Devotionals

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"Blessed are they whose ways are blameless...according to the law of the Lord...Blessed are they who ...seek him with all their heart. They do nothing wrong."

What an astounding statement! The law of God, taken by a perfect (undivided) heart, will make one perfect in deed. Begin today to do just what God says, and ony what he has said, and you will begin to lead a perfect life.

If we truly believe that his word is absolutely sure and trustworthy, and that he has anticipated all the exigencies of life--all of our individual experiences and every event that happens to us--then we will do as he says. Further, we will not worry or fret (we won't sweat life).

I remember when I first realized that we people generally do not do this--we don't take his word at "face value," believing it just as it is written. Nor do we accept it as an absolute guide to life. Instead, we make a lot of exceptions and excuses for our own peculiar circumstances; for why we cannot follow it literally. For example, in sayings like "take no thought for your lives," or "if thine enemy smite you on the one cheek, turn to him the other," we tend to erase away all the objectionable part of the injunction--everything which would cause us inconvenience or trouble.

When I first had this insight about the need to apply the Bible as it comes, I began to actually live the Word. It seemed a radical thing to do, so out of "sync" with everything around me. And yet, my life suddenly made a radical leap forward in terms of godliness, so much so that people began to notice, and they told me so. I can't brag about this, because, in the first place, it could never have happened without his Holy Spirit involvement. In the second place, I did not keep it up indefinitely, but got derailed somewhere along the way.

The truth is, when we honestly look at our lives and are willing to admit that we fall short--when we are disatisfied with what we see--then we are in a position to make a radical move toward God. It is then that we are really living the Christian life. Anything else is just window dressing. We may be saved (that is not the question), but are we willing to live his life?

The biggest problem is that we think we know better than God what we need, deserve, and should get. This applies whether we are opptimistic or pessimistic in our outlook. Even when we think we deserve nothing, we may be exhalting our own evaluation of life and ourselves. We may think that nothing good can ever happen simply because we have not seen it yet. In both of these conditions, God is not consulted. In fact, we give him little chance to respond to our complaints or impatient questions. And yet, all the answers are there in front of us, in his Word.

We are arrogant, just like the world, which will not allow God to rule over it.Neither will we allow him to truly be God in our lives, because we have our own ideas as to what that means. So, when depression, fear, or complaint is found in us we are in essence denying Christ. The reluctance to allow his leadership is on a par with defiance.

The real wonder is that he loves us at all, and is willing to put up with these attitudes from us. Not as if he is not moving to change them. But, do we truly "seek him with all the heart"? Then and only then can we be blessed as Christians. Our level of righteousness can be measured by our closeness to God, and that by the way in which we seek him. Law keeping is a result. They who seek him with all the heart "do nothing wrong," because they do not want to offend him.

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