18 Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. 19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:18-20
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1. Mercy to the needy is a loan to GOD, and GOD pays back those loans in full. (Proverbs 19:17 MSG)
2. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. (Lamentations 3:23 NLT)
3. So be merciful (sympathetic, tender, responsive, and compassionate) even as your Father is [all these]. (Luke 6:36 AMP)
4. But God’s mercy is so abundant, and his love for us is so great, that while we were spiritually dead in our disobedience he brought us to life with Christ. It is by God’s grace that you have been saved. (Ephesians 2:4-5 GNT)
5. God blesses those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy. (Matthew 5:7 NLT)
6. But GOD ’s not finished. He’s waiting around to be gracious to you. He’s gathering strength to show mercy to you. GOD takes the time to do everything right—everything. Those who wait around for him are the lucky ones. (Isaiah 30:18 MSG)
7. The merciful, kind, and generous man benefits himself [for his deeds return to bless him], but he who is cruel and callous [to the wants of others] brings on himself retribution. (Proverbs 11:17 AMP)
8. There will be no mercy for those who have not shown mercy to others. But if you have been merciful, God will be merciful when he judges you. (James 2:13 NLT)
9. Light shines in the darkness for good people, for those who are merciful, kind, and just. (Psalm 112:4 GNT)
10. Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor. (James 3:17-18 MSG)
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Each morning as I drive to work, I have the privilege of watching the sun rise. I watch as the sky goes from black to purple to blue. As the sky becomes a lighter blue, the clouds change from a deep red to orange then yellow and a stark white. As I watch God pain the sunrise each day, I’m reminded of His goodness and love. To me, it’s like God is writing, “I love you” across the sky. There are some days where I watch in awe and think He’s just showing off.
When I’ve watched some of the most spectacular sunrises, Psalm 19 has come to mind. Verse one says, “How clearly the sky reveals God’s glory! How plainly it shows what He has done! (GNT)” When I read this chapter, I imagine David sitting on a hillside marveling in one the sunrises where God was showing off. I see him overcome, as I often am, at the goodness of God as He watches. When the sun finally peeks through the brilliant colors I hear it reminding me that God’s mercies are new.
In the next few verses in that chapter, David tells how the sky speaks without a word, yet its message goes throughout the world. He wrote, “God made a home in the heavens for the sun. It bursts forth like a radiant bridegroom after his wedding. It rejoices like a great athlete eager to run the race.” It reminds him, and us, that the instructions of the Lord are perfect and revive the soul. As the sun brings life to everything on the earth, God’s word brings life to us. It chases the darkness out of our lives and fills us with His perfect light.
Darkness can only abide where there is no light. It can only linger where light isn’t let in. When hard times come and we are under attack, our human nature wants us to go into a bunker for protection. It wants us to hide, but somewhere in that hiding, we usually run from the light and our lives become dark. God wants to pierce that darkness with His marvelous light. I Peter 2:9 says, “But you (this means you) are a chosen race, a Royal priesthood, a dedicated nation, God’s own purchased, special people that you may set forth the wonderful deeds and display the virtues and perfect ions of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. (AMP)”
God reminds us who we are in that verse. We aren’t the type who hide in the shadows. We are children of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. We are royal priests who are called to take light into the dark places. God purchased us with the blood of Jesus and He calls us to walk in His light. The sun coming up each morning is our reminder that God’s desire for you is to come out of the darkness and to burst forth with brilliant colors so the world will see what great things He has done in your life. It is the metaphor of what He wants to do in your life, but you have to hear His call and come out of that darkness in order to walk in that light.
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There used to be a group of friends in my town who had trucks with the inscription, “Never satisfied” written on their back windshield. Their trucks were tricked out and had about every accessory known to man on them. Those trucks had the anthem of so many of us on them. Never satisfied. We are taught that hunger is a good thing. We learn in business that the day you’re satisfied is the day you quit making money. We are told to stay hungry. Keep pushing ahead. Do better than your best. Have a relentless pursuit of constantly getting more.
I think those are drives that God put in us, but they are often channeled in the wrong direction. God has given us the desire for more, but it’s never about the physical, temporary things. For the temporary things, Paul wrote in Philippians 4:11, “I have learned how to be content with what I have.” When it comes to possessions, God wants us to be content. Hebrews 13:5 reiterates, “Be satisfied with your present circumstances and with what you have (AMP).” The desire to want more that was placed in us was not for physical things, but for spiritual things.
