Whole Hearted Devotion

by Benjamin Burke

I’m a kid, so I hate nighttime. It’s a waste of twelve hours for me. My family and I were listing to a sermon by Mike Bickle and, as he was talking, I just thought that so many Christians want the day and not the night. What I mean by that is so many Christians want God’s blessing and not have to sacrifice for Him. We have to want the full day. We have to take the good things, and the bad things. God challenges us by allowing pain, physically and emotionally. For example, Job had a pretty good life. A wife, kids, livestock, all these good things and God takes it all away. Everything; and yet, through all the pain and the sorrow, Job stayed true to God and trusted God to help him. Not only did He restore it, but He restored it 100 fold, all because Job had faith and took the day and the night.

God also challenges us to do things that might hurt ourselves and other around us. Abraham had waited for years and years to have a son, and finally God had given him a child. Then God turned around and told Abraham to sacrifice his son. And Abraham did it. He obeyed God. And do you know what God said when Isaac was laying on the alter? “And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” And God blessed him. Both Job and Abraham took the day and night and were blessed because of it. Only the day doesn’t get you the blessing, take it all and you’ll be better off.