Praise the Lord

Psalm 103:1-4

Praise the Lord, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the Lord, my soul,
and forget not all his benefits—
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion.



Just one week after his death and five days after his resurrection, all I can think about is Praise the Lord! I am alive today because of his willingness to die for ME. Yet without the resurrection, it just wouldn’t hold the same meaning. Christ didn’t just die for me, he rose again to proclaim that he had conquered death.


For many Easter is past, it was a day of getting together with family, egg hunts, and candy. Now we had all of that, however for my household, Easter is not past, it is always the reason we are able to live and know what our future looks like. He has forgiven our sins!


I hope today you continue to praise the Lord for all he has done for you.

Thurs Devo: Come Here!

Last week we were trying to skype with our granddad, but it wasn’t working on my sister’s computer. Since granddad was waiting on the other end, Jane yelled “come here!” to her husband, Sean, so he might expedite the resolution.

It usually isn’t a good thing when we hear “come here!” loudly. If it’s directed at a kid, spouse, or employee, often they’re in trouble. At a minimum, there’s usually some sort a problem (as with our skype situation).

When God says “Come here!” it’s a good thing! It means He has huge blessings for us. After the two witnesses were killed and their deaths celebrated, God does the impossible.

Revelation 11:11-13  ¹¹ But after the three and a half days the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck those who saw them. ¹² Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here.” And they went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies looked on.
¹³ At that very hour there was a severe earthquake and a tenth of the city collapsed. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

Has God said “Come here!” to you? Has He drawn you to Himself? How have you and I responded? Have any of you told God “Just a minute?” Do you have a few things you want to do first and then you’ll spend time with him? Or, have we responded with “Coming now!” by getting to know Him, spending time with Him daily, and placing our full life in His hands? It’s already in His hands anyway and then we will get to join Him in Heaven for all eternity, just like the two witnesses!

As Jesus said:

Matthew 11:28-30     ²⁸ “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Alice

Where We Started

When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.  Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.  1 Corinthians 13:11-12

One of things I marvel at is how much you grow when you are under duress or being challenged.  There was a time like that at work where things did not start off so well in this period of transition.  Things that I normally did well were not done well, and where I believed I was good suddenly became areas where I began to question.  Months later, I paused and reflected to see where I was. There were a number of questions I had. Did I do as well as I felt I should? No.  Were we on schedule to make it to the ultimate goal?  Yes.  Did I learn something from it?  Definitely. It all boiled down to a very simple phrase; I’m not where I want to be, but I’m a lot closer to it now then from where I started.

Spiritual growth is an essential process from which we come to know and love God better.  In reading 1 Corinthians 13, my thought was these verses felt out of place considering that this is known as the ‘Love’ chapter (Love is patient, love is kind . . . ).  However after reading it more, it was a good place to remind us of the importance of continually seeking to learn of and grow in God.  Love is of course the most important part of the relationship (Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love. – 1 Corinthians 13:13), but how does love grow?  If it does not grow, it becomes stagnant and eventually will start to fade.  These verses are thus prescriptive for how a healthy relationship with God works.  While our dependency of God is to be childlike (see Matthew 18:3-4), our relationship with God is to be where we dive into its complexity (puzzling reflections in a mirror) and pause to reflect both where we are and where we must go (all I know now is partial and incomplete).  Call love and spiritual growth the yin and yang.  Both are necessary for us to feel whole with Him.

Loving God requires all of our entire being.  Jesus said we must love the Lord with all of our heart, mind, and soul.  To capably do so, we must continue to push ourselves to learn of God and seek Him through His word.  One of my favorite R&B songs talks about maturity this way:

So we search for answers to our questions

Looking for a(n) answer

No answers but we're taught a lesson every time

Through mistakes we've learned to gather wisdom

Life's responsibility falls in our hands

                                                  - 'Boys to Men' – New Edition

 

Seeking God in all things and learning both through successes and failures give us the necessary growth for us to become better lovers of God and others.  What obstacles are inhibiting your spiritual growth?  What is you plan to have a continually growing and healthy relationship with God?  My prayer is that we understand our spiritual growth is not where we want it to be but we are closer than where we started.  Amen.

Tues Devo: After Easter Attack

Hello,

So, here we are…after Easter. It is quite common with the thought of what Christ did for us to have some renewed energy and desire to respond well and focus more on being obedient to Scripture. But the enemy seems to know that game! He likes to come in and disrupt our thought processes and plans. One of his favorites I believe to be doubt. He loves to have us live in the past. He tells us “Sure, I see you now – but what about 5 years ago? What about last time you were excited? Remember the time when you failed?” I think there is great wisdom from Paul as he writes to Timothy about acknowledging the past and who we were – and really, that is the greatest part of what God does. Sure, we have a past – we have failed time and time again…but God is faithful and forgiving and still loves us. Even more reason to push harder for Him!

