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Show Yourself, November 30, 2020

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

Can you believe Advent started? The year rushed by very slowly, one day at a time with everything that plagued us over the last eleven months. But Advent is here. A time to look backward and celebrate the time when Jesus, the Messiah, came to live among us. He showed us the living God’s character and sacrificed himself to pay the penalty for our sins that we might find forgiveness and life everlasting with him.

Advent also celebrates looking forward to the time when Jesus, our Messiah, will return to take us live with him for eternity. He will reign for a thousand years, renew all creation, and set the world right again. Those who believe in him for salvation will live with him throughout eternity renewed with our original purpose restored, to care for his creation forever.

Advent is a magnificent time of celebration in the Christian community and begins the global church calendar year. The first Sunday of Advent marks the recognition that God came to dwell with us and the assurance he will come again to take us home to live with him forever.

Each year, the lectionary begins Advent with scripture in mind that points to these recognitions. This year, the first lectionary scripture from the Old Testament comes from Isaiah, chapter 64. Isaiah describes events current in the prophet’s time but could also describe today’s events in many respects. The particular section we will explore today, though, makes a request that could be somewhat terrifying for many, if not all of us.

So, what was Israel like in Isaiah’s day? First, Jerusalem held a powerful position in the world. The kingdom was prosperous by ancient standards. Yet, because of their strategic location, everyone wanted to possess that little piece of land. It was the crossroads to the north and south and west from the Mediterranean Sea. If you owned the mountain passes in and around Jerusalem, you held the region’s military advantage.

As the crossroads, it also became wealthy with her ability to trade because every civilized nation passed through the region. If you wanted to charge tariffs for travel through the country, you suddenly had an instant income without much work. The country had money.

Of course, the problem with sitting on strategic property was that every other country wanted to own it. Israel faced lots of invasions. And since the northern and southern kingdoms split, they no longer had David and Solomon’s kingdoms’ strength. By the time Isaiah prophesied under King Uzziah, the northern kingdom was in shambles, and the southern kingdom was closing in fast.

With Jerusalem as its capital, Judah was rich, but not in ways it should have been. It had money but no character. Isaiah told of a Messiah who would come and rule the nations. One who would finally fulfill the promise God wanted to be done through Abraham’s lineage. Israel’s mission had always been to bless the other nations of the world, not to overpower them or become rich at their expense. God wanted Israel to show the other nations his love. Show them how to live together in community. Call them to repentance and live together in peace.

Instead, Isaiah saw oppression from the priests and kings who ruled over the people. He saw inequality in their justice between the rich and the poor. Isaiah cried out for the nation to care for the widows and orphans, those who could not care for themselves in that society. He pleaded for the nation to return to the roots of their worship. Isaiah also warned of the consequences of not heeding God’s command for doing so – ruin, destruction, exile, death, the curses foretold to Moses centuries before.

Ancient Israel sounds a lot like us, doesn’t it? We look for the Messiah’s return. We long for freedom for oppressive governments, equality in justice between the rich and poor, care for those who cannot care for themselves, return to worship the living God. We pray for the fulfillment of the church’s mission – to show the world who Jesus is, show his love, how to live peacefully together, to come to him repentantly. And we often pray, “Why are you waiting so long? Come soon!”

Then we come to Isaiah 64. Listen to these words.

If only You would rip open the heavens

and come down to earth—

Its heights and depths would quake the moment You appear,

Like kindling when it just begins to catch fire, or like water that’s about to boil.

If only You would come like that so that all who deny or hate You

Would know who You are and be terrified of Your grandeur.

We remember that long ago You did amazing things for us

that we had never dreamed You’d do.

You came down, and the mountains shook at Your presence.

Nothing like that had ever happened before—no eye had ever seen,

and no ear had ever heard such wonders,

But You did them then for the sake of Your people, for those who trusted in You.

You meet whoever tries with sincerity of purpose to do what You want—

to do justice and follow in Your ways.

But You became so angry when we rebelled and committed all sorts of wrongs;

we have continued in our sins for a long time. So how can we be saved?

We are all messed up like a person compromised with impurity;

even all our right efforts are like soiled rags.

We’re drying up like a leaf in autumn and are blown away by wrongdoing.

