People take time…to care for!
This week’s devotions are based on Week 5 of the Series “Fresh Start” – I Meet New People! (WATCH HERE)
Life rolls at a routine pace until it doesn’t.
Plans and expectations are high until life throws a curveball.
Illness interrupts our agenda and if severe enough, completely changes our agenda.
July 4, 2012 was such a day for me. A waterskiing outing turned into an ER visit, multiple eye surgeries and weeks of recovery. My sight has never been the same.
The lasting impact of the injury is real. The lasting impact of the people who stepped up to care for me and my family during that time was priceless. I could do nothing for weeks. My parents and in-laws cared for our two girls during the initial trauma care. My wife and girls made sure I had what I needed, even put eye drops in my my very swollen and gross looking eye. Countless trips to the U of MN eye care center by my wife and volunteers from our church. My associate pastor carried the bulk of ministry for nearly 8 weeks before I could return and do a little. People took time to care.
It’s not always easy to interrupt our healthy schedule to carry for someone on a sick schedule. It takes sacrifice and love for the individual to make that happen. But when we interact and invest in people, it takes time.
Back to Mark 1:30-34. Jesus took the time to care for the sick, the diseased, and those possessed by demons.
30 Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they immediately told Jesus about her. 31 So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them.
32 That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. 33 The whole town gathered at the door, 34 and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.
Starting with Simon’s mother-in-law to many in the town that were diseased, Jesus spent time to care for them. With his miraculous power, he healed many in a matter of hours at the door of Simon and Andrew’s home, but after a busy day of teaching in the synagogue, it was still an investment of time to invest in people.
The miracles of healing weren’t the main point. His purpose was still to impact lives with the power of the Gospel. Addressing the physical concerns led to opportunities to address the spiritual concerns. (See Matthew 9:1-8)
The same is true for us. Taking time to help someone with a physical ailment or even a spiritual problem sets up opportunities to share the Gospel. During my injury, many took the opportunity to encourage my faith and relationship with the Lord, even as they prayed for the healing of my injury. I hear stories from members going through ailments of the opportunity they have had to witness to others going through similar treatments or conditions.
It’s easy to look at illness and hardships as interruptions in our schedule…whether we are experiencing them or moved to help care for them. But God may just be using the illness to create opportunities to share Jesus that would not have been there if the schedule interruption hadn’t occurred!
Apply: Notice people around you. Who is God nudging you to pause in your day to care for, encourage, or otherwise take your time to serve?
Prayer: Lord, open my eyes and heart to see and view people who need care, not as burdens or interruptions, but as divine appointments to share your love. AMEN.
People Take Time…to Train.
This week’s devotions are based on Week 5 of the Series “Fresh Start” – I Meet New People! (WATCH HERE)
“I just don’t have the time.”
This thought may cross your mind as you see someone from a distance that you know will engage in discussion if they see you. From past experience, you know that the conversation will not be short.
These words may come out of our mouth when we are rushing from one activity to the next and one of our children asks a question that you know is going to take time to answer. You forget to come back to it later.
Time is one of the greatest gifts we can give to people. In our 24/7 society dominated by electronic communication and brief sound bites of video, to have a meaningful conversation with someone is perhaps more rare than common these days.
But they are important.
In Jesus’ interaction in Capernaum in Mark 1:29-39, we see him investing his time with people. Sure he didn’t have social media or a “9-5” job, but he had many demands on his time and could have easily said, “I just don’t have time.”
The time he had, he wanted to invest in people because people were worth his time.
Why? Why were people worth his time?
Perhaps there are several reasons.
First, some of the people around him needed training to be ready to do the Gospel work when he returned to heaven. Mark 1:29 says, “29 As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew.” Jesus invested his time in the 12 he called to follow him. Four of those are mentioned here as they went to the home of Simon and Andrew to stay there. In these moments of time together, Jesus would take time to answer questions, explain his actions and correct mindsets and understandings. He called these individuals to carry the Gospel ministry forward after he was gone, and he knew that investing time in training them was time well spent.
Who will replace you as a witness for the Lord when you are in heaven? Will the voice of the Gospel fall silent from your family line when you are gone? I hope not, but if you are reading this, it’s not too late to set aside time to train someone to know the Lord perhaps better than they do now. For those who are blessed to be parents or grandparents, the Apostle Paul encourages: 4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. This verse speaks directly to dads…take the lead in training the next generation to know, love, and follow the Lord. It speaks indirectly to anyone who has influence in a child’s life. We are not to “let them choose when they are older,” but rather carry the responsibility to “bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” It is time well spent when a child’s eternity is at stake as well as the eternity of all whom the Lord will use that child to speak the Gospel in the future.
