Category: Devotional

God’s Timing

David has an opportunity to kill his relentless pursuer; Saul. Egged on by his own troops, David creeps toward Saul with his sword drawn, but at the last moment, rethinks it. And after rethinking it, David decides the life — or the throne — of what he terms “God’s anointed one”. Saul is an objectively terrible leader. He leave Israel vulnerable to attack in his unwavering Ahab-like goal of killing David — his white whale. But the fact remains that God put him in place and as David so aptly puts it: ‘Perhaps the LORD will punish you, but I never will.’ David knows he was anointed to be king by Samuel. David knows Saul is not serving the Lord. David knows the power is in his hands to end this tyrannical reign and yet he chooses to defer to God.

Do we do this? Are we willing to wait for what God has for us? Are we willing to be patient? Are we willing to trust God’s plan? And are we willing to trust God’s timing? If you weren’t sure about these answers, then here is an opportunity for growth. Pray that God would give you these gifts, and that you would be able to see things as He does. This is something God showed me through 4 long, tough years. But once I finally learned to really trust his plan and timing… it was amazing! So freeing. So relaxing. So worth it.

1 Samuel 23:13-25:44; Psalm 54 | 107/365

Step Into Your Destiny

Samuel anointed David as the new king over God’s people. Now David is hiding in a cave with his merry band of 400 rejects while the current monarch and his bloodthirsty hangers-on plot to assassinate him. And from that circumstance David pens this:

9 I will praise you, Lord, among the nations;
    I will sing of you among the peoples.
10 For great is your love, reaching to the heavens;
    your faithfulness reaches to the skies.

Psalm 57:9-10

Things are looking about as bleak as they can and yet David declares God’s faithfulness. I pray that I can have the faith to trust in God’s promises when they are looking unlikely, I would advise you to do the same. Don’t be afraid if you don’t understand how the road you’re on will lead to the place God has called you. Indeed, sometimes it is a long and winding road.

He is faithful. Let’s act like we believe that.

1 Samuel 22:1-23:12; Psalm 52, 57, 142; 1 Chronicles 12:8-18 | 106/365

Is Faith Blind?

Psalm 34:8 commends the reader to “Taste and see that the Lord is good”. The cultural trope that faith is blind is maddening. God has provided evidence many, many times. He showed proofs to Moses, Pharaoh, and Gideon among others. Jesus offered evidence to Thomas when he doubted. And indeed history is littered with evidence for God generally and Jesus specifically. We needn’t have a “blind” faith. My faith is based not on unquestioning trust of some invisible promise! My faith is built on the incredible evidence for the Gospel of grace that Jesus died to offer to me, and to you. So I, like David, will commend any among you who is holding something back from God (whether that’s your life, your finances, your career, your time, or anything else) to give it over to Him. Trust Him. Watch Him. Taste and see that the Lord is good.

1 Samuel 20-21; Psalm 34 | 105/365

Be True To Who God Made You To Be

Just a quick thought tonight. Farm boy David offers to fight the giant Goliath, who no one else in the Israelite army is willing to face. King Saul says the very idea is preposterous, but David insists that if God is with him, he will be successful. Saul relents and allows the boy to go fight the giant and offers David his armour for the battle.

David tries it on, but quickly realizes that he is simply not accustomed to Saul’s armour and so it becomes more of a hindrance than a help. Because that’s not who God made him to be. Saul’s armour wasn’t the right tool for David to use, because it was for Saul.

You can’t step into someone else’s blessing. You can’t copy someone else’s approach. You can’t be someone other than who God made you to be. I know it took me a great many years of trying to be Greg Laurie or Voddie Baucham or whoever the cool itinerate speaker du jour was before realizing that God had gifted me in different ways from those guys. And once I learned that I became a significantly better speaker and teacher.

What are you struggling to do under someone else’s power and plan? Turn that over to God and allow Him to show you how He has equipped you to do that thing is the way He has planned for YOU, not for whoever you might be looking at.

1 Samuel 17:32-19:24; Psalm 59 | 104/365

Is People-Pleasing Bad?

Saul answered Samuel, “I have sinned. I have transgressed the Lord’s command and your words. Because I was afraid of the people, I obeyed them.

1 Samuel 15:24, CSB

Here we have Saul’s confession to Samuel that he had been unfaithful to God because he wanted to please people. He wanted to make those around him happy. And he did. But what did it cost him? The anointing of God, his peace of mind & mental health, his legacy, and his throne.

It can feel good to get attaboys and pats on the back, but God warns us that those who seek the approval of others have received their reward in full already. God can see your heart. God does not reward deeds, He rewards motivations.

Lord, Lord, did I not do mighty works in your name?

