Lindenville - The Way Less Traveled

Minute Devotionals

BY CAMI TAPLEY

Personal Beatitudes
Devotional Bits

Beyond the Toys

We’re here because God willed it. It’s a fact that doesn’t change with belief. What belief will change is the motivation for how we live our lives. Depending on an individual’s perception, there are many things to be enjoyed in life, with or without acknowledging God. Think of two children, both given wonderful toys; one knows full well who gave him the toy, the other doesn’t. Each may equally enjoy his toy regardless of knowledge of the giver. The benefit to the child who personally knows the giver is relationship. When the child ultimately becomes unhappy or bored with his toy, he doesn’t come up empty. The child without knowledge of his benefactor knows no comfort when his toy fails to satisfy him. Whether a life is just a life, or an ongoing experience of acknowledged relationship, depends on how much more value, if any, a person places on the life he or she is given, short of knowing the One who gave it. “Do not reprove a scoffer lest he hate you, reprove a wise man and he will love you.” Proverbs 9:8

A Time For Everything

Time wasted is time lost. There is a time to search, and a time to keep—but if we do neither when it is time, can something be found if it has never been looked for, or can something be kept after it has already been thrown away? God has equipped the heart of man to be the gage for what is the appropriate time for all things. Ignoring our hearts will mean opportunities lost. No one can recover their youth when they are old, and no one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be unheard. God is a God of restoration. He will forgive actions of ignorant or willful haste, and He will set errant and aimless feet upon level, straight pathways. The past is gone, and the future is God’s domain alone—the truth of real hope—so the present is ours to squander or to live by faith in. Make “today” one that isn’t bitter to recall when it becomes “yesterday.”

Finding the Meaning

FRODO
How do you pick up the threads of an old
life? How do you go on, when in your heart
you begin to understand. There is no going
back. There are some things that time
cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep.
That have taken hold.

There is something to these lines that Tolkien wrote, something true—not hopeless, not too sad to take in and believe, but true. From February 18th’s My Utmost For His Highest, by Oswald Chambers: “Sleep on now, that opportunity is lost for ever, you cannot alter it, but arise and go to the next thing.” No one can escape disappointment in this life, but it is another thing to enter into the blackest part of it, continues one’s journey in the midst of it, and come through. It means a death to Self. When something once so alive in you—something you felt just had to be—doesn’t work out, not in the way you felt it should, you realize you must let go, or, begin to lose your very soul bit by bit from that moment on. Letting go is a sweet sadness, until you realize the freedom; a freedom you couldn’t imagine while filled with so much desire. (Romans 8:24) And then, then, you begin to receive the meaning, which is the real heart’s cry of every human soul: truth of purpose. Jesus said, “I am the Truth.” Trust it to Him.

Shifting Dreams, Steadfast Faith

Everything in life starts one way, and then develops into another. The process of growth regarding our purpose should grow and change as our human lives do. The embryo is unrecognizable as the initial manifestation of the fully developed human body, but at every stage, it is the same life, changing shape. So should our youthful revelations be. We call them “lofty” upon reminiscence, remembering feelings of passion and hope, and are saddened when we realize we don’t feel the same way after the years we have spent traveling through life. Our purpose hasn’t diminished; our perception of it hasn’t grown with us. It’s the argument for faith. Faith is the seed of all dreams. If our idea of what the seed will grow into is different than what is realized, we might despair, harden our hearts, and say that dreams don’t come true. However, if our seed of faith—at any stage—is handed over to the One Who created all things, we will see His working in our lives all along.

What We Need

It is good to have the faculty of common sense, which tells us to get up in the morning, to eat when necessary, and to do our work thoroughly. Yet everyone knows it isn’t enough to breathe, to eat, and to work; we need fulfillment. If fulfillment came by our wits, we wouldn’t need faith, and faith means waiting. No amount of brains or muscle can achieve fulfillment, and some people would rather forgo it than admit that they can’t make it happen, or worse, have to wait for it. If we know something, we believe it, and if we believe it, we hold tightly to it. Whatever we don’t know has no affect on us. Once we know something, we can be broken by it for the good or for the bad. We are made strong if we believe what we know without seeing it first, but are greatly defeated when we refuse to hang onto anything our common sense can’t accept. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1

A Personal Question

It takes more effort not to believe than to believe, just as it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile. We don’t wake up in the morning and consciously rehearse in our minds, ” I will not keep my eyes closed”; when we waken, it is natural to open our eyes. “I will keep my eyes closed” is the more difficult thing. This is how many people are in regard to faith. Our hearts are wired to believe, but how many rehearse daily, “I will not believe”? Actually, probably not many, because it is more subtle assertions such as, “It can’t be true…It isn’t practical…It isn’t for me…” God is so patient with us. He has put into each one of us everything we need to believe, and is standing ready, always, to meet us at every point of our need. What will we answer to Jesus’ question, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” Have we overlooked something or someone the Lord has sent into our lives to ask us this question again?

