DAILY DEVOTIONAL – April 23, 2021
From, To, and For”
Prayer: Lord Jesus, only because of what You suffered and sacrificed, receiving all that our sins deserve, do we have the hope of receiving all that You deserve and have given to us through faith in Your death and resurrection. Thank You, Lord. Amen.
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
To keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Devotional – “From, To, and For”
There was once a gardener who lived in medieval England. He was an old man who kept a beautiful garden, filled with exquisite flowers, fruit trees, and shrubs. One day, the gardener heard a loud, thunderous noise. The noise persisted and became louder and louder in time. The gardener finally recognized that it was the sound of horses galloping towards his garden. He realized that these were the king’s knights, who eventually ran over and ransacked his garden, violently plucking away his lovely flowers and chopping off tree branches. As he was a patient and loyal subject, the gardener let this incident pass and slowly nursed his garden back to its original, beautiful state. This incident, however, was not a mere isolated incident. It happened a second time. And also, it happened a third time.
By the third instance, the gardener had finally had enough. Fuming with anger, he stormed out of his house and headed towards the king’s castle. He was frighteningly furious, with tears running down his face, muscles clenched and fists tightly clenched. As the gardener was approaching the castle, the drawbridge came down as if the king knew he was coming. As he traversed the drawbridge and entered the castle, the gardener’s fists were immediately unclenched, his tears turned into tears of joy, and his anger turned into bouts of joyful laughter. One may ask, “why the sudden change in disposition?” The gardener saw that his flowers and branches were all over the castle’s walls, pillars, floors and ceiling, adorning and beautifying even the king’s throne!
Being made in the image of God, we all have a deep need to create, to cultivate, and to produce something beautiful. After God finished creating the heavens and the earth, He made man, Adam and Eve, and told them in Genesis 1:28, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” We were created to live with God, to know Him, and to spend eternity learning about Him through the life and blessed work He gave us to do; to create and multiply and tend to the creation given to us, subduing creation by using creation to make and produce food, homes, and lives. God made us in His image and blessed us with this work and the ability to carry it out for the express purpose of knowing Him and having an ever growing relationship with Him through the work of relationships with the spouse and children He gave us, and the through the work of caring for His Creation. God never intended for the work and relationships He gave us to be what we live for or be the cause for us growing distant from Him. Unfortunately however, in believing the lies of the devil that we could be like God, that is exactly what has become of the blessings of relationship and work that God entrusted to us.
Like the farmer in medieval England, when we lose sight of the fact that we have nothing of our own, then we too easily get angry and discouraged when it appears that God is taking things away from us. The truth is, we never had and we don’t have anything of our own in the first place. We did not make ourselves and neither did our parents. We do not give ourselves breath. All we have is from the God of all grace and mercy to whom we owe our very existence in the first place.
In our sinfulness inherited from Adam and Eve, we want to be successful for us, we want to make and create for ourselves, for our own enjoyment and for our own glory. Yet, without God, we wouldn’t be here. We only have the ability and freedom to live this life as individual people who desire and understand purpose and meaning, because He graciously made us in His image.
Had it not been for our sin and rebellion against God, our relationships and work would have born endless fruit and deepened our knowledge of God as intended. However, because of sin, our work and relationships, even when we think they are going well and appear beautiful, are filled with sin and in need of redemption. God in His love and mercy sent His Son, Jesus, to do just that. Jesus did live perfectly with and before God, and all of Jesus’ relationships and work were perfect because none of it was lived or done for anyone but God. Jesus could love His family perfect even when they refused to believe in Him, and He could love even those who tortured Him, and even His disciples who abandoned Him, perfectly, because Jesus loved them not for Himself or what He could gain, but because He loved His Father. Jesus’ life in everything He did was perfect, both in what He did and what He didn’t do, in what He succeeded in and especially in what He suffered, because Jesus did it all for God and for the sake of His relationship with the Father.
When we allow the very blessings of relationship and work that God has given us to distract us or cause us to live for ourselves, that is when life becomes difficult, that is when we are left unsatisfied, and that is when, as He did with even His own perfect Son, God will take away in order to give us what we really need and what will ultimately bless us as God’s perfect love desires. This is what all of the men and women who walked with God were made to understand. Job who suffered the loss of everything in life, even his whole family, because He understood that all had been given for the sake of our relationship with God, could say in Job 1:21, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” The Apostle Paul who traveled the globe by foot proclaiming the Gospel, being used by the Lord to literally evangelize the world, did so with a physical ailment that plagued and pained him the whole time. As Paul learned walking by faith and as he recounts in his second letter to the Corinthian church he founded, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Jesus gave up everything for us on the cross so that our eyes would be opened to the truth of what we were created for; to know and love and be known and be loved by God. Only because Jesus shed His perfect blood for our sins, can we now live as we were created to, with God and by living everything in this life for the sole purpose of glorifying God and knowing the power of His perfect love through our surrendering all to Him.
Thanks for joining me for another daily devotional, and remember, that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today, and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
