Notes of Faith January 7, 2023

Notes of Faith January 7, 2023

Article by Marshall Segal

Staff writer, desiringGod.org

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Some of us fall out of Bible reading because we fail to make time for it. Busyness crowds out the minutes we might otherwise give to sitting and hearing from God. There’s always something that didn’t get done yesterday or something relatively urgent that’s come up today. It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it, just how many things in our little worlds seem to trump listening to the one who made them all?

For others, it’s not busyness that gets the best of us, but a subtle cynicism about reading the Bible. How am I ever going to understand this? It’s hard to keep getting up extra early and setting aside precious minutes when you’re not convinced you’ll be able to make sense of what you see, when you might finish and strangely feel further from God, when you’re chasing a full heart morning after morning and yet often walk away just scratching your head.

If you’ve felt that way before, you’re not alone. In fact, even the men who wrote the Bible know something of what you feel. The apostle Peter says of the letters Paul wrote, “There are some things in them that are hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:16). Think about that: Peter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote books in the Bible, and yet even he struggled to read Romans or Thessalonians (or whatever particular letter he had in mind). If he could write on behalf of God and have a hard time understanding Scripture, we shouldn’t be surprised if we do too.

And I, for one, definitely do. I’ve battled to get through the census records in Numbers. I’ve labored through the kidneys, livers, and “entrails” of the Levitical laws. I’ve grown weary of the repetitive failures of Israel in 1–2 Kings. I’ve sometimes struggled to see what Hebrews sees in the Old Testament. Much of the imagery of Revelation is still a mystery to me. And so, I regularly find these clear and accessible words from Paul all the more meaningful and encouraging:

Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.

(2 Timothy 2:7)

Understanding Is Possible

This is an amazing acknowledgment from Paul to Timothy. He says, in essence, “I know some of what I am writing won’t make sense to you immediately, and you’ll be tempted to think you cannot understand it — but you can. So, don’t give up too easily. Don’t assume this is above you. Assume that God can make his words clear to you.”

Those apart from Christ cannot understand the things of God. They flip through the Bible’s majesty and wisdom in vain. “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). But not you. If you’re in Christ, you can see things that they can’t. You can understand things that they can’t. Where they see foolishness and irrelevance, you see unspeakable beauty, a radiant window into reality. Not because you’re smarter or more educated or merely a better reader, but because you’re not a natural person anymore; you’re a supernatural you, with a supernatural mind and heart and eyes.

“Because you’re someone new, you can understand more of the Bible than you might think.”

Or as Paul says elsewhere of natural people, “They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart” (Ephesians 4:18). But not you. You’re not alienated from God anymore. Through the cross, he’s brought you near, and in bringing you near, he’s softened your heart and unlocked your mind. The God who flooded all creation with light “has shone in [your] heart to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). That’s who you are when you open the Bible.

And because you’re someone new, you can understand more of the Bible than you might think.

In Everything

Not only can you understand more than you think, but the apostle goes even further: “ . . . the Lord will give you understanding in everything.” If God lives in you, nothing in the Bible is above you — not the genealogies of Numbers, or the sacrificial laws of Leviticus, or the prophetic visions of Ezekiel, or the apocalyptic imagery of Revelation. With God, all are within your reach.

Lest we think Paul’s talking only about the verses immediately before this one, he comes back to the same reality in the very next chapter: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17). As much of the Bible that has been breathed out by God — all of it! — that much is now profitable for you. Even on the most obscure, most confusing pages, God means to teach you, to exhort you, to correct you, to train you, to equip you — he means to speak to you.

“Even on the most obscure, most confusing pages, God means to teach you.”

Before any of that can happen, however, we first have to understand what God is saying — which is exactly where God promises to help us: “The Lord will give you understanding in everything.”

Varied Means of Understanding

None of this means we just sit alone with our Bibles until we understand everything. No, God gives the gift of understanding in a hundred different ways. Remember, most Christians in the history of the world didn’t own a Bible (much less carry it with them everywhere in their pockets). They depended on the regular reading and reciting of Scripture in community. From the first church to today, believers have depended on faithful teachers to rehearse, explain, and model the words of God for them.

And God has multiplied pathways to understanding in our day — first and foremost through our local churches, but then through messages, articles, books, study Bibles, online courses, commentaries, podcasts, and more. So understanding may come in any number of ways. The point here, however, is that you really can understand what’s in this book — everything that’s in this book, Paul says.

Now, to say that we can understand everything in the Bible is not to suggest that we will understand everything immediately and fully. We won’t — and certainly not the first (or second or even tenth) time through. God can give us understanding in every passage without giving us understanding of every part of a passage. He also often chooses to give understanding, not immediately, but over years or even decades. As we keep reading (and living), familiar verses will emerge with new or deeper meaning and relevance. Some questions will be answered slowly. So don’t expect to understand everything now, but expect to understand something now — and then more tomorrow.

Ask God

Up until now, we’ve seen only that we can understand more than we may assume. You should be asking how. What makes this kind of supernatural reading possible? How do the lights come on?

Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.

On our own, we can’t understand the Bible. If God leaves us alone with this book, it wouldn’t be worth getting up early, pouring more hours in, and pressing through difficult verses and chapters. We would search and ask and wrestle in vain. But if it’s God who makes things clear, then he can overcome our limitations and blind spots. You can understand the Bible because God will give you understanding. When you read, he’s not just over your shoulder; he’s inside of you — in your eyes, your mind, your heart — showing you what you’d never see on your own.

The one who reveals himself in the Bible wants to make himself clear. He’s not content to have divinely inspired words on the page; he wants them written on our hearts. He wants to see understanding, and satisfaction, and transformation — and so he won’t leave you alone with your Bible. This may be why Paul ends the letter the way he does: “The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you” (2 Timothy 4:22). We need the present, spiritual help of God in all we do all the time, and especially in understanding his word.

Think Hard

This understanding, however, doesn’t float down from the clouds and land softly on our heads. No, God gives the gift of understanding through the hard work of reading well. This verse demands almost as much as it promises: “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.” This won’t come easily, Timothy. Yes, God is the one who gives understanding, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have to work for it.

Isn’t it strange that some of us hear that God sovereignly gives understanding, and we assume that means we need to do less? Satan teaches this kind of calculus all year round (and not just in Bible reading).

No, 2 Timothy 2:7 is far more like God’s words to Joshua before Israel entered the promised land:

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. . . . Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. (Joshua 1:8–9)

“I will be with you” didn’t mean “You won’t have to fight.” Along with his promise of help and protection, God gave Joshua a charge: “Be strong and courageous.” Fight all the harder because you know I’ll fight with you and for you.

So, when you open your Bible, be strong and courageous. God will be with you wherever you read. Don’t be discouraged or intimidated. Think harder and longer because you know the Lord loves to give you understanding.

This last paragraph is an interesting use of God’s promise to Joshua in battle with his enemies. But then again, is not sin the enemy of the believer and follower of Jesus? Another issue is that we must be in the battle. We need to be reading, studying, meditating on the word of God regularly, my prayer for all would be that this is every day. No, we may not understand all things the first time we come across them, but God has never failed in His promises.

Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.

(2 Timothy 2:7)

Our coming to faith and salvation through Jesus Christ did not mean that we immediately understood everything of God. His ways are higher than our ways! It takes a lifetime of faith and following and seeking and pursuing God and for us to depend on His grace to give us understanding, growing us toward maturity in Christ.

