Past Devotions

We had a little extra time on Wednesday when we drove from Reno to Modesto midday.  Bob also had a gift card in his pocket for Bass Pro Shop so we stopped at one in Loomis before we got to Sacramento.  Walking around the store we met a clerk and began talking with her. She asked where we were from and we told her Idaho, but that we had lived in California from the early 1960’s to 1993 when we moved. She asked about Idaho.

I remember two of her comments, “Oh, so they don’t tell you when and how much you can water your gardens?”  And her next, “Oh, so the state doesn’t decide where you can ride your bike?”  Nope, at least not yet. She and others we spoke with were having a hard time with what they labeled “California Craziness.”  Yep.

California is what happens when we put our trust in human leaders, in “Princes” we think are going to give us everything we need to make heaven on earth.  And to be fair, craziness is not indigenous to California; it’s happening all over this nation – even in Idaho. California just gets the headlines.

The Bible warns us quite clearly, in many places, just where we are to place our trust and it is not in man or in princes.  Ps 118:8-9:  It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in princes. [NIV]

Ps 146:3: Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save. [NIV]

Isa 40:23: [The LORD God] brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. [NIV]

(Oh, and just a side note, I got a nice new cast iron skillet with Bob’s gift card! That worked out very well!)

I always have intense feelings when we visit our California grandsons, the oldest almost 15 and the youngest now 9. My yearnings bubble to the surface and I want to move back to California to be near them. I’ve missed so much of their lives. This trip, like always, God reminded me once again that He wants me in Idaho.

I wear a Garmin Vivofit to monitor my activity and tell me the date and time. It’s supposed to change time zones when I sync it with my computer. When I arrived I manually changed the computer from Mountain Daylight Time (MDT) to Pacific. The Vivofit instructions told me that all I need to do to change to the correct time zone was to press the sync button. I did. Nothing happened. I tried to sync my Garmin with my computer repeatedly, and the time would not change. It was frustrating. I finally gave up and left it on MDT.

As I mused on Friday morning about returning to Boise, missing the grandsons once again, thinking about moving back to California, I started to laugh.  OK God. Message received loud and clear. I’m to remain (like my Garmin did) in MDT. God’s work for me is in Idaho, at least for the present.

Jesus reminded us that in this life there will be separations, many simply by distance.  We must be obedient to go where He sends us and to work where He puts us.  Our reward is that one day, there will be no distance and no separations when we inherit eternal life.

“Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children [or grandchildren] or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.” [Matt 19:29 NIV]

Lord, looking forward to that day!  Father, I pray that all my children, their spouses and my grandchildren rejoice with me together around Your Throne in that eternal day.

Thursday, we attended grandparents’ day activities at Modesto Christian School (MCS) where our grandsons attend. The pre-school through fifth grade put on a performance of Christian music and Scripture verses to commemorate the National Day of Prayer also. Some of the songs they chose to sing weren’t all that easy either! (“The End of the Beginning,” “God’s Not Dead” and others)

They also had three young girls worship dance with flags while the different grade levels changed places. I’m not sure when I started to cry but I think it was when the youngest girl worshipped with her flags to “Flame of Fire, Rushing Wind.” She was so in tune with the music and her face almost rapturous as she twirled and spun around on the stage.  After that it was silent tears running down my face.

California is not an easy state in which to be a Christian. That was evident as we talked to some of the grandparents lined up waiting for the doors to open.  I realized as I watched these little ones sing and recite and worship that this next generation of Christ followers is not going to have it easy. Yet God will always have a remnant, and I was watching many little ones who will be part of that remnant should the Lord tarry.

It is so important that we teach and train the next generation. Right now, they are the target of the enemy. He will do anything and everything to claim our young ones. He’s bidding high for their souls not just in California but in every place the name of Christ is called upon. We must bid even higher.

“We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD, his power, and the wonders he has done.”  [Ps 78:4 NIV]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdWx7NLTFpY

I was offline for a few days because we made a quick trip to California to see our grandsons play baseball and to go to grandparents’ day last Thursday with the youngest.  We had to be in California by 3:30 PM on Wednesday for one of the games, so we took two days to travel down, spending Tuesday night in Reno.

After checking in to our downtown Reno hotel we decided to walk around a bit and find an inexpensive place to eat. We don’t normally stay in downtown Reno, usually on one edge of the city or the other. I think it has been decades since we walked around downtown under the “Reno Arch.” It was an experience.

There were so many men and women who were what my parents used to call “down on their luck.” They were asking for spare change, sitting on the sidewalks, a couple were in wheelchairs, each one was thin, dirty, and with that look of hopelessness emanating.

Inside the casino where we found a buffet, it was a different story and yet curiously much the same.  Most people at the buffet were “well fed,” but many had that same look of hopelessness I saw on the streets.

I was reminded on Tuesday that living without hope takes its toll one way or another. And when hopelessness reaches its end, it devastates men and women, leaving them as if they have been hollowed out and left with nothing but a shell of life.

I cannot (will not) cease praising God for the hope I have found in Him! “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.” [Rom 5:1-2 NIV]

You are probably pretty old if you remember this song … “He floats through the air with the greatest of ease, the daring young man on his flying trapeze.  His actions are graceful, all girls he does please, and my love he has taken away.”

