Do you need a fresh start?
This week’s devotions are based on the Week 2 “A Savior Born for You! (WATCH HERE)
Everyone likes a new start. With New Year’s Day just a few weeks away, perhaps it’s that time of year that you mentally and perhaps physically reset and feel like with a new calendar year, you have a new set of days, weeks, and months to do life differently than you did in the previous year. New things can energize us. A new job renews our joy of going to work. A new car feels less heavy than the old one that needs repair. A new friendship is invigorating to have new perspectives in your life.
When people came out to see John the Baptist, they were perhaps initially intrigued by his person and appearance. He was a bit quirky, wearing camel skins for clothes and eating locust and wild honey…not necessarily mainstream for even the time. Yet in their curiosity of his presence in the wilderness, was the opportunity for God’s Spirit to use John to change hearts and lives. He used his message of repentance to call them to change. He used the gift of baptism to remove the stain of guilt and sin and then used the call to produce fruits of repentance as the invitation to live differently than they had in the past.
People looked for direction to no longer live the way they were, but to honor the new life of forgiveness they have been given.
Luke 3:9 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
10 “What should we do then?” the crowd asked.
11 John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”
12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”
13 “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them.
14 Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”
He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”
When the Spirit of God takes hold of our hearts, we begin to believe, think and live differently. We no longer allow the selfish, sinful nature to compel us to live for our self-pleasure, but we live to love God and love the people around us.
The Apostle Paul put it this way: 2 Corinthians 5:14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
Like anything new, it may take some getting used to, but in this case the new life in Jesus underneath the reality of his love, grace and forgiveness is much greater and more enjoyable than living for self and taking advantage of people.
Enjoy living today in the new life that God’s Spirit has and is working in you!
Apply: What one thing in your life is the Spirit of God guiding you to change to conform more to the likeness of Jesus and producing the fruits of faith?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for giving me a new start to live for you! AMEN!
Get cleaned up!
This week’s devotions are based on the Week 2 “A Savior Born for You! (WATCH HERE)
Washed!
Acts 16:29 The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
31 They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” 32 Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. 33 At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized. 34 The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole family.
After a long day working in the yard, a hard fought athletic event, or just a few days without and you are ready for a shower. There is a refreshing feeling that we all enjoy when we get cleaned up after getting sweaty and dirty and water washes that all away.
Taking a shower is also part of getting ready to head out on a date, or welcome guests into our home. Usually, when we have friends over for dinner, we don’t greet them as we were when we finished cleaning up the yard, but rather after we have showered and cleaned up. We are “presentable.”
Baptism is part of our preparation for the coming of Jesus. We don’t want to meet him with the sweat and dirt of our sin, but rather with the clean, fresh reality of our sins and guilt being removed by the waters of baptism.
The Apostle Paul in the passage above had the privilege of bringing this cleansing to the prison guard who was ready to end his life. Paul and Silas were in the stocks of the prison when an earthquake made it possible for all the prisoners to escape. The jailor, instead of waiting for his superior to take his life for losing prisoners, was about to take his own life. Fortunately the words of Paul stopped him and Paul got to witness about Jesus to him. As a result, the wounds of Paul and Silas were washed, but Paul got to wash the wound of sin away from the jailor and his whole household (which would include his children). He was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God–he and his whole family.
Imagine the refreshment to his heart when he moved from suicidal to being saved, from being overwhelmed with guilt and hopelessness to being forgiven and filled with hope.
This is the same refreshment we can enjoy as we await for Jesus to return. Satan loves to fill our hearts with guilt and hopelessness. It’s easy to allow this voice to take hold of our mind and heart. It’s easy to allow it to remove our joy and peace and fill us with stress and anxiety. That’s the time to remember our baptism.
In our baptism we are fully assured that all our sins are forgiven, washed away. We are assured that we are a child of God and promised eternal life. Sure, we will struggle with sin and we never want to give up that struggle, but we can always have hope and joy in our baptism because we are fully washed.
Titus 3:4 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.
Enjoy the refreshing reality of your baptism and the joy it brings as you wait for Jesus’ return!
