FBC Daily Devotional – November 18, 2020

Faith Baptist Church

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Middle of the week, week before Thanksgiving, hope your week's going well and enjoying, enjoyed the sunshine yesterday and cooler temperatures and all the rest of that.

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Many years ago, it was actually on our 25th anniversary, so it would have been 15 years ago,

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Chris and I had the privilege of doing a little trip in California and one of the places we went was

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Lake Tahoe. I don't know if you've ever been there, but that lake is incredibly beautiful, not only the scenery but the water itself.

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It's just crystal clear and the day that we were there, we were there a couple days as I recall, but anyway, the day we were there, the water was just as calm as could be.

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It was like, it was like glass. It was like, really, it was just that, just that flat and calm.

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It was beautiful and it was, and you've probably had this experience too, you know, you stand there on the water's edge, you look out, you enjoy the glass surface of the water, but then you look down, you look down and, of course, the water is so crystal clear you can see right through it to the bottom, but you can also see your own reflection in that water.

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It was that calm. There wasn't even any unusual wrinkles on my face caused by the ripples of the water, but I thought of that experience when

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I came across a verse in Proverbs the other day. Proverbs 14 verse 29 says this, it says,

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As in water, face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man.

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So there we were standing on the edge of Lake Tahoe looking down into the water and could see my face reflected in that water.

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The water was reflecting my face, but this simple verse in Proverbs points out the fact that just as the water is reflecting my face, my heart is reflecting the man.

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It's reflecting the real me. It reflects who I really am. My heart, of course, is not simply talking about the thing that's beating blood through my body, and you know that, and it's also not talking simply about my feelings.

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We do tend to have that confused in our day, thinking that equating the heart with our feelings.

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It's more than that. The heart of man is more than his feelings. The heart of man, as used in Scripture, refers to his whole inner being, who he is inside.

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It refers to what I think, what I want, what

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I intend, what I love. It has to do with my intellect, my emotions, and my will, the whole inner being.

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It's the control center of my life, if you will. So that inner being, that control center of my life, it reflects who

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I really am. So think about that for a moment. What does your heart tell you about you?

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What are my deepest desires? My deepest desires, the things that I want, or that which

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I want more than anything else. What are my deepest desires? What are my utterly honest thoughts?

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What do I think about? What do I truly think? Sometimes we can put on a front, we can put on a mask, even regarding what we really think.

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You're having a discussion with somebody, and they're expressing to you their views on a particular thing.

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Let's take politics today, and they express their views to you on the election, and how this election should be decided, or whatever.

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And you don't agree with that person on that particular subject, but you don't really want to tell them what you really think, because you know it'll just get into an argument.

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You don't want to go there. It's not worth the time, and the energy, and so forth. So you just kind of mumble something, and you go on.

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But what are those real thoughts deep down? What are my inner thoughts?

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And what are my true intentions and motivations? Why am

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I really doing what I'm doing? What is it that I really want to accomplish?

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Again, we can deceive on the surface regarding our intentions.

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We can make it look like our intentions are very noble, but deep down we have some ulterior intention that we want to see accomplished.

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And what are my motives? Why do I want to accomplish that? It may look like I want to accomplish that, and in a way that other people think is very noble, but deep down there's pride in my heart, in my motivations, because I'm doing that really because I want people to think well of me.

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You see where this is going? Our heart reflects who we really are.

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So just as I looked over the surface of that clear crystal cool water in Lake Tahoe, and as I looked in there

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I saw my face. So when I look in my heart and I consider what my true thoughts are, what

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I really want and desire, what motivates me, what moves me, these things are more accurate reflection of who

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I am. So let's think today. Who am I really?

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So our Father and our God, we thank you for this challenging verse in Proverbs, and I pray that we would actually in our heart meditate on this today.

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Meditate on what our true thoughts are, our true desires, ambitions, intentions, motivations.

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As we look at those things, as we consider those things, we'll discover who we really are. Give us that insight, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.

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All right, well I hope you have a good rest of your day today, and praying for our community these days.

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It seems like there is a pretty widespread expansion of COVID cases and so forth.

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So you want to pray that God would be gracious in our community and heal people that are sick with that.

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There's some in the hospital dealing with it, others isolated at home with COVID.

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And then pray that it gets stopped, and gets stopped quickly. So have a good rest of your day, and God bless you in it.