O God, do not remain quiet; Do not be silent and, O God, do not be still. Psalm 83:1
An old preacher spoke something in reply to a question from a young man, something so hushed it was indistinguishable. The young man, therefore, stepped across the room in order to hear better.
“What did you say?” he asked. The preacher repeated himself, but again in a tone as soft as a whisper. So the young man moved closer until he was leaning on the preacher’s chair.
“Sorry,” he said. “I still didn’t hear you.” With their heads bent together, the old preacher spoke once more.
“God sometimes whispers,” he said, “so we will move closer to hear him.”
We all want God’s voice to thunder through the air with the answer to our problem. But often God’s voice is the still,small voice – the gentle whisper. Perhaps there’s a reason. Nothing draws human focus quite like a whisper. God’s whisper means I must stop my ranting and move close to Him, until my head is bent together with His. And then, as I listen, I will find my answer. Better still, I find myself closer to God.
Heavenly Father, help me to listen, help me to be quiet and listen to your voice. In Jesus name, Amen
Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them. (Mark 1:30-31)
Jesus was visiting in the home of Simon Peter. Simon’s mother-in-law was sick in bed with a high fever. Without anyone saying a word about her illness Jesus went over to her, touched her, and lifted her up. Immediately she was healed. Notice that Jesus never said a word; he just touched her. We are not told how long she was sick in bed, or her condition. All we are told is that Jesus touched her and made her well. It was a miracle. Notice what happened next. Immediately she got up and began serving Jesus and his disciples. Having been sick in bed she must have been weak, but when Jesus touched her she felt a strength she had never felt before. She got up out of bed and began serving him. This was her way of saying thanks. But it began with the Master’s touch. She was touched by God’s love through Jesus Christ. Our happiness also begins for us when we are touched by the Master’s hand.
Dr. JP Price recalls a PEANUTS cartoon years ago in which Lucy asks Charlie Brown if he has ever known anybody who was really happy. Before she can finish her sentence, however, Snoopy comes dancing on tip-toe into the picture, his nose high in the air. He dances and bounces his way across two frames of the cartoon strip. Finally, in the last frame, Lucy finishes her sentence: “Have you ever known anybody who was really happy and was still in their right mind?”
There certainly are times when people may wonder if we, as God’s people, are in our right mind. There is a lot of pressure against the church and our faith, but when we experience Christ’s love and presence in our lives. The world seems to change, and we live with a greater sense of happiness.
God of joy and peace, may I live with a great sense of happiness when I realize the many ways I have been touched by the Master’s hand. In Jesus Name, Amen.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16
Some of us seem to be more comfortable with an impersonal God. The idea of God’s son having nail prints in his hands and feet because of God’s great love for us is an idea many of us are not ready for.
There is a true and beautiful story about the courtship of Moses Mendelssohn, the grandfather of a great German composer. Moses was a small man with a mis-shaped, humped back. One day he visited a merchant in Hamburg who had a lovely daughter. Though Moses admired her greatly, she avoided him, seemingly afraid of his grotesque hump.
On the last day of his visit he went to tell her good-bye. Her face seemed to beam with beauty but when he entered, she cast her eyes to the floor. Moses’ heart ached for her. After some small talk, he slowly drew to the subject that filled his mind. “Do you believe that marriages are made in Heaven?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied the young woman. “And do you?”
“Of course,” Moses answered. “I believe that at the birth of each child, the Lord says, ‘That boy shall marry that girl.’ But in my case, the Lord also added, ‘But, his wife will have a terrible hump.’”
“At that moment I called, ‘Oh Lord, that would be a tragedy for her. Please give me the humped back and let her be beautiful.’” The story ends when the young woman was so moved by his words that she reached for Moses’ hand and later became his loving and faithful wife.
In trying to deal with the meaning of the cross on which Christ died, the early church came to understand that those nail prints in Jesus’ hands and feet have been ours. But God so loved the world that he sent his own Son to bear the burden brought about by our sin.
Dear Lord, thank you for bearing my burden of sin. Thank you God for personally loving me enough to send Jesus. May I invite you to live close to me each day. In Jesus Name, Amen.
