Unjust Treatment
When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he withdrew to Galilee.Matthew 4:12
There are days of mistreatment that come from disloyal and jealous people. Sometimes good people experience bad consequences, so the glory of God can be made known through their lives. John boldly took a public stand for his faith and was punished for his courageous obedience to God. Do you feel like you have been wronged for doing right? Has your faith been put on trial and were you convicted for speaking the truth?
Your circumstance of ill treatment may not result in a physical rescue from Christ. It is in your trapped condition that He wants your intimacy with Him to grow deeper and sweeter. Your authorities at work may have broken a promise or used an unscrupulous process to get their desired results. You feel used and abused. So how will you respond? Will you return evil for evil, or will you extend grace in the face of extreme frustration?
“Do not repay evil for evil”… “If your enemy is hungry, feed him: if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head” (Romans 12:17a, 20). A radical response of love is a remedy for being isolated by an unjust person.
What are you learning as a result of feeling rejected or misunderstood? Has your determination grown in its resolve and do you have more focused attention on the mission of the organization? Loss of freedom and/or resources realigns us to the essentials of an effective strategy and efficient execution.
Use this time of limited options to build sustainable systems and the most productive processes. Cling to your core values as your compass for behavior. Your optimism is an insurgent against other’s insecurities. Lastly, let the Lord be your source of strength. Faith forged on the anvil of adversity becomes solid steel in mental toughness, emotional stability and spiritual maturity.
When people see Jesus in your humble, non-defensive attitude, they hear His voice of truth. Learn your lessons from the Lord during stressful situations and leave it with Him to educate others in what needs to be done. Perseverance pays with respect and results.
Am I consumed with trusting Christ or my unjust treatment? How can I, by God’s grace, love the unlovely?
Related Readings: Psalm 23; Psalm 109:5; 2 Timothy 3:2; Revelation 7:12
Post/Tweet this today: Faith forged on the anvil of adversity becomes solid steel in mental toughness, emotional stability and spiritual maturity.
~Wisdom Hunters Devotional~
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~T. Austin-Sparks
There are days of mistreatment that come from disloyal and jealous people. Sometimes good people experience bad consequences, so the glory of God can be made known through their lives. John boldly took a public stand for his faith and was punished for his courageous obedience to God. Do you feel like you have been wronged for doing right? Has your faith been put on trial and were you convicted for speaking the truth?
Your circumstance of ill treatment may not result in a physical rescue from Christ. It is in your trapped condition that He wants your intimacy with Him to grow deeper and sweeter. Your authorities at work may have broken a promise or used an unscrupulous process to get their desired results. You feel used and abused. So how will you respond? Will you return evil for evil, or will you extend grace in the face of extreme frustration?
“Do not repay evil for evil”… “If your enemy is hungry, feed him: if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head” (Romans 12:17a, 20). A radical response of love is a remedy for being isolated by an unjust person.
What are you learning as a result of feeling rejected or misunderstood? Has your determination grown in its resolve and do you have more focused attention on the mission of the organization? Loss of freedom and/or resources realigns us to the essentials of an effective strategy and efficient execution.
Use this time of limited options to build sustainable systems and the most productive processes. Cling to your core values as your compass for behavior. Your optimism is an insurgent against other’s insecurities. Lastly, let the Lord be your source of strength. Faith forged on the anvil of adversity becomes solid steel in mental toughness, emotional stability and spiritual maturity.
When people see Jesus in your humble, non-defensive attitude, they hear His voice of truth. Learn your lessons from the Lord during stressful situations and leave it with Him to educate others in what needs to be done. Perseverance pays with respect and results.
Am I consumed with trusting Christ or my unjust treatment? How can I, by God’s grace, love the unlovely?
Related Readings: Psalm 23; Psalm 109:5; 2 Timothy 3:2; Revelation 7:12
Post/Tweet this today: Faith forged on the anvil of adversity becomes solid steel in mental toughness, emotional stability and spiritual maturity.
~Wisdom Hunters Devotional~
_______________________________
Redeem the Time!
BIBLE MEDITATION:
“Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”James 4:17
DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:
Procrastination. Just seeing the word makes me want to put off saying anything else. Are you under conviction in that area? One fellow said, “I started to procrastinate, then decided to put it off.”
Procrastination is a form of disobedience. When God tells us to do something and we don’t do it, we can label our actions with all kinds of fancy words, but the bottom line is, it’s sin. The days are passing and time cannot be stopped. You can’t call a “time out” in life. And time can’t be stored like money in the bank. Really, the only thing you can do with time is use it or lose it.
