IN THE MIDST OF SUFFERING

“And in the same way -- by our faith -- the Holy Spirit helps us with our daily problems and in our praying. For we don’t even know what we should pray for nor how to pray as we should, but the Holy Spirit prays for us with such feeling that it cannot be expressed in words.”  (Romans 8:26 TLB)

In solitude, we come to know the Spirit who has already been given to us. The pains and struggles we encounter in our solitude thus become the way to hope, because our hope is not based on something that will happen after our sufferings are over, but on the real presence of God’s healing Spirit in the midst of these sufferings. 

-- Henri J. M. Nouwen in “Making All Things New”

#5784

EXPERIENCING GOD’S LOVE

Before we can love others, we must feel and understand how deeply God loves us. Ephesians 3:17-18 says, “I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts, living within you as you trust in Him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love; and may you be able to feel and understand, as all God’s children should, how long, how wide, how deep, and how high His love really is; and to experience this love for yourselves.” (The Living Bible, emphasis added)

Circle the words feel, understand, and experience in that passage. God wants us to feel His love, and He wants us to understand His love. Why? 1 John 4:19 says that we love because God first loved us. Why is it important to feel loved by God? Because unloved people are often unloving people. When I do not feel genuinely loved, I do not feel like giving love. So first we have to experience God’s love ourselves. Jesus said, “Love each other as I have loved you.” (John 15:12) That is the model. 

-- Rick Warren in “God’s Power to Change Your Life”

#5783

MEETING TOGETHER

 EDITOR'S NOTE: This quote was originally written following the Covid pandemic. Christians who had been worshiping via live stream were not returning to in-person worship in pre-pandemic numbers. Many Christians had gotten out of the habit. This trend continues for many today. This quote is not meant for those who are not able to be in worship. In that case, we are thankful for the ministry of live-stream worship. -- DW

MEETING TOGETHER

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another -- and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”  (Hebrews 10:24-25 NIV)   

As church attendance numbers fade across the nation and online services become very convenient it’s important to remember why church attendance for you and your family matters so much.

You can’t serve from your sofa. You can’t have community of faith on your sofa. You can’t experience the power of a room full of believers worshipping together on your sofa.

Christians aren’t consumers. We are contributors. We don’t watch. We engage. We give. We sacrifice. We encourage. We pray by laying hands on the hurting. We do life together.

The church needs you. And you need the church. 

-- Michael Carl

#5782

WALKING OUT OF THE PRISON OF FEAR

Fear never wrote a symphony or poem, negotiated a peace treaty, or cured a disease. Fear never pulled a family out of poverty or a country out of bigotry. Fear never saved a marriage or a business. Courage did that. Faith did that. People who refused to consult or cower to their timidities did that. But fear itself? Fear herds us into a prison and slams the doors. Wouldn't it be great to walk out?

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.”  (Isaiah 41:10 NIV)

-- Max Lucado in “Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear”

#5781

A PRAYER AS WE AGE

“Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.”  (Isaiah 46:4 NIV)

All gracious God.... I am one of those called by You into old age, a call not given to all, not given to Jesus, not given to most in the world today. I humbly ask You, grace me deeply in each aspect of that struggle. As my physical eyesight weakens, may the eyes of my faith strengthen, that I may see You and Your love in everything. As my hearing fails, may the ears of my heart be more attentive to the whisper of Your gentle voice. As my legs weaken and walking becomes more difficult, may I walk more truly in Your paths, knowing all the while that I am held in the embrace of Your love. As my mind becomes less alert and memory fades may I remain peaceful in You, aware that with You there is no need for thought or word. You ask simply that I be there, with You. Amen.  

-- Sister Moya Hanlen as printed in “Weavings”

#5780

OUR DEPENDENCE ON GOD

“My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.”  (Psalm 84:2 NIV)

There is a restlessness deep within each of us that compels us to search for the person, the place, the job, the "god" that will fill the void and give us peace.  This restlessness drives us to find someone who will love us for who we are, understand our fears and anxieties, affirm our worth, and call our lives into account.  To admit our need for and dependence upon God requires humility and vulnerability, which paves the way not only for knowing God, but also for becoming intimate with Him.  "Mutual love and confidence are the keys to intimacy," writes J. Oswald Sanders; "deepening intimacy with God is the outcome of deep desire." 

