LifeLink Devotions for Tuesday, May 27, 2025

Here are some more lessons I’m learning from Isaiah chapter six. God is calling you. I’m not sure to what yet, and maybe you aren’t either. He hasn’t told you what it is. But the fact that He has brought you into His presence means that He is preparing you to respond to a call to serve Him. He has brought you into His presence to remove all obstacles in the path of acceptance. We may think there are several closed doors in front of us, but God wants to open them all so we can walk the path He has prepared.

The fact that we are in God’s presence opens the first door – the door of humility. Isaiah is overwhelmed with the perfection of God. He is cowering in fear of his own unworthiness to be there. If we are to hear the call of God clearly, pride must be destroyed. Self must be crucified. Our desires, goals, and dreams must melt under the spectacle of God’s sovereignty. We must be willing to set aside anything and everything that is important to our flesh for the sake of experiencing the fullness of the Spirit.

The second door that must be opened is the confession of sin. It starts with the recognition of its horror. Every sin – not just the big ones – but every little sin that stands opposed to the holy, non-contradictory nature of God must be seen for what it is: absolute corruption. Even down to having unclean lips. We must humble ourselves before the throne of God.

It is in this position – face down with nothing but His justified judgment of sin on our minds – that God meets us at our point of need. This is the third door that God opens for us. When we reach the point of confession that we are incapable of escape from punishment that God reveals to us the way He has provided. He has atoned for our sin. He will remove our guilt. He will make us whole.

The word atonement is significant. It simply means satisfaction for a wrong. Our sin is wrong. It’s always wrong. It’s never even slightly right. There is nothing in us that qualifies us to satisfy the wrong of sin in the holiness of God. But God can, and He did. It is symbolized for us in the life of Isaiah with the burning coal from the altar of heaven. The fulfillment of the symbol is found in the death of Christ when He presented Himself on the altar of heaven during the darkness that followed His crucifixion. In Christ God atoned for the sin of man. The sacrifice Jesus made on the cross has been eternally recognized by God as the sufficient, once-for-all sacrifice for our sin.

Some of you readers may have never reached this point in your “religious” life. You have been trusting the wrong thing. You have been hoping that God will somehow choose to recognize your self-produced goodness. That cannot happen. I cannot emphasize that enough. It is not in your power to save yourself. Only God can provide the satisfaction for your wrong by offering His sinless Son as a substitute for your death. Put your faith in Him today.

Others of you have been to the cross, but your lives are a mess because you cannot hear the call of God to service because your heart is blocked up by sin and self. You too need to humbly come back into the throne room and let God restore you to a life of faith in Him.

The fourth door is opened when we stand and accept God’s spectacular gift of forgiveness and believe that because of Christ we are now worthy to serve the King, the LORD Almighty. Here is where we will hear His call to service, just as Isaiah did. But notice this very significant observation – God’s call was one to service with no details of what that service would be. God wants your willing heart before He gives you details of what you will be doing. If Isaiah had known up front the message that He would be speaking, he may have refused the call. But with His heart overwhelmed with the vision of God’s holiness and the grace of God’s forgiveness, he was ready to say yes to anything God asked.

And he did.

Will you?

You will if you go through all four doors.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Monday, May 26, 2025

I am easily captivated by the splendor of nature. I am tempted at times to just pull the car over to the side of the road, get out, and walk through the woods. It actually happened one night. My wife and I were blessed to have two of our grandchildren sleep over at our house. After supper we decided to take them out for ice cream.

Mmmmmmmmm…ice cream…

Anyway, on the way to the ice cream parlor, we decided to drive through Irvine Park and show it to my dad, whom we had invited along on the excursion. At one point I was so enthralled with the view of the waterfall and the woods that I wanted to just run into them and get lost in their beauty for the rest of the day. I have paused for extended periods of time at scenic outlooks overlooking nothing but hills and valleys of farmland. I stood in silent awe at the edge of Lake of the Clouds in Upper Michigan. I took far longer than anyone else in my family to soak up the spectacle of a simple lighthouse on the shores of Lake Superior. I become absorbed quickly in a moment of magnificence in the mountains. I am easily captivated by the splendor of nature.

That’s why it may take several days to get through this passage of Scripture in Isaiah chapter six but we must linger for a time at this spot of incredible beauty. Isaiah has been given a vision of God on His throne in Heaven. How can we pass by it quickly? So forget all of your plans for a few moments and get away to a quiet place where you can absorb the splendor of the King. I am not going verse by verse, but impression by impression, and I am impressed with one thing today as I contemplate what I see.

