FOLLOWING JESUS SACRIFICIALLY

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me.’”  (Matthew 16:24 NIV)

Unfortunately, many of us start [our faith] journey with enthusiasm but fail to sustain it. Our faith goes on cruise control as we start seeking comfort and not a calling. It doesn’t help that too often in our churches we pigeonhole Jesus safely behind the altar rails and communion tables of our tame religious traditions, teaching people to revere Jesus instead of following Jesus sacrificially every day in the trenches of life. Jesus’ call is not to revere; His call is to follow. When we do so, reverence will naturally result.

-- Mike Slaughter in “Renegade Gospel: The Rebel Jesus”


#4602

OUR PERSONAL SHEPHERD

“The Lord is my shepherd…”  (Psalm 23:1a)

Years ago a chaplain in the French army used the Twenty-third Psalm to encourage soldiers before battle. He would urge them to repeat the opening clause of the Psalm, ticking it off, one finger at a time. The little finger represented the word THE; the ring finger represented the word LORD; the middle finger, IS; the index finger, MY; and the thumb, SHEPHERD. Then he asked every soldier to write the words on the palm of his hand and to repeat the verse whenever he needed strength.

The chaplain placed special emphasis on the message of the index finger -- MY. He reminded the soldiers that God is a personal shepherd with a personal mission -- to get them home safely.

Did the chaplain’s words find their mark? In the life of one man they did. After a battle one of the young soldiers was found dead, his right hand clutching the index finger of the left. “The Lord is MY shepherd…”

I pray that your final hours will find you clutching the same hope.

-- Max Lucado in “Traveling Light”

#4601

IT WAS FOR LOVE

“This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:9-11 NIV)

It was for love that God created the world. It was for love that God made human beings in His own image, thus making them partners in love, beings to whom He speaks, who He loves like a child, and who can answer Him and love Him like a father. And it was for love that God sent His Son to die so that we might live.

-- Paul Tournier, adapted


#4600

“HE WAS A CHRISTIAN”

EDITOR’S NOTE: That was the way the first paragraph of the Wikipedia section for Bart Starr’s “Personal Life” ended. “He was a Christian.” Bart Starr passed away on May 26, 2019 at the age of 85. He was an NFL Hall of Fame quarterback for the Green Bay Packers winning three consecutive League Championships and the first two Super Bowls including MVP. And he was a Christian. Here’s what he said about his faith life in an article for Athletes in Action.

“Growing up in a strong Christian environment provided me with many valuable lessons about family, school, athletics, and, most of all, God. Like most kids, I idolized one sports figure or another. However, Jesus was the ultimate role model for me.

In my effort to succeed as a football player, I went through difficult times, but my experiences paled in comparison to what Jesus endured during His life: torture, humiliation, and death. Through it all, His attitude never wavered. His example inspired me to approach life’s trials in a similar fashion.

Jesus was able to sustain such a positive attitude because of His unfailing love for everyone around Him. It transformed the lives of all who came in contact with Him, even His persecutors. Jesus continues to have this same transformational effect on people today. Regardless of the successes I have experienced, if my life does not exhibit God’s love, it becomes less meaningful.”

-- Bart Starr

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”  (Romans 12:2 NLT)

#4599

A MEMORIAL DAY PRAYER

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends.”  (John 15:3 NIV)

Dear Heavenly Father,

We are grateful for the ultimate price of freedom paid by those fallen men and women who have served our country. As we remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedoms we enjoy every day, we think of how they have followed in the footsteps of Your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Please encircle and comfort their families as they remember their loved one’s sacrifice.

We also pray for our current men and women now serving in the military. Please hold them in Your strong arms. Cover them with Your sheltering grace and Your presence as they stand in the gap for our protection. We also remember the families of our current troops. We ask for Your unique blessings to fill their homes and for protection of their children. We pray that Your peace, provision, and strength will fill their lives.

May the members of our armed forces be supplied with courage to face each day and may they trust in Your mighty power to accomplish each task. Let our military brothers and sisters feel our love and support. In the name of Jesus we pray.

Amen.


#4598

PRE-DECISIONS

“Each person should do as he has decided in his heart...”  (2 Corinthians 9:7a)

The most important decisions you make are pre-decisions.  Pre-decisions are the decisions you make before you have to make the decision.  And they help you make the right decision when you have to make a tough decision.  If you don’t make pre-decisions, you’ll end up making lots of bad decisions because you’ll cave in to your circumstances instead of sticking to your convictions.

