Daily Enduring Truth January: February

No book ever comes into being without people who have helped the author in one way or another. First, I want to acknowledge the support and suggestions from those who have read the original versions of these devotionals. Whether you have pointed out specific errors I made, provided further insight into the Scripture passages, or found some other way to encourage me, you are an important part of this book. I welcome feedback whether it’s positive and encouraging or it’s constructive criticism.

Next, I’d like to thank Dr. Doug Jackson. He was my former pastor who, even though he’s much younger than me in years, is much wiser. While he was my pastor he encouraged me to study God’s word in a deeper way, and to look at it from different angles. If, while reading these devotionals, you stop and say, I never thought of that, then you can give credit to Doug because of the way he prodded me. He currently teaches preachers at Logsdon Seminary, molding the minds of other, younger pastors and teaching them to then break those molds. I am grateful to Dr. Jackson for the forward that he wrote for this volume.

I am grateful for my church family at Second Baptist Church in Corpus Christi. The current pastor, Dr. Dana Moore, the rest of the staff, and the congregation encourage me, allow me to minister, and challenge me to be better. When we went through difficult times in 2016, they truly modeled what a loving church family should be.

I’m blessed beyond measure with an amazing wife. She has battled and conquered cancer twice, knowing all the while that whatever the doctors did, God was ultimately in control. She has endured my presence as her husband for almost 39 years as I write this, and she continues to encourage me, love me, point errors out to me, and, in short keep me focused on doing God’s will.

I want to extend special thanks to author R. R. Virdi who gave invaluable advice in some of the final planning and preparation stages as I was putting everything together. He is an amazing author and a man I am proud to be able to call a friend.

Finally, I thank God for loving me at my worst, and showing me His great grace every day. His daily encouragement through His word is the reason behind the title. We read the Bible daily, seeking God’s wisdom. But we know that His truth, while helpful for the day, endures for all time. My hope and my aim is that as you see how God has dealt with me, He can encourage you as well.

Bob James

December 26, 2017

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Forward

by Doug Jackson

C. S. Lewis wrote that if Christians wish to maintain their faith (which he compares to maintaining one’s health), they must make sure that. . .some of its main doctrines shall be held before your mind for some time every day. That is why daily prayers and religious reading and church-going are necessary parts of the Christian life. (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: MacMillan, 1960), 124.)

Daily prayer, religious reading, and church attendance. The book you are about to begin will help to provide that necessary daily dose of each.

Prayer: Though Lewis begins with prayer, Bob ends with it. Each day’s entry closes with a suggested prayer; and I think this is wise. I don’t know about you - I write on the reasonably safe assumption that you are a far better Christian than I - but for myself, jumping straight into prayer each day would be like running without stretching: I need help sensing the Spirit flowing through my soul, loosening and warming what has grown cold and stiff overnight. The prayers Bob provides are not elaborate or extensive; he does not intend them as batteries to drive your prayer life - only a jolt from a jumper cable to get the mechanism turning over.

Religious reading: This, of course, can mean the Bible but also books based on the Bible. Daily Enduring Truth provides both. As any good Baptist would, Bob begins with the Word of God, a brief reading for each day. He then cuts into the richness of that text the way a hungry diner might cut into a medium-rare steak: what seemed a small chunk of meat reveals itself richer and, seemingly, larger with every sharp stroke of insight.

Church-going: Now here is where many devotional books run into trouble. In a day of intense personalization, when every commercial website or online newspaper encourages me to create my version of it, Christians often fall into the trap of thinking we can work this out and walk it through on our own. We cannot. In fact, one great irony of Lewis’ own writing is that you find people who say, I don’t go to church. I worship alone, just me, my Bible and C. S. Lewis, when Lewis repeatedly emphasizes the need for communal Christianity. As Robert Creech of Truett Seminary points out, Jesus never had only one disciple. (Joe E. Tull and R. Robert Creech, Ethics for Christian Ministry: Moral Formation for 21st Century Leadership (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2017), 104.) From the first, he called his apostles in pairs.

A book, of course, cannot be a congregation, and a devotional book by its very nature invites the reader to what the old Baptist church covenants call secret devotions. As a pastor himself, however, Bob writes from a heart for the local church and - what is just as important - a very real awareness of the church’s quirky, imperfect, and downright sinful failings. And as a pastor, his every word calls the reader into the full life of the only visible organism Jesus ever promised to bless.

Oh, and one more word, with which Lewis heads up his roster: daily. Bob’s title begins with the same adverb. He has structured his book in a series of brief readings, each dated to correlate to the calendar year. This makes Daily Enduring Truth both refreshingly challenging and refreshingly forgiving: challenging, because each entry invites the reader to that day’s opportunity; forgiving because a missed day - or a missed week! - provides, not a backlog, but a new start.

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January 1 – Hope

Luke 5:27-39; Genesis 1:1-2:25; Psalm 1

And so we begin again. A new year. New hope. New anticipation. Many of us will look back on last year, grateful just to have survived the year. It was difficult for many of us. We dealt with personal losses, deaths, illnesses, job losses, and other problems that have cut deeply into our hearts. As we turn the corner on a new year, though, we approach it with a sense of hope. That was then. This is now. The year ahead is a blank slate with none of the problems of the last year. We can write this year of our lives without the hangover of the last year. Perhaps that’s why so many celebrate the coming of the new year.