Notice the contrast between what Isaiah hears from the angelic beings and what he knows to be true about his own communication habits. In the presence of God Almighty there is constant praise and worship. They declare His holiness. To be holy means to be perfectly complete and perfectly pure. There is nothing in God that contradicts itself. Every aspect of His character and His nature are in perfect agreement. How long would it take us to absorb all the splendor of that? And when these angelic beings spoke the words of praise and worship, the doorposts and thresholds of heaven shook.

It is at this point that Isaiah cries out in despair, “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”  

Here’s what impresses me – Isaiah knew that his everyday communication with God and with people did not possess the power of praise. His speech had become tainted by a critical spirit rather than empowered by a vision of God’s holiness.

It is so very significant that the book of Isaiah does not begin with his vision of God on the throne, but rather with his perspective on society. Even though the words he spoke to the people of his day in those first five chapters were the words the Lord gave him to speak, he now recognizes that he had allowed his heart to become critical and judgmental of the people. He saw himself as unclean. His lips needed to be touched with the holiness of God.

My friends, spend some time at this spectacular scenic overlook. Your words have power – power to hurt or power to help. Your words can destroy a person’s spirit, or they can develop a person’s spiritual relationship. They have power to shake the doorposts of a person’s life bringing fear or faith. It all depends on whether or not you have been in the presence of the Holy One and have yourself determined to live your life without contradiction.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Friday, May 23, 2025

One summer I spent several days with a friend just relaxing, playing golf, and talking. We joked quite a bit about some of the pet phrases we have adopted into our spiritual vocabulary. The one that we laughed about the most is this – “That was a God thing.” At the very root of our laughter was the realization that because God is sovereign, everything is a God thing. Yet we tend to give credit to God only when the thing that happens has an immediate benefit for us.

Which one of you would shout out at the top of your lungs from the emergency room of the hospital where you lie writhing in agony from an accident, “This is a God thing?” But it is. We must understand this – God is in sovereign control of every circumstance of life, and is using even the consequences of our sin as an instrument of shaping our spiritual life into the image of His Son Jesus.

But that is not the deep water I want to dive into today. The fact that we say “That was a God thing” only at times of personal benefit proves that we are attempting to be in control of our own lives most of the time. And because of that, we miss out on so many opportunities to see God do incredible things in and through us. We miss hearing so many whispers of the Holy Spirit because our pride is shouting so loudly.

Back to the story of my friend. We were on our way to the golf course early in the morning. We decided to stop at a fast food place and pick up coffee and a breakfast sandwich. Between my house and the golf course there were two places I could have stopped. As I pulled out of the garage my spirit was clearly being directed by the Holy Spirit. It was one of those times when I am made aware of the incredible processing power of the human mind created by the very same God who was now taking control of it. In a flash I was directed to turn right and head for the restaurant by the mall, taking the back roads from my house. I quickly processed travel time, tee time, directions, and ease of access both to the drive-through and back onto the highway to the golf course. I compared it to the other option. All of this was taking place in a split second of time as the car approached the end of the driveway.

Then, in my spirit, I heard it again. Go right. I obeyed.  

When we pulled up to the window of the drive-through to pick up our food, I looked inside the restaurant and saw an old friend. It was a man who used to attend our church. I hadn’t seen him in over a year. I waved to him to come to the door at the end of the drive-through so I could say hi. He did. We pulled up to the door and talked for a moment. I had heard several weeks ago that he had gotten a new motorcycle, and there it was in the parking lot. He told me how much he liked it and then invited me to call him and bring my motorcycle over and go riding with him some day.

As we drove away from the McDonald’s, I looked at my friend, and almost simultaneously we said, “That was a God thing.” We laughed, and all the way to the golf course talked about how many times the Holy Spirit tries to direct our steps every day and we miss it because we are so focused on what we want to do. The shouts of our pride drown out the whispers of the Holy Spirit so that the recognition of God’s activity in our lives is so infrequent it surprises us when it happens.

My goal is to stop shouting and start listening, so I can see the Lord seated on the throne of my life, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filling the temple of my life with His presence and glory. When that happens, everything becomes a God thing.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Thursday, May 22, 2025

With arms flailing in the air and lights flashing brilliantly from his head and chest, he would roll into view from off the screen with his volume at maximum shouting, “Danger! Danger!”  He was capable of shooting lightning bolts from his mechanical hands. He had a huge database of information. He was programmed to protect and serve the Robinson family and had a special connection to one family member named Will.

