A Dark Sabbath..... Dr. Charles Stanley

 A Dark Sabbath

Dr. Charles Stanley

John 19:31-42

Just as Christ once rested in the stern of a boat through a raging storm, He rested in the tomb as storms raged within His disciples. A day after Jesus’ death, fear, doubt, and grief must have cycled endlessly through their minds. Memories of their lives with Him must have played there too: how it felt to stand upon a rolling sea, to feed thousands with a few loaves of bread, or to see Lazarus’ burial clothes heaped in the dirt. No doubt their hearts grew sick with confusion as they contemplated these things.

The disciples’ feeble faith shouldn’t surprise us, because if we’re honest, we see it in ourselves. The “little of faith,” as Jesus often called them, failed to believe or remember things the Lord said of Himself—that He’d lay down His life and take it up again. Had His followers faithfully held these things in their hearts, that Sabbath day might have been a time of joyful anticipation.

At times in our lives, God may seem absent, but ultimately we know that He will never leave us (Heb. 13:5). And unlike the disciples, we’ll never experience the dark prospect of a failed Savior. But many times we forget the promises of God. In the face of uncertainty, how frequently do we turn to a “do-it-yourself” Christianity to fix our problems?

Too often we look no further than our own solutions, when what we need is the wonder-working power of Christ’s resurrection and a posture of humility as we wait on Him. If we are willing to wait through the darkness of night, we can rest in knowing that morning will surely come.

Revelation through Others..... Craig Denison

 Revelation through Others

Craig Denison

Weekly Overview:

One of the greatest privileges as a child of God is that we can have the heart of our heavenly Father. We don’t have to wonder how he feels about us. We don’t have to wonder if he will guide us. We don’t have to question whether he loves us or cares about us. Through the Holy Spirit we have continual, free access to the heart of God. May your relationship with God go deeper and become freer as we learn how to have God’s heart this week.

Scripture:

“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” 1 Peter 4:10 (NIV)

Devotional:    

One of the chief ways God reveals his heart to us is revelation through fellow believers. Hebrews 10:24-25 says, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” God has given us the ability to encourage one another—to literally fill the hearts of fellow believers with courage to pursue fullness of life in the kingdom. He’s given us the ability to “stir up one another to love and good works” that we might fill one another with wholehearted devotion to Jesus both in word and deed.

One of my favorite passages of Scripture is 2 Corinthians 4:5-7. Paul writes:

For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

God has given us his glory. He’s given us the ability to proclaim not only ourselves, but “Jesus Christ as Lord.” The jars of clay Paul was referencing here were anything but perfect. They were fragile and easily broken. They were the material for the common person.

God has chosen to display his power and love not through perfect carriers, but through us. He’s chosen to use we who are common, we who are fragile and easily broken, that others might see his overwhelming grace and unconditional love.

God knows the believers around you are imperfect. He knows they are weak and broken. He knows they have wounded you and oftentimes discouraged, rather than encouraged, you. But what encouragement can we find in God meeting those who are perfect? How could we possibly find hope if God only revealed himself through those without weakness? The greatest source of hope we have is that God would continuously offer grace to those who are undeserving. The greatest revelation of God’s heart we have in others is that our Father never gives up on us but loves us unconditionally.

Look to others for encouragement today. Look for the kindness of God revealed through the weakness and brokenness of fellow believers. And declare the grace of God to others today, not by seeking to appear perfect, but by proclaiming the goodness of a God who would fully love someone in their imperfection. May your heart be stirred today as God’s heart is revealed through the earthen vessels he’s filled with his glory.

Guided Prayer:

1. Reflect on God’s desire to reveal his heart through others.

“For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” 2 Corinthians 4:5-7

2. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you see God’s heart in fellow believers. Ask him to teach you to see God’s grace in the imperfections and brokenness of others.

3. Choose to reveal God’s heart in your life today. Choose to encourage and stir up the hearts of others by declaring God’s goodness even in your brokenness.

“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” Hebrews 10:24-25

“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” 1 Peter 4:10 (NIV)

2 Corinthians 13:11 says, “Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.” God’s heart is for unity. His heart is that we would embrace one another, seek to comfort and restore one another, and thereby encounter his love and peace. Unity isn’t an option in Scripture; it’s a command. It’s not an option to allow strife and slander. It’s not an option to leave broken relationships unmended. Seek restoration today. Allow God to fill you with the courage to show love and unmerited grace to fellow believers. And as you grow in unity with others you will experience a deeper understanding of God’s unconditional love and affection for you. May today be marked by a powerful revelation of God’s heart through others.

Extended Reading: 2 Corinthians 4

Did I Just Disqualify Myself?..... KAREN RAPP

 Did I Just Disqualify Myself?

KAREN RAPP

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:4-5 (ESV)

Looking through tear-blurred contacts, I pulled out of the school parking lot after dropping off the kids. What a morning! It was a typical school day, but conflict and frustration ran rampant.