And it’s so sad because no one calls out to You

or even bothers to approach You anymore.

You’ve been absent from us too long;

You left us to dissolve away in the acrid power of our sins.

Still, Eternal One, You are our Father.

We are just clay, and You are the potter.

We are the product of Your creative action, shaped and formed into something of worth.

Don’t be so angry anymore, O Eternal;

don’t always remember our wrongs.

Please, look around and see that we are all Your people. (Isaiah 64:1-9 The Voice)

Isaiah asks for God to return as he did in ancient days. We sometimes do that, too. But Isaiah recognized what that meant. I’m not sure we do. We too often think in terms of a soft, gentle, teddy bear kind of God that will just pat us on the head and tell us everything is okay no matter what we do. He isn’t that kind of God. One day, he will make everything right. As a God of love, he is also a God of justice. The two go hand in hand. He must take care of evil and sin at some point or he is not a God of love.

So, when he returns to fix the world’s evil, what will he do? Isaiah describes his ancient justice and might pretty well. He ripped the heavens open and made mountains shake. His grandeur terrified those who saw his miraculous appearances. If you’ve been in 5 or 6 or 7 magnitude earthquakes, you understand what mountain shaking means. If you’ve been in the middle of a tornado, you know how you might describe the raw power of an angry God. If you’ve faced the rouge 100-foot wave in an ocean storm, you can understand the fear of God touching earth to cleanse evil from its face.

In ancient times, the Hebrews record times God punished sins immediately and harshly. Today, since his sacrifice on the cross, we experience another side of God’s love and justice. His grace and mercy extend to us, but he has not changed. He gives us the opportunity to change, repent, follow him, and do his will. But he has not changed. God is as angry at sin and the ruin of his perfect creation as he was with Adam’s first act of disobedience. God is also sad at our absence and unfaithfulness as he continues to call to us in a hundred different ways.

I like the analogy Isaiah uses to help us remember our place in the universe. God is the creator. He is the potter; we are just a lump of clay in his hands. But as the master potter, God made this lump of clay something of worth. He remembers us because he made us. He listens to our pleas because he made us. He cares for us because he made us.

This first week of Advent, celebrate the fact that Jesus, the Messiah, came to live with us. He calls us to repent and follow him. Then and now, his message is the same, believe in him, and you will have eternal life. Then remember he will return. When he does, the mountains will shake. He will come as a consuming fire. Jesus, the Messiah, will set all things right again, renewing his creation and restoring those who believe in him for salvation.

Advent begins the church year. Whatever has happened this last year, let’s give it to God, and let’s give this next year to him as well. He can and will make all things new. I’m ready for a renewed and restored world, but we have a lot of people who need to hear about God’s love and salvation so they can join us in that renewed creation. Let’s start the year right by telling them.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

Keep Christ in Christmas, December 23, 2019

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

Here we are at the last week of Advent. Children wait expectantly to open the packages under the tree. Moms and Dads scurry around for those last-minute gifts and the trimmings for the Christmas feast at the family table. Everyone vies for their favorite Christmas movies on one of the six-thousand cable channels. At least it seems there are that many sometimes. The countdown to Christmas has almost finished.

But what do we expect when the countdown reaches zero?

Too often, the climax we expect feels like a letdown. When the paper and empty boxes pile up in the corner, the plates find themselves in the sink, and the leftovers fill the refrigerator, we sigh and ask, “Is that it? All that work and fuss for this?”

In just a few short hours, it’s all a memory and usually a relatively short one at that. We build our hopes around what happens around a Christmas tree or a Christmas dinner and find that what happens there just doesn’t last. The ribbons and bows and shiny paper don’t bring the joy we thought it would in the end. The perfect present we spent days and weeks searching out doesn’t carry the reaction we thought it would. The feast doesn’t create the festival we expected.

There is a reason why, but most won’t agree. You see, we miss the point. We celebrate Christmas, but forget to invite the person we celebrate. We forget to leave a seat for the namesake of the holiday. We welcome all our friends but put an “X” in place of the most important guest of the season. Even those who call themselves Christian miss this essential ingredient in celebrating this holy day. We forget to leave a place for him as we prepare the schedule crammed with fun things to bring special memories for the future.

