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Psalm 119:159

The One Thing that Never Changes

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
December 2, 2024

The older I get, the less I like things to change. I will find myself fighting any change at times.  But, like everyone who ever lived, I’ve had to learn to prepare myself for change.  We can’t stop it. Nothing ever stays the same!  I have to say it again, the older I get, the less I like change. Now that I’ve been retired for seven years, I’ve established a routine for daily living, and I get upset when I have to change it to accommodate one of my family members or to adapt to various unforeseen circumstances.  There is no escape! Things are going to change whether you like it or not. We have to learn to live with that no matter how uncomfortable it becomes.

Everything changes! One of the songs I enjoyed in the 1960s was “Where are you going?” The first verse went like this:

Where are you going, my little one, little one,
Where are you going, my baby, my own?
Turn around, and you’re two,
Turn around, and you’re four,
Turn around, and you’re a young girl going out of my door.
Turn around, turn around,
Turn around, and you’re a young girl going out of my door.

It’s all a part of growing up, and we can do nothing to stop it. The older I get, the more incredible it becomes for me, and the faster time seems to go. I look forward to spending time with the family. The family comes and the family goes.  I remember the first Christmas without my father. It wasn’t the same. I remember the first Christmas without my mother several years later. It wasn’t the same. She was the one to bring the family together. There were no more family get-togethers like there were when she was alive. My sister tried to fill that role, but then she passed away, and there were no more family gatherings like before. Change is very unsettling at times, and it causes one to ponder its purpose. What does it matter anyway? It is here for a moment and then gone. Dust in the wind! Sand through the hour glass of time. Etc. The bottom line for me is that there is something that never changes through it all. Look at these brief verses from God’s Word: Malachi 3:6 (NIV) I, the Lord, do not change! Jeremiah 31:3 (NIV) I have loved you with an everlasting love. Psalm 119:159 (GN) Your (God’s) love never changes. It’s great to meditate on Romans 8:38. The Message translation puts it this way, “…nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, thinkable or unthinkable – absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love…” In the midst of years coming and years going, it’s good to remember one thing never changes. It is God’s Love!

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Ecclesiastes 1:1-3

What’s the use?

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
December 1, 2024

Some time ago, Rick Warren wrote a book entitled “The Purpose-Driven Life.” It became a best-seller almost immediately, and surprisingly, the sales surpassed that of nearly all religious books published in the previous decade. I believe it was so popular because it focused on everyone’s need to find meaning and purpose in life. Early in the book, Warren notes a survey conducted by Dr. Hugh Moorhead in which he wrote to 250 leading intellectuals and scientists asking them, “What is the meaning of life?” None of those who responded provided a satisfying answer to the question. But all admitted to struggling with the issue. If you’ve never wrestled with understanding the meaning of life, you are in the minority. Most people have to come to grips with ultimate truths that shape their view of the most important issues in life.

Solomon, in his older years, also struggled with this question. No one had the wealth, popularity, power, or possessions that he had, but none of that brought lasting satisfaction to his life. Solomon also wrote a book about it. Unlike Warren’s book, Ecclesiastes has been a best seller for over 3000 years. Having been inspired by God it’s one of the biblical books in the genre of wisdom literature. It begins by asking the question, “What’s the use?” Literally, Ecclesiastes 1:1-3 says, “The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” In my vernacular, he’s looking at life and asking, “What’s the use?” David Jeremiah tells of a college student who wrote this note before taking his own life: “To anyone in the world who cares, Who am I? Why am I living? Life has become stupid and purposeless. Nothing makes sense to me anymore. My questions when I came to college are still unanswered, and I am convinced there are no answers. There can only be pain and guilt and despair here in this world. My fear of death and the unknown is far less terrifying than the prospect of the unbearable frustration, futility, and hopelessness of continued existence.”

