Yesterday I had the amazing privilege of praying with a small group of Boise pastors, young men that I have come to appreciate and love. As we prayed, I was reminded of something that happened about a decade ago. I have probably told you this story before, but I need to tell it again this morning – as I told it yesterday to these young men.
My grandson and I attended a new exhibit at the Boise Art Museum. The artist was a glass blower who made vases, jugs, jars in all different shapes and sizes. Each vase was lighted, each one different, each one “decorated” with a lovely scene. Many were woodland scenes with tall trees, brilliant skies, flowers, and animals. I thought the scenes were painted on.
Then I watched the film as the artist created them. He fired the glass, molding each one individually, some small, some large, some in between, all differently shaped. Then he rolled them in pigment and fired each color individually, layer upon layer upon layer of colors.
But it was the final touch that has stayed with me. He put a light into each one. He took scoring knives, some wide bladed, some small and pointy and he began to “score” the vases. One swipe here that revealed a blue, another smaller revealed greens or reds or yellows. He continued to work, cutting through each pigment color until he exposed the color he wanted – and as he did so, the light in the vase became more brilliant, and a beautiful picture became visible.
As I watched I was overwhelmed remembering the verse, “We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” [2 Cor 4:7]
I am retelling this story today because of two things. First, the verses that follow that verse have meaning for the church today. (“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” [vs8-9])
Secondly, I sense that the LORD is doing a little “scoring” in pastors and needs to do a little “scoring” in me. I am going to be offline for the next 7-10 days so that I may give Him time to do so as I pray and seek His wisdom.
God bless you all and see you in about a week!
My California kids gave me a Fitbit for my birthday. I love it. I had another cheaper brand that tracked my steps and such, but this Fitbit watch does it all, steps, exercise, heartbeat, tells me who is on the phone, shows me my email, etc.
I like to walk and get my steps in each day. That has been difficult to do in recent months because of my physical condition (and to a certain extend the mismanagement of it by a specialist.) Now I am back on meds and while I have not returned to my “old self” from last year at this time, I am increasing the distance in my almost daily walks and in my daily step count. That means I watch my Fitbit a lot each day to see how I am doing.
The other day I noticed that my step count was increasing even though I was not up walking. I was sitting in my rocker reading. Apparently, if I hold my arm a certain way, my Fitbit registers steps when all I am doing is sitting and rocking. What a delightfully easy way to get my step count up! Except, that does not do anything good for my body. It just looks good on the outside record.
Ah, LORD, are you trying to tell me something? What am I most concerned about – my outside appearance to others or the inside spiritual condition of my heart before you?
Too often we care more about how others see us than we do about what our LORD sees in our hearts. When that happens, it is good to pray David’s prayer and let God do His work in us—even though that work demands we get up and move with Him. We cannot “sit and rock” our way into spiritual health.
Ps 19:14: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer.”
Amen & Amen.
Don’t you wish you knew the future?
Right now, I am in a battle with my body. It wants to do things a body should not be doing. I want it to stop doing those things, but to get that to happen will require outside intervention unless the LORD brings about a healing. “Inquiring minds want to know” if healing will happen, how it will happen, when it will happen, and will there be other “side effects” to deal with. I want to know the future!
We celebrated Pentecost last Sunday, and I was reminded that the disciples also wanted to know what the future held for them. So, they asked Jesus: “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” [Acts 1:6]
They probably figured that if Jesus were ready to restore God’s absolute rule here on earth, they would be a big part of it. Instead of telling them the future, Jesus told them that certain things – like the future – were within God’s authority alone. “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.” [v7]
It is not knowing the future that will make everything okay. It is knowing the God Who holds the future. Had we known last year what this year would be like, we more than likely would have messed up trying to fix it. We certainly would have been miserable all last year in anticipation.
What is happening now in our cities, states, country is frightening and tragic. What will we be like in the next months, or the next years as a society or nation? I do not know the answer to that. Only God knows. As I write that again, I think about the implications of those three words: Only-God-knows. I am comforted because I have placed my faith in the God who knows and who holds the future—whatever that future may be.
