“The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and strengthen your bones; you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.” (Isaiah 58:11, NKJV). Spring is a time of anticipation and rebirth. After the cold of winter months, watching the days transform themselves into the brightness of Spring makes me happy. Yes, there will still be dreary days of cold rains, but there are also “teaser days” of sunshine and warmth. I feel the promise of budding new life. On those warm days in late March and early…
“He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.” (Luke 6:48, ESV) The sales brochure of a construction company specializing in oceanfront homes informed prospective buyers that “the foundation is the most important thing you will put in your house.” The ad went on to describe dimensions, depth of placement, and its ability to meet building codes. One of their key selling points was the stability and integrity of the structure when strong winds blow, a very necessary consideration for that locale. The brochure concluded by stating, “All this protects your investment though none of it is very glamorous. Surfaces can always be changed cosmetically but the lasting value of your (company name) home depends upon a firm foundation.” I live just a few miles from the impressive Gateway Arch, which stands by the banks of the Mississippi River. At 630 feet (192.02 meters), the Arch is over twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty. How does a 43,000 ton structure stand so firm? Because of what it…
“After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, “Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your families, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.” Nehemiah 4:14 There will always be people who want you to fail. I don’t understand it myself, but some people just hate to see others succeed, and this was the case in the fourth chapter of Nehemiah. They were working tirelessly to complete the wall, and at every turn, they had critics in their ears. There will always be a select group of people who thrive on the failures of others. I am so glad that we serve a loving God who is not put off by our mistakes, and who doesn’t rub them in our faces. He chooses rather to pick up shattered pieces and mend what was broken. Our God specializes in the restoration of people deemed unimportant, lost, or unfixable. Perhaps you have a person in your life who is a critic, if so, I point you to the end of the verse. It tells us to not…
“No one lights a lamp and then covers it with a washtub or shoves it under the bed. No, you set it up on a lamp stand so those who enter the room can see their way. We’re not keeping secrets; we’re telling them. We’re not hiding things; we’re bringing everything out into the open. So be careful that you don’t become misers of what you hear. Generosity begets generosity. Stinginess impoverishes.” Luke 8:16-18 MSG I have two daughters, who at this very moment, are fighting over a cardboard box. The day is winding down, we are all tired, and emotions seem…
“Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” ( Matthew 20:28, NKJV) To truly follow Christ, we should pray for a servant’s heart. A servant is A person employed by another, especially to perform domestic duties. A person in the service of another. And “service” is defined as an act of helpful activity. But, before obtaining a servant’s heart, we need a servant’s mentality. We must die to our flesh and be born again with a servant’s mentality. We serve God because He is God, and to serve Him means to serve people. What do a servant’s heart and a servant’s mentality look like? For our example, we don’t need to look further than the three years of Christ’s ministry recorded in the New Testament. Even though He had great power and all authority, He was not recognized as such by most people during His earthly ministry. In Matthew 20:28, Jesus stated that He came to serve. His entire ministry was serving people by teaching, healing, and feeding everyone who would allow Him to, even those He knew would not follow Him, and those who…
“Around midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening.” Acts 16:25 We sing songs in our worship services quite often about how worship can change a situation, and we proclaim and believe that worship can set us free. This story in Acts is a perfect example of that. Paul and Silas had been severely flogged. They were stripped, beaten, and publicly humiliated, then thrown into a dark and cold prison cell. Their feet were then fastened in stocks and thus began a very uncertain future for these two men. After all of this though, their immediate reaction is to sing praise. I’m sure most of us have never experienced anything remotely close to what they endured, but we have all had our fair share of turmoil and despair. We have all been at one time in our lives enslaved to sin and defeated by our situations and circumstances. What is our first reaction though to trouble? When they sang, their shackles were not only loosed but every other prisoner in that cell block was delivered as well. People are always listening to the words we choose to speak. Will they hear…