Archive for Devotional with Hymn

We Are Not Home

2021-07-09 Devotional with Hymn, Magnificent God No comments

Genesis 15; Hebrews 11:9-16

Abraham was heir to some of the most magnificent promises God ever made to a human being. Yet he didn’t see them fulfilled in his lifetime. He was to be the father of a great nation, but his single heir wasn’t born till he was one hundred years old. The promised land was to belong to his seed, but he spent his entire life living in tents, moving from place to place. The only land he ever owned was a burial plot for his wife.

He lived as an alien, a stranger, a foreigner, an exile, always temporary, always in a strange land, never a citizen, never belonging.

But he was not alone. The biblical history of God’s people is permeated with the pain of separation. Adam and Eve were forced out of their garden home, never to return. Noah lost everything and everyone in the flood, except for seven members of his immediate family. Joseph’s own brothers sold him into slavery in a foreign land. Moses lost his Jewish family, then his home in the Egyptian palace, then spent eighty years in a brutal wilderness—forty as a shepherd, and another forty leading a rebellious people. Israel spent 400 years in a foreign land, much of that as slaves, then later lost their home, their nationhood, and their dignity in a bitter exile. The prophets, John the Baptist, Jesus, the disciples, the Apostle Paul, all knew the gnawing sorrow of separation, of living where they never belonged.

We know that deep sorrow as well. Many of us know what it’s like to live much, or all, of our lives where we know we are not home.

All of us know the restless yearning of separation from our Father, our Creator. We groan under our troubles and sufferings, longing for perfect peace in Him. Even the joy of His presence makes us conscious that we are not yet completely, constantly one with Him. Each taste of Him increases our sense of separation and longing.

But realize that such longing is itself a precious gift from our loving Father. It creates a deep, undying sense of anticipation. Just as hunger focuses all our attention on food, and as the thirsty can think of nothing but water, our separation from God pulls us toward the fullness, oneness, and completeness that will soon be ours in Jesus Christ. He is the longing that overshadows every joy. He is the joy that eclipses all suffering. In pleasure and pain, today and forever, He is our only satisfaction.

Every experience, every struggle in life can bind our hearts closer and closer to Him.

The emptiness, pain, and sorrow
of our present existence
continually remind us of this truth:
Jesus Christ alone is
life as it was meant to be—
full,
rich,
joyful, and
everlasting.

Hymn: The Only Good Is Jesus

A Seed Must Be Planted

2021-07-02 Devotional with Hymn, Magnificent God No comments

1 Corinthians 15:35-58

That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body;
it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory;
it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;
it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
(1 Corinthians 15:36, 42-44, NASB)

As we stand at the funeral of a loved one, their absence feels so complete and forever. The death of this body, this fragile vessel, seems to be the end of life itself. It feels like the eternal loss of a unique individual unspeakably precious.

But our Father reigns beyond the veil of death, and He assures us that for those who trust Him, the death of the body is the beginning of life, not its end. Ours is not a life that ends in death, but a death that ends in life. This body is planted like a seed. A seed only comes to life after it dies. It falls into the earth and disappears, only that a beautiful new life may grow from it.

The death of our bodies is the necessary first step toward a glorious new life. Every seed is planted, not to destroy life, but to create it, life infinitely greater and more glorious than its humble seed. The death of this body is not the annihilation of a life but its preparation for a future unimaginably greater. This life, this unique individual will rise as a radiant new being, fully like the risen, glorified Christ.

This broken body has served its temporary purpose and will hamper this child of God no longer. This beautiful soul will be given a new body, one designed to glow with the greatness and goodness of God Himself. It will be a body made, not for earth, but for heaven. It will be perfectly suited for love, joy, and worship in the very presence of God Himself.

What is being sown as a perishable body will be raised imperishable.
It is sown in dishonor, it will be raised in glory.
It is sown in weakness, it will be raised in power.
It is sown an earthly body, it will be raised as a body made for heaven.
This mortal being will be clothed in the splendid garments of immortality.
Death will be swallowed up in life.

“O Death, where is your victory?
O Death, where is your sting?”
Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord,
knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.
(1 Corinthians 15:55, 57-58, NASB)

Hymn: Sown in Tears, Raised in Joy

Sharing His Life

2021-06-25 Devotional with Hymn, Magnificent God No comments

He will swallow up the covering which is over all peoples,
Even the veil which is stretched over all nations.
He will swallow up death for all time.
(Isaiah 25:7-8, NASB)

My wife and I have enjoyed browsing through antique shops. I got hooked on them years ago when I collected old books. So when she and I got the chance to spend a weekend away together, we decided to tour the small towns nearby and visit their shops.

The weekend was wrapping up, and we were in Gower, Missouri. In a small store there I came across a funeral card for a man who had died in 1887. Reading the card, I couldn’t help thinking about that man. He brought to mind the countless individuals around the world who have come and gone, seemingly unknown and unremembered. So many people. So many generations. We are like flowers. We bloom and proudly spread our petals toward the sun, only to die as quickly as we came, leaving little sign of our coming or our going. What difference does our living make? What does it matter that I, or any of us, were ever here?

