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Devotionals/Romancing the Soul
Ray Bentley

July 1
Acts 15: 10-11
“…why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?  No!  We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved.”

From the early beginnings of the Church, the concept of grace was too radical and too freeing for some to accept.  They constantly attempted to control and subject the faithful with the burden of the law and legalism. Paul went so far as to call them “false brothers” (Galatians 2:4).

When Jesus died on the cross, as the earth quaked and the sky darkened, the thick veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The tearing of the veil at the moment of Jesus' death dramatically symbolized that His sacrifice, the shedding of His own blood, was a sufficient sacrifice for our sins forever. The way into the Holy of Holies was now open to all people, for all time, both Jew and Gentile.

The Pharisees and legalists have tried over and over through the centuries to re-stitch the veil and block the way to the Holy of Holies.  The early church leaders argued that in order to be saved, to be “right” one first had to become Jewish and adhere to the Law of Moses, including circumcision.  The issues have changed over the years as man has contrived a thousand forms of legalism as the criteria for salvation.  Rituals, traditions, rules, and regulations try to bury grace. Substitute circumcision with baptism, church attendance, church membership—or even the right haircut or clothing—and the debate will continue on.  But in the end, the truth is, “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing” (John 6:63).  We are saved by grace. Period.

“Grace is not sought nor bought nor wrought.  It is a free gift of Almighty God to needy mankind.”  —Billy Graham

July 3
2 Peter 3: 11-13
"What manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God...Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells."

Too many Christians are asleep, choosing to be ignorant of the times, living casual, careless lives in arrogance, pride, and unrepentant sin, with little regard for the prophecies and warnings of God. What tragedy! No one —not one of us—need be caught unprepared when Jesus returns.

Instead, we should pray for the strength to be found striving to live holy lives, "holy" meaning to be "separate"—separate from the things of the world, consecrating our lives to God and our fellowship with Him.

"Looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God..." Peter wrote. The knowledge that Jesus could come any moment put conviction and a fire in my heart years ago that has yet to go out. The study of prophecy gave me the zeal to share my faith and to witness with new boldness and confidence. I discovered a passion to live for the Lord that had not been there before.

I pray that you will study prophecy, take it seriously, and that it will light the same fire in all our lives. And, like the apostle John, I say, "Even so come quickly Lord Jesus."

July 4
Freedom!
“O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?  Have you suffered so many things in vain…?”

There was a group of people who once lid under a very rigid and complicated code of religious, moral, and ethical laws.  Their laws were so strict, in fact, that even the slightest deviation from some was punishable by death.

Then a teacher came along, one of their own, who was respected as a scholar and spiritual leader.  What he taught was rooted in their own belief system, yet so radical that it revolutionized their thinking.  They began to cast off elements of their code of laws. They discovered freedom, as they had never known it before.  Without really intending to, they launched a revolution of sorts. A new movement grew. Freedom! Never before had people experienced such liberty!

But freedom can be a threat to an existing order, and this was no exception.  Those in authority began to challenge the new beliefs.  Slowly, people began to fear their freedom. Maybe it was too good to be true.  Maybe we’re turning away from too much of the law.  Maybe it’s not really right.  Maybe it’s not even true. Doubt crept in, and with it, bits and pieces of the old ways.

They began to lose their freedom.

Their teacher was so upset by what was happening that one day he cried to his people, citizens of Galatia, “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth…Are you so foolish…Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain?” (Galatians 3:1).

That teacher was the apostle Paul was, clearly appalled, frustrated and heavily burdened for his brothers and sisters.  He had devoted his life for years, since his own conversion, to teaching what it meant to know Jesus as Messiah, to live in the grace of God.  He had discovered true freedom.

He understood what it meant to live under laws, social convention and religious expectations. “I was a Pharisee among Pharisees,” he once said of himself.  He had been there, done that.

I know that for me, personally, once I discovered the grace of God in my life, I also realized that as a church we often burden ourselves with loads of unnecessary rules, laws, and social conventions.  Somewhere, in all our attempts to be a religious people, we lose the freedom that is granted to us in Christ. 

