Harvest Time
Harvest Time - Devotions for 4-24-24
“Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then the harvest?’ Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.” John 4:35
It is wonderful to have a beautiful spring day. Outside my window there are people digging in the soil, pulling weeds, and planting plants and seeds. The grass has greened up and needs a mower to make it look all nice and beautiful and there are still a few daffodils blooming. God is doing His thing in making the world turn green and start growing. Soon the trees will leaf out and provide shade for the hot summer months ahead. It is into that world Jesus says the harvest is ready for workers to go into the fields and bring in the harvest.
So, why am I talking about harvest? What was Jesus saying when the harvest then was still four months away, about the same as for us today in the fresh spring sunshine? The normal harvest is not for several months yet. Why mention harvest in the spring?
The harvest Jesus was talking about was not the wheat harvest. There were no grapes ready to be picked and turned into wine. No olives were ripe on the trees and ready for the olive presses to turn into oil. The harvest Jesus was referring to, and which is ready even now in our time, is the harvest of souls. People need the Lord. People are ready for a touch from God on their lives and some are ready to come to faith in Jesus. The harvest of souls is ripe for workers to go into that field and tell people about the savior.
Yesterday I poked my head into an office where a lady I know was working. But she was not her normal self, she looked weary and sad. The weight of the world was heavy on her shoulders and her co-worker, in the same office noticed it too. She nodded her head toward me, indicating that her co-worker needed help.
Maybe that is you today, in need of help, in need of a touch from the savior. Maybe that is your neighbor, co-worker or a relative you just talked with. In the case of this office worker, it was that a friend had died suddenly, he had a heart attack and was just gone. He was there in the morning but gone in the afternoon. Her friend died and it was weighing heavily on her heart.
That sort of thing, along with many other things that can drag us down, are happening all over, all the time. There is not a time for planting and harvesting in that world, it is happening now and always. There is always something going on that hurts us, hurts our neighbors, hurts the people around us. And into that storm of pain and weariness, a harvest field is waiting.
I am not around that lady whose office I poked my head into very often. She isn’t a close friend, I just happened to be there on a day she was in pain, a day when she needed help. So, instead of just saying hi and leaving, I stayed a little longer and asked her how she was doing. At that, she let it out that she was not doing well. That opened the door, and I was able to share God’s word with her and the three of us, the hurting lady, her co-worker and I, prayed.
That is the harvest field waiting for us to walk into. It can happen at any time and in any place, even when we are not expecting it. I was not expecting to share God’s word or pray with that lady that day. I actually came to ask her a question, one we never did get to. God had other plans, plans to draw her closer to Him.
When you enter a new day, pray and ask God if there is a harvest event He will be leading you to today. Who knows, you may have one agenda, but God has another. He may be calling you to go into the harvest field of souls today. Be open, let God use you.
Pastor Gary.
Power Outage
Power Outage - Devotions for 4-10-24
Psalm 62:11 “Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this; that power belongs to God.”
This past weekend was the first time that I had to cancel church for a power outage. The wind was whipping the area with gusts up to 100 MPH and the power company decided it had to turn the power off to many areas to prevent their lines arcing and starting grass fires that could turn deadly in that wind. They turned it off on Saturday and said that power should be back on after midnight. Well, it wasn’t. The power did not come back on until the early morning hours of Monday, leaving the church without electricity all day on Sunday. We had a power outage.
That got me to thinking about real power. There are all kinds of power in this world. There is electrical power, the kind the church was lacking on Sunday. There is the power of the vote that comes at every election season. There is the power of water that shows itself whenever there is some huge flood that washes away everything in its path. There is the power of the pen that is seen whenever someone writes something that captures the attention of millions of people. There is also the power of truth, and this world needs a lot more of that.
Then there is the power of God. Actually, all power comes from God. God created electricity, He created the power of rushing water, He created the power of the pen, He created the power of dynamite and nuclear power. God created all power because he created everything that is. All power ultimately comes from God.
This Psalm says that clearly, “power belongs to God.” It belongs to Him because it comes from Him. He created all things so the power that is in anything comes from Him.
I need to remember that the next time I’m thinking I am too weak to attempt to do something. Am I really, or does God in me, give me the power to do more than I think I can? I need to remember God’s power when I am faced with anything that has greater power than I do. I am weak, but He is strong, and He is in me. God is in all of us who believe. That is why the scriptures also say, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13. As believers in Christ, the creator of all things, we are stronger than we think we are. Let us remember that when we are placed in a position of weakness, especially spiritual weakness. We are as strong as God wants to make us.
If you read this Psalm, you will see something else with this verse, it does not have a period at the end of verse 11, there is a comma there. What follows after saying that power belongs to God is “and that to you, O Lord, belongs steadfast love.”