Please keep reading, studying, and meditating on the Word of God and trust in His promise to give you understanding and clarity as you live for Him!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith January 6, 2023

Notes of Faith January 6, 2023

The World of the End

When we consider topics like endurance or perseverance or steadfastness, it’s easy to think of them in the abstract or to project them into the future. When I face opposition out in the future, I’ll make sure to endure rather than falter. Or, When I’m old and at the end of my life, I’ll be sure to remember the importance of finishing strong.

That’s not how it works. The determination to follow Christ regardless of the cost isn’t something that just flashes into our souls at the moment of crisis. It starts now and takes a lifetime to develop. It’s a day-by-day process.

This is a choice you and I need to make now, at this moment.

There are some practical ways to get started and to sustain our progress, regardless of what’s happening to the World of the End.

Determine to Run Your Race

First comes a God-given, incontestable, undeniable determination to live for Christ whatever the cost. Jesus said,

If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. — Luke 9:23

Sometime the Lord grabs our ankles, turns us upside down, this way and that way, until we come to our senses and decide to follow Jesus. Still, we have to say, “No turning back.” We have to say, “Though no one join me, still I will follow.”

Make up your mind that nothing will deter you from God’s will, that no one will draw you from His path, that no foe will defeat you, and that no sin will stop you.

The world behind you, the cross before you!

I mentioned earlier that followers of Christ must be prepared to endure trials of various kinds as we seek to finish that race. Jesus Himself promised we would face tribulation.

But here is a principle and a promise that can help us keep striving: those trials and tribulations can actually become fuel for our endurance. No matter what the world throws our way, we can recycle those experiences in such a way that, through the power of God, our pain is transformed into power.

The world behind you, the cross before you!

Don’t believe me? Let’s see what Scripture says:

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2–4 ESV).

“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:3–5 ESV).

Yes, trials and suffering can make it more difficult for us to run the spiritual course set before us — but they don’t have to. With God behind us and beside us, suffering becomes steadfastness. Pain becomes perseverance. And trials are transformed into a blessed hope that can carry us even toward perfection and completion, where we lack no good thing.

So, how will you handle the bumps and bruises you receive in your efforts to follow Christ? Will you allow them to slow you down, or will you use them as fuel for your faithfulness? According to Scripture, the choice is yours.

Determine to React with Radiance

Speaking of choice, it’s important that we address our own actions and attitudes when we encounter difficult circumstances. In many ways, how we conduct ourselves throughout our spiritual walk is just as important as how we finish the race.

What do I mean by that? Well, I’ve known some lemon-faced Christians in my day who were high on endurance but low on love. They were determined to persevere in the midst of persecution, but they made sure everyone around them knew how miserable they were in the process — and they made life miserable for many others who happened to encounter them in the middle of their race.

Such an attitude is not befitting for servants of the King. As Christians, we are called not only to run with endurance and finish the race but to do so in a way that encourages others to follow us. We have been commanded not only to be disciples of Jesus but to make disciples. And for that to happen, we need to reflect the love and grace and goodness of the One we follow.

My point is this: when we are confronted by all the ugliness Jesus predicted for the World of the End, we can respond by radiating the love of Christ.

We can live, as Paul commanded, “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer” (Romans 12:12).

Remember Peter’s commission to the earliest believers, which also applies to us:

What credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: “Who committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth”; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously. (1 Peter 2:20–23)

Developing perseverance as a believer in Jesus does not have to be a bitter experience. Yes, each of us will need to endure unpleasant seasons — and this will be especially true as we move closer to the World of the End. But we can use those seasons as opportunities to radiate the love and light of Christ.

Excerpted from The World of the End by Dr. David Jeremiah, copyright Dr. David Jeremiah.

John 16:33

33 "These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."

NASU

In Christ, we overcome the world and the tribulation it brings. Let us focus our lives more and more on becoming like Jesus living out of this world, citizens of heaven, being perfected for the glory of God. May you truly know and experience the peace of God today and every day for the rest of your life!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith January 5, 2023

Notes of Faith January 5, 2023

Caregiving: To the Community of Faith

Where can I go from Your Spirit?

Where can I flee from Your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, You are there;

if I make my bed in the depths, You are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”

even the darkness will not be dark to You; the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to You.

— Psalm 139:7-12

No one can endure a significant loss alone. Still, many people try to, often out of necessity because no one is there for them.

I write this new, final chapter during a global pandemic.

Caregivers are going to be busy for a very long time. There is trauma now; grief will come later, like a tidal wave. You are a member of the community of faith and a caregiver, which means you are going to be busy for a very long time too. You want to be there for suffering people. The number of those people is skyrocketing.

Then again, the community of faith has always been there for suffering people because that is simply what the people of God do.

As you know, caregiving is hard and demanding work. But it is also good and meaningful work.

In this case, hard and good are not opposites, any more than are winter and sunlight. Crises of all kinds invite and challenge us to comfort the needy and to serve the common good of society.

Suffering provides the community of faith with an opportunity to live as genuine followers of Jesus who take care of friend and foe alike.

Jesus responded to the needs of people, no matter who the people were or how unworthy they were.

I have been on both sides of the equation. For a long time, I was a recipient of caregiving, and now I am a caregiver. I have learned a great deal over the years. Caregivers contribute in a myriad of ways. Some excel at quiet listening, others at serving, still others at organizing. In the end, it is not the expression of care that matters so much as the consistency and longevity.

Those who suffer loss need help that goes beyond a card, a meal, a kind word, and a visit, though these contributions are meaningful. They are just not enough.

I was lost after the accident, like a man swimming in open water with no land in sight. I had my own grief to address, which was bad enough. But I had the grief of my children to worry about too, which was even worse. After the initial shock wore off and the adrenaline receded, I began to drown from exhaustion, despair, and utter terror. I was sinking, my arms flailing about and my lungs gasping for air. I thought I would never return to the land of the living or see the light of day again. I could see nothing on the horizon but more water.

Some people — in truth, it was just a few — committed to me for the duration, however long it took and whatever it required.

This small group of people became my caregiving team.

My good friends Ron and Julie Pyle, as well as Monica and Andrea, stepped in to provide child care. Diane and Jack, my sister and brother-in-law, called me almost every day. Sister Florence invited me to her prayer center for an occasional visit, and she often sat with me in silence, a sentinel keeping watch.

Rachel, now a good friend, served as my therapist. A small group of men encircled me. Now, thirty years later, we still meet together. To this day my wife, Patricia, comforts me when I mourn. I could not have survived without these friends, my caregivers.

They said very little. Their presence mattered more to me than their words. They became a refuge for me, a warm and safe home during a long and brutal winter. Being with me, not doing anything for me, met my greatest need. They never tried to solve my problems, which were mostly unsolvable anyway.

They never offered answers, which I had to come to on my own.

They never put me on a timetable, which would have met their needs, not mine. They were simply present, the only visible object I could see on the horizon. That was their gift to me.

People feel uncomfortable around someone who has suffered a catastrophic and irreversible loss. It feels awkward. It is awkward. They hardly know how to respond or what to say. Some ignore loss, as if nothing ever happened. Others try their best to make it all better.

