christmas gift every year: an expensive piece of jewelry. At first, she might squeal with delight and hug her father’s neck as tightly as she could. After a few years, her reaction to the annual gift might calm to a respectful “thank you.” Eventually, she might begin to expect the extravagance as her right. Suppose that one year the father didn’t have enough money for expensive jewelry and bought her something much more humble. How would she react?
We know human nature well enough to know that once we’re accustomed to generous grace, we expect it not as a gift but as a right. Perhaps we’ve noticed this dynamic in our spiritual lives as well: God gave us salvation, to which we rejoiced as undeserving recipients should; then we began to take His mercies for granted; now, we often expect them as our rightful inheritance. We might even complain when He doesn’t answer our prayers the way we want Him to, or when He doesn’t make life as easy for us as we think it should be. What happened to us? We made a dreadful mistake. We misunderstood the consistency of God’s mercy. Somewhere along the way, we decided that His extravagant promises entitled us not only to trust in them, but to demand them. Perhaps we’ve been spoiled.
Job’s many blessings may have led him to expect that God would always bless him in exactly the same ways. God didn’t. Job couldn’t understand that, and he even hinted that God might have dealt unfairly with him. Like us, he forgot that we were fallen, corrupt, and spiritually dead. We deserved nothing. Grace gave us everything.

IN DEED:
Be careful how you address God. Don’t be a spoiled child; be a grateful one. Remember that everything you have — even life itself — is a gift that springs from His fabulous, unfathomable mercy.

“Between here and heaven, every minute that the Christian lives will be a minute of grace.”-Charles Spurgeon-

June 12 – God of Justice (Isaiah 30:18)

“Many seek an audience with a ruler, but it is from the Lord that man gets justice.”(Proverbs 29:26)

IN WORD:
God loves justice, and we who have been created in His image love to see things work out in a way that is fair for everyone. We hate inequity, especially when we’re on the short end of the imbalance. No matter how many times someone tells us that life isn’t fair, we still want it to be. We’re afraid we might not get our piece of the pie.
Our sense of fairness is really rankled when God’s timing does not equal our own. We’re hardly content with the thought that things will be made right at the judgment seat of Christ. That’s too far off in the future. And what if the offender repents! Then there’s never any payback, just a free ride. Never mind that we received the same free ride the day we accepted Jesus’ sacrifice. When we’re offended, we’re all for justice.
Such indignation has led us throughout the centuries to establish all sorts of courts and punishments. And God would have it so; He is never in favor of chaos in this world. To the degree that our justice systems reflect His standards, they are pleasing to Him. But they are never perfect, and they don’t handle our every grievance. We are left, at least with some offenses, either to steam and stew about them or to let them go and forgive, trusting god to handle them well. We often choose the anger over the trust. God seems much less urgent about our complaints than we are. We want restitution now.

IN DEED:
How do you make things right when you’ve been wronged? Revenge is not a biblical option; God insists that vengeance is His, not ours. And perfect fairness is not a biblical option either; we who have received a clean slate from our Savior can have no complaints against our God of justice. Justice once directed at us was poured out on Another. We can hardly insist that others must receive it.
Does that bother you? Relax. God will make all things right, in His time and in His way. He is patiently waiting for all who will repent; a verdict now would be premature. Seek justice now, when appropriate, but don’t place your hope in it. God’s is worth waiting for.

“God’s justice guarantees that ultimately all that is unfair will be dealt with.” -Joseph Stowell-

June 11 – Regarding the Weak (Psalm 41:1-3)

“Blessed is he who has regard for the weak; the Lord delivers him in times of trouble.”(Psalm 41:1)

IN WORD:
Imagine having a child who doesn’t seem to care much for other people. He or she is completely absorbed in self-centered activities, always planning for personal gain, and never making any real sacrifices for anyone else. Even when confronted with desperate need, this child seems not to be moved.
How will you feel about this child when he is in trouble? As a parent, your sympathies will naturally lead you to take care of your child. But with what enthusiasm? If the child has demonstrated no feeling for others, you will likely have a strong desire for him to learn compassion.
On the other hand, how would you feel about a child who has gone out of his way to help everyone else? Your compassions are stirred for someone who is by nature compassionate. When a sympathetic person is in deep trouble, he has the sympathy of others to draw on.
So it is with God. He loves every one of us, even those who are cold hearted. But He delights in rescuing a compassionate person. If we rarely focus on others, God will often let us sit in our difficulties for a while until we learn how others have felt in their need.

IN DEED:
Those who have regard for the weak always have God’s sympathetic ear. The problem is that we get so completely wrapped up in our own agendas at times that we hardly notice the needs around us. It isn’t that we don’t care about other people; we just don’t care enough to feel their pain or even to notice their hardships. We’re too occupied with our own business.
In His mercy, God cares for our needs regardless of our level of compassion. But He cares for them more readily, more powerfully, and more demonstrably if we have demonstrated His nature toward others. Do we withhold grace? Then grace will be hard to find. Or are we examples of mercy? If so, we will have mercy in abundance.