The book of Ecclesiastes is the story of Solomon’s search for meaning and purpose in life. Throughout his story, he describes the conclusions he reaches. His conclusions are far different than those of the hostess at the end of the Monty Python movie, “The Meaning of Life.” She dramatically opens the envelope containing the answer. She reads, “Try to be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.” Although good instructions for living in community, does that really answer the question? Of course not! You can’t answer the ” why ” question by giving directions on “how.” Solomon’s conclusions prove to be much more meaningful. His answer is repeated several times throughout the course of the book. It’s all about having a relationship with the God who created us. One website explained it well. Commenting on Solomon’s use of the phrase “vanity of vanities,” It says, “Solomon used this phrasing to demonstrate the meaninglessness of living apart from God. The term vanity of vanities is a superlative, emphasizing the emptiness of a Godless life. Without God, life is empty, holds no real meaning, and provides no lasting significance

 

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Ephesians 5:18-21

Gratitude & The Spirit-filled Life

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
November 30, 2024

When Paul writes to the Ephesians, he says, “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:18-21). While many of us are familiar with the fruits of the spirit listed in Galatians 5-love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control-this list is not exhaustive. It’s more than a mere checklist. There are other “fruits of the spirit.” One significant one is “thankfulness” as we discover in the Ephesians passage. When the Spirit of God guides our lives, we are enveloped in a spirit of gratitude, becoming thankful people in all aspects of our lives.

It is through the transformative presence of the Spirit that we can become people of perpetual gratitude. It’s through the power of the Spirit that Job proclaimed, “the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed is the name of the Lord.” It’s through the indwelling of God’s Spirit that he declared, “naked came I into the world and naked from it I will go.” And only the Holy Spirit could have inspired his words, “Although He slay me, yet will I put my faith in Him.” An unknown author beautifully encapsulated this transformation in a poem:

O Thou whose bounty fills my cup, With every blessing meet!
I give Thee thanks for every drop—The bitter and the sweet.

I praise Thee for the desert road, And for the riverside;
For all Thy goodness hath bestowed, And all Thy grace denied.

I thank Thee for both smile and frown, And for the gain and loss;
I praise Thee for the future crown And for the present cross.

I thank Thee for both wings of love Which stirred my worldly nest;
And for the stormy clouds which drove Me, trembling, to Thy breast.

I bless Thee for the glad increase, And for the waning joy;
And for this strange, this settled peace Which nothing can destroy.

“Be filled with the Spirit… giving thanks always for everything.” Ephesians 5:20

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Colossians 1:12

Thanksgiving as Therapy!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
November 29, 2024

I’ve always argued that the commandments of God are not given to us in order to keep us from the enjoyable things in life. On the contrary, they are given to us so we’ll live the best possible lives in this fallen world. God always has our best interests foremost in mind when he allows suffering and when he commands obedience. He’s not, like some think, the kind of God who wants to keep good things from us. Eve fell for that Satan’s ploy! He only wants our best in every situation and circumstance. The scriptures make ingratitude a sin, and it commands us to be thankful. He commands us to be thankful because that’s the best thing for us.

David Jeremiah tells this story: A man on the verge of a nervous breakdown was counseled to practice the therapy of thanksgiving. He was told to make a list of all the people who had ever helped him in his life. Then he was to sit down and write a letter of thanks to a person who had especially blessed his life in the past. This man thought through his life and remembered a school teacher he’d had when he was growing up. She was a very old lady now. He wrote her a letter expressing his appreciation for all she’d meant to his life during his days of schooling. Several days went by and he got a letter back from her. She wrote, “Dear Willie, as I recall all the children I have taught over the years, you are the only one who ever took time to write and thank me for what I did as a teacher. You’ve made me so happy. I’ve read your letter through tears. I keep it by my bedside and read it every night. I shall cherish it until the day I die.” This man was so thrilled by the reply that he wrote more letters. At last he’d written 500 letters to the people he felt grateful to. Do you know what happened? The man got better.

Louis Smedes, in his reflection after a near-death experience, wrote: I found myself soaring beyond my physical self. High. Suspended in weightless lightness, as if my earthly existence required no solid ground but was suspended in space, buoyed only by love. I was overwhelmed with gratitude. In that moment, I discovered that gratitude is the most profound emotion I would ever experience in my life. It was the ultimate joy of living. It surpassed the thrill of winning the lottery. It was richer and more profound than any other emotion. It is, perhaps, the source of all other truly positive emotions in the human experience. I am certain that nothing in life can ever match the sensation of being fully, completely, and utterly grateful.

