Archive for Devotional with Hymn

Reborn

2016-07-14 Devotional with Hymn, One with Our Father No comments

from the book, ONE WITH OUR FATHER 

John 3:1-21

Lord God, I cannot be who I want to be,
who I need to be,
by my own efforts.
No self-discipline,
no determination
can make me who I am not.
Only Your cleansing can make me clean.
Only Your holiness can make me holy.
Only Your life can make me Your child.
Only You can make me
like You,
sharing in You,
one with You.

Your life, Your breath, Your Spirit
is like the wind:
I can sense it, but I cannot
fully track it or
control it.
Your Spirit is Your life in motion.
He goes where You please.
He is who You are.

Lord, I see Him most fully and beautifully
in the life of the human Christ.
I watch as You and He, Father and Son, share
the same Spirit,
the same life,
the same power,
the same wisdom,
the same self-giving love.
As I see Jesus,
I long to be one with You
as He is one with You,
fully, constantly, forever.

Father, I am completely unworthy of You.
But since You deeply desire it,
come, be my Father
as fully as You were His Father.
Do this as it pleases You,
when it pleases You,
how it pleases You.
Blow as You will,
Wind of God,
Breath of God.
I will do the little that I can do and must do:
I will trust You. 

Father, this is what I want:
to live and breathe forever
in Your personal presence,
constantly,
completely,
unchangeably
one with You.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Father, You See Our Need
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Holy and Human

2016-07-12 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Father, as I long to see You and know You,
You show me Jesus.
In Him I see the transcendent God
in a form I can understand.
In Him You are
human and
touchable.
In Him You are
my Father and
my Brother.

In Jesus, Your holiness is no longer
foreign and frightening, but
beautiful and desirable.
In Him, You prove that I can be
pure, yet
thoroughly human.
I can be Your true child
here and now,
in this present, evil world.
I can be
joyful,
loving,
peaceful, and
perfectly pleasing to You.

I can be one with You, Father,
in Jesus Christ.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Holy, Human Jesus Christ
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For Today

2016-07-10 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Father, I only want what Your
holy,
joyful,
loving,
all-sufficient Son wanted:
only Your glory,
only Your Kingdom,
only Your will.
Gain or loss,
success or failure,
need or abundance,
sunlight or shadow,
this is my focus,
this is my desire:
Your smile and
Your approval.

Your Son was sure of
Your presence,
Your abundance, and
Your loving faithfulness.
Thus He didn’t fret about tomorrow.
He only needed bread for today.
Father, that’s all I need as well.

Your Son came to pour out on us
Your forgiveness,
Your cleansing,
Your holiness,
Your impenetrable keeping from all evil.
I will live joyfully and confidently in
that forgiveness,
that cleansing,
that safe keeping.

Father, as I trust You today,
I am in Christ, and
He is in me, and
we are in You
every moment.
Praise be to You, our Father, forever and ever!

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Today, Father
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A Prayer for Many Occasions

2016-07-05 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. (Mark 10:43-44, NASB)

God, what should I do with this free time?
I am Your servant.

I tend to get preoccupied with my own plans, Father.
Forgive me.
I am Your servant.

I’m feeling overwhelmed and confused, God,
but I look to You and rely on You.
I am Your servant.

I face a decision, and I don’t know which way to go.
Lead me, Lord.
I am Your servant.

Father, I feel for that person.
I sense their need, but
I don’t know how to help them.
Use me.
I am Your servant.

I am Yours, my Lord.
I am listening.
I am available.
I am Your servant. 

Listen and sing:
Hymn: I Am Your Servant
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Is the Bible Accurate?

2016-07-03 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Looking back over my life, I’ve found the Bible satisfying intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. It has brought me comfort, direction, inspiration, correction, and daily strength. It has brought wisdom to my ignorance and perspective to my narrowness. I’ve tried it and found it accurate to the last detail.

Looking back over history, people of a variety of cultures, personalities, and life situations have tried the Bible just as I have. They, too, have found it reliable, accurate, and satisfying. Many have died for it.

