Thursday Devotional - Ready for a Challenge?

We recently received news that most of us are to work from home beyond the 4 weeks, until May 15th! When I left work on March 13^th and picked up James from school that afternoon, I thought it was going to be 3 weeks of a different work and school schedule and then we would be back to normal. However, it keeps getting extended. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re to stay home beyond May 15^th!!!

I miss my normal routine, my desk setup and ergonomic chair, the extra steps I get walking halfway across the building for water or the restroom 😊, etc. As challenging as it might be, though, I know I’m thankful we have jobs that are possible to do from home!

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, most of our challenges are small compared to all the challenges and hardships Paul faced. He readily and willingly faced challenges.

Acts 21:10-14                       ¹⁰ After we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. ¹¹ Coming over to us, he took Paul’s belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, “The Holy Spirit says, ‘In this way the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.’”

¹² When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. ¹³ Then Paul answered, “Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” ¹⁴ When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, “The Lord’s will be done.”

Are you and I ready and willing to continue to persevere in our new working environment challenges without complaining?

What about work for the name of Jesus? Are you and I ready and willing to take up new challenges for the benefit of His people and His name? What about leading a virtual Bible study, virtual prayer group, calling or writing to fellow church members (to provide a listening ear or to encourage), or collecting prayer requests (from co-workers/friends/family) and spending dedicated time in prayer for them? I think some of you are already doing these!

As Luke said, may “the Lord’s will be done” and may I readily and willingly participate!

Alice

Run, Run, Run!

But you should keep a clear mind in every situation. Don’t be afraid of suffering for the Lord. Work at telling others the Good News, and fully carry out the ministry God has given you.

As for me, my life has already been poured out as an offering to God. The time of my death is near.  I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful.  And now the prize awaits me—the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on the day of his return. And the prize is not just for me but for all who eagerly look forward to his appearing.  2 Timothy 4:5-8

Today, I felt a need to divert from Moses for a week.  I promise to continue next week.  I just feel God wanted me to simply focus on you.  Not the usual devotional sharing.  Just a moment to pause and reflect in this moment.  I prayed a lot on this devotion because He did not want me to forget where people are today.  Let me start by saying no one would ever consider Mike Tyson a great philosopher, but he said one of the greatest truths about dealing with adversity saying, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”  Many of us can truly relate to that right now.  Maybe you are a bit uncertain about things.  Perhaps there is something going on in your household.  Your spouse is one of the people who is now furloughed or unemployed, or your children might be driving you a bit crazy.  Or maybe you are adjusting to them in your life 24/7 now.  Perhaps you know someone or even a loved one who has recently passed away.  Some may be due to the Coronavirus, and others not.  You might even know someone who must be in the hospital.  Alone.  No matter the cause, you and your family may be faced with some tough choices, pain, and heartache.  Others not even in a hospital are equally suffering from feeling isolated and alone in their own homes.  And yes, some of you might very well be questioning if God really does exist right now.  On the other hand, maybe you are fully grounded and filled with God’s spirit where your faith today is unshakable.  You are not afraid nor worried because you know God is with you.  You know He is with us.  But there is that neighbor, family member, or friend who is struggling.  You can’t find the right words to say or don’t even know the right way to even start the conversation.

I too have fears and uncertainty.  Some at home.  Some outside of it.  All of this is hard because so many are hurting.  “I can’t do this anymore,” has become a whisper in their mind right now.  Perhaps in your mind?  I hear it from many.  I feel it from those who don’t speak.  My heart breaks knowing this might be a part of your being right now in this place, and I can’t fully imagine what you are going through.

But God knows.  He loves you oh so much and feels every ounce of your pain right here and right now.  You may think you are alone in your struggle and pain and that no one can truly understand.  He does.  You may think the walls are starting to crumble and your level of sanity is about to be lost.  Maybe for a moment.  Maybe longer.  God says, “No.  Nothing is going to happen to you.  Not on my watch.”  We know this as Paul said, “For when we brought you the Good News, it was not only with words but also with power, for the Holy Spirit gave you full assurance that what we said was true.” (1 Thessalonians 1:5a)  Yes, it is ok to acknowledge that there is fear.  But courage is nothing but fear faced head on, and we know great men and women of God are filled with courage and strength.  I think of Joshua going to the Promised Land without Moses, and God speaking to him saying, “This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9)  I think of Paul speaking to the Phillipians saying, “For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.” (4:13)  So while we face tough times ahead and we may feel week, God makes us strong!

Through all you are going through, God is with you!  These are indeed challenging and uncertain times, but it serves as an opportunity.  A chance to reconnect with love ones.  A chance to pause, reflect, and commit to some new things and recommit to some old ones.  And finally, a chance to look to the heavens, lay your troubles, fears, and worries down at cross, and surrender it all to Jesus.  The reason for today’s verse is not to share an elaborate story on what it means.  It is a reminder.  When Paul was near the end of his journey, he was not concerned about his death.  He only cared about the race he was running and finishing it to the very end.  Today is about capturing the spirit of Paul and not focusing on what happened before today.  It is about finishing the race where “the prize awaits me-the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on the day of his return.”  So run!  Let these months be the moment we decided to pour it all out onto others and remind them as Jesus said to His disciples, “And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20b)  There are no questions for you to ask yourself or answer.  Just trust God is with you every step of the way, and my prayer is we simply, run, run, run!!!  Amen!

3 Is The Magic Number

First, celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread. For seven days the bread you eat must be made without yeast, just as I commanded you. Celebrate this festival annually at the appointed time in early spring, in the month of Abib, for that is the anniversary of your departure from Egypt. No one may appear before me without an offering.