For those of you over the age of 65, you probably recognize the character simply called “Robot” from the hit television series Lost in Space. From 1965 to 1968 I’m sure I watched every one of the 83 episodes produced. I wanted to see what kind of trouble Dr. Smith would get into when he ignored the warnings of the robot. Sometimes I wish I would have learned more about avoiding danger from the misdirected and devious Dr. Smith.

Yesterday in our study of Isaiah we saw that the Lord planted a vineyard – the nation of Israel – and gave it every opportunity to produce a good harvest for His glory. They failed to do so because they didn’t recognize or heed the warnings of danger ahead. As you read through the fifth chapter of Isaiah today you will notice six warnings of danger ahead that very aptly apply to our modern world. We would be wise to heed them before we too fall into a pit from which there may be no apparent escape.

1.    The Danger of Materialism – verse 8 – “Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land.” The pursuit of personal prosperity will eventually leave us desolate. Jesus said that money very quickly becomes our master, and when it does we cannot serve Him, for no one can serve two masters at the same time. There is grave danger ahead for those who pursue wealth as their means of personal gratification.

2.    The Danger of Hedonism – verses 11 and 12 – “Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks, who stay up late at night till they are inflamed with wine. They have harps and lyres at their banquets, tambourines and flutes and wine, but they have no regard for the deeds of the LORD, no respect for the work of his hands.” The pursuit of pleasure will result in the loss of freedom, and according to verse 14, the appetite for pleasure is exceeded only by the appetite of the grave.

3.    The Danger of Deceit and Denial – verse 18 – “Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit, and wickedness as with cart ropes.” It’s too easy for us to say we have surrendered everything to Jesus and then fill up our backpacks and wagons with the supplies of sin just in case the trip doesn’t go as we expected.

4.    The Danger of Relativity and Rationalization – verse 20 – “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”  It’s also far too easy for us to justify those backpacks and wagons filled with sin.

5.    The Danger of Humanism – verse 21 – “Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.” Here’s the reason why we have backpacks and wagons filled with sin – because we really trust in ourselves more than we trust in God.

6.    The Danger of Injustice – verse 22 and 23 – “Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks, who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent.” We have made heroes of the wrong people – people without righteous character. We have neglected to treat the guilty with justice and the innocent with compassion. We care more about acceptance than we do integrity.

As I look around at society I see the arms of the robot flailing in the air. But the real issue is not society – the real issue is me. I have become more like Dr. Smith than I ever believed I would. It’s time to start recognizing the danger – not the danger that’s ahead, but the danger that is already in us.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Wednesday, May 21, 2025

In an old book of stories I have on my desk I found this strange reference to an apple tree growing in an orchard here in the Midwest. This old apple tree was planted many years ago, with its limbs in the ground and its roots in the air. It occasionally produces an apple as new branches sprout from where roots should be. It is a curiosity to those who see it. The farmer who planted it is said to have read an old German legend in which such an inverted tree played a prominent part in the success of the hero. Although the tree lives, and occasionally bears an apple, it is only a curiosity and bears no fruit of any respectable amount.

That tree is a picture of what happens when Christians live inverted lives with their roots in the world rather than in Christ. It’s the same picture the prophet Isaiah is portraying with his image of the vineyard in chapter five.

“I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit.”  (Isaiah 5:1-2)

God planted a vineyard. He cleared the rocks and trees, worked the soil, and planted the vines (the nation of Israel). He built a watchtower for protection, and He built the winepress for the abundant harvest He expected. God did everything to make it possible for the vineyard to bear fruit that would honor Him. But the people spread their roots and their branches into the world, and the fruit was unusable to the Lord Almighty.

We are no different than the people of Israel in Isaiah’s day. We say we are a part of the vine of Christ, yet we try to live Christian lives without being planted in the Christian church. We choose to let our roots run out into the responsibilities of the world rather than into the responsibilities of church life. We are very much like that inverted tree. We bear an occasional apple, but there is nothing of any significant or consistent value to the Lord.

So what happens to trees and vineyards like this? Well, like the inverted apple tree, there is only one way to justify its existence – its curiosity level that entertains people. So many people in the Christian church today are nothing more than entertainment to the people of the world. They make jokes about us, they mock us, and they use us to justify their own sinful lifestyles. Our hypocrisy authorizes such responses.

