Archive for Devotional with Hymn

Reflecting Back

2017-05-03 Devotional with Hymn No comments

What is it like to follow God?

When we respond to His call and follow Him, we are saying “Yes!” to His invitation of love. We are fully embracing a love that never quits, that gladly sacrifices itself completely for those it holds dear.

If you’ve loved a spouse or raised children, you’ve had a taste of what love requires. But look at the life of Jesus, or the Apostle Paul, and you’ll get a fuller idea of what it means to follow God and live His all-giving love.

It’s demanding. Often draining. Sometimes frustrating…and overwhelming.

It lays bare your every weakness, every vulnerability, every failure.

It is a tornado that catches you up and spins you helplessly around. It seems to threaten all you hold dear.

It’s heart-wrenching. At times it dangles you over the brink of despair.

But following God unites you with Him. And in that union, your life becomes infinitely more than it ever could have been. Now you walk as a full-fledged citizen in realms higher and holier than you know you deserve.

When you look back over the years, you see part of what God has accomplished through your stumbling obedience. It’s stunning, and humbling. His grace, operating through your imperfect faith, has made you fellow workers with a God who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20, NIV).

Brothers and sisters, when Almighty God comes to you making lavish demands and lavish promises, follow Him, even at the risk of utter failure. Your failure might become the most important thing you have ever done.

To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:21, NASB)

Listen and sing:
Hymn: You Are Good
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The Value of Singing

2017-05-01 Congregational Song, Devotional with Hymn, Hymns No comments

I love singing hymns – hymns of many types and styles. Singing is such a beautiful way of expressing the Word that Christ has planted in us. As we sing, we share that Word with each other. We affirm it together. And we lift it in praise to our God and Savior.

Augustine (and later, Martin Luther) said, “He who sings prays twice.” I never understood that statement until I began singing as part of my prayer life. Singing involves the entire being. It starts from the heart and catches up the mind and body as well. When we sing, we embrace God’s Word physically, mentally, and emotionally. Prayer rises from our whole selves.

As we trust the Word that God speaks to us, joy overflows, and singing is one spillway for that joy. Singing is the music of faith. I’ve long felt that if we have the truth, saying it is not enough. The truth longs to come to life. It cries out for full expression. It yearns to sing and dance, to celebrate with life and feeling and physical joy.

Singing does that. Singing sets the truth free.

Singing unites us. Think of what’s happening when we sing together in worship. The Word of God is in our hearts and minds and on our lips. We lift it to God together. We unite with each other and with Him.

Hymns express our beliefs about God–our theology–but they do so in terms that are heartfelt and life-centered. Yes, abstract, factual hymns have been written, but they generally don’t last. The hymns that God’s children love to sing are those that speak their faith with warmth and vitality, in a way that resonates with personal experience.

Hymns are a feast for the body, mind, and spirit. Enjoy them completely! Don’t just listen to hymns. Sing them! The most life-changing songs are not the ones we hear but the ones we sing. As Paul urged the young church in Colosse, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God” (Colossians 3:16, NIV).

Sing! Sing to God! Sing from your heart!

Listen and sing:
Hymn: The Reason We Sing
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from Prepare Yourself for Worship

2017-04-28 Devotional with Hymn, Prepare Yourself for Worship 2 comments

When I Worship You

Father, when I worship You, I simply, honestly acknowledge Your reality.
You are, and
You are who You say You are.
When I worship You, I acknowledge
what You have done and what You are doing.
Worship doesn’t require advanced intelligence or complex reasoning.
When I worship, I am responding in simple faith
to You and to the truth about You:

You are the Creator.
All that is flows from You.
I flow from You, my Father.
You are eternal.
You envelop all time, all the past, present, and future.
You are the First and Last, the Beginning and the End and
everything in-between.
You are All-in-all.
You are holy.
You are pure, and
You are transcendent.
You are separate, high above everything and everyone else.
You are our Redeemer,
our Savior,
our Sacrifice.

Father, when I worship You,
I am drawn deeper and deeper into Your magnificence.
When I focus on You,
I think and talk less about myself and
more about You.

And Father, worship is contagious.
As we worship, we draw each other into that worship.
Worship will crescendo until
one day it envelops all creation (Revelation 5:8-14).