Christians are as guilty of this as anyone, if not more so. They want to make everything better. There is a reason for their discomfort and insensitivity, and it is born out of the best of intentions. Christians believe they know the truth. They assume that speaking the truth will somehow diminish the pain. But truth is no more effective in eliminating pain than a doctor’s word of explanation mitigates the pain of a surgical procedure.

Mere words lack power, even when they communicate truth.

Caregivers believe

Sometimes it is best to be quiet. Job’s three friends rendered him the greatest service when they sat with him in silence (See Job 2:13). Once they opened their mouths, they did more harm than good.

Besides, I did not begin by asking questions, to say nothing of searching for answers. I was simply too confused and immobilized by pure pain to ask even the most basic questions. I sat in that pain for a long time.

I felt utterly bewildered, as if I were staring at words on a page — simple English words that I had known since I was a child — that made no sense to me. The world became a puzzle. I could not understand why the accident occurred. The sheer irrationality of it turned the entire world upside down.

Loss is not a rational experience. There is no way to explain it.

Countless people have said to me, “Just tell me how to think about this,” as if a rational answer would provide a way out. But people who have suffered major loss cannot reason their way out, work their way out, or feel their way out. They can do nothing to escape it. Before they find a way out, they first must find a way in. Once in, they discover that the way out is very different from what they had imagined.

As I made my way in, I did find a way out. But it was not sequential — in, then out — but simultaneous — in and out. I became like a window. Standing outside myself, I looked in.

Standing inside myself, I looked out. I learned how to observe my grief, as if I were a scientist studying myself. I was aware of being studied, even as I did the studying. I was both reflective and emotional at the same time.

I learned over time that the two big dangers in facing loss are to indulge the loss, as if it is death itself, and, conversely, to dismiss the loss and “move on,” as if no death occurred at all.

But I think it is possible to learn from the loss and experience the full force of it at the same time, engaging both head and heart. Standing outside the self, we ask, What is happening to me right now? Standing inside the self, we ponder, What is happening in me?

As I tried to walk this tightrope, a new world opened up before me. Of pain, to be sure. But so much more. Of memory. Of horror. Of confusion. Of darkness. Of beauty. Of transcendence. Of light.

And of God.

But what kind of a God? Not a God of goodness but of terror and mystery, or so it seemed at the time. Where was God during that horrible experience? Was God present? How could God be present? These questions were not speculative and abstract, little more than intellectual curiosities that a search on Google can answer. They were life-and- death questions to me.

How would I be able to survive, especially if there is no God?

What would happen to me if I had to live in this pain forever? If there was no recovery and redemption? If the darkness swallowed me up?

At just this point I discovered why belief plays a central role.

What suffering people choose to believe about reality does matter, not because it has magical power to answer every question and deliver them from suffering, but because it can provide a deeper kind of power and perspective that will help them understand it, grow into it, and carry it.

Every human being believes something, but not all believe the same thing. By belief, therefore, I am referring to Christian belief: God created a good world; human rebellion damaged it; God has acted in history to make all things right; God eventually came as a person, Jesus Christ, to win the world’s redemption. In the end all will be made right, well, and whole again.

It is this belief — Christian belief — that saved my life.

But it was actually not my belief that mattered, at least not initially. It was their belief, the belief of my community: family, friends, pastor, therapist, and the like.

Their faith carried me when I could muster none myself. My community of friends stood beside me, held me, and believed for me.

The stakes were high; they always are. People suffering loss may struggle, wallow, rage, weep, and whimper for months, even years. But eventually they come to a moment of decision. What they choose to believe in that liminal moment will make an ultimate difference in their lives, one way or the other. It may call forth life in them, like Jesus commanding Lazarus to wake up from death. Or it may push them deeper into darkness until they are lost forever, like Judas giving up on God and on his very life.

At this point, caregivers stare into an abyss of mystery. They feel utterly powerless and inadequate, as they should. They wonder if their grieving friends will ever find life and faith again. They have no idea what to do and how to help. It is all too much.

Which is why their belief plays such an important role. It has unspeakable power; it exercises incredible influence. Because it enables them, members of the community of faith, to remain steady, available, and present.

Caregiving almost requires belief in the existence of God — a good God who cares about people, even when He seems absent and cruel; a patient God who stays with people, even when they slip into a terrible lethargy and depression; a redemptive God who calls people into a new and better story, even when they keep returning to the old one; a powerful God who can turn death into life, even as death continues to reign.

A God we see and know in the face of Jesus Christ.

Caregivers believe for suffering people when those people find it impossible to believe for themselves. They are like parents sitting with a child suffering from nightmares. To that child the nightmares are real, more real than reality. Parents know morning is coming, though the child refuses to believe it. But they believe it for him or her. They hold that child tightly until morning arrives.

You hold loved ones tightly until morning arrives. It is what the community of faith simply does.

I thank God for people like you. In the months and years ahead, the world is going to need more of you to stop the bleeding, comfort the grieving, mend the broken, and get people back on their feet.

Excerpted with permission from A Grace Disguised by Jerry Sittser, copyright Gerald L. Sittser.

Indeed the pandemic has caused a great deal of suffering and the need for caregiving. We as Christians need to come along side those in our flock and friends and neighbors and co-workers that are in need. Sit in silence. Give help where needed and asked for. Be a blessing by giving care, whatever is needed. Caregiving is hard work, so be prepared if you begin to serve in this way. There will be much learning that will take place, spiritual and practical. Be prepared, but go and do, for the glory of God!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith January 4, 2023

Notes of Faith January 4, 2023

Those Who Sow in Tears Shall Reap with Shouts of Joy!

A Bottle of Your Tears

When I opened the gift from my friend, I wasn’t quite sure what it was. The small glass bottle was a beautiful cobalt blue, about two inches tall, covered in sliver filigree.

I thought it might be a perfume bottle, albeit a very small one, but her note explained that it was actually a tear bottle she’d found in an antique store in Israel. I did a little research and discovered that tear bottles were common in Rome and Egypt around the time of Christ. Mourners would collect their tears as they walked toward the graveyard to bury their loved one, a tangible indication of how much that person was loved. Sometimes women were even paid to follow the mourners and cry into such a vessel.

Apparently the more anguish and tears produced, the more important and valued the deceased person was perceived to be. But legend has it those mourners-for-hire who cried the loudest and produced the most tears received the greatest compensation.

I treasure this little blue bottle because it reminds me of a profound spiritual truth David wrote about in Psalm 56, when he was at one of the lowest points of his life. David had been captured by his enemies in Gath (he had actually feigned insanity to survive), but he found comfort in the fact that

God saw everything he was going through and caught every single tear he shed.

I love David’s confidence in the mercy and faithfulness of God even when he himself had not been faithful to the Holy One. David knew without a doubt that Almighty God never misses a moment, a tear, or a sigh from any of His children. Do you rest in that truth, or do you question that God loves you that much?

Do you ever feel alone? Have you ever thought, “No one on this earth understands the depth of my suffering”?

If you’ve taken a wrong turn in the road, are you expecting God to hold back His mercy until you get back on the straight and narrow? That’s not the God David knew; that’s not the God of the Bible.

We have a Father who keeps track of all our wanderings and catches every single tear we cry. When we begin to grasp the depth of that truth, we can say with confidence just as David did,

This I know: God is on my side! — Psalm 56:9

Your heavenly Father knows your every struggle and never leaves your side.

We have a Father who catches every single tear we cry.

