Daily devotion for April 16th
Repentance
Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? The man said, The woman you put here with me — she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it. Then the LORD God said to the woman, What is this you have done?

Genesis 3:11b-13
There is something very interesting here. God asks essentially the same question to both the man and the woman. He is saying to each, Tell me, what is it that you did? Specifically, definitely, clearly what is it that you did? But there is an exquisite touch of delicacy and grace here that we ought not to miss. He does not put the question in the same form to Adam and Eve. To the man, He is forthright and blunt: Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? But to the woman He puts the question much more softly and gently.

It is comforting to me to realize how fully God understands women, so that He puts the question to her very gently. He says, Tell me in your own way, now, what is this that you have done? It is significant that in their answers, both Adam and Eve come out at the same place. Each blames someone else (we call this human nature, as it is such a widespread, universal response), but when they come to their final statement, they both use exactly the same words: and I ate.

That is where God wants to bring them. That is what the Bible calls repentance. It is a candid statement of the facts with no attempt now to evade them, color them, or clothe them in any other form. It is a simple, factual statement to which they are both reduced: and I ate.

Notice how these questions have followed a designed course. God has made them first admit, We're not where we ought to be—we know that. We ought not to be hidden in the garden. We ought not to be lost. We ought not to require a question like this: Where are you? God has made them see that something has happened within them. They have seen that they are where they are because of what they are, and all of this has happened because they disobeyed, because they ate the forbidden food, they sinned. God has led them graciously, and yet unerringly, to the place where each of them, in their own way, has said, Yes, Lord, I sinned; I ate.

That is as far as people can ever go in correcting evil. They can do no more than that. But that immediately provides the ground for God to act. This is where He constantly seeks to bring us, because it provides Him with the only ground upon which He can act. You can see this throughout the whole Bible, in the Old and New Testament alike. When God is dealing with people, He seeks to bring them to the place where they acknowledge what is wrong.

This is what God wants to do with us. He finds us in our failure, our estrangement, our guilt, our sense of nakedness and loss, and immediately He moves to bring us to repentance. We misunderstand His moving. We think He is dragging us before some tribunal in order to chastise us or punish us, but He is not. He is simply trying to get us to face the facts as they are. That is what He does here with Adam and Eve.

Thank you, Lord, for the way in which You bring me to this place of repentance. Help me not to hide, but to bring my sin to light that I might experience your grace and mercy.

Daily devotion for April 15th
Where Are You?
But the Lord God called to the man, Where are you?

Genesis 3:9
It is most striking to me that all religions, apart from Christianity, begin on the note of man's seeking after God. Only the Bible starts with the view of God's seeking after man. That highlights an essential difference between our Christian faith and the other major religions of the world. Furthermore, this first question here in the Old Testament is matched by the first question asked in the New Testament. Here it is God asking man, Where are you? and in the New Testament, in Matthew, the first question that appears is that of certain wise men who come asking, Where is he? (cf. Matthew 2:2).

If we take this account in the garden literally (as I believe we must), then it is clear that God habitually appeared to Adam in some visible form, for now Adam and Eve in their guilt and awareness of nakedness hide from God when they hear the sound of His footsteps in the garden. This indicates a customary action on God's part. He came in the cool of the day, not because that was more pleasant for Him but because it was more pleasant for man, and He habitually held some form of communication with man. We know from the rest of Scripture that whenever God appears visibly in some manifestation, it is always the second person of the Godhead, the Son. If that is true, then we have here what is called a theophany, a visible manifestation of God before the incarnation. Thus, the one here who asks of Adam and Eve, Where are you? is the same one of whom later men would ask, Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews? (Matthew 2:2).

Notice the importance of this question, Where are you? When people are lost, this is the most important question they can ask: Where am I? Suppose the telephone rang and you answered it to hear a voice say, I'd like to come to your church this morning. I thought I knew the way, but I find myself very confused. Can you help me? What is the first question you would ask? Where are you? That is always first. Where are you?

Today we are seeking to find a way out of a very confusing situation that prevails in our world. We will never do it until we start with this question, Where are you? Where am I? Perhaps the reason many are unable to be helped today is either because they cannot or will not answer that question. Ask it of yourself now. Where are you? In the course of your life, from birth to death, moving as you hope you are moving, to develop stability of character, trustworthiness, integrity of being, all these qualities that we admire in others and want in ourselves--where are you? How far have you come? Until you can answer that, in some sense at least, there is no possibility of helping you.

Perhaps many of you will have to say, I don't know where I am. I only know that I am not where I ought to be or where I want to be. That's all I can say. If that is all you can say, that is at least an honest answer, and therefore, it is the most helpful answer you can give. In that sense, it is the only right answer.

Lord, help me to examine myself with this question, Where am I? Thank You that it is out of Your grace and love that You question me

Daily devotion for April 14th
The Package Deal
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Genesis 3:7
This account reveals three things that mark the beginning of death, and the proof that this story really occurred is found therein, because these three things are true for every person. When we yield to temptation we experience the pleasures of sin. But what this account forces us to face is that with the pleasure comes an undesirable accompaniment, a fall-out of sin, which we cannot escape. It is all a package deal. Here is spelled out for us the three things that mark the beginning of death.

The first one is this: they realized they were naked. They were naked all along, but they did not know they were naked until the fall. Why? Because they had never looked at themselves. Their awareness of their nakedness is a symbolic way of expressing the idea that they experienced the birth of what we call self-consciousness. They saw themselves, and the immediate effect was their feelings of shame and embarrassment.

So, like Adam and Eve, we find ourselves making clothes to cover our self-consciousness. This is true at the psychological level as well. This is what lies behind the universal practice of projecting an image of ourselves. That is a form of psychological clothing. It is a way of trying to get people to think of us differently from how we really are. This is why we all find ourselves struggling with the matter of being honest, of being open. We do not want people to see us or think of us as we are. We do not want to spend much time with any one person because we are afraid he or she will see us as we are.

The second thing this account shows us is found in verse 8. Hiding is an instinctive reaction to guilt. Here is the first description of a conscience beginning to function; that inner torment we are all familiar with that cannot be turned off, no matter how hard we try. In fact, often the harder we try to ignore it, the deeper it pierces and the more obdurate it becomes. Psychologists agree that guilt is a universal reaction to life, from which, without apparent reason or explanation, all of us suffer. This sense of guilt haunts us, follows us, makes us afraid. We are afraid of the unknown, of the future, of the unseen.

But there is still a third aspect of this death revealed here: The Lord said, What is this that you have done? Adam said, Well, the woman that you gave to me, she gave me the fruit, and I ate. It's her fault. The woman said, Well, it's not my fault; it's the serpent's fault. The serpent beguiled me, and I ate. This is the first human attempt to deal with the problem of guilt. This is where blame always comes. Ultimately it points the finger at God and says He is at fault. People are simply helpless victims of circumstance. This is what lies behind our urge to blame each other and pin the blame for our actions or attitudes upon some outward circumstance.

