TerryLema

According to Webster’s dictionary, contentment is synonymous with being happy, pleased, satisfied, comfortable, and at ease.  Of course, we are all familiar with the famous contentment Scripture found in Philippians 4:11, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” (That Scripture came up in a recent Bible Study I attended.)

As I was reading that I realized a marvelous truth found in that Scripture. To be content in whatever circumstance is not something that happens naturally. It is something to learn. “I have learned” Paul said, “to be content.”

I must admit that there are some things I learn easily, while others require a great deal of effort. Contentment is one of those that comes both easily and requires effort depending on the circumstances. I suppose it is that way for all of us.

Most of the time I am content. I don’t need a lot of “things.” Clothes, shoes, the latest gadgets, the newest cars, I find I can do without. I am content with what I have.

But there are times when I face disappointment, when outcomes are not what I expect them to be, that contentment flies out the window and discontent flies in. I fuss, fume, and sometimes say things I shouldn’t. I pester God to change His mind, but God rarely does. Most of time I end up having to repent or apologize or both.

In those times I learn a little more about being content. Probably not enough, however, and knowing my personality, I’ll probably have another go-around with this attitude in the future. It is a lesson I am positive God wants me to learn.

I am participating in a 10-week discipleship program Sunday nights at church – and loving every minute of it! Week Three of the program was on prayer. Last Monday, we practiced what we learned.

The three groups participating in the program got together for a “prayer experience.” While it started off a bit quiet and hesitant – it didn’t stay that way. By the end of the evening, we were praising God with tears and laughter and then praying for each other. Driving home I kept thinking how wonderful it would be to do that every week.

Prayer is a wonderful experience, but it does require sacrifice. The writer to Hebrews calls it a sacrifice of praise. “Therefore, through Him let us continually offer up to God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of our lips that confess His name.” [Hebrews 13:5 HCSB]

In the Old Testament, believers brought literal sacrifices (animals, grain, wine, etc.) to the temple. It was part of the Levitical system. In the New, however, our sacrifice is one that flows out of a heart made new by the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross.

It is a sacrifice of praise offered continually. Still, prayer does require sacrifice – a sacrifice of time, a quieting of the soul before God, thanksgiving for all He has done, praise for all He is. Amen

If there is a job I hate, it is cleaning the shower. We replaced our shower not long after we moved in, the one that was here originally had been ruined by the previous owners and was impossible to clean. The new one was great – for a while. Then it, too, became more difficult to clean. I experimented with different types of cleaners – some so obnoxious I wore a mask when using them.

Then I found one that said all I needed to do was spray it on once a week, let it sit for 8-12 hours and then rinse it off. The label indicated I might have to use it daily in the beginning to get the shower clean, but once it was, it required only a weekly application.

I thought it was too good to be true. But I’ve been using it for four months and my shower-cleaning duties have become much easier. I spray it on in the morning after my shower – and thankfully it doesn’t have a strong odor – and then rinse it off before Bob showers at night. So easy! But I know that if I ignore the weekly application, I am going to be right back where I began.

It may be silly, but every week when I apply that cleaner I am reminded of Proverbs 4:23: “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” [NLT]

It is not enough to occasionally do the spiritual disciplines necessary to keep our hearts clean, we must be diligent to regularly come to God and ask Him to reveal to us anything that displeases Him.

Thank you LORD.

I was talking to a precious lady at a recent Senior Potluck. We are about the same age, we both have health challenges, and we both love the LORD. We both share the same desires for the future. We want to have clarity of mind to be able to testify about our Wonderful LORD and have a body that will allow us to be active in ministry until our LORD calls us home to Him.

I know for me, also, that means going about these things despite the pain that accompanies my days. When I was young, I looked forward to “getting over” those times of discomfort and pain that would hit me occasionally. I got over colds. I got over the flu. I got over a ruptured Achilles tendon.

Now I realize there is no “getting over” an aging body. Each day is a challenge to ignore the pain and fatigue and keep moving. Sometimes I can do that, and sometimes I must simply give in and rest, hoping tomorrow will be better.

The Bible does not ignore the challenges of old age and the fact that strength does fade. Psalm 71 is a prayer for God’s continuing faithfulness: “And now, in my old age, don’t set me aside. Don’t abandon me when my strength is failing.” [vs 8-10 NLT]

But Psalm 92 is God’s promise that He will remain faithful – that those who are planted in the House of the LORD “will still bear fruit in old age, healthy and green, to declare: ‘The Lord is just; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.” [vs 13-15 HCSB]

Amen & Amen

I joined a discipleship program at church. It’s a program called “Rooted” and lasts for ten weeks. There is a weekly meeting with a small group and daily devotional readings. At the end of each devotional are questions. I am so enjoying the small group! I really like the daily devotional. But those questions!

There are just a couple after each day’s devotion along with a direction to write a prayer. Wouldn’t you think that after being a Christian for more than five decades and reading my Bible cover to cover multiple times, that it would be a snap to answer those questions? Instead, I struggle.

How would you answer the very first question after the very first devotion, “What false or incomplete images of God do you have?” and the second, “What new thoughts do you have about God?”