1 Timothy 1: “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief; and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus.” (NASB)

Have a blessed day – and remember that even though there is a past, God wants you now to move you forward!

Will Hill

Politically Correct

Then Saul confessed, “I have sinned. Come back home, my son, and I will no longer try to harm you, for you valued my life today. I have been a fool and very, very wrong.”

“Here is your spear, O king,” David replied. “Let one of your young men come over and get it.  The Lord gives his own reward for doing good and for being loyal, and I refused to kill you even when the Lord placed you in my power, for you are the Lord’s anointed one. Now may the Lord value my life, even as I have valued yours today. May he rescue me from all my troubles.” 1 Samuel 26:21-24

There has been a great deal of political discourse in the United States this year.  If you have not paid attention, conversations have been incredibly tense and unfortunately at times violent.  It worries me that there is such passionate disagreement for I fear we have not learned as Martin Luther King once said, “I think we have got to learn to disagree without being violently disagreeable.”  It begs the greater question, “What do I do when I have such strong words or feelings toward someone I have strong disagreement toward?” How do we as Christians hold ourselves to obeying God’s word without crossing the line of being disrespectful or indifferent to others of opposing views?

God asks us to love others even as He expects us to follow Him.  I was given the words of David in my own personal dealings with political discourse.  The end of 1^st Samuel gives great insight as how one should respond to those who oppose us.  In the relationship between King Saul and David, Saul had attempted not once but twice to kill David, and was jealous of David’s growing success.  David knew this, but when given the opportunity to be rid of Saul once and for all David, in the 24^th verse, still showed humility, compassion, and love for him and obedience and honor to God.  He asked God to value his own life as he valued Saul’s. This parallels to the teaching of Jesus when speaking of the greatest commandment saying “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37b, 39b)  When faced with discourse, we must not only remember to obey what God asks of us but also love on others while doing so.  In fact, you cannot do one without the other!

Through all the rhetoric and concerns we may have in the world, we must always remember that God is always in control.  Whether we worry about how truly sane one candidate might be or question the integrity of another, our answer is to respond not with anger and disdain.  Instead like David, it is to choose one based on what God would ask of us, and then love and pray for the other.  After all as said in Romans 3:23, “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.”  How will you respond to those who do not agree with you even if your view is foundationally God centered?  What can you do to be more loving and prayerful of those who do not share your faith/values/political views?  My prayer is that we value others views while following God to be truly ‘politically correct.’  Amen.

RLD Week 5 - Being an Intentional Leader

6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 4

My husband has a new job - Yay!  We have to move - boo!

My husband and I are in the thick of house hunting.  We've been visiting homes with our realtor the last two or three weeks and so far have come up with nothing.  We've looked in a lot of different areas, but the fact remains that right now, southeast Michigan is a seller's market.  A house will be listed, and if it's good, within two days, there will be three offers fighting for the house.  If the house isn't good, it'll sit, and sit, and sit.  I'm incredibly stressed because everything's on a time schedule too.  It's not enough that my husband starts his job in one week and will be dealing with an hour plus commute to the office, but in two months, he'll be leaving for three months of training in Georgia.  The plan was to be moved into a house before he left, and I could stay behind and sell our house while he was gone.

Ever hear the phrase, if you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans?  I'm pretty sure he's having a good one regarding us right about now.

So I'm getting more and more stressed after each day of looking at houses.  The last two times we went out, I sat on the couch and cried when we got home.  For those of you that don't know me personally, I don't cry.  My friends have often said they knew something was drastically wrong when they saw that I was in tears, which would only make them worry more.

I went to our Easter Sunday message at church, and the pastor spent a good time talking about how we cannot despair.  He even used the verse above.  I came out of church and told my husband that I needed to hear that sermon.  He smiles and says it's the same verse that his men's bible study focused on this week, and he was able to share about the stresses we're under for the house.

Last night, I pull out my study guide and review my earlier notes from when I first went through this study.  There it is, day one for this week, saying that as an intentional leader, you have to put all your faith and anxieties in God, again using this verse.  There are my notes, saying the same thing and happily boasting that I did so.  What happened?  I had lost sight of God's will and had been too focused on making things work on my schedule, with my will.  The other days focused on what to look for in those that you're discipling, how to help to guide them depending on where they are in their spiritual journey, but this was the part that stood out to me the most.  To be a disciple, you have to put God first, and consider him in all your actions.  Sometimes things will come up that seem to overshadow it, but it doesn't.  God is still in control, but it may not be on our schedules.

A Promise

1 John 1:9

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Have you ever known that something you really didn’t want to have to deal with was coming?  Think about how you felt knowing that you would not be able to change what was about to happen.  When I think about this right now, I think about a lady that I know that just went into hospice care as cancer has overtaken her.  Her husband is a pastor at a church I went to in college.  They know that her time is coming to an end and while they pray for a miracle, they also realize that the Lord may take her home sooner than they would hope. 