Power and love. Both belong to God, and they are listed here side-by-side in the same sentence. There is something to this and in part it is that love is one of the greatest powers in the universe. God’s love is a great power, a force in this world. God’s love changes lives and changes the world. Just look at the greatest display of love ever, Jesus’ death on the cross. God showed His great love for us in that He sent Jesus to be born of a virgin, and then to die on a cross and be raised from the grave. That is the greatest display of love ever and that changed millions of lives and changed all of history. That was power!
One thing we can take away from this is that God’s love is also in us and we can share that love with others. That is the greatest power we can have, the power of God’s love. Let us show God’s love to others in ways that will allow Jesus to change them and change the world. There is no lack of power, no power outage, when Christians show love to others.
Pastor Gary.
Anxiety and Flowers
Green Grass and Flowers - Devotions for 4-3-24
Matthew 6:28b-29 “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”
I love spring, that is when here in Denver we can finally say that spring has really arrived! Meaning, it is warm and sunny and there is no snow in the forecast. A day like today. Today feels like spring has really come. Yeah, there might be more snow on the way sometime in the next month, but it is finally warm and sunny, the grass is green, and the early flowers are blooming. It is a nice day for a walk in the park, or to sit in the sunshine in the yard.
When Jesus was giving His most famous teaching, what we call the Sermon on the Mount, He gave a lot of general advice about life. He talked about salt and light, treasurers in heaven, how to pray, how to help others and here in our text, about how not to be anxious.
Are any of us anxious? Am I anxious? Do you have fears or worryies? I fear that the answer to that is that we all have anxieties of some kinds and especially at different points in our lives. Even though I like to think of myself as a stable and unflappable person, I have to admit to being anxious about different things. We all have anxiety about some things in our lives.
So, Jesus, in His great wisdom, points to some very simple things to remind us how we should be looking at the things that bother us. Consider them as the tiniest of things. Jesus points to the birds of the air and to the flowers of the field. He points us to look at springtime. Spring is when the birds return and are singing the most and when the grass and flowers just jump up turning green with bright, beautiful flowers. So, consider spring when you are anxious.
Why spring? Because you and I cannot do anything to make it happen. We can endure winter, but we cannot make the season change. We cannot create rain or make it get warm outside, we can only enjoy it when it happens. We cannot make the grass grow, we can only smile when it turns from brown to green. We cannot make the daffodils bloom, we can only take in their beauty when they do.
The thing about anxiety is that we focus on and worry about the things that we usually cannot control. That causes us to worry. Thinking about what we cannot do to control what we cannot control robs us of our peace. It is usually the things that we have little or no control over that cause us the greatest anxiety.
So, Jesus points to things we have no control over at all, the birds and the flowers of spring. The birds come because God sends them. The flowers grow and bloom because God causes them to. We cannot make spring happen, only God can.
So, look to the things that God makes happen and sit back and enjoy them to help your anxiety pass. Watch spring jump up all around you and rest in knowing that you had nothing to do with it at all, God did it for you. Then look at the areas of your life that are bothering you and remember that He cares about those too. Know this, He who made spring come to the world around you, cares about every detail of your life.
That is how to handle anxiety, let God handle those areas of your life while you wait and watch for the birds to return and the flowers to bloom, without your help.
In whatever is causing your anxiety, look for the Lord. He will cause the flowers in them to bloom, and He doesn’t need you to do it. Rest in His work on your behalf.
Pastor Gary.
New!
2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
Easter is this Sunday! What a great day, the day we remember and celebrate that Jesus rose from the grave. This is a great day, the most important day in the church year, the most important day in history, after creation itself. On Easter we celebrate new life. We celebrate Jesus rising from the grave, receiving His new life. And we celebrate that He gives to us that life, our new life. We receive new life because Jesus rose from the grave. He makes us new!
Now, what is made new because of the resurrection? Let’s look at that.
Shortly before Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave, He raised Lazarus from the dead. That was a different sort of resurrection, that was more like a resuscitation when someone’s heart is restarted. Lazarus was dead for four days, so it is not like restarting a heart completely, but it is in this respect. When someone is brought back to life with our modern medical means, they come back and hopefully live a long time. But they will go on to die another day. Lazarus lived for a long time after Jesus brought him back to life, but he would go on to die another day. Lazarus is not walking among us today, so he did die another day, just like the others Jesus miraculously raised from the dead. None of them are alive, on this earth, today.
But, Jesus rose from the grave never to die again. He was changed. He who was buried a mortal body, was raised with an immortal body. He would never die again and is still alive today. He is alive in heaven.
