devotional 190509

Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. It was so cold and foggy in Daly City but warm and sunny in Burlingame. Though I took a day off yesterday, I was fully occupied in running errands. I needed to help my foster child to move back home from Berkeley. Time really flies. My foster child has finished first year of college, and his brother will start college this fall. Praise God for giving us the opportunity to serve these two kids. Pray that the Lord will use them to bless many people to come. It was the love of God that inspired us to take care of them. And I believe God will use them to extend His love to even more people in days to come.

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" (Romans 8:35) God does not keep a man immune from trouble; He says - "I will be with him in trouble." It does not matter what actual troubles in the most extreme form get hold of a man's life, not one of them can separate him from his relationship to God. We are "more than conquerors in all these things." Paul is not talking of imaginary things, but of things that are desperately relevant to our daily living; and he says we are super-victors in the midst of them, not by our creativity, or by our courage, or by anything other than the fact that not one of them affects our relationship to God in Jesus Christ. Rightly or wrongly, we are where we are, exactly in the condition we are in. I am sorry for the Christian who has not something in his circumstances he wishes was not there.

"Shall tribulation separate us from the love of God?" Tribulation is never a noble thing; but let tribulation be what it may - exhausting, annoying, fatiguing, it is not able to separate us from the love of God. Never let cares or tribulations separate you from the fact that God loves you.

"Shall anguish separate us from the love of God?" - can God's love hold when everything says that His love is a lie, and that there is no such thing as justice?

"Shall famine separate us from the love of God?" - can we not only believe in the love of God but be more than conquerors, even while we are being starved?

Either Jesus Christ is a deceiver and Paul is deluded, or some extraordinary thing happens to a man who holds on to the love of God when the odds are all against God's character. Logic is silenced in the face of every one of these things. Only one thing can account for it - the love of God in Christ Jesus. "Out of the wreck I rise" every time.

Father God, I need this kind of will power and courage in the face of difficulty in life. This kind of will power is not something we born with nor shaped by life experiences. This spiritual resilience must be a gift from above; something that comes with the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Sweet Holy Spirit, your presence is the sign of your love for me, because our Lord Jesus has promised that He will never forsake us no matter how the world may turn against us… We stand by and claim your promise because you are our faithful God.

Let’s turn our eyes to Jesus when life is stormy and unpredictable, not like a coward or as a form of escape, but for more courage in conquering Satan’s harassment and oppression. Amen?

Love you because of His relentless love for us,
Lawrence