From: Crosswalk.com

By Ashley Moore

“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” – Ephesians 2:10, NLT

I read recently, “a piece of art doesn’t have to be perfect or finished to be a masterpiece.” The author further observed that what makes art valuable is the story behind the piece. While the book was secular, there are some spiritual truths to these words.

First, whether we acknowledge the message of the Bible or not, God has set eternity in the hearts of man and written His Word on our hearts and in our minds (Ecclesiastes 3:11, Hebrews 10:16). Secondly, because we are made in His image, everything we create tells a story of God to those around us (Genesis 1:27). Our lives tell a story whether we have surrendered to Christ or rejected God.

What kind of story is your life telling? Does it point to the gospel message? The Bible calls those of us in Christ Jesus, His masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10). A masterpiece is an artist’s creation displaying his or her mastery and skill level to onlookers. A masterpiece is an outstanding creation that proves an artist’s abilities and qualifications.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t usually feel like a work of art. I relate more to a messy finger painting made by a toddler than an artistic masterpiece. But then, I recall the author’s comments from the book laced with art jargon, and I remember, we don’t have to be perfect or finished to be an artist’s masterpiece. So, here are two ways we display His workmanship to the world around us, even if our lives aren’t perfectly packaged with neat little bows.

Our Stories of Redemption

“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” – 2 Corinthians 5:17, NLT

A transformation from death to life is an abrupt change. Whether you grew up in the church your whole life and finally repented from knowing about God to knowing God, or you left a prodigal lifestyle to follow Jesus, your life tells a story to the world around you.

For me, this looked like leaving a life of numbing my pain with alcohol and relationships to looking to God’s Word for healing and placing Him at the center of my relationships. While my outward actions took a while to change, the drastic shift in my desire to satisfy worldly cravings changing to wanting to please God was enough to tell a story. What about you? What has God redeemed you from?

Our Impact on Others

“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” – John 15:5, ESV

Even if no one ever acknowledges the changes in you, those closest to us will be impacted by our transformation. As humans, we were created with mirror neurons that cause us to mimic the people around us. The longer a person is around us, the more we pick up their mannerisms and little sayings. And vice versa. As we flow with living water, the people around us will begin to flourish.

And while you won’t be perfect or quite finished yet, you will be His masterpiece because just like a marvelous painting tells the story of its artist, your life transformation will point to the One who knit you together in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13). Our lives tell a story, may the redeemed say so (Psalm 107:2).

People are God’s work of art. Our lives either tell the story of what happens when we disregard His call to truth, or they tell the story of His redemption and its power to transform us. I love that no matter the current stage of becoming we are in, we display the workmanship, the qualifications, and the worthiness of our worship of our creator God. Just like a painting at every stage, the beautiful brush strokes are telling a story of the artist holding the brush.

Streams in the Desert – January 19

• 202319 Jan

Men ought always to pray and not to faint (Luke 18:1).

“Go to the ant.” Tammerlane used to relate to his friends an anecdote of his early life. “I once,” he said, “was forced to take shelter from my enemies in a ruined building, where I sat alone many hours. Desiring to divert my mind from my hopeless condition, I fixed my eyes on an ant that was carrying a grain of corn larger than itself up a high wall. I numbered the efforts it made to accomplish this object. The grain fell sixty-nine times to the ground; but the insect persevered, and the seventieth time it reached the top. This sight gave me courage at the moment, and I never forgot the lesson.
–The King’s Business

Prayer which takes the fact that past prayers have not been answered as a reason for languor, has already ceased to be the prayer of faith. To the prayer of faith the fact that prayers remain unanswered is only evidence that the moment of the answer is so much nearer. From first to last, the lessons and examples of our Lord all tell us that prayer which cannot persevere and urge its plea importunately, and renew, and renew itself again, and gather strength from every past petition, is not the prayer that will prevail.
–William Arthur

Rubenstein, the great musician, once said, “If I omit practice one day, I notice it; if two days, my friends notice it; if three days, the public notice it.” It is the old doctrine, “Practice makes perfect.” We must continue believing, continue praying, continue doing His will. Suppose along any line of art, one should cease practicing, we know what the result would be. If we would only use the same quality of common sense in our religion that we use in our everyday life, we should go on to perfection.