Matthew records his birth this way:

The birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. His mother Mary had been promised to Joseph in marriage. But before they were married, Mary realized that she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Her husband, Joseph, was an honorable man and did not want to disgrace her publicly. So he decided to break the marriage agreement with her secretly.

Joseph had this in mind when an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. The angel said to him, “Joseph, descendant of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife. She is pregnant by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus [He Saves], because he will save his people from their sins.” All this happened so that what the Lord had spoken through the prophet came true: “The virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will name him Immanuel,” which means “God is with us.”

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him to do. He took Mary to be his wife. He did not have marital relations with her before she gave birth to a son. Joseph named the child Jesus. (Matthew 1:18-25 GW)

His short journey with us isn’t one most would want. He began his life marked as an illegitimate son of Mary, born in a cave with a stone bed filled with straw as the only place to lay his tiny head. He knew poverty. Most scholars think his earthly dad died shortly after his temple experience at the age of twelve. He became the breadwinner for his family in a village whose residents often operated on the wrong side of the law. And most of those villagers thought he was an illegitimate child, not the son of holy God they worshipped.

People expected the Messiah. The prayed for him to come to rescue them from the tyranny of Rome. They longed for relief from their long trial of oppression at the hand of godless nations after returning to Jerusalem from their defeat and exile.

But surely God would not send his Messiah through a poor peasant from Nazareth. Surely God would choose the wife of the chief priest or some other notable character in the temple to raise his Messiah. He wouldn’t possibly have some peasant girl from the lowest of towns on the dark side of the nation give birth to the savior of Israel.

For everyone who knew him growing up, Jesus didn’t seem to be anyone special. But he knew, Mary knew, Joseph knew that he would redeem Israel one day. He would bring freedom to the captives. They didn’t understand how. They didn’t realize it would mean his death on the cross, and he brought freedom from the penalty of sin, not freedom from political oppression.

But we know. We look back on two thousand years of history and see what God did through his Son, Jesus. We know the changes he made to the world. We recognize the incredible transformation his presence in one’s life brings. Still, we leave him out of our celebrations at this special time of year.

We stay absorbed in the world’s pleasures and what the world offers instead of the real treasure Jesus offers. We remove his name from Christmas, replace it with an X, or just call it the holiday season, so no one gets offended. Then wonder why there is no satisfaction when we get up from the feast or unwrap the last present.

I invite you in the last days before Christmas to stop and meditate on him. Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, our Savior is the namesake of these holy days. He is the reason we celebrate. Be careful preparing the festivities for family and friends that you leave a place for him in your celebrations. Make him the centerpiece in all you do.

If you will, you will find this holiday most enjoyable. If Jesus is in the center of your celebration, this will be one of the best Christmases you’ve ever had regardless of your outward circumstances. Because he never fails, and he never leaves us alone.

Merry Christmas, and thanks for letting me share with you this past year.

It’s coming, are you prepared?, March 4, 2019

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

It’s hard to believe the season of Lent will begin this week if you are hearing this podcast the week of its release. Lent is something much of the protestant world has forgotten, unfortunately. It has long been part of the Christian Calendar of special remembrances and festivals, but when many of the current protestant denominations grew out of the Catholic and liturgical faiths, we sometimes threw the baby out with the bath.

Why do I say that? Why do I think we need to take a look at the Christian Calendar presented by some of the more liturgical fellowships? What is so important about those dates that we should drag them out of the closet as fundamentalists or charismatics? Are they necessary for our worship? No. Are they required to keep us on track with God? No. Are they critical to our study of Jesus and what he has done for us? Again, I’d answer no to the question. So why am I bringing it up the day after what has been named Transfiguration Sunday and just a few days before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the Lenten Season?

First, let me say that it has only been in the last couple of decades that I really let the Christian Calendar take root in my own life. And even so, many of the special days remembered by the Roman and Eastern Orthodox Churches will not be a part of my celebrations for a variety of reasons. But there are some that I think are good to embrace as remembrances of what Jesus did for us. And those fundamentalist and charismatics will agree that some of the calendar events are indeed special.

