Jesus — The Good Shepherd - Monday
TODAY’S VERSE
Genesis 3:4-5
But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (ESV)
I have a very comfy recliner at home. It was passed down to me from my grandmother, and I still remember my brother and I fighting over who got to sit in it every time we went to visit her. My sister on the other hand always refused to sit in the recliner, often preferring to sit on the floor if it was the only available chair in my grandma’s house. Why?
While my brother and I completely trusted the recliner, my sister was convinced that it would flip, sending her flying out the window. Anytime she sat in the recliner, if it happened to rock a little bit further back than she was expecting it to, she would scream. My brother and I knew the chair was safe and comfortable, but my sister was convinced it was a death trap.
On Sunday, Scott said, “All of life comes down to what you believe Jesus’ intentions are toward you.” In the opening lines of his book The Knowledge of the Holy, author A.W. Tozer put it this way, "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us."
Why is what we believe about Jesus and His intentions towards us so important? Well, if we believe that Jesus is holding out on us — that He doesn’t want what’s best for us, that He won’t take care of us, or provide for us — we won’t rest in the comfort of His presence, just as my sister wouldn’t rest in the comfort of my grandma’s recliner.
Our natural instinct to question God’s intentions towards us goes back to the beginning of creation. Just take a look at Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. They had everything they could ever need: unlimited food, harmony with creation, unity with each other, and nearness to God. And yet the serpent, who was more crafty than any of the wild animals, convinced Adam and Eve that God was holding out on them, that there was more to life than what God had provided for them.
Being convinced that God wasn’t trustworthy, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, which brought limitation, imbalance, disunity, distance, and even death into the perfect world they’d been living in.
In the beginning of John 10:10, Jesus tells His disciples that, “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy.” Our enemy still tries to convince us that Jesus is untrustworthy, that we would choose to try and do things on our own, bringing further disunity, distance, and death into our life. But we don’t have to give the enemy the final word in our lives. We can choose instead to trust Jesus’ words when He tells us that He wants to provide us with a full and abundant life.
APPLICATION
I encourage you to take some time today to evaluate the areas of your life where you are not fully trusting God. What are you keeping in your hands that you could place in God’s hands? God wants to offer us a safe and comfy place to rest. We don’t have to sit on the floor and miss out on the abundance Jesus wants for us!
PRAYER
God, help me to trust You. I do believe in You, but help me in my unbelief. I lay these things I have been carrying in my own hands into Your trustworthy hands. Help me to rest and trust in You today. Amen.