(taken from The Daily Hope by Rick Warren)
Do you ever have that feeling that something is missing in your life, but you don’t know what it is? Maybe there’s a longing in your heart, and you feel disconnected from God.
The answer is simple: “[Y]our iniquities (your sins) have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2 NIV).
If you feel like God is a million miles away, guess who moved? God didn’t move; you did.
When you live on earth, you will sense a disconnection from God, where you feel he is far away. This disconnect leaves a hole in your heart that nothing else can fill. A lot of people look for ways to fill that hole, but they look in the wrong places. Why? Because they don’t know they should be looking for God. In today’s verse, Job described it as being like someone lost in the desert searching for water.
You want something to fill the emptiness, to satisfy the unmet desire. You try to quench that unquenchable thirst. But the longer you continue to look in the wrong places, the more darkness will increase in your life until you get to a place like the one the Bible describes: “They’ve refused for so long to deal with God that they’ve lost touch not only with God but with reality itself” (Ephesians 4:18 MSG).
This darkness is easy to see everywhere you look; in schools, in businesses, in government, in Hollywood — in every area of society, there are people who have lost touch not only with God, but also with reality.
Instead of identifying sin and hating it the way God does, our society laughs at it. It’s popular to make fun of sin. Listen to just about any comedian’s routine, and there will be jokes that make fun of sin. It’s no big deal for someone to cheat on his wife or take drugs or do something illegal. And on top of that, there will be jokes that make fun of people who try to do the right thing. People think it is all good comedy, right?
But when you get closer to God, his light reveals what sin really does. It creates natural disasters and deformities, physical decay and death, emotional distress and disappointment, relational distance and discord, financial difficulties, and spiritual disconnect. That’s no laughing matter.
Ask God to show you if there are things in your life that you are using to fill the hole in your heart that only he can fill.
Saddleback Resources offers a small group Bible study related to these devotionals: The Invisible War-Winning the Battle of Temptation.
© Copyright 2011 Rick Warren. Used by permission.
“I am like a caravan, lost in the desert searching for water.” (Job 6:18 CEV)
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The answer is simple: “[Y]our iniquities (your sins) have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2 NIV).
If you feel like God is a million miles away, guess who moved? God didn’t move; you did.
When you live on earth, you will sense a disconnection from God, where you feel he is far away. This disconnect leaves a hole in your heart that nothing else can fill. A lot of people look for ways to fill that hole, but they look in the wrong places. Why? Because they don’t know they should be looking for God. In today’s verse, Job described it as being like someone lost in the desert searching for water.
You want something to fill the emptiness, to satisfy the unmet desire. You try to quench that unquenchable thirst. But the longer you continue to look in the wrong places, the more darkness will increase in your life until you get to a place like the one the Bible describes: “They’ve refused for so long to deal with God that they’ve lost touch not only with God but with reality itself” (Ephesians 4:18 MSG).
This darkness is easy to see everywhere you look; in schools, in businesses, in government, in Hollywood — in every area of society, there are people who have lost touch not only with God, but also with reality.
Instead of identifying sin and hating it the way God does, our society laughs at it. It’s popular to make fun of sin. Listen to just about any comedian’s routine, and there will be jokes that make fun of sin. It’s no big deal for someone to cheat on his wife or take drugs or do something illegal. And on top of that, there will be jokes that make fun of people who try to do the right thing. People think it is all good comedy, right?
But when you get closer to God, his light reveals what sin really does. It creates natural disasters and deformities, physical decay and death, emotional distress and disappointment, relational distance and discord, financial difficulties, and spiritual disconnect. That’s no laughing matter.
Ask God to show you if there are things in your life that you are using to fill the hole in your heart that only he can fill.
Saddleback Resources offers a small group Bible study related to these devotionals: The Invisible War-Winning the Battle of Temptation.
© Copyright 2011 Rick Warren. Used by permission.
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