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- Written by: Don Goulding
For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity to indulge your flesh, but through love serve one another. (Galatians 5:13)
I walked through San Francisco’s financial district wearing a custom tailored, sage-green suit. To the casual onlooker, I had the mark of success. I owned a respected business, loved a beautiful family, and gave liberally to charity. It was the American Christian dream.
In reality I was in bondage to the world system. I was a free son of the Most High God, voluntarily performing hard labor for my former warden. When Satan said worry, I lost sleep fretting. When he said act selfishly, I squandered my dignity on guilty pleasures. I had only given God my past and future, the devil controlled my present.
There are two brands of freedom. Only two. Freedom to serve a loving God or freedom to be enslaved to a vengeful devil. The version of freedom where we serve ourselves is false marketing, it’s Satan’s brand repackaged.
When I live within God’s moral boundaries, I’m liberated to love and dance inside a safely fenced yard. Those outside my protective barrier wag their heads and say I’m too hemmed in. But I tried living out there. I was tied up in fretfulness, snared by human acceptance, and a marionette beneath temporal pleasure.
I say, “No thank you,” to the devil’s brand. I am running to the one who calls me into his playground of freedom.
Prayer: Jesus, I choose freedom in you.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
… Jesus stood up and shouted out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. Just as the scripture says, ‘From within him will flow rivers of living water.’” (John 7:37-38)
I looked out of the mission house in Zimbabwe to see twelve-year-old Pauline skipping up the driveway. She was coming to make strawberry jam with Dani. This African child was a beam of sunshine. She didn’t walk, she skipped. She didn’t grumble, she sang.
My skepticism doubted Pauline’s perfect joy and I plied the child with questions.
“What would you do if another girl was angry with you?”
“I’d show them the same love Jesus showed me.” A confident dimple punctuated her reply.
Pauline had every reason to be a sullen child. Her parents were taken by AIDS and she shared an orphanage room with fifteen other girls. She was a watering can made to carry God’s joy to thirsty flowers, but life riddled the can with shotgun holes. Rather than abandon her assignment, Pauline let the holes become sprinklers through which she spread more love to those along her path.
The people we are called to love are not only rare distant flowers, but also the commoners along our way. It’s those near me that I have the most difficulty loving. I can go into a developing nation and pour myself into the needy, but at home I struggle to love my neighbors. God’s kindness is for both the foreign bloom and the domestic weed.
If I’m truly carrying the living water of Jesus, it becomes an artesian spring I can’t deplete. I can afford to pour love over those far off and those along my path. I can, like Pauline, admit my dysfunction so friends and family see grace spilling through the holes.
Prayer: Jesus, help me carry your love to all people in every circumstance.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
O Lord, of what importance is the human race, that you should notice them?
Of what importance is mankind, that you should be concerned about them? (Psalms 144:3)
Take a standard number two pencil, sharpen it to a good point, and tap the lead on a piece of paper to leave a dot. Let that .004 inch dot represent the 93 million miles from the earth to our sun. Using this scale, make a row of 216,400 dots to represent the distance to the nearest star, Proxima Centauri. To map the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy, draw 310 miles of dots side by side. The edge of the universe will be depicted when you line dots up one third of the way to the sun.
It’s necessary for me use dots when comparing distances in space, so I can make some attempt at grasping the ginormous scope of God’s governance. Realizing he holds together over 500 billion galaxies of every imaginable shape and color, I see that the word awesome only begins to describe him.
The most inconceivable fact is not that God is sovereign over the universe, but that he is also intensely focused on my minuscule life. All that vast space, billions of other places, whirling luminous ecstasies, and he—loves—me.
Humans were created as beings of great dignity. We were meant to receive and reciprocate God’s love. That’s our grand eternal mission. Sadly, we have largely abandoned our role. No matter how debased we become, we have the potential of regaining our purpose.
The one thing I can do to receive the dignity of being loved by the one who holds the universe together is to say yes to the offer of his Son. The result gives me something different than self-esteem. It’s a holy transaction that binds me to him who is forever significant—and therefore, makes me significant. It’s God-in-me esteem.
Prayer: LORD God, through Jesus, I receive your vast significance.