Pastor Terry Lema's Daily Devotions
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Sifting Sand by the Seashore

by TerryLema March 12, 2022

Ps 139:17-18: “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.” [NIV]

Let’s all go down to the beach. Get into your swimsuit, grab a beach towel and a picnic lunch and head to the ocean.  Don’t forget your pail and shovel.  Let’s scoop up a pail full of sand and bring it home with us.

Take the sand and spread it out on a large tarp. Start to count the grains, each grain individually.  One, two, three. Perhaps one million, two million, or more!  Now think about what David wrote … “Your thoughts, O God … would outnumber the grains of sand.”

 Not just the grains of sand in your meager bucket.  Not even just the grains of sand on your beach.  But the grains of sand on every beach and in every desert.  Endless grains of sand.  Innumerable thoughts of God that would outnumber even the endless grains of sands.

And the implication is that the thoughts of God that David found precious are not random thoughts, but thoughts God has specifically for David.

We can’t always put ourselves into a passage of Scripture and claim its promises and intent.  Some are aimed at others besides us … after all you wouldn’t want to insert yourselves into the promises God has for the enemy of our soul.  But in this instance, we can insert ourselves into the passage.

God’s endless, wonderful, awesome thoughts are for us.  They are precious, specific to us, and without number.

Rejoice, child of God!

March 12, 2022 0 comment
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All My Days

by TerryLema March 11, 2022

The words and thoughts expressed by David in Psalm 139 are probably familiar to us.  Still, I want to touch on a couple of them again.  Ps 139:16:  Your eyes saw me when I was formless; all my days were written in Your book and planned before a single one of them began. [HCSB]

I turned 75 years old in December.  That’s a lot of days.  As of this date, it’s actually 27,487 days. Some of them have been great days, some have been bad days.  Many have been mediocre, common days where I can hardly notice the passing of one to another. As I look around me, I also notice that some people have many more good days than bad ones, while others are exactly the opposite.  They have had hard, difficult days most of their lives.

As we read this passage, how are we to understand what it means that all our days have been planned for us “before a single one of them began?” (Boy, are we getting into some sticky, deep, theological issues here.  Why did I even start this conversation?)

I am going to be very clear … I don’t understand truly what it means that all my days have been planned.  I also don’t fully understand how free will and my bad/good days interact with God’s sovereignty and bring eternal results for my soul.

What I do understand is that God cares about me, He loves me.  I understand that God has walked through every day of my life with me, even before I knew Him.  I understand that He rejoiced with me in my delights; and wept with me in my sorrows.  I understand that while the forces of evil were aimed against me, He was with me sharing the pain.

I may not be able to understand the deep theological concept of all my days planned for me, but Hallelujah, I am able to experience His love in each and every one of them.

March 11, 2022 0 comment
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Marvelous

by TerryLema March 10, 2022

A young pastor that I really like gave me a book when I visited him recently. In the book was a question that startled me, and then had me thinking. The question was “Who am I now?”

That question is especially relevant to me since I have recently stopped being what I was for many years—a pastor.  I realized as I pondered it that I have to really think about who I am now and what I am or should be. Whose opinion should I buy into?  Well, only one opinion really counts – that is the opinion of God Himself.

David wrote in Psalm 139 a phrase that always strikes me with amazement. “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.  I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.”  [Ps 139:13-14 NKJV]

That psalm is probably very familiar to most of us.  I hear people use the phrase “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” all the time. They go on and talk about our bodies and how wonderfully formed they are.  A truth we take for granted—until something goes wrong in them.

That is not, however, the thought that always leaves me amazed.  It is the one that follows it … “Marvelous are your works.”

 I am a work of God … so are you.  I am a marvelous work of God … so are you.  Too often our view of ourselves is obscured by what the world thinks we are or should be.  Too often it is clouded by the accusations of the enemy of our soul.  Too often it falls victim to our own insecurities and anxieties, to our life experiences, or our life failures.  Yet none of that changes the fact, the truth, that we are a marvelous work of God.

We need to stop listening to the voices around us or in us and start listening to the only Voice that counts!

March 10, 2022 0 comment
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Sacrifice of Praise

by TerryLema March 9, 2022

“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 13:15 HCSB]

Sacrifice of praise.  Praising God is one of the most uplifting and blessed of all experiences.  Coming into the presence of God with praise on our lips, hands raised to honor God, hearts and minds focused on Him fills us full.  So, when Scripture talks about it as a sacrifice it seems rather odd.  We are told to offer to God the sacrifice of praise.  When I consider that verse, I am drawn to those first two chapters in the book of Job.

In Chapter 1 Job loses just about everything he has, including his 12 children.  As wave after wave of bad news assaults him, Job drops to the ground in grief.  And there, shaken by all the bad news, it says that Job worshipped.

