No Place I'd Rather Be

September 23 (Psalm 84:10)

A single day in your courts    is better than a thousand anywhere else!I would rather be a gatekeeper in the house of my God    than live the good life in the homes of the wicked.  (NLT)

Most people who claim to be Christian would say that Jesus is wonderful and the Bible is great, and they could go on to list many other things about their faith that bring them joy.  Now, stop and ask yourself this.  If you had nothing else but Jesus and God’s word…no music, no Internet, no car, no job, no sports, no family, no house, no whatever that thing is that is your favorite in all the world…would that be enough?

I love my family more than anything else on earth, and I love a lot of stuff on earth.  Music and poetry and the natural wonders of state and national parks thrill me.  I take genuine pleasure in such things, and am grateful to God not only for His creation and what He has inspired through others, but for the eyes and ears with which to appreciate them.  And my family, well, I sometimes become downright giddy with joy over them.  My foot taps the accelerator a bit harder on my way home after work.

But when I take time to enter into the presence of God, when I sit with Him in prayer or ponder His words in Scripture, then I know that there is truly nothing I prefer to Him.  It is not that I enjoy the pleasures of life or love my family less, but that I desire Him more.  Such desire burns brightly when I turn my heart to Him, but it will only burn that way when He, and nothing else, is my heart’s focus.

Lord, thank You for the endless blessings of this life.  Even in times of illness and suffering, You have poured out on us more blessing than we could possibly comprehend.  Yet today I turn my focus from the things You have given me directly to You.  May You and You alone fill my mind and heart and be all that I desire.  I pray in the name of Jesus, amen.

Copyright © 2018 by Steven R. Perkins

Anchor In A Stormy World

January 28 (Ephesians 4:14)

…so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.  (ESV)

“It’s new, so you should buy it!”  “It’s backed by the latest research, so you should believe it!”  “People smarter than you have come up with it, so you should accept it!”  Pretty much since the first person improved on the wheel by putting two of them on an axle and attaching them to a vehicle, people have sold and gone after the latest thing.  In the case of the smartphone, this has been a good thing.  Look at other items in your neighborhood garage sales and…not so much.

It’s one thing to spend money on the latest and greatest, but when we fall in with trendy thinking, we run the risk of serious damage to the way we live.  As Christians, people who have accepted the gift of God’s saving grace through Jesus Christ and are living transformed and transforming lives, we are blessed to have a rock of stability in the howling winds of our age, winds that blow all the more fiercely in this time of instant communication.  That rock is Jesus Himself.  He never changes, and through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we have God’s words to us in the Bible.

It is natural to go after what is new, and after you have read the Bible, you may seek something else.  God does indeed inspire other Christian authors and speakers, and we can draw much from them, but we must always be anchored in the words of Scripture.  They are unchanging and keep us grounded in what can be a confusing age of ideas that sound good, but are false.

Dear God, sometimes I think life is just about You and me.  I forget that the faith I hold has been rooted in Your unchanging word for more than two thousand years.  Keep my mind from being distracted by ideas that seem good simply because they are new.  Open my heart to the eternal truths of Scripture so that I may remain unshaken in my service to You.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, amen.

Copyright © 2018 by Steven R. Perkins

Gaining Understanding From God

August 20 (Psalm 73:16-17)

But when I thought how to understand this,    

     it seemed to me a wearisome task,

until I went into the sanctuary of God;    

     then I discerned their end.  (ESV)

There are many things it seems wearisome to me to understand.  They include everything from insurance to plans for our children’s future to evil in the world.  There is no end of things I can read claiming to help me understand them.  The Internet is full of resources multiplying by the minute.  Do you ever notice how the abundance things offering help can be a burden in themselves?  The sheer volume of help is daunting.

