LifeLink Devotions for Monday, October 21, 2024

Over the weekend you were asked to consider this question. “Has my faith in God increased to a level that allows me to not seek options other than God when my present circumstances don’t work out the way I want them to?”

What a challenge. I hope you experienced personal growth as you learn to put your faith in the nature of God and not in the activity of God. We tend to be faithful only when things go well, and when they don’t we turn to options other than God. I trust you see the deception in all of that and are growing in your faith.

Now, here’s the second reason why we tend to return to our old ways of sin and self-management of life. In Exodus 32, the Israelites did not persist in their faith because they were not experiencing any movement. They wanted to see Moses come down from the mountain so they could know what was going on. They wanted answers, and when there was no movement they sought to create their own answer.

How often are we tempted to rush into the still moments of God’s timeline and force movement? We probably do it often. None of us enjoys the times when God seems inactive. We pray for answers, and none seem to come. We want an immediate answer of yes or a no but are unwilling to accept the answer of wait. Wait is a weight we cannot bear. “Maybe God needs our help to motivate some activity,” we say. Do we realize the serious implications of such a statement? If we believe that God needs our help in any way, then we cannot believe that He is truly God, and we place ourselves above Him. It is no wonder that the Lord’s anger burned against the people because of their impudence.

Do not fight the quiet times of God’s apparent inactivity. His glory can still be seen all around you, as it was on the mountain. His promises are still valid and will not fail. He had promised the Israelites in Exodus 19:5-6 that “if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” He affirmed that promise to us as well in 1 Peter 2:9-10 which says, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”  

God does not need our help to keep the plan moving: it is moving just fine and according to His timeline. So in those quiet times of inactivity, do what the people of Israel were called to do when Moses left for the mountain to meet with God – wait, and live in consecrated, holy expectation of God’s arrival. He will show up with the answer when He knows it’s best, or He will show up as the final answer and takes us to Himself. Be persistent to live by faith according to what you now know, and God will give you more to know when you need it.

Pastor John