TerryLema

Everything changes … The White House and Congress are soon to be under new leadership. What was is changing and probably will again in another few years. The Governor of California is looking to ban different foods from the state. Things like energy drinks, skittles, sodas, snack items, etc., that we once thought were good are now regarded as unhealthy.

Everything Changes. One of my health issues has gone into remission, but I picked up another one just for the fun of it. I have more wrinkles, less energy, and I have new pain in places I didn’t even know I had.

Every day is different, every season brings surprises of change. One year our tomato plants did not produce at all, this last year we had a bumper crop of tomatoes except they were extremely small. Who knows what next year will bring.

Everything changes. EXCEPT.

“I am the Lord, and I do not change.” [Malachi 3:6 NLT]

“[God] never changes or casts a shifting shadow.” [James 1:17 NLT]

Amid all the changing circumstances in life, our God never changes. There is not one scintilla of change in Him. What He was, He is, and What He was and is, He always will be.

The world can spin out of control, and our God remains the same. Merciful. Faithful. Holy. Almighty. Loving. Full of Grace and Truth. Good. Generous. All His Character. All His Attributes. Never Change. Amen.

I am feeling something in my spirit that I don’t think I have ever felt before. And it has nothing to do with who occupies the White House or Congress or the Supreme Court or any other governing body. It has everything to do with WHO occupies the Eternal Throne in Glory.

All my Christian life I have prayed for what is commonly called “Revival.” I have prayed fervently to witness God move in power and might, prayed for a mighty Wind of God’s Spirit across our land.

I woke up this morning with anticipation in my spirit for this new year unlike any anticipation I have had in a long, long time. As I was praying, I saw an ocean wave, beginning small and then becoming stronger and higher as it moved toward shore.

I know it may sound silly, but I decided to look up how a wave is created and found something I didn’t know. Waves are not traveling bodies of water. They are actually ENERGY passing through the water, causing it to move. And a wave’s energy source most often is caused by WIND blowing along the air-water interface.

My former pastor used to say in faith we crawl out on a limb and declare what God has said, then we saw the limb off. So, on my spiritual limb, by faith, I believe that before 2025 is over a great tsunami of God’s power and might is going to inundate us!

“For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?” [Isaiah 43:19 NLT]

It may only be a small wave now gathering energy. But “do you not see it?”

We put up our old artificial Christmas Tree this year on December 1. There were a few lights out on the bottom branches, but I turned those toward the back. After a few days, the lights on the top third of the tree went out, followed a few days later by the middle third, and then finally the entire tree went dark.

I posted that a Christmas tree without lights was dismal. That prompted a friend to respond, “I see a devotion coming!”

Well, not wanting to disappoint, here it is. We are people of light. We not only live in the light of life that Christ Jesus brought us, but we are also to allow that light of the life of Christ Jesus to shine through us. We can have all the pretty ornaments that life in this world offers, but if there is no light of life in us, we are as dismal as a Christmas tree with the lights darkened. Remember ….

Colossians 1:13: For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,

 1 Peter 2:9: …you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

John 8:12: [Jesus] said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

And finally, Matthew 5:14: You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.

Oh, and my friend who saw the devotion coming, she is such a bright light she could have written this devotion herself.

One of my daily Bible verses this week was Ephesians 5:1-2 and one of the phrases therein brought back a memory from long ago.

“Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.” [NLT]

The phrase that retrieved the memory was “live a life filled with love.” Some other translations say it, “walk in love,” or “walk in the way of love.”

To be filled, or to walk, is a Greek verb used to describe one’s conduct or manner of life. It implies a habitual lifestyle and is used to encourage believers to live in a manner worthy of their calling and to follow the teachings of Christ. [Strong’s]

The memory that phrase prompted is from a half century ago. Newly saved, I was working for the State of California. I realized that my life and my attitudes were a far cry from “the example of Christ,” and I asked God to teach me to love like He loves.

I was looking for a miraculous and instant change. Instead, He brought the most annoying woman in the office to my side. Not only did I have to work with her, now she spent lunches and breaks with me. It took me a while to understand what God was doing – using the unlovable to teach me to love as He loves.

It made me realize that I was far more unlovable than this woman when God called me to Himself – and still He loved me. That changed everything! Funny the way God sometimes answers prayers!

“You were included in Christ.” “You were marked in Him with a seal.” “You who once were far away have been brought near.”

Can it get any better than that? Yes, it can. Just a little further on in Chapter 2 is another wonderful, simple, statement. “In him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”  [2:22]

In 2 Chronicles when Solomon built the Temple, he asked in his prayer of dedication “But will God really dwell on earth with men? The heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!”  [2 Chronicles 6:18]

Solomon could not fathom how the Omnipotent, Almighty, Eternal God would dwell in a building. Even though the building was the grandest building ever built in Israel, it was nothing – a mere whisper in time – in comparison to God.

In Ephesians Paul writes that now God is building a dwelling not out of stone and wood and gold, but out of believers. He will inhabit this human dwelling by His Spirit – and Paul says that “you too are being built together” to become part of this dwelling.

Amazing!  That God would choose to include us is amazing. That God would choose to mark us with seal as His own, even more so. And what a promise we have in knowing that we who were far away have been brought near and into fellowship with the One and Only God. But to hear that along with other believers we are being formed into a dwelling place for God, well, that is almost beyond comprehension.

Simple words; simple phrases. That is what I found in Ephesians this week. We “were included in Christ.”  We were “marked in him with a seal.” 