Apply: What feeling do you get when you are done with a shower? How does you baptism do the same thing for you spiritually?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for the washing you gave me in my baptism. Help me to always live int the joy and refreshment it brings! AMEN.
Make a U turn!
This week’s devotions are based on the Week 2 “A Savior Born for You! (WATCH HERE)
Make a U-turn.
Has your electronic map ever told you to make a U-turn? Before Google Maps was the predominant mapping app, stand alone GPS units would have various voices help you navigate your route. When they sensed you were going the wrong way, the command was, “Make a U-turn as soon as possible.” Whether you heeded that advice was your choice. The newer mapping apps seem to just “reroute” you if you missed a turn. The distance may get longer, but the alternate route is suggested.
This parallels how we can deal with sin in our lives. It’s not easy to admit we have made a mistake and take measures to make a U-turn. It’s easier just to move past it and find an alternate route around the sin. As a result the action that was wrong is minimized with the thinking, “No big deal. I’ll just take an alternate route.”
Repentance is God’s call to make “U-turn.” The option isn’t just “alternate routes” that accommodate the sins we want to commit, rather the commitment is to turn away from the route that involves the sin we love to commit.
In this Advent season, John the Baptist, is a key figure as he preceded the public ministry of Jesus and was tasked with preparing hearts for his teaching and work. The call wasn’t just to take an alternate route in Jesus, but rather confronting head on the sin that was in people’s hearts and warning them to “Make a U-turn!” “Repent!”
In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea 2 and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” (Matthew 3:1–2).
The people around John were dealing with sin, just like you and I do. Perhaps the ones that were visible to John were sins of the heart that came out in actions. The Pharisees thought they were good with God because of their performance with religious laws and ceremonies. They were wrong and needed to turn from their dependence on self to dependence on the LORD. People of the Jewish lineage claimed that they were good with God because they had the genetic code of Abraham. This too was a false security that John calls them to turn from and realize that children of God are not by blood descent but by faith decent. Others came who were cheaters and thieves that John called out to turn from their sin.
If John were speaking to you directly this morning, what U-turn would he be calling you to make? Is it a sin of pride and ego that makes you more important than others? Is it the sin of laziness and sloth that keeps you from using your days and potential to the glory of God? Is it a sin of anger and bitterness that harbors ill-will toward someone? Is it sins in the closet of your life that have not been exposed publicly, but God knows? Is it an addiction that needs to be overcome? We all have sins lurking within and need the GPS “God’s Positioning System” to redirect us away from sin to a life that walks with him and fights vehemently against sin. There is not just “alternate routes” that allow sin to exist, but rather a loving, yet stern “Make a U-turn!” call from a God who loves us and people who love us enough to warn us that the path we are on is not going to end well, but a path walking with the Lord is where we want to be.
Consider this a call to make a U-turn…and I hope you will do the same for me!
Apply: What sin is God calling you to make a U-turn and turn from today? Ask the Lord to overcome the temptation and walk more closely with him!
Prayer: Lord thank you for putting people like John the Baptist in my life to warn me of the danger of my sin and turn me back to you. AMEN.
Roadwork!
This week’s devotions are based on the Week 2 “A Savior Born for You! (WATCH HERE)
Road work.
For all seven years we have been in Texas, we have seen site preparation crews at work on different properties preparing the ground for the building of subdivisions. The first step usually is clear cutting all the vegetation on the land with maybe the exception of a few older oak trees. Then the graders and front loaders and bulldozers come into level out the areas where roads will be. In our area of Texas, this is not always the easiest because 4” under the top soil is limestone. So large jackhammers on the front of backhoes bang away to make the high places low and level. Eventually the work is done and the road is ready for traffic.
The process of preparing a roadbed is a lot of work, but the end result is one that has to be satisfying. Where only one could go with an offroad vehicle, now can be safely navigated by any passenger vehicle.
Spiritually speaking, this is the type of work that Isaiah prophesied John the Baptist would be part of. However, preparing hearts for the coming of Jesus probably was more challenging than leveling a piece of ground for a road. Yet, that was the task given to John the Baptist. Isaiah the prophet foretold his work in these words (Isaiah 40:3-5):
3 A voice of one calling: “In the desert prepare the way for the LORD;
make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.
