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ABLAZE CAMP DEVOTIONS
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DAY01: Encountering God’s Presence with a Right Heart Posture Psalm 51:10, 17 10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. 17 My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. (Read Psalm 51 for context) Someone once said, “I know that for the right practice of it [the presence of God], the heart must be empty of all other things, for God will possess the heart alone; and as He cannot possess it alone without emptying it of all besides, so neither can He act there and do in it what He pleases, unless it be left vacant to Him”. This, what a right heart posture is about: coming before God with a pure heart and a spirit that hungers for God’s Presence. King David had written this psalm after he committed adultery with Bathsheba, sinning against God. Throughout the Psalm, I can sense in my heart David’s deep remorse and honesty in his repentance, also known as what we call “godly sorrow”. However, I believe that it is the posture of his heart as he stood in the Lord’s Presence that pleased God Himself. “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” King David had prayed, but what does that really mean? What he was praying for here, was for God to help him to have a lone eye on Him, and Him alone. He desired to have a heart that was single-minded, one that was set on the pursuit of God alone and no one and nothing else. King David knew that, and asked God therefore, to create in him a pure heart - one that is rid of anything else but Him. This is the prayer that he made, before he asked God to renew a steadfast and faithful spirit within him, because he knew that he needed to have the right heart posture before God before He can do any work in him. Do we begin our prayer to have God as our sole focus and pursuit before anything else? King David went on to remark in verse 17: “My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise”. It was with a vulnerable, broken, humble, and open spirit that he came before the Lord; he knew, at the same time however, that our loving God will never despise that. I believe that such is the kind of spirit that God would be pleased if we should approach Him with a heart that is desperate for God’s restorative Presence, and am humbled to receive His guidance with faith and trust knowing that we can never know better than He. Do we enter His presence with such strong desire for more of God? Many a time I seek God relentlessly for answers to my questions, for assurance, for guidance and wisdom - sometimes even just simply because I hunger for more of Him - yet very often, I forget to go with my knees bent and head bowed. I demand a divine touch from God - a Word directly from God. A prophecy. Healing. God would definitely want to bless us in that way, however more than that, let us always remember to enter His presence with the right heart posture first: purity in heart and a deep desire for God, for that pleases Him. Reflection Station: How is my heart posture before God today? What would I be doing differently as I choose to adopt a right heart posture before God?
DAY02: Encountering God’s Presence through Repentance Acts 3:19 Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord When I was a young believer attending a new believer course in the past, I always remembered my instructor saying this, “Guys, repentance is no longer like a big ritual in the past whereby you have to sacrifice an animal and offer it to God as it was in the Old Testament, we can now repent and seek forgiveness through the blood of Jesus and live our life anew”. Repentance is recognizing our sins and seeking God’s forgiveness, taking a U-turn from our old ways and start experiencing a new life in His Presence. Wonderfully simple but yet holding such deep truths even to me all these years as a Christian. Repentance in Jesus recognizes that the old has gone and the new has come, we are all made new in Christ as we continue to live a life of sincere repentance and experiencing our new life in Him. Psalms 51:10-12 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. King David who wrote the above Psalms, was someone named by God as the “Man after God’s own heart”, yet he was just as human as all of us. The Bible recounts how King David had lustfully entangled himself with someone else’s wife- Bathsheba, and he even masterminded the eventual death of Bathsheba’s husband by sending him to the front line of battle… Not exactly who you would envision a man after God’s heart to do, right? Yet in spite of these events and the gravity of his sins, the quality that endeared David to God was the tenderness of his heart towards God and the willingness he has in repenting before God. What a relief to all of us, that even in our struggles in sins, we still have a God of 2nd chance, who allows us return into His Presence through sincere repentance. So if you have sinned today, remember that we are all vulnerable to sin and that we are no different from our neighbours beside us. But when it does happen will you have the humility to repent, receives God’s forgiveness and starting walking anew in God’s Presence? Reflection Station: 1) What are some areas in my life which require repentance and a U-turn back towards God? 2) How can I live a life of repentance and of walking anew in God’s presence?
DAY03: Encountering God’s Presence through Thanksgiving Luke 17:12-19 12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance 13 and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” 14 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed. 15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16 He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan. 17 Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” Isn’t it amusing to know how easy it is for us to often ask God for help and when He does, we simply walk away without acknowledging His goodness, only to return the next time with another request? It reminds me how when I was young, I often take what my parents give to me for easy granted, without any acknowledgement of their love, and without giving even a little appreciation like saying ‘thank you’. I was just like the nine men who didn’t appreciate Jesus for what He had done for them. Jesus calls for us to be the one leper who chooses to return after he is healed to praise God for the blessing! Notice that all the ten men asked Jesus for healing and they were indeed cleansed. The key difference between the one who gave thanks and the remaining nine who didn’t was simply this: GRATITUDE. The ten men were all made well physically but the one man who expressed His gratitude to God experienced the spiritual wellness from Jesus Himself- “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” So let us learn from this one leper who gave thanks to Jesus and was made well both physically and spiritually. Thanksgiving helps us in acknowledging God’s goodness and blessing, and draws us closer and deeper into His constant Presence in our life. Because of who God is and what He had, has and will be doing in our life, we can always enter His Presence with thanksgiving and praise (Psalms 100:4)! Reflection Station: 1) Am I more inclined towards being grateful OR taking God’s blessings for granted in my life? 2) What are some areas of God’s goodness and His Presence in my life that I should be grateful and give thanks for?
