Notes of Faith May 10, 2025

Notes of Faith May 10, 2025

Rest is a Gift from God

On the seventh day — with the canvas of the cosmos completed — God paused from His labor and rested. Thus God blessed day seven and made it special — an open time for pause and restoration, a sacred zone of Sabbath-keeping.

— Genesis 2:2-3 The Voice

Do we really think our all-powerful, all-knowing God needed to rest after just six days of work? Possibly, but it seems more likely that God chose to rest to show us the importance of resting from our labors. He knew that we would need an example to follow, and that lesson is just as important today as it was all those years ago.

Our culture places a lot of emphasis on working hard, earning your place, and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, but a close reading of the Bible reveals a very different message.

God doesn’t love you because you work harder than anyone else.

You can’t earn your place in heaven through good works. And God certainly doesn’t determine your value by your use of your bootstraps — quite the opposite.

After all, the Bible isn’t full of stories of independent go-getters who won accolades all on their own by working around the clock. No, the stories are of people who leaned on God to achieve great things by saying yes to Him and following His path, which includes good work, but also always includes rest.

The Sabbath was the first day specifically set aside for something established by God. More holy days and holidays and feasts would come later, but the Sabbath has been with us since creation. It is one of God’s first gifts to us, a sacred time to give our bodies and minds a chance to recharge and anchor our weeks in rest and communion with Him. Resting regularly isn’t being lazy and doesn’t mean that we are shirking our responsibilities. It is simply accepting God’s generous gift. Building our lives around weekly rest is the first step in accepting the rhythm of life God laid out for us at the beginning, and it only brings us closer to Him.

Rhythms of Rest

To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under Heaven. — Ecclesiastes 3:1 NKJV

The entire world runs on cycles. Day becomes night. Night becomes day. Winter melts into spring. Spring blooms into summer. Summer fades into autumn. And autumn freezes into winter.

Years pass by, and people are born and eventually die, but these cycles that God created remain the same.

He set each cycle moving at creation, including the ones that govern our days.

The Bible models this cycle for us. It is a rhythm of work, play, worship, and rest. Days for work, nights for rest, Sabbath each week, and everyone pausing to come together to worship and celebrate for holidays and feasts. Everything in balance to keep us healthy physically, mentally, and spiritually. The seasons have always played a role too. Work was limited by daylight and the weather until very recently. There was less outdoor work to be done in the winter and more time to rest. Now, of course, thanks to technology, we can work anytime and anywhere, even when we shouldn’t.

Our modern, busy, go-go-go, I’ll-rest-when-I’m-dead mentality doesn’t truly disrupt or circumvent the cycle God provided us, even if it feels like working around the clock is some sort of cheat code to getting to the good life. It may lead to financial success, but it always comes at a cost — usually our health and overall well-being. We’ve turned away from living in community and working together to carry the load in favor of doing it all on our own, in our own ways. As a result, we’re a society of people who are sick, unhappy, burned out, lonely, and overwhelmed. And that is definitely not God’s plan for us.

Prioritizing rest is about more than catching up on sleep. It’s about living our lives in sync with the rhythms God laid out for us that are designed to bring us closer to Him.

The Sabbath Was Made for Man

Then He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” — Mark 2:27 NIV

Keeping the Sabbath has always been an important part of Jewish culture, and as stated in the Ten Commandments, no work was to be done on the Sabbath in order to keep it holy. But in Jesus’ time, that had been taken to extremes. It was considered work to put food on the table, to gather water, to do almost anything at all. For many people the Sabbath was not restful; it was stressful.

Jesus was revolutionary in many ways, but at the time, one of the most controversial things He said was, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

The Jewish leaders had turned the Sabbath, the day of rest, into a series of rules to be followed. Jesus recognized that for what it was: a perversion of God’s original gift of a day of rest. His simple statement said volumes. The Sabbath wasn’t some divine test where God was watching for every infraction. It was a generous gift, a sacred day to pause from the hard labor of the week and be refreshed.

What hobbies do you have that refresh you?

How can you incorporate those into your plans for the Sabbath over the next few weeks?

Excerpted from The Weekly Rest Project, copyright Zondervan.

