November 30, 2021
Matthew 8:26 “And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm”
The Lord’s question to the frightened and panicking disciples here is still one for us to consider today. Some of them were veteran fishermen, having grown up on the very sea of galilee and were skilled in handling a boat. They had no doubt been in all sorts of weather at times but this storm was different somehow and that’s the way it is with us. Many of us have been a Christian for a long time, we grew up in church under the teaching and preaching of God’s Word, and we, like the fishermen disciples, have been through many storms of life. Yet there are circumstances, occasions where we are in seasons of our life that seem more severe and destructive than anything we’ve been through and it causes uncertainty or even fear to raise its head and we begin wondering if we’re going to make it. The disciples were in that same quandary even though they had been with Jesus when He performed miracles of impossible things, proving He was far more than just human yet their faith couldn’t rise to the level where they believed everything was going to be fine and they were in no danger at all. When they woke the Lord from His sleep, He didn’t fuss at them because they woke Him up, He just asked them to check themselves in their hand-wringing, emotional state as to why they thought a storm could harm the Son of God. Before the Lord stilled the storm, He first focused the disciple’s attention on their need to trust Him and not be afraid then He spoke to the winds and waves to stop the storm. Even if He hadn’t calmed the storm, everything would have still been fine because there was no storm that could sink the ship or cause their death when they were with the Creator of all things.
Even one of the greatest Christians that ever lived, the Apostle Paul, battled his circumstances as he said in 2Corinthians 7:5 “For, when we were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side; without were fightings, within were fears” and it seems odd to hear him admit he was dealing with fear within. But no matter how strong our faith is, our human nature will always rise up to war against it. This warfare is the voice of our flesh trying to shout down victorious faith just as it did in the disciples that night in the middle of the storm. We can wear all the t-shirts, bracelets, and baseball hats with “fear over faith” slogans and while it’s good to proclaim the victory and testify to the Lord’s overcoming power, we will always have to return to a place where the Lord assures us personally, He has full control of all our storms. We hear His words as He said to the storm in Mark 4:39 “Peace, be still” and just as then when the Bible says “and the wind ceased, and there was a great calm” the same heaven-sent peace will cover us. Every story in the Bible where the Lord delivered His people from what seemed impossible situations, were given to us by the Holy Spirit to bolster our faith and give us the confidence just as He was faithful to His people in the past, He will not fail us now.
November 29, 2021
John 5:7 “The impotent (sick) man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me”
This fellow had been very sick for thirty-eight years and had been waiting in hope at a pool of water where on occasion, miracles happened and people were healed. But at the moments of the miracles, someone always beat him into the healing waters because he was so sick, he was unable to move into the water quickly. He told the Lord, he had no one to help him. His case was different from the paralyzed man in Mark 2 who had four men to help him through the roof to get healing from Jesus and it’s this way with people today. Some have people to help them with their needs, especially the need to come to the Lord for salvation and others have no one. For the sick man in today’s verse, years of his life had passed and he remained where he was, sick, alone, and with broken hopes. A few days ago, my wife and I were praying for some people we know , some of them who had never trusted Jesus as their Savior, and we started wondering if there is anyone else praying for these people. How about you? Is there anyone praying for you and is there anyone concerned about your situation enough to lift you to the Lord in prayer? Hear the words of David in Psalm 142:4 “I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul” especially the last words, “no man cared for my soul”. Imagine the circumstances of perhaps multiplied millions of people living right now that no one is praying for, no one witnessing to, and no one comforting them with the hope of the Lord. Over 25 million people live in North Korea with only 2 protestant churches and those totally controlled by the government and forbidden to preach the gospel. There is no Christian television and radio and citizens are forbidden by fear or imprisonment or death to worship the Lord or witness to others. Who is praying for them and who prays for the souls of the individuals, their children, and their families? These millions and millions around the world are like the paralyzed, sick man at the pool of Bethesda for they have no one to help them get to a place of salvation and think how fortunate we were and are, to have others tell us of the Lord’s goodness and encourage us to trust in Him.
The Bible says in Proverbs 29:18 “Where there is no vision, the people perish” and it seems that the pleading for people to follow the Lord as missionaries, as ambassadors carrying the good news and message of the hope of Christ and the goodness of God has all but disappeared. The urgency to tell others of the eternal Salvation given to us by the blood of our Lord has been replaced with an overwhelming addiction to self-actualization, continual introspection, and the obsession to immerse ourselves in entertainment and pleasure. But the will of God through Jesus Christ to seek and save the lost is revealed by the scriptures in places like Titus 3:3 “For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared”. We can start by praying for the lost, asking God to replace our side-tracked minds with a true burden and love for those like the man at Bethesda who have no one to help them, who are alone in the sin and suffering, and whose hope is fading. Let’s pray the Lord will open doors and put us in the paths of people who need the Savior, people who are stuck in their circumstances like the prodigal son, and those who have lost sight of the cross or Jesus and His empty tomb.
November 28, 2021
John 19:10-11 [Pilate said] “knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? Jesus answered, thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above”
From all indications, it looked like when Jesus stood before Pilate, that Pilate had complete authority, power, over the Lord. Power to save His life and power to put Him to death because in the Roman system, only the Emperor Tiberius was higher in authority and all things relating to control, life, and death for that region of Roman rule, rested in Pilate’s hands and as governor, judgment in capital offenses was part of his job. This was what he, seemingly frustrated, was saying to Jesus when Jesus did not plead or argue for His life to be spared. Most people want to claim some kind of power even if is to toot their own horn and self-honor their own accomplishments, merits, or abilities. Power carried to the extreme is control over others and in the hands of evil people, this can be dangerous and harmful to anyone in their path including their own families. The pride of humans is witnessed in their words when they speak like Pilate of their power. The rich fool in Luke 12 can be heard declaring his power to build bigger barns and establish a carefree, wealthy future for himself, and his words are filled with “I will do this, I will do that”, and “I will say to myself”. But just as Jesus reminded Pilate where all power originates, that is from God, the rich fool was told he didn’t even have the power to preserve his life one more day for that very night, he died, and with his death, all his ideas, words, and plans of power.
The Bible says in Romans 13:1 “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God” and if we have any power at all, it comes from the Lord. The power to bear and raise children, make a home, earn a living, and just the everyday power to move about and do the things we do is a gift from God and any control or authority we have in the home, in the workplace, or our community is a responsibility that the Almighty entrusts to us. Many gifts such as the ability to lead others, the ability of persuasion, or even to be a manager or boss come with the knowledge that the Lord has opened those doors for us and before we exercise our power, we should submit ourselves humbly before the King of Heaven and ask for wisdom and grace to do what is right in His eyes. The Sovereign Lord will fill us with His presence, give us the mind of Christ, remind us that we owe all our allegiance to Him, and any words we speak, actions we take, decisions we make, especially those that affect others, and any efforts to guide or direct will be done in such a way that God is honored, people are blessed, and we are witnesses of the prayer of our Lord, speaking of the Heavenly Father in Matthew 6:13 “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen”.
November 27, 2021
Luke 12:51 “Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division”
One drumbeat of current Christianity and the cadence of its spokespersons can be heard in the peace at any price mantras being whispered into the ears of Laodicea. The proponents of this wave of so-called spiritual inclusiveness are approaching a world that’s growing more dismissive and even outright hostile to the truth of the Lord with a message reeking of apology while they morph their rhetoric and semantics, watering down the message, trying to make the gospel of Christ “less abrasive”. But the Lord’s Words are clear when He said He and His message of one way, one door, one Savior does not bring unity to the masses but division and Matthew records this teaching in 10:34 as “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword”. The imagery of the sword is far from the picture religious cartoonists are palming off as the words Christ. The peace of Jesus is not believers being at peace with the world, but with God, within themselves, and with others who follow the Lord. As far as the world is concerned, they will never be at peace with God, themselves, or those saved by faith in Jesus’ blood. The Holy Spirit speaks of them in Isaiah 48:22 “There is no peace, saith the LORD, unto the wicked”. The demonic nonsense that somehow Christians can lay down the cross, whimper “I’m sorry for our differences”, and submissively lock arms with an unbelieving, Christ-rejecting, sin-loving, and Bible despising world of blended religions and God-denying apostates is not the work of the Holy Spirit of God but the end-times poison prophesied in 1Timothy 4:1 “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils”.