Looking back over that same history, human knowledge in any age has proven to be substantially inaccurate and woefully inadequate. It’s been shot through with ignorance, arrogance, and stubborn blindness. It’s been seriously distorted by self-interest and by the passing winds and fads of the times.

We have every reason to believe that our knowledge and our basic assumptions will prove no better than in the past.

Is the Bible accurate? It’s stood the test of time. It’s stood the test of life.

Is the Bible outdated? It certainly doesn’t keep in step with whatever ideas are currently popular. That’s how it avoids becoming dated.

For example, the Bible speaks with a degree of authority that isn’t considered intellectually respectable today. Many believe that there is no absolute truth, especially morally. Everything is relative. The Bible flatly states otherwise.

But don’t take my word for what it says. Read it for yourself. You’ll find it an incredible, intriguing book. It’s full of stories, history, poetry, laws, prophecies, letters, and very practical advice.

It’s an honest book – probably the most honest you’ll ever read. Even its greatest heroes are shown with all their warts unretouched. There they are in all their humanity. The Bible shows life as it really is . . . but also as it can be.

You’ve heard about it. You’ve heard people praise it, mock it, fight over it, and try to reason around it.

Read it for yourself.

Time and change sweep away almost everything – social movements, political parties, fashions, lifestyles, even scientific beliefs. Yet as each generation has discarded what seems outmoded and has clung to what seems valuable, the Bible has endured, for thousands of years.

Find out why generation after generation, culture after culture, person after person of every age, personality, education level, and political preference have called it THE WORD OF GOD. 

Listen and sing:
Hymn: The Word of God
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My Weakness Glorifies God

2016-06-28 Devotional with Hymn No comments

It’s Sunday morning, and I’m doing last minute preparations to teach my Sunday School class again. I can’t help but wonder why God uses such a highly-imperfect method for communicating His perfect truth to His precious people. I have so many weaknesses in both my understanding and my ability to communicate. All we human creatures do. All we who communicate God’s truth are deeply flawed in many ways. Why would He entrust His precious Word to us?

The question reminds me that all-wise, all-powerful God seems to prefer to do His work through His creatures. And this seems to be part of His overall desire to incarnate Himself – to make His transcendent perfection flesh and blood. He incarnated Himself perfectly in His Son Jesus, but throughout our history, before and since Christ, He has sought to incarnate Himself by filling His human creatures with His own divine Spirit, His own life.

Again, why would a perfect God choose to reveal Himself so imperfectly? I don’t pretend to have all the answers to that, but I see part of His purpose explained in His Word:

We have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. (2 Corinthians 4:7, NASB)

“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10, NASB)

When God has a Jericho to conquer or a Goliath to defeat or a fiery furnace to be faced, He chooses someone small and weak who is simply willing to trust and obey Him. That way it is obvious to everyone that the one acting is not the weak human creature, but the all-powerful Creator.

Or to bring it back around to my personal situation, my weakness glorifies God. When God’s beautiful, life-giving truth comes from my mouth, however imperfectly, it is plain to all who hear that the truth they are hearing is His, not mine.

I still catch myself wanting to appear strong, bright, and eloquent. But that’s not the truth, and that’s not how I can glorify God the best. People don’t need me. They need Him. As John the Baptist said, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30, NASB).

Yes, I do everything I can to prepare and deliver His message with the passion and clarity it deserves. How could I do anything less? But I can’t hide the truth: anything worthwhile that comes out of my mouth is from Him, not me. Even in my smallness and ignorance I can show people how good and great and present He is. How wonderful is that?

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Not I, but Christ
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Only a Seed

2016-06-26 Devotional with Hymn, Uncategorized No comments

What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe – as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. (1 Corinthians 3:5-7, NIV)

We dream of building empires. We like to think of ourselves as becoming strong oaks, or perhaps lush, glorious gardens of accomplishment.

But we lose sight of our smallness. We are only one tiny part of a people that together – and only together – are a holy temple, a fruitful vine.

My accomplishments will not be an empire, an oak, or a garden – only a seed. But God will make that seed grow. In His time it will take root. It will blossom and flower and produce fruit. And in that fruit will be more seeds. Some will fall nearby; others will be carried far away. God’s garden will grow richer and broader, spreading out into all eternity.

