Whose Rules are You Playing By?
Good Morning Friends,
I think that many people treat life as a game and believe that he who dies with the most toys wins. But all that seems rather silly. What makes it worse is that people play that game by so many different standards and social conventions and what appears to me to be misunderstandings of life’s purpose. People get caught up instead in privileges, prejudices and power. It seems to me that if we are to have a fair and successful experience we need to agree to follow who leads us to life…We need to agree on a point of authority. Whose Rules are You Playing By?
Scripture: In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.
Judges 21:25 (NRSV)
If prophets or those who divine by dreams appear among you and promise you omens or portents, and the omens or the portents declared by them take place, and they say, “Let us follow other gods” (whom you have not known) “and let us serve them,” you must not heed the words of those prophets or those who divine by dreams; for the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you indeed love the LORD your God with all your heart and soul. The LORD your God you shall follow, him alone you shall fear, his commandments you shall keep, his voice you shall obey, him you shall serve, and to him you shall hold fast.
Deuteronomy 13:1-4 (NRSV)
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Ephesians 3:14-21 (NRSV)
Message: The Presidential election in the USA is a long way off and yet the posturing has already begun. And the process, both official and unofficial boggles the mind. The event draws attention to the nature of power. It draws attention to the reality that there is a lot of false teaching that goes on in this world. Indeed many claim to offer the truth. But the truth can be terribly elusive. Today we try to recognize the difference between what is real and what is not. Today we discern that the key to truth is the difference in our hearts and the difference in our responses. Take heed and take to heart whether what is spoken draws us closer to God or further away. Note what is being signaled and how power is being displayed. Do the signs and wonders we see today cause us to doubt Christ? Today we ask if we are still looking for something better than Jesus. Into such a dynamic of power brokering Paul offered to God a prayer on behalf of the Ephesian Christians that is also a prayer for us too. Paul’s prayer is about God having an agenda and a goal that He want us to understand and to be focused on achieving. You see it is God’s goal for us to be encouraged in Holy Spirit power. It takes away the insecurity. It makes me thankful for answered prayer but also thankful for unanswered prayer too. For when we seek to be strengthened and rooted in love and the fullness of God, the posture, plenty and petition of our prayers join with God’s agenda. Here we submit to a different set of rules….Here God’s power is not mysterious. There are no smoke filled rooms. It is obvious and plain.
Pray for help to do what is right. Pray we are in the game and playing by the right rules. Pray we know the difference between prophets and dreamers. Pray we know the difference between signs and wonders. Pray if we dream, we dream of God. Pray when we experience power we test it to see if it is of God. Pray that the seat of our appetites, the seat of our emotions and passions…our conscience, will, inclinations, memory, reflections, thinking, knowledge and mind be true. Pray that the core of our inner being, the guider of the heart be pure. Pray we recognize the truth in Christ. Pray that our prayers help bring people back to God.
Pray we connect to the perceptions of others so that the locked doors that protect their emotional inner being might be opened to the love of Jesus.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 