ACTION POINT:
Someone has said, “Lost: One golden hour, studded with sixty diamond minutes. No reward offered, for it is lost forever." Redeem the time.
“Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”James 4:17
DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:
Procrastination. Just seeing the word makes me want to put off saying anything else. Are you under conviction in that area? One fellow said, “I started to procrastinate, then decided to put it off.”
Procrastination is a form of disobedience. When God tells us to do something and we don’t do it, we can label our actions with all kinds of fancy words, but the bottom line is, it’s sin. The days are passing and time cannot be stopped. You can’t call a “time out” in life. And time can’t be stored like money in the bank. Really, the only thing you can do with time is use it or lose it.
ACTION POINT:
Someone has said, “Lost: One golden hour, studded with sixty diamond minutes. No reward offered, for it is lost forever." Redeem the time.
~Adrian Rogers~
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Some one gained a good lesson from a Southern prayer meeting. A brother asked the Lord for various blessings--as you and I do, and thanked the Lord for many already received--as you and I do; but he closed with this unusual petition: "And, O Lord, support us! Yes support us Lord on every leanin' side!"
Have you any leaning sides? This humble man's prayer pictures them in a new way and shows the Great Supporter in a new light also. He is always walking by the Christian, ready to extend His mighty arm and steady the weak one on "every leanin' side."
"Child of My love, lean hard,
And let Me feel the pressure of thy care;
I know thy burden, child. I shaped it;
Poised it in Mine Own hand; made no proportion
In its weight to thine unaided strength,
For even as I laid it on, I said,
'I shall be near, and while she leans on Me,
This burden shall be Mine, not hers;
So shall I keep My child within the circling arms
Of My Own love.'
Here lay it down, nor fear
To impose it on a shoulder which upholds the government of worlds.
Yet closer come: Thou art not near enough.
I would embrace thy care;
So I might feel My child reposing on My breast.
Thou lovest Me? I knew it.
Doubt not then;
But Loving Me, lean hard."
And let Me feel the pressure of thy care;
I know thy burden, child. I shaped it;
Poised it in Mine Own hand; made no proportion
In its weight to thine unaided strength,
For even as I laid it on, I said,
'I shall be near, and while she leans on Me,
This burden shall be Mine, not hers;
So shall I keep My child within the circling arms
Of My Own love.'
Here lay it down, nor fear
To impose it on a shoulder which upholds the government of worlds.
Yet closer come: Thou art not near enough.
I would embrace thy care;
So I might feel My child reposing on My breast.
Thou lovest Me? I knew it.
Doubt not then;
But Loving Me, lean hard."
~L. B. Cowman~
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I pray... that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints. (Ephesians 1:18 NIV)
What is Christ’s inheritance in the saints? What are the riches of the glory of Christ’s inheritance in the saints? It is that the saints are to provide Him with the means of the universal manifestation of Himself as God has purposed Him to be. It is a part of the arrangement in those counsels of the Godhead, that He shall be the central fullness, but that the fullness should not be manifested, displayed in an isolated way. There would be no purpose in that, because He could have done that in Deity without incarnation, He could have possessed the fullness in that way, and that is what the letter to the Philippians says. He was equal with God, and had all the fullness, but He emptied Himself. Why? In order that others might be brought into the fullness, that He might not hold it all for Himself. That is what Satan wants to do.
The Lord Jesus let go in order to bring others in. The apostle says, “Let this mind be in you.” If any of you are inclined to stand for your own rights, on your own ground, to hold things for yourself, you are violating the very spirit of Christ who let go His own rights in order that others might come into them and get the benefit. So the inheritance of Christ is this: that He is made heir of all things, but He can have all things only as He has the saints, and He gets those “all things” through and in the saints. It is a part of the arrangement, the agreement. It is not as one isolated unit in God’s universe, that He is to have everything, but by appointment man-wise, in a corporate sense, and not only in a personal sense.... The Lord is not satisfied with His people just being saved, and the Lord is not satisfied that people should just remain saved. The Lord has fixed this as His goal: the full knowledge of Him. It is indispensable to the Lord. His inheritance is bound up with it. The need today is that the Lord’s own people should come into a knowledge of Himself which they do not possess, into a position in relation to Himself which they do not occupy; in a word: into the full knowledge of Him.
~T. Austin-Sparks
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