“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
Jeremiah 31:33

Proper Motivation

Daily Devotion – November 3, 2022

Devotion based on Jeremiah 31:33

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The language of the covenant God made with the Old Testament people of Israel was full of “you”: You shall have no other gods. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God. You shall not covet. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

The problem with all those “you shall” and “you shall not” was that God’s people proved they could not keep up their end of the bargain. By the time the prophet Jeremiah wrote today’s verse breaking the covenant had become habitual.

The people had shown that the law’s commands could not properly motivate them to be obedient. They needed a new covenant. This new covenant would be different from the old covenant.

It would not be a list of obligations chiseled by God’s finger into stone tablets. It would not be full of “you shall” and “you shall not.” Instead this covenant would be written by God’s Spirit onto human hearts, and it would be full of I’s: “I will make … I will put … I will write … I will be their God.”

The old covenant told people what to do, but the new covenant would be all about what God did to save everyone from their sins and make a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. God made that covenant when he sent his Son into the world to do the work of salvation.

Jesus’ perfect life, innocent death, and glorious resurrection are all we need. There are no “you shall” and “you shall not” required to get into heaven. The new covenant puts God’s law in our minds for us to follow—not so that God will make us his, but because he already has.

In other words, Christians do not serve God because they have to. Christians serve God because they want to!

Prayer:
Lord, thank you for being my God. Help me to live for you. Amen.

“The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant.”
Jeremiah 31:31,32

A New Covenant

Daily Devotion – November 2, 2022

Devotion based on Jeremiah 31:31,32

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God did an amazing thing almost fifteen hundred years before Jesus was born. He freed his people from slavery in Egypt and brought them to their new homeland. Along the way, he had them stop at a mountain called Sinai so that he could make a covenant with them. At that time a covenant was like what a contract is today.

The covenant that God made with his people was two-sided—both he and the people contributed to it. God told them, “If you obey my law, then I will protect you and bless you in your new home.” The people replied, “We will do everything you say.”

Unlike modern contracts—which are sealed with signatures—this ancient covenant was sealed with blood from animal sacrifices. But just like modern contracts, a covenant is only good as the people who agree to it. Over the centuries, God kept his covenant promise perfectly, and the people made breaking the covenant their way of life.

Can you relate to that? Think of the promises that you have made to God and to other people, and then remember all the things you have done to break those promises. You know yourself.

But God knows you too. That is why God promised to make a new covenant. This covenant is not just for God’s Old Testament people but all people of all time—including you.

It tells you to do nothing. Instead, it is all about what God has done to forgive you. Unlike the old covenant, this new covenant is one-sided. It does not depend on your obedience but entirely on God’s saving love.

And this covenant was also sealed in blood. Almost fifteen hundred years after the old covenant was ratified, the Son of God was crucified on a mountain called Calvary. The blood he shed on the cross sealed the new covenant and freed you from slavery to sin.

Prayer:
Lord, thank you for the new covenant of forgiveness sealed in Jesus’ blood. Amen.

Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.”
John 8:31

Hold to Jesus’ Teaching

Daily Devotion – October 31, 2022

Devotion based on John 8:31

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A little over 500 years ago, on October 31, 1517, a monk named Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. This document contained statements questioning the church’s teachings about how God forgives sinners.

Its intention was to encourage scholarly discussion, but it grew into something much more important. In fact, only four years later, Martin Luther stood trial before the most powerful men in Europe because his questioning of the church was becoming a reformation of the church.

The issue, in this case, was not how we are forgiven but who was in charge of Christianity. Luther believed that Jesus’ teaching in the Bible was the one source of authority for Christians. But at that time, almost everyone believed the church’s leaders in Rome were in charge.

So, at his trial they asked him a simple question: “Will you recant?” He knew what they meant: “Will you admit that you were wrong and take back everything you taught?” They wanted him to say yes, but that would mean letting go of Jesus’ teaching. But Luther was Jesus’ disciple and had learned to hold to Christ’s teaching at all costs.

What about you? Do you want to be Jesus’ disciple too? You are Jesus’ disciple if you hold to his teaching. That means hearing, reading, learning, and taking it to heart.

And when the Word is heard, things happen. Jesus’ Word opens deaf ears, unlooses mute tongues, expels demons, illuminates blind eyes, and raises the dead. Jesus is the Word made flesh that dies and returns to life. His Word promises that sinners are forgiven through faith in him. Luther knew that Christians had to hold on to that teaching at all costs, because it frees us from listening to those who contradict God’s Word.