In the case of the vineyard in Scripture, the vines will be destroyed. God does not waste time on vines and branches that do not produce. This is a hard teaching from Scripture, but it is a trustworthy teaching. Jesus confirms what Isaiah says in chapter 5 when He says these words about the vine in John 15 –

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.  Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.  If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”

My friends, where are your roots? Are you attempting to take nourishment for your life from the world? Are you seeking to grow branches according to the world’s standards so its people will accept you and approve of you? Or are you rooted in Christ alone, and bearing fruit only for His glory?

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Tuesday, May 20, 2025

“Hurry up, please. I want it now. I’m tired of waiting. I’ve had enough. I’m ready to be done with this. Haven’t I struggled long enough? Haven’t I put up with enough junk in my life? Isn’t it time for me to enjoy some down time and relax a little?”

I’m pretty sure we’ve all said those things. Yesterday we read a wonderful promise from God – “Tell the righteous it will be well with them, for they will enjoy the fruit of their deeds.” The question is, “When is the enjoyment going to begin?”

As we read on into chapter four of Isaiah, we get the answer. It will happen “In that day.”

“In that day the Branch of the LORD will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the pride and glory of the survivors in Israel.” (Isaiah 4:2)

In what day? In the day that the Branch of the Lord is revealed. There is a day coming when the fruit of our righteousness will be delivered to us by the Lord Jesus Christ himself. What a day, glorious day, that will be.

• It will be a day when pride is destroyed (Isaiah 2:12).
• It will be a day when materialism and trust in wealth will be abolished (Isaiah 2:20).
• In that day there will be a recognition of the incompetence of man to govern himself and the ineffectiveness of political power (Isaiah 3:7)
• It will be a day when external beauty and image will become irrelevant, and the truth of one’s spiritual condition will be revealed (Isaiah 3:18-26)

The Day of the Lord is coming. According to Scripture it will be a day when Jesus Christ returns to earth to establish His kingdom on earth. He will come with the armies of heaven to destroy all his earthly and heavenly enemies. He will bring the glory of God back to Jerusalem. He will bring His bride – the born-again members of His church that were previously raptured from the earth – and we will reign with Him on the earth and over its people. In that day, we will enjoy the fruit of our deeds as we reign with Jesus Christ the King.

I know, for some of you that sounds like a long way off and life is too tough right now to think that far ahead. But we must. We must fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. It was the joy of His reign that was set before Him and gave Him the strength to endure all the suffering of the cross.

Others that have gone before us have looked ahead to that Day and have endured to the end. They are now the witnesses whose lives tell us we can also persevere if we will just throw off the weights of this world and the sins of the flesh and run toward that day.

When we consider what Jesus endured to get to the inconceivable joy of the finish line, and what others have endured by faith in the same God who will give us the same glory, we must not lose heart. We must continue to press on towards the prize of the high calling we have in Christ Jesus.

My friends, there is a day coming – maybe very soon the way the world is going today – when we will enjoy the fruit of faithful and righteous labor for the coming King. Be strong. Be courageous. The Lord your God is with you, and the work He has started in you will be carried out to completion on the day of Jesus Christ.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Monday, May 19, 2025

There it was. It came exactly when I needed it. It’s happened before: many times. But it seems that the emotions of the current day always overshadow the previous experiences of blessing. Why is that? Why are we so quick to move from faith to frustration?

But God knows. God sees. And God says in Isaiah 3:10,  “Tell the righteous it will be well with them, for they will enjoy the fruit of their deeds.”

God fulfilled His promise. Smack dab in the middle of a discouraging moment, it arrived. It started with a couple of posts by my wife on Facebook and then came a response from a friend. They were all words of encouragement that healed my heart. They were words that motivated more ministry. God knew I needed them. I praise Him that people listened when He urged them to write.

Isaiah must have felt the same thing I did. Since he started writing what God was saying about the spiritual condition of His people, only 6 out of the previous 63 verses have had any positive flavor to them. That’s less than 10%. Sometimes life feels that way – 90% trouble and a splash of good.

But right here, in the middle of what I think is the most discouraging discourse on the condition of mankind, we have this message of hope from our Lord. “Tell the righteous it will be well with them, for they will enjoy the fruit of their deeds.”

