Daily devotion

More Grace

/ pastorpete51 / 7 Comments 
 When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives my brothers, don’t resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends. James 1:2 J. B. Phillips

All of us want grace, yet few of us enjoy experiencing the desperate need that drives us to ask God for it. I rarely stray from the more literal translations, but I loved the way that J. B. Phillips captures for us the essence of the message the apostle James in this passage. I have discovered that finding grace is often not simply about either thanking God for blessings or enduring difficulty, but it is about the way with which I greet them. Lately the lyrics of “He Giveth More Grace”, written by Annie Johnson Flint, more than a century ago, have been playing on a constant loop within my heart. Though Annie was a brilliant and God-fearing woman, her life was filled with difficulties right from the start. When Annie was just three, her mother passed away while giving birth. Then a few years later, her father also died, though not before giving her up for adoption to a young Christian couple who were friends of the family. Annie came to faith in Christ early in life, and things were looking up as she went on to begin a career as a teacher. But an early onset of Rheumatoid Arthritis, brought suffering into her universe and her adopted family sent Annie, her sister and some cousins on a trip to Switzerland, in hopes that the climate might do her good. Yet after a brief and blessed time of rejuvenation and strength, Annie came down with a fever and was diagnosed with Typhoid. Though she did ultimately recover, the disease left its toll. Yet, in spite of these fiery trials, rather than her experiences leaving Annie feeling defeated, it was during this time that she, began to write the words to today’s hymn:

He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greatest
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase
To added affliction He addeth His mercies
To multiplied trials His multiplied peace!

His love has no limit
His grace has no measure
His power has no boundaries
Known unto men
And out of His infinite
Riches in Jesus
He giveth and giveth
And giveth again!

Like the Apostle James, Annie had learned that the trials, which came her way, instead of being harbingers of failure, were actually friends, bringing with them God’s unending grace and strength. I do hope you will enjoy our rendition of this hymn. My friends at Watermark Assisted Living know more of what it means to lean on God’s grace than most of us and it was a real blessing getting to sing it with them.

God’s Arrival Time

/ pastorpete51 / 2 Comments 
The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. Lamentations 3:25-26 ESV

Our oldest grandson flew home last night from a visit with friends back in Pennsylvania. His family went to pick him up at the airport, and while his dad checked for the flight’s arrival, the younger ones milled around looking for snacks, but, the fourteen year-old, with his newly acquired cell phone decided to begin texting, “Are you here yet Amadeo? How about now? Now? Now? Now? Now?”  Since it was a family group text, soon all our phones began pinging like a popcorn machine at the movies.  While Alex was having a blast, the rest of us were left rolling our eyes. But just then God reminded me that sometimes I am just like Alex. In my prayers I have been asking; “When are you going to fix things, bring evil men to justice and give us peace? How about now? Now? Now? Now? Now?” Maybe Alex’s enthusiastic impatience makes me laugh so hard because we are alot alike. In today’s verse the prophet Jeremiah, shares with us what God had taught him after the destruction of Jerusalem. Thousands of soldiers had been killed, tens of thousands of civilians had starved to death during the siege, and most of the survivors were marched off as slaves. There had been no miraculous rescue or escape for God’s people, and yet in the midst of the devastation, God showed Jeremiah that He was still in control. God’s plan for him was to as Kipling once wrote, “keep your head when everyone around you is losing theirs.”  No matter how bad things get, we must believe that God’s “Now!” is way better than ours and that His goodness and salvation extends far beyond the arrival time we are hoping for in our prayers!

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Lifting Up the Serpent

/ pastorpete51 / 3 Comments

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:14-15 NKJV

In today’s digital age, only a few of us remember reading the Sunday paper. For me one of the great luxuries of a Sunday afternoon, was to peruse the headlines, then the sports section and finally the funny pages. My favorite was a comic strip named “B. C.”, by cartoonist Johnny Hart, who specialized in light humor sprinkled with a hint of Biblical wisdom. One of his most memorable scenes was a panel of the club wielding cave woman who had just whacked a dazed snake over the head. It gave us a humorous reminder of the reputation that serpents have maintained ever since Eve took that first bite of the apple. Today’s verse reminds us of a story from the book of Exodus when God sent Moses out into a crowd of folks dying from snake bites, carrying a bronze serpent on a staff. Since those snakes are a representative of evil and sin it makes me wonder why Jesus was willing to become like that.

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The answer goes all the way back to Genesis, to a conversation that God had with Adam, Eve and the serpent after the man and woman had sinned. Interestingly, God didn’t begin with Adam or Eve. Instead, He started by pronouncing judgement on the serpent, and ending by saying, “He shall bruise your head, and you will bruise His heel.” So, even before Adam and Eve were given their list of consequences, God set in motion a plan for their redemption. That redemption was pictured in Exodus, when because of the people’s sin they came under attack by a slithering horde of venomous snakes. Then, right in middle of the death and chaos, God sent Moses out into the crowd with that serpent, so that anyone who would look towards it would be healed. That seemed pretty bizarre to me the first time I read it, but I realized later that it gives us a perfect picture of what Jesus did for us. While we were spiritually dying from the venomous bite of sin, God sent His Son out into the crowd of us mortally wounded sinners and allowed Jesus to be lifted up on a cross. On that dark and terrible afternoon, with blood dripping from His wounds, and drunken soldiers gambling for His clothing, He was lifted above the chaos, so that a thief dying next to Him, a Roman executioner and a cowardly disciple named Nicodemus, could look to Him and be forgiven and transformed. Jesus took the poison of sin from our bodies and accepted it into His own. God so loved the world that He gave us Jesus to die in our place, so that anyone looking to Him in faith could be healed. For six terrible hours He hung there, but now for eternity His is lifted up to Heaven offering sinners like you and me eternal life, if we will only look up to Him!