Our Mission to Missions

Brethren, pray for us.  1^st Thessalonians 5:25 (New American Standard Bible)

 Children of military parents are constantly having their roots pulled up and moved to wherever the government wants their mom or dad to serve.  The kids have to leave friends, school and hometown to be put in a new place where they will need to adapt to new people and ways of doing things. And there is an even greater hardship if they have to deal with a foreign language and culture if their parents are stationed overseas.

When Christians leave for the mission field there is culture shock they endure in their new “home” wherever that may be.  In a different culture there may be the sense of offense if something breaks and they ask that the situation be remedied immediately as we have come to expect in our own culture.  That can be very frustrating if it’s the middle of winter and your heater breaks and within the local culture there is the feeling the landlord doesn’t need to move quickly. Repairs or replacement could take weeks. There can be additional worry if the missionaries have children.

While financial support is indeed important to missions the greatest thing they need is our constant support through prayer.  Satan’s own mission is to destroy the works of God and he has an arsenal of means to do it. Prayer is a Christian’s power and praying for our missionaries helps them stand firm and finish the task God has given them. Dropping a check in the offering marked ‘missions’ is a good thing and praying daily for our missionaries is even better.  Satan believes he has no boundaries to attack until he comes up against the bulwark of the power of Christ.  And the most effective means to make the best use of that bulwark is prayer. There is no other force on earth that can do the same.  When it comes to our missionaries ‘pray without ceasing’ intensifies that need in a very real way.  When we do He will be faithful and we can praise Him for all His glorious works.  When it comes to our missionaries let us truly pray for them without ceasing.  It’s our greatest mission to missions.

Ken

www.devotionstoday.blogspot.com

The Saga of Captain Flash

For that which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.  Romans 7:15 (New American Standard Bible)

When my grandson was three he discovered large marker pens and delighted in writing wherever he could find a flat surface.  He was repeatedly cautioned about it and for a while there were no more incidents-until the day I sat down to eat lunch.  In that short period he found a black marker and decided to write on my new tan suede sofa, the hallway walls, the hallway tile floor, doors and facings.  Fortunately there was a cleaning product that took the marks off of everything, even the suede sofa.  Now it looks good as new and I have nicknamed my grandson Captain Flash for he is truly faster than a speeding bullet.

Paul speaks of the part of our Christian experience in not practicing what we want to do but instead doing the very thing we know is wrong.  For some reason our sin nature remained strong and intact even though we accepted Jesus Christ into our lives.  When Paul said we are ‘dead to sin’ he means that we died with Christ to our former ways of sinful living.  Our sin natures will be completely done away with when we stand before Him either through death or rapture.  But in this life we still wrestle with the temptation to do wrong.  It is one of the hardest things about our life in Christ.

Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection did away with the power of sin to again enslave us against our will.  Before we trusted in Christ we didn’t have the ability to resist temptation but now through the power of the Holy Spirit we indeed have a choice.  It is still a fight, for practicing sin is easy and there are still times when we will do what we hate.  We can go to Him for help and relief for He removed our chains of slavery to sin.  When there are occasions that we step out of His will thanks to Him we can let those chains lie at our feet and continue to trust in His magnificent grace.

Ken

www.devotionstoday.blogspot.com

Living Beyond Our Means

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. 2^nd Peter 1:2, 3 (New American Standard Bible)

Did you ever hear the saying that someone is “keeping up with the Joneses”?  They buy things on credit or strap themselves of cash simply to carry on a life style they really can’t afford.  Over time it can only bring poverty and misery.

Surprisingly Jesus wants us to live beyond our means, not physically speaking but from a spiritual standpoint.  Our own resources are severely limited. We can only show a ‘form’ of godliness by practicing religious traditions without the power of supply.  The richness of our spiritual lives only comes from the riches of His glory and will do so for all eternity (Ephesians 2:7).