Our minds and bodies need regular rest and when they don’t get it, all too often they break down, crash, and demand time to gather strength and energy. How are you doing with Sabbath resting. Work and even family activities sometimes don’t allow for resting on the Sabbath, but we need to make sure we are giving our bodies adequate time to revive from the expense of the week or even day. Get a good night’s rest. Spend time with God to relax in His loving care and be prepared for each day.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 9, 2025

Notes of Faith May 9, 2025

The Results Are God’s

I [Paul] planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.

1 Corinthians 3:6

The late William R. Bright, cofounder of Campus Crusade for Christ (now Cru), offered a biblical definition of witnessing: Witnessing is sharing Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God. Many Christians worry about being rejected when they share God’s Word. But when we leave the results to God, it takes the focus off of our performance and results.

The apostle Paul shared this perspective when he wrote to the Corinthian church. He said that he planted the seed of the Gospel, Apollos nurtured the seed, but it was God who brought forth the fruit of salvation. When Jesus told His parable of the sower, seed, and soils, He illustrated how seeds do not always fall on fertile ground. Likewise, when we share the seed of God’s truth, we are not responsible for the condition of the heart in those who hear the Word. In Jesus’s parable, only one in four soils was prepared to receive the Word and bring forth fruit (Matthew 13:3-23).

Don’t let fear of rejection keep you from sharing God’s truth with others, whether it’s the Gospel of salvation or just a word of encouragement, today. Leave the results to God.

Faithful witness is truth telling, not head counting.

Don Posterski

Matt 13:18-33

18 "Hear then the parable of the sower. 19 "When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road. 20 "The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21 yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away. 22 "And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. 23 "And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty."

Tares among Wheat

24 Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 "But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. 26 "But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. 27 "The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, 'Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?' 28 "And he said to them, 'An enemy has done this!' The slaves said to him, 'Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?' 29 "But he said, 'No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 'Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, "First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn."'"

The Mustard Seed

31 He presented another parable to them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; 32 and this is smaller than all other seeds, but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that THE BIRDS OF THE AIR come and NEST IN ITS BRANCHES."

33 He spoke another parable to them, "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened."

As a pastor, I have always worried about those in the congregation believing that they are responsible for getting people saved, and if it appears that their sharing of the gospel is not effective, that they are not bearing fruit. They forget that there is great fruit bearing in their own life, that God is working through His Spirit, transforming their heart and mind, to be able to share the gospel with power. That is our call to evangelism, to share truth, and let God bring to Himself those He has chosen from before the foundation of the world. We are to be faithful witnesses of Christ, for Christ and His glory. We do not earn some fruitful reward for how many people come to faith…since that is God’s responsibility. Just step out and share Jesus, who He is, that He died and rose from the grave, that we might have forgiveness of sin and eternal life with Him. That is our responsibility. Go! Be the church!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 8, 2025

Notes of Faith May 8, 2025

Warning Signs

These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come.

1 Corinthians 10:11, NIV

Everywhere we go, we’re surrounded by warning signs, and some of them are a bit much! One said: “Caution! Heavy Pedestrian Traffic,” with a drawing of a rather large man. Another said: “Free Range Chickens Drive Slowly.” One sign in a rural town said: “Touching Wires Causes Instant Death. $200 Fine.”

Most caution signs are well-intended and clearly marked, and that’s the way the Lord cautions us in Scripture. The Bible includes warnings, cautions, rebukes, and dangers to avoid. Sometimes we’re headed down the wrong path without even knowing it. But God’s Word warns us of the dangers ahead.

In 1 Corinthians 10, for example, Paul reminds us of how the Israelites set their hearts on evil things, engaged in sexual immorality, grumbled, and indulged in too much revelry. The Lord judged them, and they are a warning to us. As you study the Bible each day, don’t just underline the promises and sing the psalms. Highlight the warnings too, and grow in daily holiness before the Lord.

God’s holiness and purity give birth to His righteous anger when we do the things He doesn’t want us to do. God….doesn’t want us to take sin lightly.

Chris Thurman

Ps 119:11

11 Your word I have hidden in my heart,

That I might not sin against You.