As Isaiah describes the natural harvest of a life of rebellion against God, he is reminded of the truth of the law of harvest for the righteous as well. Everything we do, everything we say, and everything we think produces a harvest of something. It will result in disaster or in delight. There will be a harvest of suffering or satisfaction. God is establishing our understanding of one of His irrefutable laws – “Whatever we sow we reap: whatever we plant we harvest.”

There are times in the middle of this mess we call life that it seems all the good we are doing and all the ministry we invest in is only adding to the mess. At the bare minimum it seems like we are just maintaining our current level but making no advances. It seems more and more discouraging every day as we look at the condition of the world and the spiritual darkness that surrounds us. I don’t think I have ever seen a time when the overall attitude of the media and the general public has moved more quickly from the hope of change to hopelessness.

Christians are not immune to such feelings. We quickly lose sight of the promises of God when we focus on the problems of life. We spend more time thinking about the falling economy than we do praying for the rise of the Kingdom of God. We focus more on the ecological disaster of an oil spill than we do on the spiritual anointing oil of the Holy Spirit that brings joy. We worry about food and clothing and shelter when Jesus said to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and He would provide all the other things we need.

But in every one of those moments of misery – those times of trouble – Jesus comes along side of us and says, “If you are living righteously, it will be well with you. You will enjoy the fruit of your deeds.”

If you will just slow down a minute or two today and listen, you will hear Him speaking to you. Keep your focus on Jesus. Keep living for Jesus. Keep serving Jesus. Even if nothing seems to change or no one seems to notice, Jesus does. Your labor is not in vain in the Lord according to1 Corinthians 15:58. You will enjoy the fruit of your righteous deeds.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Friday, May 16, 2025

Over the last two days we discovered the ways that we reject God and turn to people for our support and security. Now God reveals to Isaiah how people who trust in people end up.

Isaiah 3:8  “Jerusalem staggers, Judah is falling; their words and deeds are against the LORD, defying his glorious presence.”

As you read the third chapter there are six things that stand out to me as the social consequences of turning away from faith in God and obedience to His Word:

• Oppression – verse 5a – People will oppress each other—man against man, neighbor against neighbor. 
• Disrespect – verse 5b – The young will rise up against the old, the base against the honorable.
• Unqualified Leadership – verses 6-7 – A man will seize one of his brothers at his father’s home, and say, “You have a cloak, you be our leader; take charge of this heap of ruins!” But in that day he will cry out, “I have no remedy. I have no food or clothing in my house; do not make me the leader of the people.”
• Open and Shameless Sin – verse 9 – The look on their faces testifies against them; they parade their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. 
• Ignorance and Apathy – verse 12 – O my people, your guides lead you astray; they turn you from the path.
• Hedonism  (The belief that the pursuit of pleasure is mankind’s highest goal) – verse 16 – The LORD says, “The women of Zion are haughty, walking along with outstretched necks, flirting with their eyes, tripping along with mincing steps, with ornaments jingling on their ankles.

We only need to look outside our own homes to the society that surrounds us to know that we are in the same predicament. HOWEVER, if we are looking outside our own homes for the solutions rather than inside our own hearts, then we are part of the problem.

Oh my dear friends, how grave is our condition if we believe that we are not participants in the problem. We all have varying degrees of these conditions in our own lives, which means that in some way we have rejected the truth of God and have turned to pursuing humanistic objectives. And the fact that we won’t admit it makes the problem more severe.

Go back and review the list again. This time, rather than evaluate it in the context of your society, evaluate it against the reality of your own life and ask yourself these questions.

• Is there any degree of oppression in me that seeks to put others down so that I can feel better about myself?
• Is there any measure of disrespect for the authority God has ordained over me?
• Have I surrendered my civic privilege to vote or even lead to those who are simply willing so I can get on with my own life?
• Am I becoming less and less ashamed of some sin or sins in my life?
• Am I becoming less informed about culture and how God’s Word relates to it, so that those in leadership are given free rein to go unopposed wherever they choose?
• Am I becoming more entrenched in the pursuit of pleasure through the means of materialism, sex, alcohol, drugs, or addictions of any kind?

Piercing questions if asked humbly and answered honestly. I hope you will do both.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Thursday, May 15, 2025

In Isaiah chapter three the Lord is teaching us that we allow people and things to compete with Him for the priority position of our life. And He won’t stand for it. He loves us too much to allow us to believe that any person or thing can compete with Him. Yet we continue to trust others to provide for our emotional, physical, and spiritual needs. So God made a list of people and things that we allow to compete with Him and tells us He is going to work in our lives to remove them. Yesterday we saw the first five. Here’s the rest of the list.