We are surrounded by a stream of death that flows unceasingly through our world, engulfing all life, threatening to wash away all concept of meaning and significance. For me, antique shops quietly testify to that. They are graveyards for our treasures. When we’re gone, the things we counted precious are left behind to sell for pennies or to gather dust. They sit there on the shelf, mocking the foolishness and futility of our lives – lives hungrily invested in what is doomed to quickly pass.

As I stood there and saw myself as part of that stream of death, I was reminded that there is more.

I am not just a physical body that is dying even now. The life in me is the life of my Creator. He has shared it with me, and His life is unending. He is not a God of death and darkness, but of life and light. His life will not die with this body, and this world is not His final arena of existence or meaning.

What is more, I can know Him. I can know Him personally and live in a relationship with Him. I can please Him and talk to Him. I can learn of Him and grow in Him. I can fulfill the purpose for which I, and all this, was created.

That’s what I want above anything else. I want to become the person He designed me to be.

When redemption is complete and
God’s final judgments are pronounced,
death itself will be destroyed forever.
It will disappear from all creation, and
life will reign and abound everywhere—
life unchained,
deep and profound,
as rich and magnificent as God intended.

Hymn: Ash Wednesday Hymn

Ashes to Ashes

2021-06-18 Devotional with Hymn, Magnificent God No comments

We do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. (2 Corinthians 4:16, NIV)

We’re all engaged in a battle to keep our bodies healthy and attractive. It’s a worthy effort.

But it’s a battle we will lose. Our bodies will decay and die. It’s happening right now.

On the other hand, that inner core of your life, that relationship with God, that inner life you share with Him, can grow more and more healthy as time goes by, no matter what happens to your body. That’s where your future lies. That’s where you should invest your effort.

Jesus, I look forward to ever-increasing health in You.

All the care we lavish on our bodies does only
a little good
for a very short time.
Nourishing our relationship with God is
infinitely fruitful
today and forever.

Hymn: Ashes to Ashes

The Inevitable Reality

2021-06-11 Devotional with Hymn, Magnificent God No comments

Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven (Matthew 6:20, NIV).

To most people, even Christians, too much talk of heaven is not intellectually respectable.

We squirm when Jesus talks so often about trying to gain rewards in heaven. That isn’t much of a motive for doing good, is it?

But Jesus had seen heaven, as well as earth. He had a unique perspective on the shortness of life here. The heaven that we feel is so far away is upon us even now.

Jesus pointed to heaven as the ultimate and inevitable reality. He urges us in the strongest terms to be wise – to live our brief lives with that reality in full view.

Jesus emphasized the coming judgment
over and over,
in the strongest terms.
He had seen life from both earth and eternity, and
He urged us to live with eternity in view.
Look all around you: we are
temporary creatures living in a
temporary world.
All we see and touch is
quickly passing.

Hymn: Captives of Eternal Love

Children: God’s Living Promise

2021-06-04 Devotional with Hymn, Magnificent God No comments

Children are a gift of the Lord. (Psalm 127:3, NASB)

Why does our loving God continue to send helpless infants into this horrific world? They arrive totally dependent, entering every conceivable circumstance, including the most cruel and inhumane. There they are too often neglected and brutally victimized by the darkest human evil.

Why does God continue to send us children?

Remember God’s promise to Noah. Faced with the relentless evil of the human race, God gave us a new start through Noah and his family. Then He promised all life on earth that no matter how awful evil became, death would not win. Life would win. Then He gave the rainbow as His beautiful reminder of that promise.

Children are God’s living rainbow. They are His gift of life, of future, of hope. They are His beautiful, tender, tangible assurance that, in the face of all that evil can do, LIFE WILL WIN.

Evil seems powerful and pervasive.
But its time is strictly limited.
It is a beast that
charges in and rages
but is doomed to die.

Hymn: Snowflakes

Live Love

2021-05-28 Devotional with Hymn, Magnificent God No comments

All those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need.

Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. (Acts 2:44-47, NASB)

Imagine a world where everyone loves everyone else, sincerely, from the heart.

Imagine a place where people speak of each other only what is true, and only what will build each other up;

  • a place where everyone treats others the way they themselves want to be treated;
  • a place where self-centeredness, greed, and fighting are gone;
  • a place where people live each day as joined to everyone else, as part of each other, as members of one body;
  • a place where gentleness and kindness are highly prized;
  • a place where forgiveness, patience, and forbearance are the norm;
  • a place where need is no more, since each person shares what they have, freely and unafraid;
  • a place where everything, everything is done in love.

Wouldn’t you like to live in such a place? That’s the kind of world our Creator is building. And that’s the kind of life He wants for you. He wants to grow it in you. He wants to help you live such love in your home, on your job, in your neighborhood, among your friends. And He wants to start today.

