The Strength of a Gentle Father

“Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men.” TITUS 3:1-2

 

PONDER THIS

Why do some children adore and worship their dads, and others hate their dads? What is the difference? There’s one characteristic that I’ve found in almost all dads whose children love and follow them: They’re gentle, and it starts when they’re children.

Imagine walking out of your house, and there on the front porch is a guy three times your size. You’re looking at his kneecaps. He has a voice like thunder, and he begins to tell you what to do. If he’s that big and sounds like that, one thing you hope is that he’s gentle, don’t you? That’s what children want out of their dads, somebody who’s gentle. They want a dad they can look up to in love.

One key to this that is so hard to do is to cultivate transparency. Let your children know of your fears, your joys, your disappointments, your failures, and your goals. Show them that you’re not perfect. Kids don’t expect perfection; they just don’t want you to be a phony. In gentleness and openness, we show others the heart of God.

Who has exemplified gentleness to you? What have you learned from them?

When is it challenging for you to be gentle? What is hard about it?

PRACTICE THIS

Confess and repent of the times you have not responded gently.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

You GET to Obey God

PRAY OVER THIS

“So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name.” Acts 5:41

 

PONDER THIS

Don’t get the idea that the will of God is something you have to do. God’s not going to force His will on you. It is something you get to do. When you learn to obey, you learn the joy that’s available in the Christian life. There’s no such thing as a happy, disobedient Christian. It is a contradiction in terms. Obedience and rejoicing come together. It is a lie from Hell that doing the will of God is painful and makes you miserable. The Bible says, “His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3).

The reason some of us don’t obey the Lord and fail to understand there’s joy in obedience is that we don’t trust the Lord; we have difficulty taking commands from a stranger we don’t know. Once we get to know the Lord Jesus Christ, we learn that His commands are not grievous or burdensome.

How have you experienced joy in being obedient to God?

How have you been deceived into believing that following God is burdensome and grievous?

PRACTICE THIS

Make a list of ways you feel God calling you to be obedient to Him this week. Pray over this list, asking God to remind you that joy is found in obedience to Him.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Hope to Obey Hard Commands

“Whoever desires to love life and see good days . . . let him turn away from evil and do good.” (1 Peter 3:10–11)

There is only one basic reason why we disobey the commands of Jesus: it’s because we don’t have heartfelt confidence that obeying will bring more blessing than disobeying. We do not hope fully in God’s promise.

What did he promise? Peter passes on the teachings of Jesus like this:

Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. For “Whoever desires to love life and see good days . . . let him turn away from evil and do good.” (1 Peter 3:9–11)

Peter, following Jesus, is not ashamed to motivate obedience to hard commands — like not returning evil for evil — with the promise of greater joy. “Bless those who revile you . . . that you may obtain a blessing!” Do you want to enjoy everlasting life? Turn away from evil! Joy for all eternity awaits you! Is that not reward enough to avoid the pleasures of vengeance now?

You will always be better off to obey than to disobey Jesus, even if that obedience costs you your life. Jesus said,

Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time . . . with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. (Mark 10:29–30)

The only way to have the power to follow Christ in the costly way of love is to be filled with hope, with strong confidence that, if we lose our life doing his will, we will find it again and be richly rewarded forever.

John Piper 

Do You Obey the Truth?

PRAY OVER THIS

“But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.” Matthew 7:26-27

 

PONDER THIS

There was a theater that was packed full of people who came to hear a great actor. The manager of the theater came to him just before he was to step on the stage and said, “We have an emergency. A fire has broken out in the wings of the theater, and we don’t want the people to stampede. We would like you to go out and tell the people that the theater is on fire but keep the crowd under control and ask them to leave quietly and politely and nobody’s life will be in danger.” When this great actor stepped on the platform, they applauded. He held up his hands to stop the applause, and he said, “Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention. I have a serious announcement to make, and I want you to listen very carefully.” He said, “There’s no cause for panic. Everything is under control. But I have been informed that a small fire has broken out in the wings of this theater, and so it is important for our safety that we rise from our seats and carefully leave the building. There’s enough time for everyone to leave in order.” The audience responded with, “Bravo, bravo.” They thought it was a part of the act. “No,” he said, “ladies and gentlemen, this is not a part of the act. There’s a fire. It is important that you leave the auditorium now.” Again they said, “Bravo, that’s even better.” Now with the tears streaming down his cheeks, he said, “You must go.” But they continued on, “Yes, wonderful, wonderful.”

So many times we sit in church and hear truth that way, as if the preacher is some actor and this is some form of entertainment, but we do not act upon that truth. Jesus said when we hear truth but do not obey the truth we’re like a foolish man that built his house upon the sand. And the storms are coming. We must hear and obey the truth.

Where is God calling you to act in line with His truth today?

How will you respond to show you’re treasuring the truth?

