2009 - Day 1 - God's Training Manual

For the New Year …

An Introduction for my Devotional Journal: For five years I used one devotional book, Strength For Today, authored by John MacArthur in 1997. It has gotten a bit tattered and torn; but it served me well in these last few years to go deeper and deeper into my relationship with Christ; and I believe it did, in fact, help to build more strength into my Christian walk. I’ve used other good devotional books in the past, authored by Christian luminaries like Billy Graham, Oswald Chambers, Charles Spurgeon, A. W. Tozer, Joni Eareckson Tada, etc. However, this year I move on to a new book authored by Charles (Chuck) Swindoll, entitled Great Days with the Great Lives.

But some things don’t change. In my daily time with God each morning, it has become my discipline, beginning with morning prayer, to set my devotional table with one overriding prayer request. And in this regard I pray with expectation a prayer based on James 1: 5-6, where the brother of Jesus declares, “ 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind." For any who might be reading along with me here, it is my desire, more than anything in my daily quiet time with God, to know Him more on that day than the day before; and over the years, He has shown me that when I come fervently seeking His mind and expecting that He will yield His wisdom to me, He fulfills the promise of those words above from James.

Secondly in prayer, each day I also go through a mental/spiritual ritual of “getting dressed” in God’s full armor, as spelled out in Ephesians 6: 13 - 18. Being the called leader of a world-wide outreach, Battle Plan Ministry, a ministry that is hated by Satan, it is essential that I go into each day fully dressed for spiritual warfare. Therefore, I fortify my battle readiness with this dressing discipline in prayer. I would exhort any devotional warrior to get ready for each day’s battle by putting on the full armor of God (ALL OF IT) and sharpening one’s Spirit Sword; because every day, the battle is on!

Finally, I let the Spirit of God guide me with prayers involving praise, thanks, and supplication which focus on my wife, family, ministry, church, and the many needs of those my life touches. And so, after my initial prayer time, I’m ready to enter into my daily time in God’s word, which has grown to give me an attitude of expectation each day, thinking, “Lord, bring it on! What are You going to bring to my heart and mind today that I can use for my spiritual battle, for growth, and to glorify You?” And He always – and I mean ALWAYS – shows up in my heart and mind to edify me through His word.

Now, as I said above, I will be using Chuck Swindoll’s devotional book to shepherd my daily quest to know God by letting His Spirit lead me through the Holy Scriptures which Swindoll has chosen to illustrate the biblical luminaries he has chosen for his devotional book, as well as those Scriptures God leads me toward in my daily study, the latter being many passages and verses I have memorized over the years. Therefore, my time every morning is always an exciting period of time for me; and I love to let God’s word convict me, shape me, direct me or even rebuke me [as it says in 2nd Tim. 3: 16 – 17 – one of those landmark memory verses which I hope you have memorized]. Sometimes these daily treks into God’s word can be painful; but they are always meaningful.

Now, as it has been my discipline in the past, I will be reading the daily devotional from my focus devotional, in this case Great Days with the Great Lives, meditating on what the author wrote for each day in the context of the biographical topics Swindoll has constructed in his book to help Christians grow in the reader’s (that’s me) relationship with Christ. Each day Swindoll uses a segment from God’s word, many times delving deeply into a passage of scripture to illustrate, in depth, many facets of some of the great characters of the Bible … like Joseph, who will be his focus character for January.

Usually in this daily study, as I’ve done in the past, one will not only find the verse or passage of the day instructive, but there may be a number of other passages of scripture which surface to edify a seeker like me (or maybe you) in building a stronger relationship with Christ. Delving into these scriptures and letting God’s Spirit guide my steps has always produced, with my devotional author’s help, a fresh look at the God, Whom I so desperately desire to know and serve. Each day, after reading from Swindoll’s devotional and mediating on God’s word, I will write my own interpretation [i.e., my journal entry], focusing in my journaling on what God was saying to me personally that very day. Each month, therefore, I will have a journal of God’s application from His word with Swindoll’s teaching and shepherding of the topic which he had chosen to use to help me (and other Christian readers) grow in my (our) relationship with my (our) Lord.