My Lord and Savior, deliver me from an exaggerated image of my importance as Your servant, no matter what part I am assigned in Your work. Deliver me from the hope that I will be honored above others. I only want to be one with You and one with Your people.

Thank You, Lord God, for the beauty of Your truth, for the beauty of living and growing in You. You are wonderful!

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Touch a Life through Me
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Forced Fasts

2016-06-21 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Many times in my life I’ve looked back and realized that God had taken something away from me, often temporarily, in order to make me more dependent on Him.

Fasting normally refers to doing without food for a time in order to focus more on God. But God sometimes forces us to do without other things for a while in order to draw our eyes more singly to Him. He may take away financial security, success, close relationships, health, or even a general sense of comfort and well-being.

Older writers would say that God is separating us to Himself. It is a common experience for God’s servants. Through such times of spiritual formation God is making us more like His Son Jesus. Read the Gospel of John, and you’ll get a sense for how Jesus focused His eyes on the Father alone, depending on Him constantly and completely for everything He said and everything He did.

Is God leading you through such a forced fast? He is separating you more completely to Himself. He is expressing His love for you. Bring your needs and concerns to Him, then rest in His care. Be content, trusting Him to bring relief in His way and time.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Back to You
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Compassion

2016-06-19 Devotional with Hymn No comments

When a need stirs your compassion, what do you do next? Jesus was frequently moved with compassion, and whenever He was, He always took immediate action to meet the need before Him.

  • He taught and healed the crowds, then sent His disciples to do the same. (Matthew 9:36 – 10:8)
  • He fed the hungry. (Matthew 14:14; 15:32; Mark 6:34; 8:2)
  • He gave the blind their sight. (Matthew 20:34)
  • He touched the untouchable leper and healed him. (Mark 1:41)
  • In the middle of a funeral, Jesus felt compassion for the bereaved widow and raised her son back to life. (Luke 7:13)

All that is fine for the Son of God, but what about us? We can’t feed thousands with a boy’s lunch, or give blind men their sight, or heal all the sick, or raise the dead. What are we to do when we are moved with compassion?

Jesus answered this question through three of His most memorable parables. In each, a human being like us is moved with compassion and takes action in response. These parables point the way for us.

  • We can use what we have to help the needy as we encounter them. The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37) was moved with compassion toward a needy person of a different race. He used his own time, energy, and resources to help him.
  • In mercy, we can help restore those who are trying to rebuild their broken lives. While the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) was still far away, the father saw him, felt compassion for him, and ran to him. He kissed and embraced him, then restored him to his former relationship by giving him a robe, a ring, and sandals. Then he threw a lavish party to celebrate his return.
  • We can show those who have wronged us the same compassion and forgiveness that God has shown us. In the story of the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18:21-35), when the master completely forgave the overwhelming debt of his servant, he expected the servant to do the same for his own debtors.

God moves us with compassion for a reason. Don’t be satisfied with simply feeling the sentiment. Use what the Lord has given you and reach out to help the needy. 

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Lord, Keep Us Reaching
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The Creator’s Miracles

2016-06-16 Devotional with Hymn, One with Our Father No comments

from the book, ONE WITH OUR FATHER 

John 2:1-11

Creation shows us how
powerful, wise, and loving God is.
But often we see His magnificent works and
dismiss them as the products of
chance or
natural processes, or
we simply take them for granted.

Jesus came to show us what the Creator God is really like,
face-to-face.
That’s why He performed the Creator’s miracles
up-close and personal,
no stage,
no curtains,
no fancy lighting.
Nothing between Him and us.
He let us stand right in front of Him as, on a small scale,
He did what our Creator does every day:
He turned water into wine.
He produced a lot of food from a very little.
He stilled storms.
He healed diseases.

The Son showed us how marvelous and amazing
our Creator Father really is!

Father, You are high and holy,
transcendent and unseen,
great beyond all imagination.
Yet in Jesus Christ we see You as a
real, touchable, walking, smiling, speaking human being.
How amazing You are!
How can we help but love You and want to be like You!

Listen and sing:
Hymn: See the Father Walk among Us
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