I remember going to the circus and watching the trapeze artists. If you missed seeing them at the circus, you can now see them in church.  Yes, you read that right, in church.  Recently, an Atlanta church added aerialists as a regular part of their worship service.  It would be hilarious, if it wasn’t so sad.

Churches around the world have embraced entertainment. Strobe lights, smoke machines, black backdrops that display all kinds of images have become part of the “show.”  I find it interesting that AW Tozer was lamenting the inclination of Christian churches in our nation adopting entertainment practices in the 1950’s and 1960’s. I can’t help but wonder what he would say about adding aerialists to worship.

Paul warned Timothy to keep the pattern of sound teaching he learned from Paul. “What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you-guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.” [2 Tim 1:13-14 NIV]

Have we abandoned the “sound teaching” of Paul and need trapeze artists to hold our attention?

Oh Father, forgive us! Send a spiritual awakening to Your church! Amen.

And the word of the day is “mollycoddle.” At least it was last Thursday. It means to treat with an excessive or absurd degree of indulgence or attention.

If I were to use this in a sentence, I might say, “In the last century, the Church in America has stopped teaching and modeling the precious disciplines of obedience, self-discipline, patience, personal holiness, cross carrying, and discipleship and instead mollycoddles her members.”

Unfortunately, we have become a generation of Christians devoted to our own pursuits and enamored with our own pleasures.  In an effort to “keep” attendees, those attitudes have infiltrated our churches. We have done everything we can to make Christianity entertaining and comfortable – and as a result have cheapened the grace that amazed our forefathers and brought them to their knees trembling in reverent worship.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theological martyred by Hitler, wrote a book called “The Cost of Discipleship.” In it he warned of something he labeled “cheap grace.” He wrote, “Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace.”

Cheap grace is defined as forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, and communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.

May we never settle for cheap grace. May our churches cease mollycoddling attendees and begin to teach and model discipleship … obedient, holy, cross-carrying discipleship.

I’ve been reading in Jeremiah the past few days. Chapter 9 has a familiar passage.  “This is what the LORD says: The wise man must not boast in his wisdom; the strong man must not boast in his strength; the wealthy man must not boast in his wealth. But the one who boasts should boast in this, that he understands and knows Me – that I am Yahweh, showing faithful love, justice and righteousness on the earth, for I delight in these things.” [9:23-24 Holman CSB]

Paul wrote, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” [Gal 6:14-15 NIV]

Those scripture verses made me question, of what do I boast?  I boast of my grandchildren for sure!  Love those guys. Do I boast of other things?  I know I don’t boast in wisdom, I’m not all that wise. I don’t boast in strength, not at 71 years of age anyway. And I certainly don’t boast of wealth!  But I probably do boast about other things on occasion.

Do I boast that I know God? Do I boast in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ?  Yes, I think I do. I am in love with the Savior, with my Lord and King. I am constantly amazed that God loves me and that He has called me and shown His faithful love to me.  I am overwhelmed at times just thinking about what it means to walk with Him in this life and the promise of eternity with Him.

I will boast only in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ—His sinless life, His death on the cross for me, His resurrection.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaNUsY5ft1U

A W Tozer is one of my favorite authors. I have been reading for a second time “The Crucified Life; How to Live out a Deeper Christian Experience.” It is a book of the writings of Tozer compiled and edited by James L. Snyder. Tozer wrote, “The only Christians you want to listen to are the ones who give you more of a hunger for God.”

That is my greatest desire. When I bring a message on Sunday or write a daily devotion, I don’t just want to inform or spoon-feed my thoughts or ideas, I want to make you hungry, hungry for more of God.

I walked into a store the other day and was assaulted with the most delightfully sweet fragrance, and immediately I was hungry for what they were baking. The aromas emanating from the ovens triggered something in my brain that overrode the fact that I had just eaten!  I should not be hungry, but oh, I surely was.

That should be the way it is with us spiritually. Our preachers should be creating in us a hunger for more of God. They should be making the love of Jesus our Lord the all-consuming desire of our life.  We should walk away from our church services wanting more of what we experienced there.

It was at the end of Paul’s life, after walking with and serving the Lord for so long, that he wrote: “I want to know Christ.”  [Philippians 3:10]

May we be like Paul, even more hungry for Christ at the end of our life than we are now.

Enough, I’m tired of thinking about the things bombarding Christianity. Today I want to think about something beautiful and lovely instead. I want Good News, not the news proclaimed by the ‘god of this world’ who seems very adept at blinding the eyes of unbelievers.

I want to think about Jesus. I want to think about the fact that when sin abounds, grace will abound even more! I want to think about falling in love once again with the Savior of my soul.  I want to sing the great doxology with Jude, a servant of the Lord and a brother of James (both of whom were “brothers” of our Lord Jesus).

“To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy- to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.” [Jude 24-25 NIV]

He will keep us from falling … even while the enemy of our soul is doing everything he can to trip us.

He will present us before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy … even while the enemy of our soul is doing everything he can to tempt us to sin and load us with guilt and shame.

Our Savior, the only God, reigns with all glory, majesty, power and authority, now and forevermore. And we are secure in Him.  Yes, that is what I want to think about today. Amen and Amen.