Tag Archive for Hymn

The Word

2013-12-08 Devotional with Hymn No comments

In the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God, and
the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God. 

All things came into being through Him, and
apart from Him nothing came into being
that has come into being. 

In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.
The Light shines in the darkness, and
the darkness did not overpower* it.
(John 1:1-5, NASB; *optional reading) 

Matthew’s gospel focuses on showing the Jews that Jesus is their promised Messiah. Thus he begins with Jesus’ human genealogy, proving that Jesus descended from King David.

John’s gospel focuses on Jesus’ relationship with God, His Father. Therefore he begins with Jesus’ divine genealogy. He says:

In the beginning,
the very beginning,
before anything else was,
Jesus was already there with God the Father.
They were two persons
but one life,
one Being,
one God.

Jesus is the Word, the full and perfect Word,
spoken from the Father’s great heart to us.
All that the Father wills,
the Son makes reality.
All that the Father’s love imagines,
all the life,
all the light,
all the riches of His own being,
are born in our world…and in us…
through Jesus Christ.

Father,
may Jesus Christ be all that You want Him to be
in my thinking,
my speaking, and
my doing.
I want to be one with You in Him.

Listen…and sing if you want:
Hymn: God Is with Us! Alleluia!
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Praise to You, Our Father!

2013-12-01 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Luke 1:46-55

As you read the above passage, called The Magnificat, hear the joy and praise in Mary’s words. She realized that the coming of Christ proved that God was faithful to all His promises.

His coming shows that God is all He says He is and does all He says He will do. Praise to You, Father!

Christ’s coming displays our Father’s deep compassion on all our human weakness and need.

In Christ God pours out His grace on the unworthy and lavishes His mercy on we who don’t deserve it.

In the infant Jesus, the tenderness of our Father becomes flesh and blood. We can touch Him, and He touches us.

In Christ we see the power of our holy God to make us like Himself.

In Christ we sense God’s desire for intimate fellowship with us human creatures.

Father, in Jesus Christ we see You as You are! Praise to You! Praise and glory and thanks to You forever and ever!

Listen…and sing if you want:
Hymn: My Soul Exalts You, Lord
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Shadows of Christ

2013-11-24 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Adam…was a pattern of the one to come. (Romans 5:14, NIV)

These are a shadow of the things that were to come;
the reality, however, is found in Christ. (Colossians 2:17, NIV)

In the Old Testament, not all portraits of the coming Messiah were painted by the words of prophets. Some were painted by the lives of God’s people. Living individuals became sign posts pointing us toward Jesus Christ. As we saw God working through them, we caught glimpses of the way He would work through His Son.

Here are just a few examples:

  • ENOCH “walked with God” and left this world without facing death, being taken up directly into God’s presence. (Genesis 5:22-24)
  • Like Christ, NOAH pleased God in a time when sin seemed overwhelming and inevitable. Through him God saved our race from destruction.
  • ISAAC was a long-promised son and heir, miraculously born and later offered up by his father as a sacrifice. (Genesis 15, 21 – 22)
  • JOSEPH endured betrayal, injustice, and great suffering, then was dramatically exalted to a high position. From that position he saved his family and his entire nation from death. (Genesis 37 – 50)
  • Like Christ, MOSES was God’s instrument for leading His people out of bondage. He served as deliverer, leader, prophet, and mediator.
  • SAMUEL was miraculously born by God’s promise and was wholly dedicated to God’s service before birth. Though not of the priestly tribe, he was God’s chosen mediator between Himself and His people. (1 Samuel)
  • Like his Greater Son, DAVID was a good shepherd, lifted from humble beginnings to become a glorious leader of God’s people. He was a man after God’s own heart, and God considered him His own son (Psalm 89:26-27).

As we consider these lives and others, we see shadows of the coming Messiah. We catch passing glimpses of how the high and holy God would incarnate Himself in flesh and blood.  Their faith and God’s faithfulness to them prepare our hearts for His fullness so beautifully revealed in the Living Christ.

Father, the human race is like a prism.
Through it we begin to see Your life
exploded into its full range of
color, variety, and dazzling beauty.
Shine through us,
Glorious Father!

Listen…and sing if you want:
Hymn: Prepare Us
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We Wait

2013-11-17 Devotional with Hymn No comments

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. (Romans 8:22-25, NIV)

We wait.
Basking in the joy and freedom of all You’ve given us in Jesus Christ,
we eagerly await His return and
the completion of all Your love has planned.

