The Lord says, “I will rescue those who love me.
I will protect those who trust in my name.
When they call on me, I will answer;
I will be with them in trouble.
I will rescue and honor them.
I will reward them with a long life
and give them my salvation.”
Pslam 91:14-16
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If you Google the word “exhausted,” you’ll get a definition that says, “Drained of one’s physical or mental resources; very tired.” Does that word describe you right now? Our bodies can be so physically drained that they refuse to get up in the mornings, to lift the heavy objects you want to move, or to get where you need to go. Our mind can get so stressed and drained that it’s hard to care about things or even make an effort in a relationship where one is needed. Exhausted is a dangerous state of being that we need to avoid.
God recognizes that you and I can get exhausted. In Isaiah 40:29 it says, “He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless” (NLT). The word power in its original context meant ability. The word weak translates as exhausted. So when you read it like that, God gives ability to those who are exhausted. God wants to help us when we’ve lost the ability to accomplish things because we are exhausted, especially the things He’s called us to do.
I can attest to the fact that the work God calls you and I to can be very exhausting mentally and physically. He knows that if we are exhausted, we won’t accomplish His will. The 31st verse tells us, “But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength” (NLT). We can’t go about the Father’s business in our own strength or mental fortitude if we want to be effective long term. We must trust that God will give us ability where we have none, strength where we are weak, and hope when we are in despair.
God asks us to do things that are beyond our ability so that we will trust Him. He’s interested more in your obedience and willingness than in your strength and intellect. He doesn’t need you in order to accomplish anything, yet He chooses to partner with you to enact His will. If you’re willing to step out in faith and to trust Him, He’s willing to give you the ability and strength you lack. You can be exhausted from doing all your other duties and still have the strength to do what God wants as long as you put your trust in Him.
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When I was in high school, I felt like God called me to write. I interpreted that calling as God calling me to write a book. For years I waited for an agent to call me and to give me the opportunity to write a book. I wrote down some great ideas for books and even wrote outlines for them. Those outlines sat in a drawer collecting dust through the years while I waited. Finally, when I was in my mid-thirties, I asked God why I hadn’t been given the opportunity to write a book yet. He responded, “Why haven’t you done anything to make that happen?”
God gives each of us great dreams. Most of us, like myself, sit and wait expecting the dream to fulfill itself. Sadly many people go to their graves with unfulfilled dreams because they never did anything to accomplish that dream. God is able to accomplish the dream He gave you if you’re willing to put in the work. Jesus said, “If you’re faithful in the little things, I will make you faithful over many things.” We have to show Him we are willing to do the groundwork necessary to fulfill the dreams He gives us.
In Joshua 18, the Israelites had subdued the Promised Land, but hadn’t taken possession of it. Generations before, God had given Abraham the dream of having a nation with their own special land. Even though they had defeated those living in the land, the dream was still unfulfilled. In verse 3, Joshua spoke to the Israelites and said, “How long will you put off going to take the land, which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you?” (ESV) He was saying, “Why aren’t you doing anything to fulfill the dream?” They then went through the land, mapping it out, and dividing it up into sections so each tribe would receive their promise and fulfill the dream.
God required them to get off their hands and do something to fulfill their dream. They had to get courage to leave their prison of Egypt. They had to walk through walls of water and wander in a desert for a while. After all of that, they had to go in and fight for their dream. It wasn’t handed to them. After winning the battles, they still had to carve it out and allot it so that each person could receive the promise of the dream that had been given so long ago.
I can tell you that I still don’t have a book deal and that’s ok. I’m doing the work necessary for God to do His part. I’m closer than I was all of those years of doing nothing. I’m being faithful in the little things first while I wait for God to make me faithful over many. What about you? What dream has God given you that is sitting in a drawer somewhere collecting dust? It’s time to open the drawer, to dust it off and to start doing the little things necessary to bring it about. For me, it was starting this blog. For you, it might be taking a class, going to a seminar, emailing someone in that field about how they started or letting others know you’re interested in doing it. They’ll help to keep you accountable.
When you do your part, God will do His. It may not happen immediately, but it will happen. Get off your hands, as the Message Bible puts it, and take that first step.