That is why he refused to recant and gave them a simple answer: “Unless I am convinced by Holy Scriptures and plain reason my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither safe nor right. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me! Amen.”

Prayer:
Lord, keep me steadfast in your Word. Amen.

Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.”
John 8:31

Stick to the Playbook

Daily Devotion – October 30, 2022

Devotion based on John 8:31

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Are you a fan of American football? Even if you aren’t, you can understand that in football, as in any team sport, the coach has a playbook. The playbook guides players to take the right number of steps, make the right cuts, throw the right passes, attack the right angles, all to defeat their opponent and win the game. Training camps and practice after practice drill those plays into the athletes, so they become second nature during the game. Imagine the disappointment of the coach when his players don’t follow the playbook!

Imagine the disappointment of God when his people don’t follow his Word! Indeed, the Bible is so much more than a playbook. God hasn’t given his Word to drill the right steps to take and tell you the decisions you need to make, but the Bible does present a message of victory for you.

Jesus teaches you of the victory you have in him. Even though you have taken the wrong steps, attacked the wrong angles in your life, and disappointed God, Jesus teaches you that you are forgiven. Jesus teaches you that he is your Savior. He stepped onto the gridiron of this world and faced the fiercest opponent. Jesus faced death itself for you, and he won. He gave up his life on the cross for your forgiveness but then rose again in victory over the grave.

That’s why his teaching is so important. It’s why he tells you, and all who follow him, to hold on to it with such a grip that no opponent can ever force a fumble out of your hands.

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, teach and strengthen me to hold firmly to your Word of Truth. Help me to boldly live my life as your disciple. Amen.

For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.
Deuteronomy 10:17,18

The God Who Helps

Daily Devotion – October 28, 2022

Devotion based on Deuteronomy 10:17,18

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When I was in grade school, and teams were being picked for kickball, basketball, or baseball during recess, I regularly witnessed what I think is the typical playground experience when choosing teams: the captains always chose the strongest first and made their way down to the weakest. They chose the individuals whose talent or skill could provide the most help to the team.

God doesn’t do the same thing. Time and again in the Bible, when God chooses the individuals, he will associate with, he regularly chooses the individuals who need the most help or feel the most invisible. “He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow,” Moses reminded Israel.

There are people who have had to walk through life without father, whether that father left by their own choice or was taken from them by death. There are many people who walk through life as a widow, living each day without the comfort of companionship they formerly enjoyed. There are many people who aren’t fatherless or widowed yet walk through each day feeling rejected, unlovable, or invisible.

But we are never invisible to God. This is the God who chose Israel—the smallest nation—to bring the Savior into the world. This is the God who chose Moses—not the greatest speaker or bravest man—to deliver Israel from slavery. This is the God who chose David—an afterthought even in the minds of his own family—to defeat a giant and lead as a king. This is the God who chose to save all of us, though he is very familiar with all of our sins, by forgiving those sins entirely through the perfect life and sacrificial death of the one truly “good” person—Jesus Christ.

God doesn’t choose the people who are better than most. He chooses people who need him the most.

Prayer:
Gracious God, thank you for helping me so completely and perfectly through my Savior, Jesus. Amen.

A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’” “All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
Luke 18:18-22

Need for a Savior

Daily Devotion – October 25, 2022

Devotion based on Luke 18:18-22

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Often when you see a picture of the Ten Commandments, you see them split up on two different tablets. On the first tablet are the first three commandments, with the remaining commandments listed on the second.

The commandments Jesus quoted to the young man in our Bible reading today would fit on the second tablet. They focus on how we’re supposed to treat the people around us—forbidding adultery, murder, stealing, lying, and dishonoring our parents. And this man didn’t react all that differently than many people might today when they hear those things: “Well, I’ve done a pretty good job with those. I haven’t murdered anyone, haven’t had an affair, and yesterday I called my mom and told her I love her. And if I haven’t, I think that with a bit of effort, if I stepped up my game a bit, I could do those things pretty well.”

We can all be tempted to think we are good enough for God. It appears that the young man speaking with Jesus did. So, out of love, Jesus tried to show the man that he wasn’t good enough and needed someone to save him from his sins. He needed Jesus.

It doesn’t appear that the young man learned his lesson. When Jesus revealed that the young man loved his money more than he loved his God, instead of repenting and seeking forgiveness—the man went away sad.

