Pastoral
Whatever is Pure
Whatever is Pure - Devotions for 10-20-21
Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
We live in a time when our society is becoming ever more polarized and divided. Families are finding themselves torn apart and taking sides, friends become estranged, groups that were once unified are fraying. All because we are becoming more and more focused on things that divide.
You feel this. You cannot help but know this. All you need to do is turn on some TV news and you can hear it, read some article on your computer or phone screen and you can see it, listen to a podcast on some issue and you are there in the middle of it. Most of what we see on TV, hear on the radio, or read on some screen becomes part of this polarizing trend.
My help in this war on unity and inner peace has been to try and watch less of it. Not ignore the world around me but spend less time in front of a screen telling me that the other side is my enemy. Whatever that other side is.
This is a not a new issue, the dividing of people into opposing camps. It isn’t new at all. I think it just varies in intensity over time and today we are at a high point in the heat of creating opposing sides and the resulting division and pain that follows. This creates insecurity, anxiety, anger and worry. This is shown in that counsellors and other professionals who deal with anxiety, depression and other emotional illnesses are busier than ever.
All these things run contrary to our faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus comes to bring peace, inner strength and calm, and a solid faith. We need those more than ever today.
Paul, writing from prison to a church in Philippi, gives us a cure, an antidote for that kind of division and anxiety. Paul tells us, on behalf of the Lord, to focus more on things that are good. He says things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely and commendable. When we focus on those sorts of things, we will have less anxiety. We will have less division. We will have less worry and fear.
Instead of focusing on the problems, focus on the cure. Instead of spending time hearing how bad everything is, look for the good. Instead of listening to someone tell you who your enemies are, make friends.
There is help to the pain of our current mess and it comes from looking toward Jesus, lifting our eyes toward heaven. When we focus on the problems, they get bigger. When we focus on Jesus, our problems grow smaller. When we divide people, we make enemies. When we look at them as Jesus does, we grow our circle of friends. When we spend more time looking at the mess, we worry. When we look to God for help, we find peace.
We need to know what is happening in the world around us, but we also need to spend time thinking about things that are true, lovely, and pure. We need to spend some of our time looking toward heaven, where Jesus is. The more we see Jesus, the more peace we will have. That is what Paul says in the next verse. “What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me – practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”
Paul looked toward Jesus and found peace in chains. We can find peace too, as we look more toward the things that are good and Godly, and less at the problems around us.
Pastor Gary
Fellowship
Fellowship - Devotions for 10-14-21
Acts 2:42 “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”
There are many things that make a church a good church. One of the main ones that we tend to think of first, and is mentioned here in Acts 2:42 first, is the teaching of God’s word, the bible. That would be the apostle’s teaching in this verse as they didn’t yet have a written bible. We also tend to think a lot about praying in church and taking communion or the breaking of bread. That may also include food as in meals after church like potlucks or banquets. Food is often a huge part of church life. But the one that is mentioned second in this list of things the early church devoted themselves to was fellowship. Often fellowship is put way down on our lists of important things in a church. But fellowship is really huge, or it should be.
In Romans 16 the Apostle Paul sends his greetings to all sorts of people, at least 28 named people plus their families and the people in their churches. So, really, Paul is sending his personal greetings to hundreds of people. He does that at the end of almost all his letters in the bible. Paul considered fellowship a very important thing, so important that he tried to stimulate fellowship even from afar and even when he was in chains.
How important is fellowship to churches and Christians today? For some, they understand it and work at making sure they connect with people both in church and during the week. For others, it is not as important, they go to church and then go home and do their own thing the rest of the week.
I tend to think that the average American Church has a lot to learn about fellowship. We tend to be independent minded people who focus on our families, our jobs, our homes, and our recreation. We focus on that which is close to us. We focus on us. Fellowship is focusing on others, it is to put others first, or at least to put others into our life, to make others important in our daily living. That is something that Jesus did, he put others first and the bible is full of places where we are encouraged to do that same thing, to consider others as more important than ourselves, to put others first, to reach out to others, to love one another. All the “others” and “one another’s” in the bible are proof that God considers fellowship a very important part of church work and life.
This week, and for the upcoming weeks, ask yourself who God is laying on your heart to reach out to in some sort of fellowship way. Who does God want to encourage in their walk with Him through you? Who is alone and lonely who needs a reminder that “God loves them and so do I.”? Who needs your fellowship, your touch, your love, your encouragement?
