Past Devotions

This I know

by TerryLema

I was entering one of my favorite songs in the online program a few days ago, “Jesus Loves Me,” by Chris Tomlin. I came to the line in the song which always (alway!) makes me cry tears of gratitude.  The line is found in the chorus. “Jesus, He loves me, He loves me.  Jesus, how can it be? He loves me, He is for me.”

The very next morning, my email contained a reminder that on the cross, “God With Us,” became “God For Us,” by giving up His life for us.

In high school I got in with a couple girls that were not good influences (looking back maybe I was the bad influence?). We got in a bunch of trouble. We smoked (even in the school bathrooms), drank, cut school, snuck out at night, even took an overnight trip on a bus to LA (not smart), etc.

These girls were with me throughout my senior year, but while they were almost always with me, I cannot say that either was for me. Neither wanted what was best for me, and honestly, I did not really want what was best for them. I just wanted them to keep me company in my sin.

We know that God has always been “for” us, that is why Jesus came to be “with” us. God’s love for His creation was not to be denied, even in the face of mankind’s rebellion and rejection.

Jesus came, not to be with me in my sin, but to become my sin and remove it far from.  Jesus wanted (and did) what was for my best.  For that, I am filled with gratitude.

I can sing with David, “This I know: God is for me.” [Psalm 56:9 HCSB]

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Grunt Work

by TerryLema

I volunteered for a bit of what might be called “grunt work” for The Way Middleton.  “Grunt work” is defined as jobs that either lack glamour and prestige or are boring and repetitive. The Pastor and the Worship Leader needed all their worship and praise music entered into a new online program. It means moving a lot of songs from a Word document into the site.

Neither Pastor Laura nor Doug had the extra time to get it done so I volunteered.  I figured I have plenty of time, am semi-computer literate, and to be honest, I am a bit bored. Doug put all the music on a flash drive and gave it to me at church so I could get started.

I started about a week or so ago.  After a few problems figuring out things on the online program, I started entering music, words with guitar chords. I soon discovered this project is anything but boring! As I type the words and chords into the program, I sing the songs in my mind and in my heart and I am blessed! Sometimes I see something that simply makes me stop and think or stop and worship.

I was entering the song, “At the Cross, Your Love Ran Red,” by Chris Tomlin. As I came to the chorus I had to stop and think about what it meant to me.  “At the cross …. Where Your love ran red and my sins washed white …. I owe all to You, Jesus.”

The blackness of my sins and all the stains they left on my soul were made white by the blood of Christ Jesus. His blood “ran red” down that cross and washed me white as snow.  I do owe it all to Him.

“But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” [1 John 1:7 HCSB]

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The Day of Previous Things

by TerryLema

The 2022 Masters Golf Tournament was played at Augusta National April 7 to 10. Usually, the field consists of around 90 to 100 golfers.  There was one winner. His name is Scottie Scheffler. He came in ranked number one in the world.

You would think it not surprising that the number one golfer in the world would win one of the biggest and toughest tournaments in the golf year, but it was just 57 days prior that Scheffler had his first win on the PGA Tour. (He now has four wins in his last six starts.)

There was, however, another golfer on the tour who seemed to get much more attention than Scheffler from both the media and the crowd. His name is Tiger Woods. He has been the number one golfer in the world multiple times. He has won The Masters five times; his first victory in 1997.

This time the attention on Tiger was anchored in his recovery from a car accident that nearly took his right leg. It was uncertain that he would be able to walk; it was extremely uncertain that he would be able to play golf again.  But he came back, and his bravery garnered most of the interest on the course.

Woods was honest about his pain.  It was noticeable at times that he was limping and even using a golf club like some of us use a cane. But he persevered. Making the cut he played all four days. By the end, the strain of pain was evident on his face. His score was nothing to speak of, yet his courage won the day.

So many of us live with daily, chronic pain. Some of it is the physical pain which often accompanies aging. Some of it is the pain of specific diseases or conditions. Sometimes the pain is not physical, but emotional. We suffer loss and that pain never truly leaves us.

As I watched Tiger Woods walk Augusta National in pain, I was reminded of a promise of God to those who love Him. It is found in that last, marvelous, victorious book of Scripture.  “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will no longer exist; grief, crying, and pain will exist no longer, because the previous things have passed away.” [Revelation 21:4 HCSB]

Now we are living in the day of “the previous things,” but, there is coming a time, beloved, when “grief, crying, and pain” will be banished forever.

