Tues Devo: Me first

Ephesians 4:31-32 “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” (NASB)

Hello,

When we think of Biblical principles, we don’t often think of “Me First” as one of them. However, I do think there are some things in the Bible that call for a ‘me first’ attitude. Ephesians 4 lays some of these out – we are to be ‘me first’ in kindness and forgiveness when it comes to our interpersonal relationships. (We can’t be me first with those things between us and God – thankfully, He beat us to it already!)

Our society is a heavy ‘me first’ culture. It wants us to put ourselves first in everything – except kindness and forgiveness. When it comes to those two things our culture wants us to carefully examine how much has really been given to us, and extend no more than what we must.

Why bring up the cultural opposite? Isn’t that to be expected? Sure it is! However, I believe there is power in knowing where our culture and society are counter-influencing Biblical principles – as that awareness helps us tune in and more carefully examine the messages of our culture.

Have a blessed day,

Will Hill

Go away!

Genesis 3:8-9

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.  But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

I’m sure we have all at had a point or two in our lives where we did something and wanted to hid because we were ashamed.  After the fall in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve hid. 

My son right now is at a stage where he knows when he’s done something wrong and if I come into the room, he’ll tell me, “Go away Momma”.    He knows that Mom is not going to allow him to keep doing wrong.  Yesterday at church, he wanted to sit with us instead of going into the nursery so we allowed him to.  He was being pretty good, only needing an occasional reminder to be quite.  As he was sitting next to Daddy, I looked over only to have him yell, “Go away Momma!”.  Thankfully his yell isn’t too loud but I chuckled to myself, thinking I was only checking in on him.  It then made me think about my life.  Do I ever find myself telling God to go away? 

Have you ever told God to go away?  While I surely hope that none of us truly want him to go away from us, I do hope that we feel the quilt when we do something wrong that makes us ashamed of what we have done. 

In verse 9, God called out to Adam, “Where are you?”   God already knew where Adam was, but he wanted Adam and Eve to realize what they had done wrong.  Next time you do something wrong and you feel like hiding from God because you are ashamed, remember that he knows where  you are and is just waiting for you to admit your wrong doings.  

Useless

Seriously, Ezekiel is not an easy book for me to get through.

5 Notice, even when [the grapevine] was whole, it was good for no work; how much less shall it be useful and profitable when the fire has devoured it and it is charred?  Ezekiel 15

It's a short chapter.  To sum it up, God is explaining that a grapevine's sole purpose is to be burned.  We're talking only about the vine here, not the fruit.  It's not strong enough to be used as a rope substitute.  It cannot be used for "any work."  That's pretty useless.  Then, to make it even better, it's explained that Jerusalem is like the grapevine.  

Have you ever felt like that?  This goes a little beyond Kent's devotion earlier this week about mistakes.  When you feel useless, you feel as though you can't do anything.  Nothing good, nothing bad, you're stuck right where you are.  You have no impact on your surroundings, no matter what you do.  It's a horrible place to be in.  In fact, I feel like this right now.  

Where's the silver lining?  It's ok to be stuck.  It's ok to feel that you're ineffective against your problems.  We all have someone bigger and more powerful than us on our side that's making an impact where we can't.  Someone who is able to see the whole playing field and move things into place when we think we are stuck.

I'm sure you know who's doing this. 

Thurs Devo: Drama Drama!

Do you know a drama queen? Maybe you have one in your family. (Boys can be “drama kings” too!) Well, Joe and I were playing with some foster children at a park on Sunday and one of them was quite a drama queen. She also seemed to fear the worst case scenario. Knowing some of her background, I can see how easy it would be to have that perspective. She hasn’t had loving, caring and dependable parents.

In today’s passage, though, the Israelites are even more dramatic, and they had a loving, caring and dependable God leading them!

Numbers 17:10-13   ¹⁰ The Lord said to Moses, “Put back Aaron’s staff in front of the ark of the covenant law, to be kept as a sign to the rebellious. This will put an end to their grumbling against me, so that they will not die.” ¹¹ Moses did just as the Lord commanded him.

¹² The Israelites said to Moses, “We will die! We are lost, we are all lost! ¹³ Anyone who even comes near the tabernacle of the Lord will die. Are we all going to die?”

 Sigh… Are the Israelites not listening???! God didn’t say they would die. He gave them yet another sign so they would remember not to grumble against Him so they would NOT die. He gave them a visual to help them. When will they learn???

It’s easy to see how ridiculous someone else’s fear is (i.e. the Israelites’ fear), but harder to spot my own irrational fears. I’m not only a child of loving, caring and dependable parents, but a child of a loving, caring and dependable God!