The really great thing about putting others first is that the one who reaches out to others and works to encourage them is often the one who receives the most back. Fellowship blesses all people.
I encourage you to pray about being people devoted to fellowship. The apostles and the others in the early church understood its importance and they devoted themselves to it. They worked at it, they made sure it was happening to all in their circles. We can do the same and we will all be blessed if we do.
Pastor Gary
Alone with the Father
Alone With The Father - Devotions for 10-6-21
Matthew 14:23 “And after He dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, He was there alone.”
There are several verses where Jesus is recorded as having done something like this, go up on a mountain by himself to be alone with the Father and pray. In this story, Jesus had just finished feeding the five thousand. It had been a very full day starting with the news that His cousin John the Baptist had been killed. After that Jesus spent the whole day teaching, healing and then feeding a huge crowd. No doubt Jesus was tired.
After that long day of hard work Jesus does something different. He sends everyone away. First, He sent His disciples in a boat and told them to go to the other side of the lake. Then He sent the crowds away. No doubt some did not want to leave. With a crowd that size there would always be someone else who wanted to see Jesus personally, maybe to ask Him a question, maybe to seek a healing touch. But there is always someone feeling left out in a crowd like that. But still, Jesus sends them away. He needed to be alone with His Father.
That is something we all need, time alone with God. Jesus needed it, and we need it too.
Jesus would seek out time alone with the Father at different times throughout His ministry. He is first recorded as having done that very early in His ministry in Mark 1:35. A crowd had come to hear Him preach and to seek Him out for healings. Jesus arose in the night and went up on the mountain to pray. When morning came, Jesus was still there, but down in town a large crowd was gathering to hear more from Him and seek those healings.
An interesting thing is that after spending a night in prayer with the Father, Jesus tells His disciples that they would go somewhere else, not down to the crowd seeking Jesus.
Rarely can people avoid public praise. When a crowd starts to gather, like they did when He fed the thousands, leaders usually take to the front and take in all the adulation they can get. But that wasn’t what Jesus came to earth for. He didn’t come to heal the sick or feed the hungry or bask in the adulation of His fans. No, Jesus came to pay for the sins of mankind. He came to die for our sins.
It was in those quite moments with His Father that Jesus would re-connect with God’s greater plan. He needed that time alone with the Father to be able to stay focused on why He came to earth. There are so many distractions in this world, that even Jesus needed that time alone. He likely needed that time alone with the Father to recharge His spiritual batteries too. He was giving out all the time and He needed someone to put back into Him, He needed quite times with the Father.
How about you? Have you been giving out and giving out? Then spend some time with the Father. Spend some quiet time with God. If Jesus needed to recharge His batteries, how much more do we? If Jesus needed help to keep His focus on why He was here on this earth, how much more do we? If Jesus needed that quiet time with the Father to walk rightly in this earth, how much more do we?
We need to spend some quiet time alone with the Father. Seek that out, climb a mountain like Jesus did, go on a day-long hike, get away to the quiet of a forest or lake and spend time alone with God. If you cannot get away, do a day with no phone, no computer, no TV, no distractions, just you and the Father. Seek a quiet day, or night, with God.
Pastor Gary
He Must Increase
He Must Increase - Devotions for 9-29-21
John 3:30 “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
“He must increase, but I must decrease.” These words were spoken by John the Baptist shortly after John baptized Jesus by the Jordan river. The story goes that someone came to John while he was still baptizing by the Jordan River and told him that Jesus was now baptizing people and that more people were going to Jesus than to John.
Whenever that happens people tend to get jealous. When someone we train or introduce to others or help get started in some venture suddenly becomes more popular than we do, we tend to get jealous. That happens in the church too. When someone starts a new bible study group and people flock to that study in instead of the one you or I lead, we get jealous. We want people to come to our group. When one worship leader attracts more people than another worship leader it is normal for the one with less people coming to become jealous. It is human nature to be jealous when someone is seen as better or more popular than you.
Just look at all the social media sites on-line. What seems important to many people who post things on-line? How many likes do you have? How many friends do you have? How much traffic follows you whenever you post something new on Instagram or some other site? We live by comparisons and when others get more attention or more followers or more views we feel let down and often get jealous.