I wonder about the hopes and dreams of God as He created this world. He carefully molded this world and populated it with animals, plants, and His crowning achievement: man. I’m sure that God planned for this world to be perfect. That man would interact with his environment as he tended the garden and then the whole world; that he would be a caretaker of the animals He placed in this world; that he would walk in perfect fellowship with God. The work was done and now it was time for God to sit back and enjoy His world. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. (Genesis 2:1)

As man walked about in this new world, God’s plans were soon waylaid. When man had the opportunity to walk in fellowship with God, he chose to disobey God and do things his own way. We call that sin. When sin entered the world, it disrupted the fellowship that man had with God. Sin disrupted not only our harmony with God but our interaction with nature. Instead of working with the forces of nature, we set out to conquer and subdue nature. In our effort to prove to God that we could do things our own way, nature became a tool instead of a partner in advancing the cause of humanity. If God hadn’t foreseen our rebellion and made plans, we would be in big trouble.

God, from the beginning of creation, had planned for Jesus to come to earth as a sacrifice for the sins of all mankind. His plan was to restore fellowship between man and God and help us to live in harmony with Him. While many still don’t accept God’s presence and leadership in their lives, the truth is that God, from the beginning of time, was planning to restore the fellowship that He had originally planned to have with people. Jesus Christ: born as a baby, taught as a man, and went to the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. This was the plan since the beginning of salvation. God wanted perfect fellowship with His creation. And so it still is today. While this year starts off with great hope, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t realize that this year will have its troubles. This year will bring its disappointments. But if we go through this year in fellowship with God each day because of our relationship with Jesus Christ, we will be able to deal with any difficulties that come our way. Each day with Jesus is like the beginning of a new year: full of hope and anticipation for the greatness that comes from a relationship with God.

Lord God, as we start a new year, help us to see the hope You have planned. Let each of us recognize our failure in our relationship with You and see hope restored in Jesus Christ.

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January 2 – Cain and Abel: The Difference

Luke 6:1-26; Genesis 3-5; Psalm 2

Where does God come into play in your daily life? In these devotionals, you will note that I have listed the Bible verses I use. I follow an online Bible Reading Plan that takes me through the Bible in a year. I share what I’m doing so that that you can choose to use this time to read through the Bible with me this year. Hopefully, these devotionals inspire you to make reading God’s word a priority in your life. Last Sunday, I was at church. That wasn’t a last-minute decision. That was a commitment my wife and I have had since before we were married. We are going to worship God with His people on the Lord’s Day. We both worship privately each day as we read and write about what we read. We give a percentage of our income every time we get paid so that when our blessings increase we give more. It is the first check we write. We made these commitments long ago because we wanted to make sure that we put God first in our personal lives and in our marriage. We don’t do it to follow some law; we do it because it gives us joy in our relationship with God.

I say these things not to draw attention to ourselves, but to inspire you. I’ve seen too many people who rarely read the Bible at all. When asked for favorite verses they look for memes on Facebook, or if really desperate, search Google for some good pictures. Church happens for them if they wake up on Sunday and can’t think of anything better to do. The rest of the week is so jam packed full of stuff that they may give a nod to God as they’re getting ready for bed. They are reminded that they should give offerings to God when the church stands to sing as the offering is collected and they rummage through their wallet looking for a bill they can throw in the collection plate without it being too big. People who don’t intentionally commit to worship God miss out on the joy of worship. They become like Cain. And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. (Genesis 4:3)

I don’t know for sure what caused Cain to get crossways with God, and then Abel. In reading the story, I like to add a lot of my own thoughts, and so as I read this whole story of the two brothers, I can imagine Cain looking over at Abel as Abel is preparing His offering for God. Whatcha doing Abel? I’m getting my offering ready for God. Today’s the day we worship. Oh blast! Today? I forgot about that! Then, Cain throws some of the stuff he had been picking into a basket and he heads off down to the altar. Cain probably thought that his presence and the fact that he brought something as an offering would win brownie points with God. But God looked with favor on Abel and his offering, while not being happy with Cain and his offering. So Cain gets Abel to go out into the field. Maybe he used the pretext of asking advice for what his next offering should be, and kills Abel. The end result is that Cain gets banished, but he gets a protective mark from God so that others won’t kill him.

What do we learn from the story? The most important lesson that I learn from this story is that our worship of God depends on our attitude. It’s not that God loved the type of offering Abel gave more than the type of offering Cain gave; God saw the attitude behind the offering. That lesson still sticks with us today. There are some people who leave worship refreshed and rejuvenated, excited at all that God is doing in their lives. There are others who wake up during the closing song and stumble out of worship wondering why they wasted their time that Sunday. The difference is not in God; the difference is how we approach our relationship with God every day. If you want true joy in your relationship with God, put Him first in all you do.

Thank You, Lord, for joy in my relationship with You. Thank You for the grace that allows me to honor and worship You. I pray for each person reading this that they might always put You first in all they do.

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January 3 – Love Your What???