If we believe in Jesus, we will be raised to a new life in heaven when we die too. We will be changed from having a body that will grow old and die, no matter what we do to try and stop that, to one that will never die, never grow old, never stop living. We will be changed.
That is one thing this means; we will be changed when we die and go to heaven. But the bible is saying something else besides. We will also be changed now, in this life. When we become a believer, we are changed at that moment. The old self dies a spiritual death with Jesus on the cross and a new self is raised with Jesus from the grave. Our old, sinful self dies, and we are raised as a new creature in Christ, a changed person, a new believer.
Praise God. I don’t want the old Gary raised up! I want that old sinner to stay dead. I want to live as the new creature God raised me up to be, not the old self who died with Jesus on the cross. I want to be the new creature God talks about in this text, and I am, we all are. When Jesus came into my heart, and your heart when we believed, the old self died, it passed away as this verse says. And in its place, God made a new creation, a new me, a new you. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation!” You are a new believer. That old you, that sinful you, died and Jesus made you new. He raised up a new person in the body of the dead you.
Unfortunately, while we still walk in this world, in the flesh we were born into, there is an on-going struggle between our dead self and our new self. The old self doesn’t want to die and so our old sins come back to temp us and lead us astray. In the previous chapter it says of that struggle between our old and new selves, “Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” The old self is dying and the new, Christian self, is growing stronger. Let us feed the new self and starve the old self. Let us walk as believers, as new creations in Christ.
Pastor Gary.
Foot Washing
Foot Washing - Devotions for 2-28-24
John 13:5 “Then He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around Him.”
The story of Jesus washing His disciple’s feet is a well-known story. Jesus was meeting with a group of His followers, including the twelve for Passover. Before the meal was served, Jesus did something totally different for a Jewish Passover celebration, He washed the feet of His disciples. This was very out-of-the-ordinary for a leader or other important person to do, especially at a formal gathering. This was also not the first time Jesus washed someone’s feet.
When Jesus was growing up in the home of Joseph and Mary in the town of Nazareth, he would have gotten used to washing the feet of other people. He was the eldest son in the family, and as such his parents would have had Jesus wash the feet of family guests who had come to have some formal dinner or meeting in the family home.
When I was in Israel I went to the town of Nazareth. In that town is the site where the remains of the home that Jesus grew up in are located. There are some steps that lead down into the house and at the bottom of those steps there is a tile floor with one corner being a washbasin. That is the foot-washing basin for people who entered the home of Joseph and Mary. As the eldest son, it would have been his responsibility to greet guests to their home and wash their feet before they came into the rest of the house. Jesus grew up washing people’s feet.
What Jesus did on the night of His last supper was not the normal way they did foot washings at that time. As shown by the basin in the floor at the entry of the home Jesus grew up in, foot-washings were done at the door when people first arrived. It could be that the disciples already had their feet washed when they arrived for their Passover meal with Jesus, His last supper. It could also be that no one washed their feet when they arrived, the bible doesn’t say which. But either way, it was not normal for the host or guest of honor, to wash anyone’s feet and surely not when they had already been seated.
In the story of Jesus washing their feet, everyone had already been seated and supper was being served. In verse 2 it says, “During supper” and in verse 4 it says that Jesus “rose from supper” to wash the feet of His disciples. This was not the normal way guests would have had their feet washed. That is why the reaction from His disciples like Peter, who were shocked and tried to refuse it. Peter knew that a servant, or someone lower in status than the guest-of-honor would do this when people first arrived.
What is the significance of Jesus doing this foot washing? It was done this way, during the meal by Jesus, their leader, to make a significant point. That point was to show the disciples that they should go out from there, after the death and resurrection of Jesus, and become servants, not lords over people. In verse 15 Jesus tells them, “For I have given you an example, that you also should do just I have done to you.”
We should all consider that we are not that important or great. Not one of us is more important than any other human being. We are to be servants to, not lords over others.
What does it look like for you to place yourself as the servant of others? Who is God calling you to serve? How can you be to others around you, their servant?
Those are the questions we should be asking ourselves. How can I become a servant to the people God has placed in my life so that I can help them, or lead them closer to Jesus?
Pastor Gary.
Ashes
Job 42:6 “Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
Today is Ash Wednesday. In some churches around the world this is a day people will go to their church and participate in a very old tradition of having the priest or pastor put a small amount of ashes on their forehead. This is supposed to be a symbol of their mortality, as in the ashes to ashes, dust to dust that we shall all return to one day. It is to remind us that we need to be right with Jesus so that when that day comes, we will have faith that will lead us to heaven.