Lord, I confess I have seen the marks of death in my own life: self-consciousness, guilt, and blame. Thank You for Your grace, which seeks me out even as I try to hide

Daily devotion for April 13th
The Enticement Of Evil
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made

Genesis 3:1a
Let us move on to consider the strategy that the Tempter employs. This is most instructive because it is exactly the strategy he employs when he appears as an angel of light to us—not that we shall see visions of shining beings—but the personality that he exemplifies, the character in which he appears, is the same now as then. He is an angel of light. Scripture makes clear that the devil can also appear as a roaring lion, meaning he can strike in tragedy, in sickness, or in physical evil, as he struck Job or Paul, with his thorn in the flesh, which Paul called the messenger of Satan. When he appears as a lion, he can strike fear into our hearts. But his most effective strategy is to appear as someone good, someone attractive, something or someone who appeals to us as an angel of light.

If you learn how to recognize the strategy of the devil, you will find that he invariably employs the same tactics. There is a sense in which he is very limited, and he doesn't vary his tactics widely. Sometimes we feel as if we shall never learn how to anticipate the devil. But we can learn. Paul said that he was not ignorant of the devil's devices (2 Corinthians 2:11). If we learn how he works, we can easily learn to detect him in our lives.

James has described this strategy very plainly in one or two verses. He says, ...each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death (James 1:14-15).

There is the strategy of the devil. He always approaches us in the same three stages, and those steps are outlined clearly in this text. His first tactic is to arouse desire. James says that every man is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed (James 1:14). Each step the devil takes with us is always to arouse desire to do wrong, to create a hunger, a lure, or enticement toward evil.

The second is to permit intent to form an act to occur. James describes this: after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin (James 1:15). Notice that the symbol he employs is that of conception and birth. There is a gestation period in temptation, for once desire is aroused, there occurs a process within which sooner or later issues in sin, an act that is wrong.

The third stage is that the devil immediately acts upon the opportunity afforded by the evil act to move in and to produce results that Scripture describes as death—sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. This is the devil's ultimate aim. Jesus said that he was a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). He delights in mangling, smashing, twisting, destroying, blighting, and blasting. We can see his activity present everywhere; it is going on around us, in our own lives and in the lives of others. These are the works of the devil, says the Scripture (1 John 3:8).

Lord, thank You for this reminder that I have an enemy, and I am in a battle. Teach me to see through the strategies of Satan and to stand firm against his attacks.

Daily devotion for April 12th
Purpose Of Marriage
The man said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man. For this reason man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

Genesis 2:23-25
This is a remarkable passage because it gathers up the great concepts of marriage that run throughout the Bible. After God finished making woman and Adam slept off the deep unconsciousness into which he had fallen, God brought the woman to Adam. What a scene that must have been! Here is the first of a long series of boy-meets-girl stories. Out of this account emerges four factors that are essential to marriage.

The first is that marriage is to involve a complete identity. The two are to be one. Adam's first reaction when he saw his wife was, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, or, She is one being with me. This is strengthened in the latter part of verse 24, which adds, and they will become one flesh. It is not without reason that this has become part of the marriage service, this recognition of unity. As someone has well said, the one word above all that makes marriage successful is ours. The second thing is the biblical principle of headship, which is developed at much greater length in the New Testament. She shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man. Paul expands on this in his letter to Timothy to point out that man was not made for woman, but woman was made for man. It is the man who is ultimately responsible before God for the nature and character of the home. It is the man who must exercise leadership in determining the direction in which the home should go and must therefore answer for that leadership, or its lack, before God. The woman's responsibility is to acknowledge this leadership.

Then the third factor indicated here that characterizes true marriage is permanence. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. In the Hebrew text is the word dabag, which means to adhere firmly, as if with glue. A husband is to cleave to his wife. He forsakes all others and adheres to her. Whatever she may be like, he is to hold to her. He is to stay with her, and she with him, because marriage is a permanent thing.

Finally, the fourth factor is set forth in verse 25, The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. This speaks clearly of openness between man and wife. They have no secrets, nothing that they do not share with each other. It is the failure to achieve this kind of openness that lies behind so much breakdown in marriage today, the utter breakdown of communication, where two sit and look at one another and say nothing or talk about merely surface trivialities. Often this is why they are so judgmental with one another, each one trying to get the other to agree and not being willing to allow differences of viewpoint to exist. There is to be a freedom of communication, one with the other. Marriages shrivel, wither, and die when this is not true.

Thank you for the gift of marriage, Father and for revealing Your perfect plan for the functioning of husband and wife.

Daily devotion for April 11th
What Is Man?
...the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Genesis 2:7
Here is a wonderfully condensed account of some tremendously significant things. I do not think we need to quibble over just how God formed the body of man. Did He pile dirt together, wet it with water to make a kind of a mud statue, and then breathe life into it? No one knows. Certainly when we consider the miracle of conception and birth, we need not ask about the ability of God to make man in His own remarkable way. Perhaps the event occurred along the line of the development of birth. I do not think we need to be concerned over some of the questions that people in the past have beat each other over the head with. Whether Adam had a navel is of little significance. What we are told here is that there are three divisions of man.

God first made the body of man, and He made it of the dust of the earth. Certainly it is true that the same elements that are found in the dust of the ground are found also in the body of humans. It is shown to be a fact, because it is to dust that we return.

We may not fully understand all that is involved in these pregnant sentences about the formation of man's body, but it is important to notice that though the body of man was evidently formed first, the text does not say the body but rather God formed man from the dust of the ground (italics added). I think that has significance. Man is more than a body. He is not merely an animated piece of beef steak, a hunk of meat with a nervous system. He is more than body; he is soul as well as body. The functions of the soul are wonderfully linked to those of the body in ways that we have not even begun to fathom.

For instance, the functions of the soul (largely reason, emotion, and will), are also functions of our physical life. Reason is related to the brain, for it is only as the brain operates that reason occurs. Glands have great power over our emotional life. Thus, the functions of the soul are tied most remarkably to the body, and no one fully understands the mystery of it. In the forming of man, God made body and soul together, with the capacities for function of the soul lying dormant within the body of man.

Then, into this body with an inactive soul, He breathed a living spirit through the nostrils. The phrase breath of life in the Hebrew means a spirit of life. The word for breath and spirit are the same, so that this is more than simply a picture of God's breathing into man's nostrils. This is not face-to-face resuscitation; it is the impartation of a spirit into man. The spirit is our essential nature. It is this that distinguishes man so remarkably from the animal creation. Thus, as man comes into being, he comes full-orbed, as a threefold being, existing in body, soul, and spirit.

I praise you, Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made!

Daily devotion for April 10th
True Sabbath Rest
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.

Genesis 2:2
We must recognize that the weekly Sabbath is not the real Sabbath. It is a picture or a reminder of the real Sabbath. The true Sabbath is a rest; the Jewish Sabbath is a shadow, a picture of that rest. All the Old Testament shadows pointed to Christ. When the work of Jesus Christ was finished, the shadows were no longer needed.