If the words of this devotion seem abrupt and harsh, remember it is simply a reminder that following the Lord means believers will not compromise the message of truth and will not surrender the blood-stained banner of our Savior regardless of how people view us, respond to us, or outright reject us. We are not commissioned to make peace at any price, but to unashamedly present the message of the Lord, with love and kindness, then trust the Holy Spirit to do His work without fearing we have to make the truth of sin, righteousness, and judgment to come sweet and acceptable. The suffering of Jesus was not a display of the kindness of people towards each other or their acceptance of the Lord’s words but it was a rejection of God’s will for them and their hatred of the truth and it’s Messenger. It is only when the Holy Spirit breaks down our stubbornness and pride that we can even look to the cross with repentance and faith. A socially correct, linguistically smooth, and dumbed-down version is not what a world floundering in it’s cesspool is looking for. Like every person who has walked this earth before us, people need the unabashed truth. It is like people with terminal cancer that do not need a doctor who beats around the bush trying to disguise or downplay their condition but they need straightforward words, spoken in kindness but rich in diagnosis and treatment offering hope and promise. They may not want to hear it but their situation demands they do.
November 26, 2021
Mark 10:21 “Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me”
The man who came to Jesus in this passage is called by most, the rich young ruler and is one of the sad stories in the Bible. As the encounter unfolded, we learn from here and also in the same account in Luke 18, the man was young, he was a ruler, perhaps a magistrate, he was religious, and he was rich. But for all he had and had accomplished, he was unsatisfied, searching, and concerned about what would happen to him in the afterlife. His belief in God and all the rituals of the Jewish law did not give him the peace and security he wanted for his soul and he came to the Lord, kneeling before Him with a burning question in verse 17 “Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?”. It’s sad that people can have so much, be so educated, be so successful in their careers, and yet so lacking in their knowledge of the door to heaven. Maybe this is why we’re told that Jesus looked at him and loved him. In these words, we come to know the compassion and mercy of our Lord when He sees us trapped where we are and walking through this life struggling and working hard to be successful and happy yet never being able to find it by the methods and means we are following. For this rich young ruler, he was trapped in his sorrow by the very thing he had supposed would make him happy, wealth. Jesus explained later in this story that wealth can be a great barrier that keeps people from trusting the Lord because it seems to offer security and hope and when we buy into that view and obtain it, the thought of giving up that worldly security with its privilege, societal prominence, and the lifestyle it provides is not an option for those who bow to the dollar.
It is an error to believe the Lord wants all believers to give away everything they own to be His disciple. This was an encounter with a man who, by the text of the story, loved wealth more than he wanted to be a follower of Jesus and the practical application is that it might be money or it could be any number of other things that has a prominent and dominant place in our lives and unless we are willing to admit our enslavement to these idols, we are trapped where we are. Compare this story with the one of Zacchaeus in Luke 19 where Zacchaeus was rich yet when he heard the Lord’s words, he chose to restore the money of anyone he had unjustly taken from and did not let his wealth keep him from being a follower of the Lord. Where the rich young ruler went away from Jesus rich and sad, we have every reason to believe Zacchaeus did not allow money to rob him of a relationship with the Lord. May the Holy Spirit search us and reveal if anything is hindering us from being completely sold out to the Lord and if so, may we, with God’s grace, surrender everything completely to Jesus, and as the Lord encouraged this young man, may we take up the cross and follow Him.
November 25, 2021
Psalm 69:30 “I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving”
This is the special day we gather our families, eat too much of our favorites, and look back with grateful hearts on what the Lord has done for us. We also look to the future with thanksgiving knowing He will never fail to be faithful to His promises and for believers, the best is yet to come! The first part of this Psalm is about being stuck in a situation with no way out as David the Psalmist described “Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God”. But the account of his situation closes with the thought that the Lord is worthy to be praised and magnified with thanksgiving and this, the writer says, is better than any sacrifice we could offer Him.
Every person and every family that sits down to share a Thanksgiving meal today can all look back at times the situation seemed hopeless but the Lord came through and brought them out. There’s no valley too deep, no problem too big, and no circumstance too complicated that will stop God from taking care of His people. He will never fail to supply all our needs. He will never fail to work all things for our good. He will never fail to stand with us and either deliver us from life’s fires or walk through them by our side. We have every reason to praise and thank Him not just on this day, but every day now and forever. With this hope, we declare Hebrews 13:14-15 “For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come. By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name”.
November 24, 2021
Psalm 121:1 “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help”
This Psalm is one of the Songs of Ascent which were sung especially by travelers making their journey towards Jerusalem during times of feasts or Holy Days. This one praises God for His power over all things and His ability to protect His people from life’s dangers and declares the Lord is our preserver, our protector. When our gaze is low, at the things around us, often what we see is danger, uncertainty, discouragement, and problems. But the singer of this song has a remedy which is to lift up our eyes to where we can see the source of our help. In a real sense, the travelers would sing this song, looking off into the distance at the hills upon which Jerusalem was built especially the temple mount and the anticipation of arriving there and being a part of the great festivities and worship experience would build hope and joy. The traveler’s downward view was of the plodding along the dusty roads, the step-by-step grind of walking and sweating in the sun and when we get bogged down in that kind of view, it’s a dreary chore. But the hills of Jerusalem call out to the pilgrim with promise and peace for its very name means “city of peace”. The upward view was one of thankfulness and rejoicing that the destination was worth the harshness of the journey and that the reward was one of gladness, shared with the family as a well of memories to draw from until the next pilgrimage.
Believers who look upward, as we looked at in a previous devotion, who set their desire on things above and not on things of this earth, are those who live in hope. They know the Lord is greater than their trials and troubles and that He is described in Psalm 3:3 as our glory and the lifter of our heads. The Bible traveler knew the Lord is ever-present but they also knew His Shekinah Glory was in Jerusalem, in the Most Holy Place above the mercy seat and that all the temple represented equaled to salvation and deliverance for them. Even when they weren’t in Jerusalem, they knew it existed there for them, that God didn’t establish it only for Himself but as a place where He would meet with His people and they could find the comfort of His mercy and love. The believer has access to the throne of grace and every reason to rejoice and be thankful. Our God welcomes us into His fellowship as He said in 1John 1:3 “truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ”. Psalm 100, a Psalm of praise, says vs 4-5 “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations”. May we lift our eyes unto the hills.
November 23, 2021
2Timothy 3:2 “For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy”
These prophetic verses, describing the nature of people’s hearts and actions in the last days, have that one characteristic that’s a defining marker, they are unthankful. Sometimes movies and literature look back to the past and glamorize the world before our time but history tells a different story. One of hardship, hunger, abuse, war, destruction, and disease where the average person had few or little rights, barely had any basic necessities, and spent their lives at back-breaking work with very few possessions. Our generation, even those who are poor by current standards, have more to be thankful for than any other time in human history and it’s hard at first glance, to understand why there are some who seem to be so unthankful, so depressed, and so angry. But unthankfulness settles on us from several directions, one of which is that we become so introspective, as the first part of this verse says, “lovers of our own selves” where the term means self-absorbed, self-centered, that when our only view turns inward, unless we find there the presence of the Holy Spirit, we only touch the nature of Adam and Eve residing within us and that nature is never satisfied even if it has the whole world at its disposal. This generation has been called the “entitled” and most of them have grown up immersed in almost everything they want and demand, so that nothing excites them, nothing amazes them, and nothing satisfies them. They expect their lives to be a certain way because they’ve never worked for any of it but have always had it handed to them. We saw this play out recently when we gave a teenage member of our family a ride to the Verizon store because her grandmother had told her she’d bought her a new iPhone and she could pick it up. The girl was so excited but when we got to the store and they handed her the new phone, it wasn’t the one she wanted and even though it was new and classy, it wasn’t the $1300 top of the line model and she was very angry, disappointed and completely unthankful.
History shows us every time there is a rise in the standard of living and an abundance of food and commodities, people lose their work ethic, become unthankful, live self-centered, and abandon morality and reason. What should be a time of great joy and overwhelming gratitude gradually becomes one of despair, boredom, and a desire to escape reality. Consider Ecclesiastes 5:12 “The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep” where the word “rich” here doesn’t mean dripping with wealth but rather a state of having more than enough. The trap the world sets is to paint a picture and promote an idea that if we only had more, then we would finally be satisfied but when that happens, we become unhappy and unthankful. This week is a time when we survey our lives, look back at past blessings, look around at how good the Lord is to us, and raise our prayers and hearts in thankfulness to the Lord, our God, and Maker. Believers need reminding of where we could be without the Master’s goodness and mercy and also that everything in this life is temporary and given to us for a purpose, part of which is that we can share what we have with others.