DAY04: Encountering God’s Presence during Difficult Times Psalms 63:1-5 1 You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. 2 I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. 3 Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. 4 I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. 5 I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. The above Psalm was written by King David when his son Absalom was trying to rebel and harm him and David had to run away into a wilderness for his own safety and protection. Talking about wilderness, I remember once when I was young that I was thrown out of my house for misbehaving. It felt then like I was thrown into the "wilderness", where I had nothing but the hard dirty staircase to lay against. It was freezing cold at night and I was thirsty, tired and more importantly, fearful. Have we ever felt this way? Perhaps not physically, but spiritually or emotionally. We feel that we have been thrown out into the wilderness, left to defend ourselves while feeling so cold, hungry and helpless. King David was certainly put into this situation yet he didn't choose to complain or simply dismiss God as an indifferent Father. In fact, the first thing he did was to acknowledge God as "my God" and "earnestly seek" Him, thirsting for God even more despite his physical exhaustion. We seek God’s Presence in good times; we seek His Presence even more in times when we feel helpless and alone. God will never leave or forsake us, and He never fails. Returning to the story, Absalom’s evil intent was foiled and was instead divinely punished for rebelling against King David, for God was with David all along. Perhaps sometimes we feel that God has abandoned us, that He has given us up especially during difficulties periods of our life. Yet the truth is God has always been watching over us albeit silently but actively, and He hopes for us His children to develop faith and trust for Him to deliver restoration and victory into our life, no matter what situations we may find ourselves to be in. So, acknowledge God the Father whom you have been experiencing so deeply till now. Praise Him for all the past times He carried you through to see His goodness and faithfulness. And like King David, place and hold on to your faith in a never changing and ever faithful God. God will reward our faith and bring us to a ride of spiritual adventure in His Presence which we will never forget.
Reflection Station: 1) Are there difficult times/ areas in your life that you need to learn to place your faith in God for? 2) How would you apply your faith and trust in God during such difficult periods in your life?
DAY05: Encountering God’s Presence Even While God Seemed Silent Psalm 10:1 “Why, Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” David had asked this of the Lord in the above Psalm. I wonder whether you have asked our God such a question before, because surely I had, at some point in my life. It seems that anything that could happen, could potentially cause me to doubt the existence of God: from unanswered prayers to God-related questions that appear to be so difficult to find an answer to. Looking through the pages of my Bible, I find that I am not the only one. Scores of characters in the Word of God had asked the very same questions that I did as well, yet the Bible always holds amazing wisdom to these very same questions as well. In another Psalm, the people of Israel had cried to God for help after suffering a devastating defeat at the hand of the enemy. These were probably some thoughts like ‘Where was God when we suffered in the battle? Did He even hear our cries?’ which were running through the minds of the Israelites amidst their sufferings, that caused them to plead with God with the following verse: “23 Awake, Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever. 24 Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression?” (Psalms 44:2324). Just some thoughts, however, at this point. Is God really hidden? Could it be, that He has an intention for remaining seemingly ‘hidden’...? Very often, we tend to focus on the surface presentation of an act itself, without reflecting further on the possible intentions or reasoning behind such acts - much like how we always seem to become irritated with our mothers nagging at us, but not pausing to think about why they are nagging at us. Taking this thought further, perhaps a change in perspective would be this: why would God wish not to be found? After all, who would want to be left alone, undiscovered? It would take tremendous restraint, for our loving God to not interfere directly at times; I can almost imagine Him watching, and waiting for us to realize that we so desperately need God in our life that we earnestly seek God out and ask for His divine Presence to re-shine unto our life. Someone once described God this way, that “God is like a person who clears his throat while hiding and so gives himself away.” The truth is this: silence doesn’t always mean absence. During times when God seems silent in our life, His children can still choose to earnestly seek and find His Presence by faith and beyond sight. And God has promised that we will seek and can God if we seek Him with all of our hearts (Jeremiah 29:13).
Reflection Station: 1) Are there times where God seemed to be silent and ‘hidden’ in my life? 2) How should I respond during periods of my life when God seemed far away?
DAY06: Encountering God’s Presence Though His Whisper 1 Kings 19:11-12 The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. Elijah was so used to seeing extravagant and majestic displays of God’s presence in his life such as the resurrection of a boy (1 Kings 17:22), seeing fire fall from Heaven (2 Kings 1:10), and even the splitting of the Jordan river to cross (2 Kings 2:8). Yet, God chose not to appear where Elijah expected Him most. Not in the powerful wind, not in the ground-shaking earthquake, not in the raging fire, but in the least expected moment - a whisper. I wonder, if I put myself in Elijah’s shoes (or sandals since they didn’t have shoes), how’d I think? Huh, you mean God isn’t here in this? Or that? Wait, God what’re You trying to say? In fact, in the midst of the hustle and bustle of our lives, when we get busy and fill our time with plans after plans, we may start to find it increasingly difficult to remain aware of God’s Presence in our life. Yet God is always speaking, because He is ever so interested in our life, and in us! There are definitely times that He’ll speak to His people in a dramatic and impressive fashion like the burning bush encounter of Moses or Peter having to hear from God during Jesus’ transfiguration before him. Yet there are even more times when God speaks to His people from moments to moments, even in moments when we are doing the most mundane tasks such as washing the plates or studying at our tables. God can speak in the midst of thunders, but He also communicates a lot through whispers. So the question isn’t whether God speaks, but rather do His people hear Him out. So today, won’t you make that decision to put yourself and your heart in a ready state that seeks out God’s voice in your life, even if it comes in a gentle whisper? Reflection Station: 1) What conditions are needed for one to be able to hear even a whisper from another person? 2) What heart posture should I adopt to be able to gain greater aware of God’s Presence & His voice in my life?
Publication by Ablaze Singapore 2013
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