- He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. Ecclesiastes 3:11 – For us readers who are hoping Solomon will just look to the God we know he knows about, this is a positive verse. Solomon acknowledges there is a God and this God created all that there is. We see that Solomon even acknowledges that eternity, something beyond this life, is there for God put this eternal nature and eternal desire within man. Yet Solomon then says that while we have this eternal nature, we don’t fully understand it and can’t even find the fullness of understanding. What Solomon is saying is true, we have an eternal nature and we are called to know this eternal God, but in this life we are limited in what we can understand and find about eternity and this eternal God. The path then we are on is split, continue after trying to understand this eternal God as much as we can in this life, or give up even trying and just enjoy what this eternal life has to offer. Sadly we see the direction Solomon takes is the path of least resistance. He settles that while eternity is real, its unknowable like he wants to know it, so he would seek to “know” all there is in this world instead. This same split in the path is in front of each of us today. No, we will never in this life be able to fully understand the complexities of eternity nor our eternal God, and we could use that as our reasoning to not pursue the Lord. Or we can choose to know all that we can know in this life about God and find ourselves on a path of discovery that will last into eternity. Choose what you want to know. Do you what to know this world well or do you want to know Jesus well? I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 3388
- I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man. Ecclesiastes3:12-13 – We have another verse much like the one we covered yesterday in our passage today. This one though has a different direction it’s leading us. Yesterday it spoke on the pointlessness of life without God and there’s nothing better in this world than the temporary pleasures it gives. Here we have scripture speaking on the life of a follower of God. That there is nothing better for us to do than to be joyful and use our God given blessings to do good. We also have God saying He wants us to enjoy the blessings He gives us in this life. We have two verses saying much the same words but meaning different things. Pursue the world and take what pleasure you can because that’s all you’ll get or pursue God, find a purpose and way to use what you’ve been given, and freely enjoy the blessings of God without shame. See pursuing God isn’t the path that is absent of joy, it’s the path of following anything else that leaves you empty. Don’t be deceived by our enemy’s ways, this life with God is better than anything else out there. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 837
- For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 – Know God has a reason for the time you’re in right now. Maybe the time for you currently is one of those not so favorable ones spoken about. Know God has a plan for you in it, through it, and after it. Trust He also has a time planned for you past the current season you’re in. If He brought you into this time know He plans to walk with you through it too. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 1659
- For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? Ecclesiastes 3:19-21 – Do we have here scripture pointing out to us that in life there is truly no difference between us and anything else on earth? That we die, animals die, trees dies, grasses die, and we all end up as dust with nothing to look forward to. Just a straight reading of this passage I can easily see where that way of thinking could come about, but we must remember the way of thinking the writer was in at this time. As a commentator put it, he was in his “under the sun thinking.” Meaning the writer in this moment had his eyes only on what was right in front of him, not focused on the beauty of God and the grander of what God has in store for those who believe in Him. Think a teenager who just got broken up with and they are saying “My life is over and there is no point to anything anymore!” Is that statement true? Of course not. Do they believe it? In that moment, yes, because their eyes are just focused on what was right in front of them, not the bigness of God in this situation. When your mind begins to be consumed with the pointlessnesses of this life and all you see is vanity like see being spoken about in this book, make sure you pause to think about and look deeply at the person of Jesus. Outside of Him is pointlessness, but in Him is the point of everything. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 1993
Daily DEVO 