Christ also knew what he was about to face.  He didn’t fight it.  The thing is, he knew that while his death was about to happen, there was a bigger picture coming. 

The lady I talked about earlier also is not fighting what is coming to her either, as she knows that when Christ was killed, he would raise again a few days later.  She knows her future.

While today is a day that we will mourn a death, we have to remember that Sunday will bring a promise that gives each of us a comfort that if we do confess our sins, we will be forgiven.  

Thurs Devo: Final Dinner

If you knew you only had one more meal to share with close family and friends, what would you do?  What would you plan to eat, where would you plan to eat it, and what other activities would you try to squeeze in?   Would you plan a big party at a banquet hall or offer to clean the bathrooms at church?

Let’s see how Jesus spent His last meal with His disciples…

John 13:1-17    ¹It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.  ²The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. ³Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; ⁴so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. ⁵After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. ⁶He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" ⁷Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand." ⁸"No," said Peter, "you shall never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me." ⁹"Then, Lord," Simon Peter replied, "not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!" ¹⁰Jesus answered, "A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you." ¹¹For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean. ¹²When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. ¹³"You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. ¹⁴Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. ¹⁵I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. ¹⁶I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. ¹⁷Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

This is probably a familiar passage, but did you realize that washing the disciples feet was one of the last things Jesus did the day before His death?  The rest of chapter 13 through chapter 17 include specific instructions, promises, prophecies, prayers, and encouragement Jesus gave to his disciples at this final dinner.  So how are we, today, to do as Jesus did? 

I heard about one believer who decided he would wash the car of those that visited his house.  Even when two couples came to his house just to carpool to a restaurant, he snuck outside and had their car washed while his wife was interacting with them inside.  Amazing!

What fellow believer will you and I humbly serve this Holy week?  How?

Alice

Asleep At The Wheel

Then Jesus went with them to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and he said, “Sit here while I go over there to pray.”  He took Peter and Zebedee’s two sons, James and John, and he became anguished and distressed.  He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

Then he returned to the disciples and found them asleep. He said to Peter, “Couldn’t you watch with me even one hour?  Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak!”  Matthew 26:36-41

My wife will testify that I do a lot of driving (about 40,000 miles a year).  Some days, I can barely hold my eyes open on the road.  Over the years, I have learned to find something to keep me awake like music, or if on a long road trip, I find a safe spot to rest for a moment.  The key is that when driving, I am always alert to what may be going on so that I do not endanger not only the people with me but also the other drivers.  After all, it only takes one moment of distraction to change the lives of others, and I do not want to be asleep at the wheel when something might happen.

We should always be alert to what God might have planned for we might miss when He is up to something.  I have read today’s verses multiple times focusing on the humility of Jesus wanting to do God’s will over His own.  However, I did not fully focus on the part of Peter, James, and John falling asleep while Jesus was praying until now.  Here it is, the people who were back then the most loyal to Jesus, and they were sleep on the job!  Now I’m sure that was not their intention, but they had not realized this was the day before the crucifixion.  Had they truly been ‘awake,’ they would have understood why Jesus instructed them as He did, and perhaps they would have embraced this moment more than they did.  As we grow in our faith, we too can ‘fall asleep’ when God is instructing us to do something.  Taking that into consideration, this story becomes a warning of sorts for all of us.  Jesus instructs us to keep an eye out and pray faithfully for the world is filled with temptation, and if we are not wise and awake to it, we will stumble and fall.

We must be vigilant in our focus on Jesus.  There are plenty of worldly distractions, and when we are not distracted, our faith can be under duress such that we grow tired and weary.  But today’s verses should help us understand that Jesus knows this and instructs us to ‘keep watch and pray’ for “(God) gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.” (Isaiah 40:29)  By doing this, we are always on a mission for God.  Are there areas of your faith that need an awakening?  What will you do to stay alert to God’s prompting?  My prayer is that as we begin to reflect on the final days of Christ on earth, let us remember to stay alert to God at all times so that we do not fall asleep at the wheel.  Amen.

Tues Devo: Be ready

Matthew 28:19-20 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (NASB)

1 Peter 3:15 “but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; ” (NASB)

Hello,

You never know when the next question or conversation is going to come from – or go to! Sometimes the conversation is overtly spiritual – sometimes it simply opens the door for you to take that direction. We have been instructed to share our faith and the hope of Jesus as we are going about our business. We have been instructed to be ready to give a defense for our faith as well. Notice that one of these commands is proactive, and the other reactive – that really is quite encompassing! Also, notice that in both passages it is accompanied by instructions around our behavior (there are additional verses past 15 in 1 Peter 3 that go there even more). True, behavior is not what saves – but it is a reflection of our beliefs being real to us, it is an act of obedience and love, and it pays some dividends in heaven as well.

So, be ready! Be proactively sharing, and be ready to explain to those who question you as well. (hint here – daily reading, regular prayer and periodically revisiting ‘the basics’ should help all of us!)

Have a blessed day,

Will Hill