NKJV

God’s Word and relationship with Him must be the priority of our lives. Everything else in life will flow from this priority. Read God’s Word daily. Talk with Him at any and all times…He is always there, ready to listen and speak to you through the Holy Spirit that lives within you.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 7, 2025

Notes of Faith May 7, 2025

Your Exalted King

Oh, sing to the Lord a new song!

Psalm 96:1

Five psalms—from Psalm 96 to Psalm 100—explicitly affirm God’s rule over all the earth. Allen Ross, in his commentary on Psalms, calls Psalm 96: “The Exalted King.” We’re to sing a new song to Him (verse 1) and “declare His glory among the nations” (verse 3). Why? “For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised” (verse 4). He “made the heavens” (verse 5), so we should give Him glory (verse 7), bring Him an offering (verse 8), and worship Him “in the beauty of [His] holiness” (verse 9).

The joy of worshiping Him is not our privilege alone. The heavens, the earth, the seas, fields, and trees rejoice too (verses 11-12). We praise Him for He is coming to judge the world with righteousness and truth (verse 13).

The difficulties and stresses of life can discourage our souls. But God’s Word brings joy to our hearts often through studying the book of Psalms. If you’re discouraged or anxious today, take time to read Psalm 96 and praise God for who He is.

Because the majestic Lord of creation comes to judge and rule the world, all people should worship Him in fear and praise Him in holy array for His great salvation.

Allen Ross

Ps 150

150 Praise the Lord!

Praise God in His sanctuary;

Praise Him in His mighty expanse.

2 Praise Him for His mighty deeds;

Praise Him according to His excellent greatness.

3 Praise Him with trumpet sound;

Praise Him with harp and lyre.

4 Praise Him with timbrel and dancing;

Praise Him with stringed instruments and pipe.

5 Praise Him with loud cymbals;

Praise Him with resounding cymbals.

6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord!

Phil 2:5-11

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Rom 14:10-12

For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. 11 For it is written,

"AS I LIVE, SAYS THE LORD, EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW TO ME,

AND EVERY TONGUE SHALL GIVE PRAISE TO GOD."

12 So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.

We will all meet the Creator and Giver of life! He will judge us righteously and welcome us to our eternal home or condemn us to eternal suffering away from His presence in torment forever. Seek the Lord while he may be found!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 6, 2025

Notes of Faith May 6, 2025

Wise for Salvation

From childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

2 Timothy 3:15

“At the age of twelve,” wrote Pastor Paul Enns, “I was visiting my older cousin, Ernie, when he explained John 3:16 to me. I remember kneeling at the couch and praying, telling the Lord I was trusting in Jesus for salvation. And a new birth occurred!”1

No matter our age or stage in life, God’s Word has the power to change us! It’s wonderful when, like Timothy and Pastor Enns, we find the Gospel early in life. Imagine the power of a book that can forever change a four-year-old, a fourteen-year-old, or a forty-year-old! It’s not too late to tell your children about the Holy Scriptures, which can make them wise for salvation—and it’s not too late to receive the same Gospel into your own life.

It's as simple as John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Share this Good News with someone today!

No works are necessary for salvation; it is by faith alone—accessing God’s enormous grace. Have you availed yourself of the enormity of God’s love that gives you eternal life?

Paul Enns

Salvation is indeed a free gift of God, but it comes as a result of recognition of one’s sin before God and a repentant heart desiring to live submitting to the will of God. God’s gift of faith to believe brings a transformed life, good works, serving God, serving mankind, selfless love, living life in imitation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 5, 2025

Notes of Faith May 5, 2025

Smooth Is Slow…

But Abraham still stood before the Lord.

Genesis 18:22

The Navy SEALs have a saying: “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.” We need to remember that in our frantic world. It’s especially true with the habit of daily Bible reading. Mature believers have learned that it’s better to spend five unhurried minutes reading the Bible than to read for ten minutes feeling rushed. Similarly, another author said, “Hurry is the death of prayer.”