“Then Job stood up, tore his robe, and shaved his head. He fell to the ground and worshiped, saying: ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will leave this life. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Praise the name of Yahweh.’ Throughout all this Job did not sin or blame God for anything.” [vs 20-22 HCSB]

In Chapter 2 we are told of a second assault upon Job, this time on his health.  Covered with boils, sitting in the ash heap, scraping his sores with broken pottery, he is as wretched a man as one can be.  When his wife advises him to curse God and die, his response is amazing.

“’You speak as a foolish woman speaks,’ he told her. ‘Should we accept only good from God and not adversity?’ Throughout all this Job did not sin in what he said.” [vs 10 HCSB]

In the midst of overwhelming adversity, Job did not sin with his lips but instead praised God and worshipped.  That is what is meant by a sacrifice of praise.  It is praising when life hurts. It is blessing God rather than cursing.

It is responding to the grievous difficulties in life by acknowledging grief yet lifting our heads off the ground to praise and not charge God with wrong.

March 9, 2022 0 comment
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Dangerous Prayer

by TerryLema March 8, 2022

“I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know the Messiah’s love that surpasses knowledge, so you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” [Ephesians 3:17b-19 HCSB]

Paul’s prayer for his beloved Ephesians was that they would become rooted in love, and that they would be able to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.  

 If there was ever a prayer we should pray, it is this one.  If there was ever a prayer God desires to answer, it is this one.  Help me Father to know this love of Christ that surpasses everything. 

Praying this prayer is dangerous, however.  It will cause us to see ourselves as we are apart from grace, and that is not a pretty sight.  It will cause us to sense the unworthiness of our lives and the shallowness of our love.  It will cause us to ponder our commitment to truly loving God with our entire soul, mind, and being.  It will drive us to a choice – do we really want to grasp how wide and long and high and deep Christ’s love is? If so, it must become our passion.

Passion.  We speak of the Passion of Christ, a phrase you will often hear in this Easter Season.  It means the hunger and thirst present in Jesus that made the Father’s will greater than His own.  Christ’s passion for God’s will drove Him to the cross, to execution, to death, to the grave.  It consumed everything He was, it prejudiced everything He did.

It is that kind of passion that we are choosing when we pray, “Help me Father to know this love of Christ that surpasses everything.”

 

March 8, 2022 0 comment
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Good to Be Afflicted?

by TerryLema March 7, 2022

Ps 119:71-72:  It was good for me to be afflicted so that I could learn Your statutes.  Instruction from Your lips is better for me than thousands of gold and silver pieces. [HCSB]

Wow.  It was good for me to be afflicted?  Did the psalmist understand what the meaning of the word afflicted is?  Troubled. Distressed. Stricken. Hurt. Tormented.  What can possibly be good about that?

I have often talked to people who are enduring a time of trial and testing. There have also been those times in my own life. The reaction to these times is often to be focused on “why” they are happening. What is more important is that we instead ask God what He wants us to learn through them.

The psalmist said that his affliction was a good thing in the sense that he learned more about God. Learning in the midst of affliction is not easy; it may be the most difficult thing we do in life.  Yet if we find God in the midst of it in greater measure than we ever have before, it can be the most rewarding of experiences.

What did the psalmist learn about God in his affliction?  He’s quite clear, he learned that God was more precious to him than “thousands of pieces of silver and gold.”

We sing a chorus that expresses that thought …. Lord, You are more precious than silver.  Lord, You are more costly than gold.  Lord, You are more beautiful than diamonds.  And nothing I desire compares with You.

Sometimes it is in the midst of the fire’s crucible that we learn that nothing compares with knowing Him.

March 7, 2022 0 comment
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Old Dogs

by TerryLema March 6, 2022

I was on my way to McDonald’s Monday night. The last Monday of each month Bob goes to a dinner and meeting at the American Legion. I take that opportunity to grab a fast-food meal, usually at a place that Bob is not fond of. Last Monday it was McDonald’s.

As I was driving God popped a memory of a prayer I prayed around three years ago, and even brought back what prompted that prayer!

At the time I noted three people who consistently walked their dogs around our neighborhood.  Each day a man walked two large, powerful dogs. They pulled him along, leashes taunt in front of him, as he strained to keep them from dragging him down the sidewalk.

There was also a woman who was walking a puppy. That puppy stopped all the time, sniffing everything, exploring at the end of the leash as the woman kept pulling him along trying to get him to keep up with her as she walked.

The third person I saw each day was an older man walking an old dog. The dog walked next to the man without a leash. He never ran ahead nor trailed behind. He was just pleased to walk beside his master.

As I watched them, I was moved to pray, “LORD, I want to be like that old dog, simply walking alongside you anywhere you go. I don’t want to run ahead, nor lag behind. I just want to walk with You.”

Remembering that prayer last Monday brought tears. I still want to be like that old dog. If that is where I am in life now, I will be pleased to simply walk alongside my LORD. Amen.

