This Day with the Master

Daily Devotional

January 5
My Face Will Go With You
Exodus 33

"My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." --Exodus 33:14

Moses was perhaps the greatest man who ever lived besides the Lord Jesus. He walked and talked with God in intimate ways, and he knew God as a man knows his friend. All throughout the exodus and the wilderness wanderings, God spoke directly to Moses, and Moses spent time in God’s personal presence. It was to Moses that God revealed His name, and it was to Moses that God gave His Law. Through Moses God led the people of Israel and provided for them.

The relationship between Moses and God was one of intimacy and reciprocity. Exodus 32–34 tells the sorrowful story of the Israelites’ betrayal of Yahweh with the golden calf and Yahweh’s desire to bring destruction on them. Moses interceded for the people, and God relented. Then he instructed Moses where to lead the people next: “Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; for I will not go up in your midst, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people” (Ex. 33:3).

Moses was not about to continue the journey without God’s presence. He knew the necessity, the value, the delight of God’s company, and he refused to move or to lead without His presence. “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here” (v. 15).

So God agreed, “My Presence will go with you.” The Hebrew actually says, “My face will go with you.”

As you journey into a new year, does the face of God indeed go with you? Or are you traveling without the face of God? A face is an incredible thing. It can speak louder than a voice, more tenderly than a touch. God desires a face-to-face relationship with His people so we can see in His face what He wills for us, what pleases Him, and what brings Him sorrow.

In Jesus Christ we can see the face of God, revealed by the Holy Spirit. We are to live every day in such a way that we can sense His face and know His presence. Do not begin this year alone when you could be face-to-face with God himself.
 

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February 27
Sanctification & Marriage
Isaiah 54:1-5

"'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh,' so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no man separate." -Mark 10:7-9

If our relationship with the Lord Jesus is a love relationship, is there anything in the covenant of marriage that could teach us about being entirely sanctified in our relationship to Jesus? Three characteristics of marriage apply to our ultimate love relationship. First of all, marriage is exclusive. It is the counterpart to the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Ex. 20:3). A marriage partner demands exclusive love, and so does God.

Second, marriage touches every aspect of our existence. The totality of the commitment is complete. There are no areas of our life that are left unaffected by our relationship to our spouse. The relationship with Jesus is similar. It is meant to be a total relationship, one affecting and determining everything else in our lives.

Finally, marriage is a permanent relationship. It is an unconditional giving of the self to another person forever. Our relationship with Jesus is supposed to be a permanent relationship that we would not violate under any condition.

It is terrifying to think of committing oneself to God exclusively, totally, and permanently unless one understands this commitment in terms of a love relationship. For some people marriage is a bit frightening, but it is a relationship for which the human heart longs. The demands that Jesus makes on us are simply those necessary for any beautiful and loving marriage relationship.
 

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March 29
The Key to Life
II Timothy 3:10-17

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." -II. Timothy 3:16&17

As you pore over Scripture, you should keep seeking to understand those great biblical clues that will enable you to interpret life as a Christian. How much happier and how much more effective all of our lives would be if we were thoroughly biblical in our outlook and orientation. Scripture is where the key to the interpretation of reality really is. There are so many of us who do not understand life. There are so many of us who live in confusion and uncertainty. God wants His children to see, to discern, to perceive, and to know, and therefore to be able to lead and to help others. We will never be ready to do that until we have come to the place where the Bible is not simply a book of magic or merely a religious book, but rather the key to life. It is the clue to reality given to us by the One who created reality.

I doubt that one can understand the basic realities of life—whether the nature of God, the nature of persons, the nature of marriage, the nature of the state, or the nature of one’s vocation—until one knows Scripture very well. The thing that now commends Scripture to me is the fact that it is the most realistic of all books; it is safe for me to plum its depths and then to base my life on it.

Jeremiah 10:23 tells us that our way is not in us. Jesus informs us that our way is in Him (John 14:6). And we find Jesus best in His Word.
 

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April 3
Hell's Reality
Luke 16:19-31

"If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead." - Luke 16:31

In Luke 16 Jesus tells the parable about the rich man and Lazarus, in which he speaks about eternal destinies. This parable indicates that one’s eternal future is the result of one’s choices in this world. It is not due to chance or even the goodness of God. By deciding to accept or reject God’s salvation, we determine our own destiny. A second lesson to be drawn is the corollary of this: sin has eternal consequences. Most people feel that their sins are of only the most temporal consequence and that if they wait long enough, the guilt will simply disappear. The story of the rich man and Lazarus shows us that our transgressions on this earth, if not forgiven through the grace of God, reap for us an eternal weight of condemnation. The end of this life is not the end of our sin unless we have been forgiven.

A third point of the story, which may seem obvious, is that the consequences of sin are not pleasant. Jesus pictures them as “torments.” It is a serious thing to leave this life if one is not rightly related to God. That seriousness is seen in the fourth point of this story. Jesus pictures no second chances after this life. A great gulf is fixed between the redeemed and the lost. As far as Jesus revealed our condition after this life, the day of grace and mercy is past and the opportunity for redemption is over. To hope for more is a gamble based only on desire. Eternal torment is pictured as a conscious existence in which one is filled with remorse and regret. This story is intended to caution readers so that they will miss such a destiny. It is out of love for the Pharisees and the wealthy that Jesus gives this parable as a warning.