It doesn’t have to just be a child. Perhaps God has put in your life a person or people that are curious and interested in spiritual things. Perhaps its investing time at lunch, an evening together, or joining a small group together that puts them on a pathway to deeper learning and understanding.
It’s not easy, because time is precious. Yet, perhaps it becomes easier when we see people through the eyes of Jesus and know that spending time training others to carry the Gospel is priceless.
Apply: Think of one person in your life that God may be calling you to invest a little more time to bring the Gospel more deeply into their lives.
Prayer: Lord, thank you for your love and grace and time that you have given to me that I might know, love and follow you. Help me to invest in a similar way in some of the people you have put around me that they too might know, love and follow you and help others to do the same. AMEN.
Do you like to meet new people?
This week’s devotions are based on Week 5 of the Series “Fresh Start” – I Meet New People! (WATCH HERE)
Do you like to meet new people? Perhaps you have the personality that thrives on meeting and engaging with new people. Your DNA is wired around conversation and your intrigue is about the story that each person carries. Maybe you are the opposite. Perhaps you are wiped out when you are “forced” into an environment where you don’t know anyone or very few. You maybe are one who is content with 3-5 people you know well and have little interest in taking the time to get to know others.
Life in general involves people. In fact, one of the first directives God gave to Adam and Eve was to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” Make more people! God’s infinite design was about people. He made the world for people and wanted people to enjoy his creation in a perfect relationship with him.
Sure God cares about his creation…but he cares about you and me, people even more.
So, when people fell into sin and evil permeated the world, he could not stand by and provide no solution for the sin of the people he deeply loved.
So…he sent Jesus into the world to do the work to save people.
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Thus, the work of bringing the Gospel to the world involves people. This may sound like an obvious statement (and sometimes it is good to state the obvious), but it is not as simple as it sounds.
People can be messy. I remember an article years ago in our church body’s monthly periodical called, “God’s church is a messy church.” It depicted the church as a bloody ER room of the hospital where people come with emotional and spiritual hurts, wounds that are deep, and lives racked by sin directly or indirectly. To be in the business of bringing the Gospel has a risk factor greater than the doctor who has to try to piece together the wounded in the ER. It is not easy. And after 26 years of public ministry and growing up in a parsonage…I will verify the mess by personal experience.
Yet Jesus was willing to step into the mess because people mattered and people needed him. In the Gospel of Mark 1:29-39 lists such an example of Jesus stepping into a place where people with all kinds of needs and hurts surrounded him. Just read through this and note all the people that were coming to and needing Jesus’ attention…how would you respond to it all? How did Jesus respond?
29 As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. 30 Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they immediately told Jesus about her. 31 So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them.
32 That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. 33 The whole town gathered at the door, 34 and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.
35 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. 36 Simon and his companions went to look for him, 37 and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!”
38 Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” 39 So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.
Apply: How do you respond to people around you who have a need? Does it energize or drain you?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for stepping into the mess of this world to bring your love and grace to all people who you love dearly. AMEN.
Amazing!
This week’s devotions are based on Week 4 of the Series “Fresh Start” – I Have New Possibilities! (WATCH HERE)
Mark 1:27 The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey him.” 28 News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.
Jesus made an impression that day in the synagogue of Capernaum. The people there heard things they hadn’t heard before and saw things they hadn’t seen before. It’s not a surprise that news spread through the whole region.
How many times have you caught yourself saying to a friend, “Did you hear that…” when you heard something new or unexpected. Perhaps closely connected are the times when you start a conversation with the phrase, “Did you see that…”
When we hear or see something new, we are inclined to see if someone else has heard that or seen that as well.
What was so unique for the people in Capernaum is for the first time they were exposed to a Rabbi who needed no higher authority and proved his authority by casting out the demons. If nothing else Jesus was the new curiosity…at best the one others wanted to follow.
Perhaps over the years the familiarity with Jesus’ teaching and the awareness of his miracles have dulled the excitement around hearing this amazing teaching for the first time or seeing his power through the miracles for the first time. I can imagine the buzz in a town when the first gas-powered car pulled into town, or the first airplane flew overhead. The most recent “new” for me was seeing the first Tesla Cyber Truck pull into the Georgetown High School parking lot. I told my wife, but that was about it.