We wait.
Immersed in disappointments and delays,
weakness and uncertainty,
decay and death,
we keep our faith focused on You.
Though we cannot see,
we cling to the strong and certain hope that is ours in Christ Jesus.
Day by day, in the noise and in the silence, our hearts forever cry,
“Father, may Kingdom come and
Your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven!”

We wait.
So many are deluded,
lost in the darkness of the small and temporary.
In You we glimpse bigger realities.
Our physical world seems so lasting and all-encompassing,
but it will burn away like a morning mist.
Father, don’t let it seduce us.
You are truth.
You are unchanging.
You are forever.

In this false world, keep us faithful in proclaiming the ultimate things:
the return of Jesus,
the judgment, and
the world to come.
Whether He returns today or in ten thousand years is not the point.
The truth of His return shapes the entire reality in which we live.

Our Father, we look forward to the day when all creation rings with
the music and the beautiful silence of all You are.

As we believers wait together,
enduring these last hours of pain, darkness, grief, and death,
we’ll encourage one another to the hope and joy that are ours in You.
We’ll share songs, stories, and acts of kindness that remind us of
Your eternal, unfailing love.

Listen…and sing if you want:
Hymn: Waiting on Our Lord
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Human

2013-11-10 Devotional with Hymn No comments

The Word became flesh and
made his dwelling among us.
We have seen his glory,
the glory of the One and Only,
who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
(John 1:14, NIV)

God is holy.
We were born into sin. It is all we have ever known.

God is pure light.
As creatures of the darkness, we instinctively run from Him.

God is love.
In our selfishness we are suspicious of Him.

God is Spirit.
To us physical creatures, He seems unreal.

God is perfect wisdom.
To our ignorance, He seems foolish.

God is all in all, and He offers Himself to us freely and completely.
In ourselves, we cannot see, cannot know, and cannot accept Him.

But now God has crossed all the barriers between Him and us.
This Light,
this Love,
this Wisdom,
this God
has become a real human being.
This 100% God has become 100% flesh and blood
and has lived right here among us.
He has shared our daily routines, our temptations, our weaknesses, and
even our death.
He became a creature like us.

We look at Him in all His humanity,
and what do we see?
We see the glory of God Himself!
Creation, in all its magnificence, is only a faint reflection of all that God is.
Jesus is the Living God complete and at full strength.
He is exactly like God and exactly like us, all at the same time,
yet without our sin.

Because He became human,
humanity will never be the same again.
Jesus is the Second Adam,
the beginning of a whole new race,
a whole new possibility for each and every one of us.

Father,
You have removed everything that separates
You and me.
I don’t want to hold You at arm’s length any longer.
Help me to know You and trust You completely.

Listen…and sing if you want:
Hymn: You Came to Us
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Come, Our Lord!

2013-11-03 Devotional with Hymn No comments

The Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. (1Thessalonians 3:16-17, NIV)

The One who left heaven to come to us,
who suffered the ultimate suffering to draw us near,
has physically left us for this reason:

He is preparing a place for us so that
soon we can be with Him forever.
When the time is exactly right,
He will return.

Listen…and sing if you want:
Hymn: Come, Our Lord!
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My Life Is Pain

2013-10-27 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Based on Psalm 39 

My life is pain, Lord.
I try to keep quiet about it
to keep from spreading my bitterness all around.
I don’t want to dishonor You, Lord.
But it boils in my mind,
and finally steam bursts out:

O Lord, help me to understand
how very brief life is—
for me, for all of us.
My life is a breath.
I live a few inches of time before You,
Almighty Creator.

We spend our entire lives here in vanity.
Like phantoms we hurry around
but do nothing.
We heap up wealth, respect, and goods,
only to leave them behind.
All is emptiness, O Lord—
vanity and emptiness.

What can I look to for meaning, my God?
I look to You.
I hope in You alone.
I accept my pain as from You, my Lord.
You use our troubles to correct us,
to enlighten us.
You turn all our efforts to nothing
so that we might turn to You.

I turn to You, Lord.
I am helpless.
I am in pain.
Everything else is emptiness.
I hope in You alone.

Listen…and sing if you want:
Hymn: Life Is Brief and Full of Trouble
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All the Best of Life

2013-10-20 Devotional with Hymn No comments

God’s recipe for success is completely different than ours. Human society seems to prize people that are strong, self-confident, positive, and assertive, pursuing goals that provide themselves and others with more money or enhanced physical life. Are they a bit selfish? No problem. Who isn’t?

