In the last devotion, we started looking at how we can get weary – even when we are doing what God calls us to do. This devotional finishes up our look at issues that make us grow weary as we transform to be like Him.
Nuggets
We must consistently focus on God instead of ourselves, which can be tiring as we are selfish.
Withstanding Satan can be tiring, even if we are consistently following God’s Will.
Working for the Lord in the transformation process can be wearisome.
To read devotions in the Habitual Holiness of Heart and Life theme, click the button below.
Devotions in the Commit to Grow Our Habits study
In the last devotion, we started looking at striving to be transformed to be like God and working for Him. Burns had three more categories at which to look.
Surprise, surprise. They follow the same lines.
But isn’t that to be expected? God is interested in our spiritual condition. That is where He is going to focus. We should, too.
Let's Put It into Context
Here is a running list of nuggets for the series.
Here is a running list of nuggets for the study.
The foundation of this devotion is built on Burns’ Constancy in Well-Doing and Punshon’s Perseverence in Well-Doing.
Burns’ wording appears in the headings.
Well-Doing Requires Sacrifices, and We Are Prone to Selfishness
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom. 12: 1 ESV)
We must consistently focus on God instead of ourselves, which can be tiring as we are selfish.
We hear that one of the biggest reasons non-believers give for not ABCDing is that they feel they will have to sacrifice too much to become believers. Yes and no.
Yes, they do have to sacrifice. Our job description says we are to become living sacrifices.
The Disciple’s Job Description
Complete Job Description
Individual Description
Job Duty #1
Be a Living Sacrifice (Romans 12: 1-2)
That means we can’t just give lip service to God and think that is going to buy us fire insurance. We can’t even just change some of our outward behaviors and this we’ve got it covered.
Our inmost places have to be transformed. We can’t do this. Only God can.
The sacrifice required is our obedience. It has to be a holy and acceptable sacrifice to God.
Fiddes describe our living sacrifice as a prepared and joyous obedience. He said that this helps in times of trials and lack of confidence.
Resource
This reminds of us several points.
- We generally think of living sacrifice as it being a life-long commitment tonGod. We also need to look at it as we are “… dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6: 11 NIV). This means we don’t compromise with the worldview. Another way is to think of it as a continual sacrifice — we need to be consistent.
- We are to prepare ourselves before Satan sends the temptations. We do this by searching for and seeking God. We have to grow ourselves on the Sanctification Road so that we are prepared to be obedient.
- Our joy comes from God. He gives it to His obedient children.
- The trials are going to come. We have to be prepared for them. We can only fight them when we have on the armor of God.
- We just talked about confidence in the last devotion. We said that confidence should be the assurance of our belief in God’s goodness and power. We can put our faith and trust in Him.
To read a devotion in the Armor of God series, click on the button below.
The key here is holiness. Holiness is the transcendent excellence of His nature that includes elements of purity, dedication, and commitment that lead to our being set apart through consecration to mold to God’s Will.
- Purity means possessing God’s moral character, having eliminated the stain of sin.
The only way we become Holy is by navigating the Sanctification Road. Sanctification is the transformational process of the 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 new birth and requickening 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.
- Spiritual death is the separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
- 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.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
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
Glossary
Becoming holy take consistency and commitment. That opens the door to weariness.
The Sanctification Road is a long, curvy road. We will have lots of setbacks because the struggle will be great, and we aren’t perfect/mature yet.
Satan and the World Will Be against Us, So that We Must Fight and Wrestle Even in Doing Good
“In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak” (Eph. 6: 16-20 ESV)
Withstanding Satan can be tiring, even if we are consistently following God’s Will.
Back to the armor of God.
Let’s recap if we didn’t click back to the older devotions.
- Belt of truth
- Breastplate of righteousness
- Shoes for our feet
- Shield of faith
- Helmet of salvation
- Sword of the Spirit
When we are God’s children, Satan is going to hound us if we are obedient. He is going to do everything in his power to get us to turn from God.
Once we have, Satan can leave us alone. He isn’t going to waste as much time on us.
He already has us.
