Tag Archives: heart

God's Greater Purposes

God Himself is Our Very Great Reward

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“Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield,   your very great reward.” (Genesis 15:1b NIV)

Abram was called from his home, from his relatives, from his father’s house. [1] God promised Abram he would have descendants as numerous as the dust of the earth.[2]

But Abram was afraid. He and Sarai were childless. How could God do what He’d promised? Circumstances didn’t match what God said He’d do.

Later God would make a covenant with Abram and change his name to Abraham (father of many nations). God blessed Abraham and choose to make him into a great nation, not just physically, but spiritually. Through Abraham, God would bring forth His Son to die in our place and usher in His eternal Kingdom.

Abraham saw glimpses of God’s coming kingdom, but many things were unclear. In Gerar, because he was afraid, he lied about Sarah being his sister.[3] Later, after Isaac was born, God tested him, asking Abraham to sacrifice his only son. Abraham obeyed, trusting in an eternal story he didn’t understand.

God has an eternal story for us. He’s working to show us He Himself is all we need.

God is our Very Great Reward. He’s who we’ve been looking for all our lives. To the degree we understand and grow to love Him, eternal Peace, Hope and Joy will be a part of our days. God is at work for our greater good. He is working to unlatch our hearts from anything or anybody we love more than Him, but this process can be very difficult.

What are we afraid of right now? Has the unthinkable happened? If God is our Great Reward, can even the worst news take away our Joy? When all is stripped away, will we sink deeper into His love; or will we be afraid?

At Embassy Suites finishing out a birthday get away with my bride. Headed back to the room I pass Felicia from housekeeping. She asks how I’m doing. “Fine,” I say, really more as a salutation, “How about you?” I ask.

“I’m awesome!” she says with a big smile. Not expecting such an exuberant answer, I stop and chat. I learn her condition has nothing to with what’s going on in her life. It comes from her trust in King Jesus and His plans for her. God is teaching her that He is her Shield, her Very Great Reward.

Lord, my heart is full. I know you are my Very Great Reward, but there are things on earth which compete with You. Guide me into full surrender. Like Felicia, help me learn to be awesome because You’re Awesome. May I be filled with thanksgiving because You’re in charge of my story. Help me trust, even in the midst of life’s difficulties. You are my Shield, my Very Great Reward. I will not be afraid. Amen.

[1] Genesis 13:4

[2] Genesis 13:14-18

[3] Genesis 20

Joy in the Journey is about the gladness of God’s nearness in the midst of life’s adventures.

Subscribe below to get email notifications of new posts. We post a few times a month. Thank you for reading. 

 Novels by the Author:

Rob Buck

What happens when a professor figures out how to send messages to his younger self to try and avoid the suicide of his best friend? Did he change more than he bargained for?  Beyond Time

By finding two undelivered letters in a old shack deep in the woods, Cassie and Daniel unknowing set off a series of events which uncover a plot to wipe out a whole family Hope Remains

Complete Joy

Joy is a Person

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I’ve been a joy seeker from an early age. As a child, before life’s troubles crusted my heart, I tasted joy: Christmas smells and lights, waking up to freshly fallen snow, strawberries from my grandfather’s garden, family vacations in Vermont.

These whiffs awakened desires for lasting joy built into me by my Creator. I went searching for more,  but  lost the scent along the way, traveling many wrong roads.

  • Lasting joy isn’t found in buying your first car or going on your first date in said car.
  • Lasting joy doesn’t happen when you leave home and go to college. Nor does it happen when you finally graduate.
  • Lasting joy doesn’t come from drugs, sex and rock and roll.
  • Lasting joy doesn’t come from pleasing people or accumulating possessions
  • Lasting joy doesn’t happen when you get married and have children of your own.
  • Lasting joy doesn’t come from trying to be a great  husband or father.
  • Lasting joy doesn’t happen when you’re successful in your career, when you pay downs debts and build up your 401K.
  • Lasting joy doesn’t come from trying to live a life free from troubles and striving after smooth circumstances.

God doesn’t want us settling for finite pleasures to fulfill our need for eternal joy. He made us for much more. As C.S. Lewis wrote, “It would seem that our Lord finds our desire not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday the sea. We are too far to easily pleased.”[1]

Joy isn’t automatically realized when you give your life to Christ and invite Him to indwell you by His Holy Spirit. But this is where the journey begins.