-- Mark Batterson in “PRIMAL: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity”


#4597

EMPTIED THEN FILLED

“Be filled with the Holy Spirit.”  (Ephesians 5:18b)

I firmly believe that the moment our hearts are emptied of pride and selfishness and ambition and self-seeking and everything that is contrary to God’s law, the Holy [Spirit] will come and fill every corner of our hearts; but if we are full of pride and conceit and ambition and self-seeking and pleasure and the world, there is no room for the Spirit of God; and I believe many a [person] is praying to God to fill [them] when [they are] full already with something else. Before we pray that God will fill us, I believe we ought to pray that He would empty us. There must be an emptying before there can be a filling. And when the heart is turned upside-down and everything that is contrary to God is turned out, then the Spirit will come.

-- D. L. Moody, as quoted in “The End of Me” by Kyle Idleman

#4596

GOD’S WAY IS ALWAYS BEST

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”  (Isaiah 55:8-9 NKJV)

Doing things God’s way is always best. When God’s people do not follow His ways, the consequences can be extremely painful and discouraging. God promised the people of Israel joy and fulfillment if they would live according to His ways, but their failure to follow Him ultimately cost them everything.  He said to Israel: “I am Yahweh your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. But My people did not listen to Me; Israel did not obey Me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own plans.” (Psalm 81:10-12)

One of God’s most devastating acts of discipline is when He allows us to experience the natural consequences of doing things our way instead of His way.

-- Henry Blackaby, Richard Blackaby and Claude King in “Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God”


#4595

OVERFLOWING LIFE

“But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”  (Titus 3:4-7)

We fence God in by the boundaries of our experience. "How much do Daddy and Mommy love you?" we ask a three-year-old; and the child stretches baby arms to their limit while answering happily, "This much!"  Yes, indeed -- and vastly more.  But a child's capacity to perceive and to describe is limited by the length of his arms and the measure of his experience.

So it is with our expectations when we acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord of our lives.  After all, we have so little basis for comparison.  Our secular culture promises extravagant possibilities from miracle drugs, or from investments, or from the lottery genie that may drive to our address.  We evaluate such problems cautiously, as we should; and then we recognize, with pain, that we need much more than that, and we want much more.  Something deep within insists that life ought to hold more.  But we rarely realize that the "much more," the overflowing life we desire, awaits us in Jesus Christ.  We think He is a membership to be joined, a cause to which we enlist, a doctrine to which we will subscribe.  We are slow to understand that He is a King in whom all of life finds a new center and a new circumference, new time and new eternity.

-- J. Ellsworth Kalas in “New Testament Stories from the Back Side”


#4594

SERVING GOD

"Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.”  (1 Corinthians 9:6-8 NIV)

One of the principal rules of religion is, to lose no occasion of serving God. And, since He is invisible to our eyes, we are to serve Him in our neighbor; which He receives as if done to Himself in person, standing visibly before us.

-- John Wesley in “A Plain Account of Christian Perfection"

#4593

GOD’S WORD, ALIVE AND POWERFUL

“For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.”  (Hebrews 4:12 NLT)

Have you ever read a verse [of Scripture] scores of times and yet never had it affect you? Then you casually pass by it again and -- ZAP! -- it hits you squarely between your heart and mind.

There are times when you welcome the Spirit's intrusion. The new insight makes you smile. Out of nowhere you see what God means. A bright new idea opens up.

At other times… no smiles. The new insight only brings a groan or tears. You're convicted of manipulating a friend. You're crushed over snubbing a new coworker. Shamed for gossiping about a neighbor, you've been wounded by the Word of God, and you have no excuse not to obey from then on.

Andrew Murray put it this way: "Jesus has no tenderness toward anything that is ultimately going to ruin a person in service to Him. If God brings to mind a verse which hurts you, you may be sure that there is something He wants to hurt."

That's the way God works. He is so exacting. That's because He doesn't want us to see our disobedience vaguely or in general. Specific verses have a way of convicting us specifically.

-- Joni Eareckson Tada in “Glorious Intruder”


#4592

ENGAGEMENT WITH GOD’S WORD

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”  (Matthew 7:24 NIV)

More people these days feel an absence in their lives, expressed as an acute desire for "something more," a spiritual home, a community of faith.  But when they try to read the Bible, they end up throwing it across the room.  To me, this seems encouraging, a good place to start, a sign of real engagement with the God who is revealed in the Scripture.  Others find it easy to dismiss the Bible out of hand, as negative, vengeful, violent.  I can only hope that they are rejecting the violence-as-entertainment of movies and television on the same grounds, and that they say a prayer every time they pick up a daily newspaper or turn on CNN.  In the context of real life, the Bible seems refreshingly whole, an honest reflection on humanity in relation to the sacred and the profane.  I can't learn enough about it, but I also have to trust what little I know, and proceed, in faith, to seek God there.

