On Tip-Toe

Today I am making available the 2018 Christmas devotional “Mary I Have News” both in a Kindle edition and in paperback. The concept for the theme this year began with a song I wrote last year for our young people to sing for a Christmas program. So often we think of Christmas on that Silent Night when Jesus was born in Bethlehem. But the birth announcement by the angel to Mary marked the moment when God came and entered the world secretly while angels stood on tip-toe to see what God would do next!

The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the sons of God coming into their own. Romans 8: 19 Phillips version

Does it seem that Christmas has become tedious or even a bit boring? I recently learned a lesson from our grandson Alex as we walked to the nearby fire station one morning. Along the way he picked up every seed and stick stopping every few feet for new discoveries. When we got to the fire station, he peered through the windows at the fire trucks and even opened their letter box to see their mail!…

Excerpt from Day 1: Mary I Have News: 30 Christmas Reflections (Kindle Locations 27-32). Kindle Edition.

Mary I Have News

Mary I Have News!

Washing Feet

So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, 5 and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him. John 13:4-5 NLT

One of the most overlooked events leading up to Easter is when Jesus washed His disciples’ feet. A few times in my life I have been blessed to be a part of a foot washing ceremony. It has been an amazing experience, but Jesus was not talking just about a ceremony. Foot washing was simply a practical everyday need in the ancient world. People walked everywhere and the dusty streets got everyone’s feet coated with dirt and grime. Washing someone else’s feet would be like us going over to a friend’s house to do their laundry or take out the garbage.

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For most of us the challenge is not just the job, but the servant’s place we must take to do it. Because we associate who we are with what we do it is easy to think that we will lose value if we begin to act like servants. But Jesus left us more than a command. He left us His example. The question then is “What is the job God has called me to do?” If He washed feet to show His love how can I do otherwise? We can wash feet, take out the garbage or change diapers all because we trust Him. We can do the small things without getting big heads and show the world, foot by foot and generation by generation the depth and the beauty of the love of God for us!

So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, 5 and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him. John 13:4-5 NLT

One of the most overlooked events leading up to Easter is when Jesus washed His disciples’ feet. A few times in my life I have been blessed to be a part of a foot washing ceremony. It has been an amazing experience, but Jesus was not talking just about a ceremony. Foot washing was simply a practical everyday need in the ancient world. People walked everywhere and the dusty streets got everyone’s feet coated with dirt and grime. Washing someone else’s feet would be like us going over to a friend’s house to do their laundry or take out the garbage.

For most of us the challenge is not just the job, but the servant’s place we must take to do it. Because we associate who we are with what we do it is easy to think that we will lose value if we begin to act like servants. But Jesus left us more than a command. He left us His example. The question then is “What is the job God has called me to do?” If He washed feet to show His love how can I do otherwise? We can wash feet, take out the garbage or change diapers all because we trust Him. We can do the small things without getting big heads and show the world, foot by foot and generation by generation the depth and the beauty of the love of God for us!

Daily reading from Easter Reflections

Available in e-book of softcover

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Hope of Healing

That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses      Matthew 8:17 KJV

Did you know that God is so intimately concerned with our physical needs that He has even counted the number of hairs on our head? We have a great hope that whether in this life or in the next; God will heal every disease, restore all that is broken and renew our youth like the eagles!
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Whether sitting in a wheel chair in a nursing home or confined to a bed with a tracheotomy tube in order to breathe, Jesus offers the hope of complete and entire healing as one part of His promise of eternal life. That promise may be overlooked or forgotten by those in perfect health, but God does not forget. The same Jesus who was moved with compassion for lepers, the blind and the lame has promised to wipe every tear from our eyes. He not only has compassion for our aches, pains and disabilities but the Bible tells us that He took all of these onto his shoulders and carried them. If we continue reading in the chapter of Isaiah that Matthew quotes we see in the very next verse that it is by His stripes that we are healed. God is so very concerned for every one of our pains and infirmities that He allowed a whip to fall across the shoulders of Jesus. As He was wounded again and again we were being healed. Weak arms will be lifted, failing voices will sing again and deaf ears will hear the shepherd’s voice! When the things of earth have passed we will stand strong and eternally young in the presence of our ageless King!

Excerpt from 50 Days of Hope – A special devotional for residents, workers and family members of the long term care community.

50 Days of Hope

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