When the Lord came and His work was ended, the picture was no longer needed. The weekly Sabbath ended at the cross. In the letter to the Colossians, Paul confirms it to us. He says, Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ (Colossians 2:16-17).

The shadow-Sabbath ended at the cross. The next day was the day of resurrection, the day when the Lord Jesus came from the tomb. That was the beginning of a new day--the Lord's Day. Christians immediately began to observe the Lord's Day on the first day of the week. They ceased observing the Sabbath because it was ended by the fulfillment of its reality in the cross, and they began to observe the first day of the week.

Though this shadow-Sabbath ended at the cross, the true Sabbath, the rest of God, continues today. That Sabbath is defined for us in Hebrews 4, There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God [it is available to us now]; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. (Hebrews 4:9-10)

That is what the true Sabbath is: to cease from your own efforts and your own works. Well, you say, if I did that I would be nothing but a blob. But the implication is that you cease from your own efforts and depend on the work of Another. This is why Paul cries, I no longer live, but Christ lives in me (Galatians 2:20). This was also the secret of the life of Jesus, as we have seen. He Himself said, It is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work (John 14:10). This is the secret of the Christian who learns it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose (Philippians 2:13). So the secret of true Christian life is to cease from dependence on one's own activity and to rest in dependence upon the activity of another who dwells within. That is fulfilling the Sabbath.

Lord, teach me to enter into Your true Sabbath rest by ceasing my efforts to please You and serve You in my own strength.

Daily devotion for April 9th
God's Provision
Then God said, I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.

Genesis 1:29
The point of this whole narrative is that God has made a marvelously complete provision for His creation. The world of nature is full of the most astonishing evidences of the care of God.

How is it that certain birds can fly with an unerring instinct halfway around the world and find a tiny pinpoint of land in the middle of the ocean, though this is the first time they have made the flight? How is it that bees can maintain the temperature of their hive within a variation of a few degrees, regardless of whether it is a hot summer's day or a cold winter's morning outside? How is it that certain varieties of spiders have learned how to capture bubbles of air and build nests under water, bringing those bubbles down from the surface and thus creating tiny diving bells in which they rear their young? Who taught them to do a strange thing like that? But look at people.

Look how apparently ill-equipped we are, with basically no instincts at all. We must be patiently taught everything all over again in each generation. If children are abandoned to the wilds, as sometimes through accidents they have been, their lives will be more beast-like than the beasts. They cannot even talk to one another. Isn't it humbling to realize how so many of the problems on our planet are the result of human beings? God called Adam and Eve to fill the earth and subdue it and to rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. But, instead of caring for God’s creation, we have polluted the skies, waters and rivers.

While we know that creation itself is in bondage to decay (Romans 8:21), so many of the earth’s problems are the result of humanity’s abuse of God’s creation. Why is this? The Lord Jesus put His finger right on the answer when He said, Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4). When God provided bread as people's basic food, bread made from the grains of earth, the seed-bearing plants and their fruits, He intended, as we have seen all through this account, that such physical bread would be a picture of the bread desperately needed at the spiritual level of people as well.

That bread of the spirit is the understanding of God's will. I am the bread of life, said Jesus. He who comes to me will never go hungry. . . that eats of me shall never hunger (John 6:35). He will never walk in darkness; will never be at a loss to know what is the next step to take to solve the problems with which he is confronted; will not be left like a naked, homeless orphan wandering blindly through a mysterious universe whose forces he does not understand, but he will know where he is going and what he is doing and how to do it. The Son of God has come, and He gives us understanding.

Lord, I hunger for the bread of the spirit. May that bread be my provision today as I seek to understand and do Your will.

Daily devotion for April 8th
The Glory And The Misery Of Man
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:27
What this world has forgotten and is vainly groping and seeking after, what every course in psychology is hoping to find, what every self-improvement program is attempting to realize, is this lost secret of how man was intended to operate. The likeness of God is lost. That is why humans can create, but everything they create has a twist toward evil. That is why they can communicate, but not only do they communicate truth and beauty but also lust and hate and filth and death. That is why, though they still know moral values, they deny them and rationalize them to exalt evil.

It is here where the gospel comes in. Paul shows us the plan of God to counteract the fall of humanity. In Colossians 3:9-10, he says to Christians, Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator (Colossians 3:9-10). There is the likeness of God being restored in humans. The image of God has never been lost, for humans still retain the capacity to be godlike, but they no longer have the ability—until Jesus Christ is restored to the human heart. When He enters there begins a process that, little by little, through trial and heartache, sorrow and disappointment, glory, blessing, and the thrilling experiences of grace, is changing us so as to reproduce in us the likeness of God. We not only have the capacity to be godlike, we are actually becoming godlike. Isn't that glorious?

Remember that verse in 2 Corinthians where Paul says. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory [that is, seeing the face of the Lord Jesus through the experiences of our life, in the nitty-gritty of life, through the humdrum routines of life, in the high points and the low spots], are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory [from stage to stage] which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18). That is the process of restoring the likeness of God in humans.

There is a wonderful picture in the Old Testament book of Malachi. Malachi says that God sits as a refiner and purifier of silver (Malachi 3:2b-3). He puts the silver in the firing pot and builds a hot fire under it. As the silver melts, the dross begins to float to the surface. The silversmith sits and skims it off, throwing away the dross as it arises. From time to time he bends over and looks into the pot. What is he looking for? The reflection of his own image. When he can see his likeness in the silver, he knows that it is pure.

Does that not explain something about life to us? This is what God is doing with us. Why do we go through these crushing disappointments, these wrenching heartaches, these hard trials, these pressures, these tribulations, these temptations, these times of failure as well as times of joy, blessing, glory, and ecstasy in the Lord? What is He doing to us? He is refining the silver until He can see His likeness again.

Thank you, Father, that You are refining so that Your likeness can be seen in me. I yield not only to You but to the way You are doing that, though at times it is very painful.

Daily devotion for April 7th
Born To Reign
Then God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

Genesis 1:26
Man was given dominion over all the created universe. He was made to govern and to master the world in which he was placed. Even though man was fallen, he has never forgotten that command, and this accounts for his unending persistence in trying to master the forces of earth, to climb the highest mountain and explore the deepest sea and to utilize the animal creation for his own purposes. But also, the effect of the fall is seen in the amazing fact that man, who was placed in this world to govern it, is now on the verge of destroying everything.

Despite the fact that man has lost his ability to master, the desire to do so still remains as a kind of racial memory within us. And that desire in itself is a picture on the physical level of what redeemed man is called to be on the spiritual level. Here we come to the great purpose of this passage. It is here to illustrate to us that when we become redeemed, we are called to reign in life, to master life. Let me give that to you directly from the pen of the apostle Paul. In Romans 5:17 he says, If, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

Reign in life--not in heaven--in life, now, at this present time. That means to control events, to govern the effects of life around us, through fulfilling the program of the Father and moving in the direction God determines. Redeemed man is never to be a helpless victim of circumstances. It was not meant for the world to make havoc of the church but for the church to make havoc of the world.

