Your COMPASS for the Journey on the PATH of Discipleship: May 1-7, 2011
Posted by Isaac Butterworth | Filed under Discipleship, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation
Your COMPASS for the Journey on the PATH of Discipleship is a daily resource designed to help you find direction in your walk with Christ. It includes a ‘Compass’ (a daily reading), a ‘Map’ (a brief comment to aid your understanding of the reading), and an application section called ‘Journey.’
Saturday, May 7, 2011 EXPOSURE AND HEALING
Compass:
Psalm 139:23-24 ‘Search me, O God, and know my heart….’
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Map:
‘O LORD, you have searched me and know me.’ So begins Psalm 139. And it ends with an appeal to God to search our hearts. ‘Search me, O God, and know my heart.’
Journey:
When we invite God to search our hearts, he will likely find ‘anxious thoughts’ and some ‘offensive way’ in us. But we are never safer than when God has us in view. He exposes us in order to heal us.
Tomorrow: THE MINISTRY OF THE WORD
Friday, May 6, 2011 GOD’S SEARCH
Compass:
2 Chronicles 16:9a ‘…The eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth….’
‘For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will be at war.‘
Map:
When Judah’s King Asa was beset by his enemies, he entered a costly alliance with the king of Aram. Later, when Aram’s support collapsed (they took the money and ran), one of the LORD’s prophets confronted King Asa. God had helped him in the past. Why did he not seek the LORD’s help this time? The prophet told him, ‘The eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.’
Journey:
It’s not just that we are called to seek God; God also is searching. He is searching for those who are wholeheartedly committed to him and trust him. Will he find such a person in you?
Tomorrow: EXPOSURE AND HEALING
Thursday, May 5, 2011 GOD’S PROMISE
Compass:
Jeremiah 29:13 ‘You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.’
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Map:
Centuries have passed since Moses spoke to the Israelites. (See yesterday’s entry.) Now Jeremiah speaks to the people as they are about to go into exile, an outcome that God predicted. Through Jeremiah’s words, God promises yet again that ‘You will…find me when you seek my with all your heart.’
Journey:
God does not play ‘hide-and-seek’ with us. We lose sight of him because we take our eyes off him. What is it that could cause us to seek with all our heart? Maybe it’s the realization that, apart from him, we are in a form of exile. When our hearts are set on other sources of significance and security, we come up empty. Dare you ask God to show you your desperate need for him? Dare you risk asking for a heart that seeks him and him alone?
Tomorrow: GOD’S SEARCH
Wednesday, May 4, 2011 GOD’S MERCY
Compass:
Deuteronomy 4:29 ‘…You will find him if you look for him with all your heart….’
But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.
Map:
These words occur in a sermon that Moses gave to the Israelites just before they crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land. God knew that, once in the land, the people would violate their covenant with him and that it would lead to their exile. But even in exile, they could ‘seek the LORD,’ and, if they looked for him ‘with all [their] heart,’ they would find him.
Journey:
The mercy of God is boundless. Even when we forsake him, he does not forsake us. Even when we are drowning in the consequences of our sin, God’s arm is outstretched to us. The heartfelt longing for deliverance is more than matched by the grace of God. Do you yearn for pardon just now? Look to God. You will find it.
Tomorrow: GOD’S PROMISE
Tuesday, May 3, 2011 SPIRITUAL URGENCY
Compass:
Isaiah 55:6-7 ‘Seek the LORD while he may be found….’
6 Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
7 Let the wicked forsake his way
and the evil man his thoughts.
Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
Map:
This week, we are looking at seeking and finding what is of highest value. Today’s reading tells us that there is a degree of urgency to this matter. We are seek God ‘while he may be found.’ It is ‘while he is near’ that we are to ‘turn to the LORD.’ Sometimes, spiritual opportunities slip away.
Journey:
What level of urgency do you assign to the search for God? What do you stand to lose if you ignore the opportunity you now have to ‘call on [God] while he is near’? What do you stand to gain if follow the lead of this passage and ‘seek the LORD’? Weigh this out in your heart. What can you do to seek God today?
Tomorrow: GOD’S MERCY
Monday, May 2, 2011 THE GREATEST ‘FIND’ OF ALL
Compass:
Matthew 13:44-46 ‘When he found [a pearl] of great value, [the merchant] …sold everything he had and bought it.’
44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46 When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.
Map:
These two brief parables of Jesus describe someone finding something of great worth (in one case, a treasure in a field, in the other a pearl of great value). What do they do? They give up everything they have to possess what they have found.
Journey:
Jesus’ point, of course, is that the kingdom of God is the greatest ‘find’ of all, worth whatever it takes to possess it. Do you value the kingdom that highly? Could it become the most important part of your life?
Tomorrow: SPIRITUAL URGENCY
Sunday, May 1, 2011 THE ‘ONE THING’
Compass:
Matthew 6:33 ‘…Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness….’
Map:
In the 1991 film City Slickers, Curly, the wrangler on a cattle drive, asks Mitch, one of the ‘city slickers’ who have come on the drive to find themselves: ‘Do you know what the secret of life is?’ Then Curly answers his own question. ‘One thing,’ he says. ‘Just one thing. You stick to that, and the rest don’t mean [expletive].’ Mitch asks, ‘But what is the “one thing?”’ To which Curly replies, ‘That’s what you have to find out.’
Journey:
Here, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us what the ‘one thing is.’ It is the kingdom of God, that is, God’s active rule in our lives. However, Jesus tells us not only that it is to be ‘first’ among our priorities but also that we are to ‘seek’ it.
Tomorrow: THE GREATEST ‘FIND’ OF ALL
Photo Credit: Sunny Side Up by Code Poet