-- Cynthia Heald in “Intimacy with God”

#5779

CHARACTER MATTERS

“For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to Him, and to keep His commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.”   (Deuteronomy 30:16 NIV)

According to Scripture, virtually everything that truly qualifies a person for leadership is directly related to character. It’s not about style, status, personal charisma, clout, or worldly measurements of success. Integrity is the main issue that makes the difference between a good leader and a bad one.  

-- John MacArthur

#5778

AT HOME IN GOD’S WORD

“So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’”  (John 8:31-32 ESV)

Developing a meaningful understanding of the Scriptures is no simple matter. The truth is that while the Bible is in nearly all of our homes, not all of us are at home in the Bible. How is it with you? Do you feel at home with the Scriptures? Is the Bible a friend or a stranger to you? When crisis comes, you need a friend. In desperation people have turned to the Bible for strength, for comfort, for the word of life, expecting instant simple solutions, and sometimes they have come up empty because they didn’t know how to find its treasures.

Edwin Blair, in his book “The Bible and You,” points out: "The person who is looking for a way to master the Bible in three easy lessons will be disappointed. In the first place, one can never master the Bible. One can only be mastered by it. In the second place, the Bible is so immeasurably rich that the human mind cannot possibly embrace it all in a few attempts. Familiarity with the Bible comes only by prolonged exposure to its contents." 

-- James W. Moore and Bob J. Moore in “Lord, Give Me Patience!... And Give It to Me Right Now!”  

#5777

GOD USES HIS SPIRIT TO CHANGE US

“But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to Him at all.) And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God.”  (Romans 8:9-10 NLT)

When we commit ourselves to Christ, the Holy Spirit comes into our lives to empower and direct us. The Spirit of God gives us new strength and vitality and the desire and power to do what is right. As the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like Him…

God’s number one purpose in your life is to make you like Jesus Christ. The Spirit of God uses the Word of God to make the child of God more like the Son of God. And what is Jesus like? His life on earth embodied the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. 

-- Rick Warren in “God’s Power to Change Your Life”

#5776

THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

“Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’”  (Acts 2:38 NRSV)

To repent is to change your mind about the way you have been living. It is to decide to stop following the way of sin and to start following the way of Jesus. When the decision to repent is coupled with trusting faith in Jesus, the result is conversion. William Barclay writes, “When repentance comes, something happens for the future. We receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Even if we repent, how are we to avoid making the same mistakes over and over again? There comes into our lives the power which is not our power, the power of the Holy Spirit, and in that power we can win the battles we never thought to win, and resist things which by ourselves we would have been powerless to resist. In the moment of true repentance we are liberated from the estrangement and the fear of the past, and we are equipped to face the battles of the future.” 

-- Richard Peace in “Learning to Love God”

#5775

DO WE LOVE JESUS? – Part 2

One day, as part of a series of messages designed to set a new direction and to connect with the heart of what is basic and essential about our lives as spiritual beings, my wife, Rebekah, preached a series titled “Do You Love Jesus?”

Evidently she caused quite a stir. Early the next day a gentleman wielding a lot of political clout strode into her office and demanded, “What do you mean by asking us if we love Jesus?”

“It’s a good question,” she responded. “So let me make it a little more personal: Tell me, ‘George,’ do you love Jesus?”

The man was beside himself. The very idea, the affront of the question. How dare anyone ask about such a personal and potentially emotional topic? Why, that was between him and Jesus.

The point, of course, is that our love for Jesus needs to be immediate, intense, and quite overwhelming. A deeply personal love, yes, but also a love that is profoundly visible. If we do not allow ourselves to fall in love with the Savior to the extent that our emotions, our thoughts, and ultimately our behaviors are all touched and enlarged by that love – then our spiritual journey will not take us much farther than tentative participation at best...