If you read the events of our Lord's last week in Jerusalem, you will see exactly what I mean. There He is, moving toward the goal that the Father has ordained, that He should die upon a cross. He sets His face like a flint to go up to Jerusalem and is constantly aiming at that moment He knows to be the Father's program for Him. But notice how He goes toward it in full control of every circumstance. He sends out the disciples to do the work that leads to His arrest. He dismisses Judas to go out into the night. When the soldiers come to take Him, He rebukes them, and they fall to the ground in fear. He could easily have turned and fled, but He waits quietly for them to take Him. The only untroubled person in all that troubled account is the person of the Lord Jesus as He walks in solitary majesty through all those tumultuous events. He was reigning in life. And that is what the Christian is called to do. The circumstances of our lives are sent by the Father--they are the program God has picked out for us--but our attitude in them is to master every event, not being taken by surprise.

Father, how often I live like one defeated and crippled by life's challenges. Teach me to reign in life through Jesus Christ.

Daily devotion for April 6th
The Heights And The Depths
And God said, Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.

Genesis 1:20
As people look at the ocean around and sky above, they see that which is essentially an alien atmosphere.

The ocean, in and of itself, is hostile to human life. We can swim in the ocean, but not for very long. If we should suddenly be cast into the midst of the ocean without any means of support, we would not last very long. It is absolutely alien to us. The air above, though it provides what we breathe to sustain life, is an alien realm as far as transportation is concerned.

The oceans are a picture of unredeemed and barren humanity, the world without Christ, the world of organized society with its systems of values, its power structures, and its methods of operating. As Christians, you and I know well that if individual believers attempt to live in that kind of a world on their own resources, they are doomed. It is not very long before their spiritual life is suffocated, and they find themselves unable to live spiritually. If they try it on their own, they are doomed, and they will drown.

On the other hand, the atmosphere is a picture of the spiritual life, the place where we live in the realm of divine reality, a life that is pleasing to God. Here again, if individual believers attempt to operate in this realm on their own resources they will not die, but they will find they get nowhere. Trying to live the Christian life in the energy of the flesh, in a dedicated, sincere effort to do that which is pleasing to God apart from a dependence upon the life of the Spirit of God within, always ends up in frustration and bafflement. This is what Christians discover as they go along, that they are not made for this realm; they cannot operate in and of themselves. They find themselves like a person trying to fly through the sky with his or her own arms, frustrated, baffled, impotent, unable to function.

But here is the picture of this fifth day: By a direct impartation of divine life, on which humanity learns to depend, a believer can live in the hostile environment of the world as a fish lives in the sea--gracefully, powerfully, abundantly. People can learn to operate in this realm and live in this hostile atmosphere effectively. Also, in that rarefied atmosphere of the spiritual life where a fall would be fatal, a believer, depending upon the life of God within, can fly like a bird.

Teach me, Lord, to wait upon You that I might mount up with wings like eagles (Isaiah 40:31 RSV)

Daily devotion for April 5th
Signs And Seasons
God made two great lights — the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.

Genesis 1:16
The great question is never How? but Why? The answer to the question, Why did God make the sun and moon and stars? is given in a threefold way here in this passage.

The greater light exists, first, to give light upon the earth, both during the day and at night. We all know that the sun makes the day. The rotation of the earth is what determines the length of the day, and the speed of the earth as it rotates determines the 24-hour duration. Yet that speed is regulated by the moon, which acts as a brake upon the earth. It restricts the speed of the rotation of the earth to the exact time that makes possible the 24-hour-day, which is the length of time best adapted to the needs of humans. Isn't that remarkable? Other planets have entirely different lengths of days. On some of the planets, a day would occupy months, and even years, of our time. Others have much shorter days. But God has designated a 24-hour day for our planet because it precisely fits the needs of humanity.

Second, the great lights exist to measure the process of time for days and for years, says the Scripture. They are the means by which we measure time. The orbit of earth around the sun determines the length of the year, which, again, is just right for human needs. The orbit of the earth around the sun is determined by two factors: the gravitational pull of the sun and the velocity of the earth. No one knows what determines the velocity of the earth, what strange force hurls us through space at about 1,100 miles per minute. But here we are told that God has ordained the sun and moon to provide measures of the time that mark off the segments of life we call days and years.

Third, these lights are designed to mark significant events; they are for signs and for seasons. The entire record of human history confirms the truth of this. This is exactly what the sun and moon and stars do. Eclipses are like mileposts in human history, marking off certain dates. We can study events in ancient history because eclipses have been recorded. Many times in the Bible the sun and the moon have served as great signs. We are all familiar with the story of the star of Bethlehem. It announced the birth of the greatest person ever born in the history of our globe. There is also the strange darkening of the sun at the time of the crucifixion, an unexplained darkness that lasted for three hours. There have been other times like this. And through the Bible there runs a refrain, beginning in the early books and running through the New Testament, which says there is coming a day when the greatest event the world will ever know, the return of Jesus Christ to earth, will be heralded by the darkening of the sun and the moon's turning to blood. These bodies are provided for signs and for seasons.

You are the Lord of all creation. I see that you have created the signs and seasons to serve Your great redemptive purpose in Jesus Christ.

Daily devotion for April 4th
To Bring Forth Fruit
And God said, Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear. And it was so.

Genesis 1:9
God's act in calling the land up out of the oceans seems to mark the period of evening in this third day. During this period we have the rising of the continents, the weathering of the rocks, and the soil forming gradually to make preparation for the plant life that is to follow.

But remember that all this on the physical level is but a manifestation of the parallel spiritual and moral reality, and every view of nature ought to speak volumes to us about who God is, what He does, and what He intends. These things are at once real and visible and, at the same time, the picture of something unseen that relates to our inner life.

We learn that this human life on earth, between the period of birth and death, is itself divided. This is pictured for us by the rising of the land out of the ocean. The waters are a picture of human life. Rising up out of the ocean of human life is land, which has the capability of producing fruit. Thus, there exists that which is capable of producing fruit and that which is totally incapable of doing so.

There is an old humanity that, by nature, is incapable of fulfilling what God desires; a new humanity, called out of the old, is capable of producing the fruit God envisions. The old humanity is all one fallen race--blinded, darkened, confused, restless, and, as the ocean is one yet divided, so fallen humanity is separated into divisions: nations, peoples, and tongues. The prophet Isaiah says, the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud (Isaiah 57:20).

