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Archives for December 2014

God’s Story… For My Life – Tuesday, December 16, 2014

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Gods story

Love as He Loves

Read John 15:1-17

“I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. This is my command: Love each other.”
(John 15:9-17)

Reflect

When things are going well, we feel elated. When hardships come, we sink into depression. But true joy transcends the rolling waves of circumstance. Joy comes from a consistent relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus is the vine, and God is the gardener who cares for the branches to make them fruitful (John 15:1-2). The branches are all those who claim to be followers of Christ. The fruitful branches are true believers who by their living union with Christ produce much fruit. When our lives are intertwined with his, he will help us walk through adversity without sinking into debilitating lows and manage prosperity without moving into deceptive highs. The joy of living with Jesus Christ daily will keep us levelheaded, no matter how high or low our circumstances.

Because Jesus Christ is Lord and master, he could call us servants; instead, he calls us friends. How comforting and reassuring to be chosen as a friend of Jesus. Because he is Lord and master, we owe him our unqualified obedience. Yet Jesus asks us to obey him because we love him.

Respond

We are to love each other as Jesus loved us. You may never have to die for someone, but there are other ways you can practice sacrificial love: listening, helping, encouraging, giving. Prayerfully consider someone who needs this kind of love today. Give all the love you can, and then try to give a little more.

How to Remember What Matters Most – K-love Digging Deeper

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what matters most

 

How to Remember What Matters Most

 

Excerpted from The Women of Christmas by Liz Curtis Higgs

 

It was time. All across Judea people went about their business, trading their goods and tending their flocks, unaware, unprepared. But Mary, Joseph, and all of heaven knew. He is coming. We can’t be certain how close to term Mary was, but definitely “in the later stages of her pregnancy.”

 

Tradition and Hollywood often show her reaching the edge of town at the first contraction, but that’s not found in Scripture. She and Joseph may have been in Bethlehem for some time before she went into labor. With a sigh of relief, we can probably let go of the image of an about-to-give-birth Mary being jostled on the back of a donkey. Even so, she didn’t have long to wait. Joseph and Mary were still in Bethlehem, the streets and houses crowded with visitors, when her pregnant days were over.

 

Like John before him, Jesus didn’t come prematurely but arrived when “the days were fulfilled,” and “she came to the end of her time” at the exact moment God had ordained. Whether she labored three hours or thirty, whether a midwife was present or Joseph alone assisted in the delivery process, Mary gave birth to a son. We have no birth weight, no length, no Apgar score. Were his extremities pink? Was his pulse rate over one hundred? Did he have a strong, lusty cry?

 

He came for those he loves.

He came for you.

 

Here’s what matters most: the prophecies had all come true, the miracle was complete, and the Savior rested in Mary’s embrace. This child of the Holy Spirit was her child too, with ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes, with olive skin and a dark whorl of hair. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” On that sacred day God became more than a pillar of cloud or a pillar of fire. He became flesh and blood and bone. He became one of us. Mary focused on caring for her baby while she stored all she’d seen and done “like a secret treasure in her heart.” Some women like to talk their way through experiences; others prefer the Mary approach: “weighing and pondering,” “mulling them over,” and “trying to understand them.”

 

Sometimes the Lord does such a profound work in us and through us that sharing it with others would sound like bragging. Even if we say, “Look what God has done,” others may perceive it as “Look what I’ve done” or “Look how special I am!” God, as always, knows best. The shepherds were noisy, yet the mother of Jesus was quiet. Others would take his story far and wide, encircling the earth with his truth. Mary was called to be his mother—no more and no less. To nurture him, to feed and clothe him, to teach him all she knew of his heavenly Father. As to these things she had treasured up, “holding them dear, deep within herself,” Gabriel had given her quite a list of attributes for this child, starting with “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.”

 

Whenever she held her baby boy, those angelic words surely ran through her mind. He didn’t look like a monarch, but one day he would be called “Lord of lords and King of kings.” He didn’t have the strength to hold up his head, let alone stand on his feet, yet he is the One “who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy.” Just as Mary “committed these things to memory,” we can do the same—not only at Christmas time, but all through the year—thinking about who Jesus is and why he came to earth as a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes. He came for those he loves. He came for you.

