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Devotions

Oh my …

by TerryLema

I had an appointment last Friday with my Rheumatologist. Just a standing three-month appointment. He is located in a neighboring town about 17 miles from our home. I decided to drive myself, but Bob came along for the ride – just in case.

We got into the building and took the elevator up to the third floor. As we walked into the lobby, there were about 20 young men, all extremely fit, sitting on the left side in rows. On the right side was my Rheumatologist’s office waiting room with one old lady on a walker (and then me with my cane).

I immediately wondered about the young men until I walked past them and saw the title of the office on the left – Sports Medicine.  That explained it.

The comparison – youth vs elderly – was striking. I was reminded how fast time seems to fly when we look back. The saying is true … “Days drag and years fly.”

Psalm 90 is a song of Moses. It speaks of the eternal nature of God and compares it with the frailty of man. One verse is probably recognizable to all of us. Verse 12: So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. [NKJV]

To “number” our days is an act of recognition of the vast difference between the Infinite God and finite humanity. The wise think continually about God’s existence and their purpose and accountability to Him. The wise continually pray for “a heart of wisdom” and are receptive to divine revelation/instruction. “Teach us” is the cry of their hearts.

We know that a heart of wisdom begins and ends with the fear of the Lord. This much is sure: it should make us value every day of our lives and spend each one in obedience to Him, and in such a way that it will count for eternity.

Teach us LORD. Amen!

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A Parking Place

by TerryLema

Last Tuesday I had to go for an infusion. Since getting COVID the first week of September, I had not driven much, and the little I had driven, I had Bob with me in case I got too tired. This was the first time I decided to drive alone. It isn’t very far, just a little over three miles. I thought that would not be too difficult.

The one thing I was a bit worried about was where I had to park and how far I might have to walk. The building houses a hospital as well as doctor offices and outpatient centers.  That means there are always a lot of cars and sometimes you have to park pretty far away. Fortunately, the location of the infusion center is on the first floor and not far from the entrance.

My plan was to simply drive over early, rest in the car, then walk in. When I pulled into the parking lot, a car was backing out from the closest parking space to the entry. Wow! I could not have gotten any closer had I reserved it.

As I sat in my car, I began to praise my Father for His great love and kindness. I know it might sound silly, but at that moment I sensed the LORD’s smile and His delight.

I love doing things for the people I love. I love surprising them with gifts when they least expected it. I love showing my love and delight in others. When I do these kinds of things, they always made me smile.

As I sat there, I knew God was smiling … He surprised me with a gift of kindness knowing my weakness.

It was just a parking space, but sometimes it is the little things that drive the deepest into our hearts. God’s smile. God’s kindness to His child that morning still brings tears of joy one week later.

Psalm 36:7: How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! [NKJV]

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Great is the LORD!

by TerryLema

Ps 145:3-5: “Yahweh is great and is highly praised; His greatness is unsearchable. One generation will declare Your works to the next and will proclaim Your mighty acts. I will speak of Your splendor and glorious majesty and Your wonderful works.” [HCSB]

Psalm 145 is a praise song of David. It seemed fitting to me that we should read this song today and do what it says in verse 5 … “I will speak [meditate] on God’s wonderful works.”

I was blessed yesterday to be back in church after five weeks dealing with COVID. I so missed the Family of God!

Is the church in America what she should be? No. But making no excuses, I will remind us that the church has often not been what she should be. And still, God. God has fought for her attention and has cured her over and over of her sin.

He has provided the rain of His Spirit when she was dry. He has blanketed her in a spirit of holiness when she was devoured by the world. He has overpowered her sin and arrogance with His love and grace, drawing her to a time of repentance. We call that revival.

I agree with David, no one can fully fathom God’s greatness. We simply experience it and commend it to others.

We have a choice on what we meditate on today. We can focus on all that is wrong, and there is plenty of that to fill our thoughts. Or, we can focus on the greatness of the LORD. We can speak to others of His mighty acts and spread the praiseworthiness of our God.

I choose today to do the latter. My God is able … My God has a purpose … My God, my God, is glorious in majesty and has all power. My God will fulfill His purpose for His church. On that I rest my hope.

Thank you, Father, that You have called Your church for Your purpose. Amen

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Testing

by TerryLema

Yuck. No one likes to be tested. Probably because being tested means being thrown up against the most difficult of adversities. They test cars and airplanes in re-created adverse weather conditions. Who would want to be in an airplane that hasn’t been tested against such?