You are asking, Do you mean that all who are not Christian are wicked? We need to bear in mind that there is a respectable form of wickedness as well as a notorious form. You can be knowingly wicked, and you can be ignorantly wicked. People who are exposed to the knowledge of God's purpose, His love, and the program He has for the deliverance of humanity from its bondage and resist God's work, rejecting the Savior whom God has sent and refusing to yield to His gracious call, are clearly wicked and oppose God's will. They are raising their fist in a defiant act against their Creator. That is also why they are restless. The restlessness of our age is directly due to the fact that it is wicked. It is pictured by the ocean, with its wild, surging waves that are never still.

But out of that ocean there comes a new humanity, the earth, a fruitful race of those in Jesus Christ, all one originally in Him as the continents were once, but now divided and fragmented by the forces that have come in since to separate us from one another. Yet there is an ever-present underlying unity that we discover when we come together in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Lord, thank You that You are bringing a new humanity out of the old, and that as part of that new humanity I can bear fruit for You.

Daily devotion for April 3rd
The Invisible Kingdom
And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

Genesis 1:8 RSV
We must never read these passages in Genesis without asking ourselves what they intend to teach us on the moral or spiritual level. What inner reality is reflected in the atmosphere's ability to suspend water above the earth? The key is found in what God called this firmament: Heaven. There were heavenly waters, and there were earthly waters. Water is used very frequently in the Scriptures as a symbol of life. In the book of Revelation, John was told that the great harlot that he saw sitting upon the waters was a picture of the false church and that the waters were peoples and nations and multitudes gathered together (Revelation 17:15). Thus, the waters here in Genesis are a picture of human life.

What God is saying by this beautifully symbolic description is that there is earthly life and there is heavenly life, and, further, that we are surrounded by an invisible spiritual kingdom, just as with an invisible atmosphere. That spiritual kingdom is as real as anything we can see or taste or touch or feel. And from it, just as from the atmosphere around us, comes blessings that make human life happy and even possible—blessings such as joy, love, and peace; hope, trust, and power. Without that invisible spiritual kingdom, human life would be mere animal life devoid of all these other qualities that make life worth living.

Furthermore, as the rain falls upon the just and the unjust alike, so do these blessings come to the good and the bad equally all over the earth. Paul reminds us that all these mercies come from God upon the just and the unjust alike, in order to lead people unto repentance (cf. Romans 2:4) and to make them stop and think, Where does this come from? Why is it that we are granted the ability to love and to share companionship with others? The apostle tells us that all these blessings come from the loving heart of a Father who pours them out even upon those who are resistant to His will. He loves and blesses mankind throughout this life in order that we might come to a change of mind about ourselves and God, that we might remember where these blessings come from and open our hearts to the influences of God's gracious kingdom. These blessings grow fewer for unbelievers as life goes on because of their resistance to the grace of God, but for the believer they come in increasing abundance, pouring into the life that recognizes the spiritual atmosphere around us.

Also, just as the waters upon the earth are invisibly drawn up and disappear into the higher ocean above, so the human spirit, as it comes to the end of its journey, quite unseen, leaves this earth, for good or evil, depending on the attitude shown in life toward the redeeming grace of Jesus Christ. All this is beautifully symbolized in the creation of the firmament and the operation of the atmosphere in its physical manifestation. It is all designed to teach us that there is a life to come as well as a life now.

Lord, I realize that I only see in part with my human eyes. Open the eyes of my heart that I might see the spiritual realities that govern my own existence.

Daily devotion for April 2nd
Out Of The Darkness
God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And there was evening, and there was morning — the first day.

Genesis 1:5
The present recurring twenty-four hour day is a symbolic microcosm of past ages. If that is the case, then we do not have twenty-four hour day periods in Genesis 1, but rather an indefinite length of time much more descriptively termed an age, or an epoch, of time. But each is to be characterized by an evening and a morning. Note the order of that. The evening comes first. In the Eastern world the day begins at sunset, so that each day starts with an evening and ends with a period of light. That is in line with this revelation of the way God works. No matter whether it is humanity's day upon earth, an age of time, or a twenty-four hour period, each begins with a period of darkness and then a period of light. As the apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual (1 Corinthians 15:46). That is the invariable order.

What meaning does that have for us as Christians? Can we not trace the fulfillment of this in our own experience? Did we not all begin our lives in darkness, in the grip and bondage of death and darkness? Through the glorious redemption of the cross of Jesus Christ, we have passed into a period of light that is shining ever brighter till the full light of day (Proverbs 4:18); we have entered a period of growing and ever-expanding light. You can see this order in the work of the Lord Jesus Himself. There was the darkness of the crucifixion, passing very shortly into the glorious morning of the resurrection when He stepped forth into the glory of a new day and a new life. An evening and a morning, one day. Scripture also makes clear that if we have never gone through the darkness with Him, there is no morning to come. We must not live constantly in the darkness. The testimony of Scripture is that those who cling to the darkness, who refuse to be brought into the light, become, at last, as Jude describes them, wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever (Jude 13b).

Father of lights, thank You that from dark You bring light and that You have brought that light into my own experience through faith in Jesus Christ

Daily devotion for March 31st
Relevant Prayer
And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests

Ephesians 6:18a
There is a strong and powerful relationship between putting on the armor of God and praying. These two things belong together; in fact, one grows out of the other. It is not enough to put on the armor of God; you must also pray. It is not enough to pray; you must also have put on the armor of God. It is impossible to divide these two. Putting on the armor is essentially something that is done in the realm of your thought life. It is an adjustment of the attitude of your heart to reality, to things as they really are. It is thinking through the implications of the fact that revelation discloses. This is always the necessary thing to do in trying to face life.

The apostle does not reverse this and say, First pray, and then put on the armor of God. This is what we try to do, and this is why our prayer life is so feeble, so impotent. There is great practical help here if we follow carefully the designated order of Scripture. I think most Christians would confess that they are dissatisfied with their prayer life. They feel it is inadequate and perhaps infrequent. Sometimes we struggle to improve the quality as well as the quantity of our prayer lives. Sometimes we adopt schedules we attempt to maintain or long lists of names and projects and places we try to remember in prayer. In other words, we begin with the doing, but when we do this we are starting at the wrong place. The place to start is not with the doing, but with the thinking.

Prayer follows putting on the armor of God. It is a natural, normal outgrowth. I am not suggesting that there is no place for Christian discipline; there is. I am not suggesting that we will not need to take our wills and put them to a task and follow through. There is this need. But the place where discipline should come in is not in praying first, but in doing what is involved in putting on the armor of God. First, think through the implications of our faith, and then prayer will follow naturally much more easily. When it comes in that order, it will be thoughtful prayer, prayer that has meaning and significance.

This is the problem with much of our praying now. It is so shallow, so superficial. Sometimes our prayers are only a cut above the simple childhood prayer: Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. What is needed? Prayer should be an outgrowth of thoughtfulness about the implications of faith. This adds depth, meaning, and significance to it. Prayer should be pointed and purposeful.

