Dev4GamersDevotions for Real People, for Real Gamers!

Romans 8:38-39 (Holman Christian Standard Bible)
38For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will have the power to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!

Just one more try, one more push.  I am so close to my goal that I am not about to give up now!  So what if its 2 am?  I have nearly got it!

The typical gamer is known by their ability to push themselves to reach the goals they have, or reach the end of a level, or strive to do the best.  It is a quality that shows the vital differences between those who are wired to be gamers and those who are not.  Neither person is right or wrong, they simply approach things from a different viewpoint.

A person with the “gamer” gene, lets call it for lack of a better word, will strive to reach a goal in the game.  Perhaps they are close to reaching max level in wow.  Perhaps they have one more checkpoint to get to in a FPS, or perhaps they just want to go one more level of Mrs. Packman?  It does not matter the time and effort put into it, as long as they reach that goal.

As hard as a gamer will push to a goal and shut the world out to them until they reach it they will never show as much dedication and love for what they are doing than God.

In Romans, Paul shows us how much God loves us, how much He loves you.  Nothing will stand in his way of His great love for you.  No one can match the achievement boards as long as God is around, for He loved us so much that He sent us Jesus, the way and the truth.

God loves you more than you know, He gave His Son for you to spend eternity with Him in heaven.

How bad to you want to reach that goal?

1 John 2:1-2
1 My little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ the righteous One. 2 He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world. (HCSB)

Words can be fun. For the longest time our youngest daughter Rachel would get onto Tanya, Bethany and myself for using an expanded vocabulary in seemingly everyday normal life. We have never used words to make us sound like we are more than we are, but being that our life has taken us to some wonderful places and experiences our word banks had grown from what they where when we were younger.

When I was in college in the south I remember hearing some . . strange vocabulary as well. But most of the time it consisted of modifying a word or dropping an ending off of a word. It took me nearly 6 months to figure out that Barvoul was actually the name of the city next to us, Barberville.

When we come across a fancy or strange word in the Bible we can sometimes get stumped or try to gloss over it. Propitiation is one of those words. Who, outside of Bible college and church, uses the word PROPITIATION? No one, that’s who. So what does it mean and why is it important?

To boil it down to the simplest elements, propitiation means, atoning sacrifice. I know, atoning is not used very much as well but we will run with it.

John says in this passage that he hopes that we would not sin, but if we do we have an advocate, someone to speak on our behalf. His qualifications to speak for us, and take the wrap for us is that he died for us. Propitiation!

Jesus is able to stand before the Father in our place because of His love for us, that love lead Him to die for us. That right there is pure win and awesome.

Genesis 2:1-3
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. (ESV)

So this week marks the beginning of the countdown to rest. I gave my two week notice at the job I have been working for over 7 months in order to focus energy on our new church plant, Redeemed Point. Already some have sent me text messages and facebook comments as to what I will be doing now. Many of which I have not been able to answer because of . . . time.

When God created everything around us, the land, sea, sky, animals, matter, he did something that would seem out of place for God; He rested. Did God need this rest? No, he is God after all, but what he did want to do is set an example for his creation.

When our day gets so busy that we have to juggle who and what gets attention from us it is time to stop, sit down, take a breath and put things into perspective.

Your mental health, family health, and enjoyment of life will be so much grater if we will do this. That last piece of Tier 9 armor can wait, you DON’T have to run one more heroic instance that leads to another and another all the time while you neglect spending time with Him.

So why a 2 week notice? Because 4 years of cave dwelling and not having time for Him is FAR to long!