Archive for Devotional with Hymn

A Word from Your Creator

2015-02-19 Devotional with Hymn, Pictures of God No comments

from the devotional book, PICTURES OF GOD

Isaiah 43:1-7; 51:12-16 

Hear your God speaking to you:
“I am Your Creator,
your Maker,
the One who formed You,
the Lord,
the Holy One,
your Savior,
the One stretched out the heavens and founded the earth.
I know your face.
I call you by name.
You belong to Me.
When you pass through deep waters, I will be with you.
When you cross raging rivers, they will not flow over you.
When you walk through fire, you will not be burned.
Why?
Because of Who I am.
I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel.
You are precious to me, and
I Myself am with you.

“Child, it makes no sense for you to be afraid of all these lesser things.
I created them, and they bow to me.
They do what I tell them.
When trouble threatens, you tend to forget Me,
that I am the Sovereign Lord of all, and
I am with you, and I love you.
When you’re concerned about something, turn to Me.
Talk to me.
Trust me.

“Look! I have covered you with my own hand.
Nothing can trouble you here unless you let it.
You are mine.
Rest in my peace.”

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Be Still, My Child
Recording
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Our Single-minded Father

2015-02-17 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Father, this morning You helped my heart to grasp
what my mind had dimly known:

Everything You have allowed me to go through in my life,
everything I am going through even now,
is to build my relationship with You:
all the years of frustration,
all the loneliness,
all the financial struggles,
all the endless waiting,
all those disappointments.

You have isolated me to Yourself.
You have hemmed me in.
You have enclosed me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me (Psalm 139:5, NASB).
By my circumstances and by Your Spirit within me
You have turned me repeatedly, persistently toward You.
You have made Yourself
my only comfort,
my only hope,
my only unchanging Rock of truth,
my only refuge.

Father, the unfailing faithfulness of Your eternal love swamps
my tiny attention span,
my childish self-centeredness,
my meager, stumbling faith.
I am a child learning to walk.
Like any eager parent, You call me,
lift me,
point me,
hold my hands, and
draw me toward Yourself.

Sometimes we wonder whether faith is entirely a gift of Your sovereign choice,
or whether it is our doing.
But You are like one building a campfire.
You work to create a tiny spark,
then patiently blow it into flame by Your mighty but gentle breath.
I have to respond,
but all the doing is Yours, my loving Father.

Continue to patiently, persistently draw me.
And when I am tempted to despair or complain,
help me to remember and look to You again.
You are my Father, and I am
gladly,
proudly,
humbly Your child.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Simply Seeing You
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When Loss Is Gain

2015-02-15 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me,
he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
For whoever wants to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel
will save it.” (Mark 8:34-35, NIV)

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith,
who for the joy set before him
endured the cross, scorning its shame, and
sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men,
so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
(Hebrews 12:2-3, NIV)

Jesus calls all His followers to sacrifice themselves
as He sacrificed Himself.

He laid down His life “for the joy set before him”.
He freely submitted to the cross, “scorning its shame”;
that is, He viewed the shame of the cross as insignificant,
unworthy of consideration.

He modeled this definition of sacrifice:
to turn loose of something good
in order to grasp something greater.
This is the sacrifice to which our Lord calls us.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Lay Aside Your Passing Pleasures
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Sharing His Life

2015-02-08 Devotional with Hymn No comments

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.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Ash Wednesday Hymn
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

The Christ of Lent

2015-02-03 Devotional with Hymn No comments

from A Christ-centered Year

During Lent, Jesus is the Father’s Servant,
leading us on the path of obedience and trust.

“If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.” (Matthew 16:24, NASB)

When we take the truth to a dark and rebellious world,
we meet fierce opposition from the Evil One.
We are going against the strong current of our culture.
As we do, we are called to disregard all personal costs,
to let our entire life fall to the ground like a seed and die,
in order that eternal fruit will grow.

