Jody's Devotionals

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?

But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God “will give to each person according to what he has done.” To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism. – Romans 2:1-11 (NIV)

That first sentence is a ‘toe-stomper’, isn’t it? Part of the growing in my spiritual life is the recognition of my sinfulness. On that hot July night when I gave myself to God and decided to hold NOTHING back, I BEGAN my journey of repentance. I BEGAN turning away from the path I had been leading. I BEGAN to follow Jesus’ example. AND unfortunately, I also began to recognize MY shortcomings in others. I quickly found out that judging them could make me more comfortable because I wasn’t looking at myself so much! God already knew that would be a problem and so He wrote Scriptures like this.

God does not ‘wink’ at my sins when I do not repent. He doesn’t let my sins ‘slide by’ just because He loves me. In fact, BECAUSE HE LOVES ME, like any good parent, He shows me that there are consequences for my actions. I learn through His discipline. So what about this ‘day of God’s wrath’?

¹Then I heard a loud voice from the sanctuary saying to the seven angels, “Go and pour out the seven vials of the wrath of God on the earth!”…

¹⁷And the seventh one poured out his vial on the air, and a loud voice came out from the sanctuary, from the throne, saying, “It is done!” ¹⁸And there were flashes of lighting, and voices, and thunderclaps, and a great earthquake, such as no person has ever seen on the earth since there were people–it’s so powerful! — Revelation 16:1, 17-18 (TFBV)

We have seen the devastation of earthquakes and tsunamis and yet here, John tells us that the wrath of God will produce an earthquake of unspeakable horror. God does not ‘wink’ at our sins. God shows me His love and His DESIRE that I repent! He doesn’t want me to be severely punished. He ‘woos’ me with loving kindness and tells me to do the same. It is with kindness that my heart is broken for God and I fall to my knees asking forgiveness.

[David said,] For the sake of your name, O LORD, forgive my iniquity, though it is great. Psalm 25:11 (NIV)

As God has been gracious and drawn me with loving-kindness to repentance so may I show that SAME path to EVERYONE I meet. Let the repentance BEGIN with me and the loving-kindness STAY with me.

(13) As I was watching the night visions, the scene changed and one like human being was coming, and he went to the Ancient One, and was presented to him. (14) And to him were given dominion and glory and royal power, and all peoples, nations and languages worshiped him. His sovereignty is eternal, it won’t run out. His royal power is the sort that will not cease. — Daniel 7:13-14

I’ve been taking my texts from Daniel for the last couple of days, and talking about looking far enough into the future. Daniel speaks of a time when things were very bad for the Jewish people. They were in exile in Babylon. Their homeland was in ruins after successive invasions. The problems just kept coming at them.

Now from the point of view of prediction, Daniel 2 and 7 talk about similar topics—a succession of kingdoms that ends finally with God’s intervention (Daniel 2:34-35/Daniel 7:13-14). But there is a big difference in the lesson taught. I can’t resist “Bible teacher mode” for a moment. We often look at prophecy as a way to satisfy our own curiosity about what is going to happen next. But when the Biblical prophets made predictions, they were always trying to give a bigger message. The events they predicted just helped to carry that message forward.

One “bigger message” of Daniel 2 is simply that God is the one who is in control of history. No matter how powerful Nebuchadnezzar thought he was, he was not the one who was in control. He tried to claim the control through building his golden image in chapter 3, but that didn’t work.

The bigger message of Daniel 7 is this: The beasts may just keep coming at you, but God is the one who gets the last word. A great deal of the book of Daniel is dedicated to this message.

In the first chapter we find that even though God’s people may be taken into exile in a foreign land, God is still the one who guides and blesses their lives. In the second chapter we learn that it is God who knows and controls the flow of history. The third teaches us that no matter how much effort we go to in order to avoid that lesson, God will still get in the last word. The fourth chapter tells us that God not only rules in the kingdoms of men, but he pursues those he loves implacably, even when he has to make it quite hard on them! The fifth chapter, we saw, shows God getting the last word on a king who refused to see what God was doing. In the sixth God prospers his servant who stands for him in the face of death. Here in the seventh chapter we see that no matter how many beasts Satan sends, God will have the last word.

