Daily Devotion

Selection Taken From:
A Year with God by R.P. Nettelhorst

Make this the year you let God's Word "dwell in you richly"---and marvel at the results! Each entry in this 365-day devotional features Scripture verses in which God speaks, accompanied by insights and applications to enhance your understanding. Learn what God says about hope and fear; perseverance and quitting; companionship and isolation; and more! 384 pages, softcover from Nelson, Copyright 2010.


God Doesn't Think Like We Do
Come to me with your ears wide open.
Listen, and you will find life.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you.
I will give you all the unfailing love I promised to David ...
Seek the Loma while you can find him. Call on him now while he is near.
Let the wicked change their ways and banish the very thought of doing wrong.
Let them turn to the LORD that he may have mercy on them.
Yes, turn to our God, for he will forgive generously.
"My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts," says the LORD.
"And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts." - Isaiah 55:3, 6-9 NLT

Every inclination of human beings is evil all the time. It was God's primary motivation for destroying the human race in the Flood (Genesis 6:5-6). The psalmist agreed that all human beings became corrupt and there was no one who did good, not even one (Psalm 14:1-3). If you're human, you fall into that characterization by God. We do not think as God thinks; we think selfishly. We tend to think and live and behave and do what we do, whether for God or for others, because of what we think we'll get out of it.

If we do good for God and think that he must therefore do something good for us, then we do not love God. And if we think God is waiting for certain good behavior before he'll bless us, then we think God does not love us. But God does love us, and that means he is good to us no matter what! He doesn't expect anything back.

The comfort for us is that God's thoughts and ways are nothing like ours. We love those who love us. It is easy for us to be nice to those who are nice to us. But how many people are nice to those who repay evil for good, who cause them pain, who harm them? How easy is it for us to forgive? But God's ways and his thoughts are not ours. Altruism is rare. We usually love only those who love us back. We get something out of our relationships, or we wouldn't maintain them. That's how we think. It isn't how God thinks. God is concerned only with what is best for us. He forgives us and asks us to change our thinking to be like his.