 

Streams in the Desert – December 15

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Trust in the Lord and do what is right! Settle in the land and maintain your integrity!—Ps 37:3

 

The word trust is the heart word of faith. It is the Old Testament word, the word given to the early and infant stage of faith. The word faith expresses more the act of the will, the word belief the act of the mind or intellect, but trust is the language of the heart. The other has reference more to a truth believed or a thing expected.

 

Trust implies more than this, it sees and feels, and leans upon a person, a great, true, living heart of love. So let us “trust also in him,” through all the delays, in spite of all the difficulties, in the face of all the denials, notwithstanding all the seeming, even when we cannot understand the way, and know not the issue; still “trust also in him, and he will bring it to pass.” The way will open, the right issue will come, the end will be peace, the cloud will be lifted, and the light of an eternal noonday shall shine at last.

 

“Trust and rest when all around thee

Puts thy faith to sorest test;

Let no fear or foe confound thee,

Wait for God and trust and rest.

 

“Trust and rest with heart abiding,

Like a birdling in its nest,

Underneath His feathers hiding,

Fold thy wings and trust and rest.”

An Encouraging Word by Max Lucado

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Calling the Unqualified

 

Peter, Andrew, James, Nathanael. Never traveled farther than a week’s walk from home. Haven’t studied the ways of Asia or the culture of Greece. Their passports aren’t worn; their ways aren’t sophisticated. Do they have any formal education?

 

In fact, what do they have? Humility? They jockeyed for cabinet positions. Sound theology? Peter told Jesus to forget the cross. Sensitivity? John wanted to torch the Gentiles. Loyalty? When Jesus needed prayers, they snoozed. When Jesus was arrested, they ran.

 

Thanks to their cowardice, Christ had more enemies than friends at his execution.

 

Yet look at them six weeks later, crammed into the second floor of a Jerusalem house, abuzz as if they’d just won tickets to the World Cup Finals. High fives and wide eyes. Wondering what in the world Jesus had in mind with his final commission: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8 NIV).

 

You hillbillies will be my witnesses. You uneducated and simple folk will be my witnesses. You who once called me crazy, who shouted at me in the boat and doubted me in the Upper Room. You temperamental, parochial net casters and tax collectors. You will be my witnesses. You will spearhead a movement that will explode like a just-opened fire hydrant out of Jerusalem and spill into the ends of the earth: into the streets of Paris, the districts of Rome, and the ports of Athens, Istanbul, Shanghai, and Buenos Aires. You will be a part of something so mighty, controversial, and head spinning that two millennia from now a middle-aged, redheaded author riding in the exit row of a flight from Boston to Dallas will type this question on his laptop:

 

Does Jesus still do it? Does he still use simple folks like us to change the world?

 

God doesn’t call the qualified. He qualifies the called.

 

Don’t let Satan convince you otherwise. He will try. He will tell you that God has an IQ requirement or an entry fee. That he employs only specialists and experts, governments and high-powered personalities. When Satan whispers such lies, dismiss him with this truth: God stampeded the first-century society with swaybacks, not thoroughbreds. Before Jesus came along, the disciples were loading trucks, coaching soccer, and selling Slurpee drinks at the convenience store. Their collars were blue, and their hands were calloused, and there is no evidence that Jesus chose them because they were smarter or nicer than the guy next door. The one thing they had going for them was a willingness to take a step when Jesus said, “Follow me.”

 

Are you more dinghy than cruise ship? More stand-in than movie star? More plumber than executive? More blue jeans than blue blood? Congratulations. God changes the world with folks like you.

 

 

 

God’s Story… For My Life – Monday, December 15, 2014

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The Gift of the Holy Spirit

Read John 14:15-31

Jesus replied, “All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them. Anyone who doesn’t love me will not obey me. And remember, my words are not my own. What I am telling you is from the Father who sent me. I am telling you these things now while I am still with you. But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.

