Devotions

Isa 41:13:  For I am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you. 

God takes hold of our right hand. God speaks His assurance into our lives – “do not fear, I will help you.” Not, I might help you, or I can help you, or I could help you. His word to us is I will help you.

 One of the things I miss most now that my children are all grown is little hands reaching up for me to hold. I miss that little hand in mine walking through stores or along pathways. I miss those little hands so trusting. Even my grandchildren have grown beyond that hand-holding stage.

There is something exceedingly precious about holding the trusting hand of a child. I wonder if God feels the same way when we lift our hands to Him, when we ask Him to take hold because we are in need of help, or are fearful, or need comforting. I wonder if His heart soars when we place our hand in His and seek His guidance along unknown pathways or ask for His strength when we grow weak and weary.

Jesus said in Mark 10:15 that we must accept the kingdom of God as a little child. I’ve heard many a sermon on what that means, and not all the preachers arrived at the same conclusion.

Perhaps it is this, the simplicity of placing our hand in the mighty hand of God—just as our children placed their little hands in ours.

Father, may I never think I can grow beyond my hand in Your hand. Amen.

I love technology. I hate technology. It all depends on how “technology” is treating me.  Today, I am in “hate technology” mode. THAT’s the way I began yesterday’s devotion. It rings true today also.

My fitness watch battery is dying and after much research, turns out there are no battery replacement options. It has been losing its charge rapidly over the past month, but I was hoping that was just a temporary problem. Nope, it’s a permanent one. It will not hold a charge for more than an hour, even less if I take a walk. I now need to buy a new one. Not a task I am looking forward to with all the research on price, reliability, etc.

Even more frustrating now is my personal “spiritual battery.” I feel depleted. I have been dealing with some physical issues and with a variety of doctor appointments that has shifted my focus in subtle ways. Over the last weeks I have spent most of my time thinking about … well … me. That is never a “spiritually healthy” mode.

My focus needs to be on Christ Jesus my LORD. The LORD reminded me of Hebrews 12 this morning … that wonderful chapter that follows the Heroes of Faith Chapter.  I was reminded that I need to “strip off every weight that slows [me] down, especially the sin that so easily trips [me] up.”

And nothing weighs me down or trips me up faster than focusing on “self.” I must instead “run with endurance the race God has set before [me]”

I can only do that by keeping my “eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects [my] faith.” [Hebrews 12:1-3 NLT]

Thank you, LORD, for that reminder! Amen

I love technology. I hate technology. It all depends on how “technology” is treating me.  Today, I am in “hate technology” mode.

Last week, I realized my phone had an old VM message giving instructions about contacting “The Way” church that were no longer relevant. (Haven’t been relevant for years!) So, I changed my VM message, and in the process somehow messed up a bunch of other things. I spent over an hour with Customer Service getting my VM working correctly.

Fiddling with the phone and VM and customer service also caused it to lose its sync with my car, my watch and my hearing devices, so I had to add those back, something I always have problems with.

As I sat in my car struggling to get my phone to talk with the car, I began to talk to God about my frustration. Then I began to laugh out loud.

I could talk to God and trust that He was with me and heard me and cared for me in my frustration – more than I trusted that my phone would ever sync with my car!

“Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.” [1 Peter 5:7, NLT]

“The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.” [Psalm 145:18]

This verse appeared in my inbox the other morning. “Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” [Psalm 90:2 NKJV]

 It was that phrase … “from everlasting to everlasting you are God” that rang with my spirit.

Psalm 90 is a prayer of Moses. I looked it up in the New Living Translation (NLT) and it begins: “Lord, through all the generations you have been our home! Before the mountains were born, before you gave birth to the earth and the world, from beginning to end, you are God.” [vs1-2]

As much as I love the NLT, I think for this verse, I like the NKVJ better … “from everlasting to everlasting you are God!”

Everlasting to Everlasting reminds me of two things. First, that God has always been. He has no beginning. He had plans for my life before I (or anyone else) was ever created. I have purpose in Him. I am not an accident, nor have I evolved from a non-human source.

Everlasting to Everlasting also reminds me that my God will never cease to exist. He will never be overcome. Nothing will come along to take His place or to change all He has said He will do!

Everlasting to Everlasting is not something our little finite minds can truly understand. It is something we accept, something we place our hope and trust in, a promise that we can immerse ourselves in.

He is God! He has always been God. He will always be God. And because He loves us with everlasting love, we are His children. Nothing else to say except, Amen!

What used to be one of the worst times of day has turned into one of my best.  That hour or so right before bed.

During that hour, Bob wants the television on, and he wants me to sit with him in the living room. Unless there is a special program (rare) or a sporting event (occasionally) that we both want to watch, I surrender the remote to him. That means he finds stations that have ubiquitous Westerns. He will pick one to watch, or he will flip back and forth between two or more. Both the Western and the flipping really annoy me!

I used to try to read but that never overcame the noisy Westerns. Then I discovered I could simply put in my earphones and instead watch and listen to the marvelous videos of Christian music on YouTube.

