Last week, I asserted that compromising of good and evil doesn’t bring glory to God at all. There is no life in that.

For Lent, it’d be good to give up that notion of compromise on moral issues since it’s actually saying that God’s truth is not absolute and God is not God.

It’s time to have a rekindled understanding of God’s truth. By understanding, acknowledging, and accepting God’s ways, we can have peace no matter what the world throws at us.

Where do you turn in distressing times?

Inward–pull yourself up by your bootstraps?  Outward–it takes a village while getting by with a little help from my friends?  Or do you turn upward and place your trust in God?

We’re in the midst of political overload in the US.  Politicians from left to right are wanting your vote by promising to make America great again, to usher in Utopia, to give you everything you ever wanted at someone else’s expense, and to take back our country from the unjust and the powerful.  It’s hard to find anyone preaching that strength, true wisdom, courage, and a rekindled understanding can only be found in God.  Yup. Even in the Church we’re not preaching it.  Yup.  Even from the Pope we’re still looking at a man.  There are even articles by those who have given up on revival, stating that God has turned His back on America.  I’m not ready to throw in the towel, to turn my eyes from trusting God, or to consider placing my hope in any man as the only hope I have left.  As for me and my house, we’re still looking up and waiting upon God.  What about you?

Will we have a rekindled understanding?

In Isaiah 33, there is a contrast of distress and help and it hinges upon this understanding of God and His truth.

Isaiah 33: 5 The LORD is exalted, for he dwells on high; he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness. 6 He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the LORD is the key to this treasure. 7 Look, their brave men cry aloud in the streets; the envoys of peace weep bitterly. 8 The highways are deserted, no travelers are on the roads. The treaty is broken, its witnesses are despised, no one is respected. 9 The land mourns and wastes away, Lebanon is ashamed and withers; Sharon is like the Arabah, and Bashan and Carmel drop their leaves. 10 “Now will I arise,” says the LORD. “Now will I be exalted; now will I be lifted up. 11 You conceive chaff, you give birth to straw; your breath is a fire that consumes you. 12 The peoples will be burned as if to lime; like cut thornbushes they will be set ablaze.” 13 You who are far away, hear what I have done; you who are near, acknowledge my power! 14 The sinners in Zion are terrified; trembling grips the godless: “Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning?” 15 He who walks righteously and speaks what is right, who rejects gain from extortion and keeps his hand from accepting bribes, who stops his ears against plots of murder and shuts his eyes against contemplating evil– 16 this is the man who will dwell on the heights, whose refuge will be the mountain fortress. His bread will be supplied, and water will not fail him. 17 Your eyes will see the king in his beauty and view a land that stretches afar. 18 In your thoughts you will ponder the former terror: “Where is that chief officer? Where is the one who took the revenue? Where is the officer in charge of the towers?” 19 You will see those arrogant people no more, those people of an obscure speech, with their strange, incomprehensible tongue. 20 Look upon Zion, the city of our festivals; your eyes will see Jerusalem, a peaceful abode, a tent that will not be moved; its stakes will never be pulled up, nor any of its ropes broken. 21 There the LORD will be our Mighty One. It will be like a place of broad rivers and streams. No galley with oars will ride them, no mighty ship will sail them. 22 For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; it is he who will save us.

Can I get an Amen?

Give it up for Lent: Trusting in human wisdom

Questions for Isaiah 33:

1. What is the key? (v 6)
2. Identify the contrasts present in Isaiah 33. A rekindled understanding of God will produce what?
3. Is your trust in politicians being able to negotiate treaties or showing bravery or securing peace accords? Ask God to reveal any ways in which your trust is placed upon created things instead of in God.

ReKindle is the 2016 Lenten devotional series from Seminary Gal.

To receive these devotionals to your email inbox throughout Lent, please fill in your email address in the space provided on my Home Page in the sidebar (right) and respond to the verification email.  If you already receive devotionals and articles, no need to do anything else.  You’ll get them automatically.  Thank you!  Or log onto the SeminaryGal Facebook page and see them reprinted there.

Acknowledging that former years’ devotional series remain popular, Be Still and Know that I AM God can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014 and With Christ in the Upper Room  is archived beginning February 18, 2015.

Job 38:1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm. He said: 2 “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? 3 Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. 4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. 5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? 6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone– 7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? 8 “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, 9 when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, 10 when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, 11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’? 12 “Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, 13 that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it? 14 The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment. 15 The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken. 16 “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? 17 Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death? 18 Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.

