Braden Condray, Author at Devotionals

Daily Devotional-July 1

July 1, 2020

For the next 15 days we will be reading through the Psalms of Ascent together as a church! The Psalms of Ascent are a collection of 15 psalms (Psalms 120-134) that pilgrims would sing on their way up to Jerusalem to worship. These songs are meant to instruct and prepare the hearts of the traveler to worship the Lord! As sojourners and aliens in this world, we too need to have our hearts prepared for and instructed in the worship of our God. Let’s meditate on these psalms and allow the Spirit of the Lord to move us to true worship as we seek Him together!

If Psalm 120 is a song of departure, this is a song of arrival! The pilgrim recalls his gladness when his companions invited him to come to Jerusalem to worship with them, and now he celebrates that the long journey is over and they have arrived! He marvels at the beauty of the city and prays for the peace and the unity which exist there to continue and to increase.

This psalm is a reminder of the great joy, blessing, and gift that is corporate worship. The psalmist cannot contain his joy and wonder at having arrived in the city where God dwells among His people, at having arrived to worship the Lord! There is a peculiar beauty, glory, and hopefulness when God’s people gather together to worship Him.

If this was true of the nation of Israel, how much more is it true of the church! There is a very real glory which is so easy to miss when we gather together in the name of Jesus to give Him praise! The Lord is present with us in a special way when we come together to worship.

The psalm makes it clear that we are to pray for the peace of God’s dwelling place, both for the sake of God’s presence and glory and for the sake of our fellow believers (v.8-9). During this season of not being able to gather together, let us not neglect to pray for our church. Let us earnestly desire to meet together face-to-face again, and let us seek each other’s good for the sake of the Lord!

Psalm 122

Let Us Go to the House of the Lord

A Song of Ascents. Of David.

122 I was glad when they said to me,
“Let us go to the house of the Lord!”
²Our feet have been standing
within your gates, O Jerusalem!

³Jerusalem—built as a city
    that is bound firmly together,
⁴to which the tribes go up,
    the tribes of the Lord,
as was decreed for Israel,
    to give thanks to the name of the Lord.
⁵There thrones for judgment were set,
    the thrones of the house of David.

⁶Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!
    “May they be secure who love you!
⁷Peace be within your walls
    and security within your towers!”
⁸For my brothers and companions’ sake
    I will say, “Peace be within you!”
⁹For the sake of the house of the Lord our God,
    I will seek your good.

Family Discussion Question:

What are some ways you can be praying for the church in general or for specific people within the church right now? How can you be someone who seeks the good of your brothers and sisters in Christ during this time?

Devotional

Daily Devotional-June 30

June 30, 2020

This psalm is a song of confidence in the provision and protection of the Lord as the pilgrim makes his way to Jerusalem to worship. The traveler was discontent with the brokenness, deceit, and hostility which surrounded him in Psalm 120, and yearned to go and be in the presence of God; now he expresses his confidence in the Lord to protect him from the dangers of the road as he journeys to Jerusalem!

He begins with looking up to the hills. The hilltops were the so-called “high places” where idols were worshipped in the land of Canaan. As the pilgrim looks around at these places of idolatry, he remembers that his help does not come from a mere statue made of wood or metal, but from the Lord who made heaven and earth!

The pilgrim’s confidence in God’s protection and provision as he makes his way to Jerusalem is based in God’s character and faithfulness. God’s providence for His faithful ones is absolute because His authority and power are absolute. The Lord’s watchfulness over His people never failing and His care extends to even the smallest details; the pilgrim expresses confidence that the Lord would not even let him so much as lose his footing on his way to worship Him (v.3)!

As we travel through this life to our final destination, where we will be with God and worship Him forever, we can have this same confidence. The dangers and hardships that we face along the way are very real, but, because of what Jesus has done for us, we have been made sons and daughters of the living God, and we can entrust ourselves and every area of our lives over to His perfect, wise, and loving care!

Psalm 121

My Help Comes from the Lord

A Song of Ascents.

121 I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
²My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.

³He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
⁴Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
⁶The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.

⁷The Lord will keep you from all evil;
    he will keep your life.
⁸The Lord will keep
    your going out and your coming in
    from this time forth and forevermore.

Family Discussion Question:

The psalmist expresses his confidence in God over the idols that the people worshipped on the hilltops (v.1-2). What are some things that we tend to place our confidence over and above God? How can we act to place our confidence, trust, and hope where they should rest, in the Lord?

Devotional

Daily Devotional-June 29

June 29, 2020

As the first psalm in this collection, this psalm is a sort of “leaving song”, representing the beginning of the pilgrim’s journey to Jerusalem! The psalmist recalls the past faithfulness of the Lord as an encouragement to cry out to Him once more, and then launches into a lament of his present circumstances. He mourns that he is surrounded by a culture filled with lies and deceit, that he is living among people who love war and violence rather than among the people of God!