“Give thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.” Colossians 1:12

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2 Thessalonians 1:3, Various

An Attitude Of Gratitude

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
November 28, 2024

I love Thanksgiving! I love sleeping in on a Thursday!  I love getting up in the morning with the knowledge that it’s a holiday, and no one will be going to work in the family. We’ll have a lazy morning with a donut and coffee as we smell the turkey baking in the oven! We’ll watch some early football games and then enjoy a wonderful turkey feast. The kids will bring their families over, and we’ll celebrate this day together. I get to eat cranberry sauce. It’s the only day of the year when I have that. I think it’s traditional. But why is it that we only have it on Thanksgiving day? We don’t have it any other time. It’s almost like a law! I wonder if that’s like “Thanksgiving” as a whole. We go without being thankful all year except for one day a year. Is it only on Thanksgiving day at the end of November that we give thanks and eat cranberry sauce? I think it should be the other way around. We should give thanks every day of the year except for one day. That’s the day we set aside time to grumble and complain about everything. When that day is over, we go back to being thankful.

I think that would make for a happier life. Bob Morgan says, “Few things can change a person’s life more dramatically than developing an attitude of gratitude. Your attitude does indeed affect your altitude. It affects how far you will go in life and how much you will enjoy the journey. An attitude of gratitude is a biblical principle. There are 138 verses in the Bible dealing with ‘thanksgiving’ alone. Many more talk about rejoicing, happiness, and joy.”[1] Many of these verses are in the Psalms. In Psalm 92:1-2 the Psalmist writes, “It is good to give thanks to the Lord, and to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; to declare Your lovingkindness in the morning, and Your faithfulness every night.” Joy is often accompanied by thankfulness. That’s what Paul meant when he told the Colossians in 3:15-17. He said, “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.  And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Then Paul tells the Thessalonians a thankful spirit is what they should have “all” the time. 2 Thessalonians 1:3 tells us, “We ought always to give thanks to God…”

An attitude of Gratitude “moves the heart of God.” We sometimes forget that God has feelings, too. The scriptures show us that God is hurt, angry, grieved, jealous, etc. When I sent my Mother a 25th wedding anniversary gift, along with a letter thanking her for being my Mom, she was moved. My Dad said she showed that $1.98 plate to everyone at their party. Although she had a huge collection of Hummel plates, some worth nearly $1,000.00, she showed them my little saucer from Gibraltar that said, “Gibraltar, Gateway to the Mediterranean.” She bragged about it as if it were the most valuable plate she had. I remember also that she even mentioned that plate to me 20 years later on her deathbed. I had no idea that such a simple gesture of gratitude would move the heart of someone!

[1] Morgan, Robert J. 2004. Nelson’s Annual Preacher’s Sourcebook. 2004 Edition. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

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Colossians 3:15-17, 1 Thessalonians 5:18

Being Thankful in all Circumstances

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
November 27, 2024

The primary function of the Spirit of God in the world today is to convict us of our sin and our need for a savior and to convince us of the infallibility and authority of God’s Word. The truths of scripture have many different titles. It’s called the Word of God, the Truth, the Holy Writings, the Scriptures, God’s Word, and at times the Word of Christ. When the Spirit fills our lives, and we let the Word of God live in us, the natural result is thanksgiving! Paul exhorted believers everywhere to Surrender to the Spirit of God and submit to God’s Word, and let the results fill their lives. The result of living such a life is always a life of peace with God as well as a thankful heart. He wrote in Colossians 3:15-16, “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.”

The Apostle Paul, the hero of thanksgiving, understood the universality of human suffering. He writes about it in Colossians and in Ephesians but really delves into it in the book of Romans. Many times I’ve heard people tell me that it’s really easy for me to say we should all be thankful, but I don’t know what’s going on in their lives right now and if I did I would say such cliché’s to them. My first reaction is a personal one and I’ve learned never to voice it. I think “do you think my life is all perfect and that I don’t have any problems or that I haven’t suffered any loss of any kind?” I don’t say that, but I usually think it. I like to quote Paul’s comment to the Corinthians that there is no trial or temptation that is not common to man. We want to say “poor me,” and we sing the old spiritual “nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen.” The truth is we all know trouble and suffering and loss. It’s a shared human experience, a thread that binds us all.

