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God Chose You {No Matter What Monday}

September 18, 2017 by Marissa Leave a Comment

I stood in the grass behind Root Elementary School, waiting for my inevitable embarrassment. Two of my classmates stood facing the rest of us, wielding as much power as a 4^th grader could hope for. It was time to choose teams for kickball in P.E.

I stink at kickball. Always have, always will. No one has ever been excited about the prospect of having me on any sports team.

Maybe you’ve felt the sting of rejection, too. It’s not just a 4^th grade phenomenon. As a 40-year-old, I still feel left out, less than, and unwanted sometimes.

But Ephesians 1 gives us good news. Remember those spiritual blessings we talked about last week? Paul gives us more details as we keep reading:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. (Ephesians 1:3-4)

God chose you.

God chose you in Christ—His choosing is based on what Christ has done, not what you have done. He chose you in Christ and for Christ, to be one of those whom the Father has given the Son (John 10:29).

God chose you before the foundation of the world—before you ever had a chance to show Him what a great pick you’d be. Deuteronomy 7:6-8 tells us that God chose a people to be His treasured possession, not because they were great in number, but just because of His love and faithfulness.

God chose you to be holy and blameless before Him, because He has exchanged Christ’s perfect record for your sin. We can have confidence before God because He chose to pull us out of our sin and reconcile us to Himself (Colossians 1:22-23).

No matter what you face this week, God chose you because of His love.

Past, Present, and Future Faithfulness {No Matter What Monday}

September 4, 2017 by Marissa Leave a Comment

Fifteen times in the past six years, a machine has taken photos of my insides, and a radiologist has scoured the images for evidence of cancer recurrence. Scan Days cause me to swing on a pendulum between complete confidence that everything will be fine and dreadful certainty that nothing will be fine.

One tactic I use during those stressful weeks is to remind myself that, no matter how worked up I get each time, all my other scans have been clear. Remembering past experiences brings some peace when I face uncertainty, but it’s a shaky, tentative peace. Statistically speaking, the years of good results makes future good results more likely. But there is no guarantee.

When contemplating past medical success doesn’t quiet my soul, I’m thankful there’s something better.

“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:21-23)

Calling to mind the Lord’s faithfulness and steadfast love brings hope and peace to my anxious soul. Remembering His past faithfulness to His people in general and in my life specifically gives me confidence as I face uncertainty and doubts. Because God never changes, His past faithfulness absolutely guarantees His present and future faithfulness to us.

I don’t know if everything will be fine. But I do know the Lord will be faithful.

Because He was faithful yesterday, I can confidently depend on Him to be faithful today and expect Him to be faithful tomorrow.

No matter what we face this week, we can remember God’s past faithfulness, depend on His present faithfulness, and expect His future faithfulness.

(This week’s devotional is a flashback adapted from a post which first appeared here on May 30, 2016.)

God’s power and glory will remain forever {No Matter What Monday}

July 3, 2017 by Marissa Leave a Comment

I love sunsets. (I love sunrises, too, but I prefer to be asleep when they’re happening.) The glorious colors spread over the horizon, as if God took a handful of paintbrushes and danced across the sky. When I look at a gorgeous sunset, I know two things are true: there is a Creator who makes beauty and the Creator is glorious.

And yet, these verses teach us that God’s glory is even greater than the glory of creation:

“Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end” (Psalm 102:25-27).

The heavens are the work of His hands, and they are glorious. But one day, He will change them like He’s changing His clothes. The creation we see now will pass away, but the Lord will remain.

So what does this mean for us on an ordinary Monday when we feel overwhelmed by the week ahead?

Created things – sunsets, people, nature, possessions – can be beautiful, glorious blessings in our lives. These same creations sometimes bring us pain and suffering. In either case, they will pass away.

The Lord is the one Who will always remain. His power and glory will never fade. Those gorgeous sunsets can remind us of this truth: we are loved by a glorious Creator who will never change. His years have no end.

No matter what you face this week, God’s power and glory will remain forever.

This devotional originally appeared on this blog in September 2016.

God is Not Ignoring You {No Matter What Monday}

June 19, 2017 by Marissa Leave a Comment

This week’s No Matter What Monday devotional is a special edition – I’m sharing today at the devotional website for Proverbs 31 Ministries. I hope you’ll head over there with me to read the entire devotional. Here’s a preview . . .

“Yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.” Habakkuk 3:18-19 (ESV)

If our pediatric dental clinic keeps a Top 10 list of challenging patients, I bet my daughter is near the top. She can’t stand lying flat on her back while a stranger cleans her teeth with noisy tools. It doesn’t matter if Frozen is playing on the ceiling or if we promise her all the bouncy balls in the world. My girl hates going to the dentist.

Prior to one of these semiannual visits, my daughter repeatedly asked me to pray for her. We prayed over and over again for God’s help and peace, right up until the moment the hygienist prepared her instruments.

Then the cleaning started. My daughter realized that despite all her prayers, the experience was just as terrible as she feared.

That’s when she started screaming, “God isn’t helping me! God isn’t helping meeeeee!”

My daughter has something in common with the author of today’s key verse. Before Habakkuk’s declaration of trust in chapter 3, he questioned the Lord’s plans. Evil rulers oppressed God’s people, and Habakkuk wondered why God hadn’t intervened to rescue them.

“O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ and you will not save?” (Habakkuk 1:2, ESV)

Do these questions sound familiar? Do you feel abandoned in your suffering, like my daughter and Habakkuk? Have you cried out for relief from your struggles with your work, relationships, parenting or sin?

Maybe you’re weary from waiting for the Lord to intervene. You see suffering in this world and in your life and say with Habakkuk, “How long will you keep ignoring my struggle, Lord?”

Read the rest of the devotional at Proverbs 31 Ministries by clicking here!

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