PRACTICE THIS

Act in obedience with the truth God has revealed to you today.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Who will you become?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

 “And He said unto them, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, Who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting.” Luke 18:29-30

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

God has given you specific  abilities and He wants you to take those abilities and invest them in Him. Friend, it is a sin for you to be less than what God called you to be.

Sure, you may not be the next Einstein, Babe Ruth, Betty Crocker, or Billy Graham. But that’s not the point. The danger is that you will not do what you can do.

ACTION POINT:

There are three people inside you…

who you are right now,

who you could be for evil if you allowed the devil to get a hold of you, 

and who you could be for God.

I pray you will let go of this world with both hands and give your all to God for Him to use you.

LWF Dr Adrian Rogers 

Do you obey even when confused?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

And Samuel said, “Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” 1 Samuel 15:22 

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

I read an interesting story about Stephen Grellet, a pioneer evangelist to the lumbermen in the Rocky Mountains. He felt the Spirit of God leading him to a particular lumber camp to preach. When he got there, the place was absolutely deserted. He said, “Lord, I don’t understand, but I'm going to be obedient.”  So he opened his Bible without a soul in sight and preached a full-length message. Then he plead for people to come to Christ. He said, “Lord, I don’t know what that was all about, but Lord, I was obedient.”  Years later, a man walked up to him in England and said, “I was the foreman at a lumber camp in the Rockies. I had come back to the camp to get an ax, and I heard you preaching. I stood behind a pile of lumber and listened. As you preached, my heart was strangely warmed, and I repented of my sin and gave my heart to Jesus Christ. I later witnessed to four other men. Now, all five of us are missionaries preaching around the world.”  

How important it is that we obey completely in small things!

ACTION POINT:

Do you know why many of us are not obeying God more than we are? Because we're not hearing what God is saying. We're not spending time listening to God. That's the importance of a quiet time, that's the importance of getting somewhere alone with God in a nook with this book, reading and listening.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Who are you when no one’s looking?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Philippians 2:12 

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

“While I’m gone, I want you to be on your best behavior.” Has anyone ever said that to you? This is what Paul means when he gives us the directive to “work out our salvation” even when he is not around.

A pastor is successful when he trains his flock to love the Lord, share their faith, and minister to others when no one else is looking. It’s the true test of a person’s walk with God.

So, how are you doing? How much do you leave for a tip when there is no one around to impress? How fast do you drive when the speed limit says 35 and you’re running late? What happens when you’re alone on a business trip, and there are free movies in your hotel room?

ACTION POINT:

When was the last time you did something nice for someone who could never pay you back and no one would ever know about it? Do you just talk the talk? Or do you walk the walk?

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Serve God with Your Thirst

So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. (2 Corinthians 5:9)

What if you discovered (like the Pharisees did) that you had devoted your whole life to trying to please God, but all the while had been doing things that in God’s sight were abominations (Luke 16:14–15)?

Someone may question this and say, “I don’t think that’s possible; God wouldn’t reject a person who has been trying to please him.” But do you see what this questioner has done? He has based his conviction about what would please God on his idea of what God is like. That is precisely why we must begin with the character of God revealed in Scripture.

God is a mountain spring, not a watering trough. A mountain spring is self-replenishing. It constantly overflows and supplies others. But a watering trough needs to be filled with a pump or bucket. So, the great question is: How do you serve a spring? And: How do you serve a watering trough? How do you glorify God the way he really is?

If you want to glorify the worth of a watering trough, you work hard to keep it full and useful. But if you want to glorify the worth of a spring, you do it by getting down on your hands and knees and drinking to your heart’s satisfaction, until you have the refreshment and strength to go back down in the valley and tell the people what you’ve found.

My hope as a desperate sinner hangs on this biblical truth: that God is the kind of God who will be pleased with the one thing I have to offer: my thirst. That’s why the sovereign freedom and self-sufficiency of God are so precious to me: they are the foundation of my hope that God is delighted not by the resourcefulness of bucket brigades, but by the bending down of broken sinners to drink at the fountain of grace.

By all means we should seek to please God, now and forever. But woe to us if our whole life proves to be based on a false view of what pleases God. The Lord is pleased not by those who treat him as a needy watering trough, but as an inexhaustible, all-satisfying spring. As Psalm 147:11 says, “The Lord takes pleasure . . . in those who hope in his steadfast love.”

John Piper 

It Is Not Ours to Ask "Why?"

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the Lord is tried: He is a buckler to all them that trust in Him.” 2 Samuel 22:31

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

When bewilderment enshrouds you and despair looms at your door, when trials storm the beaches of your life, you may want to ask God, “Why? Why? Why?” Friend, you may never understand why things are happening the way they are in your life, but that’s not your job. You see, it is not necessary for you to know why. That is God’s question. Your response is all that matters. When we can’t feel His hand, we must trust His heart. Our job is to simply trust and obey.

ACTION POINT:

Is there something happening in your life for which you have no explanation, but long for answers? Ask God to give you peace and grace to trust Him.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers