Cut the Rope of Security!
(This week’s devotions are based on Sunday’s message: Win the Day…Cut the Rope – LISTEN HERE)
Are you a risk taker?
Most polls of Americans indicate that a majority of people are risk-averse. People want a safe, secure path on which to travel. Many stay in a job because it provides stability in life and income. Most investors choose safer and more reliable returns on investment rather than vehicles that have a higher risk. Many don’t travel or move because of the risk of the change.
The old saying is true, “No risk…no reward.”
But too often we are willing to compromise the reward because we don’t want to take the risk.
Elisha Otis took a risk. When he stood three stories off the floor at the World’s Fair, he was counting on his security mechanism to catch the lift before it plummeted to the floor. Until people saw the rope cut and the lift catch after only falling a very short distance were people willing to purchase an Otis elevator and have it put in their building.
To be sure, Otis took a calculated risk. He had developed and tested the mechanism to ensure it worked. So when he put it on display for the crowds at the world’s fair he took a risk, but a calculated one.
In our Christian life we can be risk averse. We can play it safe and not let it be known too far and wide that we are a Christ-follower. We don’t want to lose a friendship, lose a relationship or lose a job because people find us to be Christians. We evaluate the risk of letting on we are a follower of Christ and can easily give into the risk and keep our faith to ourselves.
Let’s allow three men from the Old Testament to encourage us to take a risk, to cut the rope of our personal securities and rely on the promises and truth of God’s promises. Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego took a calculated step of faith. They were faced with denying the Lord or burning in the furnace. They knew and trusted their relationship with the Lord and so they were willing to risk defying Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. Here’s what happened:
Daniel 3:16 Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. 17 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. 18 But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”
The calculated step of faith was a risk, but it was a risk based on the time-tested, promises of God and putting the priority of the Lord first in their lives. The reward? Not only did the three survive, but the presence of God was realized as the fourth individual in the furnace and the testimony and influence of the Lord spread in the court of Nebuchadnezzar.
None of this would have happened if they didn’t take a risk and take a step of faith.
We have the same and more testing of God’s promises to rely on in our life today than the three did 2700 years ago.
So, with confidence in the promises of God, let’s cut the rope of our human securities and step boldly and confidently in faith with full reliance on the promises of God.
Apply: What situation am I facing today that God is inviting me to take a calculated step of faith based on his certain promises? What is the promise you will rely on as you step forward?
Prayer: Lord thank you for your time-tested and alway secure promises. Help me with your Spirit to cut the rope of personal security and rely fully on the security your promises give. AMEN.
Cut the Rope of Limitations!
(This week’s devotions are based on Sunday’s message: Win the Day…Cut the Rope – LISTEN HERE)
Elisha Otis had many people for years speak of the lack of safety in a lift. He perhaps, like others, could have thought, “There’s no way a person is going to ride a lift,” and allow the lift to continue to be used for material goods.
Every invention to one degree or another lets go of real or perceived limitations and breaks through them to advance a new idea or a new product or in the case of Otis, a new confidence in people riding in elevators.
But you have to let go of the limitations.
While this truth has practical life application, it also has spiritual applications.
The spiritual battle we wage daily is seeing and operating in life based on our human limitations. When WE don’t see a different way…when WE can’t think of another solution…when WE think a path forward is impossible, we are simply limiting our thoughts and perspectives to our experience.
I hate to say this, because I don’t want to hear it, but that’s the sin of pride.
Pride leads us to think and believe that we have ALL the answers, ALL the solutions, ALL the needed abilities, and ALL the limits of possibilities.
It’s time to cut the rope of pride. Pride limits life to our own perspective, our own capabilities.
An example is in Mark 4. Jesus is with the disciples on a boat in the Sea of Galilee when a squall comes up that threatens to swamp the boats. The experienced sailors saw the limits of their capabilities. They couldn’t calm the winds. They couldn’t still the waves. They couldn’t bail water fast enough. Their conclusion? They were going to drown.
Jesus on the other hand was asleep, seemingly undisturbed by the wind, waves and water coming in the boat.
Why?
Jesus had a different perspective which afforded him different possibilities.
