Wednesday, August 9, 2017

The Path of Blessing

After washing their feet , he put on his robe again and sat down and asked, "Do you understand what I was doing?  You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right because it is true.  And since I, the Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other's feet.  I have given you an example to follow.  Do as I have done to you.  How true is  it that a servant is not greater than the master.  Nor are messengers more important than the one who sends them.  You know these things- now do them.  That is the path of blessing."  John 13:12-17


I have never humbled myself to serve someone else that it wasn't a superior blessing for me.

These are our marching orders.

We are messengers sent out to live, speak, and act in a manner that glorifies our Lord Jesus.

We are not greater than the One that sent us out.

Yet.....how many times do we refuse to serve our neighbors?

In the scripture passage above Jesus is about to wash the feet of the men that followed him for 3 years of ministry.
One of these men would betray him.
One of the these men would deny him.
The rest of these men would scatter in fear during the following days....

Yet He served them.

He blessed them by doing something seemingly beneath Him.

What does this look like in my own life?

Will I show kindness to someone that has been hateful to me?
Will I go out of my way for a stranger?
Will I go last when I want to be in the lead?
Will I hold my tongue for another to speak?
Will I mind being overlooked so someone else can be seen?
Will I extend compassion instead of criticism?

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are gifts of the Spirit of God intended to be used to show off the character of the God we serve.

Jesus embodied every one of these gifts in his person.

He was the Word made flesh....for us.

And He humbled Himself to not just die on a cross for us...but to wash our feet as well.





Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Who Needs Hope When You Have Got a Plan?

Got a text early this morning from someone very dear to me.

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of a horrific loss in their life....

Heart-wrenching. Mind-blowing. A punch to the gut kind of loss.

This person had read a devotion for today, and of all topics for today, it spoke of ~hope~.

Now we know our hope is firmly rooted and established in the person of Jesus Christ.
He is the author and perfecter of our faith.

Hope is found in Him.
It is impossible without Him.

Yet we plan lives for ourselves that usually require little to no hope.

Right?

It all sounds good on paper that Jesus is my hope until your plans fall apart and the screen that is playing your life goes blank.

Where is that hope then?

Well....let's digest this for just a bit.

When our lives are going exactly according to our plan how does hope fit into that equation?

It doesn't.

Smooth sailing doesn't hope for much.  It doesn't have to.

I had a plan.

Get a college degree.
Marry the man of my dreams.
Teach school.
Have babies.
Be a wife and mother.
Follow Jesus the rest of my days.

Sound like yours?

What was not in my plan was needing hope on a daily basis the way I do.

The way my plan would work wouldn't really require hope.

Here are some of the definitions of biblical hope:  expectation, thing that I long for, to anticipate, confidence, faith.

Somehow we look back on our plans....before life ran off of the rails....before the things happened in your life that jilted your faith and lit your anger fuse towards God...and we compare as if somehow those days were hope-filled and the here and now is less so~ even hopeless.

Can you stop for a moment and look at it the opposite way?

Hope is only the glorious gift that IT IS when your plan is disrupted.

When the brakes squeal and the smoke clears and you look around and your plans are stalled out....blessed hope actually has a chance to blossom.

Hopeless living left along with your plan.

Jesus brings hope to those that desperately need it.

And we all do....

So if you feel hopeless today, chances are you have it backwards.

You thought your plan brought you hope.

It didn't.

Only Jesus can do that.

The gift of hope comes to those that fall to their knees and hold ashes in their hands of what they thought would be....

Difficult moments create the needed space for hope.

Loading my 15 year old girl on a bus in a wheelchair was not my plan.
No parent dreams of changing a teenage girl's diaper or feeding her with a tube in her tummy.

That wasn't my plan.

But neither was hope.

Salvation came to me as a 9 year old little girl.  I confessed my need for a Savior.
Hope came to me on June 11, 2002 as a 24 year old woman.

My plan was disrupted.
His plan was falling perfectly into place.

I will end this post with fitting scriptures that include the word ~hope~.

You will notice that it usually shares space in God's Word with sorrow.

After all....that is where HOPE is needed the most.

Psalm 42:5
Why am I discouraged?
Why so sad?
I will put my hope in God!
I will praise him again-
my Savior and my God!

Psalm 40:11-12
LORD. don't hold back your tender mercies from me.
My only hope is in your unfailing love and faithfulness.
For troubles surround me-
too many to count!
They pile up so high
I can't see my way out.
They are more numerous than the hairs on my head.
I have lost all my courage.

Hebrews 10:23
Without wavering, let us hold tightly to the hope we say we have,
for God can be trusted to keep his promise.