“I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid. Remember what I told you: I am going away, but I will come back to you again. If you really loved me, you would be happy that I am going to the Father, who is greater than I am. I have told you these things before they happen so that when they do happen, you will believe.”
(John 14:23-29)

Reflect

Before his crucifixion, Jesus wanted to prepare his disciples. Knowing how terrified and alone they would feel once he returned to heaven after his resurrection, Jesus promised the disciples that the Holy Spirit would help them remember what he taught them. This promise ensures the validity of the New Testament. The disciples were eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life and teachings, and the Holy Spirit helped them remember without taking away their individual perspectives. The Holy Spirit can help us in the same way. As we study the Bible and pray, we can trust the Holy Spirit to plant truth in our mind, convince us of God’s will, and remind us when we stray from it.

Respond

The Holy Spirit’s work in our lives is deep and lasting peace. Unlike worldly peace, which is usually defined as the absence of conflict, this peace is confident assurance in any circumstance. With the peace of Jesus, we have no need to fear the present or the future. If your life is full of fear or stress, pray for the Holy Spirit to fill you with Christ’s peace (see Philippians 4:6-7 for more on experiencing God’s peace).

Streams in the Desert – December 14

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His disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray… and he said unto them, “When ye pray, say… Thy kingdom come” (Luke 11:1-2).

When they said, “Teach us to pray,” the Master lifted His eyes and swept the far horizon of God. He gathered up the ultimate dream of the Eternal, and, rounding the sum of everything God intends to do in the life of man, He packed it all into these three terse pregnant phrases and said, “When you pray, pray after this manner.” What a contrast between this and much praying we have heard.

When we follow the devices of our own hearts, how runs it? “O Lord bless me, then My family, My church, My city, My country,” and away on the far fringe as we close up, there is a prayer for the extension of His Kingdom throughout the wide parish of the world.

The Master begins where we leave off. The world first, my personal needs second, is the order of this prayer. Only after my prayer has crossed every continent and every  far-flung island of the sea, after it has taken in the last man in the last backward race, after it has covered the entire wish and purpose, of God for the world, only then am I taught to ask for a piece of bread for myself.

When Jesus gave His all, Himself for us and to us in the holy extravagance of the Cross, is it too much if He asks us to do the same thing? No man or woman amounts to anything in the kingdom, no soul ever touches even the edge of the zone of power, until this lesson is learned that Christ’s business is the supreme concern of life and that all personal considerations, however dear or important, are tributary thereto.
–Dr. Francis

When Robert Moffat, the veteran African missionary and explorer, was asked once to write in a young lady’s album, he penned these lines:

My album is a savage breast,
Where tempests brood and shadows rest,
Without one ray of light;
To write the name of Jesus there,
And see that savage bow in prayer,
And point to worlds more bright and fair,
This is my soul’s delight.

“And His Kingdom shall have no frontier” (Luke 1:33, the old Moravian version).

The missionary enterprise is not the Church’s afterthought; it is Christ’s forethought.
–Henry van Dyke

God’s Story… For My Life – Sunday, December 14, 2014

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The Only Way

Read John 14:1-14

[Jesus said,] “There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. And you know the way to where I am going.”

“No, we don’t know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is. From now on, you do know him and have seen him!”
(John 14:2-7)

Reflect

There are few verses in Scripture that describe eternal life, but this passage is rich with promises. Here Jesus says, “I am going to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2) and “I will come and get you” (John 14:3). We can look forward to eternal life because Jesus has promised it to all who believe in him. Although the details of eternity are unknown, we need not fear because Jesus is preparing for it us, and he will spend eternity with us.

Jesus is the visible, tangible image of the invisible God. He is the complete revelation of what God is like. Jesus explained to Philip, who wanted to see the Father, that to know Jesus is to know God. The search for God, for truth and reality, ends in Jesus. (See also Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:1-4.) He is the way because he is both God and man. But Jesus says he is the only way to God the Father. Some people may argue that this way is too narrow. In reality, it is wide enough for the whole world, if the world chooses to accept it. Instead of worrying about how limited it sounds to have only one way, we should be saying, “Thank you, God, for providing a sure way to get to you!”

Respond

Do you trust that Jesus will someday return to take you to the Father, and that all the benefits of being God’s child will be yours? Jesus used “I Am” statements to describe himself. To show your trust in his promise to return, how would you finish this statement: “He is _______”?

Streams in the Desert – December 13

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I will give you the treasures of darkness (Isaiah 45:3).

