Believe. Doubt. Believe. Doubt. (Repeat)

By Allen White

And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called God's friend. James 2:23 (NIV)

Abraham believed God, but it sure took a lot of work to get there. He believed enough to leave what he had known to enter into the unknown based on God’s direction (Genesis 12). But the slogan about “God said it; I believe it; and that settles it” didn’t work for Abraham. Why? Abraham didn’t know God very well.

It would be easy to think “Gee whiz, Abraham had direct conversations with God. Why did he struggle with doubt? If I had those conversations with God, I would act immediately and wouldn’t doubt at all.” Well, don’t become so self-righteous so fast. We haven’t walked in his shoes.

Abraham did things for God that no one had ever done. Abraham also gave us an understanding of God that no one before had ever had. We have a greater understanding of God based on the understanding that Abraham pioneered about God’s nature and character. With the knowledge we have of God, you might wonder what Abraham would think of our faith.

Here’s the bottom line: the truth of God had to become familiar to Abraham. The process involved wrestling with doubts. God’s promise was great in theory, but the practical implementation was a whole other deal. Abraham is not so different from us.

There are many things that we understand in principle, but we don’t yet understand in our experience. If we could just read words on a page and have it instantly sink in, that would be something. But, there are those events in our lives that cause us to question everything. That doesn’t mean that we put on a “Bad Christian” name tag. The correct label would be “God’s Work in Progress.”

How are you challenged to fully believe God today? Do you wonder if His Word is true? Do you question God’s reality? Do you feel that God has forgotten you? Press into that and work it all of the way through. God will prove Himself to you. You will develop a fuller understanding of Him. Your faith will grow.

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Are You Suffering from the –Ites?

By Allen White

When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, "To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates- the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites." Genesis 15:17-21 (NIV)

That’s a lot of –ites. Now, the land promised to Abram wasn’t the former home of all of these –ites. It was their present home. You would think that if God gave the land, He would just hand it over. All of the –ites would get some sort of eviction notice. Maybe they would leave with an apology, “We’re sorry we were living on your land. We’ve packed up and will leave it in good shape for you. We didn’t realize that this was your land.”

God was very clear about the obstacles that Abram would face: childlessness, opposition, slavery, and then more opposition. You wonder why God gave Abram so much advance warning. Was God outlining a clear path through the murkiness of Abram’s thinking? Was God’s direction such a new thing for Abram that God simply didn’t want to leave any room for misunderstanding? Considering that the last time God communicated with humans was at the tower of Babel (Genesis 11), Abram definitely needed to grow in his understanding of a relationship with God.

God didn’t paint a rosy picture for Abram. We don’t always have as much information in God’s leading, but what we do understand is the difficulties are not necessarily counter to God’s leading. We enter a “spin cycle of success: Change, Conflict, then Growth” as Ed Young, Jr. puts it. The challenge is not so much in the difficulties as it is in our persistence. Our success comes when we complete the process. Failure comes if we stop.

Where is God leading you today? While we shouldn’t be surprised by problems, they are never comfortable. God is not intentionally trying to frustrate you. He is causing you to grow. If it feels like too much, God provides the ability to continue. Just ask Him.

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Too Much Information?

By Allen White

As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure." Genesis 15:12-16 (NIV)

You have to wonder if Abram ended up with more than he bargained for. Out of his uncertainty, God leads him into a worship experience. Then, Abram falls into a deep sleep and receives maybe more information than he might have wanted.

In Abram’s quest for assurance, God reveals about the next 500 or so years of plan for Abram’s family. And, God doesn’t pad the future at all. Abram will have descendants who will become slaves for 400 years. The end result is that Abram’s descendants will have great possessions; the captors will be punished; and Abram will die in peace.

Just when circumstances were indicating that Abram’s “heir” would be Eliezer of Damascus, his servant (Genesis 15:2), God says, “Oh, I have a plan. Let me give you some details.” God wasn’t kidding, when the Bible says, “he chose us in him before the creation of the world” and that “In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will” (Ephesians 1:4, 11; NIV). There was a big plan, and it started with Abram.