Though that phrase is not in the bible, the book of Ecclesiastes talks about being taken from dust and returning to dust (3:20), and there are several places where the bible talks about being in sackcloth and ashes because of dealing with some dramatic problem, usually a great loss, in this life.
Job experienced that. He experienced great loss. In Job 1, Job experiences the loss of all his children, his wealth, everything he owned or had. He experienced great loss and in verses 20 - 21 he says those famous words, “Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshipped. ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’”
Job was wrestling with great loss, and he showed that by doing what people of that time did, he tore his clothes, shaved his head and likely sat in ashes and put some over his head. He took on the look of a person in mourning.
Today we would probably just stay in bed and cry all day and maybe not come out of our home for days. We would hide. Either way, people mourn and hurt deeply when they experience times of great loss. Maybe you have been there, or maybe you are there right now. It hurts. No one can fault anyone for experiencing pain when going through the hard times of life. No one thinks going through those times is easy. Life can be hard.
What is interesting to me is that Job goes through sackcloth and ashes again in chapter 42 verse 6. But this time, he is not facing some new time of hardship. His present hardship is not quite over, but there is nothing new to warrant a new dive into sackcloth and ashes.
So, what is it that prompts Job to put on the sackcloth and ashes once again? This time it is that he recognized his own pride and sin. He was showing repentance for his sin.
After going through almost all the book of Job and listening to the heresy of his friends who told Job he must be a great sinner because God punished him. The idea being that God always blesses you if you do good and always punishes you if you do bad and since Job had bad things happen he must have done great evil. But Job had not. He was just a normal guy who loved the Lord and tried to walk in his faith. After dealing with the false teachings of his friends, God finally speaks to Job. He doesn’t really say much except to ask Job if Job was smart enough to understand the deep things of God. After all, Job was questioning why bad things happened to him, a deep theological issue.
When Job realized what God was doing, showing Job how much greater God is than any human, Job realizes he should have just trusted God. God is far greater than Job, or any of us. What we need to do when facing hard times, is realize that God still loves us and that we may, or may not ever understand the hard things of life. But God is still good! We can rest in knowing that in spite of how things look sometimes, God is still good, and He still loves us.
Pastor Gary.
Walking in the Truth
Walking in the Truth - Devotions for 2-7-24
3 John 4 “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.”
My wife Debra and I have three children, eight grandchildren and one (with another on the way) great-grandchild. We love them all. They are the delights of our life. The only problem with them is that they all live out-of-state and so, for us to see them we have to travel.
John the Apostle who wrote the tiny books of 1, 2, and 3 John is never mentioned as having any children or being married. But, the Apostle Paul says that Peter and others of the apostles had wives. Maybe John was married, but nothing in history or the bible proves that.
So, when John mentions in the above verse something about “my children” he is not referring to children he shared with his wife, if he had one. He is talking about people who he considered his spiritual children.
When John wrote this letter, he was likely in his mid 90’s, the oldest and longest living of the apostles. During his life after Jesus died and rose, he lived for a time in Jerusalem and then for many years in Ephesus, taking care of Mary the mother of Jesus until her death. During those years, he was the pastor of the church in Ephesus and after that, the revered elder of the entire Christian world. He influenced many people to faith in Jesus and mentored many to walk with Christ and become church leaders.
In this verse the elderly church leader, John tells us what gives him great joy. It is seeing that those he had influenced for Christ in some way, as a spiritual father to them, were walking as believers.
This says two things to me. That some of those who he knew who had come to faith were not walking “in the truth.” Perhaps they had abandoned their faith to avoid persecution, perhaps they just walked away from the faith. The second thing is that when we have a close relationship with other believers, especially in some sort of mentorship way, seeing them live for Jesus fills our hearts with joy.
Debra and I have that joy in knowing that our children and grandchildren are believers. We love to hear about their church service when we talk because it means they went to church. We love to hear about other Christian events they go to, bible camps or retreats, because it means they are walking in the truth of Jesus. It gives us joy to know they are believers.
It gives us joy too when people we have influenced in the faith; Debra, her former students and fellow staff at schools she taught at; and me, people in the various churches I have served, are walking as believers. We just received a letter that gave us great joy. A college age girl, the daughter of a couple whose marriage I performed years ago and granddaughter of a former member of this congregation, is going to Africa on a Christian missions trip this summer. We were filled with joy to know that the faith of her grandparents and parents continues on.
Generations of faith. What a blessing that is. To watch the faith of one generation flow to the next and next. It gives great joy. And what a joy it is to watch as those we know and have worked with in church service, continue to walk with the Lord and to see their families walking with the Lord too.
Do what you can to influence people towards Jesus. And rejoice as you watch them continuing on in the faith and as their children walk in the truth as well.