So, I (or if you’re reading with me, “we”) launch into this New Year to find God’s direction for my [our] life. As I journal here each day, I will imagine that someone significant in my life, LIKE YOU, is looking over my shoulder reading what I’m sharing. I will be praying that God will not only reveal His mind to me but that He will use what I write to edify and provide grace to all who might read after me.

Each day, what you read in this document, will reflect years of searching God’s word, which has been filtered through the insights of God’s truth and now with Chuck Swindoll’s help for this humble disciple to grow closer to my Lord. I pray that anyone who might read these entries will be edified as much as I know that I will be by God’s Spirit during my year with God in this upcoming year. … So, we begin with my January first entry [note posting in a separate entry]! … <’BB><

Administrative Note: All Scriptures quoted in my journal entries will be from the New King James Version (NKJV) unless otherwise referenced.

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This Month’s Topic: Joseph: A Man of Integrity & Forgiveness

January 1, 2009 … Swindoll’s Topic for Today: God’s Training Manual

Passage of the Day: Genesis 37: 1 – 4 1 Now Jacob dwelt in the land where his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan. 2 This is the history of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brothers. And the lad was with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives; and Joseph brought a bad report of them to his father. 3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age. Also he made him a tunic of many colors. 4 But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him.

My Journal for Today: Joseph is one of the great characters from the Old Testament; and our devotional author, Charles Swindoll, who will be using great Bible characters to illustrate great truths from scripture, has chosen Joseph to begin this trip through the truth of God to help us grow closer to God and be shaped by His Spirit in His image.

Above from Genesis 37, we read of Joseph as a teen shepherd. However, as Swindoll points out in his entry for this date, Joseph’s life was introduced earlier in OT Scripture in Gen. 30 where we read of a storm of angst brewing in Joseph’s family (in Gen. 30: 24 – Gen. 37: 2). Then one can read of the middle young years of Joseph in Gen. 37: 2 – Gen. 41: 46; and finally the later years of this Bible giant, from 30 until Joseph’s death, in Gen. 41: 46 – Gen. 50: 26.

As Swindoll points out, the life of Joseph, as I think we’ll see in the next days, is a character study which will teach us a lot about ourselves as well as to warn us or to exhort us on to Godly character traits which can serve us well in life. I think of other characters in the Old and New Testaments who have been so inspiring and revealing for my life, people like Moses, Daniel, Gideon, Esther, Elijah, Habakkuk, Peter, Paul, Barnabas, James, and others, which just bubbled to my consciousness as I was writing here. Reading and getting to know these characters has really impacted my life. As Swindoll is illustrating here, the study of Bible characters, like Joseph, becomes a TRAINING MANUAL FOR LIFE AND LIVING.

As Swindoll puts it, “That is what these divinely inspired biographies do: they distill truth and weave it into the fabric of every day living.” Then Swindoll quotes Paul from Romans 15: 4, which states: For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. And Swindoll reminds me that the revelation and description of these characters in the Bible, people like Joseph, would not be in Scripture, as we know it now, unless God the Holy Spirit wanted to use their life stories for our edification and our shaping into Christlikeness. Again, I point the truth of 2nd Tim. 3: 16 -17 to support this truth.

So, in looking at Romans 15: 4 (above), we see that God has given us all of Scripture, including the Old Testament, for study and life application, as Swindoll points in two directions: “… for present instruction, and second, for future hope.” So, I look forward to following Swindoll as we go deeper into the lives of the Bible characters, God has given Swindoll to become my (our) TRAINING MANUAL FOR LIFE.

My Prayer Today: Lord, use the characters of Your Word to illuminate Your character for me and use this character study as a manual for my life. Amen