But read Matthew 5:3-12, the beatitudes. These are Jesus’ recipe for success. Remember, He alone has experienced both life on earth and an eternity in heaven. He has seen it all, and here is His description of the person truly blessed by God: poor in spirit; mourning; meek; hungering and thirsting for righteousness; merciful; pure in heart; making peace; suffering persecution for obeying God.

What an unlikely set of qualifications for success! None of the qualifications are strength, skill, material goods, or human accomplishment. All flow from a focus on God and the humility that results.

Here are the gifts God gives these blessed ones: the Kingdom of heaven; His comfort; rulership of the entire earth; righteousness in abundance; mercy; the privilege of seeing God and being His children.

None of these gifts of God are material. All are blessings on the inner, eternal person, and all outlast this world. Jesus, the only person with a complete and accurate view of life, urges us to prize these gifts.

Father, I want to please You.
May that always be my one goal and desire.
And may that desire shape
my heart, my thoughts, and my daily life.

Listen…and sing if you want:
Hymn: Beatitudes Hymn
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Passionate about His Father

2013-10-13 Devotional with Hymn No comments

What made Jesus so different from everyone else?
Why did He think differently?
Why did He act differently?
Why did He talk differently?

Jesus was different because of His relationship with His Father.
He single-mindedly focused on His Father and His Father’s concerns.
He wasn’t self-centered.
He didn’t care about money or career or reputation or social pressure.
He kept His mind and His heart always tuned to His Father’s voice.
He let His Father guide everything He said and everything He did.

No matter what sacrifice was required,
Jesus’ goal,
His prayer,
His passion
were always the Father’s will.

Listen…and sing if you want:
Hymn: Focus
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Natural Prayer

2013-10-06 Devotional with Hymn, Prayer No comments

For years I experienced a sense of uneasiness before God. I guess I felt I wasn’t totally pleasing to Him, so I avoided looking in His face. I wanted to live closer to Him, and even believed that it was possible, but I didn’t know how to make it happen. Consistency was always beyond my reach.

I tried self-discipline. My time was organized into tight compartments, and I drove myself to stick to the program. And in the area of temptation, after my frequent failures, I would work out mental techniques to help me gain control the next time it came up. But all I tried only increased my frustration.

Nowhere was self-discipline a greater failure than in my prayer life. Yes, I understood the importance of praying, but that only made me feel more guilty. It wasn’t just a matter of making time to pray. Once I started to pray, I couldn’t concentrate to save my life. The harder I tried to control my wandering mind, the more it escaped in 80 directions.

And I studied the Bible. I studied it a lot. I guess I hoped the secret to a truly satisfying life in God was in some hidden wisdom He would help me find.

However, He graciously showed me the opposite. The key to the life He offers us is not through strict self-discipline, even though discipline can be good; nor is it through some higher wisdom attainable only by the spiritual elite. All He asks us to do–all He has ever wanted us to do–is to simply trust Him, one moment at a time. As we trust Him, a relationship is formed, a friendship that allows Him to live and work inside us.

Furthermore, He does not ask us to reach out to some God who is high above and far away. God is a real being, and He is constantly, personally with us.

Nothing has made a bigger difference in my life than this simple realization. I walk in His presence. I live with Him face-to-face.

Realizing His constant presence makes the greatest change in my prayer life. Prayer is no longer a routine of struggling to contact Someone way out there somewhere. I don’t have to get into the right frame of mind to pray. Prayer is no longer a brief, isolated period of the day. It is wonderful to be able to pray continually (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

We are never out of His presence, so prayer doesn’t have to start and stop. He is always there, so we can talk to Him freely, moment by moment, as to a good friend who is right next to us. When He blesses us–through one of those little daily blessings–we can thank and praise Him on the spot. When a concern arises, we can look in His face and know that He loves us. We can trust the need to Him. Every joy, every problem, every gift from Him can become the seed of a prayer, of a nearer, dearer relationship with Him.

And when we fail, we can ask His forgiveness right there and then, knowing His love for us makes Him anxious to heal and forget completely. If our repentance is immediate and sincere, not even our sins need separate us from Him.

As our needs don’t stop, prayer shouldn’t stop. We can experience a continual openness, a quickness to turn to Him in everything. It won’t happen automatically or overnight, but as we remember that He is there, and as we trust Him, our friendship grows. When it finally sinks in to you personally that He really is there with you, anxious to listen, anxious to guide and help you, prayer will become more natural and free. It will be a “want to,” not a “have to.”

Remember: always, always talk to Him as to a friend who is right there with you.

Listen…and sing if you want:
Hymn: Ever Standing in Your Presence
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