Earlier that morning, I had erupted. Angry words rained down on my children without restraint. Now that the moment had passed, I imagined those harsh phrases soaking deeply into their little hearts throughout the school day. Shame and regret took over my own heart.

Priority one after drop-off was to catch up on my homework for the next day's Bible study meeting, but as I headed toward home, condemnation filled my mind.

“After the way you acted, are you really going to sit down with your Bible?”
“Did you see yourself back there?”
“What a hypocrite!”
“What kind of a mom does that?”
“You have no business reading the Bible, much less studying it.”

I felt defeated, certain my lack of patience and self-control disqualified me from spending time in the Bible. I couldn't bear the thought of opening the Word while carrying such a heavy weight of shame, but something in my heart told me I needed God's Word now more than ever.

Have you ever found yourself in a similar dilemma, feeling like you had single-handedly obliterated any hope of furthering your relationship with God?

Let’s listen to Jesus’ tender words as He spoke to His disciples. In the book of John, chapters 13-17, Jesus was having a long talk with them prior to His crucifixion. According to a parallel gospel account in Luke 22, this was not too long after the disciples had been arguing about who would be the greatest among them — not their finest moment.

Here’s a snippet of what Jesus said to them:

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:4-5).

Jesus, full of grace and Truth, enjoined His disciples to draw close to Him while He also reminded them of the sum total of their abilities apart from Him. He didn't expect them to be perfect before they came to Him; He already knew their limitations, and He still welcomed them.

Maybe Jesus anticipated the universal struggle between feeling unworthy and accepting grace because, a few sentences later, He reassuringly said, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love” (John 15:9, ESV).

No condemnation, no prerequisites.

Those words, written thousands of years ago, are still relevant today. I don’t have to steer clear of Jesus when I feel like a failure. As a matter of fact, all throughout Scripture you'll see there's no such thing as, “You're not good enough to come to God.”

It feels awkward, but during those times of deep shame and embarrassment, the best thing we can do is to swallow our pride and lean in closer to Him.

So the next time we have a rough morning, afternoon or even bedtime (come, Lord Jesus), rather than letting our failures cause us to hide, we need to abide.

He wouldn’t want it any other way.

Dear Jesus, please remind me of Your love for me even when I’ve messed up. Help me to sit beside You when shame and regret tell me I should run away. You are the One who restores and renews. Thank You for Your mercy and forgiveness. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

TRUTH FOR TODAY:
Lamentations 3:21-23, “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (ESV)

We Can Be Still..... By: Anne Peterson

 We Can Be Still

By: Anne Peterson

Be still and know that I am God. - Psalm 46:10

The hardest thing for us to do is to be still. They say we should have been called human doings instead of human beings. But one of the most valuable things we can do is to learn how to rest in God. How to honestly lean on him with all our weight.

God tells us we just trust in him and not in our own understanding. Proverbs 3:5. And yet, as soon as we start having trials, the first thing we try to do is figure it out. God tells us that his thoughts are higher than our ways, but that doesn’t stop us from thinking we can somehow figure it out.

David was someone called the man after God’s own heart. David would look at the situation at hand, but he’d also look back at the God who was there for his other challenges. As everyone else shivered at the thought of facing the Philistine, not the shepherd boy. Why? Did he have super strength? No. But he knew God Almighty. And David knew that the same God who protected him from the lion and the bear would also protect him from whatever he faced. And in this case, it happened to be a giant. 1 Samuel 17: 32- 37.

The giant looked at David, and the Bible tells us he despised him. And yet, we see in 1 Samuel 17:45-51, David relied on his God. David came against Goliath in the name of the Lord Almighty God. And David didn’t take the glory for his victory. From the first moment, he acknowledged it would be by God’s strength and might that David would be victorious.

God is Almighty. No matter what people face God is bigger still. And yet, at times we forget what 1John 4:4 tells us. That Greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world.

Yes, the world around us is moving fast, and people seem to be spinning as well. But God instructs us to be still. Jesus prayed for us in John 17:16, saying we are in this world but we are not of this world. In Romans 12:2, Paul tells us to not be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. It’s only possible when we saturate ourselves with the Word of God. Taking time to reflect on God’s truth helps us to slow down our racing thoughts and that’s when we can discern the things around us. When bank personnel needed to identify which bills were counterfeit they didn’t do it by studying all the imposters, but instead, they sat and studied the true bill. And in the same way, when we meditate on God’s Word, then we will be able to know when we are listening to lies. God can help us still our minds and hearts and then we’ll know that he indeed is God.

Being Quick to Listen in a World of Talk..... by Mike Pohlman

 Being Quick to Listen in a World of Talk

by Mike Pohlman

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness that God requires.” –James 1:19-20

We live in a world of talk. Talk, talk, talk. Speak, speak, speak. Ours is the age of talk radio (news talk, sports talk, money talk, self-help talk, car talk, I-just-want-to-talk talk), podcasts and cell phones. Everyone, it seems, wants to be heard.