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I was speaking to someone recently about the old computer operating system DOS. I remember as a kid learning how to write programs for DOS. We were taught to increase each command line by 10 so if you needed to add a line of programming later, you had the room. Another thing they taught us is the phrase, “If this, then that.” It was a way to tell the computer if the user does this, then I want you to skip to another line and run the program from there. It was all about cause and consequence.
The Bible is full of “if this, then that” type phrases. In John 15:7 Jesus said, “If you abide in me and my words abide in you then you can ask whatever you will.” II Chronicles 7:14, “If my people will humble themselves and pray…, then I will hear from Heaven and heal their land.” These are just a couple of examples. God puts conditions on many promises that require an action on our part first in order to activate them just like in the old DOS programming. If we don’t do the first part, then the next part is skipped.
Another conditional promise is found in II John 1:3. It says, “Grace, mercy and peace, which come from God the Father and from Jesus Christ – the Son of the Father – will continue to be with us who live in truth and love. (NLT)” If we will continue to live in truth and love we will receive grace, mercy and peace. Grace is God’s unmerited favor which affords joy, delight and pleasure according to the Blue Letter Bible. The favor of God alone is enough, but John added in through his use of the word grace that we would also get joy, delight and pleasure by living in truth and love.
Next, he said we would get mercy. One of the definitions of mercy is to have the providence of God. That means that God will order your steps and guide your future. He won’t just let you wander. Your life will be filled with purpose which leads to the last promise of peace. When we live in love and truth, we will also get peace in our hearts, our minds and our lives. That includes peace with others. We will be someone who gets along with others and doesn’t have to carry the weight of stressful relationships because there’s no peace between you. God wants to give us these three blessings if we will simply live in truth and love.
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Guys are famous for wearing clothes that pass the smell test. To get dressed, they will grab clothes off the floor, or wherever else they’re laying, smell them and then wear them if they don’t stink too badly. The clothes can smell some, just not too much. When clothes get too stinky, they go in another pile. This cycle continues until they either buy new clothes or are forced to do laundry because they’re broke and out of clothes.
To some of you, this sounds sick. But to many guys, this is a way of life. Now imagine if a guy had a closet full of new clothes and started putting on the clothes from the floor that passed the stink test. It’s one thing to be out of clean clothes, but if you had clean clothes and you still put on your old ones, people would start to question you. This is the illustration Paul used in Colossians 3 for Christians who go back to their old way of life.
In verses 9-11, Paul was referring to how you lived before you became a Christian when he said, “It’s like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you’ve stripped off and put in the fire. Now you’re dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom made by the Creator, with His label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete. (MSG)” You’ve been given a new way of life since you accepted Christ and a new wardrobe. It doesn’t make sense to live like you used to.
We shouldn’t be sniffing around our old way of life to see if it doesn’t stink too badly when we’ve got tailor made clothes freshly made for us hanging in the closet. When we left that old life for the life Christ gives, we need to leave that wardrobe behind. Even if it doesn’t stink too badly, it’s still not the clothes that God made for us to wear. That wardrobe consists of compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength discipline, being even tempered, and quick to forgive according to verses 13-14. With these clothes on, we’ll look and live like disciples of Christ.
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1. You must defend my innocence, O God, since no one else will stand up for me.
Job 17:3 NLT
2. The Lord is my strong defender; he is the one who has saved me. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will sing about his greatness.
Exodus 15:2 GNB
3. DELIVER ME from my enemies, O my God; defend and protect me from those who rise up against me.
Psalm 59:1 AMP
4. Declare me innocent, O God! Defend me against these ungodly people. Rescue me from these unjust liars.
Psalms 43:1 NLT
5. My God is my protection, and with him I am safe. He protects me like a shield; he defends me and keeps me safe. He is my savior; he protects me and saves me from violence.
2 Samuel 22:3 GNB
6. MAY THE Lord answer you in the day of trouble! May the name of the God of Jacob set you up on high and defend you.
Psalm 20:1 AMP
7. Don’t rob the poor just because you can, or exploit the needy in court. For the LORD is their defender. He will ruin anyone who ruins them.
Proverbs 22:22-23 NLT
8. The Lord is your mighty defender, perfect and just in all his ways; Your God is faithful and true; he does what is right and fair.