Tomorrow we resume ReKindle, the 2016 Lenten devotional series from Seminary Gal.

To receive these devotionals to your email inbox throughout Lent, please fill in your email address in the space provided on my Home Page in the sidebar (right) and respond to the verification email.  If you already receive devotionals and articles, no need to do anything else.  You’ll get them automatically.  Thank you!  Or log onto the SeminaryGal Facebook page and see them reprinted there.

Acknowledging that former years’ devotional series remain popular, Be Still and Know that I AM God can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014 and With Christ in the Upper Room  is archived beginning February 18, 2015.

When we understand what God loves and face what God finds disgusting;

when we learn to love what is good and hate what is evil,

then we will begin to love like God does.

To know Him is to love Him.

* * *  

Love and knowledge are often linked in Scripture!  For example, after talking about knowing the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood, the Apostle John writes,

1 John 4: 7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 17 In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.

God’s love and wisdom are bound together in His character.

When love and wisdom become part of our character, we’ll have His peace as well.  

Love. Wisdom. Peace. Isn’t that what we all want? A sense of fulfillment, completeness, and success. And if that’s what we want, we must have a rekindled understanding and appreciation for who God is and what He has done for us. To know Him is to love Him.

Psalm 111:1 Praise the LORD. I will extol the LORD with all my heart in the council of the upright and in the assembly. 2 Great are the works of the LORD; they are pondered by all who delight in them. 3 Glorious and majestic are his deeds, and his righteousness endures forever. 4 He has caused his wonders to be remembered; the LORD is gracious and compassionate. 5 He provides food for those who fear him; he remembers his covenant forever. 6 He has shown his people the power of his works, giving them the lands of other nations. 7 The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy. 8 They are steadfast for ever and ever, done in faithfulness and uprightness. 9 He provided redemption for his people; he ordained his covenant forever– holy and awesome is his name. 10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise.

Give it Up for Lent: Ignorance of God’s character and ingratitude for His works

Questions for 1 John 4:7-17 and Psalm 111.

1. In these passages, find all the ways knowledge and love are linked. Knowledge also includes an enduring sense of completeness. Why would I say that?
2. What items are God’s doing in Psalm 111? What items are the psalmist’s and our doing?
3. How do passages like this reorient our thoughts to God’s ways and away from our own human understanding?
4. How easy is it to make God smaller than He is by not appreciating His character? What would be the remedy for that?

ReKindle is the 2016 Lenten devotional series from Seminary Gal.

To receive these devotionals to your email inbox throughout Lent, please fill in your email address in the space provided on my Home Page in the sidebar (right) and respond to the verification email.  If you already receive devotionals and articles, no need to do anything else.  You’ll get them automatically.  Thank you!  Or log onto the SeminaryGal Facebook page and see them reprinted there.

Acknowledging that former years’ devotional series remain popular, Be Still and Know that I AM God can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014 and With Christ in the Upper Room  is archived beginning February 18, 2015.

Rekindle my disgust. Not exactly the thing most people would want to rekindle.

But a key to loving what is good is also doing the converse: hating what is evil.

Jude 1:20 But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. 21 Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. 22 Be merciful to those who doubt; 23 snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear– hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.

We live in a world of compromise. In politics. In marriage. In friendship. In our employment. In civic affairs. In negotiations. Everyone must give up a little something to reach their hands across the aisle and get work done. Frankly, Jesus never did that.

It’s populist nonsense that flows directly from a culture that has abandoned the idea of absolute right and wrong because they’ve abandoned God long ago.

Reconciliation is not the same as compromise.

Reconciliation is the act of bringing unholy people and ungodly actions to a place of peace with God by encouraging the giving up of what God finds disgusting.

Compromise is the act of bringing unholy people and ungodly actions to the presence of a Holy God and demanding that He change His standards.

* * *

Compromise is not happening, folks.

 * * *

It’s time to rekindle our disgust at what God finds disgusting.

* * *

* * *

2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. 11 Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience…16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 

2 Corinthians 6:14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” 17 “Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” 18 “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”

Give it up for Lent: Compromise of God’s truth.

Questions related to Jude 1:20-23 and 2 Corinthians 5:10-6:18.

1. What are the levels of disgust and reconciliation we see in the Jude passage? How do we avoid being corrupted?
2. In what areas of your life are you tempted to compromise God’s truth?
3. What kinds of areas are worth compromising? Are there any? Is it of moral consequence, for example, to prefer blue painted walls to purple, eating takeout pizza or at the restaurant, or preferring black coffee to a cup of coffee with cream and sugar? What distinguishes something that disgusts God versus something that is simply personal preference? When a person refuses to compromise on preferences, how does that relate to Philippians 2:4 “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”?
4. Now read through the entire 2 Corinthians passage at Bible Gateway. Identify areas of reconciliation and what God finds disgusting and therefore can never be compromised.

ReKindle is the 2016 Lenten devotional series from Seminary Gal.

To receive these devotionals to your email inbox throughout Lent, please fill in your email address in the space provided on my Home Page in the sidebar (right) and respond to the verification email.  If you already receive devotionals and articles, no need to do anything else.  You’ll get them automatically.  Thank you!  Or log onto the SeminaryGal Facebook page and see them reprinted there.

Acknowledging that former years’ devotional series remain popular, Be Still and Know that I AM God can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014 and With Christ in the Upper Room  is archived beginning February 18, 2015.

1 Peter 1:22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. 23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.

A rekindled love is a pure love and a deep love.

There is nothing superficial about it.

It reflects the understanding that love comes from God and is a quality, an action, and a result.

It’s an intrinsic quality in that it resides within the Christian heart, just as the Word of God which gave it life. No Word of God, no real ability to truly love.

But it’s an action too in that it requires purifying ourselves.  How do we do that?  By obeying the truth. We must clean out the gunk of our lives and the sins of our hearts so that what’s present there by the Holy Spirit will be able to shine through.

What is this gunk, this sludge of the heart that slows the flow of deep love?

Here are some thoughts from the Apostle Paul. Ephesians 4:25 Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body. 26 “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27 and do not give the devil a foothold. 28 He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need. 29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

We’re in the midst of Lent, casting off and cleaning out the things which grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Because when we do, our lives will demonstrate a pure love, deep love.

So it’s not just a quality of God formed in us by His Word,  or an action of partnership between the Christian and the Spirit of God, but pure love is also a result. Clean out the sediment of sin and what do you get?  Lives that look like pure love, deep love.

What about you? Does your life hold onto those things the Apostle Paul tells us to get rid of, or does it reflect the purity of obedience and look like the love of Christ?

Give it Up for Lent: Any sludge of the heart you’ve been reluctant to shed.

Questions for 1 Peter 1:22-23 and Ephesians 4:25-32:

1. What actions can one take to have the pure love, deep love that God asks us to demonstrate?
2. In both passages, there is an action of cleansing and a result of gain for the Christian and his neighbor. Identify both the actions and the results.
3. Many people give up things for Lent like Facebook or chocolate or things of that nature. Yes, even good things can separate us from Christ if they have an unhealthy hold on our hearts.  How might one know if a good thing has an unhealthy hold on us?  And if it has an unhealthy hold, should we resume it after Easter?
4. If it’s of great concern to God for us to give something up, what does it say about us if we take it back up after Easter?

ReKindle is the 2016 Lenten devotional series from Seminary Gal.

To receive these devotionals to your email inbox throughout Lent, please fill in your email address in the space provided on my Home Page in the sidebar (right) and respond to the verification email.  If you already receive devotionals and articles, no need to do anything else.  You’ll get them automatically.  Thank you!  Or log onto the SeminaryGal Facebook page and see them reprinted there.

Acknowledging that former years’ devotional series remain popular, Be Still and Know that I AM God can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014 and With Christ in the Upper Room  is archived beginning February 18, 2015.

Romans 13:8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Don’t you find it curious how the Law from the Old Testament is all about love?

Love of God.

Love for neighbors who have been made in the Image of God.

And that Jesus perfectly fulfilled that Law by loving perfectly?

Think for a moment about debt. It’s what happens when you owe someone something or they owe you something that must be repaid. The continuing debt is one that can never be repaid.

Now read the passage about love that occurs in the prior chapter of Romans and think of it in terms of the ongoing debt to love one another.