As a beginning to our journey through the Psalms of Ascent, this psalm represents for us a discontentment with the brokenness of the world we see around us. We see death and disease, loneliness and heartache, corruption and injustice, and we long for something greater, something better, an environment of peace and wholeness!

What we long for, just like the psalmist, is to worship the Lord, to be in His presence and among His people. The psalmist longs to remove himself from among the wicked and to join the congregation of the righteous worshippers in Jerusalem; we long to remove ourselves from the world and culture which surround us and join with the body of Christ to worship Him together!

We feel this perhaps more keenly than ever before right now in our present circumstances. Injustice, evil, and brokenness are so evident all around us, and yet, because we are experiencing a pandemic, we are unable to gather together with our brothers and sisters to worship the Lord and to receive mutual upbuilding and encouragement. This should cause us to lament!

As we endure with patience and hope everything that life is throwing at us right now, let’s remember that, one day, the yearnings of our hearts to exit this broken world and be in a place where peace and justice reign will be finally and fully satisfied, and let’s do everything in our power to see that become a reality in the here and now, to see God’s kingdom advance in the world!

Psalm 120

Deliver Me, O Lord

A Song of Ascents.

120 In my distress I called to the Lord,
    and he answered me.
²Deliver me, O Lord,
    from lying lips,
    from a deceitful tongue.

³What shall be given to you,
    and what more shall be done to you,
    you deceitful tongue?
⁴A warrior’s sharp arrows,
    with glowing coals of the broom tree!

⁵Woe to me, that I sojourn in Meshech,
    that I dwell among the tents of Kedar!
⁶Too long have I had my dwelling
    among those who hate peace.
⁷I am for peace,
    but when I speak, they are for war!

Family Discussion Question:

How does the brokenness of the world around us move us to seek God and His kingdom? What are some ways we can do that this week?

Devotional

Daily Devotional-June 28

June 28, 2020

We are going to spend the next two weeks together as a church reading Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount! The Sermon on the Mount is the first of Jesus’ major teachings recorded in the gospel of Matthew. In it, Jesus explains the ethics and values of the kingdom of Heaven as opposed to the ethics and values of the world. The values and principles that are to govern our lives as followers of Jesus and citizens of the kingdom of Heaven are wildly different from those that govern the various cultures of our world, including the culture in which we live.

Over the next two weeks, allow the words of the Lord Jesus to challenge the way you think, expose the worldly and idolatrous values and desires of your heart, and transform you to live in the new way that He has laid before us!

In the concluding portion of His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus continues the pattern He has set of setting two contrasting ways or people before His audience. First it was the wide gate and the narrow gate, then the good tree and the bad tree, and now it is those who hear His words and obey them and those who only hear but do not obey. Jesus is setting two ways before us: the way of being a hearer only, and the way of being a hearer and a doer.

What Jesus is saying here is that building our lives on the strong foundation means building our lives around obeying His commandments, living His way. The way of surrender to Jesus is the way of wisdom, and it is only in learning to obey Him that we can have confidence when facing that storms which come our way in life. If we build our lives on any foundation other than obedience to Jesus, we shouldn’t expect them to hold up under the weight of what the world throws at us.

The final verses in this chapter record how the people who heard Him were astonished because of the authority with which Jesus taught. Let us surrender unconditionally to the authority of Jesus, and not be merely hearers of His word but doers!

Matthew 7:24-29

Build Your House on the Rock

²⁴“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. ²⁶And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. ²⁷And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

The Authority of Jesus

²⁸And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, ²⁹for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.

Family Discussion Question:

How does making obedience to Jesus the foundation we build our lives on help us to stand firm in the midst of life’s hardships and struggles? What might be some other things we try to build our lives on, and how does God want us to surrender those things to His authority?

Devotional

Daily Devotional-June 27

June 27, 2020

In this passage Jesus gives His followers two warnings: we are to vigilantly guard against false prophets or teachers, and we are to carefully examine our own lives and hearts. Jesus’ teaching in v.15-20 is an extension of His teaching in v.1-6. As His followers, we cannot have self-righteous and hypocritical attitudes towards others, but, with a healthy acknowledgment of our own sin and need for grace, we must examine what fruit is being borne in the life of one who claims to teach the truth about God.

We must be careful what voices we are allowing into our lives to influence us; Jesus warns us here that there willbe many false prophets who will come to us “in sheep’s clothing”, when “inwardly [they] are ravenous wolves”. We must gauge what we hear taught against the truth of God’s Word, and we must look carefully at the kind of life such a teacher is leading to determine whether or not they are true.

