Developing Deep Divine Devotion
Thirsty hearts are those whose longings have been wakened by the touch of God within them.
A.W. Tozer
As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. Psalm 42:1
INTRODUCTION
One of the great sins of any disciple of Christ is neglecting the discipline of developing deep divine devotion to his Divine Deliverer!! This is basically a violation of the first part of His Great Commandment that summarized the whole Law and the Prophets, as God said in
Deuteronomy 6:5,6
5And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
6And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
which our Lord and Savior re-echoed in
Matthew 22:37-40
37Jesus said unto him,
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38This is the first and great commandment.
39And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
and other parts of the gospels, as well as re-echoed in the epistles of Apostles.
To be good disciples of Christ, we have to undergo self discipline to develop deep devotion to his Divine Deliverer. Implicit in the disciples’ discipline with diligence (take note that the words “disciple” and “discipline” have the same root word) is the process of learning and teaching, where disciples learn how to be, to believe, to behave, and to develop doctrines and deeds that would define their identity in relation to their Master who courted, pursued, and wooed them to have an intimate fellowship of love with Him. In His Great Commission, our Divine Master commanded His disciples to go and multiply the process of learning and teaching that He had started, He being the First Fruit with Him as the Seed to be sown to the world in darkness of their ignorance, iniquities, inequities, and idolatries with the end to reap other new birthed disciples with new natures who themselves shall continue the process of discipling others.
Before we continue our discussion, let’s have some basic definitions of terms to make our discourse here clearer:
Devotion is defined in WordWeb dictionary as follows:
“feelings of ardent love; commitment to some purpose”
and ardent is defined as:
“characterized by intense emotion and by strong enthusiasm; glowing or shining like fire.”
It’s as in saying disciples have devoted to commit their prized and precious possessions of their time, treasure, talents, testimonies, and truth-seeking to pursue such deep love interest, as if like fire burning and searing into the soul of the beloved. Like burning a CD with the imprinting laser of the purpose, viz., love relationship between the Lover and the beloved. To pursue the Lover of their souls who pursued them first.
Based on these definitions, let’s ask our selves:
“As disciples of Christ, are we ardently and passionately in love with our Lord and Savior to have such deep devotion to Him?”
Paul so emphatically in said in
1 Corinthians 16:22
22If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.
He was basically saying that those who do not love the Lord are to be cursed even up to eternity. He was so devoted to His Lord and Savior to make him say in
1 Corinthians 6:20
20For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
It’s like concentrating and consecrating every fiber of one’s being to serve only His purposes. It’s killing that sin nature in man’s heart. To stop playing god by killing his claim his right to himself. To stop his foolish self-realization saying to himself: “I am my own god”, and rather realize to himself by letting God be the sovereign GOD in his life to have absolute claim and ownership of his whole being.
If you are blessed with this post and want to say thank you, a cup of coffee would be fine.
