People take time…so take a break!
This week’s devotions are based on Week 5 of the Series “Fresh Start” – I Meet New People! (WATCH HERE)
Mark 1:35-37 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!”
After a full day teaching in the synagogue, healing Simon’s mother-in-law and then taking on the diseases and demons of the town, Jesus needed rest. He slept to physically recharge and then before everyone got up he went and found a quiet place to spend time with his Father in prayer. Jesus knew the importance of recharging physically and spiritually. Without the time alone, time in prayer, and time to sleep he knew that he would not be able to love and serve the people around him.
The same is true for us. Introvert or extrovert, when we are around people and seeking to care for them, we need time for rest, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. If we don’t, we run into trouble. Psychologists have noticed a challenge for people who forget or don’t take time to care for themselves. It’s called “compassion fatigue.”
“…compassion fatigue refers to the experience of any empathetic individual who is acutely conscious of societal needs but feels helpless to solve them. People who actively engage in charity, or volunteering, may come to feel that they cannot commit any more energy, time, or money to the plight of others because they feel overwhelmed or paralyzed by pleas for support and that the world’s challenges are never-ending.
Symptoms of compassion fatigue can include exhaustion, disrupted sleep, anxiety, headaches, stomach upset, irritability, numbness, a decreased sense of purpose, emotional disconnection, self-contempt, and difficulties with personal relationships.” (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/compassion-fatigue)
Before psychologists observed and documented “compassion fatigue”, God knew and Jesus reinforced and modeled the need for spiritual and physical rest. God built it into the rhythm of the week by resting himself on the seventh day of the world’s existence and directing his people to follow that pattern:
Exodus 20:8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Jesus, who was the fulfillment of the Sabbath Day invited, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28–30).
To better be able to love, care, and invest in people, make sure to take time to love, care, and invest in yourself by spending time in prayer to your heavenly Father and in the words of your Savior Jesus.
Apply: How can you rest spiritually and physically?
Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you for investing your life in caring for people and securing our salvation. Along the way you also taught and modeled the example of taking time to rest physically and spiritually so we can have the energy and strength of faith to invest in others’ lives. AMEN.
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.