Bones under the Carpet

By: Peter Lundell

My dog, Angel, probably thinks she’s brilliant. Her thinking may go something like this: “I’ve got a great idea! Bones need to be buried, right? Every dog knows that. Why should I dig in the yard anymore? It’s dirty, and my master won’t let be back inside until he washes me off. I hate being washed. And besides, I usually forget where the bones are anyway. Sooo… I’ll bury the bones under the carpet in his office!”

And there she is shoving those bones under the carpet. As if I’ll never know. Now the carpet bulges up along the edge next to the steps down to my home office. When the dog wants to chew a bone, she just paws one out.

I’ve humored her and let the bones stay there. It’s close enough to the stair that I won’t stumble. And she doesn’t dig in the yard so much any more.

It’s natural for dogs to dig and hide bones. And it’s natural for humans to hide things as well. I think it’s fair to say that we all hide something—or perhaps 99.9 percent of us—whether our age or weight or an embarrassment or a secret sin. If you’re in that 0.1 percent that hides absolutely nothing, you may skip the rest of this devotional. Have a great day.

The rest of us know that whatever we hide, we ourselves still know and carry the pain or the shame of it. And many of us know that God sees through everything anyway:

“Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight …” Hebrews 4:13 (NIV)

The amazing thing is how God allows us grace regarding the bones that each of us may hide under our carpet. Grace to let us pretend they’re buried; grace to take them out and make things right.

God is amazingly merciful. He says things like,

“I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.” Isaiah 43:25 (NIV)

I’ve often marveled at how he’s never zapped me with lightning or opened up a pit under my feet. Many secrets he’s let stay hidden and let me work out in confession and growing in Christ.

Yet we also dare not be presumptuous about God’s mercy. I cringed one day when I read Psalm 50:21:

“I have kept quiet while you did these things, so you thought I was just like you. But I will scold you and accuse you to your face.” (NCV)

Whoa. How often we don’t admit the unspoken, even unconscious, assumption that when God does not strike us, we think he’s lenient with sin.

God’s grace not only covers our sin, it also exposes it. That’s how we can fess up, turn from it and be free. Free so that we’re not tripping over the carpets in our lives.

What bones need to come out from under your carpet?

“Lord, as the psalmist says, ‘Search me, O God, and know my heart.’ Thank you for your patience with me! But now heal or cleanse or convict in me whatever is not pleasing to you and is not good for me… “

Joy of Remembrance

From; Our Daily Journey

  Nov 6, 2018  

Read:

Habakkuk 3:1-18 
Though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines . . . yet I will rejoice in the Lord! (Habakkuk 3:17-18).

Comforting anyone who’s lost a loved one is difficult, but the challenge is particularly hard for those who work with children whose parents have died. In such situations, one might think that it’s best to help children forget the trauma they’ve endured. But therapists have discovered that the opposite is actually true—remembrance helpschildren cope with their loss. Remembering all the good memories they shared with their parents helps them see their past with joy and their future with hope.

Likewise, today’s passage from Habakkuk seems like a strange context to find joy. The prophet says he will rejoice in the Lord, but the preceding verses seem anything but joyful. He describes fear, the threat of a foreign invasion, and a season of utter barrenness (Habakkuk 3:16-17). How can Habakkuk say he will rejoice in the midst of such a hopeless situation?

The key is found in verse 2 of the chapter, where he reflects, “I have heard all about you, Lord. I am filled with awe by your amazing works. In this time of our deep need, help us again as you did in years gone by. And in your anger, remember your mercy.” The prophet’s joy and hope weren’t found in his present circumstances, which were dire indeed. Instead, he found joy and encouragement by remembering and recounting all of the amazing works God had done in the past and knowing that He could do them again.

Remembering the past isn’t an exercise in sentimentality where we wistfully recall better days long gone by. No, it’s when we remember what God did in the past that we gain the strength to face our present trials with courage and even joy. We can then confess, “I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!” (Habakkuk 3:18).

Partakers of His Suffering

By Oswald Chambers

…but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings… —1 Peter 4:13

If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a number of experiences that are not meant for you personally at all. They are designed to make you useful in His hands, and to enable you to understand what takes place in the lives of others. Because of this process, you will never be surprised by what comes your way. You say, “Oh, I can’t deal with that person.” Why can’t you? God gave you sufficient opportunities to learn from Him about that problem; but you turned away, not heeding the lesson, because it seemed foolish to spend your time that way.

The sufferings of Christ were not those of ordinary people. He suffered “according to the will of God” (1 Peter 4:19), having a different point of view of suffering from ours. It is only through our relationship with Jesus Christ that we can understand what God is after in His dealings with us. When it comes to suffering, it is part of our Christian culture to want to know God’s purpose beforehand. In the history of the Christian church, the tendency has been to avoid being identified with the sufferings of Jesus Christ. People have sought to carry out God’s orders through a shortcut of their own. God’s way is always the way of suffering— the way of the “long road home.”

Are we partakers of Christ’s sufferings? Are we prepared for God to stamp out our personal ambitions? Are we prepared for God to destroy our individual decisions by supernaturally transforming them? It will mean not knowing why God is taking us that way, because knowing would make us spiritually proud. We never realize at the time what God is putting us through— we go through it more or less without understanding. Then suddenly we come to a place of enlightenment, and realize— “God has strengthened me and I didn’t even know it!”

Dreams

  Nov 4, 2018  

Read:

Ephesians 3:14-21
All glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think (Ephesians 3:20).

