come away

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. (Mark 6:30-34, NRSV)

Jesus called the disciples away to rest.

Do you take time to rest?

Take time away?

Just unplug and do nothing?

Read a good book, relax by a lake, on a beach, with friends and family?

Jesus listened to all the disciples had done as He sent them out, and when they were done telling Him, He said come away with me and let us find some time to rest and recharge.

We need to take that time with Jesus.

So listen and when He says come away and rest, go and do it!

Hope in you

Happy is the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people whom he has chosen as his heritage.
The LORD looks down from heaven;
he sees all humankind.
From where he sits enthroned he watches
all the inhabitants of the earth—
he who fashions the hearts of them all,
and observes all their deeds.
A king is not saved by his great army;
a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
The war horse is a vain hope for victory,
and by its great might it cannot save.
Truly the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him,
on those who hope in his steadfast love,
to deliver their soul from death,
and to keep them alive in famine.
Our soul waits for the LORD;
he is our help and shield.
Our heart is glad in him,
because we trust in his holy name.
Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us,
even as we hope in you.
(Psalm 33:12-22, NRSV)

You are our shield and our help!

You will protect us from harm and be a shade and a shelter to us!

Lord we hope in you and ask you to fill us with your steadfast love.

Even as we hope in you…

Easy to say.

Sometimes very hard to do.

But a king is not saved by his great army, and a warrior is not delivered by his great strength, they all rely on the Lord.

And in the Lord we can hope.

When we can’t see any hope, God is/will be our hope!

Citizens with the saints

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God. (Ephesians 2:19-22, NRSV)

We are citizens with the saints! Gathered together in love and in your mission Lord!

No one is excluded, the stranger and the alien are not outsiders any more but have been welcomed into the family!.

We are the dwelling place of God!

We are the citizens with the saints!

no better than slaves

for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.  My point is this: heirs, as long as they are minors, are no better than slaves, though they are the owners of all the property; but they remain under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. So with us; while we were minors, we were enslaved to the elemental spirits of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God. (Galatians 3:26-4:7, NRSV)

I’ve read this passage many times and heard points argued around it.

But today I read something that has missed my attention before.

It really just drives home the point. In Paul’s day the order of the household went:

Father

Sons

Mother

Daughters

Slaves

But if the children (sons or daughters) were minors they were no better than the slaves!

So those who will control the house, until that point comes are in a sense still property.

And in that sense we are all the same under Christ. No longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, man and woman. We are all the same in the eyes of God.

We are all no better than the slaves, but what a great master to serve!

promise

What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
“I will live in them and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
Therefore come out from them,
and be separate from them, says the Lord,
and touch nothing unclean;
then I will welcome you,
and I will be your father,
and you shall be my sons and daughters,
says the Lord Almighty.”
Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and of spirit, making holiness perfect in the fear of God.
(2 Corinthians 6:16-7:1, NRSV)

I will live in them and walk among them, and I will be their God.

What a promise!

Sometimes it is hard for us as humans to believe in promises. Because we know what it is like to be on the end of a broken promise. To have someone tell us we can trust on them and they let us down.

And sometimes it seems like we are losing everything around us, but even in the darkest valley, God is always with us, and He will never break His promise. The rainbow reminds us of that!

So allow His love to permeate your life as He fills you with His Spirit, and let Him ever walk with you!

we cry

for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. (Romans 8:13-17, NRSV)

Do you remember that time when you got hurt and you reached up and cried, “daddy!”

You knew that your dad was going to be there to pick you up and make everything better.

He was going to kiss away the pain and make the world right again.

And that is what we have in our Daddy God. Abba means daddy, it is a very personal word for the male parent.

And the Spirit of God resides deep within us, and helps us to call personally on God the father, so much so that we can call Him daddy!

He will be there to pick us up and kiss away the pain and make everything right with the world.

So cry out! Daddy!

the power

powerThe true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:9-13, NRSV)

I’ve got the power!

Do you remember the song by Snap?

It was in the movie Bruce Almighty…

That is what I thought of as I read this passage today.

“But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the power to become children of God…”

He gave us the power!

So you have the power through Him to be born not of blood or of the will of the flesh but of God.

So take hold of the power and follow after the creator of the universe!

And if you would like, here is the video of The Power by Snap:

destined

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.  (Ephesians 1:3-14, NRSV)

According to the good pleasure of His will we have been destined to be children of God.

Adoption is not always something that people want. Sometimes it is a long hard road they go before they get there and in order to get there they had to lose something near and dear to them.

And all of that is true for us to as children of God.

You see it is His good pleasure to adopt us, to make us His own, but do we want to be?

You see when we become God’s we have to give up control of our lives, over what we do and how we do it.

It is the fight between a parent and a child when the child wants one thing but the parent knows that is not the best thing for the child. So the battle ensues…

But the promise of God is our being a part of the inheritance, of His kingdom. He has chosen us, and has done it before the setting of the world in motion, to be adopted by Him. irregardless of your thought s on the matter.

So He has adopted you, and made you His own.

Will you fight it?

Will you battle to have control?

Will you forfeit the inheritance?

What will you do, because God loves you and has chosen you?

persecuted without cause

My soul languishes for your salvation;
I hope in your word.
My eyes fail with watching for your promise;
I ask, “When will you comfort me?”
For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke,
yet I have not forgotten your statutes.
How long must your servant endure?
When will you judge those who persecute me?
The arrogant have dug pitfalls for me;
they flout your law.
All your commandments are enduring;
I am persecuted without cause; help me!
They have almost made an end of me on earth;
but I have not forsaken your precepts.
In your steadfast love spare my life,
so that I may keep the decrees of your mouth.

It is funny that I saw this Coffee With Jesus cartoon the same day I went to read this passage and write this devotion.

You see it is said there is always 2 sides to every story. Well I think that there are 3 or more sides. There is the side of one person, and the side of the other person and the truth of the matter which is probably somewhere in between the 2 of the sides…

But we all think we are on the side of God. We see our point of view and we look in the scriptures, and we pray to God and ask for guidance, and sometimes we walk away with the answer we knew we would get. And when we get a different answer we look again or ask again.

We feel like we are persecuted without cause, but someone has a cause, and that just might be that they think they are on the side of God.

I can say this from past personal experience. I was persecuted without cause in my mind. I believed that I was right and those who opposed me thought that they were right, and who was right.

I would venture to guess that neither of us were totally right. We needed to meet somewhere in the middle, but neither of us were willing to bend.

Sometimes we have to give up what we think is right to actually get to the truth, but that is always easier said than done.

So know that even when you are persecuted without cause, there is a cause, and be willing to bend to see if the truth will be revealed!

come to bring peace?

“So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows. “Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven. “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:26-39, NRSV)

Do not think I have come to bring peace…

Jesus is our prince of Peace, but here He tells us that he came not to bring peace but a sword.

You see when Jesus enters our lives and we allow Him to have space and our lives are changed, we can be turned against our family. We will see life differently than they do and we may have strife. This is why Jesus comes first, before mother, father, daughter,son,wife, husband. Jesus takes control of our lives and we are changed in ways the world may not get.

And because of that there may be battles.

Jesus does not mean for us to be set against our families, but when He enters and we are changed, sometimes strife is an outcome.

If we take up our cross and follow, He will be with us and even in the midst of strife we will have peace.

Even with the sword we will have peace.