“He who demands mercy and shows none, ruins the bridge over which he himself is to pass.” -Thomas Adams-

June 10 – An Hour of Need (1 Kings 17:7-16)

“The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day of the Lord gives rain on the land.”
(1 Kings 17:14)

IN WORD:
A drought had made food scarce in Israel. Elijah the prophet had been fed by ravens, but God had a new command: Go to a widow in Zarephath. She would supply the need. Elijah did, and though the woman was preparing to die of hunger, God miraculously provided enough for her, her son, and the prophet.
Have you ever wondered why God told the prophet to go to a woman who had nothing? She was no source of great wealth, no prominent benefactor. She was about to make her last meal so that she and her son could then die. But God’s providence comes in barren places, and the woman learned a valuable principle: Obey God first, even when He asks for your last meal. Then your supply is up to Him.
Can you imagine giving your last dollar to a ministry while your stomach gnaws at you for attention? This is exactly what God ordered. The deep principles of providence kick in only after we’ve demonstrated a greater desire to invest in obedience than to invest in ourselves. No one ever received a blessing of God by desperately hanging on to his last dime. The greatest inflow of providence comes when we determine that nothing will hinder our outflow. God is looking for those who will do what He says before fulfilling their own desperate plans — Dow of Zarephath gave Elijah what she thought might be her last meal.

IN DEED:
At what point do you have so little that you stop giving to God? That is the point where God will demonstrate the futility of your plans — not because He enjoys frustrating us, but because He has greater plans for His people than their self-preserving instincts will allow. The miraculous flow of His providence is. Only miraculous to us when it seems unlikely. Our hour of greatest need is His hour of greatest supply. A Phoenician widow survived a famine on that principle. So can you.

“You will never need more than God can supply.” -J.I. Packer-

June 9 – Do the Word (James 1:22-25)

“Do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.”(James 1:22)

IN WORD:
Who sees the behavior of Christians? First of all, God. God is interested in the motivations that guide our decisions and the thoughts that fill our minds. But He is interested in more than a people who will think right. His desire, expressed repeatedly throughout Scripture, is for a people who will do something about what they know.
Who else sees? Other Christians. We do not encourage one another primarily by our words but rather by our actions. A brother or sister in need may need to hear a kind reminder of the love of God, but he or she may need a visible illustration of it more desperately. Faith that says only “God bless you, I wish you well,” grieves the heart of God, as James implies later on (see 2:16). It accomplishes nothing that God can use. It must result in action, in prayer, in something. Otherwise, it is wasted faith.
And an unbelieving world watches too. It does not care about the intricacies of our theology, and apart from college philosophy majors, no one will really ask the questions we want to answer. Unbelievers want to see what faith looks like, and the only way to speak on those terms is to act. When Jesus told His disciples that the world would know them by their love for one another, it was not a sentiment hidden deep within. He called for acts of love. Faith, love, hope, and every other spiritual virtue remains invisible to a lost world — until we act according to our beliefs.

IN DEED:
Listening to the Word is immensely profitable, but it can be dangerously deceptive as well. When we hear the Word, mull it over, and let it become a part of our thinking, we often make the mistake of believing it has become a part of our lives. That’s an illusion. The Word is only ours when we have acted on it. It is only effective when we’ve allowed God to move it from our minds into our hearts, and then outward into our actions. Anything else will lull us into a false sense of security. Do not be deceived. “Do what it says.”

“Faith without works cannot please, nor can good works without faith.” -The Venerable Bede-

June 8 – The Source of Conversation (Proverbs 16:24)

“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”
(Colossians 4:6)

IN WORD:
If words are as powerful as a raging fire, able to both warm the heart well and to burn it to a crisp, it might be important to consider their source. Words are not random utterances from absent minds; they are the fruit of the soul. They indicate what’s growing within us, whether the Spirit of God or the spirit of corruption. They are a true measure of the spiritual life. They tell us what’s inside.
Jesus said all the evils of sin “come from inside and make a man unclean” (Mark 7:23). His assessment of human corruption is startling, but experience and wisdom bear Him out. The human heart comes up with all sorts of mischief, and though we often keep it secret, it inevitably flavors our speech. We cannot disguise the condition of a sinful soul. Corrupt words are the fruit of that rotting tree.
But when we have been raised to life by the Spirit of God, our words become the fruit of a living, thriving tree planted by streams of water. Our conversation can be full of grace because WE are full of grace. We can speak with the flavor of salt because WE have been seasoned with salt. We can bear eternal fruit because we ARE eternal fruit. The Word of Life fills a faithful heart with words of life. He makes fertile what was once barren.

IN DEED:
Analyze your speech. Are you frequently making negative comments? Do you seethe with anger and bitterness? Do you spread discouragement and criticism when you open your mouth? If so, it’s a reflection of what’s inside. It indicates a lack of fellowship with the Spirit of life and hope and grace.
Do not make the mistake of thinking your speech and your spiritual condition are distinct. One reflects the other. If the reflection is negative, don’t just clean up your mouth. Bask in the fellowship of the Spirit. God doesn’t want to change your tongue, He wants to change your heart. When He does, your words become His.