Deuteronomy 32:4 GNB
9. For He will give His angels especial charge over you to accompany and defend and preserve you in all your ways of obedience and service.
Psalm 91:11 AMP
10. Come with great power, O God, and rescue me! Defend me with your might. Listen to my prayer, O God. Pay attention to my plea.
Psalms 54:1-2 NLT
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One of the questions I’m often asked is, “How can I love the sinner and hate the sin?” I’m not sure where this saying originated or how it became the theme among so many Christians. When sin is a part of how a person defines themselves, how can you separate the two? I don’t think you can. The easiest and best thing you can do is to drop the “hate the sin” part and focus on loving the sinner. Before you get all crazy, I didn’t say we don’t call sin “sin”. I said we need to quit focusing on the hate of it so much when it’s attached to a person’s identity.
We have examples of Jesus and Paul who spent their lives ministering to the people who were unworthy of God’s love in the eyes of the religious leaders. People said to Jesus, “If you knew what manner of person she was, you wouldn’t let her touch you.” They also said, “If you were really a prophet, you would know how bad of a sinner that is that you’re talking to.” Jesus didn’t spend nearly as much time hating the sin as He did on loving the sinner. He got up close and personal with those who needed Him most. His response was, “It’s not the healthy who need a doctor. It’s the sick.” If the sick wouldn’t come to the hospital, He went to them.
In I Corinthians 9:19-22 Paul spoke of how he loved the sinner in order to bring them to salvation. He wrote, “Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. (MSG)” In his love for them, he entered their world. He didn’t force them to come to his. I think that’s key for us. Harvesters don’t sit in the farm house waiting for the harvest to bring itself to them. They have to go into the field if they want to reap.
The most important thing he said was, “I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings on Christ.” If we are going to go into their world, it’s not to camp out and stay. Jesus always went back to the disciples and also to the mountains to pray. When you give yourself away, as love requires, you’ll need to get refilled from other believers and the Father. You’ll need to keep your bearings on Christ so that He remains your moral compass instead of political correctness. If we lose our way, how will they ever find theirs? We must remain grounded in prayer and God’s Word while we serve those involved in sins that are attached to their identities.
In my conversations with people involved in sins like this, they’re turned off by the “Love the sinner, hate the sin” moniker. They just want to be loved and accepted as a person instead of labeled and separated. The only way you can love someone is to get to know them. You can’t know someone if you’re constantly put off by their sin. You can’t know someone if you don’t spend time getting to know them as a human or a person. If you’re going to truly love the sinner, go to them, befriend them, live like Christ in front of them and don’t compromise the truth of God’s Word. When we do that, our churches will start growing and will become the hospital for the spiritually wounded.
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1. Students are not greater than their teacher. But the student who is fully trained will become like the teacher.
Luke 6:40 NLT
2. In the church God has put all in place: in the first place apostles, in the second place prophets, and in the third place teachers; then those who perform miracles, followed by those who are given the power to heal or to help others or to direct them or to speak in strange tongues.
1 Corinthians 12:28 GNT
3. In all things you yourself must be an example of good behavior. Be sincere and serious in your teaching.
Titus 2:7 GNT
4. And the teachers and those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness (to uprightness and right standing with God) shall give forth light like the stars forever and ever.
Daniel 12:3 AMP
5. Pay attention to your teacher and learn all you can.
Proverbs 23:12 GNB
6. Keep this in mind: The Teacher was considered wise, and he taught the people everything he knew. He listened carefully to many proverbs, studying and classifying them. The Teacher sought to find just the right words to express truths clearly.
Ecclesiastes 12:9-10 NLT
7. My teaching will fall like drops of rain and form on the earth like dew. My words will fall like showers on young plants, like gentle rain on tender grass.
Deuteronomy 32:2 GNT
8. So we are to use our different gifts in accordance with the grace that God has given us. If our gift is to speak God’s message, we should do it according to the faith that we have; if it is to serve, we should serve; if it is to teach, we should teach.
Romans 12:6-7 GNB
9. You have heard me teach things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses. Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others.
2 Timothy 2:2 NLT
10. Teach children how they should live, and they will remember it all their life.
Proverbs 22:6 GNT
Bonus:
So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless.
1 Corinthians 15:58 NLT
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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 