SHOCKING ACCESSIBILITY

SHOCKING ACCESSIBILITY

READ:
Romans 8:14-17, 24-26

You received the Spirit
of adoption by whom we
cry out, “Abba, Father.”
Romans 8:15

When John F. Kennedy was president of the US, photographers sometimes captured a winsome scene.  Seated around the president’s desk in the Oval Office, cabinet members are debating matters of world consequence.  Meanwhile, a toddler, the 2-year-old Joh-John crawls around and inside the huge presidential desk, oblivious to White House protocol and the weighty matters of state.  He is simply visiting his daddy.

That is the kind of shocking accessibility conveyed in the word Abba when Jesus said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for You” (Mark 14:36).  God may be the sovereign Lord of the universe, but through His Son, God became as approachable as any doting human father.  In Romans 8, Paul brings the image of intimacy even closer.  God’s Spirit lives inside us, he says, and when we do not know what we ought to pray “the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (v.26).

Jesus came to demonstrate that a perfect and holy God welcomes pleas for help from a widow with two mites and a Roman centurion and a miserable publican and a thief on a cross.  We need only call out “Abba” or, failing that, simply groan.  God has come that close to us.  Philip Yancey

We want to talk to God, but it can be difficult to find words to express the emotions of our heart.  The Discovery Series booklet Let’s Pray may help.   Read it online at discovery series.org/hp135

Prayer is an intimate conversation with our God.

INSIGHT
The indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives is the evidence that we are saved.  The Holy Spirit is also called “the Spirit of God” and the “Spirit of Christ” (Romans 8:9).  Paul taught that the Spirit is the deposit that guarantees our salvation (Ephesians 1:13-14) and the source of our new life (Romans 8:11).  Assuring us that we are God’s children, the Holy Spirit enables us to affectionately call out to God, “Abba, Father” (v.15).  As “the Spirit of adoption: (v.15), the Spirit changes our status from slaves to sons (Gal. 4:6), giving us the full privileges of sonship-making us heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17).  The indwelling Spirit helps us to pray by interceding for us and with us (v.26).

Have a blessed evening.
God Our Creator’s Love Always.
Unity & Peace

HOW HAS GOD PROTECTED US IN THE PAST?

Today's promise: God protects His people

How has God protected us in the past?

Before the mountains were created, before you made the earth and the world, you are God, without beginning or end.

You turn people back to dust, saying, "Return to dust!"

Psalm 90:3-4 NLT

Our help in ages past

O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home!
O God, Our Help in Ages Past
ISAAC WATTS (1674-1748)

In 1714, the people of England were anxious. Queen Anne lay dying, and she had no son or daughter to succeed her. Who would be the new monarch, and what changes would that make? Isaac Watts had reason to worry. His father had been imprisoned under the previous regime because his views did not please the ruling family. As a young child, Isaac has been carried by his mother to visit his father in jail. But Queen Anne had brought a new tolerance, and freedom for the elder Watts. Now that she was dying, what would happen?

Isaac Watts turned to Psalm 90 on this occasion and penned what may be the greatest of his more than six hundred hymns. In essence, it is a poem about time. God stands above human time, and in Him all our anxieties can be laid to rest. The greatness of our eternal God was a favorite theme of Watts. When the events of the day bring worry, the God of all ages remains our eternal home.

adapted from The One Year® Book of Hymns by Mark Norton and Robert Brown, Tyndale House Publishers (1995), entry for January 29

A person can respond to suffering like an egg, or like a potato. A potato goes into the boiling water hard, but comes out pliable. An egg goes into the boiling water soft and comes out hard.

AUTHOR UNKNOWN

Content is derived from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation and other publications of Tyndale Publishing House

DOES GOD CARE WHEN YOU SUFFER?

Today's promise: God protects His people

Does God Care When You Suffer?

Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will give us later. Romans 8:18 NLT

The problem of suffering

On my shelf is a little book that asks a big question. It is titled Does God Care When We Suffer? and was written by Randy Becton. Randy is a good friend and a cancer survivor who has spent much of his life ministering to people with terminal illnesses. Randy writes:

"Of the hard 'why' questions, 'why is there suffering?' may be the hardest. This is probably because it not attacks us personally, but also because whenever the question is raised, the question of God's part in suffering follows close behind… We are desperate for the meaning behind all this. We seek some someone to blame or deliver us, and that always leads to our view of God."

Doesn't God care when we suffer? Of course he does. Then why doesn't he do something about it? He did. Becton sums it up this way:

"The answer is the cross of Jesus Christ.… From now on all human suffering must be understood in the light of his suffering; it is the source of meaning, hope, and new life for sufferers. When someone cries out, 'He doesn't care. He's immune to pain,' they are brought to the foot of the cross to see for themselves.… The cross and resurrection hold the key to the mystery of suffering."

Adapted from Embracing Eternity by Tim LaHaye, Jerry Jenkins and Frank M. Martin,, Tyndale House Publishers (2004), p 3

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains; it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

C S LEWIS

Content is derived from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation and other publications of Tyndale Publishing House

HOW HAVE YOU ASKED GOD FOR HIS PROTECTION?

Today's promise: God protects His people

How have you asked God for his protection?

O God, listen to my cry! Hear my prayer!

From the ends of the earth, I will cry to you for help, for my heart is overwhelmed.

Lead me to the towering rock of safety, for you are my safe refuge, a fortress where my enemies cannot reach me.

Let me live forever in your sanctuary, safe beneath the shelter of your wings!

Psalm 61:1-4 NLT

A request for protection

As the commander of Israel's armies, David was an expert at analyzing an enemy's defenses and planning fortifications. Under David's leadership, the strong fortress of Zion (later called Jerusalem) was captured from the Jebusites. And after he captured it, David oversaw the building of additional fortifications around Zion (2 Samuel 5:6-10). But David didn't place his trust in the fortress he had built. He knew God was his true "towering rock of safety." There was no safer refuge than the Lord's sanctuary — the presence of the Almighty.