Wholly the Lord’s

Billy Graham once said, “God is more concerned with winning all of me than with me winning all the world.” There are new egos born every generation. If we are to escape being ignorant of the fact that what has taken down a previous generation will take us down, we must be truly and humbly born again. Regeneration will never be complete in us if little bits of personal accountability to God are substituted for good works. If we look at anything good we do as a bigger part of a pie in which our uncommitted areas are only a small slice, the trap of relativity will keep us from experiencing the truth of Christ: freedom from sin. Difficult circumstances, heredity, or the stage of life we are in are worn excuses for the failure to completely relinquish something that is keeping us from being wholly the Lord’s. We can say that we haven’t fully understood, but that excuse will only take us so far. If every expression of faith should cease to find an arena, every person who ever claimed to be a Christian were to betray us, every feeling of inspiration were to leave and never grace us again, the reality of God would be staring us in the face. (Romans 1:19,20) Love—the cross—is power and understanding enough for anyone to know God, entirely. “Come unto Jesus.”

Intercessory Feelings

As disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, we know that our feelings are not to rule us, but do we understand what part they play, as our lives become the will of the Lord? Whenever we are burdened with feelings that we either cannot, or can only roughly connect with something we are going through, we need to cut the introspection short. If we submit to the natural instinct to over-analyze the origin of the feelings, we will miss the opportunity to intercede. Apart from the fact that Christians are not perfect, these feelings should never be confused with things we have committed to the Lord. Rather, it should be a profound indication that it’s time to pray for someone else. The Holy Spirit will press upon our human emotions to lead us into specific intercessions. Sadness, lust, fears, anxiety or despair may fill our knowledge beyond our personal experience, and it is a burden-bearer’s job to take it to prayer. Sometimes we know for whom we are specifically interceding, sometimes we don’t. But Satan’s kingdom takes its hardest hits from intuitive, intercessory prayer.

Salvation Is

No one will leave this life without first being presented with the opportunity to know the reality of God’s eternal love and salvation through Jesus Christ. Some will learn of it from the Bible. Some will come to understand it by the witness of a family member, friend, or neighbor. Some will hear it from a stranger. Some will be inspired to receive it because of a line in a movie, a song, or a reading. Some will be awakened to it by a testimony from nature. A revelation of Jesus Christ will come to everyone at some time, in some way. Once it does, the decision of how to live afterward makes that soul forever accountable to the Living God. No man or institution of men can rightly judge what will become of the life that has had a revelation of Who Jesus is. Many will turn from the revelation of Jesus Christ to follow their own way. Others will follow a form of religion. A few will leave everything to follow Jesus. Our experiences from birth to the point of revelation can only be left at the cross of Christ by our single, willful decision. To be born again, we must ask. We know we have left everything when no one’s care or protection means life to us, but His. Matthew 7:14, Galatians 1:10-24

The Thought Life

What we claim to know won’t influence our lives as much as what we regularly think about. It is why people who know the truth of the Gospel are found miserable within the confines of worldly thinking. It amounts to having one foot on either side of a wide chasm. The saying, “What you don’t know won’t hurt you,” comes from the fact that knowledge holds a person accountable for what they know. The Word of God is rich on the subject of the thought life: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus”; “Set your mind on things above, not on things below”; “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind”; “Search me, O God, and know my heart-try me and know my anxious thoughts”; “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, of good repute, excellent, and praiseworthy, let your mind dwell on these things”. That we ever feel “safe” within cynical or selfish lines of thinking, as if our thoughts have no real affect on us or on others, will prove wrong every time, as the focus and attitude it feeds becomes very outwardly real. “For as a man thinks, so is he.” Proverbs 23:7