Love for Jesus changes us from the inside out. 

-- Derek Maul in “Get Real: A Spiritual Journey for Men”

#5774

DO WE LOVE JESUS? – Part 1

“Jesus said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love Me?’”  (John 21:17a NIV)

One reason spiritual life is so vibrant at my church is because we have so many men who aren’t afraid to show their deep love for Jesus. “The Holy Spirit is loose in this church,” my good friend Jerry said one Sunday. That’s what happens when both women and men have the courage to let go of their cultural inhibitions and allow themselves to be touched personally by a living Savior.

Things haven’t always been that way. Indeed, a decade ago the number of faithful and active men involved was disappointingly low and mostly limited to those over fifty.  As a community of faith our corporate spiritual growth was significantly stunted.  You could walk into the sanctuary on Sunday morning, and all you could feel was the presence of hungry people waiting for something that wasn’t happening. Good people, yes, but there was little sense of vitality, no powerful rush of spiritual energy, and scant evidence of the abundant joy to be found when we claim and embrace our love for Jesus. 

-- Derek Maul in “Get Real: A Spiritual Journey for Men”

#5773

DOING THE WILL OF GOD

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God -- this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is -- His good, pleasing and perfect will.”  (Romans 12:1-2)

The end of the universe is not to be happy. The end is not to avoid suffering. But the end of life is to do the will of God, come what may. 

-- Martin Luther King, Jr. in a sermon titled “Paul's Letter to American Christians”

#5772

MEETING JESUS BY THE SEA OF GALILEE

“And seeing the multitudes, Jesus went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying: ‘Blessed are…’”  (Matthew 5:1-3a NKJV)

One evening at sunset, as I sat by the Sea of Galilee, I was meditating on the Beatitudes, on the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for justice, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who suffer for justice, on Jesus calling them “blessed” and saying “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” I felt drawn by the purity and simplicity of following Jesus, almost as if He found me there meditating and said, “Follow Me.” I was touched by joy then. It was the turning point. It was “the bread of the Coming One.” It was a taste of heart’s desire, I mean, a foretaste of Someone or Something still to come, an aftertaste of Someone or Something already come. I felt twenty centuries drop away between me and Jesus. I felt I was no longer a disciple at secondhand but a disciple at firsthand like Peter and John and Mary Magdalene. I thought again of the old man and his question, and I asked myself “Have you met Jesus?” and I found I could say “Yes!” 

-- John S. Dunne in “The Homing Spirit: A Pilgrimage of the Mind, of the Heart, of the Soul”

#5771

IMMERSION IN THE LIFE OF JESUS

“Never let loyalty and kindness leave you! Tie them around your neck as a reminder. Write them deep within your heart. Then you will find favor with both God and people, and you will earn a good reputation. Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek His will in all you do, and He will show you which path to take.”  (Proverbs 3:3-6 NLT)

Conversion without immersion in the life of Jesus Christ is perversion of the gospel. St. Augustine talked about “the costly grace” of God. Discipleship, servanthood, costs us everything. Everything must go. Genesis 2:25 conveys this powerfully in the image of nakedness: “and the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.”

Dorothee Soelle wrote, “To be naked means to be without protection; it is to be unarmed. It requires our surrendering ‘the weapons’ that we usually carry around with us. My credit card, my doctorate, the books I have written -- the whole fortress in which I live -- are all ‘clothes’ that I have to get rid of in order to love.”

To find favor is to be called to disarmament, called to defenselessness, called to discipleship. 

-- Leonard Sweet in “A Cup of Coffee at the Soul Café”

#5770

OUR SAVIOR AND BREAD OF LIFE

“Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to Me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in Me will never be thirsty… I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.’”  (John 6:35, 51 NIV)

Rejoice, you who feel that you are lost, your Savior comes to seek and save you. Be of good cheer, you who are in prison, for He comes to set you free. You who are famished and ready to die, rejoice that He has consecrated for you a Bethlehem, a house of bread, and He has come to be the Bread of Life to your souls. Rejoice, O sinners everywhere, for the restorer of the castaways, the Savior of the fallen, has come. 