Mark 4:35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
The limits of man’s capabilities were the beginning of God’s possibilities. The disciples couldn’t calm the wind and the waves, but Jesus did. The disciples couldn’t prevent the boat from sinking, but Jesus did.
Here’s what happens when we cut the rope of our own human limitations…we begin to see and experience the vast reality of God’s possibilities.
Apply: What obstacles are you facing today? What limitations are you feeling or experiencing? What happens when you ask the Lord to deal with the obstacle not with your human limitations, but with God’s possibilities?
Prayer: Lord forgive me for relying solely on my own capabilities. Help me have a heart of faith that always lives in the space of your possibilities. AMEN.
Cut the Rope!
(This week’s devotions are based on Sunday’s message: Win the Day…Cut the Rope – LISTEN HERE)
Until the mid-1800s people were afraid to personally ride in lifts, or elevators. For the most part buildings were five stories or under because that was the threshold people were willing to walk steps. Lifts were secured by a rope or cable and were used to raise and lower goods from one floor to another. The danger of people riding in lifts was if the rope broke, the lift would plummet to the ground causing severe injury or even death.
In 1852 Elisha Otis came up with an ingenious design that would keep the lift from falling to the ground should the rope break. The trouble? People were not buying his version of lift because they were skeptical it would work.
Until 1853.
In 1853, the World’s Fair came to New York City. Elisha Otis built a three-story tall model of his lift and safety break. To the delight, but skepticism, of the crowd, he stood on the lift and had himself lifted three stories off the floor. When the lift was at its highest point, he yelled to an assistant on the platform above the lift, “Cut the rope!”
The crowd gasped, but the safety mechanism sprung into action and with just a short fall, the mechanism caught and Elisha avoided a quick plummet down three stories.
Sales were no longer a problem and the Otis Elevator Company was formed. Estimates are today that every three days the equivalent of the world’s population rides an elevator…without thinking twice about the elevator plummeting to the ground floor.
Why?
Because Otis was willing to cut the rope!
To be sure, to many in Otis’ day, cutting the rope to a lift with a person on it would be a foolish idea. The rope is what most would say gave security to the lift. However, Otis saw a way to secure the lift that others didn’t. As a result, he could cut the rope and rely on something or someone different.
As people saw the demonstration, their confidence a) in using an elevator increased and b) as a result the skyline of New York and other cities changed.
Still today, when I think about it, what makes me feel safe in an elevator is not the cable that moves the elevator, but the safety mechanisms in place should the cable break.
As we go through life, the natural things to rely on are the “ropes” we are used to. The ropes are the things we can touch, experience, and have proven we can depend on. Confidence in human attributes, intellect or creations has a limit to the trust factor.
This week as we desire to win each day for the Lord will be the encouragement to cut the rope and to rely on what we cannot see.
This is the essence of faith as the writer to the Hebrews wrote:
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
I have never seen a safety break in an elevator, yet I trust it is there. I wish I could honestly say I have the same, consistent trust in the Lord, his power and promises. It is too easy to rely on what we can see and limit God to what we think is possible.
The rope we are used to is hard to cut. Much greater than Otis’ invention is the confidence we can have to walk today by faith.
Apply: What challenges you to walk by faith?
Prayer: Lord, forgive me for the times I have limited life to what I can see and experience. Help me to walk by your Spirit in the confidence and certainty of faith. AMEN.
Fly the Kite…expect more than you can imagine!
(This week’s devotions are based on Sunday’s message: Win the Day…Fly the Kite – LISTEN HERE)
Did Homan Walsh think he would be known as the boy who bridged two countries? Probably not. A 16-year old and a kite and long string and desire to win became the start of what would facilitate hundreds of thousands of people and goods crossing between the United States and Canada for years to come. If one interviewed Homan at the end of his life in 1899, I wonder if he would have said, “I never would have imagined what happened as a result of flying my kite on that cold January day.”
How much greater is the way that God works.
The Apostle Paul marveled and praised the Lord: (Ephesians 3:20) Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Paul had his own life to marvel at as God took a prosecutor of Christians to become one of the most prominent proclaimers of the Gospel. “I would never have imagined God could use me to bring salvation to so many souls.”