November 22, 2021
Mark 14:38 “Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak”
Trouble comes. This is what Job said in Job 3:26 “I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came” where the literal meaning is, I have no rest, no peace, and no quiet but trouble keeps coming and Job’s situation is a huge example of that. We even have old sayings like “trouble comes in threes” and “if everything seems perfect, look out, trouble is hot on your heels”. Even though we can’t always escape all trouble, there is a lesson from today’s verse when Jesus told His disciples to pray a prayer of prevention, asking for help before any trouble came. This is also a part of the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6:13 “And lead us not into temptation” where we are taught to ask God to direct our path away from trouble. In the natural realm, if we do the preventive maintenance on our cars, it will help us escape some costly and even dangerous disasters that are prone to come if we fail to do those simple things like changing the oil, checking the fluids, and other routine servicing. Homeowners can also dodge a lot of heartaches and expenses if they keep their homes in good repair and attend to possible problems before they occur.
The Lord has an order for us and when we walk in His ways, our journey is much better than if we try to manage on our own because the Bible says in Proverbs 21:2 “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth the hearts”. In the scene given in today’s verse, Jesus knew what lay ahead for Himself and His disciples and He was practicing what He preached as He agonized in the garden praying for help from His Father. He knew that for several days His disciples were going to be confused, afraid, and broken-hearted so His encouragement to them to pray for help even before the troubles began was the wisdom of our Eternal God on our human behalf. This type of prayer doesn’t always “pray away” the troubles but it looks to the Almighty for power and grace before the storms hit us and prepares us spiritually and mentally. Learning the principle of preventive prayer will have us thinking about the Lord’s prayer and today’s verse when we come to the throne of grace, realizing that even though we have confidence the Lord will never forsake us when we’re in troubled waters, it’s a wonderful thing to know we can begin to seek Him before the first signs of trouble appear. And then there are all the times we could avoid trouble altogether if we make better decisions and ask for wisdom from the Lord in dealing with life’s sticky situations. Our flesh is weak and the scripture tells us in Philippians 3:3 to “rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh”. An old proverb says “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” but a bit of prevention is also better than a pile of regrets.
November 21, 2021
Matthew 5:44 “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you”
The sermon on the mount was the Lord’s description of righteous living in the kingdom age which He was offering to Israel. And while these teachings are not God’s formula to obtain eternal life, they do reveal the mind and heart of God and the Holy Spirit calls them to our memory as patterns for us to ponder. And ponder is a good word for us to consider in the light of Proverbs 4:26 “Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established”. Today’s verse is about dealing with people who are against us, who may hate us, wish us harm, or in some way, seek our destruction, or are intent on hurling words of hostility against us. It’s the stuff that makes us angry in return and we’re tempted to hurt them just as much or worse than they hurt us. Then here comes the Lord, spoiling our sweet revenge with His teaching to lay down our weapons and words of retribution and begin to heap favor and blessings on the very people who are trying to hurt and destroy us. This goes against our nature and seems unfair when we give hurtful people the very opposite of what they’re dishing out to us. But the scripture is not muddled on this subject and we must see the Lord’s will in matters where our “hit ‘em where it hurts” wants to direct our actions.
Our suffering and dying Savior looked down from the cross at the people who were mocking and laughing at his pain, those who had screamed for His crucifixion and said in Luke 23:34 “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do”. The key to this is the words “they know not what they do”. People who do not know the love of God, who do not have the Holy Spirit within them, who are not living their lives in the will of the Lord only know the ways of this world. They live as they’ve been taught, powered by their flesh and carnal minds, and are as the Bible describes in Ephesians 2:3 “fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were (are) by nature the children of wrath”. As in many things for the believer, the old phrase “if not for the grace of God, there go I” applies in these circumstances. Breaking the old habits and mindsets of the world’s way of dealing with those who oppose us sometimes means we just do it by faith, pushing back against our nature and temptation to fight back. The Lord has promised He will settle our scores in His way because He alone knows every heart, every intent, and understands every circumstance. While He never wants us to be a doormat of abuse and will give us every opportunity to find a way of escape, He also wants us at peace with ourselves and has given us Romans 12:18 “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men” as our goal for our relations with others. May we claim the promise of Proverbs 16:7 “When a man’s ways please the LORD, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him”.
November 20, 2021
Colossians 3:2 “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth”
A big part of the current culture war is about global warming, what to do about protecting the environment, and what we can do to curb our throw-away materialism and one thing’s for sure, the focus of those concerned about the future is on the earth and its fate. In Christ’s time, an individual’s carbon footprint on the planet was mostly non-existent with the exclusion of a bit of smoke from cooking fires or a few logs when the weather was cold. The explosion of our upward-moving lifestyles and their increased consumption of anything and everything has backed us into a corner with our never-ending piles of garbage, industrial waste, and byproducts of a totally disposable society. Every time we haul our trash to our local dumping/recycling we’re amazed at what people are just throwing away. Televisions so big one man can’t pick them up to toss them into the trash crusher. Good-looking furniture, lawnmowers, bags of clothing, yard barns, dog houses, and anything you can think of being trashed, all being replaced by something else which will, in turn, be hauled to this same dumpsite shortly. I read a story recently about a man in Florida who goes through trash at his local dump and said he finds an average of 600 dollars a month in money people throw away not counting all the working appliances he takes and resells at a thrift store. Products travel in a line from Amazon, to homes where they sit for a little while, then to the trash. In today’s verse, the word affection means the mind and what it’s interested in, what we think about and the Lord is telling us to direct our thoughts upward to what is real and eternal not just what lies before us in this life.
The verse preceding this one says “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God” and the walk and conversation of a believer will reflect where their thoughts lie. We walk in two worlds since we still must engage the things of this life and navigate all its situations while at the same time remembering our citizenship is in heaven where are heading quickly. There is joy in our journey because we know that we are travelers and the thoughts of our destination keep us from being swallowed by the inevitable pitfalls in this world. Bob Hartman wrote the lyrics “we are pilgrims in a strange land, we are so far from our homeland. With each passing day it seems so clear this world will never want us here. We’re not welcome in this world of wrong, we are foreigners who don’t belong. We are strangers, we are aliens, we are not of this world”. If we are not of this world, then no wonder our Lord keeps reminding us in the scriptures to set our minds and what we think on our heavenly home, where Christ is, and where we will be soon. This life tries to blind us, bind us, and then tries to rob us of our heavenly vision while keeping us ensnared in all the mess here that can never satisfy. The Bible says in Hebrews 12:2 “Looking unto Jesus” and in Titus 2:13 “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ”. Maybe it’s time we look around us, take an inventory, decide what’s really valuable, and then fasten our eyes on the Lord and our heavenly home like Moses who the Bible says esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt because he was looking ahead to his reward.
November 19, 2021
Isaiah 40:11 “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young”
The last section of Isaiah, chapters 40 to 66, picture Jesus the Messiah and begin in verse 1 with the words “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God”. After 39 chapters of condemnation and judgment, with some verses of comfort sprinkled here and there, the Holy Spirit reveals the eternal will of God, after their sin has been confronted and dealt with, is to bless His people and restore them to the glory He purposed for them. God does not exist in a wrathful, vengeful state for the scriptures declare in Psalm 30:5 “For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning”. Concerning His determination to discipline and correct His people, the Bible says in Isaiah 54:7-8 “For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the LORD thy Redeemer”. Again, the truth is that God shows His love for rebellious Israel will not cease and He will not cut them off, cast them out, and even the punishment for their sin is a little anger for just a small moment. Believers should rejoice in the truth that our God is all good and any wrath, any punishment against our sins, has already taken place in the body of our blessed Savior Jesus Christ who suffered in our place. To us, our God is the God of all comfort, the wrath, which endured for a moment, is over and will never be displayed against us anymore as revealed in Hebrews 8:12 “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more”. Our fear of the Lord is not the fear of a child who cowers under the uncontrollable rage of a mean, psychotic dad who is liable at any moment to beat the whimpering child to a pulp, but that of loved and honored child who knows their Father is the creator of all things holds its very existence in His hands, and yet has mercy and compassion on His children who without Him would cease to exist. It is the fear of reverence and awe but smitten in love.