Don’t let this happen to you. When God uses the words of the Bible to reveal your sin, don’t walk away sad. Instead, turn to your Savior. Jesus has already paid the price for your sin. He has lived the perfectly good life you could never live. He is the answer to the question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Trust in the One who has earned eternal life for you.

Prayer:
Gracious Savior, keep my eyes always fixed on your work as my Savior and the everlasting value it gives to me. Amen.

So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” The man asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered. Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.”
Genesis 32:24-28

Wrestling with God

Daily Devotion – October 22, 2022

Devotion based on Genesis 32:24-28

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God doesn’t always give us what we want, at least not right away. Have you noticed this? You pray and pray and pray for something, but there seems to be no answer. Sometimes we become discouraged or angry with God because it appears that he’s not listening. We might even conclude that God doesn’t love us!

To accuse God of not loving us is a sin of the highest order. God is love. He showed that love when he sent his Son to die on a cross as payment for our sins. God’s love for us is greater than any other love we can imagine.

So, why doesn’t God give us what we want when we want it? Sometimes he gives us the opportunity to exercise our faith by being persistent in prayer. Wrestling with God in prayer is a way to demonstrate that we trust he will do what is best for us, in his own time and in his own way.

We won’t wrestle God physically the way Jacob did in this unusual story from the Bible. But we do wrestle with God spiritually in our prayers. Like Jacob, be bold and persistent in asking for God’s blessing. Then, trust that the God of love will answer in whatever way is best for you.

Prayer:
Heavenly Father, give me the faith to trust you completely. Give me a spirit of persistent prayer that knows you will do whatever is best for me. Amen.

And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.”
Luke 18:6-8

Patiently Await

Daily Devotion – October 20, 2022

Devotion based on Luke 18:6-8

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We’ve come to expect instant gratification. It’s not that we want it fixed, but we want it fixed now. When we begin to feel aches and pains, we expect the doctor to offer a solution after one visit. When a home appliance malfunctions, we want it repaired that day. And when we order something online, we expect to have the item in hand within a day or two. We want it, and we want it now.

Our world of modern convenience has duped us into becoming impatient, and in many cases, sinfully so. That’s not conducive to developing and enriching the life of Christian prayer because patience and persistence are essential ingredients to having one. If we expect immediate results, we’ll become easily frustrated and give up.

Jesus understands what it takes to have a healthy prayer life better than anyone else could. Not only is he true God who hears and understands the prayers of his people with deep compassion and perfect timing. He is also truly human, who during his days on earth “offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears” (Hebrews 5:7). Yes, to this day, he continues to pray for us at his Father’s right hand. If Jesus’ prayers don’t get instant results, why should ours? And if he hasn’t given up praying and pleading for us every day. Why would we?

Why? Because we’re impatient! Because we don’t get the immediate results from our prayers that we expect. But Jesus reminds us today: the results are coming; we just need to be patient! “Will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you; he will see that they get justice, and quickly.”

When you find yourself impatient for God to answer your prayers, remember that you are one of God’s chosen ones, washed of your sins in the blood of Jesus and adopted into God’s family. Be patient and persistent in prayer. God hears you. And, in his time, he will answer you.

Prayer:
Jesus, help me to be like you in prayer, patient and persistent. Amen.

[Jesus] said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’ For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”
Luke 18:2-5

Wearing Out Your Opponent

Daily Devotion – October 19, 2022

Devotion based on Luke 18:2-5

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If you’re going to be victorious in an athletic contest, it helps to have more skill than your opponent. But having superior skill doesn’t necessarily guarantee victory. Other factors play into who wins and who loses.

One strategy that less-skilled players and teams employ in order to beat a superior opponent is to turn the game or match into a test of endurance. They may have better players, but if you can wear them out with your plodding game plan, you might be able to beat them.

That’s the very lesson Jesus is teaching in his parable of the persistent widow. This woman is seeking justice from her local judge. He doesn’t care about her case, but she wears him out with her persistent pleading, with the judge finally exclaiming, “Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!” Persistence pays off.

Anyone who has ever begged their parents to buy them something special, only to have their persistence pay off with the item they so desperately desired, knows of what Jesus speaks. If we nagged and nagged, wearing our parental “opponent” down, we’d receive our reward.

If an uncaring judge could be won over with patient persistence, imagine what will happen when you patiently persist in praying to your loving heavenly Father for your needs. After all, he is the one who was willing to meet your greatest need by sacrificing his own son to save you from your sins. Surely, he will respond in whatever way is best when you persistently pray to him for your needs.

Prayer:
Heavenly Father, give me the persistence I need in prayer. Amen.