That is what I was doing the other day when I came upon a song I had not heard in years. “Worthy the Lamb” sung by the Gaither Vocal Band.

I cannot even put into words how deeply my heart was touched.  Here is the link to that video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i0bAr7--kM

And here is the Promise to the Event: “And they sang in a mighty chorus: ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain—to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.’” [Revelation 5:12]

Yesterday’s devotion was about “Counting the Cost.” That was one of the concepts of discipleship Jesus put forth in Luke 14:28-33.  It is affiliated with discipleship.

I think “counting the cost” is not only part of discipleship, but also a part of life. Perhaps a very integral part of living in this world. And perhaps one that we have forgotten to give proper attention.

I have a slew of doctor appointments this month, six in a few weeks. All different types of doctors. I even joked about it on Facebook—that it takes a horde of doctors to keep one 77-year-old woman upright.

My first one was last Monday, with my endocrinologist. I am glad she was first because I walked out after “counting the cost” with her.

I am having the reappearance of some physical issues that may require a return to a medicine that I worked very hard to stop taking. It can cause long range physical problems. At the same time, it should help with my current pain and fatigue. Should I choose short-term relief and accept the long-term problems? Or should I endure the pain now to have a few more years?

Usually, the answer is to endure the short-term pain. But at 77 years old, that choice can be phrased a different way – quality of life or quantity of life.  My endocrinologist helped me to “count the cost,” and go with quality of life over quantity.

And after all, for those who love and serve God, Paul made that choice easy … “We are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord.” [2Corinthians 5:8 NLT]

Jesus, Luke 14 reports, gave three concepts to the large crowd that was following Him. He spoke to them of what it means to be a disciple, the necessity of picking up our cross daily, and the wisdom of counting the cost.

While I grew up in a church, I had only a vague concept of discipleship, the cross, and the cost. I was told that salvation consisted of Christ laying down His life on the cross (think of it as a down payment) and my keeping up the installments with good works.

I now know that that concept of salvation is incorrect. Christ paid the full price of my salvation, and it is mine by faith because of God’s grace.

Still there is a cost—but that cost is not associated with salvation, it is associated with discipleship.

I remember some of my friends telling me that getting saved meant I would have to give up all the stuff I loved to do. They said God would strip me of everything. Initially, I associated that with “counting the cost.” Was I willing to give up everything I loved to have God’s salvation?

As it turned out, I was not stripped of anything, I was blessed with so much more. God gave me new desires—His desires—and I could hardly wait to embrace those things. The old things that I thought were so important simply slipped away. The things of God turned out to be worth so much more than the things I used to value.

The “cost?” My few things for God’s everything! Hallelujah!

I once heard a man refer to his wife as “his cross to bear.” I’ve heard people refer to other things as their “cross to bear.” Most of those references were about petty things, those small annoyances of life that everyone has. I don’t think that is what Jesus meant when he said to the crowd in Luke 14: “And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” [v27]

Earlier in Luke Jesus also spoke of picking up our cross. “If anyone comes after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” [9:23]

It must be important for Jesus to mention it twice. Look at the words Jesus used in those two instances, and you’ll find a depth of meaning.  First one to consider is simply “the cross.”  The cross was an instrument of death. It had no mercy. Everyone who went to the cross died.

Second, Jesus said that we are to carry our cross “daily” as we follow him, meaning this is an everyday experience, not a sporadic one.  The last thing we must consider is that little phrase “deny himself.”

Putting those thoughts together, we get a glimpse what Jesus intends for His disciples. Each day we put our own will and desires, our self, to death.  Hanging on our crosses are all our “self” words, attitudes, and actions. Self-pity. Self-centeredness. Self-glory. Self-determination to name but a few.

Instead of “self” we live for Him. His desires are our desires. His will, our will.

Father, that is our desire today. To put to the cross self and to live for You. Amen.

What does it mean to be a disciple. What does it mean to pick up your cross. What does it mean to count the cost. Those are hard things to define, let alone practice. We struggle at times to even put those concepts into words.

Luke tells us in chapter 14 that large crowds were following Jesus and at one point he turned to them and gave them three illustrations that define discipleship, counting the cost, and picking up your cross.  [read verses 25-33 today)

The first illustration is a doozy!  Luke 14:26:  “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters-yes, even his own life-he cannot be my disciple.”

Jesus often used hyperbole to get his point across.  Hyperbole is extravagant exaggeration, such as someone advertising “mile high ice cream cones.” We know that while the cone may be bigger than most, it certainly isn’t literally a mile high.

Jesus was not advocating that we hate our parents, spouses, children, or siblings–even our own lives—literally.  He used this illustration and the word “hate” to remind us that to be His disciple, He must always hold first place in our affections.  The Greek word for hate here can also be translated to mean “to love less.”

The crowds often followed Jesus to get something from Him. He reminded them that to be true disciples, we must love Him more than anything in this life, even those things that are most precious and dear to us.