But Jesus does not drive us out into such self-sacrifice.
He leads us.
He goes with us.
He goes before us.
He demonstrates that such a life is
abundantly joyful,
permeated with
peace,
love, and
constant sufficiency.

During Lent, Jesus is the Father’s Servant,
leading us on the beautiful path of obedience and trust.
Let all who are looking for the very best of life
respond to His personal call, “Follow Me”.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Come and Follow Me
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

Lamb of God

2015-02-01 Devotional with Hymn, Uncategorized No comments

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6, NIV)

“Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29, NIV)

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross” (1 Peter 2:24, NIV), but His sin-bearing did not begin on Golgotha.

As He emptied Himself of all that made Him equal to the Father (Philippians 2:5-8), He was taking our sins upon Himself.

John the Baptist introduced Jesus as the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29, NIV), not at the end of His ministry, but at its very beginning. The first public act of this sinless One was to humble Himself, line up with sinners, and symbolically die beneath the waters of the Jordan. There, from day one, He bore our sins.

For forty days He faced extreme deprivation and temptation in the wilderness,  all that we might have a high priest…who has been tempted in every way, just as we are…that he might make atonement for the sins of the people (Hebrews 4:15; 2:17, NIV).

Throughout His ministry He bore all the fruits of our sin. Homelessness, rejection, hatred, poverty, and persecution were His daily experience. He took upon Himself the needs of the thousands that flocked to Him—their ignorance, disease, demon possession, grief, and hunger.

Finally, He laid down His life before those who hated Him and thirsted for His blood. He silently surrendered Himself to their humiliation, torture, and cruel execution.

But this was only the culmination of His self-sacrifice. He bore our sins, not for a few hours, but for His entire holy life.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: You Bore Our Sin, O Lamb of God
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

God’s Kingdom Comes

2015-01-25 Devotional with Hymn No comments

As I study the gospels, I repeatedly encounter events that appear small from a human perspective but loom large from God’s perspective.

The Transfiguration
(Matthew 16:28 – 17:9)

Jesus referred to the Transfiguration as “the Son of Man coming in His kingdom” (Matthew 16:28, NASB) and “the kingdom of God…come with power” (Mark 9:1, NASB). That’s quite a build-up. And to be sure, the transfiguration provided a spectacular glimpse of the true glory of Christ, in the face of His coming humiliation and suffering. But only three disciples experienced it, and apparently only for a few fleeting moments. How is that the powerful coming of Jesus in His Kingdom?

John the Baptist and Elijah
(Matthew 17:10-13)

The appearance of Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration caused the disciples to ask about Elijah. Prophecy had promised that he would return and prepare the people for the “great and terrible day of the Lord” (Malachi 4:5, NASB; read vv.5-6). Jesus said that Elijah would “restore all things” (Matthew 17:11, NASB) and that John the Baptist was this returned Elijah. But John the Baptist’s ministry was relatively short, and his acceptance was limited. Herod silenced him, bringing his life to a premature and brutal end. To say that John restored all things seems a wild overstatement.

The Triumphal Entry
(Matthew 21:1-11)

Throughout His ministry, Jesus had consistently discouraged any open proclamation of His being Messiah. But then He arranged His own parade, encouraging Jerusalem to welcome Him as their Messiah. When the Jewish leaders protested, Jesus emphasized the absolute necessity and inevitability of such praise, saying that if His followers were silent, the very stones would cry out. But on a human level, all this seems a false promise. In this very city, within the week the civil and religious leaders would arrest, humiliate, execute, and bury this Messiah as a pretender and a criminal.

Cleansing the Temple
(Matthew 21:12-13)

After triumphantly entering Jerusalem as a conqueror, Jesus went to the temple and cleared it of commercial interests. He did this in fulfillment of Malachi 3:1-3, which foretold that the Lord would come suddenly to His temple and purify it completely. Jesus also connected His actions to Isaiah 56:3-8, where God promised to make His house a house of prayer for all nations, a place where outsiders would be welcomed and blessed. Yet it is unlikely that Jesus’ cleansing of the temple had any lasting effect. It doesn’t seem to measure up to the dramatic promises of Malachi and Isaiah.