Do you get the repetition? Do you sense the importance of this message?

Does your life feel as though you’re standing on the shore of the sea in Daniel seven, and beast after terrifying beast comes out of the sea? Is the beast you’re facing right now one that is “terrible, powerful, and very strong, with great iron teeth that it uses to devour and shatter, and feet with which it stamps the rest into the ground?”

Am I being melodramatic? I suspect for some people out there, that’s a pretty good description of your life! If it is, know this: Just around the corner, there’s one who looks like a human being—he was tested in all ways like us, but without sin—who really has control. The beast with the gnashing teeth and stomping feet looks like it’s in control, and thinks it’s in control, but it’s not.

The God of heaven is about to act. Wait for him!

Even though Daniel knew that the decree had been published, he went up to his house, into an upper room where windows were open facing toward Jerusalem, and three times a day he prayed and thanked his God just as he had done before that. — Daniel 6:10

Couldn’t he have just closed the curtains? I imagine most people have thought of that, if they’re honest. If you were forbidden to pray, would your first thought be that it could be done in private?

Yesterday I was talking about how Belshazzar was sure he was safe, living on the reputation and resources of his ancestors, but he didn’t look far enough forward, and he was stopped by the handwriting on the wall—and the Persian army that was invading his city. Today I’m looking at someone who looked further forward than anyone else.

You see, the sensible thing for Daniel to do would have been to stop praying, or at least to conceal his actions. Surely he could have suspended his thrice daily prayers for just 30 days! But Daniel looked at things differently. He had different priorities. He saw the decrees of human kings, even ones that could not be repealed or altered, as temporary things, and his time with God as eternal.

In the end, he was justified. The folks who played it the sensible way ended up as lion food, while the crazy guy who was praying in front of a window came out on top.

¹³In faith these all died, not having received the promises, but they saw and reached out to them from afar, and they confessed that they were strangers and wanderers on the earth, ¹⁴for those who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. ¹⁵If they had been remembering the land they had gone out from, there might have been opportunity to return. ¹⁶But now they aspire to a better place, which is heavenly. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, because he has prepared a city for them. — Hebrews 11:13-16

We face a similar situation in our spiritual lives. The questions are simple: What are we looking for? How far forward are we looking?

The place where we are going may be distant. If we’re looking back, and just considering the past or the very immediate present, we’re going to make all kinds of mistakes on our spiritual journey. If we always take the long view, and look at the destination God has prepared for us, we will do much better.

Look back only long enough to learn the lessons. Look forward and press toward the goal.

(1) Belshazzar the king hosted a large party for a thousand of his officials, and he drank wine in the presence of the thousand. (2) Then Belshazzar, under the influence of the wine, commanded that the vessels of gold and silver that Nebuchadnezzar his father had removed from the temple in Jerusalem be brought in, and the king and his officials, his wives, and his concubines could drink from them. (3) So they brought the vessels of gold and silver that had been taken from the temple that was in God’s house in Jerusalem, and the king, his officials, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. (4) They drank wine, and they praised their gods of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone. (5) In that moment, a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall next to the lamp, and the king saw the palm of the hand that wrote. — Daniel 5:1-5

Henry Hazlitt, in his book Economics in One Lesson says that “… the whole of economics can be reduced to a single lesson, and that lesson can be reduced to a single sentence. The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.”

Now Hazlitt, being an economist, speaks of economics. But I would like to suggest that the vast majority of life, and especially of our spiritual walk, can be reduced to a very similar lesson—looking far enough into the future, and looking far enough around us for the impact of our actions.

Our scripture today is the source of the saying “the handwriting on the wall.” When we say that the handwriting is on the wall, we mean that the end has come, doom is here, and it’s too late to do anything about it.

