Trust and Obey

“Neither one,” he replied. “I am the commander of the Lord’s army.”

At this, Joshua fell with his face to the ground in reverence. “I am at your command,” Joshua said. “What do you want your servant to do?”  (Joshua 5:14 NLT)

As Joshua faced the man in this story, most commentators believe none other than the Son of God--Joshua showed he had learned to trust and obey.

Joshua had spent many years serving Moses, who was gone now.  Many a Christian leader has chafed at being second in command.  They are annoyed or impatient because of being restricted or inconvenienced.  When the commander of the Lord’s army told Joshua to take off his shoes (v.15), he obeyed.  Where did Joshua learn this radical obedience?  He acquired this during the many years when he felt restricted or inconvenienced by Moses’ orders.  Joshua had discovered the secret of Moses’ leadership—trust and demonstrated obedience to God’s commands.

The commentator Matthew Henry once wrote, “for it is those know how to obey who best know how to command.”  There are many natural-born leaders, but there are never inherited leadership traits; the foremost of these are trust and obedience.  You may be in a position where you are chafing at the bit.  It appears you are spinning your wheels.  God never misses an opportunity to teach you no matter what your situation.  If you are where God has placed you, he is always at work.

All Christians, whether leaders or not, must take to heart the words of the old song.  “Trust and obey, for there is no other way, to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.”  Obedience is always the proof of our trust in Christ.

The image is used with permission by Microsoft. 

Ken Barnes, the author of  “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing

and “Broken Vessels” KDP
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: Ken Barnes' Book Site
Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com
            http://gleanings757.blogspot.com

Memory

Remember how the Lord your God led you through the wilderness for these forty years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character, and to find out whether or not you would obey his commands.  (Deuteronomy 8:2 NLT)

Some say that the Book of Deuteronomy could be called the book of remembering.  Over and other again, before he departed from this earth, Moses told Israel to remember.  The past is always the key to the present and future.

Memory is a fantastic thing. Recently I connected on Facebook with an acquaintance that I had not seen or even thought about for over sixty years.  He mentioned us playing basketball together, and instantaneously, I remembered him in that context—and retrieved stored data from the recesses of my mind. God wants us to recover information from our past to help us navigate present or future situations.  

Moses knew his people's tendency for their hearts to stray, their minds to wander, and their emotions to deceive them.  When trials and temptation come our way, and they always do, we engage them by remembering God's faithfulness in the past.  When the Prophet, probably Jeremiah, was afflicted, he said this, "Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning (Lamentations 3:21-23 NLT).  Embedded in the memory of this Prophet were experiences that made these statements true. In his time of need, his memory of God's faithfulness sustained him.

If we choose to dwell on God's faithfulness in the past, he will turn perplexities into peace and fear into faith.

The image is used with permission by Microsoft.

Ken Barnes, the author of  “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing

and “Broken Vessels” KDP
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: Ken Barnes' Book Site
Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com
            http://gleanings757.blogspot.com

Forgiving Yourself

But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. (1 John 1:9 NLT)

 

When we confess our sin, God always forgives us.  Even people we have sinned against will sometimes forgive us, but the real problem may be forgiving ourselves.

 

There is an incident in my life that I chronicle in my book “Broken Vessels.”  I said something very hurtful that my daughter overheard.  God forgave me as soon as I asked—my daughter almost as soon—but forgiving myself has been a process.

 

Some of you reading this devotional, like me, have said or done things you regret. You may have hurt others very deeply.  You wish you had a rewind button on your life—where you can go back to your transgression, delete it and record it with the proper action or response. Unfortunately, life is not like that. You cannot rewrite history. 

 

Hurting people hurt others, but that is no excuse for our actions.  All we can do is repent and take responsibility for our actions and live our lives openly before God and man.  Transparency can help others never to make the mistake we made.  In this way, even flaws in our character can be redemptive.

 

Our scriptural reference tells us that if we ask, God forgives us.  Should we not do likewise for ourselves.  God has the ability to forget sin, we don’t, and that is not always bad.  It reminds us never to do it again.  Nevertheless, morbid guilt is never productive.  Christ died to take away our shame and guilt; holding onto them can be unbelief and a slap in the face of God.

 

The image is used with permission by Microsoft. 

Ken Barnes, the author of  “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing

and “Broken Vessels” KDP
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com
            http://gleanings757.blogspot.com

 

The Love of Money

 

Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve disciples, went to the leading priest and asked, “How much will you pay me to betray Jesus to you?” And they gave him thirty pieces of silver. (Matthew 26:14-15 NLT)

Thirty Pieces of Silver

 

The Bible says. “For the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil (1 Timothy 6:10 NLT). We always follow what is first in our lives, be it money or Christ.

 

Context is critical in understanding the Scriptures.  Directly before Judas’s betrayal is the story of the woman who brought the expensive alabaster flask to anoint the feet of Jesus.  In John 12:2-6, the Bible records that Judas objects to Mary wasting the precious ointment, not because he cared for the poor, but because he stole from the disciples’ funds. It appears he determined that he could gain more wealth by betraying Jesus than serving him. You always follow your heart, be it for evil or good.