March 6, 2022 0 comment
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The Valley of Rephaim

by TerryLema March 5, 2022

2 Samuel 5 recounts a number of events in the life of David. It begins with all the tribes of Israel acknowledging him as king. It tells of his taking of the “stronghold of Zion,” and of his getting wives and concubines and having sons and daughters born to him.

The Philistines, however, were not so happy with David’s successes and went in search to eliminate him.  David went down to the stronghold and the Philistine came and spread out against him in the Valley of Rephaim. [vss 17-18]

When David asked if he should go to war against the Philistines, the Lord told him to do so. David defeated them at Baal—perazim but the Philistines returned again to the Valley of Rephaim.  David once again inquired of the LORD if he should attack.

The LORD this time told him, “Do not make a frontal assault. Circle around behind them and attack them opposite the balsam (mulberry) trees. When you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, act decisively, for then the LORD will have marched out Ahead of you to attack the camp of the Philistines.” [vss 23-24 HCSB]

David obeyed exactly as the LORD commanded him and defeated the Philistines.

The thing that amazes me about this event is not that the LORD went ahead of David, nor that God gave David the victory. What amazes me the most is David waiting until he heard the LORD move in the treetops. I would be out there shaking those trees trying to get them to sound like someone was marching in them. I am not so good at waiting!

I know, however, that victory comes only in God’s timing, and sometimes, it is preceded by waiting. Oh LORD, teach me to wait until I hear You telling me it is time to move!

March 5, 2022 0 comment
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Imitate Me

by TerryLema March 4, 2022

There is an idiom that says, “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”  That means when someone imitates the things you do it is a sign that they like and admire you.

Paul urged his Corinthian readers to imitate him. “Therefore I urge you to imitate me.” [1 Corinthians 4:16 HCSB]

Of course, right before Paul urged the Corinthians to imitate him, he described his ministry. “Up to the present hour we are both hungry and thirsty; we are poorly clothed, roughly treated, homeless; we labor, working with our own hands. When we are reviled, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we respond graciously. Even now, we are like the world’s garbage, like the dirt everyone scrapes off their sandals.” [1 Corinthians 4: 11-13 HCSB]

Ah Paul. Surely you don’t mean we are to imitate you in those kinds of things.  I am sure you must mean we should imitate you in preaching to nations and changing masses of people, not in how we respond to being roughly treated or laboring or blessing when reviled or enduring persecution or responding graciously to slander.

But no, Paul means we are to show the same humility in rough situations that he displayed as an apostle. His success in preaching to the known world and turning the hearts of people to the love of God did not come easily or without conflict. He was honest in what being true to the mission of Christ Jesus to go into all the world means for disciples.

2 Timothy 3:10-13: “But you have followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, and endurance along with the persecutions and sufferings that came to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from them all. In fact, all those who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Evil people and impostors will become worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed.” [HCSB]

As for us, we must continue in what we have learned and firmly believe in the midst of persecution and trouble.

March 4, 2022 0 comment
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The Fight is Here!

by TerryLema March 3, 2022

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is a former actor and comedian who rose to prominence playing a character on a popular TV show who accidentally becomes the Ukrainian president. Zelensky turned his success into politics, running for office in 2019 on the back of a political party named after his show, “Servant of the People.”

The last few days as Russia has invaded Ukraine, Zelensky has proven himself to be a hero of his time and a spokesman for democracy and freedom. According to the Associated Press, Ukrainian President Zelensky turned down a U.S. offer to evacuate him from Kyiv, saying: “The fight is here: I need ammunition, not a ride.” 

As Christians, we can echo Zelensky’s comments. “The fight is here.”

All we have to do is re-read Matthew 24 to know that the end times will be extremely difficult. The world will see wars and rumors of wars. Followers of Christ are described as being handed over for persecution. They will be hated by all nations because of the name of Jesus. But Jesus calls us to “endure to the end.” [vs13]

We know that God provides spiritual weapons for the spiritual warfare we will face. Ephesians 6 describes those weapons. We also know that many anticipate a Rapture prior to the return of the KING of Kings and LORD of Lords, Christ Jesus, that will remove Believers from this earth prior to the final time of Tribulation.

I do not know if I believe in a Rapture or not. I look for it. But if it does not come, I ask God for the commitment and strength to “endure to the end.”

As Believers, we need to remember that the fight for the name of the LORD is here and now, in this world where we are. We need to appropriate the “ammunition” found in Ephesians 6 (the weapons of Spiritual Warfare) and we need to remain strong and faithful to the LORD God Almighty.

March 3, 2022 0 comment
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Pastor Terry Lema

Pastor Terry Lema has been married for 53 years, and has 3 children and 3 grandsons. Terry graduated from Trinity Bible College, and and recently retired as Lead Pastor at The Way Church in Middleton, Idaho.

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Pastor Terry Lema's Daily Devotions
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