Wrong pursuits  of joy require painful redirection of passions, making room for more Jesus in our lives. He is Joy Personified.  “In Your Presence is Fullness of Joy;”[2]

On the night before He died, Jesus laid out in clear, unmistakable terms, our path to complete Joy:

9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.(John 15:9-12 NIV)

Verse 9 – A declaration of undeserved Love and a command to Remain

Verse 10 – A conditional for staying in the love of Jesus

Verse 12– A specific command, fulfilling the condition and becoming the true goal of every day

Verse 11– The astounding result of loving sacrificially – Complete Joy

Lord, help us receive Your love and give it away. How brilliant that the way we stay in Your love and experience Your Joy is by loving others the way you’ve loved us. This can only happen as we abide in You. Day by day guide us to those You want to love though us. Fill us with the Joy of Your presence as we love.

[1] The Weight of Glory, C.S.Lewis

[2] Psalm 16:11b NASB

Joy in the Journey is about the gladness of God’s nearness in the midst of life’s adventures. Subscribe below to get email notifications of new posts. We post once a week. Thank you for reading. 

 Novels by the Author:

Beyond Time

Hope Remains

God is our Reward, The Goodness of God

What is Good?

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I’m on our back porch enjoying the breeze of a chilly spring morning. The flowers are blooming, the trees are just beginning to bud and the grass is greening. I’m soaking in the spender of “now”.  A few birds visit our feeder suspended above the wooded path to our barn. A steady flow of cascading water from our fountain forms the background rhythm for their melodious songs.

I rest in the goodness of God. When I’m present with Him, the troubles of my life are out of view. Because He’s good, I’m good.

However, when I remember my present difficulties, if I’m not careful, they can suck the good right out of me.

Psalm 73 tells a story of a man  who’s dealing with a crisis of belief. Things are not going well and he really doesn’t know what to do.

When the Psalm opens up, Asaph is in a bad way. He doesn’t like his circumstances. He’s come close to stumbling and almost slips. He feels as if he’s wasted his time keeping his heart pure. He feels stricken all day long and chastened every morning.

To add to his unrest, envy has crept in. He sees wicked people who are prideful and arrogant, yet they seem to be doing fine.  They’re not in trouble or plagued. They prosper and are even fat, which was considered a good thing back then.

Asaph feels embittered and pierced within, yet he makes a wise choice. He brings his situation honestly before God.

This is the key to what happens next. No matter what our state, no matter how badly we’ve screwed up, no matter how angry we are at God, we should follow Asaph’s example and enter God’s sanctuary.

God is always ready to hear where we are and  the honest condition of our hearts. He can handle whatever we want to dish out. The worse thing we can do is shy away from Him because of shame, guilt or disappointment.

As Asaph  talks to God, his heart begins to shift. Though his feelings haven’t changed, he sees the end of those who don’t follow God.  “Then I perceived their end. Surely You set them in slippery places; You cast them down to destruction.” Psalm 73:17b-18

Then in verse 23, a dramatic turn occurs. Talking to God he says, “Nevertheless,  I am continually with You. You have taken hold of my right hand and with Your council will guide me, and afterwards receive me to glory.”

Whatever pit we find ourselves in right this moment. Whatever evidence we see around us that life is not good, we can repeat the above words in sincerity to God, releasing our lives into His care.

Nevertheless, no matter what, God, you are with me. It is You who have taken the initiative to reach out and take my hand and lead me. It is You who guides me along the way until You receive me into Your glory.

How reassuring! This truth can completely change our perspective. It did for Aspah. See what he wrote next:

“Whom have I in heaven but you? And beside you I desire nothing on earth.”[1]

By bringing his concerns to God, even his complaints, God performed a 180 degree shift in Asaph’s heart.

Let’s recognize, as he did, that goodness is not in how our lives are going. Goodness is in God’s nearness. God is always with us and He is always good, no matter what goes on in our lives.

Asaph ended his Psalm with words which have become a truth I build my life around.

 “But as for me, the nearness of God is my good.” Psalm 73:28a

Challenge: What circumstance threatens your sense of well-being? In other words, what has to be right in your life for you to be okay? It can be very good things, a good marriage, prospering children, successful career, etc. All these “goods” can never replace the fact that we are good because our God is good. Place the Lord of your life above all of things. He is worthy. He is trustworthy. He is good.