The revelation of Isaiah 40:11 is of Jesus the Messiah, the Good Shepherd of Psalm 23 who cares for His people and provides them with everlasting comfort. In this world, there is very little comfort and less so right now than there was a generation ago. The last remnants of comfort, such as a solid, loving family and the security of a safe, established home have been destroyed right before our eyes. Even regular evening family dinners of what we’ve come to call “comfort food” have disappeared and the growing trend is that others prepare our meals and we grab them at the drive-through or have them delivered to our doors or we microwave them and eat them on the go. But our Messiah is our comfort and has sent the Holy Spirit, the earnest, the down payment of our inheritance, as the comforter to live within us until the day He removes us from this world. Like a gentle shepherd would care for the sheep and lambs in his care, our Lord is with us, protects us, guides our steps, and provides for all our needs. The description in today’s verse where He feeds us, carries us, and gathers us in His protective care is showing us how our God has fastened His will towards and on us and would have us see Him in that light. The Bible says “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” where the word want means to lack, need, be in a lessened state and it is not that He is just able to take care of us, but the very character of who He is means He desires, wants, to do so. It pleases our God to care for us for the Bible says Psalm 103:13 “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him” where it means He loves, has compassion, shows mercy, and His heart is bent toward us. He never fails us and this is our hope, the wonderful comfort that surrounds us all the days of our lives and extends eternally in the heavens for us.
November 18, 2021
1Corinthins 2:9 “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him”
This fall, my wife and I have been enjoying the spectacular colors and the near-perfect weather. Some of the pictures shared online of our area here in upper east Tennessee show its beauty from the rolling hills and mountains to the foothills and grasslands and it’s hard to imagine a place more splendid in all four seasons. Sometimes we travel down to the beach and it has its own beauty but when we make the return trip north on I-26 and pass by Greeneville S.C. we start seeing the outlines of the mountains as we approach Asheville and no matter the lure of the low country, overall, the Appalachians offer such a variety of colors, terrain, and landscapes to us it looks like God’s country. But today’s verse says no matter what we’ve seen down here, no matter what wonderful sounds we’ve heard, and no matter what we’ve allowed our imaginations to create, nothing can compare to what our Lord has prepared for us. When Jesus said in John 14:3 “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” someone said if God can create the known universe in 6 days, imagine what must be waiting for God’s people when Jesus has been gone for 2,000 years.
There have been books written, songs have been sung, and sermons preached about our heavenly home yet none of them can describe it in a way that reveals its splendor. All we’ve ever known is this temporary life and we’re accustomed to its constant change. When Jesus spoke of John the Baptist, He said in John 5:35 “He was a burning and a shining light: and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light” which describes how we interact with everything in our world, it’s all season by season and each has its own beauty which fades and is replaced by another. But we are headed to our eternal home, built by God’s own hand for His precious family and its beauty will never fade. Things like happiness that come to us then get replaced by disappointment or stress will remain ours fully and eternal. Sorrow and sickness, constant enemies to our pleasure and peace here will never be known in our new home. Down here, the glory of youth with its strength and excitement fades but there, we will live in a land where we’ll never grow old. All the man-made beauty here, whether it’s buildings, material things, or artistic creations soon get dusty, dirty, and tarnished but in our new home, Jesus created it all and it will never lose its radiance and magnificence. The Holy Spirit has sent us a spiritual brochure and the Word of God has provided us with some snapshots throughout its pages but like a travel advertisement that only gives a glimpse of your destination, nothing can compare to the reality when we enter that country, our eternal destination.
November 17, 2021
Hebrews 11:13 “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth”
The Old Testament saints listed here in Hebrews 11, are said to have passed on without laying hold on the eternal promises but their eyes of faith saw them from a distance and they were convinced what they saw was theirs, eternal, and true. By faith, they welcomed the vision of the future unveiling of the dawning of grace and declared that was their real home. Those with this faith were not sidetracked or blinded by their present circumstances and they knew the law and all it offered was leading them to a better hope. Now we have a better vision as we walk in the New Testament covenant of Jesus Christ and what the Old Testament saints saw, like looking through a darkened portal with glimpses of what would come, we now see in the light of the revelation of our Lord. Their Word was that of the Old Covenant with its shadows and types and is called in Romans 8:2, the law of sin and death. Our Word is that of resurrection and life with Jesus fulfilling all the types portrayed in the law and He is what those Old Testament saints saw through their faith telescope of time. Even though their sight was imperfect and they could only see the promises from far off, they were still so strongly convinced of the reality of what they saw that it changed the way they perceived their lives and the way they lived.
We have a better covenant, established on better promises than the believers before Jesus (Heb 8:6), and with this comes the ability to see the future far more clearly. This should persuade us in an even stronger way than those in the past and evidence of this steadfast confidence can be seen in the faith of the multitudes of martyrs that have given their lives, often by barbaric torturing, yet they would not renounce their trust in Jesus. While the view of heaven seen by the ancients was real, it was nothing in comparison to the unfolded view we have especially in the book of Revelation and while the hope of eternal life guided them in their faith, our hope established through the substitutionary death of Jesus and His glorious resurrection, is the foundation of what the Bible declares in Heb 10:20 “By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh”. The Gospels lay out the plan for the kingdom and the Epistles open our eyes to the treasures we have as believers in Christ and partakers of His glory. Our prayer is that the Holy Spirit will open our eyes, give us understanding, and establish us in these better promises and the better vision they provide as the scriptures say in Ephesians 1:18-20 “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power”.
November 16, 2021
Romans 14:4 “Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand”
Romans 14 deals with what some people call personal convictions and others, referring to the same things, see them as opinions. It points out that Christians often hold different views about things and the differences sometimes cause us trouble in our fellowship. People’s views and opinions are often so strong these become the focus of their faith and the filter through which they see Biblical truth. And instead of the Word of God being the foundation for their faith and the light for their understanding, they begin interpreting the scriptures by their convictions and opinions. For example, I grew up in a Baptist church and the doctrine of baptism was that it was by immersion only in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. At the same time, the church taught baptism was not necessary for salvation and would even decry anyone who said it was a part of the plan of salvation. Yet if someone came to join the church even though they professed Christ as their Savior but had been sprinkled, not immersed, the church would not accept them until they were immersed. Later in life I learned there are so many opinions about baptism and each view seems to have its own following of people who will defend and argue their views until often they can’t fellowship with others around the person of Jesus Christ and His saving grace. From this chapter we see Christians at the time were divided as to what types of meat were permissible to eat and if some days were holier than others. If we read it carefully, we learn its all about opinions and not about what the Bible really teaches for the Lord allows them, in these matters, to believe whatever they want as long as they don’t try to force their convictions on others.
Romans 14:22 says “Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God” meaning whatever we believe about some things we should keep it to ourselves just between us and the Lord. If a neighbor cam across the fence and tried to correct our children or grandchildren, we would not permit it and in the same manner the Lord tells us here we are not to judge His children in their convictions as if we can tell them how to live. They are God’s children and they may seem like they are falling to us but He will hold them up. The Lord mentions that some Christians are weak, meaning they have not yet matured in the faith and walk with the Lord and they believe what they do not because the Bible commands it but because they are uncertain in their liberty. If we confuse their weakness as rebellion or disobedience, we are sitting in the seat of judgement or scorn and not walking as taught in Romans 14:13 Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way”. God allows us to keep our convictions and opinions as a way of honoring Him, made clear by Romans 14:6 “He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks”. Neither the person that regards a day as holy or one that does not regard it is holier than the other but if they both do what they do with the intent of honoring the Lord, He accepts their opinions. While this chapter mentions a couple of the issues prevalent at the time this Epistle was written, the principles cover a lot of issues we see in our churches and among the Lord’s people and may our prayer be that we will keep our convictions between us and the Lord and not expect everyone to live by our opinions.
November 15, 2021
Romans 4:3 “For what saith the scripture?”
There’s a lot of stuff being said. Most homes have a TV in every room, everyone has a cell phone, most people are connected to several social media platforms, cars come equipped with Sirius radio, podcasts are available by the zillions, and there are more news outlets than at any other time in history. People become millionaires by talking non-stop on their YouTube channel and any voice of any person anywhere in the world can get a platform to speak their mind at any time and potentially become a worldwide celebrity. How about that talk radio? Whew, a few minutes of all that craziness, and you wonder do these people ever come up for air in their continuous stream of dialogue? With so much information and disinformation available, everyone seems to be an expert on something or everything. Want to paint your kitchen or rebuild the engine in your car? There are a dozen videos online to teach you step by step. But today’s verse, taken from Romans 4 which explains how we become righteous when the Lord imputes or transfers the righteousness of Christ to us, asks us a simple question: What does the Bible say?”. It’s pretty amazing that out of the millions upon millions of words, ideas, opinions, instructions, and information, only a teeny tiny bit of it all includes what the Bible says in their flood of stuff being said. And the sum of the matter is that most of what’s being said is a bunch of hogwash and hot air. Maybe the nations of the world should consider it all as the biggest contributor to global warming.
