The Better Part, week #1

 

Last week, I announced that I was doing something- a devotional, of sorts- on FB every day called "The Better Part.  I thought I would collect them here on Sunday from now on.

Welcome to my new years resolution:

The better part, day one:

 

Mar 12:41 And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums.

Mar 12:42 And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny.

Mar 12:43 And he called his disciples to him and said to them, "Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box.

Mar 12:44 For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on." 

 

This spoke to me in an unusual way when I heard it this morning. I have, over the last couple of years, developed an arrogant habit of just tossing pennies away- on the ground, in the

'I don't want this' cup at work, or anonymous places in my bedroom. For this woman, something far less in value was far more valuable. I believe I shall make a change and save this change, collecting it for those who may need a few pennies. I started with two of 'em I left sitting on the break room table. Lord help me to focus on things of real value this coming year.

 

 

The Better Part, day 2:

 

Psa 5:3 My voice You shall hear in the morning, O Jehovah; in the morning I will direct my prayer to You, and I will look up. 

 

Notice the emphasis on morning. Why is that? David Jeremiah gave us a clue today- I shall try to paraphrase:

"God is a start-over God. Every 24 hours, we get a new morning to start over. Every 7 days, we get a new week, and every four or five weeks, a new month. God could have run all that time together in a bundle. But instead He put us on a planet that every 365 days goes around the sun and comes to its starting point- and it starts over. Even non-believers have a sense of a new year being a place where they can start over- and so can we. God divided time into sections because He IS a start-over God. Jesus died for us so we could start over. And His mercies are new every morning."

Don't let Satan talk you into dragging yesterday's mistakes and missed opportunities into today. The favorite thing for me that Jesus ever said was, "See? I make all things new."

 

 

The Better part, day #3:

 

Psa 5:3 My voice You shall hear in the morning, O Jehovah; in the morning I will direct my prayer to You, and I will look up. (Yes, the same verse as yesterday)

 

Over the years, I have heard a lot of SM arguing about 'correct posture in prayer/church', which I find extremely silly. But this part gives us a valuable lesson. David is praising God in the morning, and in attitude of praise, he looks UP. Think about this: What do you see when you look down? Your feet (where YOU are headed), your body (needs, desires), and your hands (what YOU can do). On the other hand, if you look up- whether you're under the open sky, the unfurnitured, uncluttered ceiling, or just in the shapeless dark- you see a fragment of the unbelievable vastness of God. How much easier to praise when He is big and you are small.

 

 

The Better part, day #4:

 

Job 42:5 I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye has seen You.

Job 42:6 Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes. 

 

Sometime in the wee morning hours I heard that first verse compared to going from what the world might call prayer to what God calls prayer. And as I studied it, I saw that this is exactly the case: Job, like us, had been going through the motions- devoutly, but without a personal relationship to the God he worshiped. But now, after he ceased protesting his righteousness, shut up and LISTENED, He SAW God- not as something far off but as SomeONE very close. Lord, let me come to you as he did after, not before.

 

 

The better part, day# 5:

 

Rom 7:21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 

 

Last night, a pastor was using this passage to explain how there were 2 types of struggling Christian: The perfectionist, who uses the law to make himself do better, and the defeatist who looks at the Law's impossibility and says, "I can't do it, may as well give up". The first fails to take the power of sin seriously; "Even if, for one day, he can say, 'I did it!' ", the pastor said, "All that would do is make him believe he didn't need a savior." The second- into which category I fall- takes the power of sin seriously, but not the power that Christ gives him to resist it.

Chuck Swindoll this morning mused on the topic in telling a story of a staff meeting. "I used to go to church," a staffer said, "to serve and to be a better person." Chuck asked, "And why do you go now?" He answered, "Because I love Jesus!" And if we love Jesus, it becomes something other than attempting and failing to obey rules.

 

 

The Better part, day #6:

 

Heb 5:7 In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.

Heb 5:8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. 

 

There are at least three lessons about prayer in these 2 verses. The first, it is NOT forbidden to cry out to the Father "with loud cries and tears." God didn't give us emotions to repress them before Him. BUT... the second is, "He was heard because of His REVERENCE. It was coming to our Father with respect, praise, worship, that got His cries an audience. And third- He was heard- but didn't get the answer He asked for ("Remove this cup from me"). But in not getting the answer He wanted He learned obedience. And He had to do that by submitting to "Not my will, but Thine, be done." Our prayers are like that as well. "This is what I want... but lead me to what YOU want."

 

 

The Better part, day #7:

 

Mat 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

Mat 7:22 On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?'

Mat 7:23 And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.' 

 

I was reminded last night that this was the verse that haunted ME until I was saved by the grace of Christ. Growing up Catholic, you can get the impression that as long as you at least hit the high holy days and confession around Easter and Christmas, you should be okay... but I could never shake the "Lord, Lord" feeling until the dark night I gave it all to Him. Even then, I didn't understand that I was embarking on a different journey- that from now on, 'being a good person' and 'knowing there is a God' wasn't enough. And that knowledge needs to expand... the journey isn't over yet!