VIDEO How to Wait

Show me Your ways, O Lord; teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; on You I wait all the day. Psalm 25:4-5

 

Waiting is a fact of life. The question is not, “Will we have to wait?” but, “What do we do while we wait?” Before the advent of cellphones, many people carried a book in their purse, briefcase, or backpack to read while waiting. Today, nearly everyone has a phone with them, so they spend time scrolling through headlines, emails, or texts.

But waiting is not just something that happens in modern life. Waiting also happens in the spiritual life. Sometimes we are “forced” to wait on God to answer or act; other times we choose to wait as a way to gather our thoughts or recharge our physical or spiritual batteries. In the case of spiritual waiting, what should we do while we wait? Psalm 25:4-5 suggests two priorities: prayer (“Show me Your ways, O Lord”) and meditation on God’s Word (“Lead me in Your truth and teach me”).

When you are waiting, wait prayerfully and meditatively. Let God speak to your heart by His Spirit and His Word.

Teach us, O Lord, the discipline of patience, for to wait is often harder than to work. Peter Marshall

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VIDEO Psalm 25 – A Plea for Help from the Humble and Reverent

Next Step of Love

Let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. 1 John 3:18

What would cause someone to help a competitor? For a restaurant owner named Adolfo in Wisconsin, it was the opportunity to encourage other struggling local restaurant owners adapting to Covid regulations. Adolfo knew firsthand the challenges of operating a business during a pandemic. Encouraged by another local business’ generosity, Adolfo spent his own money to purchase more than two thousand dollars in gift cards to give away to his customers to use at other restaurants in his community. That’s an expression of love that’s not just words but action.  

Building on the ultimate expression of love demonstrated by Jesus’ willingness to lay down His life for humanity (1 John 3:16), John encouraged his readers to also take the next step and put love into action. For John, to “lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (v. 16) meant demonstrating the same type of love exemplified by Jesus—and that would most often take the form of everyday, practical actions, such as sharing material possessions. It wasn’t enough to love with words; love required sincere, meaningful actions (v. 18).

Putting love into action can be hard because it often requires personal sacrifice or disadvantaging ourselves for another person. Enabled by God’s Spirit and remembering His lavish love for us, we can take the next step of love.

By:  Lisa M. Samra

Reflect & Pray

How have you experienced love in action? How can you take the next step to love someone in a practical way?

Dear Jesus, please help me to follow Your example and take the next step to demonstrate genuine love in my actions today.

Parting Words: A New Commandment

We love like Jesus when we serve one another John 13:1-17

Is there a task around the house you just can’t stand to do, yet you know it needs to be done? Maybe you find yourself looking the other way, hoping someone else will do the dirty work.

But not Jesus. On this final night with His friends, as they gathered for dinner, someone needed to clean all those filthy feet. After all, they would be sitting on the ground, their bodies close to the low table of food. Their sandals would be caked with dust and dirt and whatever else they walked through on the streets. This task was considered so disgusting and menial that it’s thought even slaves at times refused to do it.

But on this night, Jesus Himself filled a basin and began to wash His disciples’ feet. Peter was appalled and cried, “Never shall You wash my feet!” (John 13:8). Yet Jesus insisted. There, in their last hours together, it was paramount that they understood exactly who Jesus was. Yes, Jesus was their Teacher, Lord, and Master. And His signs and wonders were evidence that He was God. But this God came to serve, not to demand. To die, not to kill.

What does it mean to follow such a God? That night, with His friends, Jesus demonstrated this vividly. No student can be greater than his teacher, after all. We must be the people who serve one another.

Manna at the Banquet Table

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” (Mark 12:30-31)

The hymn “Brethren, We Have Met to Worship” is summarized in the moving lines of its final verse.

Let us love our God supremely,
Let us love each other, too;
Let us love and pray for sinners,
Till our God makes all things new.
Then He’ll call us home to heaven,
At His table we’ll sit down;
Christ will gird Himself, and serve us
With sweet manna all around.

The Christian’s blessings include daily “manna” (provision and blessing) from God and the promise of life with Christ throughout eternity. Our union with Him is compared to a marriage, commencing with a sumptuous wedding feast: “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints” (Revelation 19:7-8). “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:8).

