Lesson Three • Redemption of the Family
Devotion #3: Thank God for Jesus!
David Hudgens
Some years back, while studying the book of Ruth, I was challenged by my Pastor to identify the character from among the text to whom I most related. After some careful and honest reflection, I finally pointed to Naomi. My Pastor, a bit surprised at my choice, asked me to further explain. I would share that I, like Naomi, am quick to despair in times of trouble and I readily exchange the years of God’s proven faithfulness to me in favor of my own woeful, sinful, and hopeless perception of a given situation. This unfortunate personal revelation would lead me to ponder this question, “How is it that God could love me?”
Have you ever asked yourself that question? If you have, like myself, you most likely arrived at this same conclusion. There is no good explanation, nor any rational evidence, that one can provide for reasons that God should love any of us with such loyalty and steadfastness. Yet, the Lord Himself declares that He is a “God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (Exodus 34:6-7).
What a perfect declaration from the Lord that should afford all hope and comfort to any that read or hear it. Still, there is a quiet resistance in my own heart at times to accept this powerful truth. You see, similar to Naomi, but with differences, my family and I have recently experienced a terrific amount of change and upheaval in our lives. Over the last 365 days, we have replanted ourselves into a new church community here at The River, physically relocated to a new city and into a new home, and all the while my wife recovers from major surgery.
At key moments in the past year, candidly, I have questioned the goodness, nearness, and faithfulness of the Lord. I have grieved in my heart over the surprises that have come from being a homeowner. I have questioned whether or not the Lord will sustain us and provide for our needs. I have cried in anguish over the direction of our lives with Him, wondering whether or not we are walking in step with the Spirit.
Ephesians 2:4-7 says, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
While I considered Him silent to my needs, the Lord was working in the waiting. During the time of my doubting, the Lord was providing. He provided friends, neighbors, miracles of finances, and other goods. He provided a field to harvest Kingdom growth. Perhaps greatest of all, the Lord quieted me with His love (Zephaniah 3:17).
Every day that goes by, I wonder more deeply how and why it is that the Lord entertains my rhythms of nonsense. Like the apostle Paul, I am discovering what a “wretched man” I am (Romans 7:24), and furthermore cling more tightly to Christ Jesus who alone can rescue me from my condition (Romans 7:25).
How incredible it is to learn and know personally that God’s disposition towards humanity is to be loving and forgiving despite, by contrast, our human struggle to faithfully love Him in return. I will end now with these words to meditate upon from the hymn writer, Robert Robinson, and with my own personal declaration: Thank God for Jesus!
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
“Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing”