Good morning!
Welcome to your morning coffee! May our Heavenly Father remind us of what it means to us and for us that he calls himself our Father. Father, you are who you say you are. And we are who you say we are. Help us to act like your faithful, grateful children today. Let our hearts and minds be turned towards the eternal joy of obedience to you. Hide from the eyes of our thoughts and feelings the momentary false-delight of pleasing only ourselves. Father help us to live obedient lives full of your shared joy at your creating, your mercy, your love. In the name of your son Jesus, make us more like him, who came not to do his will, but yours. And by your Spirit make us able to obey your every command!
Your Morning Song: "Mercy's Shore" by Needtobreathe
Your Morning Scripture: Deuteronomy 8:5-6
Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him.
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How quickly our hearts leap to accuse God when life is hard, when it doesn't go the way we think it ought to. We are too quick to mistake our relationship with God for something other than it is. And it is because of our broken, fallen flesh that we still struggle with this. To guard our well-spring hearts with our minds against the unstable, ungodly temptation to see God as owing us.
But owing us what? Because that creates the full, untrue picture of what so often leads us to grumble against God, to accuse him, to turn our minds and hearts against him.
We think God owes us happiness. He doesn't. He owes us nothing. But he wants to make us holy. God is willing to allow our lives to be hard, to test us, to try us, to stretch us and grow us, for the purpose of making us more like his son.
And the surest sign that we understand who God is and what he wants, is to obey him. How often do we consider how we can please God? Or are we more often thinking about how God is or is not pleasing us?
He is our Father. We are his children. He loves us by teaching and testing and growing us. We love him by obeying him.
And he will give us neither peace nor rest if we think he owes us either, or that could ever find them anywhere other than in his pleasure.
My flesh-born pride recoils and my re-born spirit rejoices!
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