But John the Baptist had a totally different response when he was told that Jesus was drawing more people than he was. Even though he started the Jordan River revival ministry, John the Baptist didn’t seem fazed when he heard Jesus was getting more attention than he was.
It would be like Jesus having more followers on Twitter, or more hits on Facebook, or having his videos go viral while John was having fewer and fewer people pay attention to him.
So, what does John say? He tells his close friends and followers that he was OK with Jesus getting more attention. In fact, he was more than OK with it, he said that is what must happen. He must increase, but I must decrease.
What John was saying was that Jesus was more important than John was. Jesus was the one people needed more than they needed John. What Jesus was offering was way more important and way more needed than what John could offer. So, John was saying, go see Jesus, He can give you what I cannot.
That is why John came, to point people to Jesus. He came to prepare the way of the Lord, which is another way of saying that he came to point people to Jesus. So, when more people started to follow Jesus, John was happy. He fulfilled his God-given task on earth.
John’s task was not to draw people to himself, but to point them to Jesus. So, when the crowds started dwindling in John’s camp and growing in Jesus’ camp, John was happy.
This is what we are also called to do, point people to Jesus. We should not be trying to draw people to ourselves, or grow out Twitter following, or Facebook friends list if that is simply to draw attention to ourselves. If we are using those things as ways to point people to Jesus, then we are using them rightly.
Remember that in this life, it is all about Jesus and not me, not you.
He must increase, but we must decrease.
Pastor Gary
The Wind Beneath Your Wings
The Wind Beneath Your Wings - Devotions for 9-22-21
Isaiah 40:30 – 31 “Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”
We can learn a lot from watching nature; the scriptures are full of illustrations taken from God’s great outdoors. From the flowers of the field to the birds of the air to sheep following a shepherd, we can learn a lot from watching what God created.
In this text we are given the example of the eagle who soars on rising thermals and can fly for long distances and for hours on end without flapping its wings. When that happens, it doesn’t grow tired even though it has flown a long way. Isaiah compares believers in God to the eagle. He says that those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength and be capable of doing things people much younger would grow tired from.
I can relate to that. I used to run faster, walk farther and climb higher than I can now. Some of that is my own fault from not getting enough exercise and carrying a few too many pounds, but to be fully honest, some of it is my age too. I am not as young as I used to be and I feel it when I try and do the things I used to do. When we are young we don’t think about what we can do too much, but as we get older we realize our inabilities.
Isaiah says that those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. I really don’t think this means we will run faster and farther than those who are young and athletic, though that can sometimes happen. What I think it means is that God will work with us and help us do the things we need to with His help, even things we thought we couldn’t. We will be able to do them because God carries us, not because we find some sort of fountain of youth.
Consider the eagle, it soars on the rising thermal air currents so it doesn’t need to flap its wings. It is flying with little effort of its own. So too do all sorts of other soaring birds, they catch the warm rising air after the sun rises and they let the rising air carry them.
I once watched a bald eagle fly over an area that was full of ducks and geese. The ducks and geese scattered in every direction to escape this predator in the air. Fortunately for those ducks and geese the eagle wasn’t hungry, it was just flying over where they were. What was interesting is that the ducks flapped their wings at a very fast pace and the geese at a slower pace, but the eagle just soared, not flapping its wings at all. What I saw was that the eagle flew faster and farther than the ducks and geese that were working so hard to fly as fast as they could. The eagle just kept soaring, not flapping its wings once, and it soared past all those other birds and up into the distant hills until I couldn’t see it any longer.
As we grow tired and weary, we need to learn to lean on God. He can be the wind beneath our wings, He can carry us when we cannot go any further on our own. That is the message Isaiah is trying to bring to us, that as we learn to lean and depend on God, He will help us and carry us when we cannot go any further on our own. We need God’s help, and He is there waiting to give it. So, what do we need to do? Wait on the Lord, lean on the Lord, turn to the Lord. He is there waiting for us to come to Him for help. Wait on the Lord and you will go farther and fly stronger than if you were still a young person because He carries you. No matter what the struggle is, waiting on the Lord will give better results than doing it on your own.