Pastor Gary.
Even so, I will rejoice in the Lord
Even So, I Will Rejoice in the Lord - Devotions for 1-24-24
Habakkuk 3:18 “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.”
Habakkuk is a short book from one of the minor prophets in the Old Testament. The book is only 3 chapters long. At the end of the book, he says something very profound. After giving a list of all sorts of things going totally wrong, farms not producing crops, and other failures of normally stable and predictable things he says the above quote. He is saying, even if all other things fail and my life falls totally apart, “yet I will rejoice in the Lord: I will take joy in the God of my salvation.”
What a stable thought. I wish I could say with confidence that if everything in my life fell apart and I ended up like Job, having lost everything important to me and my life, that I would still rejoice in the Lord. I wish I could claim to be that solid in my faith. I hope that, if that were to happen, I could live like that. I hope, I wish, but only God knows. What I do know is that I am weak. I resemble the children’s song, “They are (I am) weak but He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me…”
Back to Habakkuk. Most prophets in the bible had really hard lives. Many of them were killed by their own people. Isaiah was sawn in half by some Jews who didn’t like what he said. Jeremiah and Ezekiel and others too were killed for what they said, killed for following the Lord’s call on their lives. The life of a prophet of God was not easy.
So, when Habakkuk talks about having everything taken away, he could have been thinking of those other prophets who had even their lives taken from them. Would that happen to him? Would he be killed like many of the other prophets before him?
As it would turn out, he would not be killed for his prophesies, but he would end up leaving the land of Israel, live in Arabia and move to Babylon with Daniel and the others who were taken into exile. During those times he would know about losing everything including the lands and farms he owned.
So, his statement about losing the fig trees, grapes, olives, sheep and cattle (vs 17) was likely real. He likely did experience losing everything he owned at the hands of King Nebuchadnezzar. It would seem then, that he is passing on to all who would read his words, that with the help of God Himself, we can rejoice through anything that comes our way.
The Apostle Paul says the same thing in the book of 1 Thessalonians “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.” And again in Philippians “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.” Paul was in prison when he wrote those words.
It seems then, that those who go through times of great sorrow and loss can be helped through those times. Not everyone comes through hard times rejoicing, but some do. So, there is hope for us, hope for me. I hope I never have that kind of sorrow or loss, but if I do, if you do, there is hope and our hope is in the Lord. He can help us through times of great loss and great sorrow if we cling to him.
The last part of verse 18 shows why. Because we are saved. We know where we will spend eternity if we believe in Jesus. So, for the believer, our salvation is what makes it possible to rejoice even when all earthly things fail us. We can rejoice because we will live in heaven where moth and rust and all other earthly problems do not bother us.
Even so, I will rejoice in the Lord!
Pastor Gary.
Locked Out
Locked Out - Devotions for 1-17-24
Acts 12:16 “But Peter continued knocking, and when they opened, they saw him and were amazed.”
The story in Acts 12 of Peter being put in prison, but then let out by an angel of the Lord is a fun story. Peter had been caught by the Jewish leaders and put in prison after James had been killed for his faith. The bible says that Herod saw that killing James pleased the Jews. As a result, Herod tried to do the same thing to Peter. Peter was arrested and the next day he was to be killed, but God had other plans.
An angel comes to Peter in the night, his chains fall off, the jail doors open up and Peter is led out of the jail. He thinks he is in a dream. When he comes to and realizes it is not a dream Peter is outside the jail walking the streets of Jerusalem. Peter gathers his wits and goes to the home of a believer named Mary, the mother of John Mark. John Mark was the man would go on to write the Gospel of Mark. Peter went to his house because he knew that the believers would often gather there for prayer.
When Peter gets to the outer gate, he finds it is locked. Peter is locked out.
I went to the church building earlier this week and I was locked out. It was freezing outside, and the door would not open up. I tried every door, but I was locked out! I wanted in, just as Peter wanted in because he knew if he was found by the authorities he would be arrested and taken back to jail again.
I had the ability to call the locksmith and after a couple of hours I was able to get in the church. Peter had to be let in from someone inside, he had to knock. So he knocked and a young girl named Rhoda came to the door. She saw that it was Peter and immediately ran back in to tell everyone. But she forgot to let Peter in!
Why didn’t she open the door to the gate? Why didn’t she let Peter in? I’m sure Peter wondered. I think he was a bit scared too that by staying outside some guard or soldier would see him. But he waited and kept knocking and eventually someone came and let him in. They opened the door and invited him in. Peter was no longer locked out. And when Peter came into the house, there was great rejoicing as everyone thought he was going to be killed like James had been. Instead, God answered their prayers and Peter was saved.
