Daily Devotional – Sept 16, 2020

The Difference Between a Tenant and a Child

Hope you're having a good week, doing well, and that the Lord is using you, blessing you through the course of your days, and taking care of your needs, meeting each one of those, and speaking to you through his word as you spend time with him each day.

Well, for the first eight years of our marriage, so starting back in 1980, back again in ancient history, first eight years of our marriage, we lived in rental property. And in those varied experiences of renting different rental properties, we had different relationships with the landlords in each one of those places.

So our first rental unit was in an apartment complex in South Carolina. The owner of the apartment that we lived in was a corporation. Every month I wrote a check for, you know, get this, a two-bedroom apartment.

The rent was $135 a month. Can you believe that? And it was actually a pretty decent apartment. It wasn't like a roach motel or anything like that. But every month I'd write the check and put an envelope, drop it off at the office, just slide it through a slot in the door.

That was it. The only time I ever heard from the owner of the apartment building, apartment complex, was when I got a letter telling me that my rent was going to go up to $150 a month. That was it. Lived there for about almost two years.

Never had anything to do with the owner other than that. Well, then we moved to a house and about 30 miles from where, from that apartment complex, moved into a rental house. House was for rent. I think the rent was like $175 a month.

I don't remember what it was, tell you the truth. But the owner of that house was an elderly, sweet old lady. But I met her once, I think, just when I had a first communication with her and showing us through the house and so forth.

And other than that, I'd write her a check, send her a check, but only two. Well, we only lived in the place for two months and then we moved out of state, moved to another place. The third sort of rental property that we lived in was actually a parsonage, a church owned house.

We didn't write a check for rent, but essentially it's the same thing. I don't have the salary that I would need to have to pay rent or to pay a mortgage payment. Instead, I'm staying in a house that's owned by the church.

So the church ends up being the landlord. And it's like every little thing that we wanted to do to improve the place or to fix the place, it required committee approval, especially if that project was going to require the church to pay for it.

I mean, I wasn't going to be spending what little money I had to do maintenance and stuff on a piece of property that wasn't my own. But consequently, we never really did a whole lot to the place. Our daughter was born in that town.

And so we were able to paint one of the rooms, a nursery kind of color, yellow, because that was back in the time when we weren't going to find out the gender of our child. But anyway, in that particular rental place, there was one of the bathrooms, the bathroom off the master bedroom, had a shower stall.

And the wall in that shower was so rotted that tiles were falling off the wall and never did get fixed the whole time we lived there, which wasn't really all that long. So from there, we ended up living in a place, renting a house in South Bend, Indiana.

It was a three bedroom, one bath house. It was about 900 square feet. So I'd give you an idea how big the bedrooms were. But anyway, everything in that house was handled by a property manager. Again, we never knew who the owner was, never met the owner.

The property management company handled it. It was a real estate company. And I guess he was the owner of the real estate company. I don't know if he was just a salesman or an agent at the company or what, but anyway, it was the same guy.

And he always came to collect the rent. He also always made a point to come collect the rent when he knew that my wife was going to be home alone and I wasn't going to be there. Yeah, a little creepy.

I know. Well, I wonder what our experience would have been like in those places, those different places, if my dad owned the property, if I was living in a piece of property that was owned by my father and I wasn't then just a renter, but I was the child of the owner.

I wonder if and how my experience would have been different. I wonder what the relationship would have been like to the landlord in each of those cases. I think you can imagine it would have been a significantly better improved relationship.

Not that any of them, except maybe the creep were particularly bad, but it was just distant. There was no real heart in that relationship. It was just a business relationship. Well, Dane Ortland in this book, Gentle and Lowly, that we've been talking about this week and sharing some quotes from, one of the quotes in that book goes like this.

He says, quote, for those united to him, the heart of Jesus is not a rental. It is your permanent residence. You are not a tenant. You are a child. Think about the difference between a tenant and a child.

I don't know how old you are. If your children are living at home, if they are, do they pay you rent? If they forget to make their bed or don't make their bed on morning, do you threaten to raise the rent on them?

I'm not trying to give you any ideas. I'm just saying, if they happen to break something, do you kick them out of the house? No, they're not tenants. They're children. They're your children. Now, Ortland says, for those of us who are united to Christ, the heart of Jesus is not a rental.

It's your permanent residence. Why? Because you're not a tenant. You're a child. Now, why does he say that? Is there any scripture to support that, to back that up? Well, absolutely. What did Jesus say in John 6, 37?

He said, all that the Father gives will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. If you're a follower of Christ, if you're one whom the Father has given to the Son, if you're a Christian, you've received Jesus as your personal Savior.

You have been converted. You've been adopted into the family of God. You'll never get an eviction notice. Never. You're a child, not a tenant. And Jesus himself said this in the book of Hebrews. Jesus says, of those whom the Father has given, he says, those who've come to him, those whom he will never cast out.

Jesus said, behold, I and the children God has given to me. Oh, what encouraging thoughts. I and the children God has given to me. You're not a tenant. The heart of Jesus is not a rental. You live there.

You're a child. You belong there. Let's rejoice in that relationship today. You never have to worry about getting an eviction notice from the heart of Jesus. Our Father and our God, we are grateful for that relationship that is a permanent one.

I thank you, Father, that you never cast out. Christ will never cast out those who come to him. Thank you for that encouragement today. Father, if there's any listening to my voice today who have not come to Christ, may they do so today.

May they find that when he says, come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, that he will indeed give rest. He is meek and lowly. He is gentle and lowly in heart. May they discover that for themselves and come to him today.

This we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. All right. Well, as you go through the rest of this middle of the week, I hope you have a good day and that God will bless you richly. Have a good one.