Guidelines For Living Devotional

When you have an enemy outside your gate and you are only vaguely aware that he is out there, you are vulnerable. That's why people put locks on their doors and install alarms and surveillance cameras.  That's also why some live in gated communities behind walls.

Playwright George Bernard Shaw once quipped that if there is life on other planets, they must be using planet Earth for their insane asylum.  Sometimes it looks like he is right.  Do you ever ask yourself, "What's gone wrong?  Why are so many people today—perhaps yourself included—merely existing, surviving one day at a time, living without much purpose or meaning?" 

Question:  On a scale of 1 to 10, how great is your confidence in God?  When you were a kid, did you ever pick a daisy or a spring flower and pull off the petals one at a time saying, "She loves me, she loves me not; she loves me, she loves me not"?  Almost always, you end up with the "she loves me not" finish.  In romance, a divided heart leaves you unsatisfied.  You want to know that someone is fully committed to you and that his or her heart, as the case may be, is not divided.

Suppose that you are the King of Luxembourg, and you learn that your small kingdom is about to be invaded by Germany.  Would you be more comfortable having a non-aggression treaty with France, Britain and Switzerland or relying upon the words of a prophet saying that if your heart is fully committed to the Lord, God will see you through and deliver you?

On October 21, 1855, a Sunday school teacher by the name of Ed Kimball went to the store where one of his students was working, and there in a back room, Kimball challenged Dwight Moody to become a Christian.  Raised by a Unitarian mother, young Dwight knew about God, but under Kimball he came to know Jesus Christ.  Later known as D. L. Moody, this man had a powerful exuberance for God.  Leaving school to work in his uncle's shoe store, Moody never got an advanced education.  His grammar was terrible.  When he was once asked about his theology, he said he didn't have any.  The Congregational church where he attended agreed with him, and turned him down when he asked to be ordained as a minister.

If you think that life today is not an ongoing spiritual war with battle lines clearly drawn, you simply aren't aware of what is happening today in every sphere of life, and need to raise your spiritual awareness. Some see a devil behind every dark bush and give Satan far more credit than he deserves, yet the reality is that he is alive and well. He stands in opposition to God, His nature and character, and—yes, let's face it—His children as well.  And if you are God's child, that's where you get dragged into the battle.

How valuable are you anyway?  Are you worth your weight in diamonds or rubies?  Or even rice or potatoes?  Scores of people today feel that their worth is not even that of straw.  They struggle with feelings of worthlessness and inadequacies, completely overwhelmed by their feelings of inferiority, and the more they think about it, the worse the situation becomes.

Alan Travers told about it in a Trans World Radio publication.  He was ministering in a church which had been infiltrated by Communist agents who reported everything that was said and done.  He wrote, "One of the men in the church was pointed out to me as the government spy who would report to the police the next day everything that was said in church that morning.  I was not surprised that there was such an informer there, but what did surprise me was that during the morning prayer session this man stood up and prayed and the congregation joined in with him." 

In the comedy, "The Three Stooges," there is a scene where Curly and Moe are angry with each other.  The smaller of the two men always comes out being the loser, so Curly says, "I'm going to strap a stick of dynamite to my chest, so the next time he hits me, he'll get blown up!"  Sure!  That's what happens when you plot revenge on someone who has hurt you.  Revenge not only destroys your enemy; it destroys you at the same time.

The judge called it "strength."  The prosecutor called it "refreshing."  And the general public called it "crazy!"  It was the response of forgiveness which a 70 year-old woman had towards the man who cut her throat and sexually assaulted her.