Seasons

“While the earth remains,

seedtime and harvest,

cold and heat, winter and

summer, and day and night

shall not cease.”

     Genesis 8:22 (NKJV)

“Jesus Christ is the same

yesterday, tomorrow,

and forever.”

    Hebrews 13:8 (NKJV)

I saw a church sign near the Eagan office today and it said: “Seasons change, God does not.”  It made me smile because it’s true. 

Here in Minnesota, we’re in the midst of fall with beautiful colored leaves, cooler temperatures and shortening days.  I do love the changing seasons.  But I love even more the fact that our God does not change.  He is eternal, beyond time and beyond the seasons He creates.  Our Savior Jesus Christ is always the same--yesterday, tomorrow and forever.  That stability is a great comfort, knowing that He is our solid Rock.

I also take comfort in knowing that God made the seasons to give order to our lives, to provide a rhythm to the days and months.  “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)  Almighty God is sovereign and His gracious hand ordains the seasons in our calendars and the seasons in our lives. 

As you’re out raking leaves or enjoying a walk in the sweater-weather, take a moment to thank God for His beautiful work in the seasons and praise Him for His unchanging character. 

Thursday Devotional - Times of Waiting

What are we to do while we wait on God’s answers and/or His timing?

As we saw last week, Jesus (just before His ascension) told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they had received the Holy Spirit. However, he didn’t tell them where to wait, what to do in the meantime or how long the wait would be.  

Acts 1:12-14  ¹² Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk from the city. ¹³ When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. ¹⁴ They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.

In obedience to Jesus, the disciples waited in Jerusalem. They did the best thing they could do while waiting – they prayed! Maybe they prayed for patience, guidance and next steps. God did give them patience to wait and not run ahead! It appears He also guided their immediate next step - to get organized (as they prayerfully replaced Judas (Acts 1:15-26)).

God provides guidance while waiting.

As Joe and I prayed and waited for God’s answers about children, He helped us continue what He had already called us to do - responsibilities at church and in our community, BSF leadership, etc.

Where else do you and I need to trust God’s intentions and purposes, while waiting on His answers and timing? What instruction do you and I need to follow, even though we don’t know or understand what’s next?

Let’s be prayerful as we wait and listen carefully for His guidance on the next small step.  

Alice

A Fool Already Knows

Stop deceiving yourselves. If you think you are wise by this world’s standards, you need to become a fool to be truly wise.  For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As the Scriptures say,

“He traps the wise
    in the snare of their own cleverness.”

And again,

“The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise;
    he knows they are worthless.”  1 Corinthians 3:18-20

We all work hard to be successful not only at work but also in our relationships and faith.  Most times, we are, but every so often, we are not.  Some of us have minor slip ups, but other times, we fail.  Miserably.  I thought about the times that I failed.  I failed to study well enough for a test and suffered mightily getting a poor grade.  There were times that I was not a good husband to my adoring wife, and I hurt her and in essence myself.  My performance at work had been substandard before, and yes, I had lost a job for it.  In most of these instances, I can now see how foolish I was.  It would have been so easy to turn right, and yet, I managed to turn left.  Yet as I reflect on those failures, I am incredibly thankful to God for them.  The one poor grade drove me to perform better and get better final grades.  My pleas for forgiveness and the tears my wife and me shared made me so much better as a husband.  And my failures at work not only helped me become better but also allowed me to be a relied upon resource to others who also suffered failure.  It reminded me of a song when I was a kid.  The chorus went:

Whoa-whoa, fools rush in
Anywhere, anywhere
Wise men will never go
But a wise man will never fall in love
He will never learn
What a fool already knows - Peabo Bryson, ‘A Fool Already Knows’

God uses our mistakes to make us even better disciples of Christ.  We think of the most intelligent people we know, and state, “Wow!  She is so smart,” or, “He always seems to know the answer.”  While there is a great deal of wisdom within them, ask them about a failure they have had and what they learned from it.  If they do not have a story like this, they are the people Paul is warning us about in today’s verses.  I remember doing lent for years only to fail each year.  However, one year I managed to put the failures behind me, and successfully completed it.  The closeness it brought me to God was incredible because I had put Him before myself for an extended period.  It was not anything special that I did different.  What I remembered was the failures when I turned left, and then I fought hard to turn right.  The purpose of Paul’s words was not to say understanding the world is wrong.  It meant to apply worldly logic to understand God is indeed foolish.  Along those lines, Godly wisdom means to rely on His word and to apply it to the world.  To the world, it will sound foolish, but being a fool for serving God is far better than being wise and serving the wrong Master, which in many cases is ourselves.  Why?  God guides us through our mistakes, and we can better see the end result of the wrong path.  After all, Jesus Christ is the only person that was ever perfect. 

True wisdom is knowing who God is and trusting what He says.  Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.”  That would not make sense to a person who relies on his or her own judgment, but if they knew like we knew, it makes perfect sense.  He knows what is right, and has never led us astray.  Let us apply the wisdom of God trusting Him in all we do.  What has God taught you through your mistakes?  How can you trust Him more in your decisions?  My prayer is that we can see the wisdom in our failures to know what a fool already knows.  Amen.

Salt

Yesterday I shared a devotion with my small group.  I wanted to share it here also even though I really don’t have the option to show the props.

I had with me a tomato and a can of tomatoes.  I started by asking the group how long they thought the can of tomatoes was good for.  Upon checking the expiration date, we saw it was good until 2021.  I then showed them my tomato from my garden and asked why I couldn’t leave that sit on my counter until 2021.  Of course, even the kids were able to tell me that it would rot.  So, what allows the can of tomatoes to last so long?  The answer is simple, salt. 

Salt is used to delay the decay of things. Back before we had refrigerators, people would pack their meats in salt to preserve it. 

Matthew 5:13

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

As Christians, we are the salt of the earth.  That means we are designed to preserve the earth, to prevent the decay of those around us. 

Salt is a good thing, however if we as Christians, loose our saltiness, we are good for nothing.  We are no longer able to help save the people from decay. 

Are you salty?  Do you help preserve those that you encounter?  I encourage you today to make sure that you are not loosing your saltiness.