We may not always have as much time as we’d like when we sit down to fellowship with God although we should build the necessary time into our schedules. Some days are more hectic than others. But Psalm 46:10 doesn’t say, “Be rushed, and know that I am God.” It says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”

Even if your time is limited, take a deep breath, and enjoy the five, ten, fifteen, or thirty minutes you have when you open your Bible. Read it aloud. Take a moment to copy down some of the verses. Turn them into prayers. Find a way of taking the truth you’ve found into the day with you.

Better are a few moments of stillness than an hour feeling rushed. Find a few moments for stillness today.

Take time to be holy, speak oft with thy Lord; abide in Him always, and feed on His Word.

William D. Longstaff

Luke 10:38-42

38 Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord's feet, listening to His word. 40 But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, "Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me." 41 But the Lord answered and said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; 42 but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her

It is better to be absorbed in things of God than distracted and busy with things of the world!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 4, 2025

Notes of Faith May 4, 2025

We (Still) Walk by Faith

How to See Beyond the Secular

Ecclesiastes 3:11 haunts the human mind that pretends to be secular:

[God] has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

At first blush, secular answers — that is, those that refuse to acknowledge any religious or spiritual basis for human life and our world — may attract those aching to suppress the truth that God has made plain in his creation (Romans 1:18–20). But soon the sparkle wears off. Secular life does not prove satisfying — emotionally or intellectually. Secular “believers” may enjoy the initial thrill of feeling free from divine oversight and the wages of sin. But the wishful thinking of cosmic rebels proves empty sooner or later. As it always has.

God made us, and made us for himself. The Potter has designs. In our sin, we want to spin away from him. Yet in the very clay of our humanity, we were made for him and cannot get around or beyond his purposes, no matter how much sin pressures us to flee.

While Christians in this generation may feel a new acuteness in secular pressures, the Christian faith has always required the look of faith to the unseen. Some forces seem new; the fundamental realities of the Christian life remain unchanged. Long have we been a people with a different kind of vision, mindset, and joy than our surrounding society.

1. A Different Kind of Vision

First, we have a different kind of vision than our unbelieving age. We live by faith. Believers the world over may dispute or variously read a number of passages, but every stripe of church and tribe of Christians confesses, with Paul, “We look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen” (2 Corinthians 4:18).

From where does such faith come? “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). And oh how counter-secular are such invisibilities! Against a visibly focused age, our invisible faith — arising in the inner, unseen person — comes from hearing the audible yet invisible word: the good news about Christ. And that through an unseen Helper we call the Holy Spirit (Galatians 3:5).

Of course, we live in this world and look at seen things all day. We are bombarded with sights and their accompanying sensations, and now all the more with glittering pixels. But in Christ, we do not look to the things that are seen to get our ultimate bearings about reality. Rather, we look to the unseen. By faith, we see the invisible.

Has not this faith in the unseen been the legacy of our heroes? Noah’s faith received God’s word “concerning events as yet unseen” and moved him to build the ark to save his household (Hebrews 11:7). Abraham, by faith, left his home, “not knowing where he was going,” stretching by faith to see what he could not yet see (Hebrews 11:8). Moses’s faith sent him out from Egypt, “for he endured as seeing him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:27). And Christ himself (both the focus of our faith and our supreme exemplar) endured the cross “for the joy that was set before him” — that is, not a joy at hand he could see and reach for, but a yet unseen joy in the distance that would lead him to and through the visible and sensible horrors of crucifixion, and all the way to his Father’s right hand (Hebrews 12:2).

Even if obstacles to this kind of sight are especially pronounced in our day of secular assumptions and pixelated visuals, the life of faith has always run against this grain: looking through and beyond what we can see with our physical eyes to yet unseen rewards we taste even in the present. “Faith is the [foretaste] of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). From afar, faith draws near to the unseen God, not just believing that he exists but “that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). Faith hears and embraces his audible-yet-invisible word and lives in light of it.

2. A Different Kind of Mindset

Second, we have a different kind of mindset than our world’s. Faith in the unseen God frees our minds from the prison of “the immanent frame” — that small slice of reality that we can see, hear, touch, taste, and feel. Christian faith liberates us from the earthly mindedness into which we are born as natural humans. As the Holy Spirit, dwelling in us, helps us to see through and behind and beyond the phenomena of our world, he also makes us increasingly spiritually minded.