Five Minutes in the Word

You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book? — Psalm 56:8 ESV

The Lord hears His people when they call to Him for help. He rescues them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; He rescues those whose spirits are crushed. — Psalm 34:17-18

He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds. — Psalm 147:3

Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! — Psalm 126:5 ESV

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. — Matthew 5:4 ESV

Excerpted from 5 Minutes With Jesus by Sheila Walsh, copyright Sheila Walsh.

God is omnipotent. He knows everything about us…

Ps 139:1-4

O Lord, you have searched me

and you know me.

2 You know when I sit and when I rise;

you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You discern my going out and my lying down;

you are familiar with all my ways.

4 Before a word is on my tongue

you know it completely, O Lord.

NIV

He knows our joy and tears and keeps records of all of them. His love for us is amazing, far beyond our ability to understand. Let His love, knowledge, and concern for you give you confidence and peace that you are not alone in your thoughts, pain and tears. God will bring you through such a time to the glorious splendor of His grace and glory.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith January 3, 2023

Notes of Faith January 3, 2023

Living in His Light

When Jesus spoke again to the people, He said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” — John 8:12

You will have dark days. Days when a friend breaks your trust and your feelings are hurt, and you have no idea what to say. Days when depression feels heavy, like it’s weighing you down. Days when everything seems to be going wrong.

But there is good news.

Jesus is light.

He’s brighter and lovelier than anything you can imagine and more powerful than any dark thing you’re facing. Jesus promises that if you follow Him, you’ll have the light of life. That might mean Jesus will give you the right words to speak to your friend or a safe place to go when things feel overwhelming. Or maybe He’ll provide a surprise that cuts through your darkness like a fluffy kitten jumping on your lap or your mom making your favorite meal or a snow day. Sometimes Jesus lights up a way out of an unhealthy situation and toward a healthy one. Jesus offers you better and brighter and wants you to live in His wonderful light.

Walk into a dark room and turn on the light. Notice the difference it makes. Ask Jesus to light up your life, to add brightness to anywhere that’s dark.

The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. — Romans 13:12

“Every morning when you wake up, new baby nerve cells have been born while you were sleeping that are there at your disposal to be used in tearing down toxic thoughts and rebuilding healthy thoughts,” says neuroscientist Dr. Caroline Leaf.1

Isn’t that so cool? Every day is a new opportunity to put aside dark thoughts, negative thoughts, hurtful thoughts, and to replace them with healthy, positive thoughts.

How do you do it? You can start by reading a list of five wonderful, true things about you and your life each morning. Maybe that could be “I’m stronger than I give myself credit for.” Maybe it’s a skill you’re good at or a certain way you know you’ve been blessed. “Math comes easily to me.” Or “God has given me a safe home.” Do this before you turn on social media. Before you talk to someone who brings you down. Before you let negative self-talk tell you something bad about yourself. This shuts down dark thoughts and arms your thought life with light.

Caroline Leaf, Switch on Your Brain: The Key to Peak Happiness, Thinking, and Health (Baker Books, 2013), 24.

Excerpted from 5-Minute Devotions for Teens by Laura L. Smith, copyright Laura L. Smith.

Jesus not only said that He is the light of the world but that those who follow Him, true disciples are also the light of the world! This is you! Don’t hide your light, but let it shine brightly that the world may know the only source of life is found in Jesus!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith January 2, 2023

Notes of Faith January 2, 2023

So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom. — Psalm 90:12

I don’t have enough time to live my own life!

I reached this conclusion after trying to follow all the advice given on a morning news show one week in January. It seemed like a smart way to start my day. I figured I’d tune in, get the forecast, learn the headlines, and maybe hear a celebrity interview. I wasn’t expecting all the show segments telling me how to live my life better.

Most of these segments offered the promise of deliverance: “Financial Freedom Is Closer than You Think” or “Four Secrets to Better Communication.” Others, I decided, were designed to scare the socks off of me: “Six Health Risks Every Person Faces” or “Thieves You Cannot See — Avoiding Identity Theft.” Motivated by this combination of hope and fear, I compiled a to-do list of ways to improve my life and its management according to the experts. The more I listened, learned, and listed, the more behind schedule I felt.

The topics on my list ranged from health maintenance to home maintenance to car maintenance. I was informed I need to eat certain foods every day: four veggies, three fruits, two proteins (preferably chicken or fish), and I think a partridge in a pear tree. I also need to get enough fiber, calcium, Vitamin D, B, C, and Beta-something-or-other.

I need thirty minutes of cardio a day (but apparently with the right exercise product this can be done in ten), fifteen minutes of strength training, and ten minutes of stretching. Plus, some extended time for meditation so that my body and mind could align. I’m told a germ-resistant mat is needed for that. I need to bust my stress, nurture my creativity, and improve my posture.

I need to pay attention to my finances. Save and invest. Spend frugally — yet somehow also buy the cool gadgets they review on the show. Apparently extreme couponing is the way to afford it all, but it takes a lot of time to save 80 percent on your grocery bill. I need to check my credit report regularly. Shred important documents. Back up my computer. Meet with my financial planner. And read the information that comes with our kid’s (underfunded) college fund. That, by the way, is forty pages of legal and financial mumbo jumbo in eight-point font, single-spaced. I suppose I need to meet with my attorney to understand it. And that creates two prerequisite tasks to add to the list: find an attorney and find a financial planner. They assume every regular Joe has a CFP, a CPA, and a JD on speed dial. I have Domino’s on mine.

The list continues…

Change my oil every 3,000 miles and my transmission fluid every 30,000. Test my smoke detector batteries biannually. Change my air filters every other month. Replace my toothbrush every three months. Flip my mattress every six. Buy new pillows every three years — I think this is for my posture, but it could be to get rid of dust mites. Check my skin for irregular moles. Check my yard for moles too. Weed and feed the lawn each spring. Grow houseplants to cleanse the air. Save last night’s roasted chicken bones to make my own chicken stock. Buy undervalued international stocks. Sell my stock before it drops. And stock my pantry for possible natural disasters.

Fertilize, amortize, winterize, maximize, scrutinize. Suddenly I realized: I don’t have time to live my life!

PAUSE. My word for the year is PAUSE. In my busy life there are so many times I need to pause. Pause to remember these days, for they will fly by so quickly. Pause to say yes … and no. Pause to give thanks. Pause before I speak in anger, judgment, or criticism. Pause to say I’m sorry. Pause to dwell on God’s goodness and mercy. — Dawn

Looking at the list of things I was supposed to do to live my life right, or well, or whatever all this was going to do for me, I felt defeated. The list that was going to improve my life left me overwhelmed. In my moment of defeat all I wanted to do was go surf. ’Course the list said I should put on a high-SPF sunscreen and take along a BPA-free water bottle to keep me well hydrated. Filled with filtered spring water, of course.

Dropping the Ball

I’m sure you can relate; you’ve made lists too. Lists of things you want to start doing or stop doing — things you want to change about yourself. Lists of ways to improve your life and your character. Maybe you’ve only listed them in your head. But I bet they come to mind each January. Nearly two-thirds of America’s population has made New Year’s resolutions. I am one of them.

And you’ve probably found, like I’ve found, that each day keeps blurring into the next while we try to make some progress with our many good intentions. Yet very little actually changes. That ball keeps dropping in Times Square each New Year’s. And we keep dropping the ball on our resolutions to improve.

Only 20 percent of resolution makers report achieving any significant long-term change.