Jesus’ next teaching is one of the most sobering, terrifying passages in Scripture. It is possible to call Jesus “Lord”, to say all the right things and to affirm the right set of beliefs, but not be truly saved. The determining factor here is clear: while obedience is not what saves us, those who have truly been changed and transformed by the Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus always live changed and transformed lives of obedience.

The primary indicator of true, saving faith is a life of holiness and obedience to God’s commands, a life characterized by submission to the will of God, and without that obedience and submission to God’s will there is no evidence of true faith. May our lives be characterized not only by referring to Jesus as “Lord”, but by submitting to Him as Lord!

Matthew 7:15-23

A Tree and Its Fruit

¹⁵“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. ¹⁶You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? ¹⁷So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. ¹⁸A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. ¹⁹Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

I Never Knew You

²¹“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. ²²On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ ²³And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Family Discussion Question:

Can you have Jesus be your Savior without submitting to Him as your Lord? What can we do to surrender more fully to His authority?

Devotional

Daily Devotional-June 26

June 26, 2020

In the first part of this passage Jesus encourages us to pray with faith, with great confidence that God will do what is best for us. Jesus compares God to an earthly father who, though he loves his children and wants the best for them, is still marred and corrupted by sin. The heavenly Father is not corrupted by sin and always does what is best for His children; we can and should present our requests to Him with boldness and trust Him with absolute confidence!

In verse 12 Jesus gives us “the golden rule” and tells us that to put this into practice is to fulfill the Law and the Prophets. When we truly do for others as we would have them do for us, we cannot possibly contradict the principles of God’s Word!

Finally, Jesus warns us of how difficult the way which leads to life is and how few actually find it. The way of the world is easy and comfortable, and it is so easy to be deceived into believing that it is actually the right way. Jesus calls us to walk in the commands and principles He has been outlining throughout this sermon, to have our lives be characterized by self-denial, radical integrity, and selfless love and service towards others. In the end, Jesus calls us to follow Him in His death (Matthew 16:24-25), so that we might also participate in His life!

We know that, ultimately, Jesus is the only way to life (John 14:6). Jesus is the narrow gate by which we enter into life, the only place where true life can be found. He calls us to walk the narrow and difficult road, but in the end we get Him, and there is no greater prize!

Matthew 7:7-14

Ask, and It Will Be Given

⁷“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ⁸For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. ⁹Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? ¹¹If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

The Golden Rule

¹²“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

¹³“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. ¹⁴For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Family Discussion Question:

How can death actually be the pathway to life? What does it look like for us to walk the “narrow path” which Jesus calls us to on a day-to-day basis?

Devotional

Daily Devotional-June 25

June 25, 2020

Jesus’ statement “Judge not, that you be not judged” is one of the most misused and abused verses of Scripture in the entire Bible! Those of the world, as well as many within the church, take that verse and understand it to mean that we are not to judge the actions of another person; their choices are their choices, and who are we to judge them? After all, we’re sinners too, right?

What Jesus is saying is not that we are to withhold all evaluation towards the actions of others, but that we are not to evaluate them with undue harshness, with a prideful, self-righteous attitude towards them. Jesus says that “with the measure you use it will be measured to you”: what Jesus is warning us about here is that the same standard we use for judging the actions of others will also be used to judge our actions, so we had better take a good, long look at our own hearts before we pronounce judgment on anyone else!

Jesus is, once again, going after the hearts of His audience here, warning them against hypocritical, self-righteous attitudes towards others. He tells us that we are to judge the actions of others, but only in order to help them in their journey towards holiness and only after we have come to terms with the reality of our own brokenness and sin!

Jesus calls us to recognize that, apart from the mercies of God, we are in the exact same boat as every other sinner on the planet. We have nothing and are nothing apart from him, so we have nothing in ourselves to feel prideful or self-righteous about! We are called to humble ourselves before the Lord and before others, acknowledging the reality of our inadequacy and sin; only then are we in the right position to help others in their struggle!

Matthew 7:1-6

Judging Others

7 “Judge not, that you be not judged. ²For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. ³Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? ⁴Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? ⁵You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

⁶“Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.

Family Discussion Question:

Why is this passage so often misinterpreted? How does a humble acknowledgment of our own need for God’s grace free us to help others experience it?

Devotional

Daily Devotional-June 24

June 24, 2020

In this passage Jesus continues his teaching from verses 19-14 concerning how we must seek things of eternal value rather than earthly things. Here He confronts us in our anxieties and commands us to focus our attention on the kingdom!

Anxiety, worry, and fear run rampant in the world around us, especially in a season such as the one we face now. With COVID-19 and the fallout from it, either you or someone you know is likely facing hardship: the loss of a job, the loss of a loved one, fear of sickness or death, the inability to be with the ones we love due to quarantine, relational strife within families because of quarantine, loneliness…the list goes on and on. It is so easy and so natural for us to look around at the situation and be crippled by fear, overwhelmed with anxiety by the sheer weight of what is going on around us.