Seriously though, Christians are too often caught up in the re-broadcasting of the world’s views and opinions and less apt to approach life’s dilemmas and circumstances with the simple practice of plugging in what the Bible says. Concerning the thoughts and views stemming from a Godless source, the Bible says James 3:15 “This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish”. Contrast this with wisdom based on what the Lord said in James 3:17 “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy”. Every day we make choices, decisions that sometimes affect the entire day or even many days or years ahead and often affect our families and their future. We allow the way we think, our worldview, and the patterns of life we establish to be persuaded and influenced by the voices of so many different sources, and sadly few of them are grounded in the truth of God’s Word. May the Holy Spirit bring the 4-word question to our minds, “What saith the scripture?” in such a way that we refuse to be any longer the bleating followers of the advice and opinions of the choruses of voices competing for our brains. Knowing what the Bible says and choosing to make it’s words our life’s path is the Lord’s will for us and this separates us from the world’s pied pipers and those who follow them.
November 14, 2021
Isaiah 53:5 “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed”
The sufferings of our Lord before the agony of His crucifixion, are beyond understanding. The Bible says in Isaiah 52:14 “As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men” meaning when people saw Him when He was beaten and abused, they were shocked, stunned because He was so disfigured, He didn’t look human. All their hatred, all the wrath of the devil, and all the contempt they carried against Jesus was demonstrated in the way they tortured Him. He was crushed for our sins, He was disfigured so that we might have peace, and the lashings, the stripes from the Roman whips that ripped his flesh open in a bloody mass of skin, tissue, nerve fibers, arteries and veins, was for our healing. Christians know God can heal and we have seen the evidence of that many times in our own bodies and in others but when we acknowledge God’s healing is not some random act of goodness on God’s part but that it was paid for by our Savior in His own body even before He died for our sins, it changes the way we view sickness when it comes our way. If we think this verse in Isaiah, the Old Testament was not for New Testament believers, the Holy Spirit puts that thought to rest when He inspired it to be repeated in 1Peter 2:24 “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed” and we see that His body on the tree, the cross, paid our sin debt but the stripes were for our healing. The events leading up to the cross, specifically when He was whipped, had a different purpose in the plan of God for His people, nothing in all the sufferings of our Savior were insignificant.
Sometimes people say they believe the Bible literally but there’s something about the promise of healing that causes them to pause and they back away from their assertive view that the Bible means what it says. They believe God will save anyone and they never say the Lord will save “if it’s His will” because they declare it is God’s will to save anyone that comes to Him. But they stumble a bit when they are faced with a believer’s sickness and say they believe He is able to heal if it’s His will, leaving the door open to question the literalness of the words “by whose stripes ye were healed”. This is where I was personally a bit over a year ago with the diagnosis of cancer. I believed God could heal but I wasn’t convinced He would heal me. The enemy and my flesh planted so many doubts in my mind that I became distracted from the literal Words of the Bible and began looking at the possibilities of the disease, the death statistics of those with similar cancer, and the stark facts that, like Job said in Job 3:25 “For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me”. I had always known that in this life cancer was a reality but had never dealt with it personally. It was the day before my cancer surgery that my wife and I completely submitted to the Lord and I said “Lord, I’m Yours. You made me and You saved me. You gave me Your Word that the stripes of Jesus were for my healing and I don’t know how You’re going to carry it out but You can’t lie. That’s an impossibility. However You do it is Your business but from this moment on, just as by faith I confess I’m saved by believing Your Word, I’m going to confess I am healed by Your Word”. So, I’m still alive and confessing Jesus is my Savior and He is my healer. Yes, doubts come sneaking, fear comes knocking, and uncertainty hollers out at me sometimes but, in the face of it all, God’s Word is true and I am eternally saved, eternally delivered, and eternally healed. All because He promised.
November 13, 2021
Mark 9:24 “And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief”
In this account, Jesus had just come down from the mountain of transfiguration and met a man whose son was possessed with a demon intent on destroying him. The Lord’s disciples could not cast out the evil spirit and the father of the child asked Jesus for help in verse 22 “but if thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us” and the Lord answered that if he had faith, all things are possible. This man’s response was a heartfelt, honest answer that tells not only his state of being but explains our own human dilemma concerning the depth of our faith. He believed but at the same time, there was a part of him that struggled, a battle between his faith and his unbelief. Every person of faith is also a person with human unbelief, rooted in the very marrow of our Adamic bones. Our spiritual DNA traces back to our first parents in the garden and carries their code of resistance to the Word of God so although the Holy Spirit lives within us we fight back against the very truths that faith embraces. Let’s notice the tenses of the Greek verb for “help” here. In verse 22, it is boēthēson, the aorist imperative tense, which means help right now, at this moment, in this instant while here in verse 24, it is boēthei, the present imperative tense meaning continuous help, spread out over time. He recognized the weakness and impurity of his faith to believe in the Lord on that level and was asking for long-term help to beat down the part that rises up in doubt. This was a truthful confession that laid bare the struggle that wars within us all and such an honest answer to the Lord helps us also approach Him with the same request.
A child-like faith for us is the baseline and for most people, it takes a lifetime of continuously purging out the things that contaminate such a simple, powerful faith. Our born nature is unbelieving and we grow up in, are always exposed to, and fully surrounded by a completely unbelieving world. Even our religious experiences are usually polluted with unbelief because they are organized and carried out by people just like us. The Bible shows us that those paradigms pillars of faith like Elijah, Moses, and Abraham stumbled in their faith at times revealing they needed help with their unbelief. The joy is that the Lord didn’t withhold healing for the child because the father’s faith was imperfect and neither does He chide us because of our same shortcoming. The Bible says in Psalm 103:14 “For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust” the word “frame” refers to our makeup, who we are, and our nature. When we believe God knows it and as we confess our faith in Him, the Holy Spirit helps our weaknesses and steers us away from the unbelief into a place of confidence in the Lord and what He said. False teachers have lied to people telling them the reason for their sickness and uncomfortable circumstances is their lack of faith as if God turns away from us when we don’t have super-sized faith but their lies are the way they hide their evil practice of deceiving and robbing people of their money. Jesus’ response to the man struggling with his unbelief was to heal the child proving He is not dismissive of us because we have less than perfect faith.
November 12, 2021
Proverbs 30:5 “Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar”
It is an honor to approach the Bible with the conviction that it is the most important thing that exists. Some may think that is a strange thought and especially in our human and environment-centered world where our emphasis on personal comfort and the protection of the planet seems to dominate our thinking. In the religious circles, they might argue opinions about God and philosophies are the most important things in the universe for after all, what is there that’s bigger than God and the understanding of Him? But God Himself said in Psalm 138:2 “for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name” and our Lord said the Word is forever established in heaven and when all creation passes away, the Word of the Lord will remain. Contemplating Genesis 1:3 “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light”, thinking about what happened when the Almighty spoke those four words and by just the authority of His Words creation as we know it began to unfold, tells us whether or not we believe the Bible is the literal Word of God. If so, we know that all that exists came into being by the power of God’s spoken Word. There is philosophical and theological terminology for it all, human words that are more difficult to pronounce than the simple truth of creation itself but knowing what the religious debaters say about it is not a factor in whether or not we believe the Bible is God’s Word. Not that it contains God’s Words for then there’s the thought that some of the scriptures may not be Divine and we begin the argument as to which ones are and which aren’t. If you believe the Holy Bible is completely God’s Word then you believe today’s verse which says every word of God is pure, terminology with its roots in metallurgy when precious metals are refined and are made completely free of contamination.
Every word of God means all of them and even though we are instructed in 2 Timothy 2:15 to rightly divide the scriptures meaning to expound correctly, a metaphor of cutting something carefully such as a stonemason or a craftsman cutting fabric to ensure a perfect fit when we teach that some words do not apply to us, we are in dangerous territory for the Lord can use any of His inspired Word at any moment to any person to meet His purpose. For example, some may argue the Old Testament especially the Law, should not be used to instruct those living in the present dispensation of the grace through Jesus Christ. And, while we know we are not bound by the precepts of the Law, every Word of God is pure and the Holy Spirit can take any verse in the Old Testament to reveal the Lord to anyone at any time. Throughout the New Testament quotations from the Old Testament are used to shine a light on further revealed truth. Words to the nation of Israel in the Old Testament are still used by the Lord to reach us in this age of grace such as Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool”. Although it was spoken at a specific time to the Jewish people, it is the eternal Word of God and is still reaching out just as it did thousands of years ago. The book of Psalms is another example that is such a blessing to us in the church age as it was and still is to the Jewish people. We know that when the Psalms says things like Psalm 1:2 “But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night” the pure Word of God is speaking to us about His Word, not just the law of Moses. May the Lord help us turn away from the ideas and persuasions of man and return to the Bible, to the pure Words of our Lord.
