Reflections – September 20, 2022

They seldom reflect on the days of their life, because God keeps them occupied with gladness of heart.
Ecclesiastes 5:20

Reflections

A question. If Satan were to get you to reflect on your life, what kinds of reflections would they be?

Reflections from Satan might include the following: I made it. I’m a success. I’ve done what I set out to do. I’m now enjoying the things that make life worth living. On the other hand, reflections from Satan might also include thoughts like these: My life is a disappointment. I should have achieved so much more. I cannot forget the people who’ve hurt me, and I cannot forget all the people I’ve let down.

Such reflections from Satan have one thing in common. They all focus on the self. They all fail to acknowledge the reality of our Savior-God.

The story of your life is not you in a vacuum. It includes your Creator-God loving you so much that he chose to mount a rescue mission to save you from yourself. To do this, God became one of us. In the person of Jesus, he lived the kind of life you know that you should have lived. Then he took upon himself all the ways you have let him down and blotted them out for all time through his blood on the cross.

And now he lives. He lives to delight in you. He delights in you because, through faith in him, you are forgiven, cleansed, precious in his sight. And because you are, he has saturated your every moment in this life with a kind of significance and purpose that nothing else can match.

You are God’s special creation through faith in his Son, Jesus. He is using every moment of your life to carry out his good will in your corner of his Kingdom. He sees your fruits of faith. He employs your fruits of faith. Regardless of your outward circumstance, what you do matters. It matters because God himself is working through you.

In Jesus, you and I can shake off the distracting reflections that Satan tries to slip us. In Jesus, God keeps us occupied with gladness of heart.

Prayer:
Lord, when Satan slips his reflections into my mind, replace them with gladness of heart in you. Amen.