This isn’t your regular have-a-devotional-time post. This daily devotional looks at what God provides in these seclusions.
Nuggets
- There are many ways that God protects us.
- God calls us to be a holy priesthood.
- God will correct us when we need it.
- We need to worship God His way.
To read devotions in the Redo for Godliness series, click the appropriate button below.
I am taking something from the drafts folder. I had all these things pulled in there, and I have used very few of them.
This sermon is by Gray, entitled Seclusions. I liked it because it talks about what God does in these seclusions.
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Let's Put It into Context
Gray explained that his words are referencing Jesus, not God. His evidence included
- His existence from before the foundation of the world.
- His secrecy before Bethlehem.
- His experiences while He lived on earth. We know that “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (Jn. 20: 30-31 ESV).
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The problem I have with Gray’s sermon is that he said that — but then he immediately starts saying it is God that is doing everything. So I am just going to say God, since He and Jesus are One and the same.
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Preserve and Protect
“Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will help you; I will hold on to you with My righteous right hand” (Isa. 41: 10 CSB)
There are many ways that God protects us.
There are times that God will remove us from a situation. More often than not, He leaves us there and loves us through it.
Gray made an important observation about how God does love us through it. He wrote, “And it preserves us in a special way, it protects us through a special process — by withdrawal.”
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No, I am not talking out of both sides of my mouth there. He leaves the situation to play out, but He pulls us into His comfort and embrace.
God wants us to get away from the pull of the world. Sometimes, we just have to get away from ourselves.
God wants us to be in a place where we can totally focus on Him.
God knows we need this time. It is a time to regroup, take a breath, and really listen to what He is telling us.
Why does God keep us in the fray? Gray wrote, “When opposition threatens or temptation assails, He may keep men face to face with the foes that encompass, and seek to educate and to strengthen them by the process.”
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Yep, God wants us to benchpress a Buick! He gets us the strength either by taking us through the trial, or by withdrawing us to His presence while we are it.
Meyer said that we have to give God room to do His work.
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To do that, we must empty us of ourselves. We have to take out our preconceived notions, our wanna be’s, and our fears. We clear that all out, so that God can come in and do His thing in us.
While doing what He has planned for us, God strengthens us. He gives us the power to get through the situation.
It is in these rough times that we tell ourselves that God is going to leave us. That isn’t the case.
I know. It is hard to really believe that God is still right there when He is being silent.
That is where faith steps up. Faith is a gift from God that enhances the conviction that the doctrines revealed in God’s Word are true, even if we do not understand all aspects of them, a belief which impacts our lives and distinguishes us from others.
Faith is the belief that God is there, even when we can’t see Him working in our lives. We are choosing Him for the long haul.
Preparing
“For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth” (Deut. 7: 6 ESV).
God calls us to be a holy priesthood.
God has a purpose for calling us into seclusion with Him. Deuteronomy 7: 6 says it is to make us holy.
Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
o Sanctified means to set free from sin.
o Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin.
We look at ourselves, read this verse, and just have one word. How?
God prepares us — or trains us — through the process of sanctification. As we navigate the Sanctification Road, we become more like Him.
Sanctification is the transformation of mind, body, and soul, which begins with regeneration, gradually changes our nature and morals through the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and ends with perfected state of spiritual wholeness or completeness.
- Regeneration is being changed from spiritually dead to spiritually alive and the internal requickening in us that God brings about through the work of the Holy Spirit to give us new character.
• Spiritual death is the separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin. The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God. - Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
o Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
o Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Glossary
We are to be a holy priesthood. I know – that term is scary. We don’t feel qualified to be called a priest or a pastor.
Look what Body says about that. He wrote, “Christians are a royal priesthood; they are united together in the Church to be a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ: the joy of priesthood should be the tasted joy of every member of the Church of Christ.”
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Body argued that, since Christ is the head of the church, we are His body and an extension of His fullness. He is the High Priest; we are also priests.
That is logical. We are all ministers. We are called to witness to others to expand His kingdom.
We are also to promote the unity through our ministry. This is the whole the-body-is-made-of-many-parts deal.
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Glossary
To be a priest of God, we have to worship Him. Worship is our personal or corporate response of admiration (confession, thanksgiving, praise, etc.) based on our attitude to God’s presence and our imitation of His character.
Yes, we need corporate worship. We need personal worship more.
Our personal worship is a way to withdraw with God. (You were wondering when I was going to get back to that, weren’t you?)
The provision, protection, and preparation all begin with worship. We have to love God before he can do anything with us. We can’t love him if we don’t know him.
So we have to spend time with God — just the two of us. Thomas reminded us that disciples have free access to God.
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Chastening
“Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent” (Rev. 3: 19 ESV)
God will correct us when we need it.
Ouch! We don’t like it when God corrects us.
Oh! Correct us, He will!
Gray wrote, “If ever a Christian is tempted to think his trials come from another source than the wise and tender Fatherhood of God, it is when they shape themselves in the words and deeds of sinful men. Yet the shadow which they cast on the life is only the shadow of the hand, and the pain the experience gives us only its contracting pressure.”
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What you think it should always be rainbows and unicorns with God? No, we disobey Him. Adam started it, but we have the Adam Chromosome in us, too.
God will correct us. He loves us too much not to.
But God doesn’t give us a performance evaluation in the middle of the company cafeteria. He takes us aside and speaks directly to us.
Why? Windle wrote, “The merciful design [of correction] is the conviction and conversion of the sinner, his restoration to the image of God.” Mede described the trials as medicinal and the repentance as the medicine.
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We have a job in this. We have to repent. Repentance is acknowledging our separation from God and expressing sorrow for breaking God’s laws and commandments by making the commitment to change our sinful ways to ways of righteousness through obedience.
God just wants us back on the straight and narrow.
What do we gain from correction?
- We don’t sin or the sin is eliminated.
- We get our focus off this world.
- We come closer to God.
Individualizing
We need to worship God His way.
Now, don’t look at the heading and think we get to individualize our worship. We have to worship God the way He has directed.
We can’t say that we aren’t going to join a church — that is for everyone else. We are going to worship God from our church of one member. He wants us to be a community.
We can’t say that we aren’t going to worship God 24/7/365 — that is for everyone else. We’re just going to worship Him when the church doors are open. We are to worship Him with every breath.
Gray said it was more than that. He said that, yes, God wants the whole of us — but we get the whole of Him, too.
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Making the Connections
Body reminded us that each one of us has the character of a priest. We don’t have the same gifts or the same measure of the gifts.
But read that again. Each of the disciples have the priestly character. You and me are disciples.
Elaine-speak in how Body described that. We are born into the priesthood when we are regenerated. That character has to mature until we are consecrated to do God’s work.
But we are all priests, and we all have a ministry.
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How Do We Apply This?
- We can’t customize our position as priest. We have to worship God in the way he calls us to do. We can’t change our calling.
- Remember what Culross said. He wrote,
- Love is the key that opens the barred door of the sinful heart.” God loves us while He corrects us.
- We have to let God remove from us everything that is pulling us away from Him — even if it is a valued relationship.
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Father God. We want our time with You alone. Bring us into Your holy presence. Amen.
What do you think?
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