Daily Devotional

Filling Up the Train

to Heaven
DECEMBER 15, 2020
“When Megan hears that God wants her to have a Bible Reading: 2 Peter 3:9-16
healthy self-image, she wants to wiggle away. “I’m
really not interested in hearing how special God
THE LORD . . . DOES NOT
thinks I am,” she protests. “I don’t want to see
WANT ANYONE TO
myself that way. People who focus on themselves
PERISH, SO HE IS GIVING
end up totally selfish. I can’t see how thinking MORE TIME FOR
about myself helps me glorify God and show the EVERYONE TO REPENT.
world how great he is. 2 PETER 3:9

”Talk about it: Is Megan right or wrong? Does

knowing that God thinks you’re special make you
a spoiled brat?

Pssst. I have to disagree with Megan. God wants

you to see yourself like he sees you—lovable,
valuable, and capable.
But why would God want you to think that way? Is it just to
make you feel warm and fuzzy? Could he possibly want to
feed your selfish side? No and double no. God wants you
totally convinced that you are lovable, valuable, and capable
because he has a gargantuan reason for fixing your faulty self-
image. He has work for you to do.
You might not realize that you’re God’s gift to the world. But
you didn’t really think God just put us here to take up space,
did you? He could have zoomed us straight to heaven the
moment we trusted Christ. The fact that he chooses to have
us hang around on earth even after we belong to him proves
that we have a real reason for being here.
So what’s our purpose in life? I like how one young guy
answered that question. “My purpose in life,” he said with fire
in his eyes, “is to go to heaven and take as many people with
me as I can.
”I hope you have the same burning desire to be part of God’s
big plan to rescue the world. When you are sure that God
created everyone in his image and sent Christ to die for
everyone, you want to share his love with others. And when
you realize that you too are lovable, valuable, and capable,
suddenly you give your time to help with God’s work from a
heart jammed with the love of Jesus.
You may say, “If the whole reason I’m here is to lead people to
Jesus, then I’m a rotten failure. Hardly anyone—no, make that
no one—has come to Christ because of me.” That might be
true. But it’s also likely to be true that as you keep growing, a
bunch of people are on their way to trusting Christ because of
who you are in Christ and how you love them!
Millennium Christian Academy