I wonder how many times they drop phones, tablets and laptops while testing them in labs? Or how many times labs test appliances, both large and small, before they go on the market. Testing is important. I certainly don’t want to buy a slow cooker that doesn’t cook, or a pressure cooker that builds up too much pressure and explodes.

Often God will put us to the test. In Deuteronomy 8, Moses explained to the people why God had led them through adversity. “Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna…to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD…. He gave you manna to eat in the desert…to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you.” [vs 2-3, 16]

God brought His people through adversity so that in the end, it might go well with them. He exposed them to what was in their own hearts, and that wasn’t very pretty. He showed them their rebellion, their lack of dependence upon Him. In their testing they often came up wanting. Even Moses was disobedient at Kadesh and ended up losing the Promised Land.

But there were some whose hearts remained steady. Joshua and Caleb, to name two. They kept their hearts centered on God, and in the end, it did go very well with them in the Promised Land.

Father God, give us steady hearts like Joshua and Caleb. Center us in You. Amen

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Captain Kirk

by TerryLema

On October 12, William Shatner, who played Captain James T. Kirk on the old series Star Trek, will be heading into space for real aboard Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket. Unlike the Enterprise’s five-year mission, this trip will only last minutes. Still, at the age of 90, it will make him the oldest person to travel into space.

People have made fun of William Shatner for the crazy things he sometimes does. But you have to give the old guy credit to be 90 years old and still doing crazy things!

“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, WOW !!!! What a ride!”

There are multiple renditions of that saying that pop up now and again on Facebook or Pinterest and other places. As I read it again this morning, I thought how aptly it applies not just to William Shatner and going into space at the age of 90, but how it also should apply to us as we follow our LORD and Savior Christ Jesus through this life.

Jesus was clear when He told His followers that they have to give all to Him. One of the hardest commands of Jesus is found in Luke 14:26: “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, and even his own life—he cannot be My disciple.” [HCSB]

Does Jesus really want us to “hate” those closest to us when He tells us in other places we are not even to hate our enemies?  No, of course not. Jesus was talking not about actively hating, but comparatively hating.  He wants us to follow Him so fully, so intensely, and with so much passion that all other attachments in our life look like hate by comparison.

 That kind of passion for following Him as Savior and LORD, does not diminish as we age. I think it becomes stronger even as our bodies may become weaker.  When the exterior trappings of following Him fade, the interior relationship becomes so much more intense.

So, William Shatner may do something crazy like going into space at 90, but if I am still around at 90, I hope and pray that those who see me will say … she totally wore herself out following her Savior and LORD! Amen.

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Did You Ever Think?

by TerryLema

One day Jesus was walking along by the Sea of Galilee when He saw Simon and Andrew fishing. “Follow Me,” Jesus told them, and I will make you fish for people!” [Mark 1:16-17 HCSB]

They did just that. They left their nets and followed Him. A little way farther, He issued the same call to James and John, Zebedee’s sons. They left their father and their boats and followed Jesus. [Mark 1:18-20]

I do not know what these men, and the others Jesus called, were thinking when they turned away from everything and responded to Jesus’ call. Did they think they might be following a political leader or a religious one? Did they even consider that most all of them would end up martyred for placing their faith in Him?

In August of 1973, Jesus called a young woman in Orangevale, California.  “Follow Me!” He invited. And she did. At the time I gave no thought to what following Him would mean. I had no idea where He would lead. I did not even contemplate what the journey would be like or the places He would take me.

When Jesus calls, He does not reveal where we are going. The only thing I knew about the journey is that once you decide to follow Him, there is no turning back. There is nothing behind me that can ever entice me to leave the company of the LORD Christ Jesus.

As I was writing this, I remembered an old chorus, “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus.” (Link Below)

Once the decision is made to follow, our eyes must be on Him – no matter where He leads, we go.

I Have Decided to Follow Jesus with lyrics - Bing video
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Great Mercy, New Birth, Living Hope

by TerryLema

“Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” [1 Peter 1:3 HCSB]

This verse was my daily verse last Sunday. Peter was praising God the Father for the new birth he was given through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. As I read it, I was once again captured by two small phrases.

The first was “great mercy.” Everything about this new birth – really everything we receive from God is given according to “His great mercy.”

The word for mercy is eleos, and it means mercy, kindness, or good will toward the miserable and afflicted, joined to a desire to relieve them. God does not want us miserable or afflicted, and yet so many people think that is His aim. I lived under that lie for years. I thought God was looking for ways to keep me out of heaven, all the while He was looking to bring me into His family through “His great mercy.”

