Category: Daily Inspirational Devotional

Now Habakkuk was a prophet who wrestled with God concerning the injustice put upon His people. But here, He is reassuring Habakkuk that the appointed time for God to reveal His Will, vision & purpose will come…and to wait for it. Patient obedience is devotion to God, not misguided devotion to the vision He has given us. It’s reaching out for more of God…not satisfied with the status quo…our reach always exceeding our grasp. Or as Paul puts it in Philippians 3:12, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Jesus Christ took hold of me.” But what do we usually do with that first vision God gives us for our life? We don’t wait, but rather rush off doing “busy work” thinking we are pleasing Him…but in reality dishonoring the vision God has given us. No wonder the vision usually remains dormant as a melancholy reminder of our first love. Waiting shows true faithfulness in God, and confidence that He will answer. And never giving up on that vision demonstrates our best for God’s glory.

The Holy Spirit is not some impersonal force, but rather a person & part of the Holy Trinity. Nor does He have a loud thunderous voice that we can’t ignore…instead, I Kings 19:12 says its sound is more like a gentle whisper. The Spirit lives within us as a Comforter, Encourager, and Guide. But as longtime Believers, why are we warned then that we can still quench or grieve the Holy Spirit? Just ask yourself these questions…is your personal testimony only about the past works of God in your life? Do you “look back” rather than move forward…or as Jesus said in Luke 9:62, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the Kingdom of God.” Are you not moving forward in God’s plan & purpose for your life out of subtle disobedience & defiance to the promptings of the Holy Spirit? Sadly, we can all easily snuff out the fire of the Holy Spirit in our lives by simply ignoring Him…and in doing so move farther and farther away from the light. But the cure for this apathy is to recognize & respond to the Holy Spirit in humility & wonder for the intimate fellowship and oneness we have with Him.

Throughout both the New & Old Testament, Jesus Christ is called the Good Shepherd, the Shepherd of Israel, and the Great Shepherd. Isaiah 40:11 tells us that the Messiah will tend His flock like a shepherd: He will gather the lambs in His arms & carry them close to His heart; and He will gently lead those who have young. But why do sheep (or we for that matter) need a shepherd? If you’ve ever raised sheep, you know they can be kind of flighty…that’s why you usually see guard dogs, goats, & shepherds as part of the flock to watch over and guide them safely. Again, Isaiah points out these tendencies to wander, when he writes, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way…” (Isaiah 53:6) But as His flock, these verses in John should also give us great encouragement. First, we see the hired hand recognize his master & promptly open the only gate to welcome him in. Then we see the sheep give immediate attention to the shepherd as He calls out each one of them by name. Finally, as the shepherd leads the way out, the sheep follow…out of obedience, love, & adoration for the Shepherd who they know cares deeply for each one of them. “For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hands. Psalm 95:7

In this verse the landscape is a wasteland, the once productive cultivated land now covered with thorns & briers and completely barren. But in verse 15, God promises that the land will again flourish by the power of the Holy Spirit. “Till the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the desert becomes a fertile field.” Sometimes our lives can feel the same way…dry, barren, with the worries of this life choking the Word & making us unfruitful. (Mark 4:19) But the answer is to seek after God… asking the Holy Spirit to pour out His Spirit anew & afresh on each one of us…so that we too can flourish once more.

The Jewish exiles felt like the dead & buried…their bones dried up like those in the Valley of Dry Bones where Ezekiel had just witnessed the miraculous regeneration by God’s Will & authority. In their hopelessness & helplessness God promises that He will restore, renew, and revitalize…a tangible testament to His power & rule over the world. As a Christian today, do you feel spiritually dry & dead? Are you just going through the motions as a Believer, but without the fire & hope of your first love? “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.” (James 4:10) Come before Him with humility, repentance, submission, and contrition…and God promises He will restore you.

Hundreds of sheep find Summer pasture high in the mountains of Idaho & Wyoming, but come October, they start the slow migration to Southern Utah where the flocks spend the Winter. Where we lived in South-Eastern Idaho was the migratory path for many flocks to travel south down through the back roads. I found it fascinating the first time I came upon a huge flock of 300-400 sheep resting in a hay field for the night. The boundary was a temporary single stretch of electric fencing with only one opening. Inside in pen were 2 Great Pyrenes dogs standing guard, the shepherd and his wagon, and a portable water tank & troughs for the sheep to drink. But what I marveled at the most, was how incredibly calm the flock was inside this makeshift sheep-pen. I really wanted to chat with the shepherd, but not surprisingly at all, the dogs refused to let me enter. In these verses, Jesus is warning us about those who scale the fence of the sheep-pen in foul play…false teachers who use deception, both openly & in secret, to steal us away from the truth. That’s because there’s only one gate…and The Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, is the only One who can enter by that way.

As the story of the man born blind develops, we watch as his journey of faith moves forward. It starts with him simply obeying Jesus’ command to, “Go and wash.” and ends in him being able to see clearly enough to, for the first time in his life, walk home by himself. Though he referred to Him as, “The man they call Jesus.” he chose to trust Him. Later, as the Pharisees interrogated him, he called Jesus a Prophet, drawing from his Hebrew knowledge from Deuteronomy 18:15 and acknowledging that this man was indeed special. Finally during his 2nd interrogation with the Pharisees the man had heard enough of their slanderous accusations about the man who had healed him & instead he schooled them. “One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see! We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does His Will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, He could do nothing.” After the man had been thrown out of the Temple, Jesus found him and this man’s faith went from general confidence to joyful acceptance of Jesus as his personal Savior. It best summed up when he professed, “Lord, I believe.”

No matter if our stress comes from internal or external sources, we can become overwhelmed by anxious hearts & thoughts to the point that it literally rules our life. But what good is it? Worrying is like getting on a treadmill and walking for 5 miles, but in the end, you’ve got a pounding heart & racing mind but you’ve gone nowhere. We are thus reminded in Psalm 73:26 that, “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” That’s right, God & His Word are not only your strength, but the only solution to overwhelming anxiety & worry. We are to “Trust in the Lord with all our heart” …the fruit of that being God’s Presence, protection & peace.

The great Theologian Charles Spurgeon once penned, “Great tribulation brings out the great strength of God.” But we don’t like to confess that we are indeed weak. That’s because in today’s world, weakness is looked upon with distain, but Paul reminds us in verse 10 of this Chapter that, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” In other words, our weaknesses can become a reason to rejoice, for we see Christ’s power at work in our life. And when suffering abounds, comfort from God abounds more…and in the midst of all our struggles, there can be the peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7)…our weakness driving us to seek Christ. And thus as we rely on Christ’s power & follow His example, we can face all circumstances that come into our life. For the grace of God can accomplish His plan & purpose despite any of our weaknesses… endowing us with strength & encouragement.

The blind man’s parents feared being put out of the synagogue or excommunicated. Now the Pharisees regularly using this form of tactical intimidation to silence the people into compliance. So even if they had witnessed this miracle for themselves, they weren’t going to admit to it…too afraid that the Pharisees would pronounce one of the 3 degrees of banishment over them. The 1st degree was a rebuke declared over the offender for up to 30 days. While it didn’t necessarily mean exclusion from attending & participating in Synagogue worship… it did exclude them from all fellowship with the Congregation. A 2nd degree of banishment would stack on 30 more days onto the expulsion. Finally, the 3rd degree, and most severe form of excommunication, was a life-time ban from the Temple, loss of all civil & religious rights as a Jew, and the person would be considered dead by the congregation.