When A King Thinks Of Others

August 12 (Matthew 22:4)

Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.”’  (ESV)

A king was giving a wedding feast for his son, yet when he sent his servants to gather those who had been invited, the guests blew off the event.  They had other, and obviously in their minds better, things to do.  That is simply stunning.  How do you blow off the king?  And how many kings have you ever heard of who would take such a snub lightly?  A typical, even reasonable, royal response would have been, “I am your king!  Get yourselves to the party right now!”  A different response might have appealed to the emotions of his subjects.  “It would really mean a lot to my son and me to have you there.”  Yet that is not what this king does.

This king sends his servants out a second time to remind the guests of all that has been prepared for them!  He wants them to know what they will be missing if they do not attend.  Unbelievable.  In the face of inconceivable rejection…royal subjects are actually defying their sovereign…this king is still thinking about what is best for his people.

And Jesus tells this story as an illustration of what the kingdom of heaven is like.  The king in this story is no earthly ruler.  Indeed, for no human would ever act so graciously.  No, this king represents God.  Even when we reject Him, His first thought is for us and all that we will miss if we are not in a right relationship with Him.  If you think God is out to get you for each mistake, think again.  He truly does want what is in your best interest, and that it is for you to be in the closest relationship with Him.

Father, I so quickly tell others which political candidate or elected official is best and give them a list of reasons why.  May I be even quicker to tell others of Your amazing love for them and how You have loved me beyond merit or measure.  In the name of Jesus, Your Son and my Savior, amen.

Copyright © 2018 by Steven R. Perkins

God's Loving Guidance

January 8 (Psalm 143:8)

Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love,

     for in you I trust.

Make me know the way I should go,

     for to you I lift up my soul.  (ESV)

Do you ever need some advice or encouragement?  You aren’t going to ask a stranger for it and you certainly won’t go to someone you don’t trust.  I would rather muddle along with my own confusion and feeble efforts than to open my heart to someone I am not absolutely certain is wise and truly cares for me.

I need to hear each morning how much God loves me.  Fortunately, there are ample statements of His love throughout the Bible.  I can turn to almost any page and find references to His steadfast love.  Armed with confidence in the love of God, I can then trust Him.  I can lay my questions and confusions and worries and doubts before Him and can ask Him the way to go.  In short, I can lift my very soul to Him.

My relationship with God, however, has to proceed in the right order.  I can pay lip service to trusting Him, but I am not going to seek His guidance for the things that matter most if do not believe in His love.  It has to start there.  Once I am convinced of this, and I need to be convinced again every morning, I will run to Him with my every need.

Father, thank You for evidence of Your love…in the Bible, in the countless examples throughout my own life, and in the whisperings of the Holy Spirit deep in my heart.  There are so many things I need Your help with, and I bring those before You now.  Show me the way I should go as I lift my soul to You.  In the name of Jesus, I pray.  Amen.

Copyright © 2017 by Steven R. Perkins

When Life Gets In The Way

January 1 (Romans 8:38)

Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.  (NLT)

I hope the new year brings the prospect of joy and renewed dreams for you.  That is certainly what we tend to focus on…goals, plans, looking ahead with the fresh eagerness of embarking on a new adventure.  Yet let’s be honest.  For some of us, the prospect is simply holding old fears at bay.  In fact, the barbarians of anxiety may already be massing at our gates.

I confess that I have always read this verse by focusing on the first and last parts.  I read it as a verse that spoke mostly about the end of my days and the confidence I could have in facing death.  But look more closely.  It also says that life cannot get in the way, “neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow.”

When we speak of life getting in the way, we usually mean the buildup of daily responsibilities that keeps us from doing what we want.  The day-to-day activities of our lives often separate us from family and friends.  They cannot separate us from God.  In fact, He is right there in the midst of everything, our dreams and our fears.  What an amazing thought!  Our dreams for the new year are not ours to accomplish alone, and our fears are not terrors we must face by ourselves.