Even in an era of oppressive earthly mindedness that claims so many as its victims, we inhabit the glorious freedom of Colossians 3:2, setting our minds on the things that are above, not on things that are on earth. In Christ, we have reckoned ourselves dead, and our true life is now hidden with him in God (Colossians 3:1). How could our souls be raised with Christ, and we not “seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1)? We live in this world. Earthly things rightly cross and occupy our minds every day. But in Christ, we learn to set and reset our minds elsewhere, upward, to things above, where he is. And from that regular reset, we put to death what is earthly in us, the old self and its practices (Colossians 3:5–9), and put on the new self in Christ and its fruit (Colossians 3:10–17).

If we coast, the world will have its way with our minds and their frame. We might still read our Bibles and frequent churches and even speak in pulpits; we might still quote verses and expound Christian doctrines. But from what mindset and to what end? Have our world’s terms and ends infected and seized our cast of mind? Pretending there is no God or unseen, our world can’t help but fill the void with politics, sports, decadence, and trivia. If our own hearts have been captured by this mindset, our dreams and greatest joys will look very much like the world’s, and very little like the different kind of joy on offer in Christ.

3. A Different Kind of Joy

Finally, we have a different kind of joy than the world’s — a joy that flows from our different vision and mindset. As we see the unseen God (vision) and see our world through his eyes (mindset), our joy rises far beyond the joy rooted merely in this world we can see.

Surely, the world has tasted and talks about a kind of “happiness” — one that is fleeting, unpredictable, impulsive, and superficial. And it’s a happiness that dishonors God, diminishes Christ, ignores Scripture, and leads to damnation, not final, eternal bliss. But in Christ, ours is a different sort of happiness — one that is lasting and deep and soul-satisfying. It is rooted in God and expands through loving others and doing them good. Our happiness is the kind of joy that sustains us in suffering, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), and gets us in the end to the great reward that is God himself in Christ.

And stunningly, in this different kind of joy, we do not diverge from the one who made and upholds our world, and who will decide our eternity, but in Jesus our joy is at one with the very purposes of God. “The end and goal of all things,” says John Piper, “is the glory of God reflected in the gladness of his people in God.” Isaiah spoke of this different kind of joy seven centuries before Christ when he said Christ’s people will “go out in joy and be led forth in peace . . . and it shall make a name for the Lord” (Isaiah 55:12–13).

Unseen World

This month at Desiring God, we turn our focus to the unseen world with a three-part structure: (1) the unseen world within, (2) the unseen world without, (3) the unseen world to come. Our focus will be reclaiming our felt sense of these unseen realities: the human soul, the Holy Spirit, demons and angels, the glorified Christ, and his coming return.

Join us in celebrating the life of faith, and seeing the unseen, in a world trying to see only the seeable.

David Mathis (@davidcmathis) is executive editor for Desiring God

Open the eyes of my heart Lord.

Open the eyes of my heart,

I want to see You.

To see You high and lifted up,

Shining in the light of Your glory.

Pour out Your power and love,

As we sing Holy, Holy, Holy

Holy, holy, holy

Holy, holy, holy

Holy, holy, holy

I want to see you.

Lord, increase the eyes of our faith, that we might see Your glory and holiness today!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 3, 2025

Notes of Faith May 3, 2025

Contagious Calm

Disaster was as close as the press of a red button. Four Russian submarines patrolled the Florida coast. US warships had dropped depth charges. The Russian captain was stressed, trigger-happy, and ready to destroy a few American cities. Each sub was armed with a nuclear warhead. Each warhead had the potential to repeat a Hiroshima-level calamity.

Had it not been for the contagious calm of a clear-thinking officer, World War III might have begun in 1962. His name was Vasili Arkhipov. He was the thirty-six-year-old chief of staff for a clandestine fleet of Russian submarines. The crew members assumed they were being sent on a training mission off the Siberian coast. They came to learn that they had been commissioned to travel five thousand miles to the southwest to set up a spearhead for a base near Havana, Cuba.

The subs went south, and so did their mission. In order to move quickly, the submarines traveled on the surface of the water, where they ran head-on into Hurricane Daisy. The fifty-foot waves left the men nauseated and the operating systems compromised.