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Revelation Worship
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The Key to Fruitfulness

2017-04-26 Devotional with Hymn, Pictures of God No comments

from the devotional book, PICTURES OF GOD

Read John 15:1-8; Hebrews 12:1-11

How can you be fruitful – in your daily living, in your relationships, in your service, and in prayer life?

Remain in the vine. All your fruitfulness flows from Jesus Christ. Just as His relationship with the Father was the key to His fruitfulness, so it is with you. Your relationship with the Father through Jesus is the key to your fruitfulness. Do everything you can to nurture your relationship with Him. Make that the #1 priority in your life, just as Jesus’ relationship with the Father was His constant focus and deepest desire.

Our Father will do all He can to increase our fruitfulness. How?

Every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit (John 15:2, NASB).

The Father prunes us. Such pruning is essential if vines are to produce the very best fruit possible. The vine’s precious sap cannot be wasted supporting branches that are unfruitful. Only the fruit-bearing branches may remain.

So it is with us. The Father prunes or cleans us of any unfruitful elements in our lives. As we allow Him, He cuts away anything in us that drains our time, attention, energy, and resources without bearing fruit.

How does God prune us? By His word (v.3). His revealed wisdom teaches us how to live fruitfully.

  • By His Spirit. His Spirit applies His word to our individual lives.
  • By other means of grace, such as the Church and our fellow believers.

Pruning is not a one-time process. As with branches in a vine, things grow up in our lives that drain away our attention without bearing fruit. If our lives are to bear the best fruit possible, these unfruitful elements must be regularly pruned away.

Study and prayerfully apply God’s word. Be diligent about the means of grace. Stay tuned to the Spirit’s voice. The writer of Hebrews likened this pruning to parental discipline when he wrote: 

All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. (Hebrews 12:11, NASB)

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Remain in Me
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God Is Drawing Us to Himself

2017-04-24 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Do you hear God’s Word continually prodding you?
It is urging you to
give thanks to Him!
Sing to Him!
Rejoice in Him!
Praise Him!
Trust Him!
Hope in Him!
Delight in Him!

Do you hear God calling?
God is calling us to Himself.

He is the source of
all life,
all love,
all blessing,
all that is good for
heart and soul,
mind and body.
So out of a deep longing for our very best, He is
pursuing us,
inviting us,
eagerly drawing us to Himself.

If you want all the riches that life offers,
seek the God who is seeking you.
Talk to Him.
Walk with Him.
Confide in Him.
Love Him.
Follow Him.
Turn yourself toward
your Source,
your Father,
your God.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Psalm 33
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from Prepare Yourself for Worship

2017-04-21 Devotional with Hymn, Prepare Yourself for Worship No comments

Seeing a Greater God 

Even after many years of following You, Father,
much of my life makes no sense in light of
who You are.
You are perfect power,
perfect wisdom, and
perfect love.
Yet the faith I live is so weak.
My thoughts and actions proclaim a God who is
only a vague shadow of You,
a God who is
limited and
unreliable.
So much of me is still unmolded by the truth of
all You are.
My daily walk is clouded by
ignorance,
fear, and
self-centeredness.

Almighty Father, I long to know You in a way that is
all-transforming.
I want to respond to You
always,
constantly,
for all You are.
I hunger to think and speak and walk
each moment
in the light of Your full greatness.

Continue to draw me to Yourself.
Through
prayer,
Your Word, and
Your loving discipline, Father,
help me to
see You more clearly and
trust You more simply.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: High and Holy Sovereign God
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Living in a Saturday World

2017-04-20 Devotional with Hymn 2 comments

A Reflection for the Easter Season 

I am an Easter Sunday person
living in a Saturday world.
The resurrection is still a hope for tomorrow.
Today the tombs are still full.
Today the world is still dark,
aching for the dawn.

With Jesus,
my death is still a brutal reality.
With the disciples,
I still grapple with weakness and uncertainty.
With Mary,
I deeply grieve the seeming loss of one
inexpressibly precious to me.
With Peter,
I still mourn my shameful failures.
I mourn my inconsistency.
I mourn the dimness of
my vision,
my faith,
my love.
The truth is so vast and glorious,
yet I am so small and cold.
I am a follower of Jesus Christ
yet so very unlike Him.