For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it. (Matthew 7:14)
General George Patton once told about a Chinese national young man who enlisted in the American army in WWII. This fellow’s unit was stationed in Louisiana. As luck would have it this Chinese soldier got lost on one of the Maneuvers. Being unable to speak English he couldn’t ask where his outfit was located. He was stranded at a crossroads where he attempted to hitch a ride with any army vehicle of any unit. The problem was he tried to use his index finger to hitch a ride instead of motioning backward with his thumb.
You can guess what happened. An army convoy approached. The Chinese soldier pointed his index finger down one of the roads at the crossroads. The driver of the first vehicle didn’t stop since he thought the soldier was directing traffic. When the convoy failed to stop, the young Chinese soldier moved to another road and with the next convoy pointed down the new road. According to Patton, in one afternoon, this soldier split army units so badly by pointing down one road and then another that it took them over a week to locate all of the troops! Troops, trucks and tanks were scattered all over Louisiana and Texas!
Some people spend their lives going first down one road and then another. They wander nowhere in particular and then wonder why they never get anywhere. The most important road we need to go down is the one that Christ is on. Then the rest of the pieces of our lives will fall into place.
Loving God, keep me on the road that leads to your heavenly kingdom. In Jesus Name, Amen.
Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. (Matthew 10:38)
People who succeed in life deny themselves and take up a cross. You don’t get to be the best by staying in your comfort zone. You do it by working till you sweat blood. You sit at your computer or your designing board or your blueprints or your lesson plan or whatever, long after everybody else has gone home. That’s what it means to deny yourself and take up a cross. And it works!
The University of Chicago did a five-year study of leading artists, athletes, and scholars. Conducted by Dr. Benjamin Bloom, the research was based on anonymous interviews with the top twenty performers in various fields. These people included concert pianists, Olympic swimmers, tennis players, sculptors, mathematicians, and neurologists. Bloom and his team of researchers from the University of Chicago probed for clues as to how these achievers developed. For a more complete picture, they interviewed their families and teachers.
The report stated conclusively that drive and determination, not great natural talent, led to the extraordinary success of these individuals. Bloom noted, “We expected to find tales of great natural gifts. We didn’t find that at all. Their mothers often said it was another child who had the greater talents.” What they found were extraordinary accounts of hard work and dedication: The pianist who practiced several hours a day for seventeen years; the swimmer who rolled out of bed every morning at half-past five to do laps for two hours before school, etc.
If we are to be equally successful in our relationship with God, it will take some work and dedication!
Dear Lord, I work so hard to achieve success in reaching my goals. May my goals also include you. In Jesus Name, Amen.
Jesus said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34)
In a secular sense, our text today, as a slogan followed, would guarantee any person’s success in the wonderful world of business or art or education or sports or whatever career you may choose.
After all, what does it mean to deny yourself and take up a cross? We know what it does not mean. It does not mean in times of adversity saying in a whiny voice, “Well, I guess this is just my cross to bear.” No, denying ourselves and taking up a cross has to do with discipline and hard work. It has to do with unselfishness and committing ourselves to the finest of which we are capable. It has to do with forgetting ourselves and concentrating on the needs of others. It has to do with a commitment to excellence in all things. In short, in these few words Jesus has summed up all the most helpful advice found in the self-help books.
There’s a sign in a dry cleaners that reads, “No matter how bad the stain is, we’ll take it out… and sew up the hole!”
How’s that for excellence!?
Actually, taking up the cross of Christ means that our lives may be stained or may have holes in them, but the cross will make us whole. However, we have to be willing to be faithful in carrying the cross everyday.
Dear God, help me to be faithful in carrying the cross of Christ everyday. In Jesus Name, Amen.
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. Phil 4:6
When it became known among the friends of a certain gentleman that he was going to go abroad, they came in great numbers to see him, each one with a commission for him to execute. A lady wanted him to buy her a real Paris bonnet; a scientific friend wanted a microscope, and so on with all who came to see him. When they had gone away, he looked over the list and found, to his dismay, that if he made all these purchases he would have no money with which to meet the expense of the trip. Of all the number, only one had brought the money with which to purchase what he wanted. When the man returned, his friends gathered around him eager to see what he had brought back. To their surprise, they found that he had made but one of the purchases he had been asked to make.