Jesus, I need You at the start of this year.  There is much that lies ahead, both good and bad, things I can see, things I can only imagine, and things I fear and hope will never happen.  Help me to walk closely with You through it all.  May my confidence to face life this year be based on the fact nothing can separate me from You.  Amen.

Copyright © 2017 by Steven R. Perkins

Knowing That God Loves You

July 17 (John 21:23)

Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!”  (ESV)

One of the biggest challenges people face in accepting God’s goodness, His love, and His grace is the pain and suffering of others.  If I really believe that God guided my decision on something at work, how can I square that with His apparent absence in an atrocity where innocent people died?  Can I truly accept that He was involved in a small detail of my life but not in a far more significant matter of life and death?

I can only answer for the events of my own life.  You can only answer for yours.  We can use reasoning and logic with regard to free will and the fallen nature of mankind to try to understand horrific acts and God’s presence in them, but at the end of the day, I do not know why He does not reach in and stop tragedies.  The only thing I can do is look at what He has done in my own life.

And what do I find when I look at that record?  He has spoken to me countless times through Scripture, through the words of others, and in the depths of my heart.  He has guided me and provided for me.  He has heard my prayers and answered them.  He has saved me.  I cannot speak to anyone else’s experience of God, only to mine, and in the words of Joshua 24:15, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, because as Paul once said to Timothy, I know whom I have believed (2 Timothy 1:12).

Father, You know how difficult it is at times for me to accept that You love me.  Satan wants me to look at so many things to convince me that You don’t.  Yet when I stop and look at things clearly and calmly, I see at once Your immense love and grace for me.  Thank You, Father.  May I walk always in close and confident relationship with Jesus, Who more than anything or anyone, is the living proof of that love.  In His name I pray, amen.

Copyright © 2016 by Steven R. Perkins

God Loves You...Really

April 10 (1 John 4:16)

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.  God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.  (ESV)

“Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” is a blues standard dating back to 1923 and covered by everyone from Bessie Smith to Eric Clapton.  There is a reason it is a musical standard.  It speaks the truth.  Our world is based on performance, evaluations, and productivity.  If you have something to contribute, great, but if not, get lost.  We see it in sports, business, education, government, and even in relationships.

Now set that aside and listen to a man who walked and talked with Jesus.  John knows something different.  He knows about love, not greeting card love and certainly not the perverse carnival of self-centeredness that passes for love in popular culture.  Real, true, sober, no-frills, honest-to-goodness love is what God offers through Jesus.  That love dwells within us thanks to the Holy Spirit.  It is a love that grounds you, protects you, comforts you, directs you, strengthens you, supports you, encourages you, nourishes you, nurtures you, calls you, inspires you, challenges you, rebukes you, corrects you, and draws you ever closer to its source, the God of the universe Who sacrificed His life so you could live.

Do you seriously think that kind of love is contingent upon how productive you are or even upon how good you are?  The kind of love John is talking about is so far beyond our comprehension and our sins that it triumphed over death.  Come on, now.  Do you really believe that God does not love you?

Father, it is easy to believe that You do not love me when I listen to the voices of the world, the voice of my enemy, and even my own voice.  Yet when I listen to You and the words You have spoken through Scripture, the message is clear.  You really do love me.   Thank You!  Help me to walk and talk, to breathe and think in nothing but the love You have shown me in Christ Jesus, in Whose name I pray, amen.

Copyright © 2016 by Steven R. Perkins

The Constant Care and Presence of Jesus

November 29 (Genesis 28:15)

For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.  (ESV)

Our son and I were hiking in a sandstone canyon carved by the melting of glaciers in western Indiana.  I had pulled out my phone to take a picture of one glorious scene when I surprisingly received a bit of signal, and text messages started pinging through.  My friend’s wife had just been diagnosed with cancer.

It had been easy to revel in the splendor of God’s creation and to feel His goodness and love as we hiked the snow- and ice-covered trail beneath a brilliant, crisp, November sky.  But now?  We stopped and prayed together for our friends, but we before continuing on the trail, we talked about how some people are crushed by the trials that come to all of us, Christian and non-Christian alike, and how they can be led to question God’s love and even His presence.  I recalled this verse and others, and we talked about the sureness of God’s care for us, even, or especially, in moments when we do not feel it.