Speaking of cell phones, the other day I was in line at one of my local Starbucks and the gentleman in front of me was ordering a caramel macchiato while talking to a buddy on his iPhone. The barista was more than gracious as the customer stopped and started his order apparently not able to put his other conversation on hold (I like what one coffee house in Bellingham, Washington has done by posting a sign that says, "We'll serve you once you hang up the phone").

But it's not just at Starbucks. After arriving home recently from a business trip, I left Los Angeles International Airport in one of those shuttle vans. I shared it with seven other passengers that were making the 40-mile trip north. While most of us were quiet, preferring to read or look out the window at the sea of cars that had us moving at a crawl, there were two college-age men who had to talk. They made call after call on their cell phones to chat with friends about all the amazing things that must have happened during their several days away. I got to hear about the party later that night, the car that broke down, the lonely girlfriend and the overbearing parents. Let’s just say they were conversations I didn’t need to be a part of.

We have become a culture full of talking heads regardless of where we find ourselves. And the chatter is deafening.

Into this noise come the words of James: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak. This exhortation is almost unintelligible to a culture intent on talking. We have it backwards: we are quick to speak, slow to hear.

But God would be the primary voice heard in the universe. He is the One who has much to say. He speaks, in the Bible, of the riches of His mercy in Christ. He broadcasts His forgiveness and love. He heralds the wonder of redemption. He calls us to repent and beckons us to draw near.

Am I listening?

Do you remember the story of Martha and Mary in Luke 10:38-42? Luke offers us a helpful contrast in speaking and listening. Martha was frantically trying to make dinner preparations for Jesus and the disciples. I envision her running around the house uttering things under her breath like, “I can’t believe Jesus is here on such short notice—not to mention all his disciples—and I have to pull this dinner together.” And, “Why doesn’t Mary get in here and help me?” Unlike Martha, Mary "sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching" (10:39).

Not surprisingly, Martha gets a bit frustrated at Mary’s lack of effort with the event. So Martha does what we probably all would do under similar circumstances—she starts talking: “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me” (10:40). We are not left to wonder which course of action Jesus commends. We see it in his gentle rebuke: “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”

Mary was quick to listen and slow to speak. She knew when to be quiet. In a culture full of chatter I want to learn the discipline of silence so I can hear what the Lord wants to teach me. He’s speaking; am I listening?

Intersecting Faith & Life: What radical measures can you take to help you listen not only to God but to other people? What things in your life are blocking out the voice of God?

Further Reading

Psalms 46:10

A Prayer for Shepherding Your Flock..... By: Chelsey DeMatteis

 A Prayer for Shepherding Your Flock

By: Chelsey DeMatteis

“…shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you;…” - 1 Peter 5:2

As Christians, we are all called to shepherd, though it varies season by season. Whether you’re shepherding littles in your home, a team at work, or a body of believers at your church; shepherding is a high and holy calling. One that the Lord has laid out clear instructions for through His Word.

Often times, people have the misconception that God’s Word isn’t clear. This is why we have to spend time learning and growing in our knowledge of the Word. You see, there may be a vagueness in the mention of God’s timing for things to take place, but His commands for righteous living are concrete and laid out simply. And shepherding is one of the many commands he gives us with complete clarity.

We’re told in Peter’s letter exactly how we are to shepherd and lead those God has entrusted to us:

So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. - 1 Peter 5:1-3

We are the partakers in sharing the good news to the ends of the earth. No matter where God has us we are set in motion on His behalf. Through this letter, the Lord states clearly that we are to absolutely exercise oversight. We are to oversee and watch the footsteps of those we are called to lead. We are called to always point them to truth, lead them away from danger, and steward them to a deep relationship with the Lord.

This letter reminds us that we are to do so with willing, obedient hearts, that live by example. This means we must be walking the walk!

We see how important this is to God’s heart when we also focus on what He tells us not to do as we shepherd our flock. We’re told not to lead out of compulsion, not to steward for shameful gain, and not to domineer over those who He’s entrusted to you. We can’t miss this, God knows the desires of our flesh and right here, He called it out boldly.

Let’s pray now for our calling as shepherds, and for the sheep entrusted to our care:

Lord, I pray that my heart would seek to follow you. Father, open my eyes to see the flock in which you’ve entrusted to me. Thank you for the high calling of being a shepherd. Help me lead those you have put under my care with humility, patience and mercy. When my fleshly desires begin to take over I ask that your Holy Spirit would convict me through 1 Peter 5:1-3.

Lord, strengthen the hearts of those under my care. I pray they know you in real, lasting ways. I pray that they grow in humility, patience and mercy. Help them to know the love you have for them, now and always. Allow them to see your love through me.

In Jesus’s name, Amen.