Pastor Gary
Lift Up Your Eyes
Lift Up Your Eyes - Devotions for 9-15-21
Psalm 121:1-2 “I will lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”
One of the things I love about living in the Denver area is being able to look west and almost always be able to see the great Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. I love looking at the towering mountain peaks so close by. What I really like is going up to the high country and taking a hike and looking out over a vast vista and seeing a long way off into the distance, especially when it is a clear day. Most days though, I can still lift up my eyes and look at the beautiful mountains.
One of the great things about looking up at the mountains is that they are both always the same and always different. The snow levels change frequently, the shadows are always moving and every sunrise and sunset is different, but the basic shape and outline remains the same. Mountains never change. They remain strong towers that speak of strength and power and remind us that some things will always be there for us.
God is like that, and the mountains remind me a lot of God. He is powerful and He is always there for us. He never changes, but we are always able to see in Him something new and different. Something that we never noticed before. That happens a lot as I read God’s word and discover something new. Actually, it isn’t new, but it is something I never noticed before, and maybe that is because I didn’t need what it said before. But my life changed and now that something new, touches a new need in me.
Whenever there is something hard going on in my life, I can look toward the mountains. When I am sad, I can look toward the mountains. When trouble is upon me, I can look toward the mountains. And what do I see when I see those strong, unchanging and beauty filled Rocky Mountains? I see a reminder that God is with me and that He is able to take care of whatever it is that is troubling me. He is greater than any problem, new or old, that I have.
Man has been trying to tame the mountains forever. We build roads and railroads through them. We build ski resorts on some of them. We build dams to hold water in some of the valleys and turn the rushing rivers into reservoirs to generate electricity and provide water to farms down below. But we have to live and work within what they allow. We do not tell the mountains where to be or how high to go. We work within their limits; they dictate what we can and cannot do. They do not change; we have to change to adapt to them.
God does not change either and that is good news. I would not want a God who changed. I would not want a God who said one thing one day and then changed His mind. I want a God who I can always look to and know that He will always be the same. And while sometimes I think I would like God to adapt to me, I know that His ways are always better than mine and so I rest in knowing that He doesn’t change. I am the one who needs to come to Him and when I do, He is always there waiting for me with an outstretched arm, and with certain help and love.
So, if you are able to, lift up your eyes and look toward the mountains and be reminded of God’s power and unchanging love for you. He is always there. And if today is “one of those days”, one of those difficult days, lift up your eyes to see the unchanging God of creation. He is there waiting for you, just lift up your eyes to Him and know that He is there.
Pastor Gary
Be The Light
Be The Light
Matthew 5:16 “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”
I was reading about the Christian community’s response to various pandemics in the past, and there were a lot of them. Some historians credit the response from the Christian communities as a major factor in Christians being accepted and welcomed where they had at first been outlawed and persecuted. It was their love to those who were suffering, their care for people they didn’t even know, that earned them praise from those who had previously condemned them. They persevered through the trials, letting God’s light shine to the people who lived near them, and we can too. Not because we are so strong, but because He helps us.
This is, in part, what letting our light shine means. It means to do things in our lives that show God’s love to others. It means letting the Holy Spirit use us to do God’s work in this world. And His work always involves loving people because He is the God of love.
That isn’t hard. We are not talking about feeding 5,000 people with a few loves and fish. We are not talking about leading 3,000 souls to Christ in one event. No, what it means to let our light shine before men is to go about our normal day and life while looking for opportunities to love others in some way. In the way that God would love them.
We have been given a huge opportunity to show God’s love to others through the Covid 19 pandemic. We can help our neighbor who has lost their job and give them something to eat. We can comfort someone who is scared and pray with them. We can make noise and help a child celebrate a birthday by doing a drive-by for them honking our horns. We can sew masks and give them to people who need them. We can visit with a co-worker who is not sure about whether they should go back to work or not and pray with them about that. We can share our worship service with someone we know by sending them the link and inviting them to join us on-line.
There is much we can do to let God’s light shine through us to the people who see and know us. Let your light shine before men Jesus said. This is not the time to lay still and be quiet. In times of crisis Christians need to stand up and be seen. Perhaps the main way you can let your light shine is to pray with others and care for those who are hurting, and we all have a lot of hurting neighbors. This helped the early Christian church spread the good news fast and far. Let us let His light shine through us to our neighbors.
