Do you want to experience real, lasting, God-pleasing change so that you are filled with satisfaction, peace, joy, love, purpose-abundant life? Then don’t look to
a bottle,
a pill,
a therapist,
a once-a-week trip to church,
Look to God’s Word for yourself. Read your Bible every day in order to understand, apply, and obey it.
As we long to grow not only in our faith but in our Christian character so that others can readily see Christ in us, we need to live in the power of the Holy Spirit and in obedience to His Word. This transformation is a continual process that is brought about by daily saturating ourselves in the Scriptures then living it out on the anvil of our experience, until even our friends exclaim, “I see Jesus in you!”
In the beginning, Adam was single. Increasingly he longed for a companion with whom he could share his life. He didn’t have to beg God or beat the bushes or spend every Saturday night in a singles bar. He just went to sleep in God’s will. I wonder if, as he drifted off to sleep, he was praying that God would somehow take away the strange ache in his heart and the loneliness he felt inside, especially when he had observed that every animal had a partner except himself. “So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man” (Gen. 2:21-22, NIV). In His wisdom, God knew exactly how to meet Adam’s emotional needs – by presenting Adam with a wife. And He knows how to meet your needs and satisfy your desires, too. So . . . commit your way to Him and trust Him!
God seemed to come to my door one day and ask if I would start walking with Him by getting up early in the morning for prayer and Bible reading. At first I thought it was something I had to do. I dragged my feet because I found I didn’t want to sacrifice the extra few minutes of sleep! He was so patient as He waited for me to understand that it wasn’t something I had to do; instead it was a personal time of fellowship where I could just grow in my love relationship with Him.
One reason I have maintained my walk with God is that no one else – not my beloved family or my close and loyal friends – really understands me. No one else truly knows my fears and longings and hurts and dreams and failures. But He shares my feelings, my loneliness. Spending time with God as I “walk” with Him meets needs that are in the deepest part of me. He Himself is the solution to the loneliness of the human spirit.
Just as certain physical characteristics are passed from one generation to another, so truth that leads to faith in God is passed from one generation to another. This is subtly revealed by the fact that Adam’s life is not recorded in the genealogy of his firstborn, Cain, but in the genealogy of his third son, Seth. (Gen. 5:5-31) It was Seth’s descendants who relayed faith in God while Cain’s descendants rebelled against Him and therefore wasted their lives.
Age is not mentioned in the list of Cain’s descendants while in Adam’s genealogy the years of each man’s life are carefully recorded. God lovingly counts the years of those in the righteous remnant, because they glorify Him.
Are you a spiritual descendent of Adam as well as a physical descendant? If the Lamb’s book of life were opened today, would your name be found there? If you have been validated as an authentic child of God, your life has eternal meaning and priceless value in His sight.
I love hot, black coffee and usually have a cup beside me as I work at my desk. But I will get so engrossed in what I am doing that time will pass more quickly than I realize. Again and again, while concentrating on my work, I will absent-mindedly pick up the cup of coffee only to find it is lukewarm. I am glad I am working in private, because my instinctive reaction is to immediately spit the coffee back into the cup!
What an eternal shame it would be if my life caused the Lord to react in the same disgusted way! Yet indifference to Christ was, and still is, disgusting to the Lord! It is incomprehensible to glimpse the glory of Jesus-
The Lord of glory . . .
The Rose of Sharon . . .
The bright Morning Star . . .
and simply shrug! That’s disgusting!
What will you do, instead, to live a life that delights Him?
