DAILY DEVOTIONAL – June 3, 2020

“Go With God“

Prayer:  Almighty God, You are just that – All Mighty.  There is not a star that shines without Your light.  There is not a wave that breaks before you have folded it over.  In Your great love for us You sent Your Son Jesus to die on the cross and rise again so that our lives might be restored into Your mighty and loving hands.  Lord, help us to trust Your deep and detailed love for us in all parts of life, and as You say in Colossians 2:8 help us to not let “anyone capture us with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ.”  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Scripture: James 4:13-15

¹³ Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— ¹⁴ yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

Devotional – “Go With God”

We have all said it at one time or another.  Maybe we said it to a friend who was going for a job interview, or to someone that was about to take an important test or give a performance of some kind.  “Good luck!”

The concept and belief of luck is such a common and familiar part of our culture’s colloquial speech that we probably don’t even think much of referring to superstitions…but we should.  “Break a leg”, “cross my fingers”, “being fortunate”, “knock on wood”.  These are all sayings that are used all the time and that all stem from superstition.  A while back I was meeting with someone who was seeking advice, and as they explained to me their own interpretation of the events happening in their lives they somehow concluded that bad things always happen in sets of 3.  “Do you think there is something to that pastor?” they asked me.  As gently as I could, I told them that the only thing there is “to it” is what they put to it.

There is no such thing as luck, good fortune or bad fortune.  A black cat crossing your path doesn’t mean you should turn around and go the other way.  It just means a black cat crossed in front of you.  Breaking a mirror doesn’t mean you have bad luck.  It means you need to buy a new mirror.

Superstition is misplaced faith.  In our sinfulness we try and search for patterns, signs, omens or something we can use to try and calculate or control the events in our life.  It’s counterintuitive, but superstition is all about control.  Our sinful nature finds it easier to believe in the foot of a rabbit or in the mystical power of wood than to trust in the sure promises of God; promises He has proven we can trust.  Control is what the devil tempted Adam and Eve with in the garden.  He deceived them into thinking the fruit had some sort of hidden power and knowledge that they could attain and use rather than believing and trusting in God.  The only power and knowledge that the fruit gave to Adam and Eve was that of evil and sin.  God told Adam and Eve that if they ate of it they would die, and die they did, because as Scripture says, “the wages of sin is death.”  Romans 6:23.

Bad luck or misfortune didn’t bring pain and suffering into the world, disobedience toward God and faithlessness did.  God promised Adam and Eve that He would bring about a “seed”, a child from Adam and Eve that would save them by crushing the head of the devil (Genesis 3:15), conquer sin and defeat death.  For thousands of years God continued to reveal that promise through His prophets.  That promise was realized in full in Jesus Christ, who was the will and Word of God in the flesh.  Because Christ paid for sins and rose from the dead to redeem us and restore our relationship with God, we have the love and Fatherly care of God and His Spirit within us by faith in Jesus.  There is no need for luck.  We have someone far more reliable and perfectly faithful.  We have the promise and presence of God Himself.

We don’t have to “hope” or “wish” or “cross our fingers” or “knock on wood” that things will go well.  Jesus teaches us that God cares about and is working His love in even the smallest parts of our lives.

• Luke 12:6-7, “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God.⁷ Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.
• Matthew 6:26, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”
• Matthew 6:8, “your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
• Psalm 139:16, “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”

Bad things happen in life because we are bad and sinful people, not because the stars are in a certain position or because the exact change we got from the cashier was $6.66.  The hope that we have is not in superstition, but in the promises of God who rose Jesus from the dead and who tells us in Romans 8:28 that, “for those who love God all things work together for good.”  Even the bad things our sin has brought into our life are part of “all things” that God works together for our good, and He does so only because His Son Jesus paid for our sins.

James tells us in our text for today that we should no more depend on superstition than we should rely on our own plans.  In the certainty of God’s providential love for us, we should instead look to tomorrow and say, “If the Lord wills it, I will do this or that.”  So, instead of saying “good luck” we should say “God be with you” or “go with God.”  Instead of knocking on wood, we should knock on heaven’s door and pray to the God who knows what we need before we ask and who has seen all of our days before we were even born.  Instead of hoping we are fortunate enough, let us hope in the Lord who rose from the dead and promised in John 14, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.”  What does it mean to ask in Jesus’ name?  It means exactly what He taught us to pray, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

So, go with God my friends, and remember that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow.  Amen.