5 And the glory of the LORD will be revealed,
and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
What makes the hard work worth it, is knowing what the end result will be. Spiritually, the hard work of spiritual change, repentance, and walking with the Lord can be very challenging. We love to hold on to our “pet” sins that come so naturally and easily. Like solid granite, the sin in our hearts can be hard to remove. Lust, pride, greed, revenge, laziness, etc. all can lurk within us. The jackhammer of God’s law can point out the sin and the consequences, but our sinful nature doesn’t give up easily. Yet, when the Spirit of God goes to work, it is possible to overcome these temptations and remove the guilt these sins create.
Why go through the hard work of repentance and heeding the law of God? Because the end result is worth it. “The glory of the LORD will be revealed.”
When my heart and mind is clouded by sin, I can’t see fully the love and grace of God. If sin continues to cloud my heart, I will miss out eternally on seeing the glory of God in heaven.
So the “road preparation” is not fun but necessary.
When we see God’s work on our heart as an act of his love to prepare our hearts to more fully receive and experience his grace and glory, it gives perspective to the hard work.
So let the Spirit go to work…making low the mountains and raising up the valleys.
Apply: What work is God doing on your heart to hammer out sin and help you see his glory more fully?
Prayer: Lord thank you for your love that is willing to tackle the sin in my heart and life and replacing it with your grace and forgiveness. AMEN
Don’t ignore the radar!
This week’s devotions are based on the Week 1 “A Savior Born for You! (WATCH HERE)
At dawn of December 7, 1941, the United States Pacific Fleet was caught by surprise by the Japanese naval fleet and air force bombers. While the naval command was aware that the Japanese wanted to attack US interests, they did not think that the Japanese navy could sail 4000 miles across the Pacific and launch any kind of meaningful attack without being detected. Here’s a reflection from an article entitled, “The Radar Warning that Went Unheeded” (https://pearlharbor.org/blog/warning-went-unheeded/)
Early on the morning of December 7, 1941, George E. Elliott, Jr. was manning new radar equipment, a state-of-the-art SCR-270, on the northern tip of Oahu alongside fellow serviceman Joseph Lockard. A few hours later, the tragic events of that day started to unfold. Would things have turned out differently had a radar warning they called in been taken seriously?
At just after 7 a.m., Elliot noticed an unusually large blip on the radar, something that seemed to indicate a rather large flight. Unsure of what the signal could be, Elliot made a call to the Information Center at Fort Shafter and was advised no one was available and he would receive a call back.
Moments later, the callback came through and Lockard answered. On the other end was Lt. Kermit Tyler who was quick to dismiss the large blip as a dozen American B-17 bombers arriving from San Francisco, a judgment call that, had it gone the other way, may have prevented the complete surprise of the impending Japanese bombardment.
With Tyler’s mistaken reassurance, Lockard was ready to pack up and end his shift but Elliot insisted on tracking the signal, partially hoping to use the incoming flight as practice on the new radar warning system. By 7:39, the blip had vanished entirely into mountains of Oahu. Almost immediately after the signal disappeared, Elliot and Lockard were pulled off duty to head back to base for breakfast. Upon their arrival, the two learned of the Japanese attack. Among the enemy forces were 183 Japanese fighters that Elliot had spotted on the radar.
It’s safe to assume that, even if Tyler had heeded Elliot’s warning, the attack on Pearl Harbor still would have been devastating, but some sort of preparation—even ten minutes notice—might have saved lives of men who were unprepared for the surprise bombing.
The story of Pearl Harbor reminds us of a couple things for our spiritual lives.
- Never underestimate the enemy. Satan is working to take us out and prevent us from growing in our relationship with Jesus. Sometimes we think we are “safe” but Satan surprises us with temptation.
1 Peter 5:8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
- Always stay watchful. Attacks can come at any time. We must stay spiritually alert and understand the warning signs that temptation and spiritual attack can always be looming.
Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. 41 “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”
Apply: What measures can you take to avoid a “Pearl Harbor” spiritual attack?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for those that have given their lives to protect our country. We also ask you to keep us always vigilant against the attacks of Satan. AMEN.