Because Your loving-kindness is better than life,
My lips shall praise You.
Thus I will bless You while I live;
I will lift up my hands in Your name.
My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness,
And my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips.
~Ps 63:3-5
“Because Your loving-kindness”...Our relationship with God was in no way initiated by us. God sought us out in the beginning. We were absolutely separated from Him and He pursued a relationship with us.
In the same way our relationship with God only continues because of Him. His love is "better than life," and when we receive His love, we are motivated to rise up and praise Him. To praise Him is our highest calling. Our praises may take many forms. For some it is teaching, others encouragement, giving time, giving money, or even simply listening or comforting with a hug. Each of these acts are praise when done in obedience to God's calling, e.i. "in Your name", and each is a necessary and valuable part of the body.
We "shall be satisfied" when we are in alignment with God's purpose for us. We were designed to stay in constant relation to God and continue praising Him every moment of the day. When we choose our own path and disengage ourselves from the Father we find emptiness and hopelessness, because we are going against our very design.
It is easy to question God's plan for us. To think that we know better than Him. But who are we to question the Creator? Does the Creator not know what is best for His creation? Consider...does He not see all, and know all?...can we ever know a better way than God? "His loving-kindness is better" than any life that we could imagine outside of Him. Revel in His love today and let it fill you with praise that rings out from joyful lips.
By Wesley Baker
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Regard No One According to the Flesh
It isn’t everyday one sets out to write a devotional. It’s much easier when you are writing and something ‘devotional like’ happens to come out. To have this grand purpose in the offset brings with it some insecurity. Many thoughts arise; “who am I to write this, do I have what it takes” and the big one, “am I good enough?” Are we good enough? When we look at our lives don’t we have to admit the simple answer is no. This is our perspective and maybe even the perspective of others around us, but reality is that we have no authority to judge ourselves worthy or not. Or consider, can we ever NOT be good enough for what God is asking us to do? God wouldn’t ask us to do something that we couldn’t accomplish or that He didn’t consider us worthy of.
This calls to mind a scripture that is dear to my heart. I feel convicted every time I read it, because I struggle to consistently practice it. I’m sure you’ve heard the second part of this verse over and over, but have you ever considered verse sixteen, this is the verse that jumps out at me.
II Cor 5:16-17> Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
This concept of not regarding someone ‘according to the flesh’ is a hard one to practice. This is our problem when we look and find ourselves unworthy, we are looking at the flesh, the outside, the corruptible, not the new spirit that has given us new life. Not new on the outside but new on a spiritual level. Because we have the Spirit of the living God inside of us we can do all that He calls us to do. We are also to look at other believers in that light. They are renewed like we have been at the very core. That Spirit in them is now their identity, not their struggles or faults that are often so easy to pick on. We have this bond, it’s not of the flesh, or anything we can see, but it is deep and powerful. We have been forgiven and made new. We are all as one at this level. No believer is better or less than any other and we are all worthy of God’s amazing love. As we receive that love we can live out His high calling to love as He loved us.
By Wesley Baker
This calls to mind a scripture that is dear to my heart. I feel convicted every time I read it, because I struggle to consistently practice it. I’m sure you’ve heard the second part of this verse over and over, but have you ever considered verse sixteen, this is the verse that jumps out at me.
II Cor 5:16-17> Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
This concept of not regarding someone ‘according to the flesh’ is a hard one to practice. This is our problem when we look and find ourselves unworthy, we are looking at the flesh, the outside, the corruptible, not the new spirit that has given us new life. Not new on the outside but new on a spiritual level. Because we have the Spirit of the living God inside of us we can do all that He calls us to do. We are also to look at other believers in that light. They are renewed like we have been at the very core. That Spirit in them is now their identity, not their struggles or faults that are often so easy to pick on. We have this bond, it’s not of the flesh, or anything we can see, but it is deep and powerful. We have been forgiven and made new. We are all as one at this level. No believer is better or less than any other and we are all worthy of God’s amazing love. As we receive that love we can live out His high calling to love as He loved us.
By Wesley Baker
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