DAILY DEVOTIONAL – June 9, 2021
“Know What You’re Gonna Get”
Prayer: Lord Jesus, we have the confidence of God’s love and forgiveness only because of Your great love for the Father and Your obedience to His love for us. Thank you, Lord, for always loving us first. Forgive us for our failure to love You as we ought. May this time in Your Word compel us and enable us to love You with our whole heart. Amen.
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:4-6
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Devotional – “Know What You’re Gonna Get”
In the movie Forest Gump, there’s a beautiful picture of God’s love. It’s seen in the relationship between Forest and Jenny. Since the days that they grew up together as children, Forest had a deep love for Jenny. In their adult life, Jenny and Forest remained the closest of friends. Jenny was certainly aware of Forest’s love for her, and though she tried to hide it, you could tell from early in the movie that Jenny loved Forest as well. Unfortunately, however, Jenny was too enamored with living the fast life and chasing after worldly pleasures and looks past Forest in her futile search for fulfillment. Jenny’s determined pursuit of fame and success inevitably leads her down a broken road of self-destructive behavior. All the while, Forest waits for her to come home to him.
Forest loved Jenny first, before everything else. Not once when Jenny was in need and crying out for help did Forrest hold her in judgement and derision but was always there to pick her up and care for her even while being deprived of the love he so desired from Jenny. It was not until the very end of her life while suffering from an unknown illness that Jenny’s eyes were finally opened and she came to appreciate his devotion. Fortunately, Forest’s love for Jenny was so selfless that he did not resent her for doing so.
As Jenny did to Forest, so all of us have done to God. We often pursue everything that life has to offer before we are willing to look to the One who gives us life, and even though He gave His life for us, we hold our life back from Him. Though He made us, though He has loved us perfectly from the very beginning, our sinful desire to satisfy ourselves has caused us to neglect and ignore the only true love in our life and the only One who has loved us and who will love us perfectly. Even as Christians who know and profess the love of God given to us in the very blood of His only Son Jesus given to die out place, we too often look past Him to all the things in this world that we are sure will bring us lasting happiness.
With how many times we have failed to give God the love and worship He deserves, and that would bring us the happiness we wrongly try to find elsewhere, God had every reason to give up on us long ago. But in His perfect and unfailing love, God waits patiently for us. He does not force Himself upon us, but He never fails to be there when we call upon Him. Though we neglect to thank Him for each breath, He continues to give them. Why is God so faithful to us? Not because we have been faithful to Him, but because Jesus was in our place. Jesus loved God to the point of dying a death He did not deserve – our death. Jesus died that death in obedience to His Father who so loved the world that He gave His only Son to die in our place, to satisfy God’s wrath against our sin, and rise again to give us the life and salvation we do not deserve.
Arguably, the most famous line in the movie Forrest Gump is, “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” Though I like Forrest Gump a lot, I must disagree. Knowing Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior means you and I can wake up each day knowing exactly what we are going to get from the One who gave us life: the mercies of God that are new each morning and the love of God that is patient, kind, not easily angered, and that keeps no record of wrongs…and all because of Jesus.
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.
