Daily Devotions

Posts tagged “rejection

Killing Catalysts Through Rejection

KATHY GABLER—Killing God’s Catalysts through rejection:  In Acts 6, Stephen was openly demonstrating the Kingdom with signs, wonders and miracles among the people.  Rather than realizing that God was using this young man as a catalyst to continue the powerful changes that Jesus had begun, they were angered by this catalyst and decided to remove it.  May God help us not to reject the catalysts for change He is raising up in the remainder of this year.  
People who cannot connect the dots or those who intentionally reject God’s catalysts for change are dangerous.  The human soul that is determined to defy God and desperate to be right, comfortable and undisturbed can, in the extreme, go so far as to consider false accusation and murder as fair and the right thing to do.  Literally, the up-standing citizens that were upset with Stephen lied about him and then stoned him to death. 
Forget the miracles, this young whipper-snapper was speaking against their lifestyle and their sacred places.  He was threatening to tear it all down and CHANGE their institutions, customs and rituals that Moses had taught them.  Acts 6:11, So they bribed some men to say, “We heard him speaking against Moses and against God!”   He spoke against Moses, and oh yes, against God too!  Moses, the temple, their customs were obviously their primary concern.  Those things were ahead of God in their hearts and devotion.  Their habits were more important than relationship or truth.  Their habits were part of their comfort zone that they did not want it disturbed.  Their habits were part of their identity and self-image.  To change them evidently implied fault or weakness in both.
Moses means “draw out, rescue.”  They were determined to hold to the one they considered their historical agent of surviving, even when it was time to move on to the One who was their agent of thriving.  I submit that is a paradigm we need to be wary of in this year.  If we are not willing to change as the Holy Spirit directs, we will merely be surviving rather than thriving.  Surviving implies living with limitations and learning to be satisfied.  Thriving implies growth, increase and maturing.


Processing and Cycles

Isa.55:10-11 show us that God’s Word goes through a cyclical process. That prophetic WaterCyclePrecipitation.jpgdream Joseph had did not scoop him up and simply whisk him away to Pharaoh’s palace and favor — it was all done through a process. There were pits, prisons, rejection and false accusation to go through before he would reach that place of favor and honor. All of that stuff was processing stuff in Joseph. Joseph managed to stay in the process and God did not let any of that shaping stuff go to waste in his life. Needless to say, Joseph was quite a different person when he got to Pharaoh’s palace than the fancy-dressed boy we first encounter in the story. All of that process squeezed Joseph through a mold which eventually squeezed him out in the form of a father to Pharaoh.


The Spec And Log Principle

LogAndSpec
UNFORGIVENESS is put in perspective in the Spec and Log principle of Matt 7:3, “And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? (NKJ) Unforgiveness is the log which is bigger than the sin (spec) we cannot forgive in someone else.  God asks us which is worse, someone’s sin or our unforgiveness of their sin?  The log is a vivid picture of how blinding unforgiveness can be.  It keeps us from seeing that if we build a prison for someone, we have to stand guard over it.  We are locking ourselves in, building limitations for our own life.  For example, if we don’t forgive someone for rejecting us, we will become blinded by a resident fear of rejection.


CLICK ON LINK BELOW TO READ MAGAZINE ARTICLES BY MARTY AND KATHY:
https://martygabler.com/magazine/