Belshazzar was a sort of temporary substitute king. He was handed the authority while Nabonidus, his father, was absent. (The text calls Nebuchadnezzar his father, but I might better have translated that “predecessor.”) He was living in the light of past glory, on the proceeds of what his ancestors had done, and he wasn’t paying attention to what was coming. If he had been, he would have been more concerned about the approaching Persian army, and less interested in feasting. But he had decided that prosperity was his, and that his gods were superior to others. Why? Because he was rich! He had lots of stuff! He had lots of stuff that used to belong to other people!

So he has the vessels from the temple in Jerusalem brought in, and he drinks from them. In all likelihood, as he praised his gods, he mentioned that they were superior to the God of Israel. Why should he not say that? The evidence was all around him. The vessels were there, in Babylon, kept most likely in the temple of Bel/Marduk his god. What better reason could you have to believe that your gods were superior?

But Belshazzar hadn’t looked far enough forward. In fact, he was so blinded by power and prosperity that he didn’t even look at the army that was busily surrounding his city. He was a blessed man! Nothing could happen to him!

But then came the human hand and started writing. Belshazzar watches it. Silence falls. Frankly, I wonder if he didn’t realize just where he stood in that moment. Daniel was called later to interpret, but I think that was more in hope that Daniel could produce something other than doom as the message that was brought by that hand.

Sometimes in our walk with God we can miss completely God’s message. Evil can prosper for a time. Just because something seems to work well doesn’t mean it’s the right thing. We have to look at the long run—take a God’s eye view as much as we are able. We have to ask ourselves how each action will impact not just the moment, but the next weeks, months and years.

(28) Peter answered him, “Lord, if it’s you, command me to come to you on the water!” (29) He said, “Come!” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and went toward Jesus. (30) But when he saw the strong wind, he became fearful, and he began to sink, so he shouted, “Lord! Save me!” (31) Jesus immediately reached out his hand, grabbed him, and said to him, “Little faith! Why did you doubt?” — Matthew 14:28-31

We’ve all heard this story numerous times. I’ve certainly sat in many Sunday School and small group discussions of just what was going on here. The dominant view seems to be that Peter was pretty slow and just didn’t get the power of Jesus. “How could he have seen Jesus feed the 5,000, or calm a storm and still not believe Jesus could handle a little thing like walking on water?” We usually note about that time that Peter had seen Jesus walking on the water, and was even walking there himself.

But then he looked at the waves and he began to sink. Think about that. Now there’s another answer here that I need to mention. Was it because he wasn’t looking at Jesus? This is often used as an admonition to continually look at Jesus, lest doubt overwhelm you. It can become its own form of legalism. “Unless I keep my eyes 100% on Jesus, all the time, I might fail,” we say.

But I think there was a different problem here. What was Peter doubting? I don’t think he was doubting that Jesus could walk on the water—he had just seen that. I don’t think he was doubting that Jesus could make it possible for someone else, Peter in this case, to walk on the water—he was experiencing that. I think he began to doubt himself and his relationship to Jesus. Now let me be clear that I don’t mean he was doubting his own ability to walk on the water. I’m quite certain that Peter was aware that on his own he could not do that at all. What he was doubting was that Jesus could care enough about him to stick with him whatever happened. With all these waves will Jesus keep caring about me?

I have encountered many, many people who believe in the power of God. It’s easy to believe in long ago miracles, or even far away miracles today. What seems to be really hard to do is to believe in a constant, reliable relationship with Jesus in which you know that you can trust him to care for you, to expect of you things that you can accomplish (with his help), and to stick with you to the end.

We struggle to become faithful, to keep on running the race, and to finally reach the goal. But in the midst of all this we doubt the key thing: The faithfulness of Jesus and his love for us.

Throw all your anxieties on him, because he cares about you! — 1 Peter 5:7

(1) So now those who are in Christ Jesus no longer have any verdict set against them. (2) For the living spiritual law in Christ Jesus has freed you from sin’s deadly law. (3) Because God did what the law, weak working through the flesh, could not do. He did it by sending his son in the form of sinful flesh, and through that sin offering he judged sin in the flesh. (4) So that the just requirement of the law could be fulfilled in us, who do not live according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. — Romans 8:1-4, lightly paraphrased

There’s an attitude in Christianity that keeps many of us from moving forward. It’s the attitude of continual weakness, one that almost revels in being weak and in failure. If we’re weak and failing, then we know that we’re not proud. We’re ready to receive salvation. If written about this attitude before, but I feel led to write again.

