Devotions for the Hungry HeartSample

Title: A Hungry Heart is Celebrating

Devotional Content:

Heads up, all you do-it-yourselfers and HGTV fans: before y’all commit to any size home remodeling project, it would behoove you to refresh yourselves on the three stages of any home improvement plan.

I refer to them as: “Let’s do it!” “Why are we doing it?” and “We did it!”

My man and I have just finished making over our master bedroom and bathroom, so this is fresh experience speaking. For a while, it seemed we might never get out of stage two. It was hard enough to remember why we were doing it when mortar dust started blanketing everything in sight, despite the sheets of plastic that were supposed to contain it to one room, but our enthusiasm took a direct hit the day the water pipe was accidentally busted. You don’t get this type of information from Algebra I, but trust me, water plus mortar equals mud—concrete mud.

To make it even more fun, it so happened that I was coming and going to various speaking engagements during those long weeks of remodeling. This means beloved Hubby and our contractor, who had now become one of the family, were asking me questions over the phone that were way above my pay grade. (That’s okay. I may have asked Mr. Contractor his opinion a couple times during it all, too. “Hey Ronnie, should I wear the black boots with this outfit or the brown?”)

Glory hallelujah, stage three finally arrived. We did it! Stage two may have been ugly, but when we survey the finished project today, we are very pleased with what we see. As believers, you and I are kind of like stage two. We’re works in progress, amen? It’s why I take great comfort from Philippians 1:6, “I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”

But can I tell you what truly astounds me? It’s knowing that even as Jesus is completing the good work He has begun in us, His Father and ours is already pleased with what He sees in us, and it’s all because of Jesus.

I know! It’s crazy good, but let us celebrate the amazing truth that God looks upon us with pleasure because He sees the finished work of Christ. I can almost hear the two of them now, surveying the work of the cross and announcing with joy, “We did it!”

His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor his delight in the legs of the warrior; the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love. PSALM 147:10–11