No one knew it better than the first century believers in Rome. Nero was great and setting them on fire to light the walk in his garden. He was great at sending them to the coliseums to be attacked and eaten by wild dogs and lions for the entertainment of his constituents. He was great at many other creative ways of torture and execution as well. But Paul tells the Romans the truth about their situation that transcends all the sufferings of life. He writes, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, for your sake we are being killed all the daylong; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” If this word dwells in us, we can’t help but be thankful no matter what’s going on in our lives.”

“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18

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2 Corinthians 2:14

Gratitude & the Victorious Life

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
November 26, 2024

In the 1960’s movie, “Shenandoah,” Jimmy Stewart plays the father of a large southern family who settled the land and built his life together with his wife and children. When the movie starts, we see that the mother of the ten or so children has passed away. They all sit down together for dinner, and Jimmy tells everyone to be quiet and honor their mother’s last wishes by saying dinner grace together at meals. He prays (words to this effect), “We thank you for this food even though we’ve cleared the land ourselves without your help. We cut every tree, moved every rock, calved every animal, and did it all ourselves, but we say thank you anyway.” His tone and mood are obviously one of condescension and disbelief. He prays only because he promised his dead wife that he would. He’s a self-made man, and he did what he did without any help from God.

But, when the Civil War breaks out, one by one, his sons become involved in the war on one side or the other. The soldiers from both sides confiscate his crops and cattle. He gets word of the death of his sons, and the youngest one runs off to join up also. The movie is about this father seeking out and bringing home this lost son. At the end of the movie, there are very few at the dinner table: the youngest son, two daughters, and the father. He begins the same prayer but breaks down and weeps. The lesson for us all is that the things that matter most in life are things that are indeed out of our control. The blessings of God should never be taken for granted or seen as something we have earned or deserve.

Like Jimmy Steward many of us today have lost the attitude of gratitude and have allowed the economic system to confuse us regarding the true source of our wealth and welfare. We think we have what we have because we somehow have earned it and deserve it. The truth hasn’t changed. The most important things in life are still out of our control and we should never forget the great provider and sustainer of us all. Be sure to tell each person around your dinner table how thankful you are for them. David Jeremiah writes, “Although it is possible for us to ritually bow our heads before we eat and not be grateful people, there is something about thanking God over three meals a day that reminds us we are not responsible personally for all we have. We owe our allegiance to God. The Bible speaks very strongly to the Christian about the importance of thanksgiving. In fact, it very carefully links the spirit of gratitude with the victorious Christian life.”

“Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ Jesus.” 2 Corinthians 2:14

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Colossians 2:7

I Thank God for You

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
November 25, 2024

There are so many things for which I am thankful in my life. As I sat down and looked through my digital pictures of old Thanksgiving, I was surprised to find how many I had. Dad always diligently took pictures of us at our table with Turkey.  As I mentioned, we didn’t practice saying Grace at many meals, but at Thanksgiving, we always did, and Dad would lead it. I don’t remember what he said. I wish I could, but I know he prayed the standard prayer we had all learned, “Bless us, Oh Lord, and these thy gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty, through Christ, Our Lord. Amen.” As my kids grew up, we’d say more personal prayers and even share what we were thankful for. I still like to do that today during the Thanksgiving season.

It’s always good to be specific when thanking God. Paul was. In his letter to the Romans, which was to be the longest of his letters, after his opening, and before he got into the content of his main reason for writing, he said, “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you…” That’s a great thing to thank God for. He was grateful for the believers in the world’s capital city of Rome. He knew how hard it was to be a believer in the 1st-century world and rejoiced that God had blessed him with other believers to share his life within every part of the world. Paul did not plant the church in Rome but was thankful for every believer there.

I’m thankful for all of you who share my faith in Jesus Christ. It’s not easy in our society to be a serious believer, and we need each other to nourish our faith, to encourage us in the face of opposition, ridicule, and often shame. We comfort each other. We give credence that we’re not crazy; if we are, there are many crazy people like us. I always enjoy the thought that I’m not in this alone. You are with me! There are believers all over the world, and everywhere I go, we find those who love the Lord and subscribe to the wonderful values and teachings of the scriptures. That has always helped and sustained me in my mission and call to preach the Gospel. Like Paul, I thank God for all of you!

“Keep your roots deep in him, build your lives on him, and become stronger in your faith, as you were taught. And be filled with thanksgiving.” Colossians 2:7

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