Who would argue that we should not remember Easter and its immediate predecessor Good Friday? Or how about Pentecost, the birth of the church? Those are predicated on Christmas, so shouldn’t that day be a part of our celebrations?

So you see, we do pick and choose what parts of the Christian Calendar we will celebrate or use as part of our worship. It’s just that in the last couple of decades, I’ve learned more about how the early church fathers used some of the special days to teach their congregates about the events of Jesus life and how they should emulate him in their daily walk. We must remember the majority of the early Christians were uneducated. Many could not read or write and even if they could, they didn’t have access to scriptures or books or literature to help them know who Jesus was, what he did, or how they could find peace in his forgiveness.

Consequently, the church provided special days to remember events in the life of Christ and the church to share the story of his life to the masses. The argument for why we don’t observe them from some is many were taken from pagan holidays and transformed instead into Christian holy days. I don’t disagree. But is that wrong? To transform something that was perhaps an evil practice and make it a holy one? If that’s wrong, then perhaps we need to look at ourselves. Jesus transforms this evil, sinful person into his likeness when we ask forgiveness and follow him. So why can’t we use some of those worldly things, transformed, for holy purposes?

Remember the dream Peter had about the banquet God provided of unclean animals? What God has made is never unclean. God makes all things good. So all 365 days of the year are good because God makes them. If we can use some tools to better remember what he has done for us, then isn’t that a good thing even when Satan tries to twist them into something bad?

Well, there is a little of my thought process to tell you we should embrace some of the calendar we have sometimes forgotten. One of those times is the Lenten Season. It begins with Ash Wednesday which this year falls on March 6. It began as a time of preparation for new Christians before their baptism. In the New Testament, believers were sometimes baptised immediately after their conversion. In the latter part of the first century, especially before Constantine became a believer and declared Christianity freed from persecution from his throne, believers began to desire baptism on Easter.

By the time Constantine became emperor, the church also had a problem with young believers not really knowing what they signed up for. The disciples were dead. Jesus had ascended. There were no authorized canons to show this is what the church believes is the definitive word of God. And they couldn’t read it anyway. It was necessary to teach these new Christians and make sure they knew the cost.

So the early church fathers like Ignatius, Origen, Hippolytus, Ambrose, and Augustine all recognized the need for a time of preparation before baptism into the church family. Kind of like doing the ground school training before you let the student pilot solo behind the controls of a plane in flight. Do they really believe and know what’s coming?

It wasn’t long before the standard preparation time became 40 days to coincide the 40 years the Israelites spent in the desert preparing to enter the promised land or the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness preparing for his ministry and fighting the temptations of Satan. Baptismal candidates would spend 3 hours a day for 40 days with their teacher, not counting Sundays, days to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. In a nutshell, the church wanted to make sure they knew about Jesus. They knew about their lostness without him. And they knew the commitment they were taking, the cost of being a follower of Christ.

Jesus told us to count the cost before launching into something and the cost of being a Christian is everything. He said if you don’t die, you can’t live. If you don’t take up your cross and follow him, you’re not one of his. It takes everything to be a Christian. In the early church persecution was real. We sometimes think we are persecuted in this country because someone points a finger at us and make snide remarks.

In the early church, Christians couldn’t shop in the open markets. They were all dedicated to pagan gods and you had to bow to those gods to enter. They couldn’t get jobs. Most of the jobs were owned by those who wanted to kill Christians, not help them. They often lost their property, confiscated by the religious leaders or the state because of their “rebellion.” The often lost their family. Either because of shunning when they accepted Christ as Savior and no longer upheld the pagan rituals of their family’s traditions or the state took their children because of the “abuse” by these rebellious parents. And sometimes the cost meant death.

The cost of being a Christian in the early church was everything. If the candidate wasn’t prepared to give up everything, including their family and their life, then baptism and the church were not for them. Lent was that time of study and preparation for baptism in the early church.

After Constantine, however, the church discovered the preparation for baptism were a good time for all the congregation to be reminded of their commitment. It was a good time to prepare for the most important event in the history of Jesus’ time on earth. In our culture, we have managed to make Christmas really important with all the celebrations and presents. But I think we have really made Christmas in this country about money more than anything else.