And there was a third phrase I spotted as I read the first three chapters. This one in Chapter 2:13, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.”

We “have been brought near.” 

One of the things I hate most about my life is that a part of my family is far away. They live in California and while we used to be able to make several trips a year to visit our son, daughter-in-love, and two grandsons, we are limited now to seeing them only when they can come in our direction. I hate being a faraway grandmother and not being able to visit when I want to.

Paul reminds us that as Gentiles, as people not part of the covenant of Israel, we were very far away from God. We were outside the circle of fellowship, outside the promises, without hope and without God in this world. But now all that has changed. In Christ Jesus, through the blood He offered at Calvary, we are no longer far away. We have been brought near.

Nearness means we are close to Him. We are in fellowship with Him. We have a relationship, we have a hope, we have the promise that as we abide in Him, and that He and the Father will abide in us.

We have been brought near. Wow. That’s a very simple statement, a simple thought, yet within those few words is a truth that boggles the imagination. We have been brought near to God.  Near to God!

When I worked, I was often privy to information that was confidential. Before everything was electronic, I had a locked file cabinet for confidential information and a “Confidential” stamp in red that I used to mark the papers that went into that cabinet.

That “Confidential” mark reminded people that what they were looking at needed to be treated differently. It meant that information and those documents were to be handled in a special way.

In Ephesians when I came across that simple phrase, “And you also were included,” I noticed that it was followed by another simple phrase, “you were marked in Him …”   [1:13-14]

Once we heard the gospel of salvation and believed and were included in Christ, Paul says we were marked in him “with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance.”

Not just included but marked. We have been marked in Christ with a seal and that seal is the Holy Spirit in us. The Spirit of God in us is our guarantee of inheritance. The Spirit of God in us marks us as God’s possession and as such we are to be treated as God’s children.

The enemy of our soul is given notice by God’s seal in us that we belong to the Almighty God and when he messes with us, he messes with our Father.

And we are reminded that no matter what we see with earthly eyes, no matter our circumstances, no matter the fact that outwardly we are perishing daily, we have a seal that guarantees our inheritance in God.

I usually start my Bible Reading plan on January 1 with Genesis, Psalms, and Matthew. Today I started with Ephesians.

When I read Ephesians, I usually notice words like redemption, predestined according to, heavenly realms, spiritual blessing, adopted as his sons, etc. This time as I read, different words caught my attention, such as the phrase in 1:13, “and you also were included …” [NIV]

Paul had begun the paragraph by stating, “In him [Christ] we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.”  [vs 11-12 NIV]

Whew! The depth and grandeur of that statement leaves one breathless. But then he says simply, “And you also were included in Christ.”

Included in Christ. What a wonderful thought to realize that we are included in Christ, just as Paul, and the other Apostles, and those who were touched and healed by Jesus, and those who sat at his feet and heard His words. We too, are included.

It is awesome to realize that I am included in Christ, in His body, as part of His family – for all eternity – and to know the blessings eternal that are included in that small phrase.

My favorite games as a child was “Hide & Seek.” I remember the neighborhood kids gathering after supper. We lived in Sewickly, PA, in a complex of duplexes. All the backyards were open, no fences in sight. We would get together and decide what game to play and “Hide & Seek” was usually it. It didn’t require any equipment, just a bit of imagination. Someone would be designated “seeker” and would shut their eyes and count to 50 or 100 and all the others would scatter seeking places to “hide.” If someone could hide and not be found, they were declared the winner as they emerged from their hiding place.

Gen 3:8-9: “When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees. Then the Lord God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’” [NLT]

God would come in the cool of the day to the Garden and Adam and Eve would fellowship with Him. Until that one day when Adam and Eve began a game of “Hide & Seek” with God. God had only given them one rule of law to obey, don’t eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They could not even keep that one law.

The enemy of their soul convinced them that the true path of knowledge was found not in obedience, but in disobedience. He lied. They sinned. And we all suffer the consequences.

Everyone born into the human race since has played the game of “Hide & Seek” with God. We hide. He seeks. And unlike the game we played as children, we become winners when we are “found” and called out of our hiding place. To remain hidden is to lose, to lose everything.

I was looking for a recipe online for scalloped potatoes last week. Suddenly, my inbox, my newsfeed, Facebook … everywhere I looked online I found scalloped potato recipes. (Which wasn’t nearly as bad as when I looked up incontinence.)

Funny. Except. I also recently clicked on an article about why people are leaving Christianity, and the same thing happened. Article after article on what is “wrong” with the Church, and why people are “leaving” (according to those secular authors) “in droves.”

The world has gotten quite efficient in getting its message out to everyone. One click, one search will inundate us with like-articles and ads. Not bad when we have a variety of scalloped potato recipes appear – not good when we have a variety of worldly “opinions” on the aspects of our faith and faith-walk.

Way back in Paul’s time, he also combated misinformation about the resurrection of Christ Jesus our LORD and our faith. He said, “Don’t be fooled by those who say such things [that there is no resurrection from the dead and that we should feast and drink for tomorrow we die], for ‘bad company corrupts good character.’” [1Corinthians 15:33 NLT]

That corrupting “bad company” now invades our home via the internet, online games, etc. And its message once given is repeated and repeated. We must be so very careful what we “click” on and allow to mold our thinking to the world’s message.

Holy Spirit, keep our minds and thoughts on things that strengthen our faith and faith-walk. Amen