Daily Devotional – June 29, 2020

Well, so in the middle of the week last week, the Illinois Department of Education issued a 60 -page set of guidelines for schools to be able to open this fall and have students in attendance at the school building.

And one of the requirements in that 60 -page document is that kids have to wear masks, like all day.

Well, hmm, here's a foretaste of what's to come. I can imagine the junior and senior high schoolers, they're going to have a blast with this one.

It's going to be like Halloween every day, right? What if half the student body got a mask like this and they all wore them?

Can you imagine the poor teacher trying to figure out, okay, who's in attendance that day? Who's absent?

I think it would be a pretty good challenge for them, don't you? Well, anyway, thanks to a friend of mine from Nevada who heard that we were required in Illinois to wear masks and going into certain stores to buy stuff and so on and so forth.

He had pity on me and asked if I would like to have a plague mask to save me from the plague of COVID.

I said, absolutely. So, sure enough, he sent me a plague mask and here it is, isn't it?

It definitely improves my looks, I've got to say that. Well, anyway, thank you very much,

I appreciate that, that was very kind of him. The only thing is, I can't breathe,

I just can't breathe. And besides that, it doesn't have glasses in it, so I can't see very well either.

I kind of have to have my glasses to see up close and personal like this. Well, anyway, happy Monday to you.

Happy Monday. Well, is it? Is it a happy Monday for you?

How'd your weekend go? Were you able to get to God's house and worship together with God's people, you know, fulfilling that important function of the church that Paul talks about in Ephesians chapter 5, where he says to the church, gather together, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the

Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the

Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I hope you were able to get to church and worship with God's people and to address one another and encourage one another, edify one another in those psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

But if as a whole, your weekend didn't go so well, did it kill your happiness?

Maybe you got really frustrated with a project that you were working on. You know, it's like nothing seemed to go right.

It's like Murphy's law, you know, one of those Murphy's law things. It was definitely in play on that project.

You know, the one that says anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Maybe you had some plans all set up and ready to go, and at the last minute, they got totally killed.

Perhaps you're feeling a bit sick, hopefully, hopefully not COVID. Or maybe, just maybe you're feeling a tad overwhelmed with all of the turmoil that's going on in our society.

Or perhaps you found yourself constantly upset with the kids. It's like they just would not cooperate.

It's like the warm, humid weather of this weekend just sucked the will to obey right out of them.

Well, what about your own obedience? Or should I say disobedience?

Maybe on this Monday afternoon, you're feeling really defeated and down and discouraged and totally disappointed with yourself.

Because, as you reflect over your weekend, you knew some things that you should have done, but didn't do it.

Or you knew some things that you shouldn't have done, but you did them. You know your attitude was rotten.

And maybe the fuse on your temper was just a little bit too short. Maybe you wasted something, time, money, opportunity.

You see it. You feel it. And maybe you even asked God to forgive you of it.

I hope you did, if you sinned and violated his word in some way. But still, again,

I ask, is it a happy Monday for you? One of the old

Puritans, John Flavel, he said this, Happy would it be if Christians, in perplexity and distress, would turn their eyes from the defects of their obedience to the fullness of Christ and see themselves complete in him.

If you've been robbed of happiness, you find yourself in perplexity and distress because you're so focused on your defects, the defects of your obedience.

Flavel's advice is look somewhere else. Look somewhere else. Here's what he's getting at.

Look away from yourself and your sin and look to Jesus and his full obedience.

The Apostle Paul wrote in Colossians 2 verses 10 and following, which is the basis for this encouraging word from Flavel, Paul wrote this, he said,

You are complete in him, that is in Jesus Christ, who is the head of all rule and authority.

A couple of verses later he says, And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh,

God made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

This he, Christ, set aside, nailing it to the cross. You are complete in Christ.

God made you alive together with him. When you trusted Christ as your Savior, you went from being dead in your trespasses and sins to being alive in Christ.

And you are therefore complete in him. And when God raised you up with Christ, made you alive in Christ, made you complete in him, he forgave all your trespasses.

So here's the thing. As a follower of Christ, one who's repentant of your sinfulness and you've turned to Christ to save you from it and you've yielded to him as Lord, who is the head of all rule and authority, as his follower, the debt of your sinfulness, even those sins committed this past weekend, the debt of your sinfulness has been paid in full and you stand in Christ complete.

See yourself that way and quit letting the wicked one rob you of your joy and your happiness.

May this truly be a happy Monday because you find yourself happy in the completeness and the fullness that is in Christ Jesus.

As we close today, let's pray and ask God to restore to us the joy of our salvation if it's been robbed from us by our own sin.

Let's pray, shall we? And so our Father and our God, we do recognize how quickly sin robs us of joy.

I pray that once we confess and turn our backs on that sin, we would turn our face to Christ and our completeness in him and realize that you and your grace have forgiven us all of our trespasses and we stand complete in him.

And in that, may we find joy and true happiness.

This we pray in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well I trust God will give you a good week this week and on this particular day, may it finish out in happiness, in joy because of your completeness in Christ.