Our fear really messes us up. We lose our trust that God is in control of all we see and don’t see and understand.
That uncertainty takes our focus off God and puts it on ourselves. And in gallops Satan.
Satan throws in doubts to “sweeten” his pot. He gives us “better” options.
But Satan outright lies. He options aren’t better. His pot isn’t sweeter.
What started all of this? We got tired of fighting. We couldn’t keep consistent in our trust that God has this.
Our fears can only go away when we consistently focus on God.
We do that through faith. Leyburn told us how faith is a shield. He wrote that it presents “… to its possessor both temporal and eternal things in something of their real and relative value.”
Resource
Think about it. Temporal — worldly — and eternal — spiritual. Which has the most value?
What has the most value is spiritual, not the things of this world.
Listen to what Spurgeon had to say. He wrote, “Unsettledness in notion generally springs from a weakness of faith. A man that has strong faith in Christ, has got a hand that gets such a grip of the doctrines of grace, that you could not unclasp it, do what you would. He knows what he has believed. He understands what he has received. He could not and would not give up what he knows to be the truth of God, though all the schemes that men devise should assail him with their most treacherous art.”
Resource
That is consistency. Faith takes the hits and keeps on standing.
Often Our Labors Appear Useless, and We Are in Danger of Being Discouraged
“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (I Cor. 15: 58 ESV)
Working for the Lord in the transformation process can be wearisome.
Ooo, baby! Work is work!
But let’s focus. The focus is on God. The work is the transformation.
Read what Dickson said. He wrote, “We are exhorted to be habitually and increasingly employed in the service of Christ — ‘always abounding in the work of the Lord.’ the duties of the Christian life are emphatically styled a work and a labour. Its difficulties do not arise wholly from external temptations, nor is the service which it requires confined to the resistance of sin. There are graces and virtues which must be brought into actual and vigorous exercise, and duties which every man in his own station must labour diligently and faithfully to perform.”
Resource
Not just habitually employed in the service of Christ, but increasingly employed. We are working to bring the graces and virtues into true and strong application.
We do the did-them-to-the-least-of-me acts of kindness (Mt. 25: 35-36) to get the graces and virtues up and running and getting stronger.
Verse Commentary
Dickson was right. The bigger the picture we get of God’s truth, the happier we are. We get that bigger picture by habitually conforming and submitting to what God calls us to be — the image of Him.
The two are linked together — doctrine and practice. If we do the practice without the foundation, there is no stability.
And, boy, does that lead to weariness!
The worldview may think that just doing the kind acts is enough, but it isn’t. Money gets tight — the charity work flies out the door. Trials show us — we don’t have any contentment to give to anyone else.
We have to do in Jesus’ name to make it consistent and vital.
Yes, it circles back to being immovable — not giving in to Satan’s shenanigans. We have to stay focused on and committed to God.
What gives us the stability? We are doing the work of the Lord. When we are following His Will and doing His work, we reap the rewards.
Making the Connections #1
Fiddes talked about our need for consistency. He wrote, “Our whole life in every part and period of it should be consecrated to the service of God. Our incense must burn continually before Him, and the sacrifice of our body, while we are in the body, never cease to be offered.”
Resource
If it is going to be a call for the duration of our lives, we must not get weary because we have an important task. We are to serve God.
Making the Connections #2
I know. I am on my soapbox.
It isn’t about what we do. It is about who we become.
Goldie help explain that. He wrote, “But it is not enough that we acquire all the virtues of the Christian character; these we must possess in the highest degree; we must make continual progress in holiness; we must be advancing from one degree of grace and perfection to another; we must study to arrive at the fulness of the stature of the perfect man, which is in God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Resource
Having all the virtues isn’t enough. We have to have the holiness that goes with them.
Being a good person isn’t enough. We have to have God to go with that.
How Do We Apply This?
- Adhere to God’ doctrine.
- Focus on God and His transformation of us.
- Listen to God when He says to us.
Resource
Father God. We want to do Your Will. We want to do Your work. We want to transform to become like You. Help us when we grow weary in doing so. Amen.
What do you think?
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