• Elder – This is simply a person with wisdom gained from years of experience. Some of us trust in our parents or grandparents way too much. Some have found other older and wiser people to be their “go-to” person. There is Biblical support for such mentoring, but not to the extent that some people do. Don’t let the wisdom of your elders become the source of your wisdom. What they say still has to be in line with what God has already said.
• People of Position and Honor – The Captain of fifty and the man of rank – I used to think it was really cool to talk about important people I had met. I discovered I was simply trying to hitchhike on their reputations to improve my own status. I was guilty of letting other people qualify me. Only Jesus Christ can do that.
• Counselors – Nothing hurtful intended here towards those who are counselors, but people have become far too dependent upon them. Sometimes…not always…but sometimes, I think that the counseling becomes a bondage that perpetuates the problem. In Christ there is deliverance and freedom.
• Skilled Craftsman – Many people depend on the quality and quantity of possessions. They are nice people because they have nice things. But who are they after a fire or an accident? Possessions cannot bring contentment, but Christ can.
• Clever Enchanters – King James Version says “Eloquent Orator”. Actually, according to the Hebrew, the two need to be combined. These are the Eloquent Enchanters of our day. One example is our politicians. Many have put their hope and trust in them because they know how to appeal to our emotions. Don’t let clever communication corrupt you and turn you from Christ.

Again, Christ has no competition. But we have elevated the inferior to a position of equality with Christ and Jesus won’t put up with it. Isaiah has laid it out clearly – “Don’t trust in man or man’s things.” Now it’s up to you to decide what keeps you from trusting Christ completely.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Don’t be fooled by the title of this devotional. Christ has no competition. But we elevate the inferior to equality with Him when we trust others to provide our needs.

Isaiah’s admonition from yesterday at the end of chapter two was to stop trusting people when we should be trusting God alone. As chapter three begins he carries over that thought and describes for us the types of people we tend to trust. God has made us relational people, and we need to be in relationships with them. However, our faith, trust, and hope are not to be placed in people, but in God alone. People may bring us happiness, but God alone is the source of our joy.

Unfortunately, many of us turn to our horizontal relationships with others as our best option when we get in trouble, when we need help, or when we need our ego stroked and our sense of value enhanced. We turn to our friends for comfort and support, rather than trusting Jesus.  Our relationships with people are actually dysfunctional if they are used as a substitute for our relationship with Jesus. It’s sad but true – we tend to depend on people more than our Lord.

According to Isaiah, Jesus Christ will fight to maintain the priority position of our lives. When anyone or anything moves into competition with Him, He will move to eliminate it.

Isaiah 3:1-3  “See now, the Lord, the LORD Almighty, is about to take from Jerusalem and Judah both supply and support: all supplies of food and all supplies of water, the hero and warrior, the judge and prophet, the soothsayer and elder, the captain of fifty and man of rank, the counselor, skilled craftsman and clever enchanter.”

In this word from the Lord there is a list of ten types of people and things that compete with God for our trust and relationships. Over the next two days we will look at each of them. As we do, open your heart to the work of the Holy Spirit who is eliminating the competition to trusting God alone.

• Provisions and Possessions – The Lord is about to take away all the supply from His people. Remember what Jesus said? Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all the things you need will be supplied for you. (Matt. 6:33)
• Military Power – The hero and the warrior – the security we find in our freedoms will be attacked, because we are to find our peace in our relationship with Jesus Christ. He is our one and only Hero.
• Judges – Some of us trust in our justice system. We love going to court to get retribution or restitution. Justice is to be found only in the coming King, and we are to wait patiently for it.
• Prophets – So many people are following feel-good preachers today. They smile and squint and say anything that makes you feel good about who you are, while avoiding the issue of sin and its consequences. They fill you with false hope and temporary emotional comfort, but when the real trials of life come up they choke you. You must depend on the truth of God’s Word alone.
• Soothsayer – These are fortune tellers and psychics. The practice of such things is condemned throughout the Bible. It is our attempt to see more than what God wants to reveal, because we don’t really trust Him. It is not just a harmless pastime – it is an attempt to gratify some self-centered need for knowledge, security, or affirmation. It is contrary to dependence on God.

Isaiah has laid it out clearly – “Don’t trust in man or man’s things.” Now it’s up to you to decide how much of this connects with you and keeps you from connecting completely with Christ.

Pastor John