Decreasing Joyfully

You belong to God! God has created you for a special purpose for this time! You don’t have to claim to be someone you’re not. Rejoice at the position and abilities God has gifted you with. They are an honor bestowed on you from heaven. Be careful not to treat them with dishonor, unworthily or ungratefully. Be careful not to fall into the snare of being jealous of the promotion or recognition of others. 

Your identity comes from knowing that you are God’s child because you have put your faith in God. Your identity doesn’t come from people’s approval or praise. Knowing that your identity is anchored in being God’s child you don’t need to manipulate or control people. Instead, as God’s child you can set people free to live the way God has created them in the position God has placed them. 

There is only one thing that you can boast in with confidence. You can boast with confidence that the Lord, God exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on the earth (Jer 9:24). Whether someone increases in importance or decreases in importance in your workplace doesn’t change God’s character one iota. God is still your Savior. God is still the one who called you, who loves you, who restores you, who saves you, who revives you! The only one that keeps all things together is God! God is the fountain of everlasting joy! 

John’s story 

Shortly after baptising Jesus, some of John the Baptist’s disciples came to him and complained about the fact that Jesus was now more popular than John. Now, if there was anybody who should have been jealous it was John of whom it was said “among those born of women, none has arisen greater than John the Baptist” (Luke 7:28). It would have been easy for John to take advantage of the fact that some people mistook him to be the Messiah. Instead John wanting nothing more than to know the love of his Master, listened to their report with great satisfaction. Their report about Jesus increasing filled John with great joy. John could rejoice as his position in society decreased because he knew his labor had not been in vain. John’s joy was anchored in the solid foundation of God’s love for him. 

Your Story 

No matter how your position in society changes, or who is being promoted around you, you just have to be the best you, you can be. This doesn’t mean that you can rest on your laurels. Far from it! You need to continue to hone the skills God has given you, so that you can continue to be a blessing and serve your Lord to the best of your abilities. Sometimes the best you, you can be is to celebrate another person’s success. When you decrease, you can decrease with joy knowing that your life is anchored in the solid foundation of God’s love for you. 

Your job, your income, your possessions, your colleagues, even your next breath are all gifts from God. Gifts which none of us deserve. Everything belongs to the Lord, and the Lord has the sovereign right to exalt whom He chooses, or to take authority away from whom He chooses. Knowing this, you can be satisfied with the position that God has blessed you with. 

You can celebrate your colleagues’ success because you know that God is the source of their skills, and abilities. God has placed them exactly where they are today. As one who has put their faith in God, you can decrease joyfully, trusting that God has not made a mistake, and that God’s Kingdom purposes will prevail. 

It is easy to rejoice and celebrate the success of a colleague who deserves a promotion. It is easy to be delighted when a colleague receives their well-deserved recognition for a job well done. 

But then there are those times when it is hard to rejoice and celebrate someone’s success. We experience emotional pain when we have done all the heavy lifting and then find ourselves on the sidelines while somebody else receives the accolades for our work. Pride rears its ugly face after we have invested time and energy in someone’s life and then watch them experiencing opportunities that were never available to us. Our hearts are broken for the trail of battered and bruised bodies left behind as we watch someone cheat and walk all over other people as they scale the corporate ladder. It is at those moments when the clay wants to cry out to the potter “What are you doing?” It is at those moments when we hear the potter say to us, “my child, whom I love, rejoice that your name is written in heaven!” It is at those moments that our Father invites us to drink deeply from his fountain of eternal joy. 

Knowing that the Lord your God exercises kindness, justice and righteousness you can decrease joyfully. 

This is what the Lord says: 
“Let not the wise boast of their wisdom 
    or the strong boast of their strength 
    or the rich boast of their riches, 
but let the one who boasts boast about this: 
    that they have the understanding to know me, 
that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, 
    justice and righteousness on earth, 
    for in these I delight,” declares the Lord. (Jer 9:23-24)

Pure Hearts

God knows and cares about every aspect of your heart – your emotions, your feelings, your desires, your passions, your thoughts, your reflections. Your heart matters to God! 

God has done an amazing, generous work in your life! God has given you a new heart! God has removed your heart of stone and given you a heart of flesh. 

God has written his law upon your heart. God’s law guards your heart from the attacks of Satan. God’s Spirit within you enables you to walk in God’s statutes. God’s spirit within you enables you to carefully observe God’s ordinances. 

God freely purifies the heart of all who believe in Jesus. God renews your heart daily when you unreservedly offer your heart to him. When things go well at work, or when your heart is broken, cry out to God to purify your heart and renew a steadfast spirit within you. 

With a pure heart you can know God and delight in his favor no matter what is happening at work. When you mess up a task at work draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith. When you are entangled in misunderstandings ask God to cleanse your heart. When meetings go horribly wrong or when projects crash and burn hold fast to the confession of your hope without wavering, for God who promised is faithful. 

With a pure heart you can experience unceasing joy to which masks, politics and drama are complete strangers. With a pure heart, God’s divine light will illuminate every relationship with truth and transparency. 

God is good to those who are pure in heart. When the storms of life threaten to drown you, take hold of God’s hand and he will lift you up. When you envy the arrogant, or are jealous of the prosperity of the wicked, grab hold of God’s hand and he will not let your foot slip. 