Whether we are facing the most mundane of problems or the most world-threatening, we need to enter the sanctuary of God for any hope of understanding them.  We need to enter the physical sanctuary of our church and sit in His presence and praise.  We need to enter the spiritual sanctuary of our hearts and sit in His presence and listen to His Spirit.  We need to enter the living sanctuary of His word, the Bible, and be still as He speaks to us.  When we do, we will discern the truth of what we must understand, and we will not be wearied with our own efforts at trying to figure things out.

It may actually be easier for us to do this when confronting the major problems of the world.  We know right away they are beyond our understanding, so we may be more inclined to seek God’s wisdom.  The fact is, it is not the major world problems that weary us the most.  It is figuring out our insurance and planning for our children’s futures.  What are some of the countless small things wearying you?  Will you take them with you into the sanctuary of God?

Father, I have too much on my plate right now.  Some of it I put there, and some of it has been placed there by others.  I need Your help in understanding the way I should go with all of it.  Still my heart and let me hear from You.  If I start to run before You have spoken, please stop me so I can discern truly Your will.  In the name of my Lord, Jesus, amen.

Copyright © 2017 by Steven R. Perkins

Too Familiar With God

November 13 (Hebrews 2:1)

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.  (ESV)

It is actually possible for a Christian to become too familiar with the things of the faith.   The Bible, worship, prayer, our relationship with God…it can all become run of the mill, routine, mundane.  This is when we need to take a more intentional, focused approach to our walk with Jesus.

Recently I asked myself what I truly knew about God.  I realized immediately that anything I could know about Him would be most clearly revealed in Jesus, and so I began to ask what Jesus truly shows me about the nature of God.  I wanted to avoid the quick and easy answers…God is loving, forgiving gracious, etc. ….not because those statements are untrue, but because I have said them so many times I had to be sure I knew what they meant.  I went to the book of Hebrews and have not left it now for two weeks.  I keep reading it over and over, slowly chewing on its statements about Jesus and pondering deeply what those statements actually mean.

Try asking something about God.  Does He love you?  Are you forgiven?  Does He have a purpose for your life?  How does He feel about those who do not know Him or have rejected Him?  What are His standards for our behavior?  Does He have anything to say about your family or your job?  Even if it is a question to which you know the accepted answer, ask it again as you read a book of the Bible.  Stay with that question.  Let its focus guide you as you read with greater intention and purpose.  The answers you have always given, perhaps out of habit, will take on new meaning as the living word of God speaks directly to you.

O God, I do not want to drift in casual relationship with You.  Guide me as I explore Your word with focus and intention, always seeking to know You more through Jesus, in Whom all Your fullness was pleased to dwell.  May the Holy Spirit direct my thoughts and my questions as I dwell in Your word.  Amen.

Copyright © 2016 by Steven R. Perkins

Using Scripture To Hear God

May 1 (Luke 4:3-4)

The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’”  (ESV)

It is true that God speaks through burning bushes and whispers and that we need to be attentive to any moment when He is trying to get our attention.  At the same time, we must be careful that what we are hearing is actually the word of God and not merely human ideas or, worse yet, a suggestion from Satan cloaking itself to seem like something God would say.

How we know what we know changes depending on the subject.  I know my children love me through personal experience, but I know that in geometry alternate interior angles are equal when two parallel lines are cut by a transversal because my teacher told me so.  When it comes to confirming that a word indeed comes from God, we do what Jesus did.  We use Scripture.  The Bible is our authority, and if we sense that God is telling us something that runs counter to it, we can be sure of one thing.  We are wrong.

How well do you know the people, the events, and the teachings of the Bible?  How much time do you spend reading it?  Do you see the events of your life and all that is going on in the world around you through the lens of Scripture?  Simply put, Jesus did.

Thank You, Lord, for giving us Your word, the Bible.  Reveal to me its truths and help me to understand it so I can use it as the foundation for how I go about my day.  In all things may I be faithful to the one it reveals, even You, my Lord and my God.  Through Jesus I pray, amen.

Copyright © 2016 by Steven R. Perkins