Illness.  Accidents on the highway.  Incurable diseases.  Losses of any kind.  Yes, we want to focus on Advent and the approach of Christmas.  There are lights to be hung and holiday preparations to be made.  Yet the very reason we celebrate the birth of one baby in a way we celebrate no other is because He was living proof of today’s verse.  Is He the One you cling to when the twinkling lights go out and the pains of life set in?

Every word.  Every breath.  Every act.  Every step.  All my life.  In my death.  Jesus.  Amen.

Copyright © 2015 by Steven R. Perkins

Trusting The Love of God

November 22 (Psalm 13:5)

But I have trusted in your steadfast love….  (ESV)

The Bible is unrelentingly realistic and unrelentingly hopeful, and one of the most wonderful words in all of Scripture is the conjunction “but.”  Not one of our ancestors in the faith portrays a silly, pie-in-the-sky attitude as if everything is or should be rosy all the time.  To have such a view or expectation of life would be a special kind of ridiculous.  We have pains, challenges, and difficulties.  Just look at your last week or think of the week ahead.

But.  Too many people stay stuck in the problems that come to us all.  Those who truly know God can say, “But….”  From King David to Jesus, those who not only know about the love of God but who dwell richly in that love can say confidently, even in the midst of the worst tragedies, that they will trust in Him.

This is not a sappy self-help notion that you can read, nod at approvingly, and then go on doing things your own way.  Seriously, stop for a moment.  Acknowledge with the Father Who loves you the issues that are plaguing you or causing you fear.  Lay them before His feet and then boldly, as if shouting in the face of hell, proclaim that you will trust His love no matter what.

Lord, today I take charge of my fears and the problems that are before me by letting them go.  I place them in Your hands, confident that You have far greater ability to handle them than I do.  Whether they are dealt with today or I must pray this pray again and again, I am confident in Your love, a love that was proved forever by the work of Jesus, my Savior, in Whose name I pray.  Amen.

Copyright © 2015 by Steven R. Perkins

July 5 (Matthew 10:31)

Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.  (ESV)

I was washing our car in the driveway recently and really wanted to do a good job.  I used a soft, cotton rag for the cleaning and dried it with a chamois.  I spent a lot of time detailing the glass, the seats, and the dashboard.  As I worked, I could not help thinking about the comparison with how God loves us.  If I cared that much about an object that would not last forever and that I had purchased with money, how much more must God care about His children who will live forever and that He purchased with His own blood?

It was a wonderful reminder of two things.  First, there is the unfathomable love of God that beggars all description and dwarfs any of our emotions.  Then there is His constant teaching, which He often accomplishes through our mundane tasks.  The daily activities that make up our lives are filled with opportunities to see His hand at work.

Where can you see God working in your life?  It may be in something grand, but it does not have to be.  It may be in something perfectly ordinary and routine.  And when you do see some new facet of His love or His grace or His truth, what will you do about it?

Father, thank You for pouring out on all of us more love than we could ever comprehend.  Thank You, too, for communicating that love in every moment of every day.  Give me eyes to see and ears to hear, that I may know and serve You more and better.  In the name of Jesus, Who bought my life with His, amen.

Copyright © 2015 by Steven R. Perkins

May 3 (John 16:27)

For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.  (ESV)

It is great to have friends.  It is fun to spend time with those you like, and quite often those relationships can lead to work and service opportunities that are truly fulfilling.  As for loneliness, few pains in life can be so bleak and unending.  It can feel as if the world is going on right outside your window, completely ignoring you.

Yet the person with a thousand friends and the person with none have something in common.  Their social situation is nothing compared with their relationship with God.  Friends come and go.  God never moves.  The darkness of being alone can be illuminated by the One Who is light.  Pause on these words from Jesus.  God our Father loves you.  He loves you.  Put your own name into this verse.  Say it out loud.  Let it sink in.  God.  Loves.  You.

