Human: An 11-Day Devotional by Mosaic MSCSample

  

CLOSE TO YOU 

“I do not hide your righteousness in my heart; I speak of your faithfulness and your saving help. I do not conceal your love and your faithfulness from the great assembly.”

Psalms 40:10 NIV

You’ve been faithful over and over

I will trust you over and over

In Psalm 40, David is able to cry out to the Lord openly and bluntly:

“Do not withhold your mercy from me, Lord; may your love and faithfulness always protect me. For troubles without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails within me.”

Psalms 40:11-12 NIV

The fear, anxiety, and shame are so palpable in this verse and I wish I didn’t relate to it so much. One minute life is amazing and we are flying high off of what we feel we’ve accomplished, and then *Boom*. One thing goes wrong which then derails 12 other things that we were certain we had perfectly lined up.

In Close to You the plea is to Jesus, who is always ready and willing to join forces with us. He knows about our shortcomings, our bad habits, and what we’ve failed at. But more importantly, He also knows about our good intentions and how far we have come as we strive to stay close to Him.

He still wants to sit with us. He still wants to join hearts with us. He still wants to be close to us.  That kind of love can be overwhelming, but that is how Jesus loves us. We can trust that he, though well acquainted with our darkness, is only concerned with cultivating our light.

Now, I can’t think of a better reason to sing! As Psalm 40 (David) alludes to constantly, “He puts a new song in my mouth.” We sing praise because of what He’s already done. There is nothing in or of Jesus that He wouldn’t lend you to make sure you know how loved you are. He is so faithful that it will cause a super bloom of goodness and will overflow into the world around you. We have permission to be confident in His faithfulness.

 

ACTION

It can be so easy for us to extend grace to our friends, family and even strangers who beat themselves up about how they have fallen short. That is Jesus working in us. Let’s also make time to be close to Jesus and ask Him how we can extend to ourselves the grace that He extends to us. Our confidence in His faithfulness will only grow stronger. Pull in a friend that you trust to do this with you, and may our confidence in Jesus fortify together.

 

PRAYER

Jesus, I thank you for seeing and loving all of me. The praise will rise from my lungs every time I perceive how you use what looks like a deficit in me as an ingredient to make something beautiful. I pray that I will always remember to invite you to sit, stand or kneel close to me, and I praise you for always being around me, even when I try to leave you out. Your faithfulness abounds and I’m forever grateful for the way your love holds me together. Hallelujah!