Go away, I never knew you.

The works are evidence of a life submitted to God. Works without submission is just philanthropy. It still accomplishes good here on earth, but it is of no eternal credit to you. Submission is hard, but it’s worth it.

1 Samuel 15:1-17:31 | 103/365

The Beginning of the End

Saul’s son Jonathan decides to “go rogue” and take on the Philistines by himself with his armour-bearer and is extremely successful. This is often credited as a great act of faith and trust in the Lord. But is it?

Earlier in the story we read that Saul becomes impatient waiting for the man who is designated by the Lord to provide sacrifices and decides to offer the sacrifices himself. When that man — Samuel — arrives he tells Saul that he has done a bad thing and shown his contempt for the Lord, and so his reign as king is over. A new man after God’s heart will become king.

Of course this doesn’t happen right away, at this point it’s more prophecy than proclamation.

But! later we see this episode with Jonathan and his armour-bearer. Jonathan declares that if the Philistines do X then God IS NOT in the plan, but if the Philistines do Y then God IS in the plan! What struck me about this was the lack of any kind of prayer. There is no record that Jonathan ever consulted God on this in any way. Yet the results make it clear that God showed up.

Is that how this works? We don’t need to submit our plans to God? We just need to have faith and dare Him to show up? I don’t think so… but then how do we square this circle?

My theory: God is showing Saul that His blessing is on Israel as a nation rather than Saul as its king. We often see God do amazing things in spite of ourselves. I think this is no different. I don’t know that God was thrilled to have Jonathan dictate to Him what He was going to do, but I think God used this as an opportunity to show Saul, who had been sitting, waiting, doing nothing that His anointing was on the people. This was God signalling the beginning of the end.

I guess what I’m saying is this: don’t start thinking of yourself as a giant of the faith because God seemed to bless what you did. Remember that every good gift comes from Him and that sometimes we succeed in spite of ourselves. Let’s do everything we can to stay humble. God can use anyone he wants to achieve his purposes. Even a donkey! And I don’t know about you, but I would way rather be Moses than Pharaoh.

1 Chronicles 9:35-39; 1 Samuel 13:1-14:52 | 102/365

Was I Wrong?

I have made much the last little while about the lack of repentance on the part of the Israelites during the period of the Judges. And here Samuel says something that seems to have made a liar out of me…

Then they cried out to the LORD and admitted, ‘We have sinned, for we have forsaken the LORD and have served the Baals and the images of Ashtoreth. Now deliver us from the hand of our enemies so that we may serve you.’

1 Samuel 12:10, NET

So… time to eat crow? Maybe. I’m willing to admit my understanding of this is flawed, but I think there is a significant difference between the account in Samuel 12 and the one in Samuel 7. Let’s take another look at 1 Samuel 7.

3 Samuel told them, “If you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, get rid of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths that are among you, set your hearts on the Lord, and worship only him. Then he will rescue you from the Philistines.” 4 So the Israelites removed the Baals and the Ashtoreths and only worshiped the Lord. 5 Samuel said, “Gather all Israel at Mizpah, and I will pray to the Lord on your behalf.” 6 When they gathered at Mizpah, they drew water and poured it out in the Lord’s presence. They fasted that day, and there they confessed, “We have sinned against the Lord.” And Samuel judged the Israelites at Mizpah

1 Samuel 7:3–6, CSB

In the first example they ask God to deliver them SO THAT they can worship him. In the second instance they tear down the false gods and idols, worshipped the true God, fasted, and confessed THEN God rescued them.

If we require that God prove Himself in the timing and manner of our choosing a precondition to obedience, that isn’t obedience, it’s just getting our way.

1 Samuel 9:1-12:25 | 101/365

The Power of the Invitation

To this point Israel has had 14 judges (including Eli —but not his children— and Samuel). And they all judged Israel for years, and they had some crazy exploits and military victories over the enemies of Israel. But you know what we never see? Repentance. I’ve talked about that before. Israel continually asks God to save them, but they don’t actually repent of what they’ve done wrong.

But what’s interesting is that none of the judges even ASK them to repent… until Samuel…

7:3 Samuel said to all the people of Israel, “If you are really turning to the LORD with all your hearts, remove from among you the foreign gods and the images of Ashtoreth. Give your hearts to the LORD and serve only him. Then he will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines.” 7:4 So the Israelites removed the Baals and images of Ashtoreth. They served only the LORD. 7:5 Then Samuel said, “Gather all Israel to Mizpah, and I will pray to the LORD on your behalf.” 7:6 After they had assembled at Mizpah, they drew water and poured it out before the LORD. They fasted on that day, and they confessed there, “We have sinned against the LORD.” So Samuel led the people of Israel at Mizpah.