But today,
right now,
in the grip of all this Saturday darkness,
the debt for all my wickedness
is completely, forever paid.
Today Almighty God intimately shares with me His own Holy Spirit
every time I ask and trust.
Today I am His –
His child,
His treasure.
Today my life is hid with Christ in God.
Today my future is secure.
Today my eternal life in Him
has already begun and
will never end.

So today, throughout this long Saturday,
I will rejoice in the resurrection
as one who already sees the light peak above the horizon.
Thanks be to God!
Thanks be to You, my God,
for Your unspeakable Gift!

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Christ Is Alive! We Live in Him!
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I Press Ahead toward Christ

2017-04-17 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Success and failure are just words,
spoken from our small-minded ignorance.
Money and respect are simply mediums of human exchange.
They can only give what other humans have to give,
creatures who share our own deep neediness.
Glory and gold are too shallow to provide
what we truly need and crave.
Physical comfort is an imposter,
pretending to be lasting peace.
In the end, death shows them all for what they are:
empty delusions.

Jesus Christ is the eternal, holy, glorious God
made fully human.
In Him, my Father, I can
know You and
love You and
become like You.
In Him all my goals,
all my expectations,
all life’s possibilities are raised and reset.
In Him I am becoming more than I ever dreamed I could be.
Jesus Christ is my desire.
I trust HIM.
I press ahead toward HIM.

For in Him, Father,
I become one with You
completely and forever,
in all Your holiness and love.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: The Upward Call
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from Prepare Yourself for Worship

2017-04-14 Devotional with Hymn, Prepare Yourself for Worship, Uncategorized No comments

Prepare for Easter

Father, as I celebrate this Easter season,
teach me what it means to live as
an Easter person
in this present world.

Everyone here is facing
inescapable death.
Help me live Your resurrection life among them,
glowing with
hope,
purpose, and
joyful anticipation.

Here sin seems inescapable.
Failure is considered inevitable.
Help me live as one set free from sin,
fully forgiven and
fully empowered for triumphant living.

Here, as we face the future,
we are gripped with
helplessness and
despair.
May I walk in the bright confidence of Easter.
Help me live as one whose eternal, glorious life in You
has already begun, and
will never end.

Father, may lost and hopeless people
sense the beautiful reality of Easter
in me.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Alive in You
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Completion

2017-04-12 Devotional with Hymn, One with Our Father No comments

from the book, ONE WITH OUR FATHER 

John 4:34; 5:36; 13:1; 17:4, 23; 19:28

Throughout His earthly ministry, from first to last, Jesus repeatedly spoke of completing the work His Father had sent Him to do. It seemed always on His mind. To express His desire, He used a Greek word meaning to complete, finish, or accomplish.

For example, when He was weary from travel, His disciples urged Him to eat. Jesus was more concerned with drawing a Samaritan woman to His Father:

“My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.” (John 4:34, NASB)

Jesus’ critics scoffed at His claim that God was His Father. They considered it blasphemy! Jesus said His works proved that God was His Father:

“The works which the Father has given Me to accomplish—the very works that I do—testify about Me, that the Father has sent Me.” (John 5:36, NASB)

On His final night with His disciples before His arrest, Jesus prayed to His Father and gave Him this report on the task for which He had been sent:

“I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do.” (John 17:4, NASB)

Jesus finished this same prayer by praying for all who would believe on Him in the years to come. Looking ahead, the work He desired to see completed was their perfect union with each other in the Father and Son:

“I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.” (John 17:23, NASB)

What was the task that had characterized Jesus’ ministry from first to last? It was showing the Father’s love, in all its length and depth and height:

Jesus knowing that His hour had come that he would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end [margin: to the uttermost, or eternally]. (John 13:1, NASB)

Considering this focus of His life, how else would Jesus spend His final breath as He died in agony on the cross?

After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the Scripture, said, “I am thirsty.”
Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit. (John 19:28, 30, NASB)

The completion of His Father’s work was Jesus’ daily food, His unshakable foundation, His love’s driving force, His dying wish, and His vision of the future for every believer.

Father, my desires,
my time,
my energy,
my future are in Your hands.
Plant me like a seed,
as You did Jesus.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Christ Is Our Horizon
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