-- Kathleen Norris in “Amazing Grace”


#4591

A SPORADIC PRAYER LIFE?

“Now all glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.”  (Ephesians 3:20 NLT)

What would my life be like if I just stopped praying altogether? I mean, what if God promised me that things would stay the same regardless of whether I prayed or not: would I still continue to pray? That’s a hard question. But I’ve thought about it because on a whole other level I’m a little curious about why some of us feel compelled to pray, even when our scales of belief are tipped toward the negative.

But even with a sporadic prayer life, I can’t imagine a life without prayer, without some effort to reach for God with all the cares and worries I drag with me wherever I go, and without some effort to invite God to speak to me in the times when I am sensible enough to just be quiet. Plus there’s a side of me that doesn’t really know how to express my love for God without prayer in my life. I’m not sure when or how I started feeling this way, but somewhere along the line, I’ve discovered that when I do pray, I am reminded of who God is and who I am. It’s hard to pray for anything without at some point naming God as one who is capable of all things.

-- Enuma Okoro in “Reluctant Pilgrim”


#4590

DESCRIBING JESUS

Years ago during a routine confirmation class, I asked a dozen ninth graders to watch a video version of Jesus cleansing the temple. His face flushed with anger, Jesus proceeded to thrash moneyboxes, tables, and pigeon cages. Then I told my 15-year-olds to describe Jesus in five words. They rattled off the usual answers: "Jesus is loving, caring, gentle, nice, sweet, kind..." After a few minutes of sharing, Aaron, who is normally the quietest kid in the class, couldn't stand it anymore. "Hey, you guys," he blurted out, "are you describing Jesus Christ or Barney?"

-- Matthew Woodley


#4589

WELL-BEING IN THE LORD

“For I know the plans I have for you" -- this is the LORD's declaration -- "plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”  (Jeremiah29:11 CSB)

Well-being is found in the renewal of disciplined lifestyles, committed relationships, and the receiving and giving of acceptance. To experience deep well-being is to be self-confident yet unself-conscious, self-giving yet self-respecting, realistic yet hope-filled.

-- David G. Meyers in “The Pursuit of Happiness: Who Is Happy and Why”


#4588

THERE ARE NO PERFECT MOTHERS

“Charm can be deceiving, and beauty fades away, but a woman who honors the Lord deserves to be praised.”  (Proverbs 31:30 CEV)

Our society sees to it that we all grow up with the notion in our head that there were two kinds of mothers: good mothers and bad mothers. Good mothers are loving, nurturing, and all-giving. Bad mothers are self-absorbed, uncaring, and inadequate. Yet most real flesh-and-blood mothers are neither all good nor all bad. Most mothers I know want desperately to be their best selves -- full of love and genuine concern. Yet the absolute dependency and endless demands of a child require every mother to give, at times, without getting anything immediate or tangible in return. No other relationship calls for endless giving and attention like that of raising and caring for a child. We expect mothers to spend their lives caring selflessly for their children without complaint....

This coming Sunday... churches... will extol the virtues of motherhood. The poem about the tireless, self-sacrificing wife and mother in Proverbs 31:10-31 will be read from pulpits and every mother attending church will nod her head publicly in agreement but berate herself privately for every instance in her mothering when she failed to live up to the biblical ideal. [Mothers need to be reminded] that there are no perfect mothers, that God knows and understands how hard it is to be expected to give unceasingly with little to nothing in return.

-- Dr. Renita Weems

#4587

CHRIST’S POWER IN OUR WEAKNESSS

The Apostle Paul wrote: “Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time He said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.’ So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”  (2 Corinthians 12:8-10 NLT)

That last sentence is the payoff -- the wisdom God taught Paul. God is always strong, but in our weakness that strength goes viral. The world sees that it is not about anything but Christ. At the end of me, I find strength in God that I never would have experienced otherwise…

As I’ve thought and studied over the years, I’ve changed my mind in some ways. Once I would have made the case that God works despite our weaknesses. Or God works around our weaknesses. But that’s not a strong enough statement. It’s not the real point. God doesn’t demonstrate His strength even though we’re weak -- He demonstrates it precisely through the weakness.