He Must Increase
He Must Increase - Devotions for 8-24-21
John 3:30 “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
John the Baptist made this statement when he was near the Jordan river in response to a question from some of John’s followers as they commented on people leaving them and going to follow Jesus. John had just baptized Jesus and now the crowds that John was attracting had started to grow smaller with many of the people that would have come to see him, now going to see and hear Jesus.
This is something that happens to many people who have started some sort of gathering. People start to come and listen to them, and they and their leaders begin to like the growing crowds and larger offerings or whatever it is that is increasing for them. We like it when people like us. Just look at all the people who seek after “likes” on Facebook or some other social media outlet. It is nice to see that something you posted is getting all sorts of attraction. We assume it is a reflection on us and our importance or worth.
For me, I put out these devotionals several ways, some of them keep a list of how many people read them. The same is true for our church’s worship service. There is always a note on the site about how many views we had and you can dig down deeper to see if those people watched for long or just a short glimpse. The goal in social media is to have more and more followers and more and more people liking what you posted.
I have to admit, there are a couple of my devotionals and a few worship services from our church that have had more hits and likes than others. When the numbers for those showed up and showed a much higher number than is common for what I post, I felt good. I told some people I know that our numbers were way up. They felt good too because it meant the church they were part of was doing something right. Or at least that is how we often read such things. I, or we, must be doing something right because we are drawing more followers.
Unfortunately, that is not always a good way to understand larger crowds or more likes or followers. It may mean we are doing good, it may not.
So, what is a better way to measure our “success” as a church or ministry? I like the way John the Baptist said it; “He must increase, I must decrease.” The best measurement of success in any Christian work is whether people are following Jesus and not whether they are following me or my ministry. He must increase, we must decrease. It isn’t about me. It isn’t about you. It isn’t even about my church or my ministry. It is about Jesus. Are people coming to Jesus? Are people becoming more devoted followers of Jesus? Are people being draw to Jesus or to me?
He must increase, I/we must decrease. It is about Jesus.
With that, how are you doing? Are you increasing, or are you pointing people to Jesus? This may not be a totally fair question, but it is one I need to ask about my ministry and my serving Jesus. Am I drawing people to myself or pointing them past me, to Jesus?
I hope to be more like John the Baptist who seemed to shrug off less followers because he knew that many of those people were now seeking after Jesus. I/we are successful not when others follow us or “like” us or become our friends, either in the flesh or electronically, but when we point them past us to Jesus.
He must increase, we must decrease. It is all about Jesus.
Pastor Gary
Peace
Peace - Devotions for 8-18-21
2 Thessalonians 3:16 “Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all.”
Like so many others I have been watching the troubles happening in Afghanistan. It is sad to watch people who are desperate to leave a place be filled with so much fear. I would be filled with fear if I were there too. What they are going through is terrible.
This has caused me to wonder about God’s peace. The people there who are in such fear need God’s peace. So too does everyone who is in fear of any kind. We need peace. I need peace. We all need peace in our lives. So, where can we turn to for that peace? To Jesus.
What we need to do is have Jesus in us, and as Christians we do have Jesus in us. But still, we often live without peace or at least without peace in certain situations. Sometimes it seems that we live from one crisis to another with only interspersed times of peace. But we can have peace all the time, even in the times of our crises. Oh, that we would have that more and more and have the pain of fear and worry less and less.
So, to that end, the Apostle Paul, speaking for the Lord, says, “May the Lord of peace, himself, give you peace at all times in every way.” Is that even possible? Is it even possible to have peace in us no matter what the circumstances of our life are? Can we have peace no matter what?
Yes. We can have peace even in the midst of our trails and even in the midst of our pain and suffering. But we cannot have it by trying to conjure it up from within ourselves. We need someone, something from outside of us, give it to us. Or maybe, more accurately, we need someone from within us to give it to us. We need God, who lives in our hearts, to give our hearts peace in the midst of trail and turmoil.
This is what Paul is saying we can have, what he is saying Jesus can give to us. Jesus can give to us peace at all times and in every way.
Paul was writing this to a people who were about to experience persecution. Paul was preparing people who would soon see themselves or their loved ones or both, be put on trail and jailed and some put to death all because they believed in Jesus and would not deny Him.
