Devotionals

When I was younger and before I knew Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, I thought that what I wanted was the most important thing in life and I pursued them at all costs. I believed that if I had what I wanted, that I would be happy and fulfilled. For years I lived under this assumption and I achieved much of what I set out to do and was successful by the world’s standards. I had a wife, friends, money, education, and a loving family. These were all things that I knew I wanted and so after I got them, I was not only utterly disappointed in how lost and hopeless I felt, I was also now confused as to why.

There is a difference I learned, between what I wanted, and what I needed. What I wanted was what the world told me would make me happy; what I needed was a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. 

I have learned that without the love of Jesus in my heart, my heart is a restless thing. I believe that God created our hearts to be filled with the love of Jesus Christ, but without that love, our hearts will strive to fill the void with whatever the world parades in front of us, and as a result it becomes increasingly restless. A heart filled with the love of Jesus Christ is a heart that is at peace because it no longer has to search; it knows it has found perfect and unfailing love. The energy it once spent in searching for love, it is now free to give.

In my life, nothing else made sense until it was filtered through the love of Jesus Christ. The love of Jesus not only fills my heart, it guides it through life toward the things that I need, not necessarily the things that I want. The more I know Jesus the more I love Him, and amazingly, miraculously, the things that I now want are often the things that I also need. That is the amazing power, mercy, love, and grace of God. He aligns our hearts with His, and then leads us in truth to salvation and everlasting life. 

I believe that God allowed me to wander as long as I did and to experience so much hopelessness and pain not because He doesn’t love me, but so that I can tell others of how wonderful and loving He is in comparison. The love of Jesus is perfect, abundant, and unfailing and is always willing to fill the heart of the person who will simply look to Him in life. He will never lead you astray, but will only lead you in His absolute truth. Jesus Christ died for our sins on a cross, not because we deserved that sacrifice, but because He loves us, and He continues to guide us as a Shepard for the same reason. Our world is full of restless hearts and the evidence to me is in much of the chaos we see around us on a daily basis. 

I pray that every heart will be reunited with the love that it was always designed to receive, the love of Jesus Christ, and from that moment on they will also have all they need.