1 Samuel 7:3–6, NET

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the power of the invitation! Even a people as terrible as the ones described in Judges 19-21 can be brought to repentance with the power of the invitation. Don’t be afraid to ask. Don’t be afraid to say something. You simply don’t know when God will use the simple invitation you have extended to accomplish His greater goal(s). Your simple step of obedience can become a real difference-maker.

Never underestimate the power of the invitation.

1 Samuel 4:12-8:22 | 100/365

God Isn’t Your Good Luck Charm

There are many things you can point to as proof that the human is not smart. But my personal favorite would have to be that we needed to invent the helmet. What was happening, apparently, was that we were involved in a lot of activities that were cracking our heads. We chose not to avoid doing those activities but, instead, to come up with some sort of device to help us enjoy our head-cracking lifestyles. And even that didn’t work because not enough people were wearing them so we had to come up with the helmet law. Which is even stupider, the idea behind the helmet law being to preserve a brain whose judgment is so poor, it does not even try to avoid the cracking of the head it’s in.

Jerry Seinfeld, watch his delivery here

Jerry’s take on helmets came to mind when I was reading today’s passage. The high priest has two sons who are terrible people. They rob from the Israelites and from God, they are promiscuous users and abusers of their priestly office.

God warns Samuel that he plans to visit a terrible fate on these boys because their father refuses to discipline them. When Samuel tells their father, he essentially seems fine with God’s judgement.

Where it gets interesting is when the Philistines attack Israel and they decide that if they’re going to win, they’ll need some extra “oomph” behind them. So they bring the Ark of the Covenant (the covenant which they have abandoned, by the way) along with them and the two wayward priests oversee the whole thing. Well, turns out the Israelite army suffers heavy losses and the Ark is stolen by the Philistines.

What does this have to do with Jerry Seinfeld? Israel dragging out the Ark is like the rest of us inventing helmets. It’s not addressing the root problem that LED to their being oppressed by the Philistines, but rather trying to protect themselves from the consequences of that oppression. And of course God refuses to dance when the people clap or throw a nickel at Him. If you make ZERO attempt to walk in the path God has set before you, don’t be surprised when He isn’t there when you need Him. If you tell Him to go away, don’t be shocked when He does! We need to keep God at the centre of what we do. We need to make sure we are not trying to put on a helmet in a bad situation instead of getting out of the bad situation altogether.

If you ask Him to leave you, He will. If you ask Him to lead you, He will.

1 Samuel 1:9-4:11 | 099/365

The Prayer of Jabez Revisited

If you like genealogies you will LOVE today’s reading. But there is some more interesting tidbits sprinkled in here as well. Like the conclusion to the story of Ruth & Boaz as well as Elkanah’s just… really terrible attempt at consoling his wife. But what struck me most today was the prayer of Jabez. He disappeared from the Biblical account as quickly as he entered it, but his prayer was included by the author for a reason. What can we learn from this prayer.

Jabez called out to the God of Israel, “If only you would greatly bless me and expand my territory. May your hand be with me! Keep me from harm so I might not endure pain.” God answered his prayer.

Jabez prays four things. 1) That God would greatly bless him. 2) That God would expand his territory 3) That God would be with him 4) The God would keep him from harm. Let’s take a quick look at each of these.

  1. That God would greatly bless him — We get nervous about asking for God’s blessing because of name-it-and-claim-it preachers and theology, but there’s nothing wrong with asking for God’s blessing! We see a great many Biblical figures do so. We just need to remember not to put a fence around what God’s blessing “should” be. We should consider ourselves blessed when we can use whatever we may have been given to bless others.
  2. That God would expand his territory — We are told that if we are faithful with little, we will be trusted with more. If you have been using what you have been blessed with for the glory of God, you should not be surprised that God is “expanding your territory” and trusting you with more.
  3. That God would be with him — As the Lord has been teaching me this year: I am very capable of doing a great number of things on my own. But this means that I often tell God to “sit this one out” because I don’t NEED Him. This is — and has been — an error on my part. We should have a standing invitation to God. We should ask Him to be a part of everything we are doing.
  4. That God would keep him from harm — I think this would be our desire, but one we ought to hold loosely. We should remember that it is a privilege to suffer for the sake of the Gospel. Jesus did. Paul did. Peter did. I would not mind being mentioned alongside these fellow.

Let’s try to employ these principles as we pray, seek the Lord, and try to live lives worthy of the One who saved us.

Ruth 4:13-22, 1 Chronicles 2:9-55; 4:1-23, 1 Samuel 1:1-8 | 098/365