We do not like to talk about hell, but Jesus did. Are you living in such a way that you will have no regrets on that final day? Are you living in such a way that your neighbor will have no regrets on that day because he has seen Jesus in you?
 

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May 8
The Black Book
Matthew 18:21-35

"Love... Keeps No Record of Wrongs." I Corinthians 13:5

You will remember that one of the characteristics of love listed in 1 Corinthians 13 is that it keeps no record of wrongs. What a great way to live. Can you imagine how different our relationships would be if we would let God wipe them clean every day? Wouldn’t it be liberating if we started every day with a clean slate, with nothing out of kilter from the day before? A great pastor told me about counseling a man and his wife who were in the process of getting a divorce. Finally he got the wife to consent to live with the husband, and then he turned to the husband and said, “All right, she is willing to make another try; are you?”

The husband looked at the pastor and said, “I will never sleep another night under the same roof with that little black book of hers.”

After the pastor recovered from his surprise, he turned to the wife: “What is in your black book?”

She grudgingly replied that she kept a careful record of every mistake that her husband made.

There is enough love and enough power in the Cross of Christ to enable us to forget past hurts and continue our relationships as if there had never been anything wrong. Even with the best intentions, this will never be done in human strength; only the Spirit of Jesus can enable us to forget our pains and hurts. If you choose to build up the memories of those hurts that other people have inflicted on you, you will pollute, corrupt, and destroy all of your relationships. Resentment has destructive power, but the grace of Christ has a deeper power to keep human relationships as clean and fresh as springtime.

It will take the love of God, and He can cause our love to forget.
 

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June 5
Who is Richer?
Mark 10:17-23

"For me to live is Christ and to die is gain." - Philippians 1:21

One verse of Charles Wesley's hymn, Jesus, Lover of my Soul, begins with a remarkable thought.

Thou, O Christ, art all I want;
More than all in Thee I find.*

Wesley continues by speaking of how Christ can raise the fallen, cheer the faint, heal the sick, and lead the blind. He seems to be saying that the answer to any human need is in Christ. Whatever I need to have done for me or to me, He can do.

The opening lines seem, though, to speak of something else. They speak of neither God’s gifts nor His acts. They speak of Christ himself, that He himself is better than anything He can do for us or give to us. Wesley seems to be saying that Christ himself is enough. To have Him is enough. We need no more.

It is fair to ask whether a person who has everything plus God is really any richer than a person who has only God. A person, if we could find one, who has only God is certainly not in poverty; he is as rich as the person who has everything plus God. God is enough.

Perhaps this is some of what Paul is saying when from prison he tells his Philippian friends that for him to live is Christ, and that therefore he has learned to be content in any state (Phil. 1:21; 4:11). It is certainly what Jesus is saying when He tells the rich ruler to sell all that he has and follow Him. Jesus is not calling the young man to less. He is calling him to more, to himself, and He is enough. Have you found Him so?

*Charles Wesley, "Jesus, Lover of My Soul," The United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville, Tenn.: United Methodist Publishing House, 1989), no. 479.
 

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July 15
Jesus' Temptations
Luke 4:1-13

"Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil." -Matthew 4:1

Note the legitimacy of the temptations that Satan used to appeal to Jesus. Certainly there is nothing wrong with eating when one is hungry, but Satan did not merely tempt Jesus to eat. He wanted Jesus to step out of God’s will for Him, and so he invited Jesus to use divine power to meet His own needs. Many of our temptations are attempts to get us to use God’s gifts, given for service to others, for the satisfaction of our personal needs, perhaps even ego needs.

In the second temptation Jesus was encouraged to show God’s power all at once, quickly and powerfully revealing who He was. This seemed to be an effective way of proving His divinity. Yet Jesus refused to accomplish God’s purposes without using God’s intended means and timetable.

The offer of all the kingdoms of the world was alluring because it came without the price tag of the Cross. Jesus knew that the kingdoms of the world would ultimately be given to Him. They were and are His, but He had to follow God’s way, and God’s way involved the sacrifice of His life. There is a Cross involved in our obedience to the will of God, just as there was for Jesus. Any temptation to bypass the sacrifice and settle for ease and security is from the evil one. Even God had no ultimate victory apart from the Cross.

The temptation of Jesus occurred at the beginning of His ministry. This is something that we must watch. Before every step of obedience, we will find resistance that must be overcome, temptation that must be fought. We must not use God for our own advantage. We must not accomplish His will in our way or time. And we must not bypass the Cross. It is in the losing of our way that we find it.
 

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August 25
Consequences of Sin
Matthew 18:6-14

"If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire." Matthew 18:8

There are two serious results of sin. First, sin separates the child from the Father, and the Father is the Source of life. Sin infects a person remarkably like a virus. One day we can be clean and healthy, and the next day we can have death in our body and not even realize that it is there. Suddenly we begin to find that life is more trying and more taxing, and sometimes the virus leads to death biblically. Sin does not just head us to the cemetery; it heads us for something infinitely worse, an eternity of separation from God, who is Life, Light, and Love. We must resist the temptation to minimize or rationalize the deadliness of sin.