This is the peace that those in Kabul or other places around the world that are in crisis need. This is the peace that someone needs who just had the doctor announce some terrible diagnosis for them or their loved one. This is the peace we need when we are facing mounting bills and decreasing income. We need the peace of God in us. And Jesus can and does give that if we turn to Him and ask and trust Him with our situation.
The bible is not trying to placate us, it is not trying to call us to the impossible, it is not trying to give us false hope or even to give us guilt if we have stress or worry. The bible is trying to tell us that there is hope for real inner peace and that that hope comes from trusting God in every and all circumstances. We do not know what will happen in any of our situations, but God does. And even if that circumstance turns out to be as bad as our worst fears, God has promised to be there with us. And that promise can give us peace in the middle of chaos. God knows and God cares what is happening to you. You can rest in Him and His caring for you and have peace, His peace in you.
Pastor Gary
Blowing in the Wind
Blowing in the Wind - Devotions for 8-4-21
John 3:8 “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
The Holy Spirit is the third part of the Trinity and likely the least understood part of our great and wonderful God. Jesus tried to explain the Holy Spirit to Nicodemus one day, the same day Jesus would tell Nicodemus that he had to be born again and the same time Jesus would give us John 3:16 that says “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” Jesus says a lot in the third chapter of the Gospel of John.
So how do you explain the Holy Spirit? How do you explain something that you cannot see, cannot touch, cannot nail down? Jesus did it by way of a comparison to the wind. He says you cannot see it but you can still tell it is there. With the wind you can feel it, you can see tree branches wave and dust blow. If you put out a wind chime like Debra and I do, you can hear it, or rather you can hear the results of the wind blowing the chime and making sounds.
The bible does a lot more to explain the Holy Spirit including what Jesus says in Matthew 28 where he gives us the call to baptize in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Jesus shows us that the Holy Spirit is God. But still we are left a bit foggy on the Holy Spirit, the third person of the trinity.
That does not mean that the Holy Spirit can be ignored. The Holy Spirit is the part of God that lives in us, that guides us, that gives us the power to overcome sin and the power to follow God. The Holy Spirit is the part of God in us that gives us faith and strengthens our faith. In truth, the Holy Spirit is the most personal part of the trinity for every believer. We cannot go one moment in life as a Christian without the Holy Spirit.
So, while we may not see Him, we feel Him at work in us. While we may not be able to touch Him, He touches us and moves us to both believe in Jesus and walk with Him. While we may not fully understand the Holy Spirit, He knows us inside and out.
Whenever you feel convicted of sin that is the Holy Spirit at work in you. Whenever you feel led to do some good work for someone who is hurting or to reach out to someone with the love of God that is the Holy Spirit motivating you. Whenever you find you can walk in faith in ways you never thought you could, that is the Holy Spirit’s power at work in you. We cannot do anything as a believer without the Holy Spirit calling us to and enabling us to do what He calls us to do.
Back to that wind. When you sense God’s Holy Spirit telling you to go this way, or do some specific thing, just do it. Let the wind blow you where it wants, or rather let the Holy Spirit in you, guide you to do what God wants you to do. You may not feel you can do anything for the Lord, and you would be right, but the Holy Spirit in you will give you the power to do whatever it is that the Lord is calling you to do. So, just do it. Let the Holy Spirit be the wind that blows you where God wants you to go and do what He empowers you to do.
Then when you are done, give God the glory. After all, if it is truly God in you to both will and do what He calls you to do, then it is God who gets the credit for it is God who has truly done it, not you.
Pastor Gary
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Hear My Prayer
Hear My Prayer, When My Heart is Faint - Devotions for 7-22-21
Psalm 61:1-2 “Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer; from the end of the earth I call to you when my heart is faint.”
As I write this people are suffering. That is always true, there are always people in distress and suffering somewhere. Sometimes that is others who are far away, and I barely notice, sometimes it is my loved ones or even me. But, always someone, somewhere is hurting. And hurting people cry out to God. O God, hear my cry! Hear my prayer! Let me know you know what I am going through!
I have several people I know well who are suffering right now. One had his tractor roll over onto him causing him to be hurt and in the hospital. Another is in a different hospital ready to undergo surgery for things going on inside him that should not be happening. He needs some corrective surgery. I have gone and visited with both and prayed with and for them.