 

You cannot serve two masters; you will hate the one and love the other, or vice-versa (Matthew 6:19-24). Judas chose who he would serve.  Paul warned us that we should not imagine that godliness is a means of financial gain (1 Timothy 6:5).  Conversely, it is not about being rich or poor. As the commentator, Matthew Henry, once said, “It is not the lack of money but the love of money that is the root of all evil.”

 

How much money is enough?  Just a little more than what we have.  The problem is, a little more is never enough.  Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth (1 Timothy 6:6. The wealth of contentment is always the solution for the love of money.

 

The image is used with permission by Microsoft.

 

Ken Barnes, the author of  “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: Ken Barnes' Book Site
Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com
            http://gleanings757.blogspot.com

 

Knowing God

I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes.
I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.” 

(Job 42:5-6 NLT)

Knowing about God is not the same thing as knowing God.  It was not until Job had experienced the painful circumstances that he saw God through his own eyes. Will it be any different for us?

For some strange reason, it appears that you can only fully understand God's character by some form of pain.  Yes, you can know God intellectually without God's dealings in your life, but if you want to know him; personally, it always comes with a cross you must bear.  Even the son of God, Jesus, learned obedience by the things he suffered (Hebrews 5:8). 

Down through Christian history, people have embraced a suffering theology and tried to inflict it on themselves.  It never works this way.  Wanting to suffer is a bit sick.  Humility is never accomplished in our lives by what we do but by what God does.  If we try to bring it about by our human effort, we will eventually become proud of our humility.

 

So, what part do we play?  It's called obedience, which keeps us in the place that God can work in our lives. Human nature causes us to run from adversity, but also will bring about our fleeing from God.  You can't know God by running in the opposite direction. Jonah learned this the hard way.

 

When we see God for who he is and see ourselves for who we are, the natural response is humility, which is always demonstrated by repentance. Suffering enabled Job to know God in his heart and not just his mind.

 

The image us use with permission by Microsoft. 

 

Ken Barnes, the author of  “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: Ken Barnes' Book Site
Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com
            http://gleanings757.blogspot.com

God is Good All the Time

But Job replied, “You talk like a foolish woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?” So in all this, Job said nothing wrong.

(Job 2:10 NLT)

 

Believe God's Word

Amid Job’s trials, his wife asked him if he was still trying to maintain his integrity.  She said to him, Curse God and die (v, 9). In the midst of the worst possible circumstances, Job knew that God was good all the time.

 

The strategy of the enemy of our souls has always been the same.  It has been to distort the character of God.  From the Garden of Eden to Job and our trials today, the satanic plan has always been the same.  It has been to lead us to believe that God is not who he says he is in his Word.  In the Garden, the Serpent led Adam and Eve to believe that God was deceitful.  Job’s wife’s words tempted him to think that God did not care about his circumstances.  In your situation today, the voices in your head scream at you that God has abandoned you.  The endpoint is that you believe a lie.  The antidote is always to believe the truth.   “And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 20:28b).

 

Never judge God by your circumstances but judge your circumstances by the character of God.  The Lord is just in all his ways, and kind in all his doings (Psalms 145:17 NRSV).  If God is not good all the time, he is not good at all.  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

 

The image is used with permission by Microsoft.

 

Ken Barnes, the author of  “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: Ken Barnes' Book Site
Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com
            http://gleanings757.blogspot.com

 

Come Lord Jesus

If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be accursed. Maranatha!

 (1 Corinthians 16:22 NASB)

 

2020 has been a perilous year.  The world has been devastated by an unseen virus.  Our country seems to be divided more than ever along racial, political, and cultural lines.  We have just finished an election cycle where many are questioning its validity.

A President appears to have been elected that does not champion the value of human life in the womb. Despite all of this, Jesus will return and will make all things right.

 

Life is a battle.  That is why we are told to use every piece of God’s armor to fight the battle (Ephesians 6:13).  We lose a few of the encounters, but we continue to engage. We stay in the fight because we know we win the war.  Read the end of the book.  The offensive weapon we have is prayer.  We are told to pray at all times (Ephesians 6:18), in good times and in bad.  When we see the answers to our prayers and when we don’t.  Our heroes of faith of old saw things as done before they were done.

 

It is never over until it is over.  In Psalms 98:9, we are told that Jesus is coming to judge the earth with justice and fairness.  We will never have peace on earth fully until the Prince of Peace returns. Until that time, we must not shrink back but must maintain.  Only prayer, spiritual warfare, and the preaching of the Gospel to all nations will hasten the return of the King.

 

We must storm the very gates of hell with the mantra on our lips like the first century Church, Maranatha, come Lord Jesus.

 

The image used with permission by Microsoft.

 

Ken Barnes, the author of  “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: Ken Barnes' Book Site
Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com
            http://gleanings757.blogspot.com