The motto of David Livingstone was in these words, “I determined never to stop until I had come to the end and achieved my purpose.” By unfaltering persistence and faith in God he conquered.

Today’s Devotions

By: Charles Spurgeon

“But you, O Lor, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Turn to me and be gracious to me, give your strength to your servant,” (Psalm 86:15-16a, ESV)

Are you slow to anger? If so, you are my hero. I strive to be slow to anger, but I’m a work in progress. It helps when I remember I need mercy and grace every day. I miss the mark, but I know God is slow to anger. And when I am angry at myself for being quick to anger, I know that God looks on me with kindness. His eyes fill with steadfast love, and he helps me through the mess my anger creates.

I am so grateful God is compassionate. To be compassionate means to feel sorrow for someone else’s suffering, with a desire and effort to help. We see God’s compassion for us in the person of Jesus Christ. Through Jesus, we can have forgiveness and salvation. Our lives change when we meet Jesus so that we can know God’s great compassion. His compassion helps us live for him in our day to day.

There is action behind compassion. As we lean into God’s compassion, we begin to see his actions in our lives. We experience his mercy when we mess up once again. We know his grace when he encourages us to fall forward into his arms, and he helps us stand again. All through the Old Testament, we see how full of mercy God was to his people. Then in the New Testament, we see Jesus’s compassion on the crowds. Jesus delivered his good news of freedom, healed the brokenhearted, and gave sight to the blind of eyes and heart.

Jonah did not understand the Lord’s compassion. He ran away from God’s command and spent three days and nights in the belly of a whale before he obeyed God and warned the people of Nineveh of imminent destruction. The Ninevites repented, and God extended compassion to them. He did not destroy them. Instead of rejoicing, Jonah thought this was very wrong. He pouted in anger because God was compassionate.

We can learn much from Jonah. For one, to obey right away. Second, to remember how much we need mercy and grace. We are not perfect. We do not have it all together. Yet, it’s so easy to look at everyone else’s failings and refuse to see our own. We want to experience God’s compassion, but do we want our greatest enemy to experience his compassion? In my most honest moments, I struggle to say yes.

I want God’s acts of compassion toward me. I want him to forgive me, to help me, to bless me. But when I’ve been wounded by someone’s betrayal, I want punishment for them. I am not slow to anger, and I struggle to show mercy and grace. But God. He steps in and reminds me that I need his compassion just as much as my enemies do. This keeps me humble and fully reliant on his grace. I’m grateful for his steadfast love and his strength to extend compassion when I would be compassionless like Jonah.

It’s tempting to respond like Jonah. He knew God’s nature because he experienced for himself, but he grew angry when God showed compassion to the Ninevites. People whom he felt didn’t deserve it. We know the Ninevites gave up their evil and violent ways. They humbled themselves before God, and he responded in compassion. Humility is key in learning to let go of our anger and to receive God’s strength to extend compassion to others. The book of Jonah ends with God asking Jonah a question, and we’re left wondering what happened to him. Did he stay angry? Did he harbor resentment toward God?

The Living God – Streams in the Desert – January 17

• 202317 Jan

O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee? (Daniel 6:20).

How many times we find this expression in the Scriptures, and yet it is just this very thing that we are so prone to lose sight of. We know it is written “the living God”; but in our daily life there is scarcely anything we practically so much lose sight of as the fact that God is the living God; that He is now whatever He was three or four thousand years since; that He has the same sovereign power, the same saving love towards those who love and serve Him as ever He had and that He will do for them now what He did for others two, three, four thousand years ago, simply because He is the living God, the unchanging One. Oh, how therefore we should confide in Him, and in our darkest moments never lose sight of the fact that He is still and ever will be the living God!

