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Trust and Obey
Tuesday, September 20, 2022“… Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish” Esther 4:16. Our minds often jump to a mandated action through man’s law that Christians would have to oppose and declare that we’d be ready even to die for our faith if necessary—although we hope it wouldn’t ever come to that! What we’re really hoping for is that we can “Trust and Obey” from a comfortable life that continues without trauma or drama. Perhaps that’s where Esther was before Mordecai came and told her the dire circumstances of their people and how she was the only one in a position to help … though it may cost all. Most often we are called to live out our faith when our situation has become difficult in some way, and we question God, wondering how He could really ask us to “Trust and Obey” in this. God is more interested in your character than your comfort, however. Christians in 21st Century America have grown so comfortable that we’d rather compromise with the culture, justifying why we “Trust and Obey” its demands rather than God’s commands—all the while believing the lie that we’d die for God if necessary. If we aren’t faithful in small things, will God trust us with larger ones?
Not Forgotten Those Who Seek You
Monday, September 12, 2022“And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you” Psalm 9:10. Perhaps you’ve heard that someone’s nephew’s friend’s roommate’s cousin’s teacher once shook hands with a celebrity, then you probably understand “Six Degrees of Separation” popularized by a 1990 play by that name that says that everyone in the world is connected by six or fewer handshakes. Not that you could get that celebrity to make an appearance at your kid’s birthday party, however! Though the Creator of all things sits on His throne with concerns greater than we have, He is a “stronghold for the oppressed … in times of trouble.” He’s intimately concerned about us and intensely involved in our lives. He invites us to His throne through His Son, through whom all things were made, who promises to do all things that we ask in His Name. There is no longer any separation between us as our mediator is both fully God and fully man. So, we can put our trust fully in Him, for He has promised to those who know His name—and not the friend’s friend who happens to go to church—that He will not forsake those who seek Him. How great that we can know God!
Lead a Quiet & Peaceful Life
Tuesday, September 06, 2022“First of all, then, I urge that … prayers … be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” 1 Timothy 2:1-2. 9/11 was also a Sunday in 1814 when the British sought to take Lake Champlain to split our young nation at the Battle of Plattsburgh. And since airplanes were used as weapons on another 9/11 twenty-one years ago, our country has struggled with patriotism as we’ve increasingly become disenchanted with so many things. We’ve become so divided that Christians, chanting that this world is not our home, have retreated into the walls of our buildings to simply take care of our own while the world burns. This is not how it has always been. Jesus has always been part of the public arena as Christians throughout our nation’s history have exerted His influence into every aspect of the culture to guide policies and cultivate leaders who stand for truth. The way that this will begin again will be with prayer—fervent prayer for our country and our culture, our leaders and our laws. Far from a partisan exercise, we must pray that all return to God and His Word. Do you pray for our country?
Treasures in Heaven
Tuesday, September 06, 2022“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven …” Matthew 6:19-20. Though glorified in our culture today, pirates were not good people. Besides their shameful acts of hedonism, they are known largely for their hoards of treasures. Movies portray caves of vast gold and trinkets—and this pursuit of materialism is how so many in the world today choose to live. But not us. As the Redeemed, we are anti-pirates, pursuing the eternal instead of the temporary and seeking to serve rather than savage our fellow man. Laying up for ourselves treasures in heaven instead, we’d prefer a simple wooden structure where the gospel is preached than a cathedral with all of its gold-plating. Yet, living in this world but not being of this world, it’s necessary in 21st Century America to maintain a facility with resources that doesn’t let us grow comfortable or escape the world but lets us glorify God, strengthen the saved, and lead the lost. This is how the church throughout the generations has grown and involves an evaluation of our hearts and attitudes. Where’s your treasure stored?
Greatly Annoyed
Monday, August 29, 2022“And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the Sadducees came upon them, greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead” Acts 4:1-2.
Those who were in power were supposed to be the people’s advocates before God, but they had long left that for their own power, position, and politics. They had become the world; and the world was annoyed because they proclaimed the gospel. How dare they—out in the streets, day after day, and from house to house! Unlike today where a college campus might provide a small “free speech zone” in an out-of-the-way for ideas some find offensive or promoting it as irrelevant, cancel culture has driven the gospel into the walls of our church buildings, Christians and their message in the 1st century were stamped out as they threatened the world’s power base. Instead of buckling under the pressure, however, their zeal born from belief in the risen Savior and what He meant for mankind intensified, “for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard,” which, of course, further annoyed the world.
How’s your zeal born from belief? Are you annoying the world?