When I open my Bible, I find more lists. Things a follower of Christ should do. Things a follower of Christ should resist doing. Traits a follower of Christ should display — all the truly important stuff that never makes it onto morning show segments. When was I going to get to any of this?

I decided to drop my list of ways to get the most out of my life. I realized I needed to find a new way to approach personal change.

Losing the List, Picking a Word

My first journal entry in 2004 was a single word: FLOW. Not merely written on the page, but etched in bubble letters about three-quarters of an inch tall. The letters are heavily outlined, surrounded by a thin border, and colored in gray. It took me about ten minutes to draw and color the word FLOW. But it took three weeks to narrow all that was bubbling up in me down to that single word.

I’d been writing in a journal for years, but here was something I had never done before. Instead of blasting paragraphs on a page to capture my thoughts and insights, recording my steps and setbacks, I decided to meditate on just one word.

I wrote this word FLOW in response to something Jesus said. He said,

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’.— John 7:38 ESV

That struck a nerve.

There were times when I felt the living water flowing with ease from my heart. But there were other times, more times, when it felt forced.

The idea of FLOW drew me forward. It didn’t have the trappings of regret or the pressure of sweeping promises to change like my resolutions did. It awakened something in me. Not a compulsive desire to change born out of being sick of the way I was, but a desire to live an authentic life that flowed from my relationship with Christ.

Could my life really flow from my heart? The question sent me on a search anchored by the four letters of this one word.

If what Jesus said was true — pause for the obvious answer to arise — then I’d need a way to pay attention to my heart on a daily basis.

I decided looking at and concentrating on this word FLOW would remind me to do that. In the months to come, I paid attention to FLOW and used it to gauge my heart and my life. I discovered I could tell the condition of my heart based on what was coming out of it into my life.

And slowly, over time with this word FLOW, I learned to reverse that process. Instead of looking at my life and actions to realize the state of my heart, I proactively addressed the condition of my heart. That changed my life.

In looking through the lens of a single chosen word, I found a new approach to personal change and spiritual formation — one that is doable, memorable, effective, and sticky. The results have been greater than I expected.

FAITHFUL. For twenty-seven years I’ve believed that my plan for my life is superior to God’s plan. My time has been spent pursuing goals, accomplishments, and things I felt I needed to be happy and complete. After twenty-seven years of much external success, I realized I was still personally and emotionally unsatisfied. While driving to work one morning I was listening to K-LOVE, and I heard Mike talk of the One Word concept. That day I decided, for the first time in my life, to focus on God’s plan for my life instead of my own. Handing over the reins has not been easy; in fact, sometimes I’m not sure I have the endurance. So I chose FAITHFUL as my one word, because I’m committed to being faithful to God’s Word and plan. The thought of where things are going is exciting! I’m now being led by the earth’s Creator. — Brian

A Movement Rises

In January of 2007, I challenged my church, Port City Community Church in Wilmington, North Carolina, to ditch their New Year’s resolutions and each pick a word to focus on that year. I titled the series and the project “My One Word.” People quickly embraced it. Within a few years, My One Word embedded itself into the DNA of our church. It’s how we now approach personal change and spiritual growth.

One of the coolest things to me is how My One Word not only gives people a doable way to focus on their spiritual formation, but an easy way to talk about it. Around here you’ll hear people asking each other, “What’s your word?” or, “How’s it going with your one word?” You’ll hear them answer, “My one word is ___, and so far God’s been showing me ____.” Couples, family, and friends all help hold each other accountable, simply by talking about their words — around the dinner table, at small group meetings, even on Facebook.

In January 2009, the nation’s most notable Christian radio station called my office. K-LOVE had heard about My One Word and invited me to come on the air to tell their listeners about the project.

I shared My One Word with half a million listeners that month. And I returned to the K-LOVE airways to talk about My One Word in 2010 and throughout 2011. A movement caught fire.

The movement didn’t become a movement because K-LOVE called me, but because God has called each of us. This is not a movement of me or my church, but a movement of God. And of his people wanting to be transformed into his image.

Focus Is Required

Our lives are fast-paced and demanding. Our attention is divided. The normal, natural pace of our lives will not likely lead us toward spiritual formation. We have so many things to focus on that spiritual formation tends to fall to the wayside, along with our good intentions to rotate our mattress or wax our cars.

Most of us feel overwhelmed at the idea of embarking on a grand plan for spiritual formation like reading through the Bible in a year or memorizing a verse every week. We’d like to, but it just hasn’t happened. Enter My One Word. It’s easy, doable, and surprisingly powerful, mainly because it supplies narrowed focus.

This study will give you a simple but effective plan to effect personal change (spiritual formation) by allowing a single word to become the lens through which you examine your heart and life for an entire year.

Your single word will force clarity and concentrate your efforts. And as you focus on your word over an extended period of time, you position yourself for God to form your character at a deep, sustainable level.

BOLDNESS I saw the myoneword.org site on a friend’s Facebook page and checked it out. Immediately after reading the purpose behind My One Word, a word popped into my head. I sat at my desk trying to think of a different trait to focus on. I read through other people’s words to see if I could scavenge a good one off their list. I didn’t want to use the word God gave me, because it was terrifying to me. Which was silly, because it’s just a word. But at the same time, knowing that I’d be accountable to it for a year — that’s rough stuff. I am an intensely shy person. I avoid confrontation at all costs. And I only share my faith when it happens into a conversation. The idea of BOLDNESS, of being a truly bold Christian, is seriously out of my comfort zone. But it seems that this is God’s challenge for me this year. I am to actively pursue BOLDNESS and be transformed in the process. So here I go — man, this is intimidating! — Jen

We’re so busy with the surface-level things of life that we forget to number our days and tend to our hearts. We become so preoccupied with getting our lives to a manageable point or a better future that we miss both the moment right now and the reality of a coming eternity. Yet God calls us to use our days to develop a heart of wisdom. And that’s what this My One Word project is ultimately about.

In my book, I’ll outline how to pick a word for the year and how to focus on it. I’ll discuss what you can do to drive it deep into your character and what you can do to apply it in your life. The goal is a transformed heart.

At the close of each chapter you’ll find directions and questions for personal reflection. Grab a journal and spend some time with the questions to help you get the most out of your year with your one word. Throughout each chapter you’ll also see words chosen by men and women from all walks of life — college students, pastors, moms, recovering drug addicts. You’ll hear their reasons for choosing their one word and their experience with this project. I think you’ll find those inspiring.

I invite you to join us this year on the My One Word journey. Change is possible. But focus is required. It’s time to get singleminded and single-worded about your resolution to change.

I think this is a good idea for daily communion with God…to choose a word or verse and meditate on it, but a year is too long. There is much to be discovered in God’s Word and daily, weekly, monthly, we can find treasures of words that transform our lives. Commit to finding something as you read or listen to God’s Word that draws you closer to Him and that He will use to make you more like Jesus. His word will wash you and FLOW through you daily renewing your heart and making you clean. Make sure this year to be in the Word of God every day!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith January 1, 2023

Notes of Faith January 1, 2023

It's a New Day: The Choice Is Yours

It’s quiet. It’s early. My coffee is hot. The sky is still black. The world is still asleep. The day is coming.