Bless His Holy Name. Amen
Ah, I have come to the end of my reorientation in Colossians Chapter 3 (that place I run to when it seems I have diverted my walk with God from what it should be.) The verse that ends my path here is one that you will see as part of my signature on my emails. It is the verse I have tried to live out every day. I do not always succeed, but I never stop trying.
“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” [Colossians 3:17]
I discovered this verse shortly after I was saved and began reading my Bible. I was young and wanted so to be used of God. I told God – “anything, just ask.”
Through a series of events, I ended up volunteering at the Christian School my children attended. They had no cafeteria, so every Thursday, I would come in with a helper or two and in a very tiny (think miniscule) kitchen area off the teacher lounge, I would cook hundreds of hot dogs. I had already baked hundreds of cupcakes and bought chips and drinks. We would sell the lunch for what it cost to make.
I became known as the “hot dog lady.” It was not exactly what I pictured when I told God “anything, just ask.”
Then I came to realize that as those little children passed by my table to get their lunches, I was privileged to give them a hug or a smile or ask about how things were going. When I showed up for Sunday or mid-week services, they would come running to hug the “hot dog lady.”
Have I done greater things since then? Possibly. Maybe in the world’s eyes. But have I done greater things since then in God’s eyes? I doubt it. I was the “hot dog lady” because God asked me to be. I did it in Jesus’ name, and to His glory, giving thanks to God the Father for the opportunity to serve.
It may have been the best thing I ever did.
We are not supposed to sing in church. At least that is the recommendation of some officials amid this virus-and-fear pandemic. Apparently when we sing, we expel droplets that may contain the virus and the risk of infection goes up.
Not sing praises to our God when we gather in our church buildings? I know for some that will not be a problem. I have seen people standing there during the music service and not singing because they just are not singers and choose to worship our Savior in a quieter or different way. That is okay.
For many others, like me, that is a big problem. I love to sing praises to my God. I sing on my worship walk. I sing when I pray. I sing in church during song service. Granted, I am not a great singer and since I have had some hearing loss, I am probably more off pitch than on. I sing anyway. I figure that if God is not pleased with my voice, He can change it to something that sounds better. (I know however, that God is pleased when I sing and worship Him, so I am on solid ground.)
Col 3:16: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you … as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.”
It seems Paul has everything covered in this verse 16. First we are to allow the Word of Christ to dwell in our hearts richly with wisdom (yesterday’s devotion), and then we are to let the Word of Christ dwell richly in us by psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude.
In essence, that reflects what we do corporately in our church services. Perhaps more importantly, it is what we are to do individually in our time “outside” the church service.
That small worship service on a Sunday morning cannot contain enough psalms, hymns. and spiritual songs to get us through the difficulties of our lives each day. There must be the “Word of Christ” dwelling in us in wisdom gleaned by our personal studies of God’s Word, as well as in gratitude through our songs in the night and in the day.
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom ….” [Col 3:16a]
When my babies were little, they were so cute and adorable, until they were hungry. Then they got cranky and fussy and demanding. Their empty bellies hurt, and they would not be satisfied until they were filled again.
As preschoolers they learned to tell me they were hungry, and sometimes were adamant about what they wanted to eat. At times it was a struggle to get them to eat healthy. They just wanted what they wanted.
Then they reached their teens (especially my boys) and I could not keep enough food in the house. They raided the refrigerator, the pantry, the cookie jar, the freezer (frozen pizzas!). They fed themselves whenever they wanted.
Paul reminds us to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly. There comes a time in the life of the believer when we must feed on the Word of God ourselves. We do not need any longer to have someone else feed us, nor do we need to blame someone else for our spiritual hunger.
That old reason for leaving a church, “I am not being fed …” is really a warning about our own lack of study and persistence in the Scriptures (unless we really are new babes in the LORD). The Scriptures are quite clear, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” [2 Timothy 2:15 NKJV]
Hebrews 5:11-14 also reminds us that there is to come a time in the life of every believer where we abandon milk and where we seek solid food, a mature walk with Christ Jesus, and become those competent to teach others. As Colossians reminds us, we are to teach and admonish one another with all wisdom.
