Just a month or so after meeting my husband, Charlie, I threw a pop quiz at him. What’s my favorite color? Where did I grow up? What’s my favorite food? I was amazed that not only did he know every answer, but he also shared details he remembered from our conversation. If he was committing such insignificant details to memory, he must really be listening! And if he was really listening, I knew he must really love me!
To love someone means we know them. The more we know them the more intimately acquainted we are with all their ways.
What does Love have to do with Psalm 91? Apparently, a lot, based on the verse we will be looking at today in this next installment of “In the Secret”
Hello. This is Joni Scott, welcome to “In a Secret” a devotional podcast.
We are now moving into the last few, very powerful verses of Psalm 91. Today we will examine Psalm 91: 14, but before we do, I have to confess to you that preparing for this podcast smote me. Psalm 91:14 is a truth I endeavor to build my life on. Yet, somehow, I have snuck away from its reach once again! I was smitten with my own proclivity towards being sure I accomplish a long list.
Let’s look at it:
Psalm 91:14 “Because he has set his love on me, therefore I will deliver him. I will set him on high because he has known my name.”
What will cause the object of Psalm 91:14 to be delivered?
Is it because he went to church faithfully every Sunday, read His Bible, helped in the Sunday School class? Tithed?
Nope.
He simply loved God.
More than loved in a vague sort of way. He “SET his love upon the Lord.”
When I first found the Lord back when I was 22 I was madly and crazy in love with him! I told everyone within six feet of me (which would be no one these days) about the great new love of my life. I even loved doing dishes because I could be alone to pray and chat with Him. I went to church super early just to enjoy the sense of Gods presence in the sanctuary.
During this time many opportunities and many “coincidences” came about which would direct my life and ministry for the future.
As the years passed, serving God in church through every imaginable ministry you can name, LOVE for God began to mean Serving God. Over time, that same service begins to be an obligation and a chore. Sure, I still loved God. That’s what made me serve in ministry. But Instead of remaining where it all began, setting our love on HIM I was venturing into the rough waters beyond His continual presence.
As people saw I had a heart and willingness to serve God, they soon were placing all sorts of things in my lap. I taught the kids, the teens, led a womans bible study, Led worship, cleaned the church, headed up outreaches, event, and printed bulletins. All while homeschooling my children.
I knew I needed TIME for God and fought to get up early to be with HIm, but my mind was cluttered with to-do’s and have-to’s.
The time came I emotionally fell apart and it led to a dark and desperate period in my life. Soon I was doing zero ministries. I was expelled from my church, never to return.
After a long dark separation from all I held dear, I started over.
At first I would only walk and talk to God. That was enough. What I have learned since, is that walking is talking with God is more than enough!! Taking time to just BE with HIm is the most powerful ministry of all. It is called “setting you love on HIm.” As you set your love on HIm, He will put everything in its place!
It was a concept I struggled to grasp for a long time.
Shouldn’t I spend hours praying, then take food to the poor, then share the gospel with my neighbor? Won’t that make God love me more? Wont the windows of heaven be open for me when I lay down my life for Him as He did for me?
Well, the laying down your life part has already been done by Jesus. You dont have to do it anymore. Your part is just to accept that gift.
In John 6:28 Jesus disciples asked Him “What shall we do that we might do the works of God?” I think we ask this a lot. What am I supposed to DO?
Jesus answered “This is the work of God, that you believe on him who he hath sent.”
Cant you just picture the disciples waiting for Jesus to finish the answer. “Believe and…”
But Jesus ended there.
John 1:12 says “To all who did receive him, to all who believed in His name, he gave the Power to become children of God.”
C’mon. Its not that simple! But it is. Believe and recieve. And you will have power to be His children. And it continues long past the first time you lifted a repentant heart to Him. Just keep believing and receiving. Enjoy God. Be with Him.
Heidi Baker, a missionary to Mozambique, has taken in thousands and thousands of orphaned and neglected children. She is a sought after speaker world wide, and has led many to the Lord, as well as inspired them to serve God in destitute places of the earth reaching out to” the one” as she calls it. Whoever God puts before you. What did she do to be used so powerfully of God?
She did… nothing.