We cannot minimize or trivialize what people all around us, and we ourselves, are going through, and Jesus doesn’t call us to. But Jesus does call His people, those who would follow after Him and call Him Lord, to respond to these situations differently than the world does!

While the world remains bound up in anxiety, wondering if they are going to make it or if everything is going to be okay, Jesus calls His followers to entrust themselves to the sovereign care and love and faithfulness of the Father. He commands that we refuse to give anxiety a foothold. Rather than seeking after the things of the world that might give us some temporary comfort, Jesus calls us to seek God, His kingdom, and His righteousness above all.

When we make pursuing God and His purposes our first priority, Jesus promises that we will have what we need. Let’s trust in this promise and in His power to make good on it!

Matthew 6:25-34

Do Not Be Anxious

²⁵“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? ²⁸And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ³⁰But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³²For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. ³³But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

³⁴“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Family Discussion Question:

What does it mean to “seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness”? How does seeking God above all put our anxieties to rest?

Devotional

Daily Devotional-June 23

June 23, 2020

In this passage Jesus is telling us how we should spend our time, devotion, and energy: not striving to attain more stuff, more money, more temporary and fleeting things of earth, but striving to pile up for ourselves treasure in heaven! Jesus is calling us here to set our minds and hearts on eternity.

Jesus’ illustration about the eye being the lamp of the body means that how we see things determines the health of our lives overall. If we see rightly, from an eternal perspective, we will lead healthy, full lives; if our perception of life and the world is that it’s all about the here and now, acquiring as much stuff as possible before we die, our lives will be full of darkness.

Again Jesus uses an illustration to get his point across, concluding that we cannot serve both God and money. We cannot seek to lay up treasures for ourselves on earth and seek the kingdom of heaven; it will be one or the other.

Jesus says that where our treasure is, our hearts will be also. When we see things rightly, perceiving clearly, we will lay up treasure for ourselves in heaven; when we do not, we will try to get what we can get in this life. When God becomes the supreme treasure of our hearts, the thing we desire above all, we see the rest of life clearly, our lives are full of light, and we will spend our time and energy pursuing the things of eternity!

Matthew 6:19-24

Lay Up Treasures in Heaven

¹⁹“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, ²⁰but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

²²“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, ²³but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

²⁴“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

Family Discussion Question:

What does it mean for God to be our supreme treasure, for God to be what we value and pursue above everything else? What are some ways we can make sure we are treasuring and pursuing Him this week?

Devotional

Daily Devotional-June 22

June 22, 2020

In this passage Jesus continues to give instructions to His followers which expose their hearts. There is a lot there in this passage that we could hone in on, but the overall thrust of the passage is this pattern we see where Jesus warns his followers against “practicing your righteousness before people in order to be seen by them” (v.1). Doing so forfeits the reward that the Father extends towards the righteous!

There are three areas of life that Jesus addresses here: giving to the needy, prayer, and fasting. In each of these areas, Jesus instructs His followers that they “must not be like the hypocrites” (v.5). The religious leaders of the day practiced these righteous acts in very public ways in order to draw attention to themselves, to make themselves look very pious and religious. Jesus assures His audience here that the attention they get from doing these acts is the only reward they will receive!

Instead, Jesus says, these acts should be done in ways that are inconspicuous. The issue here is that, while it is very easy to get caught up in an act that is outwardly righteous, God sees through our religious façade to the heart and motivation behind our actions. It is very possible for us to come to church on Sunday, raise our hands in worship, amen the preacher, and look like the “put together”, outwardly religious person, but God knows what is really happening in our hearts; there is no hiding from him.

What we do in secret, when nobody else is watching, is what truly reveals who we are and what is in our hearts. When we choose to do acts of righteousness in ways that are not attention seeking, where only God will ever know we did them, it shows that our hearts are motivated, not by seeking glory from people, but by the glory of God!

Matthew 6:1-18

Giving to the Needy

6 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.

²“Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. ³But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, ⁴so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

The Lord’s Prayer

⁵“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. ⁶But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

⁷“And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. ⁸Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. ⁹Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
¹⁰Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.
¹¹Give us this day our daily bread,
¹²and forgive us our debts,
    as we also have forgiven our debtors.
¹³And lead us not into temptation,
    but deliver us from evil.

¹⁴For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, ¹⁵but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Fasting

¹⁶“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. ¹⁷But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face,¹⁸that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Family Discussion Question:

Jesus told us in chapter five to “let you light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:16). How can Jesus then turn around and tell us to perform our righteous deeds in secret? What does He mean by this?