November 11, 2021
Psalm 23:5 “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies”
The pilgrim in Psalm 23, in the previous verse, is seen walking through the valley of the shadow of death but without fear of evil because the Lord is with him and here, with enemies all around, the Lord sets a table for him. The words describing a prepared table are a picture of a table covered with fine cloth, spread with a feast and servants attending, not at all what one would expect when surrounded by enemies. But the ways of the Lord for His children is to be with them in every situation, covering them with blessings and peace. We have His Word that His protection and provisions are provided for us at a table of favor in the darkest shadows of our valleys. Our God is with us, He is near us, He is for us, and He is attentive to every detail of the situation we are in. This applies to us as individuals but it also applies to us as a nation and we see the evidence on this Veteran’s Day when we look back at how the hand of the Lord has guided us from the very moments we settled this country, through all the battles we fought, and even now in the waning hours of this dispensation.
America’s enemies have been many and they have warred against this country from both inside our borders and from afar. Yet the Lord has prepared us a table of His favor despite their threats, their attacks, and their plans to destroy us. Even those who currently despise this nation, what it stands for and its blessed history which has made us what we are can’t silence the truth that we have been appointed of the Lord for such a time in history as this. Some of them occupy seats of government provided for them by the very constitution they openly despise yet by the will and purpose of God every dollar they’re paid, unworthily or not, is emboldened with “In God We Trust”. The emblems we have stood under, our flag, the eagle of freedom, and the cross of our Lord have represented who we are and America’s lights of hope and freedom have shined for over 245 years for the world to see. Since the founding of this country, over 1,324,701 have died in battle and untold others were wounded and scarred, numbers which many seem to either ignore or dismiss as they enjoy the freedoms, liberties, and abundance from sea to shining sea. We are afloat in blessings and excess yet so many people whine, complain, accuse, and revolt against the very foundations that secure our precious position among the nations of the world as a place of safety and opportunity. But on this day, there are about 19 million living Veterans and to them, we give thanks and honor and we look back to the many millions that have died with a heart of gratitude acknowledging that by their sacrifice, we have remained what God appointed us to be and we still eat at the table He prepared.
November 10, 2021
Nehemiah 4:3 “Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and he said, Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall”
After seventy years as captives, away from Israel and living in the foreign land of their captors, Nehemiah was urged by the Lord to return to Jerusalem and begin rebuilding the walls around the city. The walls had been broken down when King Nebuchadnezzar’s army had laid siege to the city when the Babylonians conquered it in 587 BC and as the Jew’s prophesized exile was coming to an end before they could return and begin the reconstruction of their nation and its cities including the capital of Jerusalem, the walls of protection had to be rebuilt. But as they began the enormous and difficult task of building the walls and repairing the gates, there were people who did not want the walls rebuilt because they did not want the Jewish people back in the land and they didn’t want Jerusalem reestablished. One weapon they raised against the laborers was the attempt to discourage them by mocking and taunting them and their work. Believers need to recognize that not everyone wants us to succeed and they are not rejoicing in our victories, sharing in our dreams, or happy about our work for the Lord. Like the enemies of Nehemiah and the construction crew, they would delight to see us fall and fail and are quick to point out our weaknesses and errors. The fact is, that some of the things the enemy was throwing in their face were true for they accused them in verse 2 of being “feeble Jews” and looking at them on their own, this was correct. They were few in number and faced a formidable task of cleaning up the debris and rubbish of the broken walls while building back the massive structure. But the enemies of God’s people made a serious error because they did not recognize the Jews had the power of the Almighty on their side so what seemed feeble to the enemy’s natural eyes was really an undefeatable heavenly strength.
In today’s verse, Tobiah jeered at them saying their wall was so insignificant and weak if a little fox walked on it the wall would break. Yet when he called it “their wall” he completely missed the mark for the wall was built by their hands but it belonged to the Creator of heaven and earth. People may dismiss what we do as unimportant, meaningless, or even foolish in their eyes but when we serve the Lord, it’s His work and it has all of heaven behind it. Consider Jesus said that even a cup of water given to someone in His name will be remembered and rewarded. Nehemiah had been commissioned by King Artaxerxes who had also provided him with material and letters of authority to rebuild the wall but the actual authority and will to start and finish the wall was from Almighty God so no threat, no ridicule, and no other distractions from any enemy could keep them from doing what the Lord wanted. Discouragement is a powerful weapon our enemy uses to try to get us to quit, lessen our efforts, or see ourselves as a failure when it comes to the Lord’s work, and if he can get us sidetracked or away from the task at hand it plays into his plan. But in the case of Nehemiah, the workers strapped on their swords, put their bodies, hearts, and minds into their task and the Bible says in Nehemiah 6:15-16 “So the wall was finished in the twenty and fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty and two days. And it came to pass, that when all our enemies heard thereof, and all the heathen that were about us saw these things, they were much cast down in their own eyes: for they perceived that this work was wrought of our God”.
November 9, 2021
Colossians 3:3-4 “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory”
This is one of the many paradoxes in the scriptures for it says we are dead but our life is hidden, concealed, with Christ in God. How can we be dead but still alive, hidden with Christ? This verse looks back to the previous chapter where before our salvation, we were declared dead in our sin, and then through the miracle of the new birth, we were resurrected as a new creature and are now alive in Christ Jesus. Baptism, as a type, is a picture of the old dead self being buried then raised from the dead as declared in Romans 6:4 “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life”. Adam was slain by the Word of God for his willful disobedience for when the law about the tree was explained to him before his sin, the Lord said Genesis 2:17 “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”. So this death is not what we consider as a physical death although that is the result for the natural body followed by the final death shown in Revelation 20:14-15 “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire”, but it is initially a separation from God where just as a dead man is unresponsive to the world around him, we are unresponsive to the Lord and the things of God: spiritually dead. Thanks be to God that even though we were dead, slain by the Word of God, the Lord was not willing to allow His creation to be destroyed by death for the Bible says in 2Corinthians 3:6 “for the letter (the law of God) killeth, but the spirit giveth life” and through the power of the Holy Spirit just as Jesus was raised from the dead we too have been raised to life by that same Spirit. Remember the words of Jesus “I am the resurrection and the life”.
Continuing with today’s verse, since we are alive with Christ, protected in God, we are awaiting the day when Jesus returns to claim that which is rightfully His. Not only the people who have been redeemed, but all of creation awaits the return of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The promise here is that when He appears, we will be with Him sharing in the glory. We were created to share God’s glory 2Corinthians 3:18 “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord”, Ephesians 5:27 “That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish”, and Philippians 3:21 “Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself”. That is our blessed hope when our Savior returns and we are revealed with glorified bodies, covered in the glory of God, and all traces of our old nature gone forever. It is the return of creation back to the garden in a sense for the tree of life, of which Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat of in the beginning, appears in our new home in Revelation 2:7 “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God”. It is further described in Revelation 22:1-2 “And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations”.
November 8, 2021
2Peter 1:4 “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust”
The evidence of God can be seen in creation as the Word says in Romans 1:20 “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse”. It is the wickedness of unbelief when people look at creation, the beauty of nature, the splendor of the heavens, the details of the orchestrated movements and cycles, and then declare there is no God and that all they see came to exist without Him. To make this unbelief even worse here we are, a nation founded on “In God We Trust”, but supporting and funding the lies of false science that deny the existence of Almighty God and pouring this corruption into the minds of generations of children in our publicly funded schools and universities. The cornerstone of modern science-falsely-so-called is the positions of anti-God, anti-Bible, and anti-Christian. Romans 1 further defines such a downward Godless spiral in Romans 1:21-23 “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things”. The Bible is saying that such teachers declare themselves as wise and they are esteemed by society for their roles and achievements in knowledge and education, usually holding prestigious degrees as badges of trustworthiness. And notice how the focus shifts from honoring the Almighty Creator to that which He has created making nature a god in itself. The root of this unbelief is the rejection of the Word of God as the source of truth even to the point of sneering at it and dismissing it as foolishness and all who believe its truths as unschooled and even dangerous to “progress”.
