WATCHWORD:
Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Matthew 6:26
Meditation:
I Will Give You Rest
We read in the scripture how all-encompassing God can be with his love. That He clothed the grass of the field, that He numbers the hairs on your head, that He cares for even small birds. We view these statements as simple until we begin to dig deeper and try to apply it to our everyday lives. That’s when the simple seems to turn more complex.
A simple statement of Jesus is always a puzzle to us because, what do we do with it? We read complex or conditional things into it and it causes us to struggle. So, how can we maintain the simplicity of Jesus in ways that even we we can understand?
Oswald Chambers in a Utmost For His Highest devotional some time ago answers the question. He says “By receiving his spirit, recognizing and relying on him, and obeying him as He brings us the truth of his word, life will become amazingly simple.” Okay, let’s break that out.
How do I receive His spirit? If you have to ask that question then you have missed a big step. We, who have accepted Christ as Lord and Savior, already has the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. Our job is to pay attention. So you, the reader of this devotional, can check that one off.
Do you recognize and rely on him day by day, hour by hour? Or is it more intermittent, we recognize and we rely on him when we get ourselves in a bind. First thing in the morning do you recognize that the Lord has given you restful sleep, has prepared the day for you and equipped you to handle whatever may come your way. That should provoke an expression of gratitude and a recognition of having the Lord in your life. Thank you, Lord, for Your presence.
What about obeying him as He brings us the truth of his word? The truth of his word. I can almost hear Jesus saying to us, as we read his word, “I mean that”. Of course He means what he tells us. He doesn’t parse out his commandments, with conditions. We are to love God with all of our very being. That is it, to the point. We are to love and respect ourselves in every way. Again, a transparent command. And, here comes the hard part, we are to love others as Jesus loves us. That’s the high bar that we’ve spoken of in the past. We are to love even those, those who treat us poorly, insult us, and ignore us. Yes, that is a high bar but we are not alone. He has us by our right hand.
When we lose ground in our fellowship with God, it’s because we have drifted and have carelessly ignored what Jesus would have us do. In Matthew 13 Jesus talks about allowing the cares of the world to enter into our lives while forgetting that our Heavenly Father knows it all and is there for us. Have we forgotten?
Jesus tells us that if we would obey the life of God within us, He would look after all other things. When did Jesus lie to us? When did He tell us something that was not true? The answer is never. If we were to examine our lives with unbiased eyes we would see that we are the recipients of so much more and if for some reason you think something is lacking then you might want to consider the possibility that we have separated ourselves from Him. The solution is simple. The invitation is still there, waiting for us: Come to me all you who are burdened and I will give you rest. That seems simple enough. Even for you and for me. Amen.
The Lord’s Invitation:
Jesus beckons to us and invites us to “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” Amen.