Before she went to Mozambique, Heidi and her husband Rolland were missionaries in Asia. They reached a point of complete and utter burn out. Heidi says she returned exhausted with one shriveled grape as the fruit of her ministry to hold before God.
While on furlough God met her in a powerful and life changing way. She realized true power came from going “Low and slow.” That meant spending hours and hours in simple worship and adoration of her savior. In time the ministry in Mozambique exploded and became internationally known. She explains that now people come from all over the globe to be part of what God is doing in Mozambique. Sometimes they grow frustrated with the long hours spent “doing nothing” before the Lord. Heidi explained that 1 hour alone with God is worth 10 years in your own strength.
Heidi wrote this in her book “Reckless Devotion.”
“The more we spend time in God’s presence, simply beholding His beauty, the more Christ like we will become. God created us for a purpose. That purpose is to love. To lay down our lives for Love. As we press into Him, day after day, hour by hour with reckless devotion, He fills our clay jars with His love.”
I think of it as Gods fairy dust. When I take that time to be with Him, my life seems like everything shimmers with heavenly fairy dust. For instance, I was thinking that since today is Good Friday, I would love to hear the song “Oh the wonderful cross.” I turned on a live worship feed and guess what they started singing? Oh the wonderful cross! Sure, its a “coincidence” or as an old friend always said a “Godincidence.” Or heavenly fairy dust!
Hudson Taylor, a famous missionary to China in the 1800’s had an experience similiar to Heidi’s. He was completely burned out and exhausted. He longed to reach the multitudes in China, but never had enough helpers or strength. God enlightened John 15 to him. “I am the vine you are the branches..Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in me.”
The rest of his life in China he communed with God and entrusted all His cares to the Almighty! Thousands of missionaries came to China, following Hudsons example of trusting completely in the Lord for provision as they laid thier lives down for the sake of the gospel.
An old song I heard years ago said it this way “No jiving, no conniving, no striving will do. It’ll never make no change in you. You can hold your breath, stand on your head, still the change wont come till its spirit led. Abiding. Thats when the changes come Abiding. Thats the best way of getting it done.
Jesus said of one woman in the Bible that “Wherever the gospel is preached thorought the whole world, what she has done will be spoken as a memorial unto her.”
Wow. What did this woman do? I want to do what she did!
Lets look at her story in Mark 14: “AS Jesus was reclining at the table a woman came in with a alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly and she brake the box and poured it over his head.”
“And there were some that had indignation within themselves and said “Why was this waste of the ointment made? It might have been sold for three hundred pence (I have heard a years wages) and have been given to the poor!” And they murmured against her.
Yes, there will always be someone to huff and stomp and complain that we aren’t doing enough, that we shouldn’t waste our lives and time on God when there is money to be made, or dishes to be done. My phone is always telling me “come hang out and scroll through endless news stories and Facebook posts.”
Jesus answered these well-meaning but misguided men: “Let her alone. Why trouble ye her? She hath wrought a good work on me. For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may may do them good. But me, you have not always. She hath done what she could. She is come aforehand to annoint my body to the burying.”
Wait. Did this woman KNOW Jesus was about to die? If so, that means her extravagant love for Him caused her to know something about Jesus those who sat in judgment of her did not.
Finally Jesus says “Verily I say unto you, wherever this gospel is preached though out the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.”
And look! We are speaking of it now. So that prophetic Word has clearly come to pass. Jesus desired we would look at this woman, and consider her unselfish, extravagent love, and learn something very important.
As I thought on all of this, I realized that God has given those of us home during the virus scare an opportunity to rest from our running and working, and serving and slaving, to find a place alone with Him. This time will pass. I do not want to leave here like I came in Jesus name! I want to bury myself in continued worship and fellowship with Jesus.
When I ask Him, as I am prone to do, “What should I do to do your works right now?”
Its like he cast a gentle look of love on me and says: “Nothing. Be still and know that I am God.”
This is our moment, our opportunity.
We can check the Coronavirus statistics later. Our friends Memes will always be there to laugh at. Today, while we have this time, lets dwell in the Secret place, abiding in the shadow of the almighty. So when we emerge, we will sparkle and glow with heavens fairy dust.
