Video transcript below.
I have a question. How many of you have heard about the great scandal in the kingdom? I was reading a quote by A. W. Tozer in his book, the Pursuit of God, and he said, quote, it is a solemn thing, and no small scandal in the kingdom to see God’s children starving while actually seated at the father’s table. End quote. See, Tozer was talking about the children of God who should be full of the goodness of God and pouring forth the fruits of God’s spirit and his strength and his wisdom. Instead, manifesting a desperate need, a dissatisfaction, a lack of peace and anxiety. A weakness, a joylessness, a lovelessness. And so he likens that to being at a table.
You know, you think about this. If you are at a sumptuous feast, and the table is just laden with the best food you can imagine, and no one’s eating right, everyone looks like they’re starving to death, and everyone looks gaunt, right? And joyless, is that an invitation to come join the table? Or are you looking at the table going, you know, that food must not be good, or maybe the company is terrible, or maybe this is a warning. I should run because there’s something wrong with that table.
You see, that’s the message we as Christians give out. If we claim to be the children of God, we claim that we are born again, that Jesus Christ, in fact, inhabits our soul and spirit. But we are glum, loveless, not compassionate. We are weak. We are joyless. We seem to be always needing more. We need more love. We need more peace. We’re just needy, right? If that’s a message that we are giving to people and we claim to be Christians, oh, I’m a good Christian, I go to church, I’ve been baptized, I watch the kids in the nursery, but we are just sad people.That is a very inconsistent message. And no wonder people are not drawn to the table. No wonder people don’t want to be near the Lord Jesus. So what’s the fix? How do we fix this? Well, I was asking the Lord about this. Because you know what? I don’t want to send a mixed message. I don’t want to be claiming to be sitting at God’s table and starving to death. And thus sending a very mixed, damaging message to a lost and dying world about who God is. And you know, the Lord is just so good to teach us when we ask him, he made it very clear. He said, Kim, you want to draw people to my table? Then you better look like you’re satisfied. And here’s the thing, it’s not just a matter of looking like it, because we can only fake it for a while, right? We can fake Jesus’ joy for a while, right? It’s not that it’s a matter of it coming not from us, but from Christ. We must have the genuine fruits of God’s spirit: love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, gentleness, meekness, compassion. Right? And the manifestations of his spirit. Strength and wisdom, right? Deep satisfaction. And when we have those things, and they’re not coming, they’re not being manufactured falsely from us. Because it never works, not for long anyway. And they’re coming from the spirit of God. And number one, we don’t run out because God doesn’t run out of himself, right? But number two, that genuine peace draws people into the presence of God into his table. And so to do this, we obviously first need to be born again.
If you’ve never trusted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and surrendered your heart and soul to him completely, then that’s the first step. Because you can’t have Jesus’ fruits and the spirit inside of you, right? You can’t manufacture that on your own. Then, we must live a life of surrender. You know, I don’t get up every morning, and just bounce out of bed. Woo-hoo, I’m a Christian. No, I have to get up and start over every morning, renewing my mind in God’s word. And that is the first thing I do. After I get my cup of coffee and brush my teeth, I sit down with God and start opening myself up to him. Lord, I need you today. I want to turn everything over to you. Reveal if there are things I need to confess. If there are sins that I have forgotten about. Reveal those so that I can clean the slate with you. And this is sanctification, right? This is outward sanctification. This is not our soul and spirit. Once we’re born again, they’re good. You never lose that. You would never lose the righteousness of God because God will always be righteous. And Him in you is always righteous. But it’s that outward part, our mind, the Bible says, to transform ourselves by the renewing of our mind. That’s what Romans Chapter 12 says.
It’s a constant process. You know, the thing about Jesus Christ is when we seek to know him and seek to give him everything, yield him 100% of everything we are, all of our time. Everything we do. There’s many times in the morning I will pray, Lord, I’m giving you 100% of my heart, 100% of my time, 100% of my law practice, 100% of the foster kids boutique, 100% of my resources. I want you to have it all. And I want you to keep it. If I start to take it back during the day, you just snatch it out of my hands. Keep it where it needs to be because it’s in his hands. The things that God gives us to steward in his hands. Those things are multiplied in his hands. The fruits of his spirit are manifested through what we have and how we give and what we do and what we say, right?
And so when we’re constantly doing that, having that process of transforming ourselves, we’re also filling ourselves with God’s word. So we have to be putting God’s word in. And what that does, is it changes the way we think so that we can have the mind of Christ, right? And it changes the way we talk and the things that we do. Because instead of filling our mind with wickedness, we’re filling our mind with the word. And Jesus is the word, right? He is the truth.
