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James 1:5-8

“If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.”

This passage is so packed with good stuff I hate to squeeze it into just one day, but the ideas flow together and build on one another so we must treat it as one thought. Spend some time with this one, don’t rush through today. Verse 5 starts, “If you need wisdom…” Heads up: we all need wisdom. There’s really no “if” about it. So pay attention because you are about to find out exactly how to get one of the things you need the most. Are you ready for the big secret? Ask. Yup, that’s it. Just ask.

Turns out God is super happy to give us wisdom any time and even if we are in a dumb situation we totally got ourselves into he won’t say, “I told you so.” He won’t blame you or shame you, he’ll just help you figure out what to do. Wow, that sounds really amazing. Here’s the “but”… don’t ask God for wisdom and then hunt down like 15 other opinions too. Godly counsel is one thing, but the morning talk show or the psychic down the street are not on the list. We cannot waver on that. Loyalty to God means your faith is only in him. He’s not on the list — he is the list.

I don’t have to waste time worrying about what I should do. I don’t need to search high and low to find wisdom. I don’t have to bounce around from one philosophical idea to another on some quest for the answer. I’ve already solved that one for myself: God has my back every single time. So what do you need wisdom for today? What situation are you about to blow up if you do not act wisely? Maybe trying asking God right now to tell you what to do. And then listen. He answers back.

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James 1:1-4

“This letter is from James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am writing to the “twelve tribes”—Jewish believers scattered abroad. Greetings!  Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”

James is one of my favorite books of the Bible, and when I was a teenager I decided to memorize the entire first chapter. It was truly a supernatural experience, as I memorized the whole thing in about an hour and it has been burned into my mind ever since. I have never had another passage that has stuck with me so deeply.

James’ audience is Jewish believers, living in all parts of the known world. These early believers had to expect trouble, since they were often hunted down for their faith. The whole spiritual journey was centered around clinging to your faith no matter who came to arrest you for it. Persecution was considered an honor, and it is in this vein that James expresses an opportunity for great joy when trials come. Think of what we saw of Peter and Paul in our study of Acts — they both were the most influential when they were facing opposition. The testing of faith produces a supernatural endurance, and you don’t need anything else when you have this because you’ve basically learned to survive it all.

You don’t have to quit. You can grow in the area of endurance. Perhaps you are facing a trial or difficulty right now, and you wonder if you will make it through. You might not feel strong right now. But you can get stronger. Every single day that you wake up and decide you are going to look straight into the wind and climb up that hill, you get a little stronger. Keep doing that and over time you will have developed those spiritual muscles and you will be able to face all the challenges that come your way. This strength is not from yourself, but from the expansion of the Holy Spirit in your heart as you lean into him instead of giving up.

Join us as we begin a Bible study on the book of James! FreedomForToday.com

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Deuteronomy 34

Take a moment to read the entire chapter of Deuteronomy 34 before reading the devotional below. 

Congratulations!! You’ve made it to the end of our Deuteronomy series — a lengthy Old Testament book with some pretty big challenges to explore. If you missed any chapters, you can always look up each series by category on the sidebar.

In today’s passage, we see the death of a fearless leader, Moses. In his final earthly meeting with God, he gets to survey the entire Promised Land. Even though he was unable to go into the land due to his failure to follow all of God’s commands, he can still taste the victory for the people of Israel.

Not too many people are strong with good eyesight at age 120. Times were different back then and God kept Moses alive and strengthened for a very special mission. I’m personally glad that he doesn’t typically wait until we are 80 years old anymore to set out our life purpose! As Moses dies, we see a transition of leadership to Joshua, who will lead God’s people into the Promised Land. (To keep going with this story, read on into the book of Joshua.)

God promised to deliver his people out of slavery in Egypt and to give them the land that he had already promised to Abraham years before. Moses’ leadership took God’s people right up to that promise, although it required one more generation to see its fulfillment due to the disobedience of Moses and the people. Even when we mess things up, God keeps his end of the bargain. His final talk with Moses was to show him all that he had worked for. God made sure that the people would take the land as promised. Sometimes we have to wait for God to make good on his promises, but he never fails to deliver. What are you waiting on God for today?

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Deuteronomy 33

Take a moment to read the entire chapter of Deuteronomy 33 before reading the devotional below.

Several years ago, we had a famous pastor come and speak at our church.  He pastors a huge church, he’s been on the cover of Time magazine, he’s written a host of books, and he is very influential within our movement.  All in all, people were wildly excited to come and hear him speak. Except me. I was more excited because he was bringing one of his associate pastors with him.  This associate pastor is largely unknown outside his own church, but to me he is a rock star. He is one of the men who have helped me define my own calling, even though we’d only met once.  When they first arrived, the associate pastor walked up to me and said, “Hey Josh! What’s going on, man?” I found myself thinking “Wow…he knows my name?”

There’s something powerful about finding out that you aren’t lost in a crowd.  In Deuteronomy 34 Moses, the great leader of God’s people, speaks his final words.  These words are different from all the words that have come before, however. All the words of Deuteronomy have been addressed to all the Israelites, to the whole nation.  These final words are more personal though. Israel is broken up into twelve major family groups, called tribes. Moses addresses each tribe individually offering a specific blessing unique to that  family.

Just as God spoke through Moses to each of those families individually, God sees you and knows you in all your uniqueness.  He values you because you are you – different from anyone else in the entire world. God has singled you out, wanting to have a unique relationship with you.  It won’t be the same relationship he has with anyone else. He won’t just be having a relationship with everyone in your church or everyone in your family. He sees you individually.  He loves you individually. He knows your name.

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Deuteronomy 32

Take a moment to read the entire chapter of Deuteronomy 32 before reading the devotional below.

I looked out a second floor window in downtown Atlanta as dusk settled and commuters headed home for the day.  I was on a week-long mission trip, and that one moment changed my life. I experienced a sense of solitude that I had previously only connected with nature.  It was the feeling I had sitting alone along the side of a lake or standing at the edge of a cliff getting lost in the awe-inspiring view. It was a private and intimate encounter with God, and it led me to write.  I don’t write much poetry, but the experience of those twilight moments in Atlanta could only be expressed as a poem.

Deuteronomy 32 captures all the major themes of Deuteronomy and re-expresses them in poetry.  There is the theme of God’s faithfulness and Israel’s unfaithfulness, the themes of justice and idolatry and obedience.  These themes are now expressed in the deeply passionate, profoundly artistic medium of poetry. Poems must always be read differently.  They invite us to read with our hearts, not just our heads. They use symbols and word pictures and comparisons that are designed to evoke feelings and reactions.  That means that poems can’t be skimed asif they were a news story on CNN or Fox News. Poems must be read slowly, carefully and imaginatively.

He wants to engage your mind, your heart, your soul and your will. God designed you as a multifaceted person, and he deeply values each aspect of your being.  A fully orbed relationship with God is mentally stimulating and passionate and obedient. It challenges the mind, the heart and the will. Most importantly, God never asks you to reject one of these aspects of yourself in favor of the others.  In fact, the design of God’s truth is to draw your mind, heart and will into one fully integrated being. That is what God’s truth promises to do: it will make you more yourself by drawing together all the disparate and disintegrated parts of who you are in order to recreate an image of God that shines through the totality of your being.