Devotions

Peter is a guy we can probably all relate to in the Bible. He has great days, and then he has pretty awful days, and scripture shows them to us. “He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’” (Matthew 16:15-18, ESV).

Wow! Jesus changed Simon’s name based on his revelation of Jesus. None of the other disciples had this happen. However, Peter had his name changed again. “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things…. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.’ But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan!...’” (Matthew 16:21-23). 

Have you ever felt like that? You’re going along, having a Simon day, and something happens in which you move into a Peter day with revelations that God is awesome, and then all of a sudden you get smacked with a Satan day. 

In all of those days, though, you are loved by God. Your worst day does not make you any less accepted by God. Jesus didn’t stop loving Peter, did he? No. The same is true for you.  Author Brennan Manning gives us a glimpse into this revolutionary love of God: “His love is never, never, never based on our performance, never conditioned by our moods—of elation or depression. The furious love of God knows no shadow of alteration or change. It is always reliable. And always tender.” 

I read those words while traveling from Queens to Brooklyn on the F Train, and I started crying. The revolutionary thinking that God loves me as I am and not as I should be requires radical rethinking and profound emotional readjustment. Our religion never begins with what we do for God. It always starts with what God has done for us. 

^{After pastoring an inner-city congregation in Detroit for thirty years, Pastor Tim served at Brooklyn Tabernacle in NYC for five years and pastored in Lafayette, Louisiana, for five years. He became Senior Pastor of Times Square Church in May of 2020.}

“O Lord, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me” (Psalm 3:1, ESV). When David wrote this opening verse, he was either experiencing many people attacking him on a single front or being attacked on many fronts. 

Sometimes, we encounter one trial after another, or they pile up all at once. In the midst of our suffering, we can be driven to near despair. Some of us may grow paranoid, our thoughts running wild about worst-case scenarios. We grow panicked over what may happen to us.

Often, we are assured we can reasonably face one problem, but an avalanche of problems that are beyond our abilities troubles the soul. We spend every waking hour preoccupied with our difficulty, unable to shake our anxiety and fear. Despite our best intentions, like David, we turn to flight instead of fight. 

We have to accept that even in life’s toughest trials, the greater battle is always with principalities and powers that attack our mind and soul. These are our most vulnerable areas during times of great struggle.

In Psalm 3, David begins the prayer of a beleaguered king who despaired over the mounting odds stacked against him. By verse 3, things begin to change. David had another prayer in his heart, a prayer of awesome hope. “But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head” (Psalm 3:3). 

David had moved from being overwhelmed by “many” things to a single-minded focus on one thing: his source of deliverance. He was no longer worried about being surrounded by many trials but instead was lifted by the help he knew he had in God. David saw his shield, the Lord himself, surrounding him. 

Psalm 3 tells us that it doesn’t matter how encircled we may be by oncoming trials. No matter what direction the assaults come from, the Lord has us covered. This is true not just in some circumstances but in all of them. God has control over all our concerns and worries. He is a shield that covers every inch of our being, leaving no opening for the enemy’s piercing arrows. Today, let God’s very presence be your greatest shield in whatever trial you may face. 

^{This devotional has been adapted from Gary Wilkerson’s book, The Altar of Our Hearts: An Expository Devotional on the Psalms.} 

"But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel” (Philippians 1:12, NKJV).

In this verse, Paul tells the Christians in Philippi not to worry about all the things that they had heard had befallen him. Those “things” included great afflictions and infirmities. 

Paul wrote this epistle while bound in a Roman prison. At this point in his ministry, he was a seasoned warrior of the gospel, having endured every conceivable hardship and human affliction imaginable. He experienced shipwrecks, beatings, buffetings, mocking, persecution, hunger, thirst, nakedness and defamation of character. Everywhere Paul went, it seemed, he was met by affliction, trouble and sorrow. 

Yet Paul said, “None of these things move me” (Acts 20:24). Furthermore, he added, “No one should be shaken by these afflictions; for you yourselves know that we are appointed to this. For, in fact, we told you before when we were with you that we would suffer tribulation, just as it happened” (1 Thessalonians 3:3-4).