Nowhere did God set down dress codes, music codes, building codes, social conventions, or lists of rules upon which to hang our salvation.  He hung on the cross, and that was enough. He desires nothing less than our total and absolute freedom to live for Him and to allow Him to live through us.  If we can let go of our worry, self-consciousness, and concentrate on loving Him and loving others, and giving people we love to His care, then we will know what it is to be free!

“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1

May God bless all who fight for our freedom today. 

July 5
Thoughts on Freedom

We find freedom when we find God; we lose it when we lose Him. — Paul E. Scherer

Where God has spoken absolutely there are absolutes and norms, but where He has not the Christian has the freedom and responsibility to make an existential judgment of the situation within the framework of God’s revelation and under the immediate leadership of the Holy Spirit…A Christian, while he is not open to a vacuum of complete relativism, has responsible freedom to follow the leading of the Holy spirit within the norms of revealed Christian morality. —Os Guinness

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either.— Mark Twain

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.—Soren Kierkegaard

God grants liberty to those who live it, and are always ready to guard and defend it. —Daniel Webster

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.  Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."—John 8:31-32

Now, the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, He gives freedom.—2 Corinthians 3:17

I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag and to the Savior, for whose Kingdom it stands, one Savior, crucified, risen, and coming again, with life and liberty for all who believe.— Dan Quayle

For Freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. — Galatians 5:1

July 7
2 Chronicles 7:14
“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

Did you know that during the reign of both David and Solomon, Israel possessed only about ten per cent of what God had promised them?  Think about that:  David, the sweet Psalmist of Israel, the "man after God's own heart," and Solomon, who, with his supernatural gift of wisdom, elevated the children of Abraham to the status of super power.  Knowing what God did with just ten percent, we can only wonder what might have been if Solomon had received it all!  The wealthiest, wisest, most powerful man on the face of the earth settled for a mere portion of the gifts and blessings God intended for him and his nation.

How many of us are living with the same small portion of God's blessings?  Over 7,000 promises in the Bible give us the hope of abundant, rich and fruitful life!  How many have you appropriated into your life?  I ask myself the same question every day. Peter Marshall used to say, "Today's Christians are too often like deep-sea divers encased in suits designed for many fathoms deep, marching bravely forth to pull plugs out of bathtubs."

What holds us back?  Os Guinness suggests that sloth—classically known as the fourth deadly sin— might have something to do with it.  Laziness, uncleanliness and general slobbiness come to mind when I think of the word sloth.  But Guinness defines it as, "A condition of explicitly spiritual dejection that has given up on the pursuit of God, the true, the good and the beautiful.  Sloth is inner despair...that finally slumps into an attitude of 'Who cares?' ...It is a sluggishness of spirit, feeling and mind that eventually overcomes the body like an after-lunch languor."  Medieval thinkers called it the "noonday demon." 1

Call it the doldrums, spiritual leprosy, slothfulness, or demons, this state of spiritual apathy eventually leads to boredom, discontent, hedonism, and a constant need for gratification.  A subtle spiritual malady hardens our hearts, causing us to turn from the Giver to the gifts; to glory in what we have, to want more, to never be satisfied, to love and desire things for their own sake, apart from God.  Slowly, we are changed inside, and become less and less our true selves as we turn into caricatures of who God created and gifted us to be.  Slowly, we slip from reality into unreality, anesthetizing the deepest part of our souls.  Day by day, moment by moment, choice by choice, in thousands of little ways, our passion for the Lord and our passion for the life He desires for us, are dulled. 
Soren Kierkegaard, decrying the spiritual sloth of his era, wrote, "Let others complain that the age is wicked; my complaint is that it is wretched for it lacks passion....Their lusts are dull and sluggish, their passions sleepy."
No wonder Jesus said about lukewarm believers, "I will spit you out of my mouth."  He wants no part of slothful spirituality, because He knows it will eventually destroy us.  God's exhortations to Solomon— "humble yourself...pray... seek My face...follow Me..."—were based purely on what He knows to be best for His people.  

The Lord hates to see any of us slip into the comfort zone, where it is easy to shift into neutral, cruise and never do anything meaningful again.  That's when our spirits shrivel up, our vision dies and along with it, our hopes, dreams, and our faith. The tragedy is, that when we choose not to pursue the other 90 percent of God’s blessings, we eventually lose the ten percent we already possess.  But God is always reaching out to pull us back into the blessing zone.