“One day, as I sat upon the deck, looking over your lists, a breeze came and blew them all away except this one,” he explained.
“But how could that be?” someone questioned.
“Ah!” was the reply, “his order was weighted down. It had coins wrapped up in it.”
Do you see the point? Real, prevailing prayer must have your very best offering of self and substance wrapped up in it. When you pray for the relief of the poor, is your prayer anything more than words? When you somewhat emphatically instruct the Lord to convert the heathen, are there any coins wrapped up in your prayer?
Father, help me to believe, help me to ask, help me to have faith, help me to REALLY believe what I ask and to ask often. In Jesus name, Amen.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1)
The Tempter in the Garden of Eden was a serpent. From the first pages of the Bible we are introduced to the way sin comes into our lives. It slips in and grabs a quiet foothold before we are aware of it. Temptation slips up on us before we recognize the seriousness of what’s happening.
Someone has put it this way: “Who’s there,” I cried, “A little lonely sin.” “Enter,” I said, “Then all hell broke lose.”
There is something about the very nature of temptation that not only makes it initially attractive, but keeps us coming back for more. Even when the initial thrill is gone we find ourselves mired in the muck of our own worst instincts.
It’s sort of like a incident some time ago on the Enterprise ride at the Minnesota State Fair. Riders boarded their little cars on the Enterprise to be spun around at high speed for about four minutes. Being dizzy and scared is apparently something for which people will pay money.
The ride, however, ceased to operate properly and could not be stopped for about 20 minutes. When people were finally rescued from their thrill, all were sick and some were taken to the hospital.
There is something exciting about certain areas that the Bible tells us to avoid, but the excitement is an emotion we feel when we get on the ride, not when we get off.
Loving God, forgive me for giving in to sin. Help me to have a healthy spiritual life by living your way. In Jesus Name, Amen.
Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalms 37:4)
Surrender is essential. We are free moral agents. We can choose, but choose we must. If we want the healing of Christ, we must open ourselves to the Spirit of Christ. We must yield ourselves to the authority of Christ. Some of us want a nodding acquaintance with him. We want to be counted in his company, but at a distance. It cannot be done. Regardless of how hard or harsh it may sound, sooner or later we must confront our personal Gethsemane and pray either “My will” or “Thy will” be done.
As he came to the end of his distinguished ministry at City Temple in London, the great British Methodist preacher Leslie Weatherhead said: “I am to be asked shortly on a radio program to answer the question, ‘What have you learned from life?’ Well, I have learned a lot of things from life, but from my own failures, from the confidences of innumerable men and women, from the rough and tumble of forty-five years in the Christian ministry, and from my observations as a student of personal, national and international affairs, I will tell you the outstanding thing I have learned. It is this: Life will only work out one way, and that is God’s way. He made it like that. Every other way has across it a barricade bearing a notice which says, ‘No thoroughfare this way.’”
Only our Creator has the key that unlocks the doors to peace and serenity. Let’s surrender fully to God through Jesus Christ.
Dear God, I surrender all to you today. In Jesus Name, Amen.
Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. (Mark 1:25-26)
Jesus delivered this man with the unclean spirit. Jesus has that authority today. He can deliver us from whatever may get into us. It is sad that so many people even in the church only give lip service to the authority of Jesus. They really don’t believe that he can deliver them.
There is an old story about some linemen who were busy putting up telephone poles through a farmer’s fields. The farmer ordered them off his land, whereupon they showed him a paper giving them the right to plant poles wherever they pleased. Not long afterward a big and vicious bull charged the linemen. The old farmer sat on a nearby fence and yelled: “Show him yer papers, darn ye, show him yer papers!”
For to many Christians, Jesus’ authority is only a paper authority. It is something we study for inspiration, but we really don’t believe it applies to our situation. Is this our belief? There are too many witnesses to Christ’s authority today for this position to be true!
Father, I believe; help me with my unbelief. In Jesus Name, Amen.
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