In a few moments the day will arrive. It will roar down the track with the rising of the sun. The stillness of the dawn will be exchanged for the noise of the day. The calm of solitude will be replaced by the pounding pace of the human race. The refuge of the early morning will be invaded by decisions to be made and deadlines to be met. For the next twelve hours I will be exposed to the day’s demands. It is now that I must make a choice.

Because of Calvary, I’m free to choose. And so I choose.

I choose love. No occasion justifies hatred; no injustice warrants bitterness. I choose love. Today I will love God and what God loves.

I choose joy. I will invite my God to be the God of circumstance. I will refuse the temptation to be cynical… the tool of the lazy thinker. I will refuse to see people as anything less than human beings, created by God. I will refuse to see any problem as anything less than an opportunity to see God.

I choose peace. I will live forgiven. I will forgive so that I may live.

Because of Calvary, I’m free to choose.

I choose patience. I will overlook the inconveniences of the world. Instead of cursing the one who takes my place, I’ll invite Him to do so. Rather than complain that the wait is too long, I will thank God for a moment to pray. Instead of clinching my fist at new assignments, I will face them with joy and courage.

I choose kindness. I will be kind to the poor, for they are alone. Kind to the rich, for they are afraid. And kind to the unkind, for such is how God has treated me.

I choose goodness. I will go without a dollar before I take a dishonest one. I will be overlooked before I will boast. I will confess before I will accuse. I choose goodness.

I choose faithfulness. Today I will keep my promises. My debtors will not regret their trust. My associates will not question my word. My wife will not question my love. And my children will never fear that their father will not come home.

I choose gentleness. Nothing is won by force. I choose to be gentle. If I raise my voice, may it be only in praise. If I clench my fist, may it be only in prayer. If I make a demand, may it be only of myself.

I choose self-control. I am a spiritual being. After this body is dead, my spirit will soar. I refuse to let what will rot, rule the eternal. I choose self-control. I will be drunk only by joy. I will be impassioned only by my faith. I will be influenced only by God. I will be taught only by Christ. I choose self-control.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithful-ness, gentleness, and self-control. To these I commit my day. If I succeed, I will give thanks. If I fail, I will seek His grace. And then, when this day is done, I will place my head on my pillow and rest.

This devotion is excerpted from Let the Journey Begin by Max Lucado, copyright Thomas Nelson.

We begin a new day and a new year with the same mission in our life’s journey. We are to know God intimately and make Him known so that others will be saved. We are to teach these same people to love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. Which will lead to them serving Him every day with all their gifts, talents, energy and faith. Praise God for a new day and year to know Him, love Him and serve Him!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith December 31, 2022

Notes of Faith December 31, 2022

Article by David Mathis

Executive Editor, desiringGod.org

I’ve been doing the same Bible-reading plan for years.

Quite simply, nothing has shaped me these last two decades like learning (and re-learning) to slowly work through the day’s assigned readings morning after morning, month after month, year after year. This particular plan has four short readings per day, and 25 days per month. It moves a reader through the full terrain of Scripture in twelve months. That makes for about fifteen minutes per day, at an average reading pace — which is too fast for Bible reading (more on that below).

Not that this habit of starting each day with open Bible (and coffee) is always clean and easy, but it’s far more automatic and enjoyable and fruitful now, twenty years later, than at the beginning. It’s amazing how a longstanding, daily habit can change you — not just in terms of psychological pathways and external actions, but also how a soul can be formed and conditioned.

We tend to overestimate how much we can change in the short run, and underestimate how much we can change in the long run.

Condition the Soul

Souls really can be conditioned, like bodies can be conditioned. In fact, our souls are perhaps all the more “conditionable” than our stubborn bodies (“brother ass,” as C.S. Lewis called the body). God made our minds and hearts to be trained and retrained. They are plastic, to borrow the term from neurology. You can train them in greed (2 Peter 2:14) or train them in godliness (1 Timothy 4:7).

“Souls really can be conditioned, like bodies can be conditioned.”

Among many profound benefits of starting each day with God’s voice is how this first-thing encounter with God through his word shapes, trains, and conditions our inner man. After years of Bible reading, I know I have a painfully long way to go, yet I don’t want to overlook the deep blessings and joys of early-morning soul-steeping in the word of God.

Why Not Check the Box?

Over the years, as far as I can tell, perhaps the single most significant “breakthrough” for me in daily Bible intake was learning to ignore those little boxes next to each of the daily readings. If you’re a box-checker, I cast no stones. I simply share my own weaknesses and flaws by testifying to the breakthrough. Silly as it may sound, when I stopped checking the boxes, something started to change in my attitude toward God’s word.

Why would I not check the boxes? There they sat, immediately to the left of each assigned passage — conspicuously empty, practically calling out to me to fill them. But what I began to own in my own soul is that ending each reading by checking a box was promoting or reinforcing the wrong approach in me. When the arc of my “time alone with Jesus” was moving ever toward checking a box, I was orienting on the wrong end. I needed to retrain myself, by omitting that final step, to reinforce in my soul that I wasn’t sitting in front of Scripture to accomplish the day’s first to-do. I wasn’t here to achieve. This was not labor but devotions.

“When I stopped checking the boxes, something started to change in my attitude toward God’s word.”

Later in the day, I might do the hard work of studying the Bible or working to produce some article or sermon. But for now, first thing in the morning, I had God’s word open first and foremost to receive, to see Jesus, to feed my soul on him. What my soul really needed to start the day was him, not some small sense of accomplishment. I needed to encounter and enjoy the risen Jesus, not cross off the day’s first task.

I know now that there is a little hit of dopamine in checking boxes and crossing items off a list. But in time, I grew unsatisfied with that. I didn’t want to confuse the joy of completing a task with the enduring depth and riches of finding my soul being fed, being genuinely made happy in Christ through his word.

In retrospect, I can see that learning not to check the boxes then led to several other dominoes falling.

Slow Way Down

At an average reading pace, it takes about 70 hours to read through the whole Bible. Break that up into 300 days (25 days per month), and you have less than fifteen minutes per day. When I was pressing to check boxes, I could knock out the day’s readings in ten or twelve minutes. And by the end of the fourth reading, I hardly could remember what I had read in the first or second, or even fourth, passage.

When I stopped checking the boxes, it helped me to remember that I wasn’t there to finish the readings but to feed my soul. This freed me to slow way down in my reading speed. I could read at the slowest, most deliberate pace I found enjoyable, and stop to re-read any sentence or paragraph that was particularly unclear, or especially sweet — and still the full time elapsed would be less than half an hour.

In the book Meditation and Communion with God, longtime seminary professor Jack Davis waves the flag for “a more reflective and leisurely engagement with Scripture” in our day (20). According to Davis, the nature of modern life, and the “information overload” we have through television, smartphones, and endless new media “makes a slow, unhurried, and reflective reading of Scripture more vital than ever” (22).

Off the Clock Devotions

Another domino that soon fell was learning to set aside enough time to be able to lose track of time. What some in the work world call “flow” I found to be immensely helpful for morning devotions. I needed to sit where I wasn’t staring at a clock, or hearing one tick, or checking the time every few minutes. The rest of my day so often seemed timed and on the clock. In these morning moments before the risen Christ, I needed to lose consciousness of time, to read slowly and re-read, to explore cross-references and rabbit trails across the canon.