Jesus opened the door for us. He opens the door to us for our salvation and He opens the door for us to heaven. Jesus is the key that opens the door for our sins to be forgiven and us to live in heaven after we die. Jesus is our door opener and the One who invites us in.
Our sin is what locks us out. Not some mechanical failure of a metal lock, but our sin. However, Jesus died on the cross to forgive our sins. Jesus invites us to receive the forgiveness of our sins by believing in Him, by having faith in Him. When we come to Jesus in faith, He forgives our sins and then there is nothing locking us out. He opens the door wide and invites us in.
Come to Jesus in faith and knock on His door and He will forgive your sins. Jesus never forgets to open the door to anyone who knocks. Call on Jesus today, knock and He will open the door and let you in.
Pastor Gary.
A Willing Heart
A Willing Heart - Devotions for 12-13-23
Luke 1:38 “And Mary said, ‘Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it to be me according to your word.’ And the angel departed from her.”
It is hard to imagine how strange and hard it was for the young lady Mary, likely a teenager, to believe and accept the message from God to her through the words of the angel Gabriel. The angel told her that she, while still a virgin, would conceive a child and bear a son who would be called “The Son of the Most High.”
There are all sorts of things in the angel’s message that were problematic. First, the whole virgin getting pregnant thing. But if you believe in miracles, maybe you can accept that, but for someone else, not yourself, at least not easily for yourself.
Talk about a huge change in plans. Whatever plans you were making for yourself, including an upcoming wedding, are suddenly either changed or threatened with possible issues. But that was just the most pressing issue with the words of the angel. What would Joseph think, and would he still want to marry her? What would her parents think? What would her friends think? Would she even be able to stay in her hometown or would she have to run off somewhere else to have this baby? There were all sorts of things to consider with being an unmarried pregnant teenager, especially in that time and culture.
Then there was this whole thing about the baby being called the Son of the Most High and the Holy Spirit overshadowing her. Wow, this would have been so much for such a young person to take in. And yet, what is her response?
After an initial questioning of how all that could possibly be, she says to the angel, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”
Wow, simple acceptance of the Lord’s will and work. Mary seems to simply understand that this is truly something from God and even though she cannot understand it or what it all will mean for her life, she shows that she is willing to do whatever the Lord wanted her to do.
Simple acceptance of God’s will, no matter what!
O how I wish I had that sort of simple understanding and acceptance of God’s will for my life. When I felt God’s call for me to become a pastor it took at least a year and a half to really accept it and even then, it took going through seminary for me to really believe it.
But Mary accepts this on-the-spot. There was no waiting period to think about it. No time to adjust her thinking. No time to ask friends, mentors, or relatives what they thought. No, Mary hears the words of the angel and accepts God’s direction for her life.
Mary had a willing heart. A heart willing to do whatever the Lord called her to do, no matter what. O that we all had a heart that open to the will of God in our life.
How open to God’s will in your life is your heart? What if God called you to something totally different, a brand-new direction for your life? How would you accept it? Could you learn about a big change for you and simply say, “Yes Lord” or would you be weary and slow to accept God’s will for your life?
Let us pray that God would mold our hearts to be more receptive to His will in our life, to become more like Mary when the angel told her about this huge thing God was going to do with her life. I believe we all need God to help us be more like Mary, more open to His will.
Pray that God would open your heart more and more to His will.
Pastor Gary.
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Busy
Psalm 46:10 “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted on the earth!”
Christmas season is usually one of the busiest times of the year. While it may be almost a cliché to say that it is none-the-less true. This is a busy time of year for most people.
My wife and I felt that in the last couple of weeks. We had the usual things to do and to prepare for, including activities at work and church and in our own lives. Then, into that we had the extra things that Christmas brings with it like a special event at our church which involved a lot of extra work. We expected those things and prepared for them. But, into that expected busyness came the unexpected busyness of our furnace quitting on us and the sudden need to drop everything and take nearly two full days to deal with getting a new furnace.
We were suddenly overly busy, busy beyond what we wanted or could handle.
Into that comes the verse above, one of my favorite verses in the bible. It is also the verse that is up front in the church for us all to see when we come into the sanctuary. But it is also the verse and the biblical concept I forgot as I waded into the busyness of the past week. I tried to handle it all on my own instead of turning to the Lord and waiting on Him.
Thankfully, the Lord doesn’t need my permission to do His work, He does His work with or without me. While I jumped into trying to solve the situation myself by calling a company to come out immediately to look at our furnace and then tried to work with them in ordering a new one, God was at work in a totally different way.