And so, as we fill our minds with God’s word and we learn to think differently, Jesus takes over and we begin to think and act and be more like Him. And that is not something that is faked. You will know when a person is walking in Christ. It’s unmistakable because God is unmistakable. You know, when Moses spoke, when he went up on the mountain and talked to God and he came back down, he had to cover his face with a veil because his countenance was so light, it’s so filled with God’s light. We should be like that. And there’s no reason we can’t have that kind of light. And the kind of person that when we walk in the room, people say, I want what you have. I want that peace. I want that love. I want that lack of anxiety. I want to be filled. And we can say, oh, what you want is Jesus. And I can show you how to have him through salvation. And then sanctification by daily dedicating our life to Christ. So this transformation from going to sitting at the table with a glum face, and an uninviting sick face, to a joyful, peaceful, strong presence is all about our relationship with Christ.
Knowing Jesus is the most remarkable relationship we will ever have. And knowing him will 100% transform us to be somebody that we have never been before in our whole life. Somebody remarkable. And when we are inhabited by God’s presence, he will make a transformational difference in our life. Because God is, he’s never hungry, he’s never dissatisfied, he’s never anxious, he’s never weak. You know, all those things that we see that we don’t want, God’s never any of those things. So when he is in charge of our life, we aren’t either. We become more like Jesus. And when he is our center, all those things that money can’t buy, become ours, love, joy, peace, right? They all flow out of us. And it’s evident that God’s presence is satisfying us. We are sitting at the table of the Father and we are loving the meal, loving the goodness, because it’s the best meal we’ve ever had. And when Jesus Christ is a center of our life, then people, they see us and they say, we want what you have. You know, the more that I give my life to Christ, the more people say that. They say, what is this thing that you have? And I say It’s Jesus. It’s not me. It’s not Kimberly, it’s Jesus. The Bible talks about this. It talks about the satisfaction we have in Jesus Christ.
And King David said in Psalm 17:15, he said, As for me, I will behold your face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied, when I wake with your likeness. Behold your face in righteousness. We talk about sanctification. We have to be constantly renewing our mind, changing ourselves to be less like the sinful person we were and more like Jesus. God said in Jeremiah Chapter 31:25, I will satisfy the weary soul. And every languishing soul I’ll replenish. That should be a song, I’ll satisfy the weary soul. And every languishing soul I will replenish. Okay? But by satisfying ourselves in God’s presence, by becoming more like Jesus, we are transformed a hundred percent.
And the thing is, we’re always being pulled back to where we came from. We’re always being pulled back to disordering our loves. We get into our job. Like today, I was working, and guess what? I started getting pulled back into my job and saying, oh, I’m going to worry about this case or that case. And what am I going to do about this? And I get worked up. And next thing I know, I’ve lost my joy. Wait, stop. Lord, you know what? You have an answer to this. This is not your way. I’m getting back to Kim’s way and I have to release it and say, Lord, I’m giving you this problem. You have a solution. And I have faith that you’re going to fix it. Now tell me what you want me to do. Because worrying it’s not going to change It. Right? And so that’s the process.
This is where the rubber meets the road, y’all. I mean, you have got to be committed to keeping God In the center. If another person, if you become infatuated with another person or obsessed with somebody who is ugly to you, or whatever the case may be, that is going to take your peace. You have got to keep God at the center of your peace. And this is my struggle. I’m not preaching this to anybody. I’m not preaching. I’m not trying to say, this is your problem. No, this is where I am. This is my problem. And I have found satisfaction in Christ. I have searched for this my whole life. And now that I have found it, I want to keep it. Because once you have the best, you never want to settle for second best. And especially not the worst, Right?
So, when I sit there and see dissatisfaction growing in my life, It’s because I know I’ve dethroned God and something else has become my passion. Whether it’s worry or fear, or, you know, money or whatever. My job. And you know, it’s pretty easy to figure out what your passion is, what you talk about most, what you think about the most. And so I’m constantly asking God, search me, try me, see if There’s any wicked way in my heart. In other words, Lord, I’m feeling anxious. There Must be something else taking your place. Please root it out. Show me what it is so I can repent and let me get rid of it now. Because I don’t want to live this way. I want to be at the Father’s table enjoying all of his goodness and sharing that with people so that every person I know hears the gospel and desires you. And I will see them someday in heaven when we have left this earth. I don’t want to see anyone, not even my worst self proclaimed enemies, whoever they are, in hell. I don’t want to see that. Especially if it’s my fault, because I didn’t share the gospel with them.
Just to kind of conclude here, I want you to remember this verse, you know, these verses out Of Psalms. When God is our first and best love, we will want to live every day in complete satisfaction. And Psalms 103:1-5 says, Bless the Lord Oh my soul and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, oh my soul. And forget not all of his benefits. Who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercy, who satisfies your mouth with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. My friend, sit at God’s table and rejoice because God is good. Our father in heaven loves us so much that he has given us every good thing, especially his presence, which is the best part of our life when we know Jesus.
We would love to hear your thoughts about this devotional. Did God speak to you or challenge your daily walk with him? Or is there a topic that you would like Kimberly to cover or expound on? Please share with us in the comments below.
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