Each And Every Day

And Samuel said to the whole house of Israel, "If you are returning to the LORD with all your hearts, then rid yourselves of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths and commit yourselves to the LORD and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.”  1 Samuel 7:3

When I got married, I was convinced in every word that was said in our wedding vows.  To love and cherish.  To have and to hold.  In sicknesses and in health.  Until death do us part.  All that stuff was about Loretta and me.  We didn’t get there overnight.  We had ups and downs, and times where family and my own silliness pulled us apart.  But we always ended back up together.  She stood above all as the best thing that ever happened to me.  I couldn’t say that back when I was going through it with her.  But now, it is crystal clear.  She is worth every fight, argument, disappointment, and tear that we went through to get to today.  And the funny thing is our love grows every day.  This is who we are, and we are committed to making our love for each other better.

When we have a relationship with God, we are bound to a relationship that will continue to grow and have value.  We always think of our relationship with God as at times ‘hot and cold.’  The people of Israel were in their ‘cold’ stretch, but this one lasted for twenty years!  Ouch!  Samuel’s words were to help the Israelites understand that those things that divided them from God were within their control (FYI – Ashtoreths were idols representing the Canaanites goddess Ashtoreth – see https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/ashtoreth/ for more details).  Shortly after following Samuel’s instruction, God defeats the Philistines when they attempted to attack Israel.  When reading the chapter, it should serve as a reminder of our commitment to God.  If we are too proud or focused on things that detract from Him or His will for our lives, we are destined to be in the cold stretch like Israel.  However if we remove those obstacles that could separate us from Him, we will have our great and awesome defender who will move mountains and protect us from harm.  We must ask ourselves, “Why is this so easy to understand and yet so hard to attain?”  The commitments that we have in our lives range from ‘what shirt to where’ to ‘do I want to be saved.’  How difficult the commitment is to God boils down to one thing: Who are you committed to?  Are you committed to the Lord, or are you committed to yourself?  Only you can answer that question, and it is only you who can make the decision.  Any great relationship has struggles.  Whether it gets repetitive or we see something more exciting or new, we can get distracted.  But if we focus on what matters to God, we will always find His faithfulness reassuring and His wisdom filled with something new.

God is constant.  Yes, there will be times where we do not make sense of what He wants from us, and we may stray away.  But whether it be for a day, a month, or even years, He is always there.  Waiting.  Loving. Saying to you as Jesus said to disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.”  (Matthew 16:24b)  Let us remove those things that inhibit our connectivity to our one true God.  What obstacles inhibit your connection with God?  How will you focus on what God wants above what you want?  My prayer is we recognize our relationship with God, and commit to growing our love for Him each and every day.

Thursday Devotional - Sin and Death or Victory and Life?

We just remembered Jesus death on the cross this past Friday and celebrated His resurrection on Sunday!

After a Good Friday service, we came home and got baths and then had our evening Bible reading and prayer time in a dark bedroom (instead of in the well-lit den). I used a flashlight as we read the crucifixion story together from the book of Luke. It’s a new tradition we started last year, remembering the utter darkness God sent while Jesus hung on the cross to pay for our sins. The kids had clear memories from a year ago (when we read the account from John)!

It’s hard for us to grasp all Jesus did in those dark hours on the cross. His death freed us from the penalty of sin and His resurrection freed us from the power of sin.  

Romans 6:1-5                     What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? ² By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? ³ Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

⁵ For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Are you and I truly living in the new life Jesus provided and looking forward to our resurrection someday?  Or, is there some habitual sin that reflects a lack of union with Jesus’ death? Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to help us overcome those sins, living in the victory Jesus has already won!

Alice

Thursday Devotional: God Died

I’m deviating from where I was in our adoption story to share some recent developments…

I previously mentioned that the kids like “Go, Tell it on the Mountain” as one of their favorite Christmas Carols. Well, at dinner on Christmas Eve, Sarah (2 ½) asked me to sing the song about “God died.” I could not figure out which carol she meant. Most Christmas carols are about Jesus’ birth and not His death! (I eventually started singing different ones until she either gave up or decided she wanted me to sing “Angels We Have Heard on High.”)

Anyway, over the next few weeks she would bring up that “God died.” This led to several conversations about Jesus dying on the cross for our sins but not staying dead! So, recently, instead of randomly declaring “God died,” Sarah now randomly declares “God die on cross!” In fact, last night during our prayer time together, the one thing she decided all on her own to thank God for was “God die on cross.”

It’s exciting to watch the kids grow in their understanding of who God is and what He has done! Jesus laying down His life for us, so we don’t have to eternally die for our sins, is amazing!          
John 10:11-18 ¹¹ “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. ¹² The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. ¹³ The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. ¹⁴ “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— ¹⁵ just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. ¹⁶ I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. ¹⁷ The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. ¹⁸ No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”

Jesus did die. He died willingly, purposefully, submissively and lovingly for you and me. He’s the only One who could! Have you accepted His death in your place? If so, you are His sheep and will live forever with Him!  


As Sarah has said several times recently “I not die cross.” No, we don’t have to die for our own sins. Jesus already did!