July 9
Acts 15:30-35
“The men were sent off and went down to Antioch, where they gathered the church together and delivered the letter. The people read it and were glad for its encouraging message. Judas and Silas, who themselves were prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the brothers…Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, where they and many others taught and preached the word of the Lord.”

One of the greatest challenges to face all believers is to discover how to determine the will of God.  How do we know what God is saying?  And how does He communicate?

First, He quite often communicates to us through people.  If you read all of chapter 15 in the book of Acts, you’ll see that the church was in the middle of a dispute over circumcision, specifically, but the bigger issue was the law versus liberty.  It is important to observe how they handled such heated dissension and dispute.

First, they “came together to consider this matter.” Then they gave everyone a chance to express their opinions. Peter reported how the Holy Spirit was saving the Gentiles by faith alone.  Paul and Barnabas confirmed this.  James summed everything up so rationally and with such great wisdom and insight, that “it pleased all the apostles and elders, with the whole church...” They wrote a letter with their conclusions and sent it off to the believers who needed to some answers.

This was a huge issue, needing much prayer, discernment, wisdom, and discussion.  Their challenge was to determine the will of God and set a policy that would be pleasing to God and prevent division in the church.  God did not write the answer in the sky or even speak to them through a vision or signs and wonders.  He used people! People who were willing to say what they thought, listen, be open to the Spirit, and come to an agreement.  A certain amount of compromise was involved – not compromising God’s principles, but being willing to give up some of their own stubborn views, which were rooted more in tradition and culture than the Lord.  The legalistic Jews gave up insisting that circumcision was a requirement for salvation, and the Gentiles willingly accepted some dietary changes. And unity in the church was preserved.

You never know how God will use people to speak to you. We expect it from pastors and preachers, prophets, and apostles.   But everyday, God puts people in our paths who in some way might remind us of His love, confront us with the truth, stretch our preconceived ideas, or nudge us to do His will. We just need to be listening.



July 10
Amos 3:3
“Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?”

In thinking about how God communicates with us, this verse reminded me that in order to walk with God, to know Him, to be in tune to His will, we need to be in agreement with Him. And what better way to “agree” with Him than to know His will?  I find that the more I understand God’s Word, the more I will be able to walk in agreement with Him.  God speaks to us through His Word—every time we read it, every time we hear it taught, preached, or quoted.

In Amos’ prophetic exhortation, the original meaning is about following through with your commitments. When you make a commitment to God, you are promising to walk with Him. To not do so would be like not showing up on your wedding day, after you’ve already committed to love and loyalty!  To be a Christian means more than accepting a creed or even to accepting the notion of a living Christ.  It means walking in agreement with God in all areas of His Word and His will for my life.

The most basic activity of a Christian is to grow in the knowledge and understanding of God’s Word —and to listen to what He says to you, for He will surely speak to you every day whenever you choose to open His Word and open your heart.

It’s simple, really. To hear God speaks, to discern His will, you need to read, study, and take to heart His Word.  Every day.

“Take all this book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier and better man.” — Abraham Lincoln

July 11
2 Corinthians 3:2-3
“You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”

Sometimes when God speaks, there are no visions, no voice from heaven, no angelic call.  No special prophecy is given.  The message comes to the heart.

Look at Paul in the book of Acts.  He suddenly had a desire in his heart to return to the new believers who were the result of his first missionary journey.  Some call it “a burden,” and it does feel like a burden when the need to do something, to follow through with an idea is weighing heavily upon you. Sometimes it just feels like a longing, a desire to pursue a long time dream.

I love Psalm 37:4:  “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”  God wants to fulfill our heart’s desire – the only condition is that we enjoy Him, delight in His love for us, and be able to hear Him through His word, His messages—and the longings He puts in our hearts.

The Spirit filled life is not a robotic, life.  We are not merely machines to which God send instructions for us to perform.  The power we have within us to act and live in this world is the life of Jesus!  He enables us to do what God puts in our heart!  He wants us to enjoy and relish life.  We become partners with God in His wonderful plans.

If you sense an opportunity, and God has moved in your heart, move into it with faith and let God work through you.  After all, you are a living epistle, which will in turn impact someone else’s heart with the wonder of the love and inspiration of the Lord.