When visiting with one of them I learned that I was not the only pastor, or chaplain, to visit. The evening before I visited another “spiritual leader” checked in on them to see how they were doing and if they needed any spiritual help. This person did not seem to actually care about the person crying out to God for help. That person’s phone kept ringing and they kept answering it, and then suddenly they “needed to leave” and left quickly, without praying. Without reading God’s word. Without providing spiritual care or giving comfort.
Now, I do not know what the issue was that they had to leave so suddenly because of. I only know how the person they were visiting felt, they felt empty. When they were in their time of need, the spiritual helper who came to them left without providing any spiritual care and they felt empty. Their cry for help was left hanging.
But God heard. God heard the cry of their heart. Romans 8:26 tells us that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us in prayer with groanings that we cannot understand. God saw this person’s need and heard their cry for help even when a human being who was supposed to help didn’t. Thank God that His Holy Spirit is everywhere and fills in the gaps we humans leave behind. He heard this person’s cry for help. He heard this person’s unspoken, but very real, prayer. He listened to this one’s heart cry and the Holy Spirit translated that directly to God the Father who always hears and knows.
He knows your cry for help too, even when it is left unspoken, un-prayed, un-asked. He knows and He hears. I am thankful for that as a pastor because I know I have been that other spiritual leader and have left people empty. I am human and I have let people down. But God never does.
I thank God that He does “hear my cry.” He does “listen to my prayer.” He knows when I am at wit’s end, at “the end of the earth” and when “my heart is faint” and I need Him the most. And he is there. Always! He is there.
When man fails, God does not. When a person lets you down, God lifts you up. When others abandon you, God stays with you.
Are you needing the Lord in a special way? Call on Him. Pray to Him. He is there and He will hear you because He cares.
Pastor Gary
Fear Not
Fear Not - Devotions for 7-14-21
Isaiah 40:10 “Fear not for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
Fear not. That is something easy to say when you are not facing something huge. But when you hear the doctor say, “Cancer” or when someone pulls a gun on you in a shopping center, or when a car seems headed your way, out-of-control, it is much easier to fear. To scream. To cry. To hide your face in your hands and try and wait until it is over.
Fear comes naturally. Fear comes easily. Fear comes whether we want it to or not. Fear is a normal part of the disaster times of our life and every life has at least some amount of fear in it.
So how does Isaiah, how does God tell us to “fear not.”
Because God is saying that He will be with us. God says that we can learn to trust instead of react in fear as we know Him more and more and know His care and strength. Listen to what God is promising us through His prophet Isaiah. He says: “I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
These are words of comfort to those in difficult times. These are uplifting words to those who are downcast. These are words that bring a sense of inner calm in times of chaos. These are words we need whenever we are facing some of the trying times in our life.
And these are the words of God. He is making us this promise. He is telling you and I that He will be there with us when we face our hardships. These are not just God’s words to others, but to us. God is saying this to you, “I will strengthen YOU, I will help YOU, I will uphold YOU with my righteous right hand.” These words can bring you comfort in your times of pain.
Other parts of this great promise are that He will be with us and that He will be our God. Actually, all the rest of the promises here like strength and help, stem from these two promises. God gives us His strength and comfort because He is God and He can handle everything. God is greater than any problem we have so He can take care of us and whatever situation we are facing.
And God is with us. This is one of the promises I cling to, that God is with me. Even though we may walk through a difficult time, God is with us. Even though hardships may happen to us, God is with us. Even though we cannot see Him or hear His voice or feel His presence, He is with us. That is one of God’s greatest promises to us. He will never leave us nor forsake us, no matter what.
Because God is stronger than any problem we could ever face and because God is with us always we can do what the first part of this verse says, “Fear not.” We can stand strong in our difficulties and not be afraid because we know that God is greater than our struggle and God is with us, living in our heart.
Lean on the Lord and you will be able to Fear Not.
Pastor Gary
Mutual Submission
Mutual Submission - Devotions for 7-7-21
Ephesians 5:21 “Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
Being a pastor has its privileges and one of them that I really appreciate is that of doing weddings. This week I get to preform a wedding for two wonderful people. I am excited to do this wedding and honored that they asked me to preform theirs.