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Experience

by TerryLema

I love reading the Book of Psalms. People often say to me that they need to “learn” how to worship. My response has always been, “Read the Book of Psalms. Read it not only with your mind, read that book with your heart.”

The Book of Psalms leads us into worship. It teaches us that we can express the deepest desires, fears, and even doubts in our hearts. It teaches us that God hears us, and loves us, and responds to us in His faithfulness whether we are soaring or barely crawling through life. It teaches us that when we focus our attention on Him, we can be victorious in all things.

It teaches us something else also, and I saw that this morning as I was reading David’s Cry for Help in Psalm 143. The New King James Version renders verse 8 as: “Cause me to hear Your lovingkindness in the morning, For in You do I trust.”  

I have an online program which allows me to read other translations, so I looked up Psalm 143 in what is rapidly becoming my favorite, the Holman Christian Standard Bible translation.  It reads: “Let me experience Your faithful love in the morning, for I trust in You.”  

“Let me experience Your faithful love…”  Experience. We are to experience (which means practical contact or encounter with) God’s lovingkindness (faithful love).

David understood that to “hear” God is to “experience” God. Each morning David anticipated an encounter with God’s faithful lovingkindness – no matter what his enemies might be planning for him that day. That, beloved, is worship in its humblest form.

May you “experience” Him today. Amen.

 

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It’s Every Morning!

by TerryLema

As I write this it is Monday morning after Easter Sunday.  Ask me one word to describe how I feel this morning I would have to go with tired.  At least in my body that word applies to most mornings now.

In my soul, however, I must apply a different word, grateful.  I am so grateful that Christ is indeed risen from the dead, and as Scripture says, “in Christ all of us will be made alive again. But everyone will be raised to life in the right order. Christ was first to be raised [firstfruits]. Then, when Christ comes again, those who belong to him will be raised to life.” [1 Cor 15:22-23 HCSB]

Resurrection Sunday morning, for those who belong to Christ, is every morning.  Christ was made alive; we too have been made alive. We experience that now in our spirit and soul (our mind, will, emotions), but one day we will experience that in totality as our bodies too will be made eternally alive.

I am so grateful that Resurrection Sunday is every morning.  When I awake, I am alive in Christ Jesus, and I am grateful.  It may take the body a bit of time each morning to fully wake up, but the knowledge that Resurrection Sunday is every morning for a believer rejuvenates my soul and floods my heart with gratefulness.

We celebrate the anniversary of Christ’s resurrection once a year.  We live in His resurrection life every day of the year. 

Happy Resurrection Morning, April 18, 2022!

 

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Dawn! Empty Tomb! Risen! Love! LIFE!

by TerryLema

One of the best questions ever asked in history was asked that Sunday morning.  “Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” [Luke 24:5b HCSB]

Why indeed!  The greatest of all announcements was made to a group of weeping women who had come to do what was expected.  They were going to anoint the body of Jesus for burial, something they were unable to do on Friday as the Sabbath began.  Now an angel asks the question and reminds them of Jesus’ own words.

“He is not here, but He has been resurrected! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, saying, ‘The Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and rise on the third day?’” [Luke 24:6-7 HCSB]

Luke goes on to say, “And they remembered His words.”  [Luke 24:8 HCSB]

They remembered.  They remembered!  And each Resurrection Day we remember.  This day is so much more than new clothes and going to church.  It is so much more than ritual and liturgy.  It is a common day of celebration among those who have experienced every day in their own lives what those poor weeping women experienced that first Sunday morning.

Dawn! Empty Tomb! Resurrection! Love! Life!

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What if?

by TerryLema

Luke 23:56: “Then they returned and prepared spices and perfumes. They rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.”  [HCSB]

We have Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Resurrection Sunday.  (Maundy is an old word meaning ‘command’ and is taken from Jesus’ commands in John’s Gospel on the night before He died.) But what do they call the Saturday in between Good Friday and Easter?  I looked it up and most simply label it Holy Saturday.  I prefer to call it Silent Saturday.

Luke is the only Gospel writer who says anything about that long Sabbath day between Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection.  He says that the women who watched where they laid Jesus went home and prepared spices to anoint His body after the Sabbath and then they rested in obedience to the commandment.

I often wonder on this day just how much rest they actually got.  I know grief and shock and His followers must have been in the thralls of it.  Some may have sat in numbness, others may have wept quietly, while others may have talked or expressed their grief in other ways.  But grieve they must have.

This may have been the darkest of all days before the eternal dawn that broke forth.  Their hope was stunned by Friday’s events.

Silent Saturday.  It’s a day to contemplate what our lives would be like if the resurrection had not happened. 