The short version of the story is that after a cold morning my wife went off to care for a lady in the afternoon while I rushed around trying to solve our crisis. Shortly after Debra got to work a lady there told her to call her relative. That relative works for a furnace company. Without my doing anything, God arranged for this man to have his crew installing a new furnace in our house the very next morning and at less than half the price and five days sooner than I had been arranging with the company I had called in our emergency. God was at work in spite of me and in a totally different way than I could have known about or expected.
Instead of running about in a great rush like I was doing, I could have listened to the words of Psalm 46:10, words I know very well, but wasn’t thinking of in my busyness. “Be still and know that I am God.” Debra and I did pray about the furnace before she went off to work, but after she left, I tried to take matters into my own hands, forgetting to let God do His work. As a result, I nearly made a mess of things and paid way more than we could afford or needed to pay. Thankfully, God rescued me from myself.
After Debra called the man her friend suggested all I had to do was sit back and watch God at work. All the work I thought I needed to be busy doing was suddenly taken over by God and I was forced to be still and watch God work. He did way better than I could ever have done.
Why didn’t I do that at first? Why did I worry and try and solve things on my own? Why didn’t I know that God would show up and handle things as He says He will in His word?
Why? Because I was too busy. Instead of taking time to let the Lord do His work, I was trying to take matters into my own hands. A lesson learned. I hope next time a crisis comes up I remember this lesson. But truly, I will likely need to learn this lesson over and over again?
We all need to learn the lesson of waiting on God, don’t we!
Pastor Gary.
Planted
Planted - Devotions for 11-15-23
Psalm 1:3 “He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.”
Psalm 1 is a wonderful Psalm with great word pictures. One of those word pictures is that of a man walking, sitting, and standing firm in God’s ways instead of in the way of sin and the world. Another word picture is from verse 3 where it says that the man of God is like a tree planted by a stream of water.
In a dry land where deserts are all around, springs and the streams that flow out of them become very important and very noticeable. The bible is full of places where living water, that is fresh, clean water, provides life to the plants, animals and people around it. King David found them in his life and survived because of them when chased through the desert. En Gedi is one of many such springs with a stream flowing out of it in Israel, a green oasis surrounded by desert.
This is the understanding of this verse, that a spring or the stream that flows out of one, is providing cool, fresh water to all the green growing things next to it in an otherwise brown and barren landscape. In such a place grows a strong, tall tree. Because that tree grows near the stream of living water, it is healthy, strong, and produces abundant crops of whatever fruit or nuts grow on its branches.
The tree of Psalm 1 is contrasted to the rocky, sandy desert where almost nothing grows except after a spring rain. And even then, those quick growing grasses and flowers fade, turn brown and die quickly in the heat of the desert sun. But the trees growing next to the stream stay green and healthy all year, keeping their leaves and producing fruit. The deep roots of the tree reach down to where the stream always provides fresh, life-giving water.
Psalm 1 says that the person who follows the Lord and meditates in God’s word, is like such a tree. Their roots are not in soil seeking fresh water, but their roots dig deep into God’s word, the source of life-giving water. By continuously digging deep into God’s word, the person of God grows spiritually strong and beautiful, producing the fruit of the Holy Spirt in their life.
What a picture, a healthy, strong, fruit bearing tree growing next to a stream of fresh water in a landscape otherwise rocky, barren and dry. What a contrast, and the people of Israel knew that picture very well.
The Jordan river valley is such a place. On both sides is desert, but along the river, or any of the feeder streams flowing into it, is a lush green ribbon of life in the middle of a dry and thirsty land. The reason for the green ribbon in a brown landscape is water, the source of life.
God’s word is that life source to us. It is God’s fresh water to our dry and thirsty hearts and souls. Out of God’s word flow the words of life. They bring strength, health, and life to our hearts and souls. So, let us turn to God’s word often and drink of the life that it provides.
Are you walking in a desert, a desert of the heart and soul? Then come to the word of God and drink deeply. Read the bible. Listen to biblical teachings, music, and other bible-based teachings. And meditate on God’s word, that is, let your mind and heart sit for long periods in Gods’ word. Don’t just take a sip and run, drink deeply from God’s life-giving water.
Pastor Gary.
Hope
1 Corinthians 13:13 “So now faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
Hope. We all need it. Without hope we are hopeless, and no one wants to be hopeless in this life. Hopelessness leaves us empty.
In 1 Corinthians the Apostle Paul extols the benefits of love. That is often called the love chapter of the bible. But at the end of that chapter, he brings up three very important life needs, faith, hope and love.
Why bring up those three after singling out love? Because they all are necessary in order to live a life worth living in this world. Paul says that love is the greatest, and indeed I believe everyone would agree that love is the most important need we have in this life. And to that, the bible says, “God is love.” But we also need faith and hope, two other very necessary ingredients to a full life.
