April 2, 2014
My goodness, it has been a while since I’ve done one of these! I apologize for this; I really want to do these, but the semester is wrapping up and it’s getting more and more hectic! However, tonight’s devotion is an encouraging one and it has to do with something that I experienced on a Spring Break trip that I took with one of the Christian ministries at my university to Wichita, KS.
Last week was a really important week for me. God revealed Himself to me in ways that I had never comprehended. One of the ways He spoke to me was through the mouth of an autistic guy who also went. This guy’s had it rough; his dad died and he’s been living with some other relatives while his mom has been working tirelessly to make ends meet. He should have been down in the dumps and depressed, but he wasn’t! I don’t know what it was about this guy, but you could see the Holy Spirit in him! Every time we would head out to do work, he would shout words of encouragement to us. It was corny, yeah, but that’s not the point. The point is that he was excited about serving God. That’s something I know that I don’t see every day! How many of you when you wake up and tell yourself “Yeah, alright! Today, I’m going to live for Jesus and be His servant! Whoo!”? I know I don’t, but we all should! There should be more excitement in our service to Christ. Whenever I heard Chris encouraging us, it put a smile on my face and reminded me that service to God shouldn’t be something that we do grudgingly, but enthusiastically! I know I took the last devotion from Proverbs, but it just has so many good sayings to live by! Proverbs 16:3 says: “Commit your works to the Lord and your thoughts will be established.” When we remind ourselves that what we are doing is for God, whether it be schoolwork, chores, volunteer work, or whatever, we place God’s will over our own. Another translation puts it this way: “commit and trust [your works] wholly to Him; He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will”. Again, brothers and sisters, if you feel like you just aren’t seeing God working in your life, then I encourage you to remind yourself daily, hourly even, that He is the one you are working for, not yourself! Solomon tells us that when we dedicate our works to Him, our thoughts become ever aware of His plan and our knowledge of Him increases!
Psalm 35: 27-28
Let them shout for joy and be glad,
Who favor my righteous cause;
And let them say continually,
“Let the Lord be magnified,
Who has pleasure in the prosperity of His servant.”
And my tongue shall speak of Your righteousness
And of Your praise all the day long.
