My Devotional

I was reading my Devotional the other day. It is a 365 daily bible reading devotional. It is called "The One Year Worship The King Devotional" by Chris Tiegreen. I love this devotional! But this one section I had to share. It really got me thinking:

April 5
A Deep Desire
"Suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come." Malachi 3:1

In Word
Most of us don't understand our own desires. We all want fulfillment, and we think we know how to get it, but we don't. Nearly everything we expect to be fulfilling is a temporary fix. It may scratch some itches, move us deeply, or even satisfy our longings temporarily, but ultimately it all falls short. Deep down, we want to be fulfilled completely and forever. We've never come up with a solution for that.

God has. Malachi prophesied that the messenger of the covenant, the Messiah, was actually the desire of our hearts. He is the Lord we were seeking, the One we delight in. And, Malachi says, He will come.

Impure hearts like ours don't necessarily find that comforting. We want our desires to be fulfilled, and to a person, we all seem to think that God doesn't quite understand our desires. Our assumption is that He has a great plan for us- as He defines "great"-but that it will be harder or more noble or less satisfying than we want it to be. Somehow we got the message that God's plan is best, but not fulfilling-or fun.

We're wrong. We didn't get that message from God or His Word. In fact, it sounds suspiciously like a lie once told by a serpent in a garden. "There are better things than what God has offered you," the lie says. But according to God and the prophets He inspires, we have a destiny that will thrill us from our head to our toes.

In Deed
When we understand that, we become willing participants in the process. We understand what the refinery produces, so we submit ourselves to the Refiner Himself. We take humanity's biggest hang-up - the desires of the fallen heart- and let them be purified into something that matches the heart of the Father. And we embrace the most fulfilling promise ever given; the One whom we seek will come.

~Every promise God has ever made finds it's fulfillment in Jesus. ~
-Joni Eareckson Tada