Easter is really what Jesus’ life was all about, though. He came to give his life as a sacrifice for you and me. But if had just died on the cross, he would not have been remembered. He would have been another good man who rebelled against the Jewish leaders and the Roman government and he lost as evidenced by his crucifixion. If his tomb had stayed sealed on that third day, there would be no New Testament. There would be no early church. There would be no days to remember. It would be over.

But it didn’t end there. Easter came. The tomb opened and he walked out…alive. More than 500 people saw him over those next 40 days before he ascended into heaven. His early kingdom has grown exponentially and men and women are willing to die for him even those he left this place on a cloud 2000 years ago. Easter is what Jesus came to do. Yes, he came to die as a perfect sacrifice for our sins. But more than that, Jesus came to live again to prove he has power of death and the grave. He has the power to transform us into something better.

Easter is coming. Lent is almost here. How will you prepare? What will you do to know Jesus? What will you do to know you are lost without him? What will you do to know the commitment you make when you say yes to his will? What will you share with those around you that are on their way to an eternity without him? How will you show others just what Jesus means to you as you prepare to celebrate his resurrection in a way you have never celebrated before, fully prepared to worship the risen Lord this Easter.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

Anniversaries remind me of Advent, December 11, 2017

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We have been following “The Story” for the last 14 weeks, but for the next three, we will take a short recess and enjoy Advent, remembering Jesus’ first coming into the world in the flesh and also looking forward to His return one day soon. This three week break also puts our reading in the story such that our reading in The Story will coincide with the events of Easter as those dates roll around. So I hope you enjoy this short interlude as we enjoy the Christmas season together.

The term advent came into being in the 12th century. This Middle English word means the arrival or coming of something. The church soon adopted it as the description of the period beginning four Sundays before Christmas, this year from December 3rd through December 24th. We use those four weeks to celebrate not just His coming, but to anticipate His return. That’s what Advent is all about. Something that arrives or comes.

As I prepare this podcast, I just celebrated my 41st anniversary. We spent the night as a “stay-cation” on the Riverwalk here in San Antonio. We enjoyed the lights, watched the people, ate great food, and reminisced about the last 41 years together. The time helped us remember our times together on other anniversaries. Gatlinburg, where we spent our honeymoon and several anniversaries, Germany, New York, and a host of other places. It made me remember a lot of anniversaries we spent apart because of deployments, field training, and travel at the Army’s demand.

We also thought about the future, though. The past helps lets us enjoy those fun times we’ve had together. We can live those good times over and over in our minds. But living in the past doesn’t help us much except to translate failures into lessons so that we don’t repeat mistakes and turn those lessons into more than knowledge. We can turn experience into wisdom as we mature and make the future better for ourselves and others as we share wisdom. So we talked about the future.

The younger crowd probably thinks in different ways about the future than those of us who are retiring and we who are retiring probably think differently than those who have been retired for awhile. Now Carole and I think about how we can live close to all of the grandkids. Of course, that would mean convincing our kids to live closer to each other in a mobile society. We think about health and downsizing and how much activity we can really do in a day before we launch out on one of those high adventure vacations. We talk about budgets and what will happen to pensions and Social Security and health insurance in the future now that we dip into it so much more than we did in the past.

But something we talk about so much more than we did a few years ago is just how close Jesus’ return feels to us. Earthquakes in Delaware? When did that become commonplace? Record numbers of hurricanes? Uncontrolled wildfires and flooding all around the world? You can blame it on global warming if you like, but you can also read about these things in Matthew 25 as Jesus warns of the catastrophic natural events that will occur before His return.

So as we read the papers and listen to the news and reporters seem so bumfuzzled about why things seem so crazy around the world, we just wonder how soon Jesus will return. We read the prophets and see the visions they saw happening all around us. I know, others have said the same thing for centuries, but as I read God’s word and recognize the earth is going through something like birth pangs to usher in a new heaven and new earth, It seems to me the labor pains are getting pretty intense. I’m not sure the labor can get much more intense before this new heaven and new earth come into existence.

So this Advent season we look at the future and recognize the earthquakes won’t diminish but will increase in the coming months or years. The floods will not stop, but rather the hurricanes will become more violent and more people along the coastal plains, major rivers, and 100, 500, and 1000 year flood plains will be at risk. Wildfires will continue to ravage areas plagued with continued drought. Violence from terrorism, racism, political divides, will only increase.