Faith, because without it we cannot please God nor have our sins washed away.
But what about hope? Why does the bible include faith, hope and love together, these three as it says? Why hope and where does hope come from?
Hope is necessary in order to help us walk through the times in our life when things are not going the way we want them to. Maybe we are suffering from a health issue? Maybe a financial problem? Maybe we are dealing with a broken relationship? Life is full of problems and when our problems rob us of a future that we can enjoy, we lose hope. Losing hope is to lose a desired future.
But we have hope. Our hope is in Jesus Christ. He gives us hope because He gives us a future. Whatever our life is right now, in the middle of whatever struggle we are going through, Jesus enters and gives us hope for a better future. He gives us hope in the middle of our struggles because He has the power to change our present and our future.
Just because our present is not what we wish it were does not mean our future will remain hard and dark. Jesus can, and does, change our troubles, and gives us hope for a better future.
He gives the prisoner hope for fulfillment while in prison and hope for a life outside. He gives the poor hope for a better job and a more secure financial future. He gives those grieving a loved one’s death, hope for a heart filled with love again. He gives those in the pain of some health crisis, help for today and healing for tomorrow. Even when everything in this world tells you there is no hope for whatever is going wrong in your life, Jesus smiles and says, just wait, the best is yet to come!
Our ultimate hope is the promise of heaven. The bible tells us that we who have faith in Jesus have our sins forgiven and are given the promise of eternal life in heaven. Heaven is truly a blessed hope for a better future. No matter how bad things are in this life, we can look forward to life in heaven as we believe in Jesus. That is our final hope and that hope never fades.
So, where does our hope come from? Not from within ourselves. While we can do some things to make our lives better in this world, we are unable to make everything better. But, God is greater. Our hope is that God is greater than all our problems and that heaven awaits all those who have faith in Jesus. Those things never change. God never changes and so His help in our troubles will always be there, and heaven awaits us no matter what. Hope. Hang on to hope!
Pastor Gary.
Light
Genesis 1:3 “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”
Daylight Savings Time - Daylight Standard Time
This weekend we change clocks again. Don’t forget. I have gone to church a couple times when this happened only to find it was the wrong time, I forgot to change my clocks. Thankfully, that was before I became a pastor! I would be very embarrassed not being on time as the pastor.
This clock change got me thinking, what are we really doing? We are trying to make the clock reflect our daylight/night needs better. But, the sun and the rotation of the earth and its tilt have never changed. There is debate that has gone on to cease the clock changing and some places, like Arizona, do not change their clocks every fall and spring.
So, I read from Genesis 1 about God creating the light. God simply spoke into the darkness and said, “Let there be light!” Then God separated the light from the darkness and called the light, day and the dark He called night. Thus was the first “day” created (vs 5).
Light and darkness, day and night. We deal with them every day from the time we are born to the day we die. We do certain things in the day, in the light, and others we save for the dark, the night. For most of us, unless we work the night shift, we work and do most things in the day and sleep at night.
What is interesting to me is that at the end of His creating endeavor God pronounced all His creation, everything He created as good, (vs 31). So, daytime and nighttime, light and dark, are both good. We need them both. Our minds and bodies are created to need both times of light and times of dark. Without them we become a mess and people living in places where there is not a strong day and night often have health issues such as seasonal affective disorder. So too, people who have problems with regular sleep habits have health issues related to that. We need both light and dark, times of activity and times of rest and sleep and we need them on a regular and consistent basis.
We also need other regular period keeping things, clock or calendar like events in our life. We need annual events like Christmas and Easter and yearly birthday celebrations to mark the year and passing of time. We also need weekly events like weekdays and weekends. God made those too with a seven-day week and a 365-day year. These clock-like markers set our life in order and give us a rhythm to life.
There is one other thing to remember and have in our life and that is a rhythm with God. We need a weekly worship event in our life, we need to go to church and worship the Lord. This is another important time marking event and it is more than just a time marking weekly thing to do, it is a necessary part of our life. God’s word says that we need a Sabbath Day of rest, but not just of non-work, as part of that day we need to join with others in worship of the Lord. Regular, on-going worship with the Lord is a life-giving part of our time on this planet. Just as we need light and dark, day and night we need a weekly time to join with others and worship the Lord, sing praises to Him, and reflect on His part in our earthly life. We need God and we need His church and His people in our lives on a regular basis.
This too is an important issue, we will be healthier in body, heart, mind, and soul as we regularly spend time with God and His people in weekly worship.
Come this Sunday – at the new time!
Pastor Gary.
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