When He comes and claims His bride—the ones for whom He sacrificed His precious blood—He will usher us all into His banquet room. Then “he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them” (Luke 12:37). JDM

Fear And Anxiety

FEAR and ANXIETY are tormenting and crippling emotions that can plague the soul to its core. In Isaiah 41:10-16, God assures us of hope:

If you feel ALONE or ABANDONED – God promises you His presence:

“Do not fear, for I am with you“(vs. 10)

“Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.“(vs. 10)

If you feel WEAK or HELPLESS – God promises you His strength:

“I will strengthen you.“(vs. 10)

“I will uphold you.“(vs. 13)

“I will help you.“(vs. 10, 13, 14)

If you feel VULNERABLE – God promises you His protection:

“Behold, all those who are angered at you will be shamed and dishonored; those who contend with you will be as nothing, and will perish. You will seek those who quarrel with you, but will not find them, those who war with you will be as nothing and non-existent.“ (vs. 11, 12)

If you feel ILL-EQUIPPED – God promises to make you into His powerful instrument:

“Behold, I have made you a new sharp threshing sledge with double edges: You will thresh the mountains, and pulverize them, and will make the hills like chaff. You will winnow them, and the wind will carry them away, and the storm will scatter them… “(vs. 15, 16a)

Receive His promises today so that instead of being hobbled by fear and anxiety, you will:

“Rejoice in the Lord“ and (vs. 16)

“Glory in the Holy One“(vs. 16)

The danger in seeking relief from FEAR and ANXIETY however, is our tendency to seek the peace itself, rather than the Lord Jesus, the source of peace:

“He Himself is our peace“(Ephesians 2:14a)

“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you… let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.“(John 14:27)

Seek Him. Wait upon Him. Cast your burdens upon Him — and inexplicably, your fear and anxiety will dissipate. You will then find yourself alone with the Savior, the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).

“The Lord shall suddenly come to his temple.”

Malachi 3:13-18

Here we conclude our Old Testament readings; the Lord grant that we may not have read in vain.

Malachi 3:13

The people were far too ready to justify themselves and deny the charges which were so justly drought against them. We are never right while we try to clear ourselves before God.

Malachi 3:14

They looked for temporal benefit from their outward religiousness. Like hirelings they would be paid for everything they did, and had no real love to God.

Malachi 3:15

Thus they envied the condition of the wicked, and thought God’s dealings were unjust.

Malachi 3:16

While sinners were murmuring, a few saints of a better temper were communing about the best things. They spake often together, and spake so sweetly that the Lord listened, and recorded what he heard. Holy conversation is both edifying to us and pleasing to God.

Malachi 3:17

The Lord made these holy talkers to be his crown jewels, his peculiar treasure, and he promised that at the last great judgment day he would own them as his choice ones. May we all be among them.

Malachi 3:18

Men will be seen in their true colours at the last, and hypocrisy will come to an end.

Malachi 4

Malachi 4:1-2

Carefully attended and bountifully supplied.

Malachi 4:3

This shall be the result of Christ’s coming, that the wicked shall be overcome, while the righteous shall rise to glory and happiness.

Malachi 4:5, 6

John did come in the power of Elias; he began to preach the glad news which bids all discord cease. That gospel word has continued its peace-giving power, and will do so for ever. The Old Testament concludes with the word “curse.” The Jews have wished to alter this, but there it stands. Let us look away from the law which can only curse us to that better covenant which blesses us in Christ Jesus.

How will my heart endure

The terrors of that day,

When earth and heaven, before his face,

Astonish’d shrink away?

Ye sinners, seek his grace,

Whose wrath ye cannot bear;

Fly to the shelter of his cross,

And find salvation there.

So shall that curse remove,

By which the Saviour bled;

And the last awful day shall pour

His blessings on your head.

God’s Overcomers

These have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. (Revelation 7:14)

I insist that if we are burdened with genuine concern, we have the responsibility of examining the true spiritual condition of men and women within the church’s ranks.

We do live in a time of soft, easy Christianity. It is an era marked by a polite “nibbling” around the edges of the Word of God. There is a mindset within present day Christianity that supposes one should get into trouble or suffer embarrassment for Christ’s sake!

My brethren, what does it mean to be loyal to Jesus Christ? To confess that Jesus Himself is more important to us than anything else in the world?

Many find it hard to understand how large numbers of Christian believers could have died for their faith in our own generation! With a sense of distant admiration, we call them simple-hearted nationals. God calls them overcomers!

Professing Christians in our North American churches can hardly comprehend so costly a price for the faith we take for granted. Material prosperity and popular acceptance have sapped the vitality of our Christian witness!