“Second, celebrate the Festival of Harvest, when you bring me the first crops of your harvest.

“Finally, celebrate the Festival of the Final Harvest at the end of the harvest season, when you have harvested all the crops from your fields.  At these three times each year, every man in Israel must appear before the Sovereign, the Lord.  Exodus 23:15-17

For those of you who were children of the seventies, I absolutely loved Schoolhouse Rock!  For those of you unfamiliar with this, it was basically a three to five-minute infomercial about … get this … stuff you learned in school as a kid!  I know it sounds boring but there were really cool jingles that you could recite over and over again.  For example, one was about using conjunctions called, “Conjunction Junction.  What’s your function?”  As you might have figured, it was a train conductor trying to teach you how to use conjunctions in a sentence.  There was another one that talked about the process of making a bill into a law and the difference between the two.  “Oh how I hope and I pray that I will, but today, I am still just a bill.”  There are some of you thinking has Kent lost it, but give me some credit.  I did get ‘hope’ and ‘pray’ in there!  😊  So, there is one of my favorites if not my favorite.  The jingle goes, “A man and a woman had a little baby.  Yes, they did.  There were three in the family.  That’s the magic number!” 

Now I can speak of many things in my life that always had something to do with threes.  A saying like ‘the third time’s the charm’ or ‘once an issue, twice a trend, third time’s a problem.’  However, it has had a significant impact in my walk of faith.  Anytime God has wanted me to pay attention to something, it crosses my path three times.  One could say it is coincidence, but it has never failed to have a significant impact when I listened to that third time.  Most of our greatest significance to the number 3 would be the Holy Trinity of The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  However, is there more to it than that?

God is always giving clear signals as to things we should pay attention to.  Today’s verses focus on the three festivals the Israelites were to have in honor of God according to His law.  It made me ponder beyond my own circumstances and life lessons to the things pointing toward that number 3 biblically.  For instance, Peter denies Jesus three times after Jesus prophesied such.  The significance is not the denial.  The focus should rightfully be on Jesus’s ability to predict, which further underlined His divinity as The Son of God.   Jesus rebuking Satan in the Wilderness three times was not just about Jesus denying him.  It was also to show the tenacity of the devil coming at our weakest moments to tempt us.  Furthermore, it underlined Jesus’s perfection staying to true to His Heavenly Father.  What I’m getting at here is that we should always pay attention to signs of what God is saying.  Ideally, we should answer God whenever He calls, but are we wise to not jump the first time if we are unsure?  If we are hearing His call twice and certainly a third time, we must act and ideally with a high sense of urgency.

God always looks to connect with us.  When we look at the story of Samuel, we noted He answered God the fourth time and not the third.  However, if you read the story it was not that Samuel did not answer God that third time:

 A third time the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”

Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy.  1 Samuel 3:8

The calling was not just for Samuel.  It was for his father to tell him for the first time who God was.  Rev, Penny Ellwood, a UMC pastor, wrote, “In our church, we believe (the mystery of the Trinity) happens in another threefold – the use of our head, heart and hands.”   Isn’t that the beauty of how God works in us?  Will you be keen to God’s calling the first, second, or third time?  How can you be comforted by the knowledge of and faith in the Holy Trinity?  My prayer is we pay attention to God’s prompting for I truly believe ‘3 is the magic number.’  Amen.

Step Through, Together

How many scenes in Hollywood films have portrayed a group of kids, holding hands, and stepping through a "portal" together? There's a shimmering blue flat wall or membrane, and they need to be on the other side. It's scary, so they hold hands, and step through the...what is it? Could it be a "veil" concealing another world?

Before Hollywood, the writer of Hebrews posited this same scene (sort of) to describe our approach to the Father. We approach through the "veil" to the Throne of God.

Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:19-22 NASB)

What's on the other side of the "membrane" is the Throne Room of heaven. It's like the High Priest passing through the temple or tabernacle "holy place", the outer chamber, into the Holy of Holies. Only now it's us and we stumble into Heaven itself, right before the throne of our Creator and Savior. It's another world. This was the experience of Isaiah when he enters the temple only to stumble into the very presence of God (Isaiah 6), and it's supposed to be ours. 

We think of prayer as communing with God, but do you think of it as entering through the temple courts, past the altar, through the golden walls of the Holy Place with the lamp and table, past the incense altar, through a heavy drape. But it's not a "heavy drape", it's lighter, and light streams through from the other side.

Our Savior, Jesus, has made a way, a path for us to follow Him, into the presence of the Father. And there He intercedes for us, there we have the ear of the Creator of the universe, and He gives us His attention. It is a terrifying place with creatures who's voices shake the earth as they praise their King, and yet we are invited, we are called, we are compelled to go! But not alone...

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:23-25 NASB) 

We go together! There is power in being together. We are bolder together, stronger, often smarter. We can encourage each other as we pass through the temple into the throne room, together. Is your worship like this? Shouldn't it be? Why can't our experience be the very presence of our Creator, the Son, our Savior, the four creatures and the unnumbered throng worshiping the One having saved us from death? Shouldn't that be the very definition of worship? I suppose if it were, there would be fewer of those who were in the habit of not assembling together.

It may be more difficult now, assembling together, perhaps it's online, Zoom, or Facebook. However your congregation meets, meet! Sing the songs, read along with the Scripture, take notes on the sermon, participate in every opportunity. Worship our King together, because even apart we are joined together through the One Spirit, and we enter into the same room before the same throne, and bow before the same King.