[1] Psalm 73:25

Joy in the Holy Spirit, The Joy of the Lord

Life’s a Grind Without the Oil of Gladness

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To grant those who mourn in Zion,
Giving them a garland instead of ashes,
The oil of gladness instead of mourning,
The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting.
So they will be called oaks of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified. Isaiah 61:3 

Trying to live the Christian life without relying on the Indwelling Spirit of Christ is like running an engine without oil.

On a couple of occasions I’ve neglected the vital upkeep of adding motor oil to various vehicles. One resulted in the demise of the Wheel Horse tractor I inherited from my grandfather. And if it wasn’t for the durability of Toyota truck engines, the other would have left my brother and I stranded on the side of the highway between Columbia, SC and Athens, GA. Good thing he noticed the red light on the dash board. It was almost three quarts low.

Sometimes I’m a slow learner, but I got it now; Engine oil is critical for lubrication, minimizing friction and cooling the pistons. It’s the very lifeblood of an engine.

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Only with Jesus can we Live the Christian Life

I’m learning the same thing about the Holy Spirit in my spiritual life.[1] For years I thought my job as a Christian was to model my life after the Jesus I read about in the Bible; trying really hard to have peace, patience, kindness, self-control and joy. If you’ve tried this yourself, you know the futility of this kind of effort. Sooner or later we all discover that there’s only one person who can live the Christian life and it’s not us; it’s Jesus in us.

Coming to the End of Ourselves

Often it takes a crisis for us to realize we can’t live without Christ. We come face to face encounter with our failures and inabilities. Not fun, but necessary. More often than not these failures are revealed in our relationships with those we love. When this happens, we find ourselves at a crossroad in life.

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At the Crossroad

In the midst of emotional turmoil we often choose to numb our pain with our coping mechanism of choice, but this delays the inevitable. Pain is an alarm to be heeded. Pain screams, “Take your hand off the stove!” Denying the pain only deepens it’s affect until  it takes over our lives completely.

Another choice is to realize our desperate need for Jesus.  Humbly turning to Him, we admit  our inabilities to love without Him. There may be dark nights of the soul, huddled only with our Lord, but full surrender leads to life changes.  “Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.” Psalm 30:5b

Summary of the Christian Life

Out of Paul’s sufferings He wrote:

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Spiritually, we have died.  Christ, by His Holy Spirit, has taken up residence in our lives. We no longer have to try harder, but must depend upon Him to be our patience, our goodness, our peace, our self control, our joy.

Ours is to rest in the fact that He is at work in us.

Ours is to yield to His Spirit, realizing that apart from our vital connection to Him, we can do nothing of true value.[2]

Trying to live without dependence upon the Holy Spirit is like an engine without oil, a ‘grinding it out’ in a swirl of activity; movement without lubrication, joyless friction.

Burnout or Joy

Recipe for a life of burnout: Live in the swirl of activities with no awareness or dependence upon the Holy Spiri; going through the motions in your own energy and strength. Just do it. It’s all up to you.

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Recipe for a life full of joy:  Realizing we were designed to run on the oil of gladness. [3]  choose a life of overflow as you yield to the Spirit of Jesus in you to love whoever God puts in your path.

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Challenge: Is there an area of your life in which you’re just going through the motions, an area in which you feel burned-out in? If so, come to Jesus.  Realize that you were not designed to operate without His Spirit, the Oil of Gladness. Recognize your inability to live even one moment without full dependence upon Christ,  allow His Spirit to refresh your life giving you His Joy.

“He must increase and I must decrease.” John 3:30

Prayer:  Dear Lord Jesus, thank you so much for dying for me and securing a place in our Father’s presence. Thank you for sealing us with the promised Holy Spirit, a pledge of our inheritance and the power and lifeblood of our lives. Keep me ever yielded to you that I might love others as you have loved me.

[1] The Holy Spirit is widely symbolized by anointing oil. See Luke 4:18

[2] John 15:5

[3] John 7:37-39

Joy in the Journey is about the gladness of God’s nearness in the midst of life’s adventures.

Subscribe below to get email notifications of new posts. We post a few times a month. Thank you for reading. 

 Novels by the Author:

Rob Buck

What happens when a professor figures out how to send messages to his younger self to try and avoid the suicide of his best friend? Did he change more than he bargained for?  Beyond Time

By finding two undelivered letters in a old shack deep in the woods, Cassie and Daniel unknowing set off a series of events which uncover a plot to wipe out a whole family Hope Remains