In the famous lace shops of Brussels, there are certain rooms devoted to the spinning of the finest and most delicate patterns. These rooms are altogether darkened, save for a light from one very small window, which falls directly upon the pattern. There is only one spinner in the room, and he sits where the narrow stream of light falls upon the threads of his weaving. “Thus,” we are told by the guide, “do we secure our choicest products. Lace is always more delicately and beautifully woven when the worker himself is in the dark and only his pattern is in the light.”

May it not be the same with us in our weaving? Sometimes it is very dark. We cannot understand what we are doing. We do not see the web we are weaving. We are not able to discover any beauty, any possible good in our experience. Yet if we are faithful and fail not and faint not, we shall some day know that the most exquisite work of all our life was done in those days when it was so dark.

If you are in the deep shadows because of some strange, mysterious providence, do not be afraid. Simply go on in faith and love, never doubting. God is watching, and He will bring good and beauty out of all your pain and tears.
–J. R. Miller

The shuttles of His purpose move
To carry out His own design;
Seek not too soon to disapprove
His work, nor yet assign
Dark motives, when, with silent tread,
You view some sombre fold;
For lo, within each darker thread
There twines a thread of gold.
Spin cheerfully,
Not tearfully,
He knows the way you plod;
Spin carefully,
Spin prayerfully,
But leave the thread with God.
–Canadian Home Journal

God’s Story… For My Life – Saturday, December 13, 2014

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In Remembrance of Him

Read Matthew 26:20-30

As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take this and eat it, for this is my body.”

And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them and said, “Each of you drink from it, for this is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many. Mark my words—I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it new with you in my Father’s Kingdom.”

Then they sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives.
(Matthew 26:26-30)

Reflect

Jesus, who would soon be the final Passover lamb, ate the traditional Passover meal with his disciples in the upper room of a house in Jerusalem. During the meal they partook of the bread and wine, which would be the elements of future Communion celebrations, and then they went out to the garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives.

Each name we use for this sacrament brings out a different dimension to it. It is the Lord’s Supper because it commemorates the Passover meal Jesus ate with his disciples; it is the Eucharist (thanksgiving) because in it we thank God for Christ’s work for us; it is Communion because through it we commune with God and with other believers.

The old covenant was a shadow of the new (Jeremiah 31:31; Hebrews 8), pointing forward to the day when Jesus himself would be the final and ultimate sacrifice for sin. Rather than an unblemished lamb slain on the altar, the perfect Lamb of God was slain on the cross, a sinless sacrifice so that our sins could be forgiven once and for all. All those who believe in Jesus receive that forgiveness.

Respond

Each time you eat the bread and take the cup, you can be quietly reflective as you recall Jesus’ death and his promise to return to earth. You don’t have to wait until you take Communion, however, to honor Jesus. What feelings or thoughts come to mind now as you think of Jesus’ sacrifice and God’s forgiveness? How do you honor God for his provision?

God’s Story… For My Life – Friday, December 12, 2014

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Acts of Love

Read Matthew 25:31-46

“For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.”

“Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’”

“And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’”
(Matthew 25:35-40)

Reflect

God will separate his obedient followers from pretenders and unbelievers. The real evidence of our belief is the way we act. To treat all persons we encounter as if they are Jesus is no easy task. What we do for others demonstrates what we really think about Jesus’ words to us—feed the hungry, give the homeless a place to stay, look after the sick.

There has been much discussion about the identity of the “brothers and sisters” (Matthew 25:40). Some have said they are the Jews; others say they are all Christians; still others say they are suffering people everywhere. Such a debate is similar to the law expert’s question to Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29). The point of this parable is not who, but what—the importance of serving where service is needed.

This parable describes acts of mercy we can do each day. These acts do not depend on wealth or special ability; they are simple acts freely given and freely received. We have no excuse to neglect those who have deep needs, and we cannot hand over this responsibility to the church or government. Jesus requires our personal involvement in caring for others’ needs (Isaiah 58:7). Love for others glorifies God by reflecting our love for him.

Respond

What are the needs you’ve noticed in the people around you? How can you meet those needs? One way you can help meet someone’s need is to pray for him or her on a regular basis. As you pray, God may bring to mind a tangible way you can meet that person’s needs.