The Lower Nature vs. a Higher Love

If the New Testament view of “flesh” referred only to our physical bodies, then Jesus would have harbored Sin as we do, but it doesn’t; it encompasses much more. “He made Him who knew no Sin to be Sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Cor. 5:7) What the first man, Adam, ruined by his act of rebellion according to his sinful nature—his “flesh,” his lower nature—the second Man, Jesus, set right with the sacrifice of His unstained life, making it possible for any one of us to live as He lived, by His Spirit. In order to realize salvation, Christ must be lifted up, not our natural potential. Paul said he would not and could not boast in his flesh, i.e., his gifts or his knowledge. When the revelation of Christ came to Paul, he counted all the rest “rubbish” in comparison. If there were something of real value we could offer to help God love us at the first, then His love would equal ours. “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

What Faith Really Means

There is more to life than what we can see with our natural eyes. This is a fact in both science and religion. When “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” we as humanity experienced the creation of God’s new mercies; mercies which are “new every morning.” The redemptive work of Jesus Christ opened up possibilities for purpose in futility, light in darkness, clarity in confusion, and life among death. If we consider eternity in the light of the sacrifice Christ made for us, we can begin to conceive a purpose for our creation that outweighs what we can see. If our knowledge or our belief in God doesn’t extend beyond our own feelings and experiences, then we have nothing but ourselves. This is poor religion and poor science. Faith tells us that there is more than we can begin to imagine, and the acceptance of the wonder of it is crucial to a growing life, both spiritually and naturally.

Love Hurts

To give up on something or someone you have strong feelings about is possible if put to a personal strain, but to give up on something or someone you love is impossible. It is in this way that we are made in God’s image. Love is more than feeling or thought. No one’s ever changed anything by feeling or thought only, and although love is equally intangible, its changing power is as real as the actions that make history. Before we leave this sphere, we all will have experienced unrequited love in one degree or another: for a parent, a child, a spouse, a friend; someone we can’t give up on no matter what doubts there are. “Let us say not, ‘Since we know we love, but rather, since we love we know enough’” Robert Browning. The heart of love will encourage when all else speaks despair, but there’s still no denying that love hurts. The most poignant example lies in the cross of Jesus, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) Love can’t change our minds until it’s won our hearts.

Obedience and Higher Life

The rich young ruler was righteous in deeds, and had a great respect for Jesus, but when Jesus asked him to sell all he had, and to follow, the man turned on his heels and went home. (Luke 18:18-23) Contrarily, when the man delivered from demon-possession entreated Jesus to let him follow, he was told to go home. (Mark 5:18) People find it easy to judge, but they can’t feel God’s finger on the thing you don’t want to do but should, or want to do, but shouldn’t. The Scripture tells us that the young ruler, who was extremely rich, went away “very sad.” The man Jesus delivered from demons had a story to tell, and because of his willingness to do what Jesus told him, experienced a different result: “And he went away and began to proclaim in Decapolis what great things Jesus had done for him; and everyone marveled.” (Mark 5:19) Misinterpreting God’s call may be a common mistake, but defying it produces an unmistakable result. Lightning bolts may not come down from the sky, but a bolt of lightning would be a mercy compared to the emptiness that enters a soul that experiences God, and then turns away.

The Valuable Heart

It is to the human, and all it represents, that Christ came, ministered and died. Jesus modeled the right human spirit for all times and situations. Solomon stated it true when he said, “There is nothing new under the sun.” (Eccles. 1:9) Christ’s earthly example set the standard for those of us who will follow. It is the biggest mistake against all that is intended by God in His work to establish relationship with us, to exert our energy toward preserving a system or a culture rather than to open our hearts to understand humanity—both the good and the bad—as Jesus did. Systems and cultures come and go, but reaching the heart of man is God’s aim. Yet the fact remains that the Lord Himself could appear before some people and they wouldn’t recognize Him or believe in Him. However, for those who will become like little children and believe, the Gospel will create a newness of heart that disdains all that is wise in this world, and foolish in His sight.

HIS Work

Jesus said to His disciples, “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness of Me, and you will bear witness also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.” (John 15:26,27) The literal definition of a witness is, “one who can give a firsthand account of something.” Christians weary themselves and others when they transfer the real responsibility of being living witnesses over to the foolish activity of being amateur providences; stubbornly working where no call has come, or no longer remains. God deliberately empowered humankind with free will, yet today, as in Paul’s time, people are in danger of doing what he warned the Galatians about; being drawn into a “yoke of slavery,” and dragging others along with them. Whether we testify of Jesus by words or by actions, the beginning and finishing of anyone’s salvation is the result of the working of the Holy Spirit’s power, not ours. Our work is, as Paul stated, to keep our own eyes fixed daily on the goal of a high, and very personal calling.

