- Details
- Written by: Don Goulding
Consider how the flowers grow; they do not work or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these! (Luke 12:27)
I am not a paper-thin flower swaying at the slightest breeze. I will not bloom for a lunar cycle only to molder in decay.
People are like a vapor, their days like a shadow that disappears. (Psalms 144:4)
I am not a vapor, a mist that wafts above the field when droplets form in a chance gathering. I will not swirl off to oblivion at the first shift in weather, without name or future.
Do not be afraid, you worm Jacob, little Israel, do not fear, for I myself will help you,” declares the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. (Isaiah 41:14) (NIV)
I am not a worm writhing underground, blind to the whole of life above me. I will not temp every bird, mole, and fish to make their next meal from me.
I am not a flower, vapor, or worm. I am a child of God. I’m adopted into his holy family, an elevated, eternal being. Co-ownership of all he possesses is bequeathed to me.
Because of who my Father is, fear is not my master. Rather, it bows to me. I breathe that I might never give in to such enemies of Christ—fear, hate, lies, and death.
My Creator planned my existence before the stars were born. I am his dream incarnated.
Prayer: Father of mine, may I stand tall beside you.
- Details
- Written by: Don Goulding
Woe to them! For they have traveled down Cain’s path, and because of greed have abandoned themselves to Balaam’s error; hence, they will certainly perish in Korah’s rebellion. (Jude 1:11)
In their worship of God, Cain, Balaam, and Korah all tried to replace the genuine article with their counterfeit versions.
Cain exchanged offerings approved by God with unsanctioned fruit. Balaam invented a version of God who cursed for hire. Korah decided his approach to God was as good as Moses’s, and his coup of the high priesthood was swallowed into a shortcut to hell.
Inventing God as we imagine him, and worshiping how we choose are reckless lies that reach back to the snake in the garden. The same human pride now prevents some from humbling themselves before Jesus as God’s revealed solution.
As I talk with people around the world about faith, I find an epidemic of those who want to engage the supernatural and end in heaven, but they don’t want to encounter the real God. It’s no surprise because the only path to a holy God takes us through the swamp of our sinfulness, and who wants to wade in that stench?
To avoid the peril of Cain, Balaam, and Korah, I must answer one question—Does my worship originate from human pride, or am I humbly seeking God as he is revealed in the Christian Bible?
Prayer: Jesus, help me genuinely worship the one true God.
- Details
- Written by: Don Goulding
You study the scriptures thoroughly because you think in them you possess eternal life, and it is these same scriptures that testify about me, but you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life. (John 5:39-40)
When I served in Albania, a small boy couldn’t reach the table from his chair. I slid a thick Bible under the lad to boost him a few inches.
“How dare you use the Word of God to sit on,” a local believer said with a furrowed brow.
I replaced the Bible with a dictionary.
The encounter left me wondering which was more sacred, the paper, ink, and leather of the Bible or the child who sat on it? I recalled that the living word of God, Jesus, allowed children to sit on him.
I don’t want the Bible to become something it is not. It is not a lucky talisman and it is not the target of my adoration. It’s also not meant as a source for bookish knowledge. The Bible is a miracle that the Holy Spirit uses to carry me to Jesus—who is the complete Word of God.
The best way I know to respect Bibles, crosses, angels, and whatever else points to Jesus, is to not worship them. Instead, I will pursue saturation to my core by the person of Jesus Christ. Only there can I find life to the fullest.
Prayer: Jesus, Holy Word of God, consume me.