My life’s pathway before the Lord

An Emoji devotions for Thu, November 11, 2021

Topic: My life’s pathway before the Lord

By Pastor Hans

Highlights:

A person may think their own ways are right, but the Lord weighs the heart. To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. Haughty eyes and a proud heart— the unplowed field of the wicked —produce sin. (Proverbs 21:2 - 4)

 I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I rejoice because of you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. (Romans 16:17 – 20)

The New Testament tells us time and again that the King of Kings will return and we are supposed to watch and be ready for his arrival. “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him.” (Luke 12:35 – 36, just to mention only one reference out of the many). The main cause is the kingdom of God and all our efforts are supposed to let it shine, like it did when Jesus himself has walked the earth. He has sent us into the world, the same way his Father has sent him into the world (John 17, 18 and 20, 21) and he wanted us to win souls for his kingdom with a holy life as he has depicted it in the beatitudes and in all of his teachings. It is his kingdom we are supposed to be building, not our own.

 Exactly here are some dangers for all of us, because we all suffer from an inherent conceit with the tendency to believe that we are quite good people and that our path is quite strait and comparably well. Yes, we readily admit that we too have faults, but they are easily explainable with our deficient circumstances. Therefore we all believe that our own ways are quite right. It is a sacrifice to admit before the Lord that my own ways are crooked and that my conceitedness produces sin. The Lord weighs the heart and only the broken heart that is aware of its own depravity has the right weight. 

After the Apostle Paul has put down the theological concept of the gospel to the church in Rome, he sends many individual greetings to the people he personally knows. The church in Rome is in a good standing and he commends it for the exemplary obedience. Nevertheless he is concerned about the people who cause divisions, who do not serve the kingdom of God, but try to build their own kingdom with deceit. He commands the church to keep away from them as they intertwine good and evil. He wants the church to be wise about what is good and innocent about what is evil. Evil has to be rooted out and that begins in my heart. If my heart is haughty, proud and conceited, I will produce sin, no matter how much truth I may spread. I need to be separated from everything that is evil. There is no other way to serve the good. People who ignore that are serving the evil, even if they may include some truth. Whoever serves evil will be crushed together with Satan under the feet of the church, when the God of peace appears. 

Prayer: Dear heavenly Father, please search my heart. I do want to separate myself from everything that is evil. I am a sinner before you, but through Jesus Christ you have redeemed and accepted me. I praise you for your mercy and grace. Lead me through your Holy Spirit that I am wise in all that is good and innocent in all that is evil. Amen