-- Kyle Idleman in “The End of Me”


#4586

SPIRITUAL JUNK FOOD

“These people are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm -- shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted -- twice dead.”  (Jude 12 NIV)

Godless men had slipped into the church, misleading the [congregation], seducing them to believe they could continue to sin and never receive God’s correction. Jude called these false teachers “shepherds who feed only themselves.”

Can you imagine a shepherd sitting on a barren hill, hungry animals all around him, enjoying his lunch? The baas and bleating would be almost deafening. He’d have to care for them.

Unlike sheep, people who fall in with wrong teaching rarely recognize the emptiness of what they’re taking in. Instead, they keep following, filling their hearts with useless calories of spiritual junk food, never understanding that they’re barely being fed after all.

Don’t follow these teachers. They’re here today, gone tomorrow. Nothing they do can last, because they aren’t founded on the bedrock of God’s Word.

-- Toni Sortor and Pamela McQuade in “God’s Word for Surviving the Real World”


#4585

CHRIST THE WORD

"And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory as of a Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14)

Let us serve Him faithfully as our Master. Let us obey Him loyally as our King. Let us study His teachings as our Prophet. Let us work diligently after Him as our Example. Let us look anxiously for Him as our coming Redeemer of body as well as soul.

But above all let us prize Him as our Sacrifice, and rest our whole weight on His death as atonement for sin. Let His blood be more precious in our eyes every year we live. Whatever else we glory in about Christ, let us glory above all things in His cross.

-- J.C. Ryle

#4584

LETTING OUR COMMITMENTS GUIDE US

"It is the LORD your God you must follow, and Him you must revere. Keep His commands and obey Him; serve Him and hold fast to Him."  (Deuteronomy 13:4 NIV)

When I was a kid I loved playing with a little toy train on the carpet at my grandmother’s home. I would pretend that the patterns in the rug were the tracks. I knew that the train’s power came from the engine. So I would hold onto the engine and pull the multi-car train along the lines in the carpet. If I wanted to back up the train, I would hold onto the engine and push the cars backwards. The only problem was that the caboose kept going all over the place, like the tail of a dog.

Commitments are like the engine that pulls the train. Feelings are like the caboose that follows behind. If we let our commitments pull the train, the feelings will follow. However, If we let our feelings, rather than our commitments, guide us, we may soon be off track. We should never live by our feelings, but rather live by our commitments.

-- David T. Wilkinson


#4583

FLESH AND SPIRIT

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."  (John 3:6 ESV)

Some day you will read in the papers that D. L. Moody of East Northfield, is dead.  Don't you believe a word of it!  At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now; I shall have gone up higher, that is all, out of this old clay tenement into a house that is immortal -- a body that death cannot touch, that sin cannot taint; a body fashioned like unto His glorious body.

I was born of the flesh in 1837.  I was born of the Spirit in 1856.  That which is born of the flesh may die.  That which is born of the Spirit will live forever.

-- Dwight Lyman Moody (1837-1899) 


#4582

A BLIND ANIMOSITY

"If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you."  (John 15:18-19 NIV)

A short story by the Spanish writer Carmen Corde tells of a young woman who gives birth to a blind son.  "I do not want my child to know that he is blind!" she informs family and neighbors, forbidding anyone to use telltale words such as "light," "color," and "sight."  The boy grows up unaware of his disability until one day a strange girl jumps over the fence of the garden and spoils everything by using all the forbidden words.  His world shatters in the face of this unimagined new reality.

In modern times, Christians resemble the strange girl who brings a message from the outside.  To a skeptical audience they bring rumors of another world beyond the fence, of an afterlife beyond death, of a loving God who is somehow working out His will in the chaotic history of this planet.  As in Carmen Corde's story, the news may not be welcome.  "We forget that what is to us an extension of sight is to the rest of the world a peculiar and arrogant blindness," the Catholic novelist Flannery O'Connor admitted.

-- Philip Yancey in “Rumors of Another World”


#4581

SPIRITUAL QUIETNESS

"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."  (Psalm 46:10 NIV)

Profound silence is not something we fall into casually. This may indeed happen, and a blessed happening it is, but normally we choose to set aside a time and place to enter into spiritual quietness. Those who never do this, or shrink from it, run a very grave risk of remaining half-fulfilled as humans.

-- Sister Wendy Beckett in “Meditations on Silence”


#4580