Sometimes this is contrasted to the Old Testament. People suppose that God required different things from people in Old Testament times in order for them to be in good relationship with him. I’m not talking about the details like animal sacrifices and specific rituals. Some folks think that the Old Testament folks were saved by works, and that this only changed with Jesus.

But there has always been just one way to get into right relationship with God, to be justified, and that’s initiated by God, given by grace, and received by faith. But there’s also one goal for all time that results from God’s action in your life, and that goal is holiness.

Romans 7 & 8 illustrate both the problem and the solution. We are weak. We do struggle. We can’t make it. But thank you God! You’ve provided a way to get out of the trap.

Now it’s good to be humble. But when the living law of Jesus Christ is operating in you and you are living according to the Spirit, it’s time to give credit where it’s due. The thanks is due to Jesus Christ, and the result is real. Give testimony to the working of Jesus in your life. You’re part of a new kingdom, you’re living under a new law, you’re producing new fruit, and you’re heading for a new destination. Alone, you’d be weak, but you’re living in Jesus and Jesus is living in you, so there’s no need for you to be acting alone.

Jesus has set you free. Enjoy it!

And we know that God makes everything work together for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. — Romans 8:28

Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,
Who depend on horses.
Who trust on chariots because there are lots of them,
And on horsemen, because they are very strong,
But they don’t wait on the Holy One of Israel,
They don’t seek YHWH. — Isaiah 31:1

What will truly make you comfortable? That’s a good question to ask yourself, because you will often find yourself heading in whatever direction or engaging in whatever activity is familiar and comfortable.

God didn’t tell the Israelites that they couldn’t have an army, or that they couldn’t make swords and bows, or do their best to fight well when the occasion arose. They had generals, they had heroes, and they organized armies. In other words, they were able to defend themselves. So what is the particular problem here?

Another text illustrates this problem clearly:

Unless YHWH is building the house,
Those who build it exert themselves in vain. — Psalm 127:1

Notice that this verse doesn’t tell the builders they shouldn’t build, but rather that unless YHWH is also building, their labor is for nothing. Have you ever noticed how odd that sounds? But it reflects an important principle of the Christian life. Very often 1+1=1 in our relationship with God. Sanctification is a gift of grace, but we are also called upon to work, to practice spiritual disciplines, to be disciples and to grow. Nonetheless, if God isn’t making you holy, all your effort is in vain.

If we understood this simple principle, we might find it easier to understand the work of God’s grace in our lives. You’re not going to earn it, you’re not going to make yourself good enough for heaven, but God will allow you to combine your effort with his, and he will make it complete.

So again, what is God’s problem with the Israelites here? The constant call for the Israelites was to go back to a place of comfort. Looking back from the a distance of millennia, we often don’t understand them, even though we behave the same way ourselves quite frequently. When the Israelites were in Egypt, they were crying out to the Lord to save them, but once they have left, they realized the blessings of Egyptian bondage—enough food to eat, a place to sleep, an assured future, and Egyptian troops guarding the frontier. The particular symbol of those Egyptian troops was the horse and chariot.

So they had a tendency to move toward comfort. If we just had more horses and more chariots, we’ll be safe. If we go to Egypt, we’ll get the very best chariots and horses, and then we’ll be safe. Perhaps we can even get some of those fine Egyptian charioteers! Then we’ll REALLY be safe!

Precisely because it was a place of comfort, but also a place of bondage, God had to tell the Israelites to stay away. They were allowed to fight and work. They were allowed to build city walls, but they were always to remember that their trust was always in God. All their efforts were vain unless God was working with them.

Think about comfort and bondage. Are there places in your life that are places of comfort, places you go back to because they feel safe and secure, but which are also places of bondage for you? If so, turn away from them. Determine never to go back. Those places are your Egypt, your source of horses and chariots. God is calling you to move out and put your trust in him.