All of that sounds pretty bleak as we peek into the future and ask what it will be like. But it also means Jesus is coming soon. It means the end is near and we will join our Savior. We will be with Him forever when He comes to take His bride home. His desire has always been to live face to face with us in a personal, intimate relationship. The Story, His word, bares that out. As we look to the past and see His actions, His mercy and grace toward us, we recognize the love He has toward us and catch a glimpse of the plan He has for us in the future.

However, we must choose to get on the path to which He directs us. We cannot expect to live with Him eternally by choosing our own way, our own path. We must follow Him to His garden of Eden. We must follow His precepts and principles. We must obey. What are His commands? They are easy to remember, love God and love people. That’s it. Do those two things and all the others fall into place.

Here we are. The second week of Advent. Looking back and celebrating the arrival of Jesus, the One who changed everything. In fact, He changed the world so much that almost every nation recognizes Christmas as a special day of celebration, whether or not they are a Christian nation. It is an international, global holiday. The calendar turned because of His birth. He was and is the God/Man who came to save us.

Advent is also a time to look forward to His arrival. He said He would come again. All the signs are coming together to indicate He might come pretty soon. All you need do is read the paper and listen to the news, compare it to what He said would happen just before He comes and you’ll see the time is right for His return. This Advent season, take time to celebrate. Remember Jesus came to bring life and light to a dead and dark world. He did that in a spectacular way. But we can also remember He will come again to finish the work He said He would do. He will come again to take us to the place He is preparing for us. A place where we can be with Him face to face forever.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more about The Story and our part in it. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

Don’t wait until Friendship Day to celebrate (John 15:12-17)

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.
Topic Introduction with headline.
Scripture
1. John 15:12-17
2. Jesus: My commandment to you is this: love others as I have loved you. There is no greater way to love than to give your life for your friends. You celebrate our friendship if you obey this command. I don’t call you servants any longer; servants don’t know what the master is doing, but I have told you everything the Father has said to Me. I call you friends. You did not choose Me. I chose you, and I orchestrated all of this so that you would be sent out and bear great and perpetual fruit. As you do this, anything you ask the Father in My name will be done. This is My command to you: love one another.
Devotional
1. Friendship day is August 6th this year. You might not even know we have a friendship day, but there is it.
  1. Jesus tells us to celebrate friendship with Him if you obey His command to love one another.
  2. That’s one real friendship is all about
  3. Love God and love each other as we love ourselves
2. But what is friendship?
  1. The history of friendship day is a little shady, a little commercial.
  2. Joyce Hall, founder of Hallmark Cards 1930 to sell cards to send to friends
  3. Definition of friendship
    1. the emotions or conduct of friends; the state of being friends
    2. a relationship between friends
    3. a state of mutual trust and support between allied nations
  4. Friend
    1. a person who has a strong liking for and trust in another person
    2. a person who is not an enemy
    3. a person who helps or supports something
3. We don’t have many real friends in our society today; we live in isolation in crowded places
  1. Go to any restaurant or park or place where groups of people are gathered
  2. Watch their interactions
  3. Most are tied to their smartphones texting
  4. We isolate ourselves from each other without human touch and emotion
  5. We can avoid commitment by cutting the phone connection
4. Jesus said no greater love than to give His life for a friend
  1. Does that mean death?
  2. In His case it did
  3. But it might mean life; servanthood; caring enough to be present in times of need
  4. Give life when life crashes in around a friend; when they need help or support for something
  5. “A friend in need is a friend indeed” as far as Euripides in 424 BC
5. Friendship Day is not the time to celebrate friendship
  1. Today is the day
  2. Everyday is the day to celebrate friendship
  3. Be a friend
  4. Give your life to someone in need; serve with love and make a friend
  5. Jesus expected nothing in return for His friendship and says we are to be like Him
  6. Hard steps to follow but that is the command He give and it starts with love
  7. He loves us so we can love others and express genuine friendship to those around us
6. Go celebrate a few months early
If you want to learn more about my church, you can find us at SAF.church. If you like the devotional, share it with someone. If you don’t, tell me. I hope you’ll join me again tomorrow for “A Little Walk with God.”