Then came the warm waters. Soviet subs were designed for the polar waters, not the tropical Atlantic. Temperatures inside the vessels exceeded 120 degrees Fahrenheit. The crew battled the heat and claustrophobia for much of the three-week journey. By the time they were near the coast of Cuba, the men were exhausted, on edge, and anxious.

The situation worsened when the subs received cryptic instructions from Moscow to turn northward and patrol the coastline of Florida. Soon after they entered American waters, their radar picked up the signal of a dozen ships and aircrafts. The Russians were being followed by the Americans. The US ships set off depth charges. The Russians assumed they were under attack.

The captain lost his cool. He summoned his staff to his command post and pounded the table with his fists. “We’re going to blast them now! We will die, but we will sink them all — we will not disgrace our navy!”

The world was teetering on the edge of war. But then Vasili Arkhipov asked for a moment with his captain. The two men stepped to the side. He urged his superior to reconsider. He suggested they talk to the Americans before reacting. The captain listened. His anger cooled. He gave the order for the vessels to surface.

The Americans encircled the Russians and kept them under surveillance. What they intended to do is unclear as in a couple of days the Soviets dove, eluded the Americans, and made it back home safely.

This incredible brush with death was kept secret for decades. Arkhipov deserved a medal, yet he lived the rest of his life with no recognition. It was not until 2002 that the public learned of the barely avoided catastrophe. As the director of the National Security Archive stated, “The lesson from this [event] is that a guy named Vasili Arkhipov saved the world.”1

Why does this story matter? You will not spend three weeks in a sweltering Russian sub. But you may spend a semester carrying a heavy class load, or you may fight the headwinds of a recession. You may spend night after night at the bedside of an afflicted child or aging parent. You may fight to keep a family together, a business afloat, a school from going under.

You will be tempted to press the button and release, not nuclear warheads, but angry outbursts, a rash of accusations, a fiery retaliation of hurtful words. Unchecked anxiety unleashes an Enola Gay of destruction. How many people have been wounded as a result of unbridled stress?

And how many disasters have been averted because one person refused to buckle under the strain? It is this composure Paul is summoning in the first of a triad of proclamations.

Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything. — Philippians 4:5 NIV

The Greek word translated here as gentleness (epieikes) describes a temperament that is seasoned and mature.2 It envisions an attitude that is fitting to the occasion, level headed and tempered. The gentle reaction is one of steadiness, evenhandedness, fairness. It “looks humanely and reasonably at the facts of a case.”3 Its opposite would be an overreaction or a sense of panic.

This gentleness is “evident to all.” Family members take note. Your friends sense a difference. Coworkers benefit from it. Others may freak out or run out, but

the gentle person is sober minded and clear thinking. Contagiously calm.

The contagiously calm person is the one who reminds others, “God is in control.”

The gentle person is sober minded and clear thinking. Contagiously calm.

This is the executive who tells the company, “Let’s all do our part; we’ll be okay.” This is the leader who sees the challenge, acknowledges it, and observes, “These are tough times, but we’ll get through them.”

Gentleness. Where do we quarry this gem? How can you and I keep our hands away from the trigger? How can we keep our heads when everyone else is losing theirs? We plumb the depths of the second phrase.

Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything. — Philippians 4:5-6 NIV

The Lord is near! You are not alone. You may feel alone. You may think you are alone. But there is never a moment in which you face life without help. God is near.

God repeatedly pledges His proverbial presence to His people.

To Abram, God said,

Do not be afraid… I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.

— Genesis 15:1

To Hagar, the angel announced,

Do not be afraid; God has heard. — Genesis 21:17 NIV

When Isaac was expelled from his land by the Philistines and forced to move from place to place, God appeared to him and reminded him,

Do not be afraid, for I am with you. — Genesis 26:24 NLT

After Moses’ death God told Joshua,

Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. — Joshua 1:9 NIV

God was with David, in spite of his adultery. With Jacob, in spite of his conniving. With Elijah, in spite of his lack of faith.

Then, in the ultimate declaration of communion, God called Himself Immanuel, which means “God with us.” He became flesh. He became sin. He defeated the grave. He is still with us. In the form of His Spirit, He comforts, teaches, and convicts.