Part of my work in preparing a couple for their wedding is to go through several bible sections that pertain to marriage. Ephesians 5:22-33 is one of them. Notice that verse 21 is not in there, but I always start in verse 21 anyway, even though it is not technically a part of the section that pertains to marriage and family. I start with this verse because it really overshadows all the rest that does deal with marriage and family. This verse is larger than marriages and inner family workings, it really pertains to all human-to-human interactions, at least for those who call themselves Christians. Or it should.
These words are part of the section that talks about walking wisely as a believer, not being foolish, understanding what the will of the Lord is and other aspects of living the life of a person of faith. A huge part of living the life of a person of faith is to submit to one another.
What does it mean to submit to one another? How do we submit to one another? These are the questions we will always come up against as we attempt to live out the call to submit to one another out of reverence to Christ.
Before we can answer those, however, we should start with the last part of that verse, that of reverence for Christ. You see that contains a large part of the answers for the how-to of submitting to one another. We are really submitting to Christ. Here is the thing, when we submit to another believer, or to anyone who we need to submit to, we are really doing it unto Christ. When we walk with Jesus, we need to remember that He is our Lord, and our King. He is the Holy, Holy, Holy One. He is the One who gave us life. He is the One who created everything there is. He is the One who holds everything in His hands. He is the One who died for our sins. He is the One who opens the door to heaven. And so, He is worthy of our submitting to Him. He has more than earned our respect and submission.
And Jesus is the One who is calling us to submit to one another. So, whether we feel we can submit to someone else, especially someone we do not think has earned it or deserves it, we can because we are doing it for He who has more than earned it. Jesus is not asking us to submit to people we think are worthy of submitting to, He is asking us to submit to one-another, basically to everyone in His church. He wants us to treat them the way we should treat Him.
The reverse should also be true, even if it rarely is. They should be submitting to us as well. That is mutual submission and that should be the norm in church life. Mutual submission to one another.
If we, and they; if we would all live that way, it would surely make life a lot more livable and enjoyable. There would be way less strife and conflict than we experience now. So, let us focus on submitting to one another, and maybe if enough of us do that, more of us will see the Godly example and join in.
Pastor Gary
Woe Is Me!
Woe Is Me! - Devotions for 6-30-21
Isaiah 6:5 “And I said, ‘Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’”
On Thursday mornings at 10:30 some people gather to pray at our church. (You are invited to join us!) We have been doing that for some time now and it is a wonderful time of prayer and worship of the Lord. Indeed, prayer is worshipful.
For our prayer time we spend one hour, and we follow a form that leads us through twelve concerns that we pray about. One of these is repentance. We repent before the Lord for our individual sin and for our corporate sin. That is what Isaiah the prophet was doing as well. He was praying for his own sin to be forgiven and he was praying for the sins of his people, of Israel.
We ask the Lord to forgive us for our individual sins, not that we always name them one-by-one before the others who we are praying with, but sometimes we do. We also pray for the sins of our church and of our nation. We ask God to forgive us for all sorts of sin that is not necessarily sins we have personally committed, but that we are guilty of because we are part of the group of people that committed those sins.
Isaiah saw that need to. He recognized his own sin and the sin of his people, of Israel. And the Lord forgave him by sending an angel to him with a burning coal to clean the sin of his “unclean lips.”
Why do we need to seek God’s forgiveness? Isaiah shows us that too. I think for Isaiah his vision of the Lord changed him forever and changed the way he looked at himself and his people. He saw the Lord and the Angels of the Lord flying all around God on His throne and crying out, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” He saw smoke and felt the whole place where he was shaking because of the presence of the Lord. He was impressed!
Not only was Isaiah impressed with what he saw, but his vision of the greatness of the Lord made him see that his understanding of God was weak and puny. Immediately on seeing God’s greatness and holiness, Isaiah recognized his sin and the sin of his people. He, and they, did not stand up against the power and holiness of God. So, he cries out, “Woe is me!”
If we were to truly see and understand God’s greatness and holiness, we too would immediately see how sinful and ugly we are by comparison. We are not the wonderful and godly people we want to think we are. We are sinners in need of a savior.
Thankfully, Jesus is that savior. He died to forgive us of our sin. We do not need a coal to burn away our sins, Jesus died to forgive us of our sin. Praise God for the cross, for on it Jesus died to take our sin away.
So, let us join in prayer and ask God to forgive us of our sin, and thank Him that He does!
Pastor Gary
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