Life is too much to bear alone, and if you think that you are handling it just fine with the friends and family around you, remember that they, like you, are only human.  Life is too much for mere human strength to handle.  God loves you, and that is your true source of strength.

Jesus, I do love You.  Thank You for reminding me that this love is not a one way street, that Your Father and mine loves me even more.

Copyright © 2015 by Steven R. Perkins

April 19 (Romans 5:8)

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  (ESV)

Homer’s Iliad is the epic poem about the Trojan War.  In Book III, the goddess Aphrodite speaks with Helen, whose beauty it was claimed launched a thousand ships.  In Stanley Lombardo’s translation, we find the goddess a bit angry with the mortal woman.

Don’t vex me, b****, or I may let go of you

And hate you as extravagantly as I love you now.

I can make you repulsive to both sides, you know,

Trojans and Greeks, and then where will you be?

I cannot help but be struck by the stark contrast with the one true God.  The Greco-Roman gods were easily angered and vindictive.  They were thought to love you one moment and strike you down the next, and you could only hope and guess about which would happen.  Imagine, then, the shock when it was revealed to people whose only experience of gods was like this passage from the Iliad that the one true God loved them, even when they sinned against Him.

Two thousand years later, do we take this for granted?  How grateful, really, are we for the love of God?  There is no one, not one, on earth or in any other faith, like the One Who loves us, even in our sins.

Father, may I never take for granted the love You have shown me through the life, death, and life of Your Son, my Savior, Jesus Christ.  May all that I do reflect that gratitude to You and show others the joy of Your love.  Amen.

Copyright © 2015 by Steven R. Perkins

February 15 (John 16:27)

for the Father himself loves you….  (ESV)

I wanted to find proof in the Bible that God loves me.  I know, I know.  You will say that the whole Bible is about the love of God, and you would be right, but I wanted to find a verse that says so explicitly.  I wanted something even more direct than the famous John 3:16, for while I am included by default in that verse, I wanted to find something more personal.

Guess what?  I found just such a verse.  And you know what makes it great?  Jesus Himself said it.  That is why I put the words of today’s verse in red, the way they are marked in some Bibles.  I wanted to highlight the source of these words so there could be no misunderstanding.  This is not the deduction concluded by deep theological speculation.  It is not a doctrine shared by some churches, but not by others.  It is not my own wish fulfillment.  Jesus Himself said these words.

What difference will these words make to you this day?  There are really only two answers.  Either these words will change everything or they will change nothing.  The effect they have depends entirely on what you believe about Jesus.

Father, my enemy would have me believe that You do not love me.  Your Son tells me You do.  In the midst of my fears and worries about life, may I cling to Jesus, even when I do not see Him, and reject the false terrors that fill my eyes.  Amen.

Copyright © 2015 by Steven R. Perkins

February 8 (Psalm 107:43)

Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord.  (ESV)

An ancient scroll says it will teach you to be wise.  You eagerly unroll it further to see what it will say.  You are told to pay careful attention to what comes next.  What gem of wisdom does it hold?  What will it tell you that the rest of the world does not know?  You unroll a bit more and discover the secret.  You are to ponder the love of God.

You may be a bit disappointed at first.  That’s it?  There is no detailed ritual to follow?  No journey to take, no arcane knowledge to master?  Love has become such a common concept that it seems trivial, and perhaps that is just the point.  The love of God is something much different.  It is a transforming force that changes reality itself.

So start with yourself.  Where have you seen God’s steadfast love in your life?  Where have you seen it in the lives of others?  As you ponder this love that is like no other, you will come to see that all other human reasoning falls by the way. 

Father, it has become cliché to talk of Your love.  I never want that incredible gift to become worn out, old hat, yesterday’s news.  May the incredible power of Your love burn brightly every day in my heart and in my life.  In the name of Jesus, Who gave that love to me, amen.

Copyright © 2015 by Steven R. Perkins