But how could anyone live such a life in this world of greed and brute force? What’s more, how can we live that kind of love when selfishness is so deeply rooted within us?

The good news is this: God is love (1 John 4:16). Our Creator is love. The One who designed this world designed it for love. The One who designed us designed us for love. Love is our purpose, our heritage, our destiny. Love is the rich life, the full life, the natural life that He is giving to every one of us.

A life of love is not an heroic feat of self-control. As we trust Him simply, step-by-step, we grow in Him. As we grow in Him, He grows in us. His love grows in us. It begins as a tiny seed and grows into a beautiful tree that gives shelter and nourishment to everyone around.

Look around you.
The entire earthly kingdom that runs on
greed and
self-indulgence,
now so dominant and pervasive,
will be judged by Almighty God and
utterly destroyed.
He will create a brand new society.

Hymn: Lord, You Are Love

Invest in Forever

2021-05-21 Devotional with Hymn, Magnificent God No comments

“Lift up your eyes to the sky,
Then look to the earth beneath;
For the sky will vanish like smoke,
And the earth will wear out like a garment
And its inhabitants will die in like manner;
But My salvation will be forever.”                                                 
(Isaiah 51:6, NASB)

Earth is temporary.
God is forever.

Don’t invest your life in material things.
Their satisfactions are shallow and temporary.
Don’t fear people.
Don’t focus on pleasing them.
They are here for only a breath.
God and His marvelous blessings
will last forever.
No matter how this temporary world looks or feels around you,
invest your life in Him.
Seek Him.
Worship Him.

Father, our physical world seems so
lasting and
all-encompassing,
but You know it will
burn away like
a morning mist.
Don’t let it seduce us.
Keep our hearts fixed on You.
You are truth.
You are forever.

Hymn: Great Lord of All Reality

All in All

2021-05-14 Devotional with Hymn, Magnificent God No comments

Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. (1 Timothy 1:17, NASB)

Christianity is not a philosophy. It is faith in a Living God who acts in human history.

He is the Creator, the source and fountain of all reality. All that is flows from Him.

In him we love and move and have our being (Acts 17:28, NIV). Life is His personal gift to us, and He constantly works to enrich it in us. To all who will simply trust Him, He offers His own Spirit, with all His peace, love, and sufficiency. All that is good happens through Him. We could not seek Him, know Him, or come to Him on our own, but He relentlessly works to draw us to Himself.

He is the goal of all life. He is our destiny, our culmination, our heaven, the sum of all reality. All creation is moving toward Him. As we trust Him, each of us is becoming one with Him and in Him.

From him and
through him and
to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever!
(Romans 11:36, NIV)

Human history seems to be
an endless parade of
conquerors,
wars,
famine, and
death.
Victims are forever awaiting justice.
But all this is not
our source or
our destination.
Creation began in God Almighty,
high and exalted.
It will culminate in Him.

Hymn: I Cannot Tell

Praise

2021-05-07 Devotional with Hymn, Magnificent God No comments

I will extol You, my God, O King,
And I will bless Your name forever and ever.
Every day I will bless You,
And I will praise Your name forever and ever.
Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised,
And His greatness is unsearchable.
(Psalm 145:1-3, NASB)

The more I know God, the more I realize that my response to Him is cold and inadequate. He is the Sovereign God, the Creator who overflows our sprawling universe, the One who holds insignificant me in His hand and in His heart, who constantly lavishes on me His attention and His most tender love and care, the One who poured Himself out and groaned and bled and died for me. Yet my response to Him is so occasional, so shallow, so distracted, so half-hearted.

I don’t necessarily want more emotion in my worship. I want to be more aware of God…to always be centered on Him…to have an open line of communication between us every moment…to trust Him simply and constantly.  I want to spend less time longing for what I don’t have and more time thanking and praising Him for all that He constantly gives me. I want a living praise, a continual response to His presence.

The Psalms prod me toward such praise:

Praise the Lord, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name. (103:1, NIV)

I will praise the Lord all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. (146:2, NIV)

I have no hope that I can give Almighty God adequate praise. But His Spirit is faithfully drawing me to Him. The closer I live to Him, the more natural and heartfelt praise becomes. Read Isaiah 6 and Revelation 5. Those who stand before God’s throne need no prodding to praise Him. How can they possibly do anything else?

That is my destiny. That is the destiny of all who trust Him. We will live in His immediate presence together, forever, responding to Who He is:

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing:

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!”
(Revelation 5:13, NIV)

One day, the reality of
all Jesus is and
all He has done
will sweep all creation up into
one mighty response of praise,
full heart and
full voice,
forever and ever!
Even then, His greatness will
far overshadow our small response.
For eternity His
overwhelming magnificence
will draw us into lives of
ever increasing worship and love.

Hymn: Psalm 148

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