What do you do to remember your past? (Mark 14:14-15) September 9, 2016

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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – Amos 1-4

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Mark 14:14-15
Jesus: Follow that man; and wherever he goes in, say to the owner of the house, “The Teacher asks, ‘Where is the guest room where I can eat the Passover meal with My disciples?’” He will take you upstairs and show you a large room furnished and ready. Make our preparations there.

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

We don’t think too much about what that meal Jesus ate with the disciples that night before His crucifixion. We think about the end of it. The words He said and the new covenant He established with them. We remember the prediction of His betrayal and the passing of the cup and the bread which He said word forever represent His blood and broken body. We remember these things because we celebrate that remembrance in communion or the Lord’s Supper of whatever name your denomination gives the ritual we use to commemorate that sacred covenant.

But did you ever think about the meal the disciples shared that night? I’ll admit, the thing that got me thinking about it today was the comment Jesus made, “Make our preparations there.” That little phrase. I’ve passed over it a lot, because I always focused on other parts of the story and never on that little phrase. But I want to share a couple of thoughts with you about those four words.

First, I want to point out that Jesus sent only two of His disciples ahead to make the preparations. They found the room set up and ready, but there was a lot more to do as I’ll explain in a minute. But only two disciples were about to do a lot of work to prepare the Seder, the Passover meal, for Jesus and the rest of His disciples.

Jesus and His disciples observed the law. They carried out the rituals Moses told them to carry out. We know they did a couple of things the Pharisees and Sadducees were upset about, like grabbing a handful of grain as they walked through a wheat field on the Sabbath or Jesus telling a man with a crippled arm to straighten it out on the Sabbath. But they observed the law as Jesus understood the law. And since He was there to give it to Moses, I expect He understood it pretty well.

The Mosaic law says to eat a whole lamb and leave nothing behind. Share it with as many families as are necessary, but leave nothing behind. Any of the lamb that is not eaten must be burned in the fire. The roasted lamb is to be eaten with bitter herbs and eaten while wearing traveling clothes. All in remembrance of the death angel passing over the homes of the Israelites who put the blood of the lamb on the door posts of their houses.

So if the disciples had to kill and butcher the lamb themselves, the process would take about an hour to kill, dress, and prepare the animal for the fire, assuming these two disciples were pretty skilled at the job. It’s probably a good assumption given the times they lived in and the necessity of often killing and butchering their own meat. Then roasting the lamb took another four to five hours depending on the size of the lamb.

The two could probably do some other task while the lamb was roasting, like prepare the bread, or buy it from the market along with the bitter herbs, the wine, and other foods for the meal. The tables were already up and maybe even set for the affair, so the food was probably the biggest preparation, but think about the work that went into preparing the Seder for 13 or more people without electricity and only brick ovens and open fires. These two guys did some work.

And this was a special meal. This was the Passover. The day that marked the beginning of the nation of Israel. The day that celebrated the breaking of the bonds of their slavery from Egypt. This day of celebration began by remembering the sorrow of the Egyptians and the mighty hand of God that protected them in the midst of His awesome avenging power meted out all around them. They heard the wailing through the night and were forced out of the country before daybreak. This was the event they remembered with this meal. The story was told year after year so the children would never forget and so the adults would never forget either.

What stories do we tell our children so they never forget the hand of God in our lives? What celebrations do we perform to commemorate God’s faithfulness to us? What special events do we remember so we never forget to thank God for His protection and watch care over us in both the good and bad times of life? It’s an important question, because if we don’t tell our children how God has helped us through the tough times of life, how will they know He’s the one who does? How will they ever learn to lean on Him? Two disciples worked all day to make preparations so the disciples could remember their past. What do you to remember yours?