We’ll never be strapped of true knowledge, wisdom and power when the Lord is our banker.  Heaven demands no loan applications.  Our contract with the Son of God is a verbal agreement.  After that He is ready through his divine nature to meet all our needs through His glorious resources.  Being in Christ means never needing to keep up with the Joneses for His riches are always at our disposal.  It is living beyond our means while living within His.  It is His grace and peace multiplied to us.

Ken

www.devotionstoday.blogspot.com

Giving Sight to Blind Rage

January 9, 2012

In May of 1943 while on a search and rescue mission over the Pacific Ocean Lieutenant Louis Zamprini’s bomber crashed due to mechanical failure.  Only Louie and two men survived and took to two life rafts.  After floating on the sea for 33 days one of the men succumbed to starvation. Louie and his raft mate, pilot Allen “Phil” Philips, were finally picked up by the Japanese Navy on their 46^th day at sea and sent to a prisoner of war camp in Japan.  At the camp they endured cruel treatment at the hands of their Japanese captors, the worse one being a vicious sergeant named Mutushiro Watanabe whom the Americans referred to as the “Bird.”  Watanabe took an immediate dislike to Zamparini and continually singled him out for his ruthless and brutal treatment at one time beating him senseless with a belt buckle.  Zamparini survived the prison experience but when he returned home he was nearly out of his mind with rage at the treatment he’d received from the Bird so much so that his nightly dreams were nightmares of torture and mistreatment at his hands.  He eventually turned to alcohol and by 1949 had become convinced that the only way to gain peace was to return to Japan and find and murder the former guard.

That year, Billy Graham began his evangelical campaign in Los Angeles.  Louis’s wife, Cynthia, was invited by some friends to a meeting one night and found Christ as her Savior.  Her efforts to get Louie to go were fruitless.  He wanted nothing to do with religion.  After Cynthia and his friends pressed him he said he’d go, with the motive to get them to leave him alone.  The first night he became furious at the message and left in a rage.  Cynthia encouraged him to try one more time.  He went reluctantly but at the end of the sermon something changed in his heart and he surrendered his life to Christ.  He said at that point all the hatred, rage and bitterness left him and he was filled with a contentment and peace he’d never experienced.  He had become a new creation in Christ.  All his nightmares concerning the Bird stopped that night and when he thought of his former tormentor it was without the explosive fury that had consumed him before.

Louie returned to Japan in 1950 as a Christian speaker at Sugamo Prison and spoke to a group of Japanese war criminals, among them various ones who had abused him during his time as a POW.  He looked for the Bird but he was not there.* At the end of his talk Louie asked for the men who had guarded him to come to the front.    As the men moved down the aisle Louie met them half way and embraced them.  They were stunned that one who had been so wrongly treated could treat an enemy like this but through it they experienced the true and lasting forgiveness of God.  Louie returned home and began various Christian outreaches, one being a camp for troubled boys in the San Bernardino Mountains above Los Angeles.   He never returned to Japan but could now think of his former tormentor as a man in need of Christ. As of this writing Louie is still living at the age of 94 years and is still involved in telling others how Christ changed his life.  One cannot adequately explain how something like this could be yet the proof is in the years of this man’s life after 1949.  All we can say of this great miracle is God gave sight to a man’s blind rage.

*Watanabe later received amnesty for his war crimes and became a very wealthy business man. Louie wrote him a letter telling him he had forgiven him and asked him to become a Christian.  Mutushiro Watanabe died in April of 2003 and it is unknown whether he found faith in Christ or not.

Ken

www.devotionstoday.blogspot.com

Happy All Year

And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And he said, “Write for these things are faithful and true.”  Revelation 21:4 (New American Standard Bible)

Did you ever make a New Year’s resolution?  I believe we all have.  About the only one I’ve kept consistently is my resolve to eat dark chocolate.  The coming of a new year gives us a chance to change patterns in our lives that are detrimental and to ‘resolve’ to act in ways that guide us in a healthy direction.  It is a chance at new beginnings.

