Daily Devotional

Word of the Day

A New Value System

Do you want to enter into the rest, the supernatural provision? You have to do it God's way; and there is nothing easy about it. There is a suffering of affliction (Heb. 11:25). We want the promises, but we don't want any affliction or the trying of our faith. We do not want to experience the fiery furnace, but that is where the fourth Man is; that is where the real rest is. I love the story of Daniel and the lions. The king is losing sleep and everybody is wondering and uptight. Daniel is fluffing up a lion to sleep on for the night. Daniel rested because he believed in the sovereignty of God. To die in faith is better than to live in self-reliance. Daniel knew the simplicity of not defiling himself with the world's methods, but chose as Moses to suffer affliction with the people of God, rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.

What are you resting in really? Do you have to have something to do? It's in every one of us, beloved. Don't think, "What's wrong with me that I'm always lusting?" Everybody has that struggle. We are talking about choosing against what is in your members--the natural propensity of lust to have to have more. As we learn to walk in the spirit and run toward that rest, it's a choice. You have to choose the new value system. What is the value that you have set on the presence of God and the peace of God? Do you esteem the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt? This world is not where our treasures are, so they can't identify with us. To be identified with Jesus is greater than anything the world can be. They say, "What is it you see? Why do you keep looking through these things that I am trying to seduce you with?"

You say, "It's because my eyes are on Him who is invisible. I see something far more valuable than what you are holding up, and you can't see it."

Are you renewed to that point? Until you come to the rest, you will never see the invisible and eternal treasures; you will always be distracted. Ceasing from your own labors means to provide nothing for yourself, but to involve yourself only in what He instructs you in, through the strength of God. I do not mean that you do nothing but you do not do it in your own strength, in your own labors, in your own agenda. We will not be compelled by lust. We will not seek our own treasures by the world's methods. We will walk in obedience through the provision of God, for the purpose of glorifying Him. People will be able say, "That guy is different. He is not living for himself, but for the glory of God."

In an hour when so many are living for themselves and for the moment, let us live for eternity by the moment. Let our treasures be those that are unseen by the world around us. Live a life that would cause others to ask, "What is it that you see that I don't see? Why aren't you distracted? When so many peoples lives are lived as a constant zigzag, how is it you stay on course?" We follow Him Who is invisible. Our steps are ordered by the Lord. We are not tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, but governed by a voice that others cannot hear, a still small voice that says, "This is the way; walk in it." That is our rest. That is our hope.

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