I thought … ALL my images and thoughts about God are “incomplete!”  I only have a small finite understanding about our Infinite God! I also realized that I need to continue (yes, even after five decades) to dig deeper into the images and thoughts about God that He wants to reveal to me. I need to be eager to still learn and grow.

 “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who doesn’t need to be ashamed, correctly teaching the word of truth.” [2Timothy 2:15 HCSB]

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet, IN all these things we are more than conquerors THROUGH Him who loved us.” [NKJV emphasis mine]

To be a conqueror, or Super Conqueror as promised in this passage, we must have something to conquer, things like tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword. The Word of God promises that as we face these things we will have victory.

The victory we have, however, is not a victory we generate on our own. It is bestowed and sustained by God. Perhaps the most important words in this passage are the two small prepositions that set the parameters of our victory.

Yet IN all these things – IN is the Greek preposition EN and is the state in which something operates from the INSIDE (within).

THROUGH Him who loved us – is the preposition DIA and is the channel through which something occurs.

What that means is that we don’t become conquerors by avoiding difficulties nor by surrendering to them, nor by watching others go through them, nor by trying to self-generate enough courage to face them on our own.

We become super-conquerors when we are WITHIN those difficulties—right in the midst of them. And we become super-conquerors not through our own strength, wisdom, and power, but THROUGH Christ Jesus “who loved us.” Amen and Amen

Common sense says that if we want to be a conqueror, we must have something to conquer—something like tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword. At least that is what I read in Romans 8:35-37.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet, in all these things we are MORE THAN CONQUERORS through Him who loved us.” [NKJV emphasis mine]

More than conquerors is a compound word using one Greek word meaning to vanquish and adding “huper” which means exceedingly abundantly above or beyond. We could say we are “Super-Conquerors,” not just your average “run-of-the-mill-ordinary’ conquerors.

That compound word also gives the image of a victory so complete that the enemy is not merely subdued but rendered powerless to threaten the believer’s standing in Christ.

Paul doesn’t ignore or deny there is a bitter reality in the battles we face. He uses a quote from Psalm 44:22. That psalm was a communal lament during a time of national despair. The psalmist begins by recounting all God had done for Israel in the past but moves quickly into her feelings of being abandoned by God despite their faithfulness.

We, too, can probably remember and be thankful for all God has done for us in the past while still feeling alone or abandoned in the present. Our feelings, however, do not negate the fact that God has promised that we are “Super-Conquerors” in Christ!

(Tomorrow the means of being a Super Conqueror.)

1 John 4:16a: “We have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.” [HCSB]

 As I was reading in 1 John two words in verse 16 drew my interest: know and believe.  John is emphatic when he says that we know and believe [trust] the love that God has for us. I asked myself, “Do we? Do we really know and believe that love?”

*Know: ginosko (ghin-oce’-ko); to “know” absolutely.

*Believe: pisteuo (pist-yoo’-o); to have faith in, to entrust, especially one’s spiritual well-being to Christ

Wow. John uses a word that means to know absolutely. Absolutely says we know God’s love without even a hint of doubt. And because we know absolutely, we can entrust our spiritual well-being to Christ Jesus.

I watch news magazine shows on occasion. What I see so often is the trouble that happens when people become so eager to be loved that they entrust their well-being to the wrong ones. This yearning to be loved often overpowers good sense. It places people in desperate situations and at times even leads to death.

But to know absolutely the love that God has for us, to entrust our spiritual well-being to Christ Jesus, always leads to life, eternal life.

God loves me! God loves you!  Do you know absolutely and believe that love?

Happy Mothers’ Day to all you wonderful women who make this world so beautiful!

Twice in the Book of Isaiah, God refers to Himself with qualities we often associate with mothers.

Isa 49:15-16:  “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.”

Isa 66:13: “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you.”  

One of my favorite parables is the one of the Prodigal Son. After everything that boy did, insulting his father by asking for his inheritance while his dad was still alive and then running off and squandering that inheritance on what some translations call “wild living,” his father was watching and waiting with compassion for his son to return. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” [Luke 15:20 NIV]

How our God loves us. He watches and waits for us to return to Him. He yearns with compassion for his lost sons and daughters. What comfort is ours when we return to Him and find that He is not angry with us, that He does not reject us, but instead throws His arms around us and kisses us to welcome us home.

Father, what comfort is found in You, what compassions flow from You. Amen.

I love Jesus’ disciples. They are so human! Whenever I wonder what I can do, an old woman, I remember what those men did—they turned the world around in one generation through the power of the Holy Spirit within them. Still, they were very ordinary men, often knuckleheaded and sometimes dense.

Jesus had just told them to wait in Jerusalem until the Father sends the Holy Spirit as He promised. And what are the next words out of their mouths? “Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?” [Acts 1:6 NLT]

Despite everything that had happened, they were still looking for Jesus to oust the Romans from their land, they wanted their earthly kingdom and they wanted it now. Jesus had a different promise and a work for them …

“The Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times, and they are not for you to know. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” [Acts 1:7-8 NLT]

I love the promise – “You will receive power” and I love the work – “You will be my witnesses.”

There was no equivocation in Jesus’ promise. You will receive the power of the Holy Spirit, not you might, or you could. There was no “maybe” in His declaration. Power would be theirs when the Holy Spirit descended upon them on Pentecost. And that power would energize their work to be Jesus’ witnesses.