Shortly after he invented the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell reportedly said, “I do not think I am exaggerating the possibilities of this invention when I tell you that it is my firm belief that one day there will be a telephone in every major town in America.” One telephone in every town? If he only knew. Bell needed to dream bigger.

So do we. Paul says God’s “mighty power” can do in us “infinitely more than we might ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). This assurance may lead us to attempt big things for God—perhaps start an orphanage, refugee resettlement program, or rescue mission for the homeless. Such ministries are great, and we should support them. But these are not Paul’s focus here.

Paul urges us to plunge our hearts deeper into the loving power of Jesus. He prays that God’s “glorious, unlimited resources” would “empower you with inner strength” (Ephesians 3:16). “Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong” (Ephesians 3:17). Then you will “have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is” (Ephesians 3:18).

It’s good to dream about what we will do for Jesus. It’s even more important to yearn for Him and what He will do for us. Jesus created you, redeemed you, and is one day coming back for you. He will return to our unjust world, resurrect our bodies, and restore all things. His world-conquering love is in you—right now. So put all your hope in Him.

Then you will “experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God” (Ephesians 3:19).

Teach Us to Trust

  Nov 3, 2018  

Read:

Genesis 3:1-15
I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel (Genesis 3:15).

“Risen Lord, teach us to trust: the power of your cross.” I read the words of this liturgy after a week of heartbreaking news in my country, the kind of week when trust is difficult. For many people today, despair feels easier than hope, and fear and hatred feel more powerful than love.

But times like these are not unusual. Much like Adam and Eve in the garden, humanity has always been tempted to control the world through its own understanding, seeking knowledge and power on its own terms instead of following God’s voice (Genesis 3:6). Then when the consequences for bad behavior become obvious, we hide in a pitiful attempt to deny that we’re wandering far from Him (Genesis 3:8-9).

When God spoke to Adam and Eve after they sinned, He vividly described the battle all of us face: “hostility” between the serpent—Satan and his forces—and the children of Eve (Genesis 3:15). Ever since our fall into sin, Satan has been at our heels, looking for opportunities to inject his deadly venom.

But God doesn’t leave us to face the evil one’s attacks alone. To the shame-filled couple, He offered words of hope—that the devil would not win. However bleak things looked, He would work through them and their descendants to “crush” evil.

This promise was ultimately fulfilled through Jesus’ death on the cross, where Satan, death, and evil were crushed through a surprising sacrifice of love (Hebrews 2:14). One day we’ll see Jesus’ victory in all its fullness and Satan forever destroyed. In the meantime, we pray, “Risen Lord, teach us to trust: the power of your cross.” Even when evil seems to increase its power, we refuse to accept it. Instead, we resist it by living lives of sacrificial love through the power of His love.

Catching Foxes

From: Our Daily Bread

November 2, 2018

Read: Song of Solomon 2:14–17 | Bible in a Year: Jeremiah 27–29; Titus 3

Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards. Song of Solomon 2:15

While talking on the phone with a friend who lives by the seaside, I expressed delight at hearing seagulls squawking. “Vile creatures,” she responded, for to her they’re a daily menace. As a Londoner, I feel the same way about foxes. I find them not cute animals but roaming creatures that leave smelly messes in their wake.

Foxes appear in the love poetry of the Song of Solomon, an Old Testament book that reveals the love between a husband and wife and, some commentators believe, between God and His people. The bride warns about little foxes, asking her bridegroom to catch them (2:15). For foxes, hungry for the vineyard’s grapes, could tear the tender plants apart. As the bride looks forward to their married life together, she doesn’t want vermin disturbing their covenant of love.

How can “foxes” disturb our relationship with God? For me, when I say “yes” to too many requests, I can become overwhelmed and unpleasant. Or when I witness relational conflict, I can be tempted to despair or anger. As I ask the Lord to limit the effect of these “foxes”—those I’ve let in through an open gate or those that have snuck in—I gain in trust of and love for God as I sense His loving presence and direction.

How about you? How can you seek God’s help from anything keeping you from Him?

Lord God, You are powerful and You are good. Please protect my relationship with You, keeping out anything that would take my eyes off You.

God can guard our relationship with Him.

“You Are Not Your Own”

By Oswald Chambers

November 1 

 Do you not know that…you are not your own? —1 Corinthians 6:19

There is no such thing as a private life, or a place to hide in this world, for a man or woman who is intimately aware of and shares in the sufferings of Jesus Christ. God divides the private life of His saints and makes it a highway for the world on one hand and for Himself on the other. No human being can stand that unless he is identified with Jesus Christ. We are not sanctified for ourselves. We are called into intimacy with the gospel, and things happen that appear to have nothing to do with us. But God is getting us into fellowship with Himself. Let Him have His way. If you refuse, you will be of no value to God in His redemptive work in the world, but will be a hindrance and a stumbling block.

The first thing God does is get us grounded on strong reality and truth. He does this until our cares for ourselves individually have been brought into submission to His way for the purpose of His redemption. Why shouldn’t we experience heartbreak? Through those doorways God is opening up ways of fellowship with His Son. Most of us collapse at the first grip of pain. We sit down at the door of God’s purpose and enter a slow death through self-pity. And all the so-called Christian sympathy of others helps us to our deathbed. But God will not. He comes with the grip of the pierced hand of His Son, as if to say, “Enter into fellowship with Me; arise and shine.” If God can accomplish His purposes in this world through a broken heart, then why not thank Him for breaking yours?