-- C. H. Spurgeon in “Joy Born at Bethlehem” 

#5769

WIRED FOR ETERNITY

“Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits at God’s right hand in the place of honor and power. Let heaven fill your thoughts.”  (Colossians 3:1-2)

C. S. Lewis, the brilliant Christian apologist, noticed that everything that satisfies fails to satisfy completely. If we enjoy something, we always want more! Desires for such things as food, drink, and a home can normally be satisfied, but the lasting desires cannot be satisfied on this earth. This led Lewis to conclude that we were made for another world. There is a depth to human experience that will not and cannot reach fulfillment on this earth -- because we were made for heaven. “This world is not my home.” Time will never fulfill our deepest longings, because we were wired for eternity. 

-- Stuart Briscoe in “Daily Study Bible for Men”

#5768

THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD

Jesus Christ came and was clothed in human flesh to let us know who God is and what God is really like. In Jesus Christ we see that God is approachable, and to a degree knowable by creatures like us. God can understand our condition because God has made us. We can know God because God has been revealed in Jesus Christ.

Colossians 1:15-16 says it so well: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in Him all things in heaven and earth were created, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers -- all things have been created through Him and for Him.” In Jesus we have the perfect reflection of God. While the creator of this vast universe may seem distant and unknowable, we can see, understand, and know Jesus of Nazareth. While it may seem too much to ask the Maker of the complex creation to hear us as we pray, we remember Jesus listened to everyone. So we, you and I, can know the One who knows us and we can communicate with the One who is author of all.

-- Reuben P. Job in “A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God”

#5767

THE SOVEREIGN LORD OF LIFE

“He will swallow up death forever! The Sovereign Lord will wipe away all tears… In that day the people will proclaim, ‘This is our God! We trusted in Him, and He saved us! This is the Lord, in whom we trusted. Let us rejoice in the salvation He brings!’”  (Isaiah 25:8-9 NLT)

The reality of death is with us. We face it as and who we are. It is at this juncture that those who are Christians, those who are in Christ, reveal their faith which is their character.

“Death,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in his Letters and Papers from Prison, “is the supreme festival on the road to freedom.” Such confidence in death as access to the fuller presence of God can only come from a conviction that our lives are hidden with Christ in God -- with Christ who is the incarnation of persisting, caring grace -- and in God who is the sovereign Lord of life before and beyond death.

-- Thomas A. Langford in “Christian Wholeness” 

#5766

THE TOMB IS NOT THE END

“And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope.”  (1 Thessalonians 4:13 NLT)

For half a century I have been writing my thoughts in prose and in verse -- history, philosophy, drama, romance, tradition, satire, ode, and song. I have tried it all. But I feel I have not said the thousandth part of what is in me. When I go down to the grave I can say, like many others, "I have finished my day's work!" But I cannot say, "I have finished my life." My day's work will begin again the next morning. The tomb is not a blind alley; it is a thoroughfare. It closes on the twilight, it opens on the dawn. 
 
-- Victor Hugo

#5765

PERSEVERANCE IN DISCIPLESHIP

“Look to the LORD and His strength; seek His face always.”  (1 Chronicles 16:11)

We survive in the way of faith not because we have extraordinary stamina but because God is righteous. Christian discipleship is a process of paying more and more attention to God's righteousness and less and less attention to our own; finding the meaning of our lives not by probing our moods and motives and morals but by believing God's will and purposes; making a map of the faithfulness of God, not charting the rise and fall of our enthusiasms.  It is out of such a reality that we acquire perseverance. 

-- Eugene Peterson in “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction”

#5764

THE COMING OF ANOTHER YEAR

Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears what I say and believes in the One who sent Me has eternal life.”  (John 5:24)

With the coming of another year we are reminded that time is passing.  The grains of sand are dripping through the hourglass; sometimes they seem to pass so quickly.  That is a frightening thing for those who have no hope.  But for those of us whose citizenship is in heaven, it's only good and it's only right.

-- Max Lucado  

#5763