“Take my lips and let them be filled with messages from Thee.”
-Frances Ridley Havergal-

June 7 – The Power of Pleasantness (Colossians 4:6)

“Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.”(Proverbs 16:24)

IN WORD:
There are few things in this world as contagious as words. Rumors spread like wildfire, lies inflame deadly passions, and bitterness hardens the heart of both its speakers and its hearers. On the other hand, encouragement cultivates the will, praise establishes the praiseworthy, and truth always begets wisdom. Words can do great things.
Speech is an awesome responsibility. It’s hard to imagine that our casual comments can have eternal implications, but they can. God anoints them for blessing, and Satan uses them for cursing. Both blessings and curses have a dramatic impact on the heart and soul of human beings. They often dictate the direction we go — forever.
That’s why pleasant words are sweet and soothing. They have deep spiritual impact. They are not neutral claims of neutral people; they are vehicles for both the power of God and for the corruption of this world. They can be inspired by the Holy One or hijacked by the evil one. They matter — a lot.

IN DEED:
Have you ever considered the implications of your words? They can be powerful, whether you realize it or not. Through your speech, you can pour out wrath and condemnation, and you can pour out blessing and encouragement. You can set the mood of a room and cultivate the direction of a life. You can stop people dead in their tracks or put them on a course of fruitfulness. One way or another, what comes out of your mouth is rapidly contagious. It will either build up or tear down. It all depends on what you say and how you say it.
Try this mental exercise: Learn to consider each of your words as a powerful spark, a small investment in a vast future. See the implications beyond the moment. Discipline your mouth to be silent until you are sure your words are (1) consistent with Scripture and (2) flavored with grace. That doesn’t mean you’ll never say anything harsh — some situations beg for rebuke. But let your speech be redemptive. Most of all, let it point to God.

“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” -Mother Teresa-

June 6 – God’s Good Favor (Psalm 5:12)

“A good man obtains favor from the Lord, but the Lord condemns a crafty man.” (Proverbs 12:2)

IN WORD:
We might think that the opposite of a good man is a bad man. Not so, according to this verse. A good man is contrasted here with a crafty man. God bestows no favor on those who — like the serpent in the Garden — are devious.
Our world praises shrewdness. But shrewdness has a devious side; craftiness manipulates people for one’s own ends. Why is it so tolerable to the world and so odious to God? Because the desire to serve self is common to all humanity. Those who do it best are often admired. But craftiness says volumes about a person’s belief in God. Those who are cunning do not expect God to help them; they must help themselves. They do not expect god to honor goodness; they must seek their own good. They do not believe God is watching; they are in this world for themselves. In short, a crafty person denies who God is.
All of us have a tendency to manipulate circumstances. We want to stack the odds in our favor, to set the best course before us, to get everyone else on our side. But the more focused we become on our position in this world — whether at work, at home, at church, or in any other social situation — the less focused we become on God. We cannot have our eyes on our own agenda and God’s simultaneously unless ours is perfectly in line with His — and it rarely, if ever is.

IN DEED:
Being “good” in the eyes of God and in the definition of Scripture involves a hands-off approach to the things that belong to God. He is the Master of our circumstances; there is no need for our guile. The opportunities He wants us to have will be opened before us. The people He wants us to know will come into our path. No manipulation is necessary — or even welcome. All that he requires from us is our willing to His plan. That, above all else, obtains His favor.

“When you get your own way, you nurse a hideous idol called self. But when you give up your way, you get God.”
-Janet Erskin Stewart-

June 5 – Humble Deeds (James 3:13-18)

“Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.”(James 3:13)

IN WORD:
If Proverbs is the wisdom book of the Old Testament, James is the wisdom book of the New Testament. There, the profound theology of the early church is applied. Real faith is demonstrated and good works are the result. The truth of the gospel comes to life for the poor, the widows, the tongues of the saints, the suffering church, and the faithful who pray. And, according to James, it is all characterized by humility.
Why is humility a natural by-product of wisdom? Because wisdom knows who God is and it knows who we are. It sees the remarkable contrast between the two and accepts that God. Has saved us anyway. It acknowledges the utter depravity of the human condition, but affirms the glory of redemption. Where can pride fit into such an understanding? It can’t. Wisdom rules it out. Humility grows in those who see things as they really are.
When we find pride in the church, we can be sure there are believers there who don’t really understand the gospel. Pride can never exist where the gospel is clearly understood. The fact that we all struggle with pride doesn’t alter that truth at all; we all struggle with the depth and the majesty of the gospel as well. It takes a lifetime to really sink in.

IN DEED:
Ask yourself a probing question. Do your good works result in pride or in humility? If in pride, then you are doing them to earn favor from God. That is not the gospel, it is legalism. If in humility, then you are doing them because of the amazing grace you have experienced.
Be extremely wary of pride, but do not mistake it for satisfaction. The wise and understanding life of which James speaks is deeply satisfying, but it is not proud. How can it be? The good news of the mercy of God precludes it. Grace removes all sense of worthiness. We do our deeds in humility because we have no other reason to do them.

“He who knows himself best esteems himself last.”
-Henry G. Brown-