The Joy of Glory

Deuteronomy 7:9–14 (click here)
Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face. You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today. (Deuteronomy 7:9-11)

Reflection
God is the faithful, covenant keeping God. Yet he punishes covenant breakers. So, we must be covenant keepers. There is just one problem…

…we do not do that! Not a single one of us!

We are covenant breakers! All you have to do is look at the most basic summary of the Mosaic covenant, the Ten Commandments, to figure out really quickly that we have all been unfaithful to the Lord in some way. And, even if we somehow fooled ourselves into thinking that we are perfect according to the law… none of us have kept the greatest commandment to love the Lord our God with every ounce of our being!

So, what are we to do? What can we do?

The simple answer is nothing.

We cannot DO anything. We cannot fix what we have broken. We cannot un-break the covenant. We need someone to faithfully keep the covenant in our place! Yet God alone is a faithful covenant keeper. How can he keep it for us?

God took on flesh… Jesus Christ… God incarnate… our covenant keeper!

By faith we are united to Christ and his covenant keeping becomes our covenant keeping, and the destruction we deserved his taken care of by his cross!

All the blessings God promised to those who keep his covenant, including the eradication of death itself, are ours in Christ, and the day is coming when we will experience every single one of them! All God’s promises are yes and amen in Christ!

God is the faithful, covenant keeping God!

He does that! For every single one of us!

*All previous devotionals may be found at www.thejoyofglory.com
*The complete SVCC Lenten reading guide is available here.

Leviticus 19:17-18
“You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”

Reflection
Can we really be commanded to love?

Doesn’t love lie outside of our control? Isn’t it more of an emotional response that just bubbles up out of the heart? Or… have do we have the concept of love wrong altogether? Perhaps it has nothing to do with affection but is rooted in action no matter what one is feeling. At least then it would make sense that we could be commanded to love. And yet, something about the concept of love having nothing to do with affection just seems wrong.

That’s because it is.

Love absolutely involves affections which do result in actions. This is a both/and situation, not an either/or.

And, God does not hesitate to command us to love! He does not hesitate to command us not to hate! God commands everything about us, even our affections!

How can we possibly obey such commands?

The simple answer is that we cannot. We cannot turn love and hate off and on like flipping a light switch. These things bubble up out of the depths of our heart, which we cannot change no matter how much we try! We need our hearts to be transformed in order for our affections to be transformed. Only God himself can transform a heart!

This is why Saint Augustine said, “Lord, command what you will and grant what you command!” He recognized that we cannot obey the commands of God (like the command to love him and our neighbor) unless God empowers us to obey.

We do not naturally possess the ability to love our neighbors as our ourselves. That is the way that God loves. We need him to pour out his love in our hearts. We need his love abiding in us so that we may love with his love!

Are you abiding in his love? Dear Christian, he has promised to empower you to do so. Pray, seek, depend… abide… and see if your heart is not transformed to love with the very love of God.
*All previous devotionals may be found at www.thejoyofglory.com
*The complete SVCC Lenten reading guide is available here.

Each day of the Lenten season, I will be emailing out a devotional to many of the members of SVCC. I will also be sharing these devos via www.thejoyofglory.com

These are designed to accompany the SVCC Lenten reading guide which may be found here: 2018 Lenten Reading Guide

In these devotionals I will give a link that will take you to the entire reading for the day if you would like to read it. I will actually include a few of the verses upon which I will focus my reflections. In the reflection section I will make a few brief comments which I hope will spur your own thinking and prayers.

Lent is meant to be a season of repentance and fasting that prepares our hearts for the coming celebration of Easter (fuller explanation here). Repentance is a reminder that we need to be saved from our sin…we need a Savior. Fasting reminds us that we are not in need of the things this world offers, but in desperate need of Jesus. So, the point of Lent is that we need Jesus…we need Easter. It is my prayer that these daily devotionals will simply help remind us of our daily need for Christ.

Exodus 15 11-18 (click here)
“Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders? You stretched out your right hand; the earth swallowed them. You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed; you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.”

“You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain, the place, O LORD, which you have made for your abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established. The LORD will reign forever and ever.” (Exodus 15:11-13 and 17-18)

Reflection
Do you journal?

I’m not asking if you are a faithful journaler, chronicling your everyday existence. I wish I was that consistent, but I do make occasional attempts at recording particular events. I have found journaling to be particularly helpful when the Lord has worked in my life in a way that cannot be denied. This practice has proven to be beneficial because I am such a forgetful creature.

We are forgetful creatures.

God will work in my life in some amazing way, but within a matter of weeks or days (or even shorter) I find myself living as if he had never acted at all. Is this not a reality repeated to us throughout the story of the Exodus? God saved his people out of the land of Egypt to lead them to a land he had promised them as a home. Yet, along the difficult journey they constantly forgot the deeds of the Lord.

This is why Scripture constantly calls God’s people to remember what he has done! In Exodus 15, God’s people are directed towards his glorious deeds he performed in redeeming them and guiding them. This looking back is meant to stir up faith amidst their difficult journey so that they may have confidence concerning the future they have been promised… that God himself will plant them in the land he promised them. They will dwell there in the presence of the Lord as he reigns forever.

When I find myself amidst life’s most difficult days, it is helpful to flip back in my journal and read my own words about God’s past faithfulness. It’s as if “past me” is preaching to “present me” to trust that the Lord is faithful and will bring me all the way home to enjoy his presence forever! The past deeds of the Lord stir up my faith in the present and gives me confidence concerning the future.

In what ways has God been faithful to you in the past? Perhaps you should write it down. Do a bit of journaling so that when the days are dark you can remind yourself that God has been faithful and will be faithful forever.

*All previous devotionals may be found at www.thejoyofglory.com
*The complete SVCC Lenten reading guide is available here.