(15) Hey, folks who try to hide a plan too deep for YHWH,
Who do their deeds in the dark.
Then they say, “Who will see us?”
“Who will recognize us?”
(16) You’ve got it all backwards!
Can the potter be regarded as clay?
Will the thing that is made say to its maker, “You didn’t make me?”
Will the thing that is formed say to the one who formed it, “You don’t understand?”
(17) In a very little time shall not Lebanon become an orchard,
And the orchard shall be considered a forest.
(18) On that day the deaf shall hear the words of a scroll,
And the eyes of the blind shall see from gloom and darkness.
(19) The meek shall add joy from YHWH,
and poor people will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. — Isaiah 29:15-19

God has good plans for you, but can he carry them through? When we ask a question like that theologically—not as part of our real lives—we obviously know the answer. “Who believes that God can do anything?” Everybody in the Sunday School class raises their hands.

But in our daily lives we are not nearly so sure. We certainly don’t act like we think God is capable of carrying a plan through. Why do I say this?

• We make backup plans just in case God doesn’t come through
• We hide our behavior as though God can’t see it
• We hold things back in prayer as though God doesn’t know what we’re saying
• We regularly call our creator stupid by putting down his creation—ourselves and other people.
• We act as though God can be manipulated, molded like clay

But God has better plans for you than you know. He has made you “a little less than God.” He’s even given you some of that power to make things, to form them. The power is there.

But in our text the Israelites think that they can hide things away from God, that he won’t see what they’re doing or recognize their intent. God not only has the creative power, he has the knowledge.

¹²For the God’s message is alive and active, sharper than any two edged sword, piercing to the division of the soul and spirit, bones and marrow, judging the desires and thoughts of the heart. ¹³And there is no creature who is not visible to him, for everything is naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account. — Hebrews 4:12-13

There is nothing that he doesn’t see, nothing that he misses, no place that you can go to hide from him. But don’t let that get you down! He has wonderful plans for you, and because he created you and knows you, he will be able to bring those good plans to completion.

Power + Knowledge = Hope — for you!

(13) The Lord says, “Because these people approach me with their mouths, and honor me with their lips, yet their heart {mind} is far from me, and their awe of me comes from human command learned by rote, (14) I will do more amazing things with these people, amazing and stunning. The wisdom of the wise and the understanding of the intelligent shall be hidden. — Isaiah 29:13-14

C. S. Lewis comments in one of his novels (The Magician’s Nephew) that the problem with trying to be stupider than you are is that you very often succeed. It’s easy for us to accomplish this in real life. For example, if you know what you should do, but don’t want to do it, you may convince yourself that you really have no idea what to do. You were intelligent enough to know the right course of action to take, yet you didn’t. Finally you may convince yourself that you had no option.

When we start to deceive other people, we can be caught in the same trap. For example, if you present a different picture of yourself at church than who you really are, you may get asked to live up to it. Do you try to present yourself as a person who regularly reads the Bible? Someone may expect you to know something about it. They might invite you to lead a Sunday School class. Do you claim to be a praying person? Someone may want you to pray for them. Do you claim to be generous? Someone may ask you to live up to your reputation. At work, if you portray yourself as an expert with some piece of equipment, you may get asked to solve a problem with that equipment.

But worse than that is the likelihood that you’ll eventually deceive yourself. If you can convince everyone else that you’re someone you’re not, and they treat you as such, you may start looking at yourself in the same way. Then you’re stuck, because you will no longer recognize your lack.

This is another example of how similar spiritual and physical things can be. In our verse today, God is talking to the Israelites about worship. He gets lip service from them, they talk a good talk, but their heart—what’s inside—is not at the same place as their mouth. They go through rituals, but they are just that—rituals, empty of any further meaning. The traditional translation of this verse is “teaching for doctrines the commandments of men,” but the issue is not as much the source. God wasn’t happy with rituals that were just a repetitive human habit, even if he commanded them in the first place.