We don’t want to forget or fail to realize the unique authority of Jesus’ teaching and the amazing power of his work.
Why do we want to recapture the amazement everytime we engage with Jesus?
First, because his teaching is the very Word of God that changes our hearts and lives every day. The promises he gives are there to give renewed encouragement and comfort when we need them. His guidance are to move us in a direction in life that honors him and experiences the greatest blessings. His words of forgiveness are there to comfort our guilty conscience and give calm to our troubled souls. His words are there with the authority of no other as they speak truth into our hearts and lives.
Second, we are connected to the God of all power who is able and willing to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine. His power is at work in us to be able to say “No!” to sin and say “Yes!” to God’s Spirit. His strength works miracles of healing and protection that doctors can’t explain. His power moves events in life to work all things for our good. His power has no greater authority so we can be confident his power is stronger than any earthly ruler and more mighty than even Satan himself.
Third, we will always have something amazing to share with the community around us. When God’s word of truth and grace is alive and fresh in our hearts, we begin to hear ourselves engage in conversation with, “Have you heard what Jesus said (did)…” and share words of hope, peace, joy, comfort, promise, encouragement, etc. It’s what happens when we are exposed to the words and works of Jesus…amazement wells up and words come out!
Apply: Take time this week to read a portion of Scripture. Ask yourself, “What if I were there the first time this was said or done? How would I feel? Respond?” Perhaps God will give you an opportunity in your day to respond as the people in Capernaum did…with amazement and no other option but to share what they heard and saw with others!
Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you for sharing the truth of your word and the power of your work. Both create amazement in our hearts and open up possibilities in our lives. AMEN.
New Month…New Possibilities!
This week’s devotions are based on Week 4 of the Series “Fresh Start” – I Have New Possibilities! (WATCH HERE)
If you are like me this morning I am thinking, “Where did January go? I can’t believe it is February already.”
Each new month is perhaps both the reminder that God continues to allow time to continue and also a time to recalibrate and have a fresh start.
Rhythms in our life create seasons of start and finish, work and rest. In fact, God set up his world with these seasons to provide both order to our lives and times to rest and reset.
So, take today to reset with the Lord. The month ahead of you, February, has many opportunities to be reminded of the fresh start the Lord gives you. Here are a few that come to mind for me:
- February is a month to trim our fruit trees and get them ready for spring.
John 15:1-2 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful.
Pruning is still an odd activity for me. It seems like the more branches, the more fruit. However, the less one prunes, the less fruitful a tree becomes. Why? Because energy the tree needs for fruit production goes into sustaining all the branches. Too many branches block the sunlight the fruit needs to mature and leads them to not form properly. The tree actually has greater potential when it is pruned properly.
What in your life is February an opportunity to prune? Are there activities that are filling your schedule but wearing out your soul? Is there clutter in your home that causes anxiety and stress and is time to clean out? Maybe February is a month for the Lord to prune things in your life to make you more productive and open new possibilities for him.
2. February is a month to celebrate the love of your life.
Already the stores are filled with pink and red boxes of chocolate, cards, stuffed animals and trinkets for you to buy to celebrate your Valentine. While I still think it’s a “Hallmark Holiday” for marketing purposes, it nonetheless is an important opportunity to show your love to the person/people God has given to you. Love is not just a human emotion, it is an expression of sacrifice and service that another gives for the blessing of the recipient. In expressing your Valentine love this year, it’s a reminder that a special someone is one God has put in your life and through whom God has given you new possibilities of growth, learning, and ways to love.
1 John 4:7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
3. February is a month for repentance and restoration.
Ash Wednesday is February 14. The day we mark Valentine’s Day is the day we mark the beginning of our Lenten journey to be reminded of a) our deep need for a Savior and b) the great love our Savior has shown by taking our sins on himself and paying their price on the cross. Repentance is a whole-hearted turning from our sin to the forgiveness and power to live our Savior gives. This journey in the season of Lent is a great reminder of the fresh start we have because of the forgiveness Jesus gives.
1 John 1:8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Enjoy the new month and the fresh start it gives. May the Lord open your heart and mind to the new possibilities he is putting in front of you!
Apply: What opportunities for a fresh start does February bring for you?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for using the days, months and seasons of my life to remind me of your constant love, your enduring promises, and your wonderful grace. Lead me in this month of February to grow in my walk with you, to see the possibilities you present and confidently engage in them. AMEN.