The workplace presents many idols and false gods for you to trust in. A pure heart is not divided between these idols and God’s love. Eventually these false gods will disappoint you. Pursuing the idols of power, wealth, possessions, and desire for pleasure at all costs will lead to the abyss of sorrow and anguish. Your own abilities, a meeting well run, a project successfully completed cannot give you a new heart. 

Instead of the idols and false gods of the workplace which cannot speak, which cannot love, which cannot move, God has given you the Holy Spirit. Yield to the gentle urges of the Holy Spirit and your heart will remain pure. Allow the Holy Spirit to remove the idols of your human heart and transform your heart into God’s temple. 

Only the knowledge that you are loved unconditionally by God gives meaning to your life. When you are reconciled to God through the cross you are free – free from the law, free form the power of sin, free form the fear of death, free to live and serve the Lord who has given you a new heart in the power of the Spirit. 

Because God has given you a pure heart, you can stand in God’s presence without any fears. With a pure heart you can be awestruck with the glory of God’s holiness. With a pure heart you can be comforted by his grace. 

Who can say “I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin”? 
With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible (Prov 20:9; Matt 19:26).

Delight in the Lord

Today God invites you to delight in him!

Trust in the victorious name of Jesus that subdues all that isn’t holy or true.

Accept God’s gift of love freely offered to you. God’s love will create in you a pure heart and renew a steadfast spirit within you! 

Listen and you will hear your beloved knocking. Respond just as you are. You don’t need to clean your house first. You don’t need to put on any perfume or makeup. 

Don’t hide in shame or fear – you’ve been washed white as snow by the blood of Christ. 

Allow God’s words of grace to wash over you. 

Listen as your Creator marvels over you, his wonderful, beautiful creation. You are beautiful in his sight. You are pleasing in his sight. You are precious in his sight. 

Earnestly seek the Lord! 

Behold the Lord in his righteousness walking through the streets of your city, through the hallways of your workplace. 

Rejoice as you see the Lord exercise his mercy and justice. 

Watch for the glory of the Lord as he shelters you in the clefts of the rock. 

Come! Drink from streams of living water. 

Come! Dine at God’s banqueting table. 

Enjoy the sweetness of all his marvelous works. 

Arise and follow your Savior and Lord from the daily routine of life, from the mountain peek, from the lions’ den and the mountain haunts of leopards. 

Take God’s hand and explore the wonders of this world created by a loving God with unbelievable beauty . 

Savor the fragrance of God poured over your life. 

Watch in amazement as the breath of God spreads his fragrance from your life into the lives of those around you. 

Sing God’s praises, tell of his wonderful deeds! 

Share the story of God’s love for you. God has never left you or forsaken you! 

Live with hope! The day is coming when the storms of life will be over, when your tears have all been wiped away, when you will see your Savior face to face in glory! 

Anticipate the day when He will appear like the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, majestic as the stars in procession! 

You belong to your beloved, and his desire is for you. 

God’s love for you burns like a blazing fire. Many waters cannot quench God’s love; rivers cannot sweep it away! 

Why spend money on what is not bread,  
    and your labor on what does not satisfy? 
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, 
    and you will delight in the richest of fare. 
Give ear and come to me; 
    listen, that you may live. 
I will make an everlasting covenant with you, 
    my faithful love promised to David. (Isa 55:2-3)

Temptations

Temptations can ensnare you or paralyze you. Capitulating to temptation impacts your life and the life of your coworkers, family and friends. Consistently succumbing to a particular temptation can over time ruin your career or life. You can think that you can outsmart temptations, and then suddenly and, embarrassingly you find yourself fallen flat on your face in sin. When temptations trip you up, remember that God is a God of forgiveness, a God of grace, and that the blood of Christ cleanses you from all unrighteousness. 

Don’t let anyone under pressure to give in to evil say, “God is trying to trip me up.” God is impervious to evil, and puts evil in no one’s way. The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust. Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer (James 1:13-15 MSG).

Satan has a myriad of seductive ways to tempt you. Sometimes these temptations are blatant, and other times they are very subtle. The apostle Paul admitted that he struggled with temptation stating that “I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing” (Rom 7:19). 

After watching with glee when you succumb to temptation, Satan throws discouragement in you face, bringing tears to your eyes and stopping you dead in your tracks. Discouraging words like “you aren’t good enough”, “you screwed up again”, “you can’t do it”, “nobody loves you” are lies from the pit of hell. The moment you hear these lies, run to your loving Heavenly Father and ask him to have the Holy Spirit remind you of who you are in Christ. You are God’s child! You are loved! You are precious! You are forgiven! You have been washed clean by the blood of Christ!

Temptation presents itself to you as a choice. The choice is not between the temptation and doing nothing. The choice is between the temptation and a different thought or activity which helps you seek God’s Kingdom and hunger and thirst for God’s righteousness. Satan does a marvelous job of making temptation appear very attractive. However the Holy Spirit offers you a better choice – the fruit of the Spirt – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. If you don’t choose an alternative to the temptation Satan presents to your mind, you leave your mind open for Satan to present new temptations. 

You are not alone in your temptations! Jesus has been tempted in every way as you have been or will be. Yet Jesus was without sin. God, and God alone can keep your heart pure and your hands clean at work. Jesus understands your temptations and through the wisdom of the Holy Spirit will show you an alternative to the temptations you will face today at work. 

I know, my God, that you test the heart and are pleased with integrity … Lord … keep [my] heart loyal to you. Give [me] wholehearted devotion to keep your commands, statues and decrees (1 Chr 29:17 – 19).