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

God works behind the scenes (Esther 4), October 5, 2015

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Today’s Scriptures

Today’s Bible reading plans include:

Ready – Esther 4

Set – Esther 4; Luke 18

Go! – Esther 3-8; Luke 18

Esther 4
¹ Mordecai mourned when he found out what had happened. He ripped his clothes, put on sackcloth, and wiped ash onto his body. Then he went through the city, weeping loudly in anguish. ² When he came to the king’s gate, not far from the palace, he stopped since those wearing sackcloth were not permitted to enter it and disrupt the mood of the court.
³ In the meantime, as word of the king’s decree began to spread throughout all of the provinces, terrible distress grew among the Jews. They fasted, wept, and screamed out in misery. Like Mordecai, many put on sackcloth and ashes.
⁴ Back in Susa, Esther’s maids and eunuchs witnessed Mordecai mourning outside of the king’s gate. They went and reported to the queen all that they saw.
Esther: What is wrong? Why is he doing this? It breaks my heart to think of him like this. Take these clothes to Mordecai so he can put them on instead of wearing sackcloth.
But when the servants arrived, Mordecai refused to wear the clothes Queen Esther had sent. ⁵ So Esther sent for Hathach, who was one of the king’s eunuchs assigned to serve her.
Esther: Hathach, go to Mordecai at once. Find out why he is mourning, and report back to me all that he says.
⁶ Hathach went to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate. ⁷ Mordecai told the queen’s servant everything that had happened and how much money Haman had pledged to place into the royal treasury in exchange for the destruction of the Jews. ⁸ Then he gave Hathach a copy of the order for mass murder of the Jews, the same order issued in the city of Susa.
Mordecai: Show it to Esther. Tell her everything I have told you. Convince her to go before her king and plead for his favor, not only for her life, but also for the lives of her people.
⁹ Hathach returned to Esther and told her everything Mordecai had said. 10 Esther ordered Hathach to return to the city gate and reply to Mordecai.
Esther: ¹¹ How am I supposed to see the king? It’s known throughout the land, from the greatest of the king’s officials to the common folk who live in the provinces, that any person who approaches the king in the inner chamber without being invited is sentenced to death. That’s the law! There’s only one exception, and that’s if the king were to hold out the gold scepter to that person and spare his or her life. It’s been 30 days since the king last summoned me!
¹² Hathach and the other servants took Esther’s response to Mordecai.
Mordecai: ¹³ Tell Esther, “Don’t be fooled. Just because you are living inside the king’s palace doesn’t mean that you out of all of the Jews will escape the carnage. You must go before your king. ¹⁴ If you stay silent during this time, deliverance for the Jews will come from somewhere, but you, my child, and all of your father’s family will die. And who knows? Perhaps you have been made queen for such a time as this.”
¹⁵ Once again, Hathach returned to Queen Esther with Mordecai’s message. In turn she sent a reply back to Mordecai.
Esther: Tell Mordecai, ¹⁶ “In preparation for my audience with the king, do this: gather together all the Jews in Susa, and fast and pray for me. Intercede for me. For three days and nights, abstain from all food and drink. My maids and I will join you in this time. And after the three days, I will go in to the king and plead my people’s case, even though it means breaking the law. And if I die, then I die!”
¹⁷ Mordecai left the king’s gate and put all of Esther’s instructions into action.

Today’s Devotional

From today’s background scripture God might say:

Mordecai gave sage advice to his niece, Esther. “Perhaps you have been made queen for such a time as this.” I made you with a purpose in mind. I created you at the perfect time in history. I put you in just the right place and time to accomplish the tasks I had in store for you. It’s not a mistake that you have the parents you have or live in the place you live. Certainly some of the choices that were made along the line were not My choices, but I still allowed them to happen and none of the choices surprised Me.

I can still accomplished My plans through you if you will submit yourself to My will. You see, I can take the worst case scenarios and turn them into days of feasting and celebration as I did with Purim for the Jews. I accomplished that change through the faithfulness of a man named Mordecai and his niece, Esther. Neither expected to become instrumental in the salvation of their race as a people, but they were because of their faithfulness.

You never know how I will use the events in which you find yourself to change the circumstances and turn evil into good. You never know how I will reshape events to My will when you just obey Me and did the right thing. You just don’t know how I will work in the back ground to make sure My plans work out to rescue those who cannot defend themselve so that they suddenly become the victors against great odds to turn sorrow into joy and wailing into celebration.

Just try Me and see how I work behind the scenes in your life to make things work out in exceptional ways to see you through this life and the next.

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.