This is the corruption of the world mentioned in today’s verse and it is declared we have escaped it by believing the exceeding great and precious promises of our Lord and through faith in the Word of God, we are partakers, sharers of God’s divine nature. This truth of itself is more valuable than the whole world for it reveals salvation imparts God’s nature to us and we share this with Him as the word partaker means sharer, held in common, and associate. The Lord purposed it all by His Word and we receive it when we believe what He has promised as the Bible says Hebrews 10:23 “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)”. Remember the Centurion in Luke 7 who asked Jesus to heal his servant and acknowledged he believed the Lord could heal him at a distance by just speaking the words Luke 7:7 “Wherefore neither thought I myself worthy to come unto thee: but say in a word, and my servant shall be healed”. When we approach God on this level, believing everything He said is infallible, completely true, and more certain than the universe (Jesus said heaven and earth may pass away but my words shall not pass away) we are in the realm of glory where we are so different from this unbelieving world, so transformed, and delivered from the bondage of corruption we are free as the Lord said in John 8:32 “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”.
November 7, 2021
Leviticus 7:11-12 “And this is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which he shall offer unto the LORD. If he offer it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer with the sacrifice of thanksgiving unleavened cakes mingled with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and cakes mingled with oil, of fine flour, fried”
When the Lord gave Israel the Law, every detail pointed worshipers to the many attributes of God and specifically, to the person of Jesus Christ who would come to earth, satisfy every demand of the law, then fulfill the law in us through the Holy Spirit. In this portion of Leviticus, it is the first time in the scriptures that thanksgiving is mentioned and concerns an offering made to the Lord, giving thanks, and was an optional offering under the law, a freewill offering. It is interesting to us because it was a combination of meat and bread of which a part was given to the Lord, part was given to the priest, and part was taken home and eaten with family and friends, a sort of thanksgiving meal. Studies of the practice of this offering reveal it was given at times such as when people had made a safe journey under inhospitable conditions, when they escaped captivity. or when they arrived safely after a voyage at sea. Through the centuries Jewish people used Psalm 107 as an example of some occasions when thanksgiving offerings might be offered. Our devotion about Jonah gives us a vivid account where a Thanksgiving offering would be suited to the occasion but notice it is synonymous with what is called the sacrifice of a peace offering which was given as thanks to God for His generosity, or offered when one fulfilled a vow or offered when one had been delivered in a time of great need. It had nothing to do with repentance, atonement, the covering of sin, or appeasing the Lord’s wrath but was just a ceremonial way of giving thanks to the Lord.
It was sacrificial because it cost the offeror something in the price of the animal and the bread and was of such a quantity that after giving the other parts to the Lord and the priests, there was enough left over for a banquet. It’s easy for us to say thanks, as it has been said, words are cheap. But when we go the steps to make proper thanks, there is at least an effort on our part to demonstrate true gratitude. Many of us grew up in homes where the Thanksgiving meal represented an enormous amount of work and expense on the part of our mothers or grandmothers and some of them spent literally hours planning and preparing that one meal so the family could experience and enjoy something special complete with the great memories and those awesome leftovers. The thanksgiving offering under the law was a testimony of the person giving thanks to the goodness and graciousness of the Lord and as they shared the food with others, completing the ceremony and making everyone aware of God’s goodness to them, they were teaching their family and friends to remember the mercy and kindness of the Lord and that it should be celebrated. Likewise, when we are also celebrating times of thanksgiving, whether it is on our traditional Thanksgiving holiday or at any other time we give thanks publicly, we are sharing our gratitude to God’s goodness with our family and friends in ways that have tangible meaning. Let’s not be afraid or negligent to put some effort into it and make it a sacrifice of thanksgiving.
November 6, 2021
Psalm 95:2 “Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms”
When the Jewish temple was in the peak of its splendor, the glorious presence of God rested upon the mercy seat of the ark of the covenant within the Holy of Holies behind the veil. During times of worship, feasts, and holy days on the temple mount there was singing, music, trumpets, and rejoicing, and an understanding that even though the congregation was not permitted to enter through the veil, they were in the presence of the Lord. The assembly was encouraged by verse 1 of this Psalm to come singing and with a joyful noise which means shouting joyfully as they began to revere, honor, and worship God who is called the rock of our salvation meaning He is not just someone we talk about but the One esteemed as the rock, the foundation, the refuge of our salvation, our redemption, our deliverance. It was a time of great joy and happiness for the Lord’s people as the scripture points them to verse 2 above, to come into the presence of the Lord with thanksgiving. This is not to mean we don’t come to Him with our requests or with our needs but it’s a reminder that even when we do appear in His presence with heavy hearts, urgent requests, and even simple petitions, we recognize the Lord has promised to answer our prayers, meet our needs, and deliver us so approaching Him with thanksgiving is both looking back to what He has done and looking forward by faith to what He has promised to do.
After all, we are not beggars or employees, we are children of the King and our relationship with Him is that we acknowledge our Heavenly Father as the source of all good things as written in James 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning”. When the nature of our heart is one of gratitude, even though it is also filled with expectation, it is the testimony we are not just sponges soaking up all the blessings, taking the Lord and His goodness for granted, but we know who we are, we know how we became God’s child, we know what would have happened if we’d never trusted the cross, and we know that without Him we would cease to exist. This flies in the face of some teaching that we just barge into the throne room and layout our shopping list before the Lord because we are co-equal with Him. No, even though the scripture tells us to come boldly to the throne of grace in Hebrews 4:16, it is not insinuating a thankless, careless attitude. What we receive from our Lord, are gifts of grace that we didn’t deserve, didn’t earn, and couldn’t afford no matter how hard we tried but He loves us, wants to give us good things, and is pleased when we receive them with a heart of thanksgiving.
November 5, 2021
John 11:41 “Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me”
When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, it can be seen as the greatest resurrection of the three people He raised from the dead during His ministry on earth. Both of the other two, Jairus’ daughter and the young man at the city of Nain had only been dead a short time especially Jairus’ daughter which had just died before Jesus arrived at her house. People could have argued either or both could have been passed out and not really dead but in Lazarus’ case, he had been dead for four days, was already buried, and his sister knew his body had begun to decompose for she warned Jesus Lazarus had begun to smell of death. But this is the chapter when Jesus declared Himself to be the resurrection and the life and when He raised Lazarus from the dead it was a witness that He could not only raise the dead but He could reverse and restore a decomposing body. Job said it like this: Job 19:25-27 “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me”. He’s giving a glorious truth about the resurrection of the bodies of God’s people even after they’ve been decomposed by worms and their “reins” that is, their internal organs, have deteriorated. The sum of it all is that death has no power over us and upon this truth, Jesus raised His eyes to the Father in heaven and gave thanks for the gift of the resurrection and eternal life is the culmination of what all this gospel with its forgiveness, redemption, and salvation is all about. The Bible says in 1Corinthians 15:19 “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.”
The prayer of thanks Jesus prayed that day was a demonstration to those around Him of His union with the Father and even His body posture during the prayer directed their attention upward as the Bible said He looked up as He gave thanks and spoke the prayer. It’s the ministry of comfort when we are praying with people like Lazarus’ sisters and the others around the tomb that were grieving the loss of someone they loved, and we begin to point upward to One who has power over death and gives hope the grave is not the end. It is a time to give thanks for the truth of God’s Word and the promises He gives that carries our thoughts past the sorrow of what we feel at that moment and shines His light on something wonderful, something powerful, and something hopeful: a day of resurrection, a day of life. When we wonder what we can do to help people in their time of need, may we use this example and point them to the Lord by praying with them. Not just saying “I’ll be praying for you” but at that moment taking the time wherever we are be it in private or public to be the voice of prayer with them and for them. Even when we’re on the phone, we can say “if it’s ok with you, I’d like to pray with you right now”. We’re not just praying for our behalf but we’re doing as Christ did, that the suffering may believe our Father in heaven is ready to come to their aid.
November 4, 2021
Jonah 2:9 “But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD”
In yesterday’s devotion, we looked at Daniel who gave thanks to God before he was arrested and thrown into the lion’s den and today we look at Jonah, a man who also gave thanks to the Lord but from a different perspective. Jonah’s decision to rebel against the will of God was not so he could follow some path of forbidden sin, but because he didn’t want the people of Nineveh to have the opportunity to hear of the mercy of God and repent because he thought they were so wicked they should be destroyed. If that seems harsh, we should check our own hearts and examine how we feel when someone has committed a heinous crime perhaps murder of a child and when they are sentenced to prison, we hear they receive Jesus as Savior and we know He forgives them as if they’d never done a single awful deed. Jonah’s personal view as a Jew and as a believer in the Almighty was that there’s a depth of evil people can reach where they should not be forgiven and it was only after he was thrown overboard into the Mediterranean Sea and was swallowed by a whale that he begins to see it all differently. In a symbolic way, Jonah was the sinner who had rebelled against God, was sentenced to death in the ship, and ended up in hell, as he said in Jonah 2:2 “And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice”. All the presumption that he was more righteous than the people of Nineveh began to be stripped away and the arrogance that he knew better than the Lord who should or should not be offered mercy and salvation can be seen in his statement in today’s verse when he said: “Salvation is of the Lord”. The belly of the whale was God’s educational instruction course of Grace 101.
