Saturday, September 3, 2016

Devotion

It's amazing how in love I can be with the Lord, and then one morning, I decide I need to do some work, and then the next morning there’s something else I need to do, and before I know it...my whole devotional life is shot. I've reduced my relationship with the Lord to a business partnership. 

My challenge is that I can think I have decided to love God by preparing to lead a Bible study or work on a neighborhood BBQ. But ministry is not always the same as loving God. Sometimes it may be, but most of the time ministry preparation is studying and writing and organizing...not receiving the truth of Jesus’ lavish love for me.

Devotion comes from remembering He is drawing me and has invited me to come be with Him.
Devotion comes from knowing His love and choice of me, even in my brokenness.

Living passionately in love with the Lord every day begins with putting up a hedge and not letting work creep into my devotional time. It's so tempting for me to give up spending time just being with the Lord, focused only on loving him when I need to get stuff done. The focus of my quiet time is very different if my goal is to increase my love for the Lord than if my focus is to get stuff done.


It takes intentionality to return to practices that can seem like wasting time just loving God, especially when I don’t feel like it. Spending ten minutes receiving the truth of God’s love for me is essential to having a vibrant relationship with Jesus, but what a challenge it is to have work, especially Christian work, become secondary. However, drawing away to be loved by Jesus for ten minutes will awaken my love for Him. And it isn’t long before those ten minutes are the sweetest time of my day.


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