YHWH said to Samuel, “Don’t look at his appearance, nor at how tall he is, because I have rejected him. For God doesn’t see the way people see. People see the outward appearance, but YHWH sees all the way to the heart. — 1 Samuel 16:6

True integrity will mean that when God looks all the way into our hearts he will see the same thing that we show on the outside. Actions of worship will reflect a worshiping heart. Acts of love will reflect a loving heart. Rituals will reflect how we think. Our words will be what we really mean deep inside.

Will you put your heart, your lips, and your hands in the same place today, or will you be stupider than you really are?

¹¹I have spoken to you, so that my joy might be in you, and your joy might be complete. ¹²This is my command, that you love one another just as I loved you. ¹³Nobody has greater love than this, that he lays down his life for his friends. ¹⁴You are my friends if you do that which I command you. ¹⁵I no longer call you slaves, because the slave doesn’t know what the master is doing. But you I have called frinds, because everything that I heard from my father, I made known to you. ¹⁶You did not choose me, but I chose you, and I appointed you that you should go and bear much fruit and your fruit might remain, so that whatever you ask the father in my name he might give you. ¹⁷These things I command you, so that you might love one another. — John 15:11-17

Part of my personal testimony (this is Henry) is that I left the church pretty close to when I graduated with my MA at seminary. One aspect of this was simply that I saw surrender to Jesus as a total surrender, a complete loss of self, and I simply wasn’t going to do it. It looked like a one-way street. Now I had made a commitment to Jesus earlier in life, but God kept calling for more and more surrender, and it finally came to me that it was all or nothing.

Now having finally made the more complete commitment—and having found out that even past what “final” stage there is still much more room for God to take over in my life—I find something interesting. What seemed like such a total surrender that it would erase me from existence is instead a step into new freedom.

Our verse describes such a change. On the one hand “slave” is a common term in the New Testament. We are slaves to Jesus Christ. Now some people try to make an historical case that slavery in New Testament times wasn’t really all that bad. Theologians try to bring up examples of how slaves could be respected members of a household. For some reason, however, there were no long lines looking to give up their free status and become slaves. It wasn’t nice, you didn’t own yourself or control your destiny. It’s much easier for a modern historian with tenure in a fine university to claim slavery was pretty tolerable than it would be for a person of that time to endure slavery.

So it looked pretty bad going in to have to become a slave to Jesus Christ. But there is another perspective. Once you accept the slavery you realize that on the other side it’s quite different than what it appeared to be. Jesus turns around and calls you friend. In other passages he calls us brothers and sisters, family members (Hebrews 2:11). I could discuss the difference in perspective, but what I want to emphasize today is that our Christian life always involves change. Our perspective in changing.
Our tendency is to read Bible texts in a static way. We’re sinners, so we’re always sinners, and we have to make sure to reaffirm it on a regular basis. We’re “pitiful, poor, blind, and naked” (Revelation 3:17 CEV), but then the next text tells us to “Buy your gold from me. It has been refined in a fire, and it will make you rich. Buy white clothes from me. Wear them and you can cover up your shameful nakedness. Buy medicine for your eyes, so that you will be able to see” (Revelation 3:18 CEV). So what happens after we follow that advice? Are we still “pitiful, poor, blind, and naked?”

Hebrews 6:1 invites us to “move on toward perfection” (or maturity/completion). But as we move on can we ever notice that we did move on? I think so. I think we should always remember that we are still not perfect, while at the same time affirming that God is leading us forward. Take time today to celebrate how far God has led you. Instead of seeing yourself as a “SINNER, saved by grace” trying thinking of yourself as a “sinner, SAVED BY GRACE!” Instead of “pitiful, poor, blind, and naked,” celebrate the fact that you have received from your savior gold that has made you rich, clothing so you are no longer naked, and eye salve so that you can now see.

(24) What a miserable man I am! Who will deliver me from this deathlike body? (25) Thanks to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then in my mind I serve the law of God, but in my flesh the law of sin. (1) So there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, (2) for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed you from the law of sin and of death. Romans 7:24-8:2