Jeremiah and Ezekiel lived in turbulent times. The Promised Land was under assault by the Babylonians who were plundering the land. Eventually even the Temple articles were looted and taken to Babylon. There were those false prophets who were proclaiming “peace, peace” when there was no peace. (Jeremiah 6:14, Ezekiel 13:16)
Everything around them in the land was in turmoil. It was God’s judgment against and refining of a people who had strayed far from being God’s People. They had allowed idolatry to infiltrate the temple and the priesthood. Created things were worshipped rather than the Creator and Redeemer Himself.
When God had enough of their treachery and disloyalty, He sold them for 70 years into captivity. When they returned from those 70 years, they were solidly Jehovah-centered. They were certainly smaller, never recovering their grandeur realized under Solomon, but they were refined by their God and held firmly to Him.
We are certainly living in turbulent times. The Church is trying to find her way during a very unpeaceful season and increasing opposition. Perhaps it is a time of refining for us. Will we be smaller, but more God-centered? Will we be refined so that any idolatry and heresy is removed from our midst?
I do not know, but I hope those who return to churches will be more on fire for God, more Bible-centered, more reliant on the Holy Spirit, more willing to pray for God’s will to be done.
Outside the church there is no peace. None. But as Paul reminds us in Colossians 3:15 as God’s people we are to “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.”
I am praying that the Church experiences a great awakening. I am praying that even while the world has no peace, people will see the peace of Christ in the hearts of believers, and desire to have what we have.
I am 73 years old. Born in 1946 that makes me one of the early baby boomers (1944-1964). I remember the Korean Conflict, Viet Nam and the Anti-War protestors, the uncertainty of the Cold War, the civil rights movement, the plague of polio, discovery of AIDS, and many more wars and conflicts and troubles. I am not sure I remember any time as uncertain as what we are experiencing now.
I do not remember another time where the church has come under such attack in our nation for wanting simply to be together. Maybe, we have grown too comfortable, too complacent recently.
Perhaps we have forgotten Jesus’ words to His own shortly before His death. “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.” [John 15:18-22 NIV]
When we read those words, do we believe Jesus was simply talking about the few who were listening? Was the warning only for those disciples who would be the first to suffer persecution for His name’s sake? Do we think that we are now so “enlightened” as a world that Jesus’ words do not apply to us in our generation or in our society?
Maybe we do. Maybe we do because while our country was founded on the Christian principles of our forefathers seeking religious freedom from oppression, there is no guarantee that future generations are so inclined. We have not been challenged in decades, and like muscles that are not challenged, we have grown somewhat soft.
“No servant is greater than his master.” If they persecuted Jesus, they will also persecute us. The world does not love us – it cannot love us, but as Paul reminds us in Colossians 3, we are still to forbear, forgive, and we are to love.
Colossians 3:14: “…over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” [NIV]
When I came to the LORD nearly 50 years ago, I had no idea what to expect. I was raised by religious parents in a liturgical church setting. I knew there was a God, that He was Father, Son, Holy Spirit. I had a vague idea about salvation, that Christ Jesus had come to save us. I thought however, that while He made the “down payment,” I was responsible for the installments to keep myself saved. I did not understand forgiveness, instead I lived in fear—because as I was well aware, I was a sinner.
As an adult, pregnant with my second child, I heard the Father call my name and I surrendered it all to Him. I gave my life to His Son. I invited the Holy Spirit to fill me with everything good the Father had for me. I never looked back, even though there were times I struggled (and still do).
It took a while though for me to fully understand God’s love and God’s forgiveness. That happened when we started going to a little church in Loomis, California, and sat under the ministry of Pastor Jim. Everything changed for me there. I heard God’s love proclaimed in a way I never had before. I began to understand God’s forgiveness granted in God’s grace. (Thank you Pastor Jim)
So, each time I come to Colossians 3:13, I remember all that. “Forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” [NIV]
I remember that I am a sinner. I remember I am saved solely by God’s grace granted in Christ Jesus. I remember that God gave me that grace because of His great love for me. I remember that Christ Jesus was willing to come and purchase my forgiveness on the cross through His suffering, death, and resurrection. I remember.
And as I remember that I received forgiveness not because of anything in me or anything I did … I must now grant the same to others. I must “forgive as the LORD forgave me.”
Sounds easy, doesn’t it. It is not. And may even become more difficult as society’s view of the church changes. But easy or not, we must forgive because, beloved, we have been forgiven.