Some days the first assigned reading met and fed me. Other days little to nothing struck me in the four short readings, and I would review them to find somewhere to linger and feed. But neither happened well “on the clock.” There was no reliable timeframe I could assign to genuine soul feeding. So I needed enough space to linger before God without rushing off to the next part of the day.

For starters, I’d recommend half an hour, with the glad expectation that it will grow over time as your appreciation deepens for these quiet, unrushed, morning moments over God’s word.

Move into Meditation

Finally, and most significantly, not checking the boxes freed me to move from slow, unhurried reading into meditation, and then from meditation into prayer.

As I would move through the day’s readings, I was on the lookout for some patch to pause and feed, to really press into my soul, a place to meditate over some particular word from Christ to me that morning. Such meditation is a lost art in our day — not Eastern meditation in which you empty the head, but biblical meditation in which you seek to fill your mind with God-revealed truth and seek to press it into the heart.

Meditation, then, can serve as a kind of “bridge discipline” between Bible reading and prayer. I used to finish reading the passages, check the boxes, and then pivot pretty unnaturally to praying through lists, for myself, my family, friends, ministry partners, and missionaries. Learning to move from unhurried Bible reading into a few minutes meditating on a particular paragraph or verse helped me to focus and feed on a specific divine glory for the morning, and then make that the springboard into and theme for my prayers.

Enough for Today

I won’t pretend that not checking the boxes is for everyone, but maybe like me you’d be helped to take some defiant step to remind your soul, “I’m here to enjoy Jesus.”

One last note: when I stopped checking the boxes, I no longer felt the pressure to “go back” and make up any readings I hadn’t completed the day before. This freed me to really focus on feeding my soul today, to “gather a day’s portion,” rather than try to make up for yesterday, or last week. I realize that for new Bible readers, it may not be quite so easy. You need context to understand verses aright. That’s important. But I would have you take heart that getting a more intuitive sense of the context grows tremendously over time, as you make the annual journey through Scripture, and supplement your reading with various studies.

As George Mueller (1805–1898) so memorably said, his first business every day was to have his soul happy in God.

Leaving the boxes empty has helped me with that.

I have grown closer to Jesus as I just seek to be with Him…in the morning, at noon, in the evening, in every circumstance of my daily life I desire to be close to Jesus. My attitude and choices are more like Jesus when I enjoy being in His Word…at any time of day! May you be blessed in daily walking with Jesus through His Word.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith December 30, 2022

Notes of Faith December 30, 2022

Why You Need to Keep Coming Back to the Word

The Bible is life–changing. Not only will reading and responding to God’s Word change your life today, but the Bible will continually change you as you keep coming back to it throughout your life. It’s not enough to sample the Word; you need to incorporate the habit of daily coming back to the Word into your life.

God’s Word Is Where the Power Is

R.A. Torrey shared what has become one of my favorite quotes, “People who pray for power but neglect the Bible abound in the church. But the power that belongs to God is stored up in the great reservoir of His own Word, the Bible. We cannot obtain or maintain God’s power in our own lives or in our work unless there is deep and frequent meditation on the Word of God.”

Torrey was a longtime ministry associate of D.L. Moody who also had a passion for God’s Word and based his whole ministry on it. In one of my favorite stories about D.L. Moody, he shares:

A quickening that will last must come through the word of God. A man stood up in one of our meetings and said he hoped for enough out of the series of meetings to last him all his life. I told him he might as well try to eat enough breakfast at one time to last him a lifetime. That is a mistake that people are making; they are running to religious meetings and they think the meetings are going to do the work. But if these don’t bring you into closer contact with the word of God, the whole impression will be gone in three months.

If you really want to grow in your Christian life, you need to keep coming back to the Word of God.

It’s not enough to read the Bible once and then move on. Each of us need daily manna from heaven that God gives as we come back to His Word each day.

It’s one thing to get into the Word of God, but it’s another thing to let the Word of God get into you.

Your Bible Is Living and Active

When you become a student of the Bible and you read it consistently throughout the years, different Scriptures stand out at different times. God’s Word is living and active and will often speak to you what you need to hear at just the right moment.

God’s Word also becomes living and active in your heart when you memorize Scripture and meditate on it. To meditate on the Word of God means letting it roll over and over again in your heart and mind until it settles deeply into your spirit. It’s one thing to get into the Word of God, but it’s another thing to let the Word of God get into you. I spend much of my day as part of a ministry team thinking on the Word of God and what God wants to speak into the chaos, dysfunction, and brokenness of our world. I meditate and ponder what God might be saying and what He might want me to say to bring hope and truth into a world that desperately needs Him.

Remind Your Heart Daily What God Has Said

It’s important to keep coming back to the Word of God because the Bible tells us the importance of remembering what God has said:

“For this reason I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth. Yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me. Moreover I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease” (2 Peter 1:12-15, NKJV).

It is good to be reminded of what God has said, and you do this by coming back to the Word over and over so your life is continually changed.

Excerpted from ThomasNelsonBibles.com. Written by Matt Brown, author of Truth Plus Love.

There are times when my time in the Word of God is focused on the message(s) of the week but that is not what bring me the greatest joy. It is the time that I spend in the Word of God that is for communion with Him. Meditating on anything and everything that He has given for our knowledge of Him, to grow to love Him, and be given the desire to serve Him. These are the special moments, those that bring joy. Talk with God each day through His Word and be blessed beyond what you imagine!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith December 29, 2022

Notes of Faith December 29, 2022

Article by Scott Hubbard

Editor, desiringGod.org

A good night’s sleep, like so many of God’s gifts, is one of those ordinary glories you don’t quite appreciate until it’s gone. As a fracture shows the worth of working bones, and a bout with the flu teaches the value of health, so sleeplessness has a way of turning a normal night’s rest into a land of gold.

A recent season of mysterious sleeplessness made me wonder how I had taken such a precious gift for granted. It also gave me a sense of what many deal with — for one reason or another — for far longer than a season. The low-grade dread of nighttime. The rising anxiety when sleep does not come. The toss, turn, bathroom break, book, pillow flip, toss, turn. The slow procession of silent hours. The fear of another exhausted day. The dull burn behind the eyes come morning.

On such nights, or in such seasons, Psalm 127:2 can feel less like a warm sentiment and more like a blessing beyond reach — or even (in our desperation) a taunt. “He gives to his beloved sleep,” Solomon says. So how do we respond when he takes from his beloved sleep?

Psalms in the Night

We might start by considering what else the Psalms have to say. Psalm 127:2 may be the book’s most familiar line about sleep, but it is not the only line: nighttime testimonies are scattered through these 150 songs like so many stars. And surprisingly — especially for the weary among us — the psalmists often found something in sleeplessness worth singing about.

True, nighttime could bring weeping (Psalm 30:5), lonely ruminating (Psalm 77:1–2), tired moaning (Psalm 6:6), or a sense of God-forsakenness (Psalm 22:1–2). But the same hours could also bring a song in the night (Psalm 42:8; 149:5), a word from above (Psalm 16:7), and a sense of the steadfast love of the Lord (Psalm 8:3–4; 136:9).

By faith, the psalmists discovered that sleeplessness could become a sanctuary adorned with the glory and goodness of God (Psalm 119:55, 62), and that no hour was too early (Psalm 119:147) or too late (Psalm 119:148) to pray and praise and meditate. Whereas I often experience sleeplessness as famine, they could taste it as feast (Psalm 63:5–6).