Romans 12:9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Give it up for Lent: Love with limits

Questions for Romans 12:9-21 and 13:8-10

1. In what ways can our debt never be repaid? Why can it never be repaid?
2. What does it say about us when we expect or even hope to repay it?
3. Why is it good that we never be in the free and clear on repaying our debt of love? Consider the concepts of earning and grace.
4. We’re focusing in this series on rekindling…and in today’s case, rekindling our love. How does Romans 12:9-21 show us ways to rekindle our love? Identify ways listed there.
5. When I resigned from my preaching post in Wisconsin to do the sewer work in my hometown, God gave me Romans 13: 10 “Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law” as my motivating framework. In dealing with civic affairs, how does Romans 13:10 ensure that the spirit of the law is fulfilled instead of just satisfying checkboxes for legal sidestepping?

ReKindle is the 2016 Lenten devotional series from Seminary Gal.

To receive these devotionals to your email inbox throughout Lent, please fill in your email address in the space provided on my Home Page in the sidebar (right) and respond to the verification email.  If you already receive devotionals and articles, no need to do anything else.  You’ll get them automatically.  Thank you!  Or log onto the SeminaryGal Facebook page and see them reprinted there.

Acknowledging that former years’ devotional series remain popular, Be Still and Know that I AM God can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014 and With Christ in the Upper Room  is archived beginning February 18, 2015.

In John 13:34, Jesus gives us the Love Standard: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

Nothing irks a perfectionist quite the way that a high standard with a great probability of failure does.  If a gold standard is like the best of its class, Jesus’ love standard stands alone as the only one in its class. No other love really compares as fulfilling that command.

Jesus states “My command is this.”  I’m feeling like “Ok. I’ve got this covered. Obedience is my thing. I can do it.”

Love. No problem. I’ve got that in my wheel house.

Love each other. Wait a minute. This is getting harder. It assumes the other person doesn’t annoy me. It’s kinda hard to love someone you can barely sit with for 10 minutes without exhausting your patience quota.

Love each other as I have loved you. Really, Jesus? Isn’t that expecting a bit much?  Raising the bar a little too high?

• Do you mean that it doesn’t matter whether the other person is lovable or not?
• Do you mean that I need to do it anyway?
• And I need to love them fully like you loved all these unlovables here on earth?
• Even our enemies?

Interestingly, loving like Jesus loved isn’t a sentimental thing, but deeply rooted in what it means to love our Father at all.

For those Christians who wish only their friends well, or who stand up to lead worship, to preach, or to teach Bible studies all the while harboring resentment toward others (whether friends or enemies), Jesus would admonish us to first rekindle our love to His Love Standard.

Give it up for Lent: the world’s lower standard of love.

Jesus’ Love Standard is (not surprisingly) derived from the Old Testament:

1. In Leviticus 19:1-37, God spells out what it means to live as one who is set apart for God…as one who is morally upright. And what it means to love your neighbor as yourself with that higher standard.  If you have time, read that entire passage with God’s love standard in mind. Ask yourself how each applies to loving like Jesus loved.
2. Especially verses Leviticus 19:17 “‘Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt. 18 “‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.”  How is rebuking a neighbor involved in God’s higher Love Standard?
3. Accusing a brother or sister of hate isn’t the same as a loving rebuke against sin. Why?
4. He sums it up with verse 37 “‘Keep all my decrees and all my laws and follow them. I am the LORD.'” In fact, “I am the Lord” appears frequently in Leviticus 19. How did Jesus take the words of the Law and demonstrate that they have life?

ReKindle is the 2016 Lenten devotional series from Seminary Gal.

To receive these devotionals to your email inbox throughout Lent, please fill in your email address in the space provided on my Home Page in the sidebar (right) and respond to the verification email.  If you already receive devotionals and articles, no need to do anything else.  You’ll get them automatically.  Thank you!  Or log onto the SeminaryGal Facebook page and see them reprinted there.

Acknowledging that former years’ devotional series remain popular, Be Still and Know that I AM God can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014 and With Christ in the Upper Room  is archived beginning February 18, 2015.

John 15:12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command.

Most of us could probably use some help in the sacrificial love category.

Maybe we’re pretty good at other forms of love.  Consider how easy it might be to love those who love you, assuming you want them to love you. Or how easy it is to love those who do good things to you and for you, kind of like your very own fairy godmother. Those who make your life better or who enrich your days in one way or another, acting as a personal benefactor.

Such a love is more of a response than an initiation.

It’s an “I love you because…” and a fill-in-the-blank that’s easy to identify.

Sacrificial love is different. It’s not I love you because…., but I love you period.

Yes, it’s because Jesus loves you and me and He commands it.

But it’s also a love completely without conditions.

Rekindling one’s love for others hinges upon this idea: Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command.

