Guidelines For Living Devotional

Two individuals both take an oath in court.  They are asked, "Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God"?  Both say, "I do!"  Yet when the two take the witness stand, their stories contradict each other.  Both cannot be telling the truth.  One of them has to be lying, yet both seem to be sincere.  Both have good reputations.  Both speak convincingly.  Which one is telling the truth?  Tough issue, right? How can individuals lie so convincingly?

Have people lost the ability to care about other people because they are overwhelmed with personal needs?  Have we become so concerned with our own welfare and importance that others don't count?  Yes, and no!  That we have become preoccupied with self today is without question, but the ability to care is by no means something lost in the press of life today.

He was in his late 40's; she was a bit younger.  Married for 17 years, he was an account executive, and she was busily involved in social and church work.  They had a near picture-book family: three normal kids, a lovely home and a beach cottage where they often spent weekends.  They had finally reached the place in life where they weren't terribly concerned about money.  Yet with so much, they had so little of real happiness. 

"Dear Dr. Sala," wrote a friend of Guidelines, "Being raised in the Baptist denomination, I always heard that people who did not meet the biblical requirements of being saved would burn in a literal hell after death and this would be a continuous burning forever and ever.  I still hear this in the church I attend today. But somehow, I can't seem to understand why God would create this so-called eternal barbeque pit.  Once a person is dead and can no longer harm or hurt anyone, does God get some kind of revenge or satisfaction from seeing persons… suffer in burning anguish forever and ever?"

For just a few moments, let's suppose.  Let's suppose that a certain judge in your city faces an indigent who was accused of a crime, and that this unfortunate individual had only a court-appointed attorney.  Furthermore, the defendant has a surly disposition—the kind that, just by looking at the person, you "know" he committed the crime.  Sure enough, in almost record time, the judge says, "Guilty!" as he slams down his gavel and pronounces a harsh sentence.

When you look at a piece of furniture and see the beautiful graining in the wood, you are aware that the variation of the graining is simply the polished surface of the whole.  It is only the exterior that you see.  When it comes to God, His essential attributes or characteristics are somewhat like the grain of a beautiful piece of wood with its intertwined veins, which blend together and glow with a deep radiance and beauty.  When it comes to seeing God, we only see a very small part, yet because we are human and strive to understand God in terms of human relationships or behavior, we talk about his qualities which we call attributes. 

In his book, God Works the Night Shift, Ron Mehl recalls the first game of the basketball season when his Bible school team played the smartest kids in the league, the Cal Tech squad.  “Cal Tech may not have been the most talented basketball team in our league,” says Ron, adding, “but they were the smartest.”

In a chaotic world that is constantly changing, nothing can be more comforting than to know there is a God who never changes and to have a secure relationship with Him. Change always seems to be threatening to us—whether it is encountered by a child who graduates from elementary school where he has been the king of the hill and has to go to a school where older children intimidate the new arrivals, or the aged pensioner who has to leave the home where she has lived for 80 years to take up residence in a care facility.

Shortly before his death, A. W. Tozer wrote the following: “In this hour of all-but-universal darkness one cheering gleam appears: within the fold of conservative Christianity there are to be found increasing numbers of persons whose religious lives are marked by a growing hunger after God Himself. They are eager for spiritual realities and will not be put off with words, nor will they be content with correct ‘interpretations’ of truth.  They are athirst for God, and they will not be satisfied till they have drunk deep at the Fountain of Living Water.”

It's an old story but one that bears repeating. A little girl was drawing a picture with bold strokes in bright colors when her teacher, viewing the work of art that had engrossed the child, said, "Tell me about your picture." The little girl responds, "I'm drawing a picture of God!"