What drama are you and I facing right now? Let’s take our fears to God and ask for His help to see the situations from His perspective. Just as God gave the Israelites instructions and visuals to help them live a life filled with joy, He has done the same for us. Instead of being dramatic or running away in fear, we can listen to God’s instructions and learn from Him. 

Alice     

Love Above Our Mistakes

For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law—I stopped trying to meet all its requirements—so that I might live for God. My old self has been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.   Galatians 2:19-20

Do you ever feel as if you can do nothing right?  There was a time at work where I felt everything I did was wrong.  Even the things I did right I would question.  I would double and triple check to ensure that even the things I normally did well were correct.  It got to a point that it became difficult to function.  Then after making yet another mistake, I asked myself, “What am I doing?”  Here I was focusing more on trying not to make mistakes than trying to learn more about doing things better.  It reminded me of when I first gave myself to Christ to become born again.  When I made the choice, it did not matter how wrong I was living.  It mattered that I was forgiven of past (and future for that matter) sins, and I would focus on how to live a life that God had both intended for me and honored Him.

God’s intention for our lives is to look forward to serving Him better and not focusing on our mistakes.  In reading the verses today, it should serve as a relief to all of us.  We all should aspire to live for God and to follow His laws and commandments.  The verses above are not meant to make us feel good when we sin.  Instead, it is to unburden us when we realize the gravity that we have sinned.  We all fail to meet God’s perfect example, and if we are truly followers of Christ, there should be a certain level of self-disappointment.  However rather than dwell on that which we have faltered, Jesus died on the cross both to say that we are forgiven and to grow spiritually from those failures.  We should fully understand that the gospel of Christ is one of continual growth and an ever closer walk with Him.  Paul’s statement confirms as much for he aspires for His will (life) less and Christ instead to dwell within him more.

The laws of God is what we aspire to live by, but it is not the purpose of our relationship with God.  Jesus said, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40).  Thus, we are to above all love God and His people, and if we continually grow learning His word with those two loves in mind, we are indeed living ‘trusting in the Son of God.’  Where do you struggle with God’s laws?  How can you focus on Godly love instead of Godly judgment?  My prayer is that we focus on God’s love for us above our mistakes.  Amen.

Tues Devo: Feeling like you're failing

Ever been there? Are you there now? That feeling of failure – you just can’t seem to get more than 0.5 out of every 10 things right.

Things are moving too fast for you – even if they aren’t moving fast at all…you just can’t seem to find your footing.

I think in these times, there are some key Biblical principles that we need to remember. (All quotes taken from NASB)

1)      We don’t set the standard for failure; God does – and we are not alone.

a.       Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”

2)      God chose to love us in the middle of all our failures – when we had no hope of changing.

a.       Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

3)      God’s love cannot be changed!

a.       John 10:28-30 “and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

b.      Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

4)      We have God’s permission to move forward.

a.       Philippians 3:13-15 “Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you;”

b.      Philippians 2:12-13 “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

Thanks – prayerfully this will be an encouragement to some of you even today,

Will Hill

Run with Perseverance

Hebrews 12:1

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

I won’t lie, I am not a runner!  However, every single one of us has a race we are running.  This is the race of life.  It’s not a matter of who finishes first.  We don’t even all have the same race path to follow.  We do however all have the same finish line.  It is our goal to cross that finish line that ends at Heaven. 

Along the path, there will be many witnesses that we will pass.  There will be some that will try to slow us down or steer us off the path.  There will be obstacles in the path that will cause us to stumble. 

We have not been called to be the first to cross the finish line or even expected to run a perfect race.  We have been called to run with perseverance. 

What are you doing today to throw off the things that hinder you and the sin that so easily entangles you?    

Right and Popular

13 Son of man, when a land sins against Me by committing a trespass, and I stretch out My hand against it and break its staff of bread and send famine upon it and cut off from it man and beast,

14 Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, they would save but their own lives by their righteousness (their uprightness and right standing with Me), says the Lord God. Ezekiel 14

The entire land had sinned, and God is saying that even if there were three righteous men within the land, those three would be saved.  No others would be saved.  You can look on this with two perspectives.

1. You can't save anyone else.

2. No one can save you.

It sounds bleak, but hang in with me.  God is telling us that there will be times when everyone else around you will want to go one direction, which leads you away from God, and you will need to be the one strong person going the other way, back towards God.  It's easy to fall in step with the crowd, but the crowd isn't always right.

It reminds me of the fact that I don't listen to secular music any more.  I was recently attending a conference and people would make pop culture references to music, and I'd just stare blankly back at them.  It's something everyone knows about, and here I was, telling people that I only listen to Christian music (and then explaining that this isn't hymns, but rap and alternative rock with Christian themes - which then led to other people blankly staring at me).  It was my way to stand against the crowd, to show that I stand for Christ.