Paul was reassuring these believers, saying, “I’ve told you all along that if you are going to walk with Jesus, you will face afflictions. Now that these afflictions have come upon me, why are you so surprised? This is our appointed lot in life.” 

Try to get this picture in your mind: Here was a holy man called by God to take the gospel to the nations. On every assignment, the Holy Spirit whispered to him that the next stop wouldn’t be easy. He would face opposition and would find more afflictions and trials. 

I find this man’s life absolutely amazing. Can you imagine it? Paul faced troubles and afflictions at every turn. At this point, you may be saying, “Wait a minute, you’re talking about Paul’s life, not mine. God appointed him to suffer afflictions. I haven’t been called to such a life.” Wrong! The Bible says: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all” (Psalm 34:19).

The phrase “many are the afflictions” applies not just to Paul but to us as well. We love to hear the last part of that verse, but do we rejoice in the first part? Like Paul, let’s be glad when faced with a trial or affliction when the end goal is furthering the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

“Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me days without number” (Jeremiah 2:32, NKJV).

I quote this Bible passage whenever I miss my daily prayer time because of my busyness. It always drives me back to the secret place, where I cry, “Oh, Lord, I don’t want to forget you!”

This verse is frightening when we consider the context of the passage. God is reminding his people that he planted them as a noble vine of sound and reliable stock. They started out on the correct path with his blessing, but now they have forsaken him. 

“Your own wickedness will correct you, and your backslidings will rebuke you…it is an evil and bitter thing that you have forsaken the Lord your God, and the fear of me is not in you… How can you say, ‘I am not polluted, I have not gone after the Baals’?...For they have turned their back to me… In vain I have chastened your children; they received no correction… My people have forgotten me days without number” (Jeremiah 2:19-32).

God’s people were no longer going to his house to worship him. They had become lazy and had forgotten all his blessings and judgments. They neglected him for days on end, pursuing their own pleasures; and worst of all, they said, “I am innocent…I have not sinned” (Jeremiah 2:35).

If you do not worship God with all your mind and heart, little by little, neglect will creep in, and you will begin to worship merely out of habit. 

You say you love Jesus, so I must ask you: Do you worship him daily, with all your heart, without distractions? Do you dig into the word of God, or do you go for days without opening your Bible or praying to him in your secret closet? 

God will not allow you to sit in your seat anymore and let your mind wander. He loves you and knows the power that pure worship releases in your spirit. It makes you stronger than any lion and bigger than any giant. It pulls down every stronghold because it makes you a pure-hearted, single-minded worshiper of him.

“Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: ‘These people draw near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me’” (Matthew 15:7-8, NKJV). 

I want to talk to you about mental distractions during prayer and worship, especially in the house of God. Jesus called people hypocrites who came into his presence mouthing words of praise but whose minds and hearts were preoccupied. He was essentially saying, “You give me your mouth and your lips, but your mind is somewhere else. Your heart is nowhere near me!” 

What about you? Most likely, you are present in God’s house for an hour every week. Your body is in church, but where is your mind? Your mouth says, “I worship you, Lord,” but is your heart a thousand miles away? Where do your thoughts take you during worship and praise? 

Do you become preoccupied with family concerns or a business matter that’s been hounding you? How distracted do you get during that hour in church as the congregation draws near to God’s majesty? 

It is dangerous to come into God’s house and enter into his presence lightly. “And Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord spoke, saying: ‘By those who come near me I must be regarded as holy; and before all the people I must be glorified’” (Leviticus 10:3).

The Lord said to Aaron, “I will not be treated as an ordinary person. If you’re going to come into my presence, you must come before me sanctified. All who approach my holiness must do so with carefulness and thoughtfulness because of my glory and majesty.” 

If your heart is not engaged during worship and your thoughts are not captive to the obedience of Christ, you might as well put a straw man in your seat. At least that is more honest than coming into God’s house with no mind and no heart. 

Many Christians do not worship with power, excitement and zeal because they have no intimacy with Jesus at home. Those who have learned to worship and focus privately bring their own fire; a fire ignited in the secret closet of prayer. True worshipers can’t wait to get to church to praise the Lord among his people.