Moments in the life of a Pastor

Walking with God

Monthly Archives: June 2013


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1 Amazing Love Part I

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

As we start a new 30 day devotional series we are going to focus our attention on a little word called love. Love is something that we all crave and many of us spend our lives searching for but what is this thing called love? As with any word, people can perceive different meanings. If I ask you to come to my house for dinner, some of you would show up at noon, others around 6pm. The same is true with the word love, there are many different meanings. There is romantic love, brotherly love, parental love, love for our pets and many more. John 3:16 is the most famous bible verse of all and it not only declares God’s love to a lost world but what the love of God is:

  • Unconditional

“For God so loved the world”

The word world doesn’t just speak about the scope of God’s love but how unconditional it is. The Greek word for world means the whole mass of men alienated from God and hostile to the cause of Christ. This is the world that God loved, it doesn’t say that God loved all the good people or that God loved all the saints. God loved the unlovable. That fact that God loved the world only heightens the mystery of this love. God loved a wayward world which failed to recognize Him (John 1:10) but openly hated His approach to it (15:18). We are a poor choice for love but God’s love isn’t based on our spiritual condition or our moral predisposition. It isn’t based on our behavior or our attitude toward him, instead His love for mankind is universal and unconditional, He loves everyone. This one truth is what sets Him apart from every other god held up by every other world religion. Because Christianity uniquely claims God’s love comes free of charge, no strings attached and no other religion makes that claim. Only Christianity dares to proclaim God’s love is unconditional, an unconditional love that we call grace.  Grace is all about God and God freely giving to us the gifts of forgiveness, mercy, and love.

  • Sacrificial

“that he gave”

How did God love us? He loved us by giving, serving and sacrificing and in this we learn something important about the nature of true love. We often make love about what others can do for us and how they make us feel. But God shows us that true love has nothing to do with what you can do for me, but everything to do with what I can do for you. And the results of God’s sacrificial love are more than just forgiveness. Stuart Briscoe a banker turned preacher in writing about God’s sacrificial love said: “Years ago when I was a young banker, we used big leather ledgers where all accounts were entered by hand. I remember daydreaming about those ledgers and God’s ledgers in heaven. We are told those books will be opened. I imagined my name, David Stuart Briscoe, and God adding up the sum total of my indebtedness against him. I could never cancel the overwhelming indebtedness. In my mind’s eye, I saw God take his pen and transfer the sum total of my indebtedness to the account of the Lord Jesus Christ. On the account of the Lord Jesus, he wrote, “Transferred from the account of David Stuart Briscoe.” I thought God was finished. But then I saw him do something incredible. He added up the total righteousness of Christ and against it wrote these words, “Transferred to the account of David Stuart Briscoe.” That’s love.

  • Valuable

“his one and only”

Here we see the value of the Father’s love for us. Not only was he willing to give, but we see here that he was willing to give the only one he had. How many times have you heard or even said yourself: “I can’t give you that because it’s the only one I’ve got.” We’ve probably all said that, but John 3:16 reminds us that God didn’t have a spare or a backup. He loved us so much that he was willing to give us the only one he had. The power and passion of God’s love comes across through the length to which God was willing to go for the sake of the world, his “one and only” We give a portion out of our abundance but God gave His abundance, He gave it all, everything, love doesn’t hold back. The question is what will you do with this love will you accept it or are you going to try and earn it?


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30 Thankful Trust

Psalm 28:7

7 The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song.

There are many things that can steal our joy like painful losses and broken relationships, but the bible says that a Trusting heart is a Joyful heart. There are over 200 references to joy in the Bible and when I talk about joy I don’t mean “happiness,” because happiness is dependent on circumstances. Happiness is fleeting because it is tied to how we feel, like heartburn, from eating too fast that can make us unhappy because it doesn’t feel good. Joy on the other hand is an inward attitude that has God as its object and its source. Joy has a depth deeper than just feeling and is present even in the midst of pain, because the focus of joy is not the pain or the problems but the presence of God.

The real truth is that joy can still be a major component of our lives even in the pain and problems, when things go wrong and we are left with the heartache and hurt. Sometimes in those moments we are tempted to walk around with a plastic smile on our face pretending that everything is okay but joy is not faking happiness. Joy stems from a trusting relationship with the Lord that permeates our attitude impacting how we carry ourselves in the midst of the problems. How would others characterize your attitude? Do they see you living a life of joy, peace, and rest, or do they see someone who looks like they have no hope for today, much less for eternity? Which attitude do you think is likely to attract someone to the gospel? Why would anyone want to be a Christian if the one they see is sullen and grumpy? Imagine someone with a perpetually long face sharing the “Good News?” Have you forgotten the joy found in the truth of the “Good News?” Is it time to reclaim the joy in life? Becoming a person who lives a lifestyle of joy starts with:

  • Trusting God

A trusting heart is also a thankful heart. When we trust God we lean on Him, where does your strength and protection in this world come from? David did not face Goliath in his own strength and unlike his adversary he did not rely on a mere physical shield. David trusted in the true shield bearer the Lord his God and like Nehemiah he discovered something about God’s strength and joy Nehemiah 8:10: “…The joy of the LORD is your strength.” We need to release our problems to the Lord. One of the hallmarks of Christian joy is that it can be experienced in the midst of intense sorrow and loss. We may define happiness as the absence of something undesirable, pain, suffering, or disappointment, but joy is truly the opposite because joy is a response to the presence of something desirable, God Himself.

  • Finding Joy in the relationship.

Do you trust God enough to rest in your relationship with Him? True Joy stems from having God as its object and its source. If you focus on God you find joy, because joy is not found in circumstances but the creator. As you focus on God how do you view Him, do you recognize Him as joyful? In our journey of joy we need to see the Almighty not as a taskmaster, but as the God of the Universe with a smile on His face. Have you discovered Zephaniah 3:17? It describes how the God of the universe feels about you: “The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” One of the reasons we have so little joy in our lives is because we don’t know God well enough which is the result of a trust issue. Joy is one of His character qualities that should draw us to God. He is not an aloof judge just waiting for us to mess up so He can unleash His fury, He has created us to be His delight. Have you discovered the truth that God finds great joy in you, He sings over you? Like the Good Gardener who toils over us with constant care, waiting patiently for His fruit to ripen and with great joy He longs to gather in the harvest. There is enthusiasm in everything He undertakes and sweet satisfaction in all He does, His joy is transmitted directly to us by His Holy Spirit who lives within us.

Will you take the time to think of all He has done for you in securing your salvation and in offering you a full and abundant life? Take time today to look over some of His wonderful promises in Scripture given so that you can live a life in close relationship with Him even though you don’t deserve it. Will you rejoice in your relationship today, not only has He given you breath for today, Ephesians says that He has given us every spiritual blessing in Christ! He has promised to be active in all of your life at all times, think about it, the great, awesome, mighty God of all creation loves you. King David’s trust allowed him to go deeper and as a result his heart leapt for joy, giving thanks to the One he trusted. Will you stop trying and start trusting?