Be assured, if you walk with Him and look to Him and expect help from Him, He will never fail you. An older brother who has known the Lord for forty-four years, who writes this, says to you for your encouragement that He has never failed him. In the greatest difficulties, in the heaviest trials, in the deepest poverty and necessities, He has never failed me; but because I was enabled by His grace to trust Him He has always appeared for my help. I delight in speaking well of His name.
–George Mueller

Luther was once found at a moment of peril and fear, when he had need to grasp unseen strength, sitting in an abstracted mood tracing on the table with his finger the words, “Vivit! vivit!” (“He lives! He lives!”). It is our hope for ourselves, and for His truth, and for mankind. Men come and go; leaders, teachers, thinkers speak and work for a season, and then fall silent and impotent. He abides. They die, but He lives. They are lights kindled, and, therefore, sooner or later quenched; but He is the true light from which they draw all their brightness, and He shines for evermore.
–Alexander Maclaren

“One day I came to know Dr. John Douglas Adam,” writes C. G. Trumbull. “I learned from him that what he counted his greatest spiritual asset was his unvarying consciousness of the actual presence of Jesus. Nothing bore him up so, he said, as the realization that Jesus was always with him in actual presence; and that this was so independent of his own feelings, dependent of his deserts, and independent of his own notions as to how Jesus would manifest His presence.

“We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you,” (1 Thessalonians 1:2-4, ESV)

This passage from 1 Thessalonians holds three keys to serving God. When we learn to leverage these keys, we discover that we can continue when the way grows wearying or frustrating. Serving God by serving people brings with it a whole host of issues. We rub each other wrong, and our flesh expresses itself through our irritated responses to one another. We fight for dominance and wrestle with selfish ambition. We lobby for our great ideas and fuss when they get put aside. Instead of getting caught up in these traps, we can consider what gets us started, drives us, and sustains us.

Faith starts us because God chooses us. God has already taken the first step in renewing our personal relationship with him by sending Jesus to pay for our offenses against God. Jesus bridged the gap between God and us. We simply respond by saying yes to God and begin a life anchored by faith. Walking by faith means that sometimes we don’t see all the steps we need to take; instead, we only see the next one and then the next one. Serving God is an expression of our faith in him, and faith is an important key in believing that our service is not in vain.

Love for the Lord is the engine that rumbles beneath all we do and drives us forward. At times the labor involved in serving God surprises us. Hardships happen, and we wonder if something so noble can bring such difficulties. But this life is not without trials, even when we serve with pure motives. We need to have something that keeps up moving forward when the way grows long and scattered with boulders and steep inclines. Love for God is the key to pressing on when discouragement comes.

Hope fuels us and gives us endurance. We find our hope in Jesus, who is steadfast and true, strong and mighty, and ever-present. When we grow weary in service, we can fix our eyes on Jesus. He is our hope. He doesn’t disappoint. Because sanctification is a process, we wrestle with the ways of our “self” and must carry our cross. While this battle within rears its ugly head from time to time, we can stay the course by allowing steadfast hope to build endurance in us. Hope in Jesus is the key that fuels our service.

Throughout my life, I’ve served God by serving the Church through my involvement in various ministries, from children’s church to youth group to women’s ministries. My involvement in each area ministered to my heart and helped me mature. Maturity came through diligence to honor God through every issue each ministry brought as I focused on faith, love, and hope.

Streams in the Desert – January 16

• 202316 Jan

And there arose a great storm (Mark 4:37).

Some of the storms of life come suddenly: a great sorrow, a bitter disappointment, a crushing defeat. Some come slowly. They appear upon the ragged edges of the horizon no larger than a man’s hand, but, trouble that seems so insignificant spreads until it covers the sky and overwhelms us.

Yet it is in the storm that God equips us for service. When God wants an oak He plants it on the moor where the storms will shake it and the rains will beat down upon it, and it is in the midnight battle with elements that the oak wins its rugged fibre and becomes the king of the forest.

When God wants to make a man He puts him into some storm. The history of manhood is always rough and rugged. No man is made until he has been out into the surge of the storm and found the sublime fulfillment of the prayer: “O God, take me, break me, make me.”

A Frenchman has painted a picture of universal genius. There stand orators, philosophers and martyrs, all who have achieved pre-eminence in any phase of life; the remarkable fact about the picture is this: Every man who is pre-eminent for his ability was first pre-eminent for suffering. In the foreground stands that figure of the man who was denied the promised land, Moses. Beside him is another, feeling his way — blind Homer. Milton is there, blind and heart-broken. Now comes the form of one who towers above them all. What is His characteristic? His Face is marred more than any man’s. The artist might have written under that great picture, “The Storm.”

The beauties of nature come after the storm. The rugged beauty of the mountain is born in a storm, and the heroes of life are the storm-swept and the battle-scarred.