A rekindled love is a sacrificial love. One that loves others whether they deserve it or not. One that loves even really unlovable people because Christ loved first. Oh Lord, rekindle my love to be like Yours!

How is that possible?  Loving unlovable people requires understanding two important things: First, unlovable is what all of us are in God’s book on account of our behavior, but importantly, there’s second thing.  Underneath all that behavioral and thought sin and gunk that God finds so detestable is a very lovable image of God in which each of us are made.  If we appreciate His Image and acknowledge His love, we will find loving others easier.  And something definitely worth sacrificing ourselves for.

Give it up for Lent: Judging others as not worth loving.

Questions regarding John 15:12-14.

1. Does Jesus suggest, hint, intimate, or command that we love? What about a command makes it imperative?
2. In the Gospel of John, Jesus had not gone to the Cross yet. How did today’s passage prepare the disciples to interpret His actions as a perfect standard of sacrificial love attained?
3. When we act selflessly to help others and to love them sacrificially, how does this move the embers together in community and rekindle love?
4. In John 15: 12-14, what are the human interactions involved?

ReKindle is the 2016 Lenten devotional series from Seminary Gal.

To receive these devotionals to your email inbox throughout Lent, please fill in your email address in the space provided on my Home Page in the sidebar (right) and respond to the verification email.  If you already receive devotionals and articles, no need to do anything else.  You’ll get them automatically.  Thank you!  Or log onto the SeminaryGal Facebook page and see them reprinted there.

Acknowledging that former years’ devotional series remain popular, Be Still and Know that I AM God can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014 and With Christ in the Upper Room  is archived beginning February 18, 2015.

The 40 days of Lent do not include Sundays which are designed as a Sabbath to give us rest, time to reflect, and the opportunity to be refreshed as we worship our loving God.

Job 38:18 Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this. 19 “What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? 20 Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings? 21 Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years! 22 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, 23 which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle? 24 What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? 25 Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, 26 to water a land where no man lives, a desert with no one in it, 27 to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass? 28 Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew? 29 From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens 30 when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen?

Tomorrow we resume ReKindle, the 2016 Lenten devotional series from Seminary Gal.

To receive these devotionals to your email inbox throughout Lent, please fill in your email address in the space provided on my Home Page in the sidebar (right) and respond to the verification email.  If you already receive devotionals and articles, no need to do anything else.  You’ll get them automatically.  Thank you!  Or log onto the SeminaryGal Facebook page and see them reprinted there.

Acknowledging that former years’ devotional series remain popular, Be Still and Know that I AM God can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014 and With Christ in the Upper Room  is archived beginning February 18, 2015.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day in the US.  Retailers hope to sell jewelry, flowers, chocolates, and enormous teddy bears destined for tomorrow’s closet.  And they will sell because on Valentine’s Day all of these are supposed to show love in a big way.

But frankly, that’s not the kind of love God talks about. Nor the kind that brings true joy.

Even if diamonds, roses, and chocolate-covered cherries might–for a moment–make someone feel loved and happy, it isn’t the kind of complete and eternal joy that God talks about.

John15:9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”

The love God talks about is key to having a rekindled and complete joy:

The joy of Christ. Joy made complete.

What does mean? What does that even look like?

Jesus’ joy came from His sure knowledge of the Father’s love. His joy came from loving others the way God loved Him. His joy came from obedience to the Father. Obedience that was the result and continuance of remaining in God’s love.

John 14:15 “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”

Not as an ultimatum, but as a demonstration of fact. There is an inseparable bond between love, obedience, and joy. Do you want a rekindled joy? Love God and obey Him. Your life’s circumstances may still not be happy per se, but your heart will know the joy of Christ in you and your joy will be complete.

Give it up for Lent: Thinking that you can have joy without loving God or obeying Him.

Questions for rekindling based on John 15:9-11

1. How is rekindling of joy a deep matter of the heart? (vv.9-10)
2. What does this say about all the superficial things we pursue in order to feel happy?
3. What is really needed?
4. Read verse 11. Jesus speaks of “my joy” and “your joy” with His joy in us. He doesn’t say “our joy” may be complete, lumping us in with Him. Why might that be?

ReKindle is the 2016 Lenten devotional series from Seminary Gal.

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Acknowledging that former years’ devotional series remain popular, Be Still and Know that I AM God can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014 and With Christ in the Upper Room  is archived beginning February 18, 2015.