Stephen Altrogge posted the following entry on his site yesterday. I can relate. Can you?
If you could use one word to describe your current devotional life, what would it be? Mine would be “scraps”. So often I feel like all I can muster is a distracted scrap of devotion to God. For example, here’s what my Bible reading time often looks like:
Step 1: Open Bible. Pray that God would meet me as I read his word.
Step 2: Read diligently for thirty seconds, taking in at least three full sentences.
Step 3: Begin wondering if I’ll ever receive my tax refund, because it sure would come in handy right now.
Step 4: Feel guilty for being distracted. Try to “come back” into the presence of God (whatever that means).
Step 5: Repeat steps one and two plus additional prayer of repentance for being distracted.
Step 6: Begin thinking about my next killer blog post that will rock the blogosphere.
Step 7: Repeat steps 1, 4, and 5.
You get the point. It’s a constant battle against my sinful nature, which will seize on the slightest distraction. Many times I feel guilty instead of refreshed after doing my devotions. I feel like I didn’t pray enough, or with enough passion, or for enough people. And I certainly didn’t have enough love for God. My feeble scraps of devotion to God are pathetic, with a capital “pathetic”.
But God has been teaching me about devotional scraps lately. My devotion (probably too strong of a word) to God is nothing more than scraps, but God accepts, and even delights in those scraps. And when I get distracted, I don’t have to work my way back into God’s presence. I can come right back to God and experience full acceptance. Why? Because Jesus Christ is holding the door open. Always.
God’s love for me has nothing to do with my devotion and everything to do with Christ’s perfect devotion. Jesus was passionately devoted to God. He didn’t offer any scraps, he offered perfect obedience and love. And then his life ended. Abruptly. Brutally.Now his righteousness is mine, and he perfects my feeble scraps of devotion and presents them to God. God loves Jesus, which means God loves me, end of story. The door to God is held open by the cross.
So yes, my worship is nothing more than scraps. But to God, they’re delightful scraps, made perfect by his son. How freeing this truth is. Today let’s throw aside any hope we have in our scraps of devotion and place all our hope in Christ. True devotion to God starts at the cross.
Via: The Blazing Center