You have been in the storms and swept by the blasts. Have they left you broken, weary, beaten in the valley, or have they lifted you to the sunlit summits of a richer, deeper, more abiding manhood and womanhood? Have they left you with more sympathy with the storm-swept and the battle-scarred?
–Selected

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose”—Romans 8:28

Do we really believe when things don’t go our way, that God will work all things together for our good in our lives? What is our reaction, and where do our thoughts lead us when a major household appliance breaks down? Or, how do we handle it when a store overcharges us a large amount of money and we have to wait 7-10 days for a refund? After a car accident, when we’re left without transportation, do we believe that somehow it will all work together for our best?

In all these situations where we suffer losses and are inconvenienced, where we feel drained of energy and resources, exhausted dealing with the hassles involved in the losses, replacements, and so forth, do we really believe God will work these things together for good in our lives?

Trusting God to Keep His Word
What if instead of letting the situations and our emotions lead our responses when something unexpected or unpleasant happens, we choose to correct ourselves by remembering what God’s Word says about His working all things together for our good? Rather than letting angry, fearful, disappointed thoughts lead us astray, what if we purposely turn our thoughts and words to trust God’s Word over the situation and circumstances? What might we experience if we choose to go the opposite way our emotions try to take us?

Philippians 4:6-7 describes what we can expect to happen when we choose this route over fear, anxiety, stress, and distress. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

What about Major Heartbreaks?
Even more so, what about more difficult things that happen in life, such as devastating tragedies like losing a loved one, experiencing a natural disaster, or all at the same time? Is it even possible for us to believe God can bring good from horrific events and losses? Human emotions are quick to rush in and often take over in such heartbreaking situations. When they do, how do we respond? Are we quick to readjust our frail and vulnerable first responses to line up with God’s word rather than our situation? Or do we let the circumstances run away with us and take us off to dark places with our thoughts and emotions?

Leaning into Him During the Deepest, Darkest Hours
Trusting God and believing what His Word tells us is true takes time and practice to develop within us. It also takes a commitment to know His word and let it lead us in our responses. Turning to God and His promises rather than our own fears brings comfort and relief, freeing us from distress, panic, and doubt. Even if it looks impossible for an event, situation, or circumstance to ever be worked together for our good, we can choose to trust Him. We can resist trying to second guess or figure out how God could possibly weave it together in a good way..

Proverbs 3:5-6 encourages us to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.”

Even in the deepest, darkest hours, we can lean on Him. We can trust His Word, His truth, even when it doesn’t seem to fit or make sense to us at the time.

The Lord Appeared to Isaac – Streams in the Desert – January 15

• 202315 Jan

And the Lord appeared unto Isaac the same night (Genesis 26:24).

“Appeared the same night,” the night on which he went to Beer-sheba. Do you think this revelation was an accident? Do you think the time of it was an accident? Do you think it could have happened on any other night as well as this? If so, you are grievously mistaken. Why did it come to Isaac in the night on which he reached Beer-sheba? Because that was the night on which he reached rest. In his old locality, he had been tormented. There had been a whole series of petty quarrels about the possession of paltry wells. There are no worries like little worries, particularly if there is an accumulation of them. Isaac felt this. Even after the strife was past, the place retained a disagreeable association. He determined to leave. He sought change of scene. He pitched his tent away from the place of former strife. That very night the revelation came. God spoke when there was no inward storm. He could not speak when the mind was fretted; His voice demands the silence of the soul. Only in the hush of the spirit could Isaac hear the garments of his God sweep by. His still night was his starry night.

My soul, hast thou pondered these words, “Be still, and know”? In the hour of perturbation, thou canst not hear the answer to thy prayers. How often has the answer seemed to come long after the heart got no response in the moment of its crying — in its thunder, its earthquake, and its fire. But when the crying ceased, when the stillness fell, when thy hand desisted from knocking on the iron gate, when the interest of other lives broke the tragedy of thine own, then appeared the long-delayed reply. Thou must rest, O soul, if thou wouldst have thy heart’s desire. Still the beating of thy pulse of personal care. Hide thy tempest of individual trouble behind the altar of a common tribulation and, that same night, the Lord shall appear to thee. The rainbow shall span the place of the subsiding flood, and in thy stillness thou shalt hear the everlasting music.
–George Matheson

Today’s Devotions