LifeLink Devotional

Monday, July 29, 2019

It’s been quite a year so far. All around us things are anything but normal. Peace of mind is a past tense experience for many. Worry is building. Fear is replacing faith.

Life has been good for a long time for most of us in America. There have been ups and downs and some financial and political storms, but we have always weathered them. We have been trained by history to believe that this too shall pass. So we tighten our belts for a time, make some adjustments to our lifestyle, and plan for the day when it’s over and we can get back to living the way we dream to live.

Well guess what? One of these days the storm won’t pass. I’m not trying to ruin your day or be the gloom and doom man, but the truth is that God’s Word says there is a time coming when the storm will not pass. These preliminary storms are not supposed to strengthen our resolve to survive and get back everything we may have lost. The storms are God’s announcement that He wants to get our attention. They are designed to turn our hearts towards God so that we learn to trust Him and experience His peace no matter what the storm may bring.

The prophet Isaiah speaks to people who had become complacent about their faith and dependent upon their culture for their value and purpose.

Isaiah 32:10   In little more than a year you who feel secure will tremble; the grape harvest will fail, and the harvest of fruit will not come.

Later in this passage, we are given the reason for the storms on the horizon – the people were not seeking God with all their heart.

Strip off your clothes, put sackcloth around your waists. The fortress will be abandoned, the noisy city deserted; citadel and watchtower will become a wasteland forever, the delight of donkeys, a pasture for flocks, till the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, (my emphasis) and the desert becomes a fertile field, and the fertile field seems like a forest.

We can expect things to continue to get worse unless we turn to God in repentance and seek Him. Unfortunately, many are more in love with the world than they are with God. Most are more in love with themselves than they are with God. We tend to not love Jesus with all our heart because we choose to reserve sections of it for the pleasures of the world. We tend to not love God with all our mind because we allow the lust of the flesh to captivate our thinking. We tend to not love God with all our soul because we still seek to satisfy our need for acceptance and value with the approval of people. We tend to not love God with all our strength because we so easily give in to the temptations of sin. Hence the storms arrive.

My friends, the storms will continue to come because the power of sin will continue to dominate the world and keep its people from turning to Jesus. But those storms must not turn our hearts from the love of God. In fact, in the life of one who truly loves God, the storms draw us closer and we experience more grace and more peace.

May the storms today, whatever they are wherever you are, cause you to turn your eyes upon Jesus. Every storm is God’s megaphone through which He is shouting, May I have your attention? Listen to Him. Trust Him. Live for Him.

Pastor John