Do you feel like maybe God has forgotten you? Be assured that He has a plan for your life. When you can’t trust your circumstances, you can trust in God’s character. He doesn’t waver. He never changes.

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Wrong Song

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My Temple will be called ‘a house of prayer for all nations,’ Mark 11:17 NLT

If you learned a Christian song in the early years of your life, there is a good chance you learned Jesus Loves Me. If you need a refresher on the lyrics, it goes like this. Sing aloud if you’d like.

Jesus loves me this I know
for the Bible tells me so
Little ones to himbelong
They are weak but he is strong
Chorus: Yes, Jesus loves me
Yes, Jesus loves me
Yes, Jesus loves me
The Bible tells me so

How can you help but smile when you sing that song? There is a good reason we love that song, and it goes beyond the fact that it is true. We love it because it is about us. Jesus loves ME! I am the object of his love.

To capture the full spirit of the song, we might as well wrap our arms around ourselves when we sing it. Jesus loves me. What a comfort that is! Try it. It makes you feel good. Please don’t burn me for heresy. I like the song. I really do, but it can be a problem too. If I’m honest, I want everything to be about me. Me, me, me is the song we like to sing.

The whole idea of this book, backwards, is that to make everything about me feels so appropriate. Here is the problem, we naturally make ourselves the center of the story. Our first filter in life is the one that judges something good or bad, right or wrong, by how it affects me. We all do it. And it is backwards to the way that God designed life.

This truth, that Jesus loves me, is a basic building block for life. And remember, with God it IS all about you—that is why He sent Jesus die on the cross—to pay for your sin. But once you follow Him—it is no longer about you, it is about OTHERS. Jesus wants everyone to know Him. Once you join the family of God, it is the pre-occupation of this family to live your life on mission, on purpose, all the time for others to know Jesus. It’s not about you. That is the plan, and it is a good thing.

Trust Jesus to meet your needs as you serve. Trust his love as you go through your life. It will always be there for you. When you live the life that is SENT there is a divine return cycle that is better than any you could create on your own. You become your brother’s keeper. And God becomes your keeper. To the extent that we live with this perspective life makes sense.

A better theme song for living SENT would be a different children’s song:

Jesus loves the little children
All the children of the world
Red and yellow, black and white
They are precious in his sight
Jesus loves the little children of the world

It’s fine to sing both if you want to live SENT just don’t sing the first song, Jesus Loves Me without also singing the second, Jesus Loves the Little Children.

What is God asking you to trust Him to do? To whom is He asking you to serve? Will you live ‘backwards’ for His glory?

Gary Kendall 

www.livingsent.net/devotionals

Devo 30, Week 6, SENT, Day 5

Arrows

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Children born to a young man are like arrows in a warrior’s hands. How joyful is the man whose quiver is full of them! He will not be put to shame when he confronts his accusers at the city gates. Psalm 127:4, 5 NLT

This is a scripture that warms the heart of most parents. They get warm fuzzies just thinking about a quiver full of arrows with multiple colors on the end of the shaft which represents the pictures of their children on the mantle. I love them so much, the thinking goes, I won’t let anything happen to them!

But that is not the metaphor the Bible is using. The purpose of an arrow is to be sent. Arrows are for shooting. How else would the man confront the accusers at the city gate? The Psalmist

isn’t glowing over his accumulation of arrows or children. He wants to win the battle.

The enemy doesn’t play fair, and he doesn’t care about what is important to you. His one mission is to overthrow the plan of God, and he is hell bent on undermining it anyway he can. The battle will come right to you and your home.
The safest place to be on earth is the center of His will. Many parents are over protective of their children. The lie that we, as mere parents can ultimately protect our children from all problems in life does the children more harm than good. It doesn’t teach them to depend on their Creator who alone can protect and provide for them. Neither does it allow them to develop problem solving skills.