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55 Years By the Grace of God

by TerryLema

I got up this morning to go about my usual morning routine, read and study my Bible, eat breakfast.  Typical morning, except it isn’t really a typical morning.  Fifty-five years ago, on this date at 3 PM PDT, I married my sweetheart.

I first met him when he was 20 and I was 13.  I was babysitting for the sons of my parents’ best friends, the Garcia’s.  He showed up in his Marine Corps dress blues to take their daughter, to whom he was engaged, to her high school graduation.  He sure was handsome in those dress blues! (Oh, he never did marry the Garcia’s daughter.}

I didn’t see him again for 6 years.  By then he was out of the service, working in construction and owned his own house.  He had called the Garcia’s and asked if they knew a good Catholic girl he could ask out for a date.  They gave him my phone number.

He often teased me that he married the babysitter, and I guess he did.  He also informed me (still does) that he’s “the best thing that ever happened to me.”  I remind him that the only reason he “turned out as good as he did is because he married me.”

If someone asks me how we made it to 55 years, my only answer—by the grace of God. We are two strong, opinionated people.  We each had a load of baggage we brought to this marriage.  His father was an alcoholic; his mother abused.  My mother was mentally ill; my father angry.  Taking that kind of stuff and trying to make a new home was difficult.  We had to work at it.  (Even when we didn’t want to!) By the grace of God. 

We raised three children.  We fought.  We made up.  We dug our heels in at times and refused to change.  Other times, we surrendered and learned to grow. We made 55 years.  We are still two strong, opinionated people. And sometimes even now it is only by the grace of God.

But then, living by the grace of God is not a bad way to live.  Hebrews reminds us, “It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace.”  [13:9 NIV]

Father, thank you for Your grace.  Thank you for the strength of heart to make 55 years, to mature, to grow, to love when there were times we didn’t even like each other.  It is only by Your grace.  Amen.

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Off Script

by TerryLema

Tomorrow is Good Friday.  Each year we remember what happened on that first Good Friday. Many churches will celebrate communion, which is a constant reminder of the debt we owe God and how we are to live in celebration of the debt paid by Christ’s body and blood.

Some churches celebrate the Seder. The Seder is the traditional Passover meal. The Seder was a scripted event.  Every household went through the same ritual.  The words and symbols were the same year after year.

Except Jesus went off script that Passover night before His betrayal and death.  He began to talk not about the first Passover when God’s people were freed from slavery in Egypt, but about the new Passover, the one about to be inaugurated by His body and blood.  Everyone in the room would have noticed that this Passover was different.

Instead of recounting what God had done at the Exodus, Jesus told what God was about to do at the cross.  The Jews considered the Passover and Exodus from Egypt the greatest of all God’s miracles and acts.  History, as well as all eternity will now look upon the work of Christ on the cross as the summit, the pinnacle of all God has done.

As the Jews remembered annually that first Passover, we will live forever in the life Christ purchased with His death.  He gave His body and shed His blood to bring us forgiveness.

“In the same way He also took the cup after supper and said, ‘This cup is the new covenant established by My blood; it is shed for you.’” [Luke 22:20 HCSB]

The price of sin is high, and Jesus paid it all.

 

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Willingly and Willfully

by TerryLema

Matt 26:27-28: “Then He took a cup, and after giving thanks, He gave it to them and said, ‘Drink from it, all of you.  For this is My blood that establishes the covenant; it is shed for many for the forgiveness of sins.’” [HCSB]

Centuries before, God had promised a new covenant through the prophet Jeremiah.  A covenant is an agreement between two parties. Unfortunately, the covenants God had made with man were often shattered by man refusing to abide by them or do his part in them.

This new covenant God said would be one written in hearts and minds. “’Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days’—the Lord’s declaration. ‘I will put My teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people.’” [Jer 31:33 HCSB]

That new covenant was inaugurated the night before Jesus died as He offered the cup to His disciples at the Last Supper.  This was a far different cup than the one He would soon contemplate in Gethsemane and drink on the cross.  This cup contained not the sins of the world, but the forgiveness for the sins of the world.  Jesus offered it to His followers, and they had a part in this … they had to drink from it.

They could not just look at it, study it, or contemplate it.  They could not judge its quality or its bouquet.  They had to participate, to accept the cup and drink of its contents.  The greatest Bible scholar may intellectually understand that Christ’s cup of the new covenant contains forgiveness of sins, but there is no forgiveness for him unless he, himself, willingly and willfully drinks of it.

So it is with us.

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