Second, once we commit a sin, we have no capacity or ability to take that sin out of existence. It exists defiantly in the face of all our attempts to cover it or remove it. We cannot just turn over a new leaf and wipe the sin out of our life by willful choice. Sin is a treachery, and there is absolutely nothing we can do to repair the break we have made. The only hope for us is to allow God to do what only He can do. He alone cleanses a person’s heart. He alone restores broken relationships. He alone is the Answer to our sin.

If you are alienated from him, you are dying. If you are holding on to your sin, you are drowning in a sea of hopelessness. Turn to the One who is Light, who is Life, who is your Father.
 

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September 18
Sloshing Sins
Matthew 15:11-20

"Those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart,
and they defile a man." Matthew 15:18

One of the most effective illustrations I have ever heard was told at a retreat by the Baptist preacher Peter Lord. He asked a young lady come up to the platform, and he had in his hand a cup of water. He instructed the girl to grab the arm that held the cup of water and shake it very hard. After a moment of hesitation, the girl shook his arm, and water went flying everywhere. He looked at her and pointedly asked, “What made the glass spill water?”

Immediately she replied, “It spilled water because I shook your arm.”

“Oh no,” he said, “It spilled water because there was water in the cup.”

He turned to the rest of us and explained. “A fellow at work irritates you, but it is really not he who irritates you; he just sloshes out the irritation that is already present in your own heart. Sin originates in you. A person receives a promotion a little faster than you, and you find that you are fighting jealousy. That jealousy is inside of you, and all that other person did was bring to the surface what already dwelt in your heart. No one can provoke inside of you what does not originate there.”

Every human heart needs a deeper cleansing by the Holy Spirit. We ought to thank God for the person who irritates us or makes us angry or jealous. That person provides the means for God to teach us something about ourselves. That irritating person shows the true colors of my heart, and only once my heart is displayed in all of its corruption can it be washed white and clean.
 

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October 5
To Be in His Presence
Psalm 84

"A day in your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness." --Psalm 84:10

Meeting God profoundly affects our confidence and our expectations. When we find Him, it is always a shock to realize how much He cares about us. Instead of confronting a vindictive judge who waits for a chance to deal with us about our shortcomings, we find a God of grace who looks for the chance to forgive our sins, establish us in His favor, and pour on us His blessings. To our surprise, we learn that He will withhold nothing good from those who walk in sincerity and uprightness before Him. He is the Source of all good, and His will toward us is loving concern. He is our Sun who gives us light and our shield who surrounds us with protection.

The most important consequence of meeting God is what it does to our sense of priorities. We come to realize that we need Him more than anything else. In fact, we need Him even more than we need His gifts. It is for God himself that our soul cries out. The association with God will leave in us the hallowing impact of place and people and seasons, but our hearts will hunger for His presence. He is the Source of all goods, but He is better than all good. There is no justification needed for our searching for Him. Although some do not know it, to be near God is the deepest desire of every human heart.
 

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November 21
The Arm of the Lord
Isaiah 63:5

"Then the LORD saw it, and it displeased Him that there was not justice. He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him; and His own righteousness, it sustained Him." --Isaiah 59:15b-16

When I imagined the arm of the Lord as discussed in Isaiah 59, I always thought about Zeus on Mount Olympus with a lightning bolt in his fist. God straightens things out with a zap of His power. What a shock when I read the first verses of Isaiah 53, which describe the “arm of the Lord” (v. 1):

"He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised,
and we esteemed him not.

Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed....
He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter..." Isaiah 53:1-5,7

Now a lamb being led to the slaughter is completely unlike Zeus with his lightning bolt. This passage has transformed my understanding of the power of God. When I realized what it was saying, I found myself thinking that God had looked at the world in its sin and declared, “If I cannot find one person to bring salvation, then the only thing I can do is become one of them.”

Consequently, there was a Baby conceived in a virgin’s womb, there was an Infant born in a stable, and there was a Boy raised in a carpenter’s shop. And eventually, there was a Savior for all the world.
 

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December 25
The Most and the Least Significant
Luke 2:8-21

"Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them." -Luke 2:20

I have come to appreciate the story of the shepherds. I can hear those guys around their fire on that hillside after they had gathered all their sheep together for the night. They may have been saying, “Boy, this is a boring way to live. We will spend the rest of our lives out here instead of down in Jerusalem where things are happening. All we have out here are smelly sheep and shining stars.”

All of a sudden a heavenly being breaks into their world of monotony with the best news that the world has ever heard. The angel declares that if they will run quickly into the city, they will see the One on whom all of history will depend. They will experience personally the greatest event of all time. Those shepherds turn in wonder to look at each other, and then suddenly a whole host of angels appears, singing. Before their song has ended, those shepherds are racing to a stable to see the One about whom prophets prophesied and saints dreamed.

There are moments for all believers when the eternal breaks into the normal routines of daily life—when God himself comes to visit us. On this holy day, are we anticipating His divine presence to break into our lives?
 

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