I Corinthians 12:31 says, “Earnestly desire and zealously cultivate the greatest and best gifts and graces (the higher gifts and choicest graces)(AMP).” Paul had just written about the spiritual gifts available to believers and wanted us to go after them. The adverbs earnestly and zealously tell us how hard we are to go after the things that matter. We are to spend our energies of never being satisfied on the spiritual gifts that God gives. We are to spend more time thinking about how do we get better gifts than we are on how to make more money. We are to exert ourselves in God’s Word and prayer more than developing physical skills for a temporary pay out.
I’m not saying that desiring a better life or getting a better job is wrong. The question is how much of your mind is occupied with never being satisfied with things that you can’t take to Heaven? I Corinthians 3:13 and 15 tells us that on judgement day, each of us will present to God what we worked hard for in life. It says, “On judgement day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value… But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames.”
What you pursue on this earth will be offered to God once you get to Heaven. The question to ask is, “Will the things I’m not satisfied with here be burned up in that fire or will they be purified like gold?” If your lack of satisfaction is on things that don’t matter for eternity, there’s still time to channel your energy on the things that matter. It’s ok to be satisfied with what you have here, but it’s not ok to be satisfied with where you are spiritually and what you’re doing for God’s kingdom. We should never be satisfied with that.
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My wife and I often talk about our first Valentine’s Day after we got married. We didn’t have a lot of money so each of us got creative. I got a cheap frame that held multiple pictures and I put in photos of us on our Honeymoon. She cooked dinner, cleaned the house and ironed all of my work clothes. Each of us were disappointed with our gifts and each of us were offended that the other wasn’t appreciative. We hadn’t learned how to give each other a gift that had value in the other’s eyes. As we’ve learned more about each other, we’ve learned how to give each other better gifts.
In II Samuel 24, King David was tested by God. He was told to take a census and he did. His commander knew it was a test and begged David not to do it, but he insisted. When it was all done, David became overwhelmed with guilt for taking the census. There’s a debate over what the sun was in taking the census. I believe that sin is an attitude more than it is an action. It could be that David became prideful in looking at the numbers and began to think it was his doing and not God’s. It could be that he trusted statistics more than God. Whatever the case, God was upset.
In verse 13, the prophet came to David with a message from God of what the penalty of his sin would be. He could choose to either have three years of famine, three months of running from his enemies or three days of an epidemic in Israel. David knew God was merciful and let Him choose. God chose the epidemic. After 70,000 people had died, the epidemic looked to wipe out Jerusalem, but God said, “Enough’s enough,” and stopped it. David then went to offer a sacrifice to God where the epidemic stopped.
He wanted to buy the threshing floor from the person who owned it so he could build an altar to God, but the man offered it to him for free because it was the king asking. He offered for free everything that David needed for the sacrifice, but David refused. He said he needed to buy it for a good price because he wouldn’t offer God sacrifices that weren’t a sacrifice to him. He knew what my wife and I didn’t on our first Valentine’s. The best, most meaningful gifts that we can give are a sacrifice for us to give. They hit us where it hurts. For some, it’s money. For others, it’s time. Each of us have a different way of sacrificing.
What’s the greatest sacrifice you can make for God? Fasting? Money? Time? Whatever it is, if we want to see God show us greater mercy, then we have to offer greater sacrifices. We can’t be complacent in our gifts to him. We can no longer give Him that which costs us nothing. When we think of Biblical heroes, many of them made great sacrifices as a gift to God. If we want to be great in God’s Kingdom, we need to find a way to sacrifice greatly for Him. We need to offer Him something that costs us, not something that was given to us.
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Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised.
Hebrews 10:36
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1. Keep on loving one another as Christians. (Hebrews 13:1 GNT)
2. This is My commandment: that you love one another [just] as I have loved you. (John 15:12 AMP)
3. Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. (1 John 4:7 NLT)
4. Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. (Romans 12:9-10 MSG)
5. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave his life for it. (Ephesians 5:25 GNB)
6. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. (1 John 4:10 NLT)
7. Love does no wrong to one’s neighbor [it never hurts anybody]. Therefore love meets all the requirements and is the fulfilling of the Law. (Romans 13:10 AMP)
8. So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover’s life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:9-11 MSG)
9. Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NLT)
10. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:16-17 ESV)
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I was nominated by Lilkaraphael @ bisforblessed.com
I was nominated for this award by Mike Stephens at mikeforchrist.com
Devotions by Chris Hendrix 