If you take the whole range of Bible teaching on this great subject of prayer, you will find that underlying all the biblical presentation is the idea that prayer is conversation with God. What the apostle is saying is, After you have put on the armor of God, after you have thought through the implications of your faith in the ways that have been suggested previously, then talk to God about it. Tell Him the whole thing. Tell Him your reactions, tell Him how you feel, describe your relationship to life around you, and ask Him for what you need.

Forgive me for the way I have looked at prayer as though it were insignificant and optional. Help me to take it seriously. Help me to realize that You have made this my point of contact with You. Teach me to pray.

Daily devotion for March 30th
The Sword Of The Spirit
...and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Ephesians 6:17
In this verse, the word of God does not refer to the complete Bible. There are two words used in Scripture for the word of God. There is the familiar word, logos, which is used in the opening verse of John's gospel: In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word (Logos) was with God, and the Word (Logos) was God (John 1:1). Then there is another word, rhema, which is different in meaning. Logos refers to the total utterance of God, the complete revelation of what God has said. Rhema means a specific saying of God, a passage or a verse that has special application to an immediate situation; to use a modern term, it is the Word of God applied to experience, to our existence.

Rhema is the word used here. The sword of the Spirit is the saying of God applied to a specific situation. This is the great weapon placed in the hands of a believer. Perhaps all of us have had some experience with this. We have all read passages of Scripture when the words suddenly seemed to come alive, take on flesh and bones, leap off of the page at us, or grow eyes that follow us around everywhere we go. Perhaps we have experienced this in some moment of temptation or doubt, when we were assailed by what Paul calls here the flaming arrows of the evil one (v. 16). But it has been answered immediately by a passage of Scripture that flashed to mind, something we had not been thinking of at all, but which supplied the needed answer. That is why this is called the sword of the Spirit, because it is not only originated by Him as the author of the Word, but it is also recalled to mind by the Spirit and made powerful by Him in our lives. It is His answer to the attack of the devil, who comes to discourage us, defeat us, lure us aside, deceive us, or mislead us in some way.

The more we are exposed to Scripture, the more the Spirit can use this mighty sword in our lives. If you never read or study your Bible, you are terribly exposed to defeat and despair. You have no defense, you have nothing to put up against these forces that are at work. Therefore, read your Bible regularly. The Christian who neglects the reading of the Scriptures is in disobedience to the will of the Lord. And what is the responsibility of the Christian when the Spirit places one of these sayings in your mind on some appropriate occasion? The apostle says, Take it! Heed it! Obey it! Do not reject it. Take it seriously. The Spirit of God has brought it to mind for a purpose; therefore, give heed to it, obey it.

Father, what practical import there is in knowing Your Word. Help me to take it seriously and use this great armor that is given to me in Christ.

Daily devotion for March 29th
The Breastplate Of Righteousness
...with the breastplate of righteousness in place...

Ephesians 6:14b
Christ is the ground of your righteous standing before God, your acceptance before Him. If you are wearing that breastplate, you can rest secure that your heart, your emotions, are securely guarded and adequately protected against attack. This is perhaps the most frequent ground of attack against Christian faith. Christians often feel they lack assurance. They feel unworthy of God. They feel they are a failure in the Christian life and that God is certain to reject them, that He is no longer interested in them. They are so aware of their failures and shortcomings. Growth has been so slow. The first joy of faith has faded, and they feel God is angry with them or that He is far off somewhere. There is a constant sense of guilt. Their conscience is always stabbing them, making them unhappy. They feel God blames them. This is simply a satanic attack.

How do you answer an attack like this? You are to remember that you have put on the breastplate of righteousness. In other words, you do not stand on your own merits. You never did. You never had anything worthwhile in yourself to offer to God. You gave all that up when you came to Christ. You quit trying to be good enough to please God. You came on His merits. You came on the ground of His imputed righteousness—that which He gives to you. You began your Christian life like that, and there is no change now. You are still standing before God on that basis.

Paul himself used this breastplate of righteousness when he was under pressure to be discouraged and defeated. Here was a man who was small of stature and unimpressive in his personal appearance. His background was anti-Christian, and he could never get away from that completely. He had been the most hostile, brutal persecutor of the church that it had known. He must constantly have run across families with loved ones whom he had put to death. He was often reminded by many people that he was not one of the original twelve apostles, that his calling was suspect, that perhaps he really was not an apostle at all.

What a ground for discouragement! How easy it would have been for him to say to himself, What's the use? Here I am working my fingers to the bone, making tents and trying to preach the gospel to these people, and look at the blessing God has brought them, but they don't care. They hurl recriminations back into my face. Why try anymore? But that is not what he does. Instead, he says, But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not without effect (1 Corinthians 15: l0a). There he is using the breastplate of righteousness. I don't care, he says, what I have been; I don't defend what I am. I simply say to you, by the grace of God, I am what I am. What I am is what Christ has made me. I'm not standing on my righteousness; I'm standing on His. I am accepted by grace, and my personal situation does not make any difference at all. So his heart was kept from discouragement.

Father may these words meet me right where I am and help me right in the conflict in which I am engaged. Lift up my heart by the consciousness that Christ is my righteousness.

Daily devotion for March 28th
The Struggle
Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.

Ephesians 6:11
Our experience confirms the suggestion of this passage—that life is basically a struggle. Life never conforms to the rosy idealism of our dreams or to the romanticism of our songs. The explanation of this struggle lies deeper than we ordinarily think. The common view of our struggle has been that we are engaged in conflict against flesh and blood, against other men and women. But Paul says the battle is not against flesh and blood; it lies deeper than that. The basic problem is that this is a battle between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan and that people themselves are the battlefield. The battle is visible not only in the wars, revolutions, and crime waves that fill our newspapers, but it is also seen in the inner tensions and fears of individual lives, in the neurotic problems and mental illnesses that afflict us today, in family fights and church struggles. It is even visible in nature, where all of life competes in a ruthless, deadly struggle to survive.

The whole race has fallen under the control of satanic forces, which Paul calls, the world rulers of this present darkness (6:12 RSV)—a most significant phrase. The picture of the Bible from beginning to end is that all human beings without Christ, without exception, regardless of how clever or educated or cultured they may be, are the helpless victims of satanic control. Under the control of satanic forces human beings are uncomfortable and unhappy but also completely unable to escape by any wisdom or power of their own.

But the good news is that some have been set free through the coming of that stronger one, Jesus Himself, who came, as John tells us, to destroy the devil's work (1 John 3:8b). Through Him deliverance is obtained. Through the amazing mystery of the cross and the resurrection, Jesus has broken the power and bondage of Satan over human lives. Those who individually receive and acknowledge this are set free to live in the freedom and liberty of the children of God.

They are not set free to live unto themselves. They are set free in order to battle. That is the call that comes to all Christians. We are not set free in order to enjoy ourselves. We are set free to do battle, to engage in the fight, to overcome in our own lives, and to become the channels by which others are set free. How do you do this? Paul's answer is in one phrase: Put on the whole armor of God. Full provision has been made that you might win in this battle. This is the amazing thing we must learn. God has made full provision for us to fight these forces that hold the world in their grip.