The disciples had different and varied backgrounds who became fishers of men for the sake of Christ. “I would never have imagined that God could take my experiences and let them impact others for the strengthening of their faith.”
Christians went through persecutions and hardships for their faith. “I would never have imagined that God would build and strengthen and grow the number of believers because of the convictions of those being persecuted.”
A widow gave her last few cents to honor the Lord. “I would never have imagined that the Lord would use my little gift to inspire the giving of many believers for years to come.”
Timothy had conversations with his mother and grandmother about the Scriptures and the Christian faith. “I would never have imagined that simple conversations in my home about the Lord and about faith would prepare me to be a follower of and proclaimer of Jesus.”
The blind man who was healed by Jesus. “I would never have imagined my blindness would turn into anything good, let alone an encounter with Jesus and experiencing his healing hand.”
What is your “I would never have imagined…” moment with the Lord? Can you look back and see that God took a simple, routine, or mundane activity and turned it into something far greater than you could ask or imagine? It may have not been what you expected, but it’s impact and importance were or are much bigger than your imagination?
God loves to do more than we can ask or imagine. So grab a length of string, your kite and step to the edge of the bank of the river and fly your kite!
Apply: What is God calling me to step forward and do under the confidence in his power and certainty of his love?
Prayer: Lord thank you for being God and doing more than I could ask or imagine. Help me to never limit you because of my limiting beliefs. AMEN.
Fly the Kite…Anchor the string!
(This week’s devotions are based on Sunday’s message: Win the Day…Fly the Kite – LISTEN HERE)
Imagine the feeling that Homan Walsh had at age 16 when his kite spanned the river gorge and an individual on the other side of the river was able to catch his kite and secure the string to a tree. Mission accomplished! What maybe seemed like a simple contest and simple task was not your usual kite flying outing.
Did he think he could do it? I would guess so or a) he wouldn’t have entered the competition and b) he would have given up after the first failure.
Believing you can do something is important.
I was listening to a reel by Tom Brady indicating his path to NFL stardom was not a constant success. He was a back up quarterback on a 0-8 high school team. He was a late recruit to college and drafted in the 6th round of the NFL draft with skepticism if he would even make the team.
He indicated that in order to be a quarterback you have to believe in yourself. You don’t want to step into a huddle and exude a lack of confidence. You need the other 10 players to believe, “You can get the job done.”
This is true in life and can be left to just the secular component. However, as God’s people we have an even greater reason to have confidence…not just in ourselves…but in God who raised Jesus from the dead.
We truly can expect the incredible to happen.
We may not always know what it will be or how it will show up, but as we are connected to the God of all power, our confidence and expectations can be great. Mark Batterson wrote in his book Win the Day, “God wants do things in you that are beyond your ability, beyond your resources, beyond your imagination.”
Do we limit God? Do we keep God’s ability in the realm of our abilities and awareness? I have to admit that I too often do.
So what’s the cure? How do we keep a perspective that God can do incredible things beyond our own ability?
I don’t know if Homan Walsh had a vision for what his kite string would start, but in order for the contest to be won, his string had to be secured on both sides to a tree. Later solid anchors would hold the cable that would become the suspension bridge across the gorge. We may think the string or the bridge is the incredible thing, but rather what makes that string significant is what it is anchored to.
So in our lives, what our confidence and hope is anchored to is so important. The Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 3:14-22: For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
We cannot grasp the fullness of God’s power until we appreciate the fullness of his love. For his power is exhibited best in his acts of love on our behalf. The power of God created the world in which we live. The power of God orchestrated history to carry out his plan. The power of God brought Jesus into the world to live. The power of God held Jesus to the cross. The power of God brought Jesus out of the tomb alive. And why did he do all this and more? Because he LOVES you!
The width, length, height and depth of God’s love is hard to grasp, but we get glimpses of it as he acts in power to secure our eternity with him in heaven.
If this is where our hearts are anchored and we marvel at his incredible love, we can more expect the incredible work of God to show itself!
Apply: What will help today to anchor your day in the love of Christ? List five things that you know and experience as God’s love for you today?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for showing the greatness of your power by showing how much you love me. AMEN.