What Are We Preaching?

Whenever we make denominationalism, culture, semantics, or personality bones of contention in sharing the gospel, we exalt humanism, not Christ. In 1 Cor. 1:23, Paul states, “…we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness.” Our preaching today is to have the same aim as Paul’s. The Jews represent the religious thinking that prevents people from entering into an obedient love relationship with Jesus Christ, and the Gentiles represent the worldly thinking that prevents people from accepting the wisdom of God for their own personal lives. Paul countered both these problems with the simple, powerful message of the cross. Jesus said, “If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to Myself.” And He was lifted up; He was lifted up on the cross so “that whoever believes may in Him have eternal life.” That is the whole gospel; anything more or less exalts something other than the gospel. (John 12:32, John 3:15)

Popularity vs. Posterity

It cannot be overstated that what matters most is what our Lord thinks of us. After this, we should look at the lives God has given us to affect with a reverent understanding of how important one life is to Him. Every one of us has a few very important relationships God has put into our lives to make an impact on for eternity. Many people will come into and go out of our lives, and the Lord will use us to plant seeds of righteousness, but the end result will be the responsibility of the Holy Spirit, not ours. Your responsibility and mine can be related to what God charged the children of Israel with as He divided the tribe’s responsibilities into whatever was “within their gate.” Whatever or whoever is in your gate or in mine is a mystery of Providence’s choosing. We minister by the grace of God. A deferential awe and gratitude for what we’ve been given replaces the selfish need for worldly recognition as we do the duty that lies nearest. It is then natural to share this love with those in our “gate.”

Confidence In Him, Not In Ourselves

Humiliation is bread and butter to a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, but to anyone who has their thoughts cut out in the pattern of the world, it is poison. It is an old saying, “Pride is the original sin.” In renovation a great stripping away is necessary to acquire newness, and a real ugliness is present for a time in this process when everything is dirty, broken down and chaotic. To stop at this part of the process is a shame; it prevents the new from coming in. If humiliation means that we own up to the mess when it is a mess so that the work can continue, so be it. This is the disciple’s point of view. However, if we become morbidly dismayed by the ugliness when we see it, there will be no end of delays to the regeneration process; pride will deceive a heart into a state of paralysis. Ironically, the more wrong we are in a worldly mindset, the more unwilling we are to be forgiven. Humility frees us to have right relationship with God and others, i.e., to get it right next time. 1 Thessalonians 5:23,24

Glory Born

The Seraphim cover themselves as they surround the throne of God. There is no glory of any created thing that can replicate the glory that is God’s; no passion of worship, eloquence of teaching, thrill of inspiration, or moment of revelation can be what God is: glorified of all that is glorious, fulfillment of all visions, end of all knowledge, and satisfaction of every longing. Our efforts to know Him are nothing more than outward offenses if they are not in our hearts first and final. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end; no activity or service we can perform will perfect us, only reliance on His Spirit can. The Glory that came down to be born in a stable, laid in a feeding trough, crucified and risen, is worthy—then and now—of our complete devotion. There is nothing higher, no one more powerfully loving than our God, and we owe Him humility every day He gives us, or we aren’t worthy of the dust we are made of.

Lust Doesn’t Serve

Lust can mask its carelessness behind sympathetic reasoning, but ultimately renders the best offerings of life uncontainable. The opposite of lust isn’t Love; Love has no opposite. The opposite of lust is found in the patience of true strength. It’s a condition of heart which understands that any loss of momentary happiness or gain is eclipsed by the joy of selfless knowledge. To think something through to its end takes but a moment, and is motivated by a sincere concern for others. As lust wears darkness as a cloak, Love, if allowed, can enter and utilize the same darkness as a gauge for how bright the light will be when all thoughts and deeds are revealed, and provide strength to overcome. “Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to his edification. For even Christ did not please Himself.” Romans 15

Pathway of Intimacy

Intimacy means someone knows you so well that understanding your purpose in life is a given. Our generation is looking for intimacy in sex, which is driving them farther and farther from it. And they are ambivalent about it—don’t tell them they’ve gotten lost! Shining the light of Christ will brand you strange; it has become normal to be lonely and alienated. As sexual license increases, so does confusion and lack of fulfillment; the sense of individual purpose is stolen away step by step. Finally, it can become so lost, that the consequence of emptiness is not thought of as a consequence at all, but merely a justification for the behavior that breeds it: a vicious circle. Our Heavenly Father sent His Son into this world to show us the way back to intimacy. Being known so well by the Father Himself, Christ’s purpose was to give us back ours—to know the One Who has known us since the foundations of the earth. “To him who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying.” Rev. 3:22

