The Daily Battle (Oct 23)

Verses for the day

• Jer 42:6 Whether we like it or not, we will obey the LORD our God to whom we are sending you with our plea. For if we obey him, everything will turn out well for us.”

Thoughts

• It was never our Father’s intention to give us a list of rules to control and manipulate our lives. His laws were always meant to enhance our lives so that “everything will turn out well for us.” But, that promise will only come true when we choose to stay within his “circle of safety.”
• Remember the movie “Eight Below?” The main character has to take a scientist out to a possible sight of a meteor strike. The only way to get there is with the sled dogs. While there, the guide marks out a safety area where he has tested for crevasses and tells the doc to stay within the safety area. When the doc sees a rock he thinks is the meteor, he goes outside the safety area. The guide yells at him and almost panics for fear the doc will get hurt. This is a good illustration of what I was meditating on in this passage.
• Jeremiah continues in Jer 42:10 ‘Stay here in this land. If you do, I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not uproot you. For I am sorry about all the punishment I have had to bring upon you.”

While our Father did make them captives and sent Babylon to overthrow them, His intent was reconciliation and restoration. To bring them to himself. To cause them to stop living for themselves and to turn back to him. When they returned to him, he promised to build them up, and plant them again.

God doesn’t want to punish us. He loves us. Just like parents don’t want to punish their children, it’s hard. It causes conflict. Children don’t like it. But the discipline is the training ground for children to understand why the boundaries are important. The same is true with God. He is not up there with a big stick just waiting for us to mess up. He is watching over us and desires to guide us along the path, trying to help us not fall into the crevasses along the way.

Mark 8:33 Jesus turned around and looked at his disciples, then reprimanded Peter. “Get away from me, Satan!” he said. “You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”

Wow, what a thought. When we add this verses to what we were just talking about in Jeremiah, what I am hearing is this, “when you choose to test the boundaries, or even go outside the safety area, you are listening to Satan, and you are seeing things merely from a human point of view! That is what happens every time we choose to ignore God’s clear instructions and venture out to do our own thing.

Mark 8:34-35 Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it.

Prayer

Father, I am sorry for choosing to go outside the safety area and to test the boundaries. You call me to give up my own way, take up my cross, and follow you. If I continue to hang on to my own way, and my own life, I will lose it (Mark 8:35). Just like you told the people through Jeremiah. If you don’t listen, if you choose to go your own way, destruction will follow you (Jer 42:13-17). “But if you give up your life, if you give up your thinking and your desire, for my sake, you will be safe (Mark 8:35).

I pray today that you will help those who read this to live by Eph 6:11. That they will take their stand against the devil’s schemes. 1 Peter 5:8 tells us to be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Help my children to resist steadfast in the faith, Father, help them to recognize the devils schemes that trip them up.

James 1:14-15 Temptation comes from my own desires which entice me and drag me down. Satan is not creative, but he is very repetitive. He continues to tell the same lie until we believe it.  Help them to recognize Satan’s lies that they are living by as if they were true, so that they don’t end up like Peter, listening to Satan, and seeing things merely from a human point of view!