Although we might not realize it, we are just as vulnerable as King David was. We need to be led to God's rock of safety. Run to the Almighty in prayer and trust in him to keep you safe.

Prayer for today:

O God, lead me to the towering rock of safety, for you are my safe refuge…

from The One Year® Book of Bible Prayers edited by Bruce Barton, Tyndale House Publishers (2000), entry for February 5

Discipleship means allegiance to the suffering Christ, and it is therefore not at all surprising that Christians should be called upon to suffer.

DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Content is derived from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation and other publications of Tyndale Publishing Hou

THE STRESS OF CAPTIVITY

Today's promise: God cares for the persecuted

The stress of captivity

Beside the rivers of Babylon, we sat and wept as we thought of Jerusalem. We put away our lyres, hanging them on the branches of the willow trees. For there our captors demanded a song of us. Our tormentors requested a joyful hymn: "Sing us one of those songs of Jerusalem!" But how can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?

Psalm 137:1-4 NLT

Your Babylon

In captivity in Babylon, the Jews wept for their homeland and prayed for the day when they might return. But when the day of their release from captivity finally came and they were allowed to return, only about fifty thousand (out of hundreds of thousands) made the trek back to Jerusalem. Why?

For one thing, some of the Jews were making a good living in Babylon — a better living than their fathers had made in Jerusalem. Others had married Babylonian spouses and become assimilated into Babylonian culture. They had forgotten Jerusalem. Can you blame them? Seventy years of captivity is a long time.

Whatever the reason, some of the Jews weren't like the writer of Psalm 137, which apparently was written shortly after their return from exile.

The Bible speaks of heaven as our Jerusalem and suggests that where we are now living is Babylon on earth. How comfortable are you in your Babylon? How are you faring there? Have you forgotten that you, too, are an exile, a pilgrim in a foreign land? What are you looking ahead to?

from The One Year® Book of Psalms with devotionals by William J. Petersen and Randy Petersen (Tyndale) entry for November 11

Digging Deeper: For more on facing persecution, read Jerry Jenkin's Shadowed, a novel about keeping faith in the last days. Tyndale House Publishers (hardcover 2005, softcover 2006).

Content is derived from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation and other publications of Tyndale Publishing House

TURNING EVIL TO GOOD

Today's promise: God cares for the persecuted

Turning evil to good

Don't be intimidated by you enemies.…you have been given not only the privilege of trusting in Christ but also the privilege of suffering for him.

Philippians 1:28-29 NLT

Finding God in Russia

In the 1930s Stalin ordered a purge of all Bibles and all believers. In Stravropol, Russia, this order was carried out with a vengeance. Thousands of Bibles were confiscated, and multitudes of believers were sent to the gulags where most died for being "enemies of the state."

Years later, CoMission sent a team to Stavropol. When the team was having difficulty getting Bibles shipped from Moscow, someone mentioned the existence of a warehouse outside of town where these confiscated Bibles had been stored since Stalin's day.

After much prayer by the team, one member finally got up the courage to go to the warehouse and ask the officials if the Bibles were still there.…The answer was, "Yes!"

The next day The CoMission team returned with a truck and several Russian people to help load the Bibles. One helper was a young man — a skeptical, hostile, agnostic collegian who had come only for the day's wages. As they were loading Bibles, one team member noticed that the young man had disappeared. He had slipped away, hoping to quietly take a Bible for himself. What he found shook him to the core.

The inside page of the Bible he picked up had the handwritten signature of his own grandmother. It had been her personal Bible. Out of the thousands of Bibles still left in the warehouse, he stole the one belonging to this grandmother — a woman persecuted for her faith all her life.

He was found weeping — God was real.

R. Kent Hughes in 1001 Great Stories and Quotes

Adapted from The Prayer Bible Jean E. Syswerda, general editor, Tyndale House Publishers (2003), p 1285.

Content is derived from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation and other publications of Tyndale Publishing House

CAT GATE

CAT GATE

READ:
John 10:1-10

I am the door.  If anyone
enters by Me, he will be
saved, and will go in and 
out and find pasture.

My husband, Jay, and I have a new family member-a 2-month-old tabby cat named Jasper.  To keep our new kitten safe, we’ve had to break some old habits, like leaving doors open.  But one thing remains a challenge:  the open stairway.  Cats like to climb.  Even as kittens, they know that the world looks better when you’re looking down on it.  So whenever I have Jasper downstairs with me, she is determined to go upstairs.  Trying to keep her confined to a safe place near me has tested my ingenuity.  Gates that work with children and dogs do not work with cats.

My cat gate dilemma brings to mind the metaphor Jesus used to describe Himself:  “I am the gate for the sheep,”  He said (John 10:7 NIV). Middle Eastern sheepfolds were enclosures with an opening for the sheep to go in and out.  At night, when the sheep were safely inside, the shepherd would lie in the opening so that neither sheep nor predators could get past him.

Although I want to keep Jasper safe, I am not willing to make myself the gate.  I have other things to do.  But that’s what Jesus Christ does for us.  He places Himself between us and our enemy, the devil, to protect us from spiritual harm.  Julie Ackerman Link

Thank You, Jesus, for being my gate.  Through You I have salvation and by Your power I am safe from spiritual harm.  Surround me with Your protection.  I trust in You.

The closer to the Shepherd, the farther from the wolf.

INSIGHT

John records several instances of the exclusive claims of Jesus.  In today’s passage, Jesus says that the only way to relationship with God is through Him (John 10:9).  Later, speaking to His disciples Jesus say, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me” (14:6).