Devotionals

Proverbs 8:13, NIV
“To fear the Lord is to hate evil.”

I’ve recently been casting my mind back over the years of Ellel Ministries and thinking of all the stories I would want to put in a book about what God has done since the work began back in 1986. As I did so, I found myself also thinking back about some people who we would love to have helped more than we were able – people for whom the key to their situation lay within the eight words of our short Scripture for today!

They were people who said they really loved the Lord. People who had been touched by Him at different times of their lives, but people, nevertheless, who were still struggling with issues that seemed to overwhelm them at regular intervals. They found that the temptations of the world were too often greater than they were able to handle and kept on slipping back into a variety of sinful behaviours. Some came back several times – each time deeply repentant, but at the core of their being there was something out of order.

When talking about healing I often say that the best definition of healing principles that I know is “the restoration of God’s order in a person’s life”. This doesn’t mean living life according to how I would like things to be, but living according to how God has said they should be. On this rock many people stumble. They want God to fit in with their ideas and desires – not the other way round! And at the end of the day, for some of these dear people, the real issue is not the size or the nature of their problem, but the simple fact that while they say they love the Lord, but they haven’t yet learned to hate evil!

Many of our daily Seeds of the Kingdom have touched on the simple relationship there is between the fear of the Lord and love for the Lord. If you really love someone you naturally don’t want to do things that grieve them. And so it is that if you REALLY love the Lord, the last thing you will want to do is to embrace any of the evil which separated man form God, and which Jesus died on the cross to set us free from. If we are struggling with temptation of any form today let’s ask ourselves the hard question – have we fallen into the trap of loving this particular evil thing more than we love the Lord? If so, it may be time to repent – not so much of the sin associated with your problem, but of thinking it’s OK not to hate evil, which is so often the real issue that underpins the problem of temptation! Loving evil will always separate us from God!

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, that You loved men and women such as me, so much, that you sent Jesus to die for our sins, in spite of the evil that separated You from mankind. Help me, Lord, to recognise evil when I see it, before it becomes a temptation and a trap I can fall into. Help me, also, Lord to hate evil and to choose to walk in the opposite direction when I am faced with ungodly choices. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

“The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.”Psalm 34:10, NIVOn the 9th June, AD 597, Columba, the extraordinary Irish saint who became God’s apostolic messenger to Scotland, through his work at Iona, was writing…

Psalm 34:10, NIV
“The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.”

On the 9th June, AD 597, Columba, the extraordinary Irish saint who became God’s apostolic messenger to Scotland, through his work at Iona, was writing out a copy of Psalm 34. He reached our Scripture for today and knew that the Lord was telling him to write no more, as from that day on he would lack no good thing. The time of his calling home had come. A few hours later, surrounded by his brother monks, he waved his hand in an act of farewell blessing and went to be with the Lord.

A few days later some visiting monks arrived to see St. Columba and asked some brothers if Columba was well. Their reply was simple but profound. “Yes, truly he is well – for he is with Christ!” All his life Columba had sought the Lord and the Lord assured him at the moment of his passing that he would lack no good thing – all was indeed well. For those who love the Lord, this is their inheritance as saints of God.

But before he died Columba passed on an instruction for his successor. When he had stopped transcribing Psalm 34 at verse 10, he said, “let Baithene write what follows,”. This is what the next verse says: “Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord”. In this very simple instruction Columba was not only passing on to Baithene a request to finish the work of transcribing the psalm, but showing Baithene how he must live in order that his life and ministry should be fruitful.

There are several places in Scripture where we read words such as “the fear of the Lord is beginning of wisdom.” Such holy fear is not a response to the fist-shaking of a fearsome despot, but is the deepest response we can ever make to the love of God. When He loves us so much, why would we ever want to do anything but walk in His ways?. But the truth is, our carnal nature constantly trips us up and we are prone to temptation and sin. So what is it that will constantly keep us in tune with God and walking with him? The answer is contained in the first verse that Baithene had to transcribe after succeeding Columba at Iona. It was the ongoing key to God’s blessing for the brothers in the community – and it is the ongoing key for each one of us as we seek to respond to the love of God in our daily service of Him – the fear of the Lord.

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, for the amazing work of the early pioneers of Christian truth. Thank you for their extraordinary example of holy living. Teach me, Lord, how to love and serve You in holy fear and in my generation to be a pioneer of truth to a very needy world. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

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“He who listens to a life-giving rebuke will be at home among the wise. He who ignores discipline despises himself, but whoever heeds correction gains understanding. The fear of the Lord teaches a man wisdom, and humility comes before honour.”Proverbs …

Proverbs 15:31-33, NIV
“He who listens to a life-giving rebuke will be at home among the wise. He who ignores discipline despises himself, but whoever heeds correction gains understanding. The fear of the Lord teaches a man wisdom, and humility comes before honour.”

There are times in all our lives when we need to hear the truth about ourselves. But frankly none of us like it and the natural instinct of the carnal nature is to rise up to attack the messenger instead of to listen carefully to the message, asking the Lord if there is any truth in what is being said. I can remember several times as a youth rising up on the inside and thinking my father was so wrong in what he was saying. In later life, however, I realised just how right he was at the time and how important his loving correction had been. It saved me from making much more serious mistakes.

In the history of God’s people there were many occasions when the prophets brought unwelcome messages. Instead of listening to what God was saying to the people through God’s prophetic mouthpiece, they often turned on the prophets who had had the courage to tell the people the truth. For example in Isaiah’s day the people turned on him saying, “Don’t give us any more visions of what is right, tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions” (Isaiah 30:10). This is an extraordinary verse of Scripture. The people knew Isaiah to be a Godly man who listened to the heart of God and always spoke the truth. But when the people didn’t like hearing what he was saying, instead, they asked this Godly man to tell them lies! They did not want to hear the voice of God through Isaiah bringing correction. In pride and arrogance they wanted to live life in their own ungodly way. When someone speaks correction into our lives, let’s be careful not to hastily reject the message.

Our Scripture for today contains a salutary warning about the dangers of ignoring the voice of correction. It also gives us a very interesting slant on the consequences of ignoring discipline. It says that he who ignores discipline despises himself! Discipline may not always be given in the best possible way and it’s rarely a comfortable experience! But when it comes, we need to weigh it carefully, for if we reject the message and choose to ‘shoot’ the messenger instead, we are actually despising ourselves. If you despise someone, you look down on them and don’t give them any respect. And if you despise yourself that is exactly what you are doing. You are looking down on yourself and disrespecting the need there may be in your life to prayerfully consider the message and choose to change. The consequences could be serious, as they so often were for God’s people when they rejected the messages of God’s prophets.

Our Scripture encourages us to listen carefully to the voice of correction, for it is through this that we can gain important understanding – but we will never be willing to walk that path unless first we deal with our pride and choose to humble ourselves. As that wonderful Bible teacher Derek Prince used to say, “the way down is the way up!”

Prayer: Help me, Lord, to listen carefully when You bring correction into my life. Help me to welcome it so that I may gain understanding and more fully walk in Your ways. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

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“For the Lord gives wisdom and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.”…

Proverbs 2:6-8, NIV
“For the Lord gives wisdom and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.”

I love the promises of God! There are three especially precious promises within these two verses from the Book of Proverbs.

The first promise relates to what the Lord offers to give us directly – wisdom, knowledge and understanding. Many is the time when someone has asked me for advice, an opinion, for prayer or for direction in their lives – when I would love to have referred them to this Scripture. Sometimes people think that it is only someone in public ministry that can help them! But the truth is that God has promised wisdom, knowledge and understanding to all believers. As we read his Word, and meditate on its truths we will find that the Spirit of God speaks into our hearts with God’s revelation for our situation.

The second promise relates to those who are upright – that doesn’t mean those who can stand tall physically, but it does mean those who choose to walk tall spiritually – who commit themselves to a life of truth and integrity, living in accordance with God’s Word and in the safety of His commandments. For those who walk uprightly like this God promises to be a shield of protection and to give us victory in the things that he puts before us to do.

The third promise tells us that the Lord will also guard the way ahead of us and protect us on the journey of life. That doesn’t mean to say that we won’t face problems, but it does point us in the direction of a narrow walk of faith. I love the story that John Bunyan tells in his book Pilgrim’s Progress, of how Christian was climbing the ‘hill difficulty’ and there were two lions on the road ahead of him. He immediately went into fear and was at a loss what to do. But in faith he kept walking in the middle of the road with the lions roaring at one side and the other. It was only when he reached the place where the lions were that he realised they were chained and that if he walked right in the middle of the road there was a narrow path of safety where the lions were unable to reach him.

The Christian life is a commitment to walking along that narrow path – the path where we will truly hear the voice of the Lord encouraging and directing us, the place where we will experience the shield of His protection and the path which God has promised to guard us on each step of the journey. I pray that as you put your feet down, one step at a time, on the pathway of life, that you will know God’s clear direction as He speaks to you along the way.

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, for the wonderful promises contained within these verses of Scripture. Help me to not just be blessed by knowing they are in Your Word, but by experiencing for myself the fulfilment of the promises in my life. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

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2 Kings 2:-9-10, NIV
When they had crossed over, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?” “Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit,” Elisha replied. “You have asked a difficult thing,” Elijah said, “yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours—otherwise, it will not.”

How did Elisha receive the double portion of the blessing? The answer was he was totally committed to receiving it. The requirement was he had to stick with Elijah to the very end of the journey and see him go, or he wouldn`t receive what he`d asked for. Elisha knew it was the day when Elijah was to be taken into heaven.

They started off at Gilgal, which is the place of new beginnings. It was here that the Israelites first celebrated the Passover in the promised land. And it was here that all the males born in the wilderness were circumcised and the covenant was renewed (Joshua 5). Then Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Stay here for the Lord has sent me on to Bethel.’ But of course, Elisha refused to be left behind. Bethel was the place where Jacob had met with God and dreamed of angels descending and ascending into heaven. So we could call that the place of dreams.

These were pleasant places and opportunities for Elisha to settle down but NO, he insisted on going on with Elijah to the end of the journey. Then Elijah said `stay here please for the Lord has sent me on to Jericho`. But Elisha again refused. Jericho is the place of past victories. Israel had its first victory here in the promised land.

And then Elijah went on to Jordan, and again entreated Elisha to stay behind. Jordan is known as the place of death and the Jordan River represents the boundary for the promised land. To cross it meant to enter into death. But Elijah and Elisha crossed through the Jordan, and it was here that he was taken up in a chariot of fire into eternal life. This represents that we have to die to self in our personal Jordan before we can truly live for God and be led by the Spirit of God.

I was wondering if we often find ourselves in these places on our journey in our Christian life. It seems to me many believers spend their entire Christian life in Gilgal. They never grow and never leave the place of new beginnings. Some go as far as Bethel. They catch the vision of God’s great work. They see the needs, they feel the tug but they never get past the place of dreaming of what they might do one day. They never take the next step of making the dream or the vision a reality.

Still others hold on to their personal Jerichos. They are always talking about the victory of yesterday and what the Lord did for them back there, forgetting God wants to use and bless them just as powerfully today. Then some do finally arrive at the Jordan. And I see this as the barrier between dying to the carnal nature and starting to live the Spirit-led life. Few take that final step of faith and surrender completely to God and finish their race.

Elisha finally received the double portion of the spirit that was in Elijah, because he persevered and went the whole journey. If we want to receive all that God has to give us, we need to follow Elisha’s example.

Prayer: Dear Lord, help me to run the race that You`ve marked out for me. I long to see You move in greater power in my life. Help me to stay focussed and to be hungry and thirsty after all that You have for me. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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