Devotions

I will never forget the pain I endured when one of my teenage children came to me and confessed, “Dad, I’ve never once felt as if I’ve pleased you. I’ve never felt worthy of your love. I feel like I’ve let you down my whole life. You must be really disappointed in me.”

No words ever hurt me more. I asked myself what I might have done to make my child feel that way. Hurting deeply inside myself, I embraced my tearful young one. I thought, “How wrong. I’ve shown this child my love. I’ve spoken it and demonstrated it time after time. All my other children feel secure in my love. How could this child carry such a misconception for so long and bear such unnecessary misery and guilt?”

I told my beloved child, “You’ve always been special to me. Why, you’ve been the apple of my eye. I think of you, and my whole being lights up. Sure, you’ve done foolish things at times, but so have your siblings. You were forgiven. You were truly sorry, and I never once thought less of you. You’re nothing but a joy to me. You’ve made me happy all your lifetime. You’ve been a delight to my heart.”

So it is with many Christians in their relationship with the heavenly Father. The devil has convinced these believers they’ve only disappointed God and will never please him, and they therefore won’t accept God’s love. Instead, they live as if his wrath is always breathing down on them. What a horrible way to go through life! How pained God is when he sees his children living this way.

This passage in 1 John beautifully illustrates God’s abiding love for us. “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (I John 4:9-11 NKJV).

Beloved, from the day you were born, you’ve been special to your heavenly Father.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9 NKJV).

If you lived to be 500 years old, you would not live long enough to please God by your own works. It doesn’t matter how hard you may try to clean yourself up. Your flesh is not accepted before God; it can’t even be reformed. All flesh was done away with at the cross. Now a new man has come forth: the Christ man. True faith is having confidence in what Christ has done for you.

You may say, “Oh, I can believe that God delights in faithful pastors. They pray and spend so much time in his Word. I can believe that elders are precious to him. They have endured sufferings, tests and trials, and have come out victorious. However, I find it hard to believe that a troubled, failing Christian like me could be precious to God. He is surely disgusted with me because my life is so inconsistent. I have problems I can’t seem to get through. I believe he still loves me, but surely he is disappointed in me.”

Please understand Isaiah’s wonderful prophecy of grace when God said, “But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob, and he who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are mine.’” (Isaiah 43:1). This was spoken to a people who had been robbed, spoiled, snared and cast into prison, all because of their own foolishness and unbelief.

In the following chapter God emphasizes his message. “For I will pour water on him who is thirsty, and floods on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit on your descendants, and my blessing on your offspring” (Isaiah 44:3-4). This is not a God who withholds from those he loves!

God wants his children to hear this clearly. He pointedly says to them, “Now, after all your failures, I come to you with this message of hope. And it’s only because you are mine!”

In part one, Gary and Kelly share their heartbreak in learning that two of their children have fallen prey to drug and alcohol addiction. Their story continues.

We were brought to our knees, literally and figuratively, as Elliot’s and Evan’s lives spiraled out of control. There was the guilt of having failed our children, then came the shame. The shame of having given our lives to ministry and now feeling like we couldn’t manage our own home was an additional anvil that threatened to crush us. It wasn’t just us, though; it was a family crisis. People tend to forget that the tremors of addiction are felt throughout the entire family.

Even as we cried out to God, he slowly moved us forward. Carried by grace, we began to reassess and make positive changes. God was firm, though, in telling us our approach was to be wholehearted.

First, we sought professional help, a critical step. It’s one Christians sometimes dismiss, but we felt it was vitally important to understand the disease of addiction spiritually, physiologically, mentally and emotionally. Grasping the power of what we were up against armed us with the tools and knowledge to fight it. Also, during this time, we looked back into our family’s history and saw behaviors that had helped bring us to where we were. It was a time of reflection, breaking old habits and bringing down spiritual strongholds.

Second, we asked our congregation for prayer. It felt risky because we knew some would judge and criticize, and some did. However, we knew at this point, for us, it was what God wanted. Galatians 6:2 reminded us, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (ESV). We were enfolded in prayer and love as our church family stormed heaven on our behalf.

Third, we ended the enabling and began enforcing boundaries. We had to come to terms with the fact that our children’s bad decisions and risky behavior were their own, and they had to face them and be accountable. Ultimately, their survival was up to them.

The fourth and final step was one of the hardest: letting go. God gently reminded us that even he as the perfect parent has prodigal children; even Adam, whom God lovingly molded with his own hand from the dust of the earth, went into sin. The message from God was clear: “Your sons have free will; you must let them go. Give them to me. I’ve got this.”

Slowly, tentatively, we did and entrusted them to God.

Gary and Kelly’s testimony will continue next week, and their full story with Evan is available on the Gary Wilkerson podcast.

When I was new as a believer, I started going to church and I heard this one guy’s testimony that shocked me. This guy started by saying, “You know, I've always been a good, moral person. Never really done anything wrong. The biggest thing I could think of was I would sometimes steal grapes at the grocery store.” All I could think, listening to this, was “Man, I was born into the wrong family.”

Looking back, I can say that testimony was a load of hooey. Frankly, after six months as a new believer, I was saying to myself, “There’s some mean people in church. There were nicer people in bars than I’ve met in church.” Now you can huff at that and get all holy, but somebody’s got to shout amen, right? I don’t think any of us are exempt from looking back at our lives and seeing that moment of transformation in Christ. If we’re a true believer, we know deep down exactly what it means to come from the ‘old man’ to the ‘new man.’

Paul in the Bible had every earthly right to say he’d lived one of the most upstanding lives a human could achieve according to the law. Yet he wrote, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life” (1 Timothy 1:15-16, ESV).

Our only hope is in Christ. One of the most difficult things is living as a believer. Actually, the Christian life is not just hard; it's impossible. To anyone who argues against that, how about this? Love your enemies and pray for those who despitefully use you. Who can do that without the power of the Spirit?

I’ll tell you this: In and of myself, without Jesus and his work of redemption in my spirit, I cannot pray for people who maliciously work against me. Thank God that he gives us the Holy Spirit to walk out his commands through Christ! Like Paul wrote, “The grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 1:14).

_{John Bailey is the COO of World Challenge Inc. and the Founding Pastor of The Springs Church in Jacksonville, Florida. John has been serving the Lord in pastoral ministry for 35 years, ministering the gospel in over 50 nations, particularly as a pastor and evangelist in Cork, Ireland.}

When the three Hebrew children were thrown into the fiery furnace, a fourth man was there with them: Jesus! They didn’t get burned. In fact, their clothes and hair didn’t even smell of smoke. That’s the kind of deliverance God wants to bring you in your time of trial.

What is God’s motivation for wanting to deliver you? Is it because you have done something to appease him? Have you increased your prayer time? Do you spend more hours reading scripture? All this is good, but Isaiah had the true revelation when he said, “Since you were precious in my sight, you have been honored, and I have loved you; therefore I will give men for you, and people for your life. Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your descendants from the east, and gather you from the west” (Isaiah 43:4-5 NKJV).

This is one of the most powerful and personal messages from God in all the Bible. He is wonderfully specific in communicating his deep, eternal passion for us, his creation, his people.

“You’re about to go through fires and floods,” he says. “But don’t worry; I’ll walk with you through them all. I’ll deliver you in the end simply because you are mine. I know you by name, and you are a delight to my heart.”

He continues with a message of hope for the future. “Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” (Isaiah 43:19). After our deliverance, he promises new life in ways you can’t yet imagine!

He honors us; he protects us; he delivers us; he gives us hope. We are precious in his sight! That is the God we serve.