Safety in this world is mostly just an illusion. This is a painful truth! However, it is also true that in Christ you are safe enough. It is better to put your children in places where they will learn to trust God and fight for themselves in a spiritual way than to send the signal that the most important thing in life is their safety.

Are you trying to protect your children against faith risks? If so, you will find yourself working against God. When your life is in His hands, there is no better way to live than to live SENT.

Gary Kendall
www.livingsent.net/devotionals
Week 6, SENT  Day 4, Devo 29

Lost

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For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost. Luke 19:10 NLT

One summer day Belinda took our only vehicle, our van, and left me at home with all three of our kids. She had her doubts, but I convinced her I could take care of them. I even felt confident about it, imagine that! Our three children: Kristen, Jeremy, and Luke, were grade school age at that time.

I was doing my best when I realized that Luke, our youngest, who was about five years of age, was not around. He liked to hide from us, so I assumed this was a game. I looked in all the normal places and called for him until I was no longer amused. I went outside and noticed the gate to our fenced backyard in our suburban neighborhood stood wide open! Our Dalmatian, named Princess, was gone, too!

Oh great, I thought, I’ve lost a kid and the dog. Lord, please don’t let Belinda come home now!

The minutes crawled by as I searched desperately for Luke. I called his name from every corner of our yard all the while aware I had two other children to watch inside. Every minute lost meant that the chances of finding him decreased. What if he was in trouble? What if someone had kidnapped him? What if he was in pain?
I don’t have words to describe the lump in my throat and the knot in my stomach but I bet you can imagine. I had flashbacks of when our daughter, Megan, had died, several years prior. I felt paralyzed and frantic at the same time.

It didn’t matter to me at that moment that I still had two kids who were safe. One was lost! That was what mattered!

I stood in the front yard and created a plan with a mental checklist. I would need to farm the kids out to the neighbors, call the police, and start a search. At that moment, Luke appeared at the end of the block, hot and exhausted, dragging an unwilling dog behind him. The story is that Princess had escaped from our backyard and Luke had followed her all the way to the neighborhood park. She had been headed for the nearby creek.

He had caught her by the chain and brought her back. My knees went weak from relief. I wanted to shout but what came out was more like a cry. My son was alive and he was coming home!

That day I had a new awareness of the urgent concern God feels for each of His children who are presently outside of relationship with Him. I must join Jesus in living SENT to help His children find their way home!

Gary Kendall
www.livingsent.net/devotionals
Week 6, SENT, Day 3 Devo 28

Faith

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Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. Hebrews 11:1 NLT

Living SENT requires that we venture beyond the safety of our comfort zone. Don’t put God in a box. He is God, and you are not. Practice trust and dependence on God by regularly allowing God to stretch you.

Take time to read Hebrews 11, and you will find a Hall of Fame for those who have responded to God’s call by saying, ‘Yes’!. My guess is that they didn’t have all the answers but they excelled at faith. By faith Abel brought a more acceptable offering to God than Cain…by faith Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God, who warned him about things that had never happened before…by faith Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home…and without faith it is impossible to please God.

My experience with following God tells me God will continually test any places I’m unwilling to yield to Him. If there are places where I want to be in control, I find He regularly moves me out of my little box to help me think like He thinks.
Life here on this earth is not about our comfort, and the sooner we realize that the better. Are you willing to allow God to break your heart with the things that break His heart?

Be open to the Holy Spirit’s leading. Sometimes I get it wrong but don’t be afraid to be wrong. The more you act on what you think God is saying the better you will become at hearing. And if you are faithful with what God trusts to you, He will give you more.

Conversely, if you ignore God and tune Him out, you hear less and less. We don’t always have the benefit of carefully contemplating every option life gives. Opportunities sometimes appear where time is of the essence, if you miss the moment, you don’t always get a second chance. They disappear. And you are left asking, Why doesn’t God use me more?

Exercise faith today.

Gary Kendall
www.livingsent.net/devotionals
Week 6 SENT, Day 4  Devo 27