Where Conscience Fails

Our conscience tells us to do what we were taught was right, which, in general, as far a day-to-day human responsibilities are concerned, is a good thing. However, when it comes to a step of faith, what if our conscience doesn’t recognize it as being right; wasn’t taught it? This is where those who are believers remain believers only, never becoming disciples—true followers—of Jesus. We read in the Bible about Jesus healing on the Sabbath and talking to the woman at the well—two things that were utterly taboo in the eyes of the religious leaders of that time—and it doesn’t offend our own religious sensibilities now because 1) it was a long time ago, 2) it was Jesus, and 3) it wasn’t our culture. But Jesus tells us that a servant is not above his Master. From Baffled To Fight Better, by Oswald Chambers: “If you remain true to Jesus Christ there are times when you will have to go through your convictions and out the other side, and most of us shrink from such a step because it means going alone.” We read that Ruth had always endeavored to do what was right, but the night she lay at her kinsman redeemer’s feet (Ruth 3) changed everything. It was an act that went beyond conscience or conviction, plunging the depths of true faith. Ruth became the great-grandmother of King David; the lineage of Jesus Christ. We don’t usually know what an act of obedience to Christ’s Spirit will bring beforehand—and we’ll never know if we tell Him what He may or may not do through our lives on the grounds of a conscience that has never been allowed to grow into a true, working faith.

Inarguable Humanity

Paul saw Jesus by revelation, yet he was as limited in his humanity as the rest of us. His calling was to reveal to the Gentiles that they were fellow heirs of the promise in Christ (Ephesians 3:6). Paul functioned within the cultural restrictions of his contemporaries, and although His writings comprise a good portion of the New Testament, he never exalted himself as the final authority, but taught under Christ’s authority. What startled people about Jesus’ teaching at first, and what startles us now is that it is free from any and every kind of cultural limitation. Jesus’ statements prevent us from arguing, “But in this case…under these circumstances…”—His words are life and truth, period. He saw into the hearts of people living in the culture He visited for thirty-three years, and brilliantly addressed the issues of all time. He lived within a culture, but was uninfluenced by the culture around Him; being the only One Who ever lived on earth and is Timeless. As human beings we must function within a culture, but to follow Christ, we must not allow its limitations to shape our understanding if we want to hear all He says. “He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.” John 1:11

For the Persecuted

David, Jeremiah and Jonah all likened what they suffered under God’s providence to waves and billows rolling over them, encompassing them to the point of death. In their prayers to the Lord for His salvation, they trusted the hard reality of their circumstances to His providence and at the same time praised Him for hearing their cries for help. There was no doubt in any of their minds that God would deliver them, and at the same time deal with those who whispered, mocked and schemed against them. When did being a servant of the living God become a popularity contest? Paradise is a state of eternity, not of earth. “Now shall not God bring about justice for His elect, who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them? I tell you that He will bring about justice for them speedily. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:7,8

The Redemptive Cross

It is amazing how so many people approach the cross of Christ and then leave essentially unchanged, except for a heightened sense of personal morality. Jesus didn’t shed His blood so that we could feel better about ourselves or so that we could be more respected by others. He died so that we could receive His death; it is the only way to know real life. Apart from Him our lives are corrupted. In fact, all our efforts to be morally correct and charitably driven will find us empty-handed on Judgment Day. The only way we will ever bring honor to the sacrifice Christ made for us is to die to our own notion of what is good and right. “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’” (Matt. 7:22,23) Paul told us in Galatians that the law of Christ is to bear one another’s burdens—yet how many people walk away from the redemptive cross puffed up with principles of moral refinement rather than emptied out vessels His love can flow through? The Church is Christ’s redeemed Bride, not a creation of men. The gifts of the Spirit are given in different and varied areas according to the wisdom of God, not according to what is impressive or needful in this world. If the meaning of success is that we all end up cookie-cutter clones of one another, and that a set of rules, not personal relationship, is the outcome of believing in God, than Phariseeism is alive and well; Wash the outside of your cup, never allow your principles to be altered, tithe your “mint and dill”—and crucify the Lord of Glory.