Father, tear away the delusive veils by which I have allowed myself to be rendered powerless in this great battle. Help me to understand that I would have no possibility of fighting were it not for the delivering work of the Lord Jesus, who has come to bind the power of darkness.

Daily devotion for March 27th
Bringing Christ To Work
...not in the way of eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart...

Ephesians 6:6 RSV
Several times the idea is put forth: never work for men, you Christians; work only for God. You can work under a person's direction, but remember that you are working unto the Lord, that your daily task is work that He has given you to do, and you do it unto Him. What a glory this gives to every task. If you approach your work like this, you will never have another dull day. You will never be bored stiff with the routine and humdrum of what you have to do if you recognize that you are doing it with the eye of the Lord upon you and with the recognition that one day it will be made open and clear to all whether you did it as unto the Lord or unto men. What are the signs of the failure to do this?

The first sign is eyeservice, which means working only when the boss is watching. When the boss is not there to observe, you quit working. Some years ago I read an account of a foreman and some workers under him. He found that they were afflicted with this disease of eyeservice; they worked only when he watched them. But this particular foreman was the proud possessor of a glass eye, and he found that he could take his eye out of the socket and lay it on a stump where it could watch the men, and they would go right on working, whether he was there or not. But one day he came back to find them all lounging around. He had placed the eye on the stump, but one of the men had found a way to sneak around, come up behind the eye, and put his hat over it so that it no longer saw them. It is that attitude that so widely pervades our society today, the idea of working only when the boss is watching. If you are a Christian, this is forbidden if you want to be faithful to your Lord. Remember, the eye that watches you is not a human eye.

The second sign of failure in this respect is to be men-pleasing. Notice how the apostle is putting his finger on the attitudes that he found so frequently in this relationship of labor and capital. What is being men-pleasing? It is falsely flattering the boss, apple polishing, or playing office politics. It reveals a double heart, the lack of a single eye. It reveals that we are trying to get on by making other people happy but disregarding what God thinks. These are the signs of failure.

Christians are called away from these things. They have no business engaging in these types of activity if they want to be faithful to their Lord. They do not accomplish a thing. They seem to accomplish something, but in the end they do not. Christians are saved from all this if they remember that what they do is the will of God. Paul says that we are to obey our earthly masters in singleness of heart, doing the will of God from the heart. What is the will of God? Your work! The very work you are doing, where you are doing it, with your co-workers, under the present circumstances and conditions under which you have to work-that is God's choice for you, that is the will of God.

Father, I live before You. There is no area of my life that is not subject to Your gaze and to Your judgment. Grant to me that I correct what is wrong in my own work in the light of this word.

Daily devotion for March 26th
Parents And Children
Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Ephesians 6:4
This word translated fathers could well be translated parents, because it includes both the father and the mother. It is also true that the emphasis is laid largely upon the father, for he is responsible for what the children become. That is sobering, is it not, fathers? Mothers may enforce policy, but it is the father's task to set it and to see that his children are raised properly. There is nothing that is more dishonoring to the spirit of Christianity than the attitude adopted by many fathers: It is my job to make the living; her job is to raise the children. Not in the Word of God! In the Bible, the ultimate responsibility for what a home becomes is the father's. So the word is addressed to fathers.

This is the way a father subjects himself to his children—by deliberately avoiding the things that make a child rebel. Do not exasperate your children. The word used here means anger that results in a rebellion. Fathers, do not provoke your children to the place where they completely lose control and break out against authority.

There are two things that cause rebellion in children: indulgence and harshness. These two things are the negative of the two things he instructs the father to do: Bring them up in the training and the instruction [or the exhortation] of the Lord. The opposites of these are indulgence and harshness.

Lack of discipline will make a child insecure, miserable, and self-centered. That is what we call a spoiled child—one who grows up to expect to have her way in everything and who rides roughshod over the feelings of everyone else. This is created by a spirit of indulgence on the part of parents who allow their children to make decisions that no child is capable of making. Parents must learn that they need to make decisions for their children for quite a while in their life and only gradually help them to learn to make those decisions as they are able to do so. In the early years of childhood parents must make almost all the decisions. One of the terribly tragic things about life today is the degree to which many parents let children make decisions they are incapable of making.

The other extreme that provokes a child to revolt is harshness—rigorous, demanding discipline that is never accompanied with love or understanding. Rigid, military discipline that says, Do this, or this, or else, will inevitably drive a child to revolt as he comes to adolescence.

Opposed to this the apostle puts two things—training and instruction (or exhortation) in the Lord. The word for instruction is really putting in mind in the Lord. Training and putting in mind in the Lord. As the child grows older, physical discipline is to be replaced by exhortation, by understanding—helping a child to see what lies behind the restrictions and always showing concern and love. It does not mean a total relaxing of limits, but it means a different way of enforcing them.

Father, thank You that You can change the mistakes I have made as a parent into opportunities for advancement in my children's lives as well as my own life.

Daily devotion for March 25th
Husbands And Wives
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.

Ephesians 5:31
This verse is not simply an example of beautiful, poetic language. There is a fundamental reality behind this: Husband and wife are not just two people rooming together. Their lives actually do blend into one another. They actually become one. It is, therefore, true that what hurts the wife damages the husband. It cannot help but do so. If he is bitter toward her, it will eat like a cancer in his own life and heart. That is why, if you have had a squabble with your spouse, you may find yourself unable to do your work properly that day.

In Dr. Henry Brandt's helpful book The Struggle for Peace, he tells of a woman who came to him because of a great fear she had of going into supermarkets. She came to him for help in this problem, and he relied, as he always does, on the wisdom of Scripture. Remembering the verse Perfect love drives out fear (1 John 4:18b), he began to look for a violation of love in her life, for fear comes when there is something inhibiting the flow of love. He said to her, With whom are you angry? Finally she was able to realize that she was angry at her husband for an incident that had occurred a number of years before in a supermarket when they had had an unpleasant flare-up. As a result, she was emotionally disturbed whenever she went into a supermarket. When she dealt with her lack of love, her fear left. What happened, because of her injury toward him, reflected right back on herself. This is also true of the husband toward the wife. If we would understand this and realize that injuring our mate is the same as taking a hammer and pounding ourselves on the head or neglecting some part of our own body, we would stop trying to hurt one another. Injury to our mate is bound to come back upon us in some way.

The final point the apostle makes here is given in verse 33: However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself; and the wife must respect her husband. Notice that the basis for accomplishing this is that both partners in the marriage relationship fulfill their responsibility to Christ, regardless of what the other does. That is the key. It is not Wait until he starts loving me, and then I'll submit to him, or Wait until she starts submitting to me, and then I'll love her, but it is essential to your responsibility before Christ, regardless of what the other does. To do so breaks through the vicious circle of marriage conflict and serves to restore peace and permit the other to fulfill his or her responsibility.