The saying I remember hearing in elementary school still applies, "What's right isn't always popular, and what's popular isn't always right."

That still applies.  Christ isn't popular, but following him is always right.

Thurs Devo: Dependably Above and Beyond

God said “The staff belonging to the man I choose will sprout.” So, who’s staff do you think sprouted? You probably guessed it. It was Aaron’s, of course!

Numbers 17:6-9       ⁶ So Moses spoke to the Israelites, and their leaders gave him twelve staffs, one for the leader of each of their ancestral tribes, and Aaron’s staff was among them. ⁷ Moses placed the staffs before the Lord in the tent of the covenant law.

⁸ The next day Moses entered the tent and saw that Aaron’s staff, which represented the tribe of Levi, had not only sprouted but had budded, blossomed and produced almonds.⁹ Then Moses brought out all the staffs from the Lord’s presence to all the Israelites. They looked at them, and each of the leaders took his own staff.

God doesn’t just partially keep His word, or kind of do what he says. He fully follows through. In fact, He goes beyond what He promises! Aaron’s staff not only sprouted, but it budded, blossomed and produced almonds all in a day’s time!!!

Can you think of other times God has gone above and beyond what He promised?

The biggest and most important one is when He sent His Son, Jesus. From one of the verses we read last week, He promised to send a Savior to save us from our sins:

Matthew 1:21            ²¹ She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

But God did so much more through sending Jesus:

Acts 5:30-32              ³⁰ The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead—whom you killed by hanging him on a cross. ³¹ God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins. ³² We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”

Not only did God send Jesus to save us from the deserved penalty for our sins, but He also gave the Holy Spirit to guide us on this earth in addition to eternal life with Him after this life!

Will you join me in praising our dependable God for always going above and beyond what He has promised?

As Kent talked about yesterday, let’s not be foolish and ignore all the proofs and signs God has already given, but wisely recognize, believe, and proclaim all God has done!

Alice

Seriously?

One day the Pharisees and Sadducees came to test Jesus, demanding that he show them a miraculous sign from heaven to prove his authority.

He replied, “You know the saying, ‘Red sky at night means fair weather tomorrow; red sky in the morning means foul weather all day.’ You know how to interpret the weather signs in the sky, but you don’t know how to interpret the signs of the times!  Only an evil, adulterous generation would demand a miraculous sign, but the only sign I will give them is the sign of the prophet Jonah.” Then Jesus left them and went away.  Matthew 16:1-3

My eleven year old daughter really makes me laugh at how she tries to get out of the obvious. This phenomenon is not unfamiliar to any of you who have parented a child. The other day, an ice cream bar that I had been saving suddenly was missing. I asked my wife if she had eaten it, and she said no. Being that there are only three of us in the house, the finger naturally goes to my daughter. We asked if she had eaten the ice cream, and she said emphatically, “No!” My wife and I look at each other, and say, “Seriously?” While we had to hold her accountable and reinforce the importance of telling the truth, we continue to laugh about how ‘creative’ she was in trying to explain for the unexplainable.

This brings me to how we as believers encounter people who choose not to believe in Christ. We must without hesitation be able to confirm both His existence and truths. We encounter those who choose not to believe even though the signs are right there in front of them. The verses today refer to such a instance where the elite and knowledgeable sects of the Jewish faith questioned Jesus’ authority . . . dare I say again. This was after Jesus had (get this) fed 5,000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish (Matthew 14:13-21) and then another 4,000 with seven loaves and a few small fish (Matthew 15:32-39)! So in reading Jesus’ response, we get the impression of ‘what the heck does He have to do to convince these people?!?!?’ Seriously? Rather than appeasing them, Jesus, the master that He is, tells them of the sign of Jonah, which referred to His own resurrection. This would be proof beyond all doubt of Jesus’ divinity. We are often presented with things where people will question the existence of the true living God. We must answer with a sound mind and heart not focusing on what we do not know (i.e. why a tragedy occurs). Instead, we must focus on what we do know (His grace, His word, the transformative changes in our lives). Only then are we able to be advocates for Him.

Our personal relationship with Christ answers all doubts of His existence. While nonbelievers may come up with evidence of His nonexistence, we know beyond question how real He is. Our mission is not to convince others of His existence. Ours is to be knowledgeable of it and present the evidence to them for their spirit within cannot deny it. Where do you doubt Christ’s existence and how will you address it? How will you without hesitation tell of Jesus’ existence in your life? My prayer is that we confirm our truths so when questioned of Christ’s existence, we simply say to ourselves, “Seriously?” Amen.