The Resurrection
(Matthew 28:1-8)

We Christians make much of the resurrection of Jesus. But apparently the risen Christ appeared only to His followers, not to anyone else. Forty days later He was gone. Meanwhile, this whole world suffers on in the iron grip of death. Every one of us continues to die.

So why did Jesus and why does Scripture make so much of these events? To human eyes, they seem so partial and passing.

But indeed, the changes begun by each of these events are dramatic, deep, and very real:

  • The Kingdom of God—the presence and rulership of God—has come to us in Jesus. It has come in power and glory. By faith we see and interact daily with the glorified Christ.
  • The repentance and forgiveness preached by John are even now restoring right relationships between God and us and among His people. We are living in the peace of these restored relationships.
  • With exuberant praise, we His disciples welcome Jesus as our Messiah, our conquering hero who is delivering us from all oppression.
  • Jesus Christ is Himself the holy temple of God among us. He is purifying us to make us part of that holy temple.
  • Even now we are breathing the undying, unbounded life of Christ, and we will breathe it forever.

The Kingdom of God has come to us in Jesus Christ! It is growing in and among us through His Spirit. And in Him, it will soon come in all its power and glory.

Jesus’ life is a promise of all that soon will be for each and all of His people.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: See His Kingdom Come in Power
Recording
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Father, Save Us from Fear

2015-01-20 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Salvation, in its broadest sense, is deliverance from anything that
pinches us,
oppresses us,
narrows us, or
restricts the free flow of God’s life in us and through us.
We need this salvation not only in moments of crisis, but
daily,
constantly,
need by need.

One of our most constant temptations,
one of the greatest hindrances to our life in Christ, is
fear –
fear of anything but God Himself.

Fear threatens all the most precious gifts and graces
our loving Father longs to pour through us:
love,
joy,
peace,
patience,
kindness,
generosity,
thankfulness, and
wholehearted praise.
When fear takes hold, all these are choked out.
Fear plunges us into a false reality where
God is not God.
Fear causes us to think and act as if God is not
all-powerful,
all-wise, and
all-loving.

Sometimes fear expresses itself as outright worry.
It stares us in the face and
grabs us by the throat.
But sometimes it is more subtle.
We’re not fully aware of its presence.
It simmers beneath the surface,
making us vaguely unsettled and uneasy.

As soon as anything concerns you,
no matter how big or small,
drag it out into the full light of day and pray,
“Father, I am concerned about _______.
If there is anything I should do about it,
lead me, and
I will follow.
Otherwise, I simply trust it to You.”
Pray this way every time that concern comes to mind.

Don’t let the Enemy clutter your mind and disturb your peace
with concerns that are
unexamined and
unnecessary.

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the defense of my life;
Whom shall I dread? (Psalm 27:1, NASB)

Listen and sing:
Hymn: As I Trust You
Recording
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Follow Jesus

2015-01-18 Devotional with Hymn No comments

We hear no smooth-talking persuasion from Jesus. He describes the path ahead of us clearly and plainly:

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and
follow me.” (Mark 8:34, NIV)

Who would want to follow Jesus straight into His storm of suffering?

But look at Him. See the person He is and the way He lives. He has experienced all that we have, and so much more. Yet see His peace, His patience, His sufficiency in every situation. See His deep, constant relationship with the Father. See His love, never fearful and never strained.

I want to follow Him. I want to finally lay down this perpetual burden of petty self-concern. I want to pick up my cross and go with Him wherever He goes. I am held captive by the magnificence of Jesus Christ.

“I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him…I want to know Christ…and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.” (Philippians 3:8-9, 10, NIV)

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Come See Our God
Recording
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Live Love

2015-01-11 Devotional with Hymn No comments

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.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Lord, You Are Love
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

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