I have seen such unilateral obedience work wonders in marriage relationships. Husbands and wives have been brought together, harmony restored in bitterly divided homes, grace and peace made to reign where there has been battle and conflict, violence, and ugliness before. Therefore, husbands, love your wife as yourself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

God grant to me the willingness and the grace to be obedient to the Lord Jesus, who is with me in every circumstance and every relationship of my life regardless of what the other person does.

Daily devotion for March 24th
The Cure For Conflict
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Ephesians 5:21
In saying this, the apostle is dealing with the basic remedy for all the conflicts in our day. Paul will apply this principle as he discusses the relationship of husbands to wives, which brings in the whole realm of marriage and divorce and the problems that arise there. Then he will take up the matter of children and parents, which brings in the whole issue of juvenile delinquency, causes and what can be done about it. Then he will take up the issue of management and labor. In each case, the remedy is always the same: Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

If we have any desire at all to be part of a solution to the issues surrounding us today, we must do so out of an understanding of what God has revealed about the heart of the problem. We must go back to the cause of all human strife. There is no one who has not at some time asked the question, How can I get the greatest satisfaction out of life? How can I get the maximum expression of my potential? How can I fulfill myself? It is not wrong to ask these questions because God has put these urges within us, but it is gravely wrong to ask them in this way.

When we ask the questions this way, we are asking as though we were the only person in the world, as though we were responsible for our own self-development. Sooner or later, in my attempts to develop myself and to gain satisfaction, I find myself on a collision course with someone else who is attempting the same thing. I find that my efforts to satisfy myself are continually sabotaged by others who are trying to achieve satisfaction in the same way. I insist on my rights, and others insist on their rights, and so we become obstacles to each other.

But Paul changes the whole pattern for Christians by introducing two radical factors that alter the whole situation. First, the Christian must never forget that in every relationship of life, another person is present: It is not merely a problem of what I want versus what you want. In every relationship, the apostle reminds us, a third Person is present—the Lord Jesus Christ.

That brings us to the second matter. When I am at odds with another person, to see that Christ is there too is to make me aware immediately of what He has taught me. It is only when I forget myself and devote myself to another's fulfillment that I will find my own heart running over with grace and satisfaction. This is one of the fundamental mysteries of life, and it is confirmed to us every day. Those who try desperately to satisfy themselves are the ones who end up hollow inside. Our Lord put it this way: For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it (Matthew 16:25).

It becomes, then, a question of priority. You cannot have your rights by insisting upon them. You can have them only when you seek to give others their rights. Do you dare to try this radical principle right where you live?

Father; I thank You for a word that searches me and cuts deep and lays bare and hides nothing. I know that in this sweet surgery of the Holy Spirit there is healing, forgiveness, cleansing, and restoration.

Daily devotion for March 23rd
Live Overflowingly
Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.

Ephesians 5:18
It is interesting that Paul puts these two things in contrast, one against the other. Don't get drunk with wine, he says. This recognizes there are things in life that tend to drive you to drink. There are pressures in life, there are demands made upon you so severe that you will feel the need of some stimulation, something that will undergird you a bit, give you some confidence and add help and strength. But don't let it be wine or any other artificial stimulant, because, he says, the trouble with that is, it so easily leads to lack of control. The word here translated debauchery is the Greek word that means without any limits, with reckless abandonment. It refers to escapism and the tendency to throw all restraints overboard and live without control.

But in contrast to that he says to satisfy that need for something to stimulate and strengthen you by being filled with the Spirit, for that is God's provision for this need in human life. There is no need to feel ashamed over the sense of need. We were not made to be self-sufficient, independent creatures. Because you feel like you need something to help you, to strengthen you, to make you feel adequate to face life, do not be troubled by that. You do need something. But let it be the right thing. Be filled with the Spirit.

Here he touches the great secret of real Christianity, the possibility of being filled with the Spirit. When you became a Christian, when you believed in Jesus Christ and received Him as your Lord, the Holy Spirit came to live in you. You have the Spirit, but the interesting paradox is that, though all Christians have the Holy Spirit, we constantly need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The filling of the Holy Spirit is the momentary taking from Him of the resources you need for the situation in which you are. It has nothing to do with an experience or a feeling or a crisis; it is a quiet drinking again and again of an inner supply of strength.

This is a truth that many Christians seem to miss. They think that Christianity means coming to church, getting a blessing, and then going away to try to live in the light and warmth of the blessing until it leaks away, and then they must come back and get filled up again. But that is not Christianity. When Jesus said of the person who drinks of Him, Out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water, John says, By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive (John 7:39a). That is the strengthening that comes from within, and there is plenty there for any situation.

Father, I pray that You will teach me to draw upon the well of water within, to know that every demand made upon me is a demand made upon You, and that you are prepared, ready, to live Your life through me in every situation and thus manifest Your grace.

Daily devotion for March 22nd
Light In The Darkness
Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

Ephesians 5:11
Sexual looseness is incompatible with the Christian faith, because the Christian is directed to expose the true character of sexual evil. You cannot expose something and indulge in it at the same time. It is utterly inconsistent. The church of Jesus Christ is directed by the Holy Spirit to be a source of correct information on matters of sex. Paul says the church is the pillar and foundation of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15). I do not hesitate to say today that it is only the church that can teach the world the true nature of sex. Even the serious worldling, intent in utter sincerity on trying to alleviate the problems of society, does not see clearly. Therefore, we cannot accept statements from the world in these matters without checking them against the truth of Scripture.

But the job of Christians is to speak up in these areas. They should challenge these false ideas. They are to tear away the mask from these wrong concepts and reveal the truth. If we needed any justification at all for a message like this, here it is: The apostle says, Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them to the light, make them visible. He does not mean to denounce them. The world is utterly unimpressed by people who go around denouncing. What the church ought to do is to show the truth helpfully about these things, tear away the lies, and let the world see that what God has intended for sex is wholesome, beautiful, wonderful, and properly protected by the bonds of marriage.

Young people are always looking for a cause to espouse. In common with much of our society, they want to rebel against something. May I suggest something? Rebel against the rebellion! Tear away the veils from these delusions that grip people today, making them hope that they will find something beautiful and healthy and wonderful in the exploitation of sex. They will not find it at all. Help them to see that. Tear away these veils.

But wake yourself up first. Alert your minds and hearts. Realize that in the Word of God you have the truth as it really is. Christ will give you light. Then tell somebody about it. Blazon it abroad. Capitalize on the universal interest in this subject today—it is perfectly proper. Help people to see that this is part of God's great yearning heart of redemptive love that is ever seeking to draw people away from that which destroys and ruins and creates unhappiness and misery, back into wholeness and fullness and joyfulness and the living of life as God intended people to live. Expose these things. ...Everything exposed by the light becomes visible (v. 13). Anything that tears away the masquerade and exposes the facts is light.

Father, may I walk as this verse suggests I walk, shining as light in a dark place. Thank you for the privilege of it in this day of darkness.