Yesterday, my facebook status was 1 Peter 2: 16. "Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God."
I had no idea that my status would tie so perfectly into today's devotional. Yesterday, I felt so burdened for a friend, so overwhelmed, that I started skimming through scripture for any passage I had previously underlined that would put my heart at ease. Have you ever done that? I do that often. Flipping through the pages and remembering what God was doing in my life when I underlined specific passages. His word is so alive today, and inflicts my heart in such a profound way. I can honestly say that there are times when I feel my soul rising up within me, calling out to my Saviour. When we sing songs in church that claim our soul sings, or our soul waits, or our soul longs....I know what those words mean! Have you ever experienced your soul so powerfully aware of Jesus Christ, that you could barely contain yourself? Maybe I just sound crazy...
When 1 Peter 2:16 came across my eyes, I was struck by the final clause. Servants of God. That is what I am; and while I may feel overwhelmed, and afraid to speak truth for how it comes across, am I speaking truth for my own praise, or for God's glory? At some point I must stop being bashful, and ignore the fleshly desires to be loved by all, and respected...and seek to be a servant of God.
The thing I love most about my devotional is praying God's word. (Coincidence that being the title? I think not!) Praying God's word allows me to be reminded of His loving scriptures, His true word, and His sometimes hard-to-listen-to discipline. My hope is that His word can be so engrained in me that I begin pouring out His word through my mouth rather than my own. That the Holy Spirit will really use my tongue as a vessel for His glory.
I'm going to share today's devotional. I believe it is one that as a believer we need to be reminded of. No matter how hard, or how beautiful His word is, as a Christian, we must be rooted in Truth.
"Until we choose to withhold no part of our lives from His authority, we will not experience full freedom." (It is so obscure to experience freedom while being a servant...only God can create such an oximoron and make it perfectly beautiful...perfectly perfect.) "Lord God, I know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God. I choose to be deceived no longer: neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And I have been some of those things...but, I have now been washed. I have been sanctified, I have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of my God (1 Cor. 6:9-11). Lord God, guard my course and protect my way as I pursue a righteous, victorious life in You (Prov. 2:8)."
I praise God for sending His son and making a way for me to know Him, to come before His throne and ask Him to protect my way. I serve a loving God. The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And no matter how impossible the situation may seem, He has provided a way to come before Him and lay my burdens down. Christ died, and He rose. And He is coming again with a vengeance to collect His bride, the church, and when He does, "Every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Phil. 2:10-11)
--Devotional from "Praying God's Word," Beth Moore.
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