Nighttime was no dead, blank space to these saints of old — a time when, functionally, God was absent. God was near in these “watches of the night” (Psalm 63:6; Psalm 119:148), there to be sung to, prayed to, remembered, loved.

Midnight Means of Grace

We need not imagine, of course, that David, Asaph, and the others relished sleeplessness itself. The psalmists were not superhumans; they, like us, needed about seven or eight hours of sleep a night to function well. Surely, then, they would encourage the sleepless to ask for rest from the God who gives it (and to seek that rest using reasonable natural means).

But suppose we have prayed and done what we can to get the sleep our body needs, yet we still find ourselves staring holes in the bedroom ceiling. What can we do? How might we follow the psalmists beyond the misery of sleeplessness and into the comfort of a God-filled night?

1. Declare God’s sovereignty over nighttime.

Yours also the night. (Psalm 74:16)

Left to myself, I do not naturally treat nighttime as a God-filled land; I am more prone to treat it as a God-forsaken one. How quickly my thoughts can turn over the past day’s events, and how hesitatingly they can turn to him. How quickly I can attach my hopes to a sleeping pill or some other remedy, and how slowly to “the God of my life” (Psalm 42:8). How reflexively I can see sleeplessness as mere menace, and how reluctantly as somehow God’s servant (Psalm 119:91).

Yet how differently the psalmists saw nighttime. Good Bible readers that they were, they knew that night, no less than day, was God’s creation, with moon and stars testifying to his power even over the deepest darkness (Psalm 104:20; 136:7–9). They remembered too how the same God who led his people by cloud during the day led them by fire at night (Psalm 78:14; 105:39). And so, they saw his glory in black skies just as they did in blue (Psalm 19:2), they confessed night to be bright as day to him (Psalm 139:12), and they hailed him as King over darkness. “Yours is the day, yours also the night,” they sang (Psalm 74:16). Midnight belongs to the Lord.

“The watches of the night may lie outside my control; they do not lie outside God’s.”

The confession may be basic, but it has a way of fitting unwanted wakefulness within a larger Godward frame. The watches of the night may lie outside my control; they do not lie outside God’s. His sovereignty rules my sleeplessness. So instead of merely enduring the nighttime hours, I can begin to trace his hand in the dark.

2. Search your heart.

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. (Psalm 16:7)

We should beware of over-spiritualizing sleeplessness. Often, our inability to sleep says more about our technology habits or our exercise routines than our souls. Still, we also should beware of under-spiritualizing sleeplessness — and in our secular age, this may be the more common danger. We would do well, then, to at least consider (alongside wise friends) what God might be saying in our restlessness.

It may be, for example, that sleeplessness comes from God’s heavy hand, sent to search out unconfessed sin. When King David “kept silent” about his sin, he writes, “Day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer” (Psalm 32:4). The distress eventually brought David to his knees, where he confessed his hidden sin and received the forgiveness God was so willing to give (Psalm 32:5). God took David’s sleep for the sake of his soul.

Other nights, we may search our hearts and find not guilt but needed wisdom. Such was David’s experience in another psalm: “I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me” (Psalm 16:7). The word instructs, often translated discipline, “has a purposeful firmness,” Derek Kidner writes, “as of schooling one to face hard facts” (Psalms 1–72, 102). So may our wakeful hearts instruct us, if we let them — perhaps impressing upon us the need for some difficult conversation, or the ways we are beginning to drift in our devotion to God, or the helpfulness of a course correction in work or family life. The heart’s quiet counsel is often drowned by daytime noise; in the silence of night, however, its voice may be heard.

In the book of Esther, the plot hinges on a providential sleepless night (Esther 6:1). Our lives are likely not caught up in the drama of nations — but might there be more happening in our own sleeplessness than we assume?

3. Meditate on God’s word and works.

My soul will be satisfied . . . when I remember you upon my bed. (Psalm 63:5–6)

If we had to name one bridge between us and the psalmists’ experience — if there were one key that opened the door of night, one word that transfigured the darkness — meditation would be it. By meditation, the tears of Psalm 42:3 become the steadfast love and song of Psalm 42:8. By meditation, the night watches in Psalm 119 become a time not of dread but of anticipation (Psalm 119:148). And by meditation, David’s sleepless soul is satisfied.

My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips, when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate upon you in the watches of the night. (Psalm 63:5–6)

Of course, as most know, meditation does not come easily, and especially at midnight. Simply survey the string of disciplined I will statements in Psalm 77:11–12 to sense the kind of resolution required. We instinctively meditate on our current troubles and tomorrow’s tasks, but how do we learn to “meditate upon you” (Psalm 63:6)?

We can take some cues from the psalmists’ own practice. Asaph, for one, fastened his mind on “the deeds of the Lord, . . . your wonders of old” (Psalm 77:11). Can you tell yourself the story of the exodus, or walk through the wonders of Holy Week? The author of Psalm 119 meditated on “your name” and “your promise” (Psalm 119:55, 148). Can you turn over the phrases of Exodus 34:6–7, or ponder Jesus’s sevenfold “I am” (John 6:35; 8:12; 10:7, 11; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1)? Can you rehearse some marvelous memorized promise, receiving each word as if from God himself? David, meanwhile, remembered how “you have been my help” (Psalm 63:7). Can you recall the answered prayers and interventions of days’ or years’ past, assuring yourself that the God who helped you then will help you now and tomorrow?

One friend of mine, psalmist-like, decides before he lies down what he will meditate on should the night find him awake. Such planning — and pre-bedtime praying — may help us respond to sleeplessness as Asaph did: “Let me remember my song in the night; let me meditate in my heart” (Psalm 77:6).

Return, O My Soul, to Your Rest

We might go on to describe the many ways the psalmists speak to God after meditating upon God — how they declare his faithfulness (Psalm 92:2), praise his righteousness (Psalm 119:62), sing his goodness (Psalm 63:7), and cry for his help (Psalm 119:147). Such responses illustrate the truth of Henry Scougal’s line that “to be able to converse in an instant with him whom their souls love transforms the darkest prison or wildest desert [or most restless night!], making them not only bearable but almost delightful” (The Life of God in the Soul of Man, 81). The suggestions given may suffice for a start.

“The mercies of the Lord, new every morning, are strong enough to last through midnight.”

Though I cannot claim to have reached the heights of a Psalm 63 or Psalm 119, I long to be a pupil of these sleepless saints. Even as I pray for the rest my body so badly needs, I long to say with the psalmist, “Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you” (Psalm 116:7). I long for sleeplessness to become a sanctuary, my pillow a place of prayer and praise.

Such saints can testify that the mercies of the Lord, new every morning, are strong enough to last through midnight.

Due to some issues with body restlessness I have been experiencing some sleepless nights. This was a great reminder for me to worship and praise the Lord, to meditate on the Word that the Holy Spirit brings to my mind. Yes, this is difficult through the pain, discomfort and the fact that I would rather be sleeping! But I find that when I do go to sleep and wake the next morning, I am more refreshed and ready to engage another day with the Lord than if I had just tossed and turned whining my way through the night. May you be blessed through your sleepless nights to seek the Lord and draw close to Him. We will one day be made perfect and like His glorious resurrected body and never need sleep for all eternity!

I did have a difficult night, just got up and think I am ready for a nap…so I am praying, giving thanks for a new day and asking God for help to complete the tasks at hand to give Him glory! May you do the same today!

Pastor Dale