It was in the whale’s belly, Jonah’s belly of hell, that he not only prayed for mercy but he began thanking God. The Hebrew words for the phrase “the voice of thanksgiving” carry the meaning of singing or shouting with a loud voice, yelling like thunder, and is quite the description of the prophet in the pitch-dark, slimy confines of the fish’s stomach screaming out thanks to the Lord. The moment the whale opened its mouth, gulped him down, and he found himself alive inside the creature must have been quite a shock especially when he had all his wits about him and was not in a roomy cavernous place like the child’s video of Pinocchio depicts, but most likely constricted and unimaginably miserable. Jonah’s description is Jonah 2:5-6 “The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever”. But the realization that salvation is God’s business and that it applied to him and also to anyone else to whom the Lord directed His gaze of mercy, gave Jonah the courage, faith, and fortitude to cast aside enough of his panic and anxiety to do as he described in Jonah 2:7 “When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple”. Then he began thanking the Lord while promising to do what the Lord wanted and the whale spits him out. It’s a good lesson for us to give thanks even when we’re in our own version of a whale’s belly.
November 3, 2021
Daniel 6:10 “Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime”
There are times and seasons in our lives when we find it easy to give thanks. When we’re feeling good, when we have more than enough, when there is no adversity, when it’s a beautiful sunny day, and when we’re ready to eat our favorite meal. And how about when the medical report comes back good, the loan goes through, or we get prayers answered we’ve been waiting for? Those are times when thanks just come rolling off our lips and we’re smiling with joy. But Daniel wasn’t in such times in today’s scripture. King Darius had just signed a decree that if anyone was caught praying to any God except to King Darius, they would be thrown into a lion’s den, a punishment of a horrible and sure death. Yet the Bible says when Daniel knew this document had been signed, he did not begin to pray covertly or rationalize he should just comply with the law for its mere thirty-day rule, but three times a day he left his windows open as before, got down on his knees, and not only prayed but gave thanks to the Lord. The praying part we could understand especially if we imagine him praying “Help me Lord, please help me” but the giving of thanks in a moment of pressure, of what may be the last moments of his life when he was heard through his open window calling on the Lord God Almighty is one of the WOW moments of the Bible. As we meditate on the reality of the situation, it raises our respect for Daniel and points us to a path of faith so deep, so wonderful that pictures believers so securely in the hands of their Lord and Savior that nothing else matters for even their very lives belong only to Him and they are submitted completely.
This is the ground of our faith and allegiance to our God. Not a fair-weather commitment or one built on some expectation of prosperity or desired standard of living but one established on the infallible Word of God, seasoned by the Holy Spirit, and committed in a daily walk that places God on our heart’s throne and refuses to deviate even when it looks like the lions are closing in. Thanking God, praising Him in the storm or what seems to be a crisis with no immediate answer, is the mark of maturity and evidence we’ve already walked a path that’s led through troubled waters before and seen the faithfulness and goodness of God come to our aid. And we look up by faith knowing this time is no different and that He will not fail us nor forsake us but will either deliver us completely or like the three Hebrew children, He will be with us in the fire. Daniel said “thank You God when he heard the news prohibiting him to pray to the Lord. He said “Thank You God” before he was arrested. He said “Thank You God” before he was condemned to die. He said “Thank You God” before they threw him to the lions and he probably shouted “thank You thank You thank You God!” when the Lord shut the lion’s mouths. For us , it falls in line with 1Thessalonians 5:18 “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you”.
November 2, 2021
Matthew 15:36 “And he took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them, and gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude”
Growing up in our house, I never remember a time we ate without my dad giving thanks and it was such a part of our mealtime, none of us five kids ever thought about eating until the prayer of thanks was given. There was a regularity to our dinner, which we called supper, and when dad came in from work, mom had the meal ready to go and the prayer wasn’t one of those “good bread, good meat, thank God let’s eat” varieties, but it was from the heart and for anyone who knew my dad, it was prayed in faith. Faith that acknowledged the Lord as the giver of all good things, and faith that when food is eaten in accordance with 1Timothy 4:4-5 “For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer” this covered anything on the table from chicken to ham. The example our Lord gave us here in Matthew 15 when He was miraculously feeding several thousand with seven loaves and a few little fish, is that even as Lord of heaven and earth, He still pointed them all to the Heavenly Father as the supplier of the food and acknowledged it with a prayer of thanks. It’s not that we follow His pattern to make sure we avoid some sort of sin or prevent God from being angry, it is to establish our hearts in sincere gratitude for what we are about to eat and also, by faith, believing that the Word of God and prayer sanctifies the food, as said in the above verse of 1 Timothy 4. Even though a mealtime prayer can sometimes become another religious routine, when we make it a part of our conscious efforts to pursue a life where even the details are purposed to honor the Lord, it is an important part of the pattern of good works mentioned in Titus 2:7 In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works”.
It’s a blessing to be in a restaurant or café and see people bowing their heads, giving thanks before they eat. And as a part of the cultural surrounding, it’s a manner of expressing their faith as a witness that’s to the point but still on a personal level since they aren’t standing up before everyone there, leading all diners in corporate prayer. The right to pray privately yet in public over our meal is one of the few opportunities believers have to bear witness to their faith and is something the enemy tries to squelch by making us embarrassed or self-conscious as to be seen by others in a simple act of giving God thanks. Jesus did this before He broke the bread and fishes and demonstrated such an act points people to God, focusing on Him as the One due all praise and honor, instead of the food itself. But not just a witness honoring the Almighty Creator, it’s an act of submission as we confess we are the recipients of God’s grace and not paying our own way on this planet. When we give thanks to someone for a deed, service, or something they have given us, we’re acknowledging our indebtedness to them and it’s a posture of humbleness. So, as a part of our goal to be thankful and have a truly thankful heart, may we be reminded every time we eat, be it a simple peanut butter sandwich or a mouth watering gourmet steak, to point our hearts heavenward as did our Savior, and give thanks to our Father in heaven.
November 1, 2021
Colossians 3:15 “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful”
We enter the month of November, the season we celebrate Thanksgiving, looking back and reflecting on the goodness of the Lord and His great blessings to us. Our world is so much different than it was 20 months ago when we first heard of Covid 19. Months of isolation, sickness, death, shortages of normal commodities, and widespread uncertainty along with divided opinions on wearing masks, vaccinations, and personal rights and freedoms disrupted what normalcy we had. And even now it continues with government deadlocked over vaccination moratoriums, mask mandates, and a myriad of other concerns all centered around the continuing battle with this disease. Considering today’s verse, it’s been hard for believers to let the peace of God rule in their hearts when whole congregations have suffered through Covid outbreaks, church members including pastors and their wives have died, and even children have suffered and died from this virus. For the thousands that were on hospital ventilators and their families unable to even be in the room with them, it was times of torture down to the moment they died. Remember the images of people peering through the nursing home windows at their aged moms and dads, unable to visit with them in person because of the lockdown? Yet the Word of God remains unchanged no matter the circumstances and how they affect us. So how can we let the peace of God rule in our hearts and be thankful in spite of what we’ve seen and experienced in the last 20 months? By faith, believing the Lord is still the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him and even in these times of uncertainty, He is still certain, faithful, and fully in control.
Let’s be thankful, for that is God’s will for us and, knowing we are redeemed, eternally secure, blessed, and provided for, we have every reason to come before the maker of heaven and earth with a grateful heart. Since the church began almost two thousand years ago, believers have walked by faith as the Bible says in Galatians 2:20 “and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me”. This faith, inseparable from our hope, is the basis for our peace and rejoicing declared in Romans 5:1-2 “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God”. This faith tells us we will come through all this because the Lord will bring us through. This faith tells us we can look forward to a better Thanksgiving Day than we had in 2020 because we were quarantined last year. This faith tells us that our God will continue to guide our steps and prosper us because He’s our Heavenly Father and will not forsake His children. No matter what we’ve been through, no matter how frightening or uncomfortable it’s been, the Lord is our light at the end of the tunnel and as it is repeated so many times in the scriptures, “and it came to pass”, this uncertainty will come to pass.