Tag: passion

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I Get You

Daily Reading

Acts 9-10

Daily Thought

Firm in his belief that he was serving God, Paul was pursuing and persecuting Christians as far away as Damascus, a six-day journey. One saint in Damascus knew of his reputation and feared his coming, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem” (Acts 9:13). But on the road to Damascus, God confronted Paul. Paul had thought Jesus a fraud, when from heaven, Jesus spoke to Saul, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:5). Oops. Paul met Jesus and his life turned upside down–which was actually right-side up. 

I came home from college the summer following my freshman year and ran into a high school friend named John, but we called him “Animal.” An all-city nose guard, he was crazy on and off the football field. A wicked wit, he often spoke in rhyme, funny and filthy. “Hey Animal,” I smiled, anticipating a barrage of profanity, blasphemy, and debauchery. Instead, I got Grace. I got the Gospel. I got to hear about his friend, Jesus Christ. “John, what happened?”

“I got Jesus.” And Jesus got John.

Paul got the Gospel and Jesus got Paul. Repentance means to turn around, go the opposite direction. Paul repented. “All who heard him were amazed and said, ‘Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name?’ But Paul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ” (Acts 9:21-22). Nice people might make nice Christians, but watch what happens when God gets ahold of a person of unbridled passion.

Daily Prayer

It’s amazing grace, my God. I was a sinner, and You changed me. Now, I am a saint. May I never forget the transformation, and may I never tire of telling the story.

The goodness, the righteousness, the holiness of Your Son is now mine. I still sin, I know I do. But no longer am I a sinner. I am a child of God, not by anything I have done, but by the work of Jesus Christ. May the passion I used to display toward worldliness and wickedness be given to godliness all the more.

Amen

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Settle

Daily Reading

Genesis 46-47

Daily Thought

Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Your father and your brothers have come to you. The land of Egypt is before you. Settle your father and your brothers in the best of the land. Let them settle in the land of Goshen” (Genesis 47:5-6). Pharaoh means for Jacob and his family to make a home here in the land of Goshen, but hidden inside that word ‘settle’ is often a whisper of compromise, of settling for less. It can even mean “to sink gradually or slowly to the bottom.” 

By no means was Goshen the bottom. It was the one-time domain of the great Pharaoh Rameses, the best of the land of Egypt, but it wasn’t the land God promised to Jacob, “the land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you” (Genesis 35:12). To take Pharaoh’s offer would be to settle for something other than what God had designed for Jacob. 

May I brag about my dad for a moment? My dad taught math to junior high students for 35 years. The pre-teen years are an age of terror for most people, but my dad delighted in them, in shaping these young students not just for math, but for life. It was more than his job, it was his passion. He was made for the classroom, made to teach. Early on, he had been offered advancement into school administration. It was attractive and lucrative, but it wasn’t what God had designed him to do and he stayed in the classroom. I’ve always admired that he didn’t settle, in this case, for more.

“Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen. And they gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly” (Genesis 47:27). Sounds good, doesn’t it? But there is more to the story. The people of Israel would become the slaves of Egypt. For 400 years, they would sink slowly and gradually to the bottom, until God called a man named Moses to lead them out of Egypt and back to his land of promise. But that’s another story. 

This story is about my dad. My dad did not settle. He taught me the best life is to discover what God has made you for, grab on and give it all you got.  

Daily Prayer

My God, your design in all of creation is amazing and wonderful. I see that everywhere I look, so remind me of that when I look in the mirror. I am fearfully and wonderfully made, made on purpose for a purpose. May I give my whole heart to you and live the life you have set before me. God, help me to never settle for less, or even what might appear to be more, than what you want for me, because I know your desires are my greatest delight. 

Amen