The second phrase that caught my attention was “living hope,” especially that word “living.” The hope that is ours at the new birth is not wishful thinking. It is not the kind of wishing we do about the lottery or a big inheritance from a long-lost relative. The hope we have as God’s children is a “living” hope. It is alive, full of life and breath.

I like to think of it this way. The wishful thinking the world calls hope is a dead hope. The hope we have at the new birth is every bit alive as our Resurrected LORD and Savior. His resurrection from the dead breathed life into our hope.

Bless His Holy Name! Amen

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Wit’s End

by TerryLema

Oswald Chambers wrote … when we come to our wit’s end, that’s when we come to God’s wisdom.

As I read that I chuckled and thought that maybe we should come to our wit’s end a little sooner than we usually do and get to God’s wisdom faster!

Ps 111:10:  The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding.  [NIV]

The fear of the Lord is only the beginning of wisdom.  Just the beginning.  But it is the most necessary part.  We must fear, reverence, respect, worship, respond to, and see the Lord first in order to begin to partake of His wisdom.  But that only opens the door.  Something must come after that.

Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to indwell us (just that thought should have us on our knees praising God’s ways!).  The Spirit leads us in all righteousness, explains things to us, shows us the Savior, and opens up God’s precepts to us. Once again, though, our will plays a part, we have to “follow his precepts” in order to have good understanding, in order for God’s wisdom to grow and flourish in us.

Ours should be a constant and consistent seeking of God’s wisdom, and a persistent following and outflow of His precepts and principals. Our churches should be filled with men and women possessing supernatural wisdom and understanding.  Sadly, that is not the case.  There are far too many who are at their wit’s end but failing to partake of God’s wisdom.

Maybe church leadership has failed the church in this area.  Maybe we been focused too much on flash and not on fruit. Maybe it is time for us to turn that around.

 

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Raise My Voice!

by TerryLema

Psalm 26 is a song of David. It is titled in my Bible as “Prayer for Vindication”

David presents his case for vindication before the LORD. Despite what his accusers were saying about him, David had consistently walked in dependence on the LORD. He submits himself to God and asks to be tested.  “Test me, Lord, and try me; examine my heart and mind. For Your faithful love is before my eyes, and I live by Your truth.” [vs 2-3 HCSB]

David declares his separation from idolatrous mortals and hypocrites. He says that he hates the companionship of evildoers and the wicked. But the thing David emphasizes is not just his separation from wicked men, it was his association with God.

In verses 6 and 7, David declares that before he approached God’s altar, he made sure his hands were cleansed from sin and defilement. It is then, as a cleansed worshipper, David sang a hearty thanksgiving and recounted the wondrous works of Jehovah.

 “I wash my hands in innocence and go around Your altar, Lord, raising my voice in thanksgiving and telling about Your wonderful works.” [HCSB]

To David, worship was not a dreary ritual to be endured, he loved the house of the LORD. He loved being there. He loved singing. He loved “raising [his] voice in thanksgiving.”

I have not been in church for a month. I plan to be there this coming Sunday. I miss “raising my voice in thanksgiving” with others who love my LORD and Savior.  I cannot wait to offer a hearty thanksgiving and to recount the wondrous works of the LORD.

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Praying For You

by TerryLema

October 4

Praying for You!

Sometime Labor Day week I contracted COVID. I do not know where or from whom. I had been very careful, wearing masks in stores, getting vaccinated and trying to do all the right things.  Still, I came down with COVID, verified by a positive test on September 11 in the ER.

I had a difficult time, struggled (and am still struggling) with various symptoms, coughing, lower oxygen levels than normal and of course the biggie—fatigue.

The hardest, and the one I want to see gone first is the COVID brain fog. I have been trying to think about devotions.  I sit and stare at the blank screen and nothing seems to come. But I need to start somewhere, so I will start with what has meant the most to me during this month-long COVID fight.

 “Is anyone among you sick? He should call for the elders of the church, and they should pray over him after anointing him with olive oil in the name of the Lord.  The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will restore him to health….” [James 5-14-15a HCSB]

I did not call for the elders of the church. I am ashamed to say I was so sick, I failed to think about it,  but the elders of the church circled around me even without my call.

I am so thankful to those who have prayed for me (and are continuing to pray for my complete recovery). Every time I looked at my Facebook page and saw the posts, or got a text that said, “praying for you!” I was comforted. I felt too weak to pray for myself, but the assurance that others were carrying me in their prayers lifted my soul and spirit.

Thank you! THANK YOU! God has been gracious to me and because of your prayers I am on the road to recovery. And it is now my turn to pray for others. I do so with far greater determination knowing just how much “praying for you” can mean to those in need.

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