Devotional Guide
For the week of January 18, 2004
WHAT IS GOD'S KINGDOM LIKE?
Should I insist on my own plans?
To Read: Galatians 4-6
To Know:
".I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives for ever;
for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from
generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as
nothing; and he does according to his will in the host of heaven and among
the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him,
'What doest thou?'" (Dan. 4:34,35)
We do not want the plans God has for us. We have our own plans. This is what
it means to sin and we are each and all born in sin. King Nebuchadnezzar
learned the hard way that his plans were self-destroying. The king was on
top of the world the day he strutted about his palace and soliloquized, "Is
not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal
residence and for the glory of my majesty?" The words were still on the king
's lips when God spoke, telling him that his kingdom was forfeited because
his mind was denied him. What happened to Nebuchadnezzar the instant he
attributed his kingly glory to himself happens eventually to every one who
denies God the glory for what he accomplishes in their lives.
The remedy for Nebuchadnezzar was repentance. We might say it was an
about-face since that is what repentance is. When the king gave God the
glory that was rightly his, God restored a right mind to the king. The king
of kings to whom the king on earth had bowed his knee now ruled
Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom.
To Do:
Is our life self-destructive? Do we insist on our own plans? Is the kingship
of God only an idea we ponder and not an act of will we adopt? To please God
we must trust him for everything. Not to trust the Lord is to test his
patience. Nebuchadnezzar went too far. We too can go too far. Our culture is
pushing us in that direction. If the world could have its way with us we
would be entirely self-sufficient. At least we would imagine ourselves to be
so. The kingdom of God is where a human heart knows that it has nothing that
has not been received.
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