Jesus gave us a chance at new beginnings when He gave His life on the cross of Calvary and it isn’t only for salvation.  There are some who live in emotional and spiritual agony that God will never forgive them for what they’ve done.  Pardon is why God sent His Son as the blameless Lamb of God.  Only God can and is willing to lift those burdens from our shoulders and to be the power to make any resolution to change successful.

Regardless of anything you’ve done in the past year that caused you grief God has opened the door of His grace through which forgiveness can be gained.  Past transgressions are not remembered.  He no longer brings to mind what you have confessed to Him and He doesn’t hold it against you because He sees you through the blood of His Son.  That is enough.  We can resolve to make amends and begin anew in Him every day.  His grace and compassion are incomparable.  Mankind gives the chance to make resolutions every January 1st. God wishes us Happy All Year and bids us resolve to lay our burdens at His feet all 365 days of the year.

Ken

www.devotionstoday.blogspot.com

The Road Least Recognized

Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it.  For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it.  Matthew 7:13, 14 (New American Standard Bible)

One Christmas when my children were young I attempted to assemble their Christmas toys without reading the instructions. Who needed to be constricted to complicated assembly instructions?  It couldn’t be that difficult and doing it the way I thought it ought to be done seemed easier.  I took the wide and easy way and wound up having to return to the instructions and reassemble the toy.  From that time on I’ve always followed the steps in assembling anything new.

Jesus spoke of seeking the easy way when He addressed how easy it is to choose the wide way of the world’s choices missing God’s less recognized way totally.  The human heart, much like water, follows the path of least resistence.  The wide boulevard of self and denial of Christ is easier to find and follow for it’s always much easier to go with the flow.  The narrow way is more difficult but Christ says it is the way that leads to eternal life.  At times of discouragement in our walk with Christ it is good to stop to reconsider why we chose the narrow gate and way in the first place.  We obviously saw something of worth in going that way and obviously continue too as we remain there.

Jesus used the illustration of people being like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36). That, of course, is metaphorically speaking.  Sheep are pretty much helpless on their own and need a guiding hand. He said He is the Good Shepherd (John 10:11).  Jesus didn’t drive us through that narrow gate; we followed Him through it.  We put our total hope in His love and protection trusting that He knows that narrow way perfectly.  The wide way is easier to find but leads to destruction while the narrow way leads to eternal life through Christ.  For those of us who have discovered that narrow gate and way it is a source of hope and comfort.  Jesus said He is the only way through (John 14:6).  It is the gate least recognized but the gate that is most worthwhile.    

Ken

www.devotionstoday.blogspot.com

Regift It

But to each of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.  Ephesians 4:7 (New American Standard Bible)

A regift is when Aunt Hilda gives Uncle Harry a tie for Christmas and Harry doesn’t like it, so he rewraps it and gives it to his nephew Oscar.  It gets rid of the problem for Uncle Harry, that is, until Oscar inadvertently wears the tie in the presence of Aunt Hilda.

Regifting is looked upon as a somewhat humorous practice but it still remains to some extent a minor disgrace to do to another individual.  There is no preconceived plan to give the gift to the person and the action is done purely for the convenience of the giver. 

There is one gift, however, that it is all right to regift and that consistently.  It is the message of God’s gift to us of His Son and of His redemption to the world.  The gift of God’s love and eternal life through his Son is not only astounding it is life changing.  Only God can truly turn a life around and give the dependable power to live it in Him.  Tis the season to meditate upon the announcement of the ultimate gift made known first to the shepherds by the angels.  It is a wonderful gift to give away for in giving it we also get to keep and enjoy it. It is a gift that arrives in swaddling clothes and concludes in the highest glory at the right hand of God.  It is indeed the most valuable regift ever and one we are encouraged to give throughout the year. 

Merry Christmas,

Ken

www.devotionstoday.blogspot.com