Do not assume God is watching from a distance. Avoid the quicksand that bears the marker “God has left you!” Do not indulge this lie. If you do, your problem will be amplified by a sense of loneliness. It’s one thing to face a challenge, but to face it all alone? Isolation creates a downward cycle of fret. Choose instead to be the person who clutches the presence of God with both hands.

The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? — Psalm 118:6 NIV

Because the Lord is near, we can be anxious for nothing.

This is Paul’s point. Remember, he was writing a letter. He did not use chapter and verse numbers. This system was created by scholars in the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. The structure helps us, but it can also hinder us. The apostle intended the words of verses 5 and 6 to be read in one fell swoop.

The Lord is near; [consequently,] do not be anxious about anything.

Early commentators saw this. John Chrysostom liked to phrase the verse this way:

The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety.4

Theodoret of Cyrus translated the words:

The Lord is near. Have no worries.5

We can calmly take our concerns to God because He is as near as our next breath!

Excerpted from Anxious for Nothing by Max Lucado, copyright Max Lucado.

I am working on being gentle in times of stress and conflict…not easy, but Jesus was, always. I want to be like Jesus. How about you?

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 2, 2025

Notes of Faith May 2, 2025

All the Time

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

Joshua 1:8

If you are a young person in love, you probably think about your beloved “day and night.” If you are facing a challenging situation at work, your focus is on finding a solution “day and night.”

In Hebrew culture, phrases like “day and night” and “east to west” serve as all-inclusive indicators. That is, “day and night” means “all the time.” It is natural for certain situations to consume our thoughts all the time. But Scripture admonishes us to focus on one thing in particular: God’s Word. When Joshua prepared to enter the Promised Land, God encouraged him to meditate on His Word continually (Joshua 1:8). Moses said that Israel’s kings should focus on God’s Word (Deuteronomy 17:18-20). And the psalmist promised blessedness to the one who meditates on God’s Word “day and night” (Psalm 1:1-2).

Consider how you can incorporate God’s Word into your thoughts “all the time” through reading, memorization, music, and other means.

It takes calm, thoughtful, prayerful meditation on the Word to extract its deepest nourishment.

Vance Havner

Deut 17:18-20

18 “Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. 19 “It shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes, 20 that his heart may not be lifted up above his countrymen and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or the left, so that he and his sons may continue long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel.

Make sure that you are in the Word of God today. I am enjoying the “Living Desert” today with my family and still MUST spend time with the Lord first thing in the morning. Be prepared for your day, that nothing might cause you to be disturbed by what you may face, for the Lord is with you wherever you go!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 1, 2025

Notes of Faith May 1, 2025

The Verse on the Wall

Thou God seest me.

Genesis 16:13, KJV

Violet Liddle was a remarkable Christian maid who served the likes of Churchill, Eisenhower, Lady Astor, and George Bernard Shaw. Growing up, she came downstairs every day beneath a framed Bible verse on the wall, which read: “Thou God seest me.” As a result, some of her first memories involved knowing that God watched her wherever she was. “Still,” she wrote, “I don’t really regret this introduction to God because it did instill in me an understanding that God is always around us, and I’m glad that over the years I’ve come to recognize that the verse is a promise of God’s loving care.”1

God’s Word was an important part of life for the people of Israel. God gave leaders, kings, and everyone else specific instructions for the ways to remember His words by placing them in places they would see each day. Deuteronomy 6 tells us to write God’s Word “on the doorposts of your house and on your gates”

(verse 9).

Look around you today for places to post Scripture so it stays at the forefront of your mind. A verse on the wall may reside in your children’s minds for decades to come!

Down through the years, I turned to the Bible and found in it all that I needed.

Ruth Bell Graham

Heb 4:12-13

12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

Rom 1:16

I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes

Starting the day seeing the Word of God displayed in your home will help your attitude and walk through the rest of the day. Put a special verse to you on a wall, on a shelf, maybe next to your bed. Read God’s Word early in the morning. Talk to God…He is ready to listen and hear your prayers. He is with you every moment!

Pastor Dale