Saturday April 11, 2015

Posted on April 11, 2015 by Don Schmidt

Matthew 5:14  You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.

Years ago a wonderful Christian friend of ours named Hal was hired to manage a type of music store by a major corporation.  The corporation had pursued him given his successful track record.  Once hired, they informed him that they were giving him a young salesman who had star potential but it wasn’t being realized.

This was due to a problem he had – he was forever witnessing to employees and customers about his Christian faith.  He was more interested in witnessing than he was in doing his job.  Hal was informed that this was the young man’s last chance.  If he didn’t turn it around, he would be fired.

Hal called the young man into his office.  After talking a bit, he asked the young man to take the lampshade off the lamp that was on an end table next to them and to turn the lamp on high so that the light was at its brightest.  He then had the young man look directly at the light and Hal asked him to describe what he was experiencing.  The young man complained that the glare of the light was uncomfortable to look at.

Hal then put the lampshade on the lamp and asked him to now describe his experience.  He said that the light was attractive and pleasant to look at.  Hal explained that with the lampshade, he was seeing a glow.  Without the lampshade, he was seeing a glare.  A glow attracts and a glare repels.

The same was true of his Christian witness.  God wanted his witness done wisely, so that it was a glow – not a glare.  It was also critical that his manner of working not compromise or undermine the testimony of his faith.  By witnessing the way he had been doing and by not doing his job, he was coming on with a glare.

Fortunately, the young man was teachable and embraced the wisdom from Hal.  He became the star salesman that everyone knew he could be, and importantly, he eliminated the compulsiveness of his witnessing.  He was still able to share his faith, but with Hal’s help he did so in a manner that drew people to him and to the Lord rather than pushing them away.

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Friday April 10, 2015

Posted on April 10, 2015 by Don Schmidt

Staying with – I Corinthians 7:19b  Keeping God’s commands is what counts.

What really matters in our lives, overall?  What are the main convictions/values that drive us?  If one of our answers is our faith, what is it about our faith that is at it’s core?  How does our faith impact our lives and those around us?  Although this verse is in a particular context, it can really stand alone.  It’s telling us that it isn’t enough to talk the talk.

Think of buying a product with a brand name and then having nothing but problems with it.  Or maybe it’s okay most of the time, but it has a knack of not working when we need it most.  If someone asked us if we would recommend it, we’d say NO.  Although the product might look good, and it might perform well much of the time – that’s not enough.  The issue is that it’s lacking in quality and reliability.  It’s subpar.  You might even call it a lemon.

In light of this illustration, consider the verse again, “Keeping God’s commands is what counts.”  I’m reminded of a major manufacturer whose corporate motto was, “The quality goes in before the name goes on!”  We were bought at a great price.  We are new creatures in Christ Jesus.  We have His Spirit within us.  We are freed from the power of sin.  God has expectations and requirements of all of us as His sons and daughters.  They are not optional.

As believers, the Holy Spirit uses Scripture to teach us how to live.  He also convicts us of sin in our lives.  He shows us our wrong motivations, our frailties, weaknesses, shortcomings and all manner of things in order to help us to obey – to become more like Jesus.  He convicts.  We repent.  He empowers and transforms us.  We co-operate with Him.  Our lives become testimonies of keeping His commands.

A portion of this verse is a very important definition (1 John 5:3).  Keeping God’s commands is the Biblical definition of loving God.  Why is obeying His commands so important?  Paraphrasing today’s verse sums it up really well: “Loving God is what counts.”

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Thursday April 9, 2015

Posted on April 9, 2015 by Don Schmidt

I Corinthians 7:19b  Keeping God’s commands is what counts.

Have you ever noticed how doing the right thing is a whole lot easier when you have a right attitude/good motives?  Obedience just seems to flow out of a right attitude, when our motives are good – even when the circumstances are difficult.

Your spouse or kids or parents need help with something and you just got home and have just collapsed into a chair exhausted.  All you want to do is relax.  But when your heart is to help them, getting yourself up isn’t that difficult to do, in spite of how you feel.

But what happens when your attitude isn’t right? Doing the right thing can be made a lot more difficult if our wrong or bad attitude prevails.  Another trap is to disobey because we wrongly focus on our motives rather than on repentance and obedience.

Picture this:

Godly Motives & Attitudes <—————Faith—————- > Obedience

Right motives and attitudes coupled with faith lead to obedience. The great news is that the opposite can happen!  Obedience, coupled with faith (honesty with God) can lead to Godly motives and attitudes! This continuum can go either way!

When our attitudes/motives are less than they should be (or are awful), our obedience can become the framework for God to use in shaping and transforming them.  Think of cement forms for laying a walkway.  The forms are put into the correct shape and the cement is poured in.  Once it hardens the forms are removed.  Our obedience is like the concrete forms.  It, coupled with our acknowledgement of our sin, provides the framework for God to use.

We cannot avoid obeying God because of a bad attitude.  When I am in situations like this, I find myself confessing my sinful attitudes/motives to God and asking Him to transform them as I obey and do the right thing.  Through my continued obedience and repentance, God transforms my heart moving it to the Godly end of the above continuum.

It is a marvelously redemptive process that we can confidently use whenever our attitudes and motives are less than they should be.

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Wednesday April 8, 2015

Posted on April 8, 2015 by Don Schmidt

Romans 15:13  May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

This morning I thought I was going a different direction with today’s devotional, but then my mind was filled with a chorus that I haven’t sung for many years.  But more than a chorus, it expresses the reality of our lives:

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.
Because He lives, all fear is gone.
Because I know, I know, I know He holds the future.
And life is worth the living just because He lives.

This chorus is from the song Because He Lives – by Bill & Gloria Gaither. The first verse says it all:

God sent His son, they called Him Jesus.
He came to love, heal and forgive.
He lived and died, to buy my pardon.
An empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives.

In the good times, the hard times and the bad times – life is worth living because Jesus lives!  He is who we are all about.  But it’s more than just having a reason to live for.  He touched us!  He changed us!  He lives within us and transforms everything – most of all us!  In Jesus, we possess the greatest gift ever given to mankind and it wasn’t just a one time event.

Each and every day, we get to awake to the wonder of our God.  Because He lives in us, each day is filled with opportunity to walk with Him – to experience and express His love in the midst of whatever we find ourselves in. We don’t live in fear, but in hope – no matter what things look like.  His joy and peace fill us and sustain us.  Our lives become a fragrance of Him to all those around us.  Peace, joy and hope are not common commodities in the world today.  Our lives are about Him!

All of this is possible and a treasured reality for us – because Jesus lives!

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Tuesday April 7, 2015

Posted on April 7, 2015 by Don Schmidt

James 1:27  Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

I would like us to focus on the last thought of this verse, “to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”  It involves the disparity between the lives many Christians lead and the lives scriptures call them to.

My parents had a young dogwood tree in their backyard that had pink and white flowers.  The flowers were all supposed to be pink and they wondered how this could be happening.  We called a family friend who had a nursery and he had the answer.  He told us if we examined the trunk of the tree, we would likely see two intertwined trunks growing out of the ground.  In the grafting process, somehow the natural growth (white) was able to take hold and grow along side the grafted (pink).

Sure enough, it was just as he said.  We had to carefully identify which trunk was which and cut off the trunk with white flowers at the ground.  If we didn’t, the natural, wild dogwood would eventually eliminate the grafted in – the pink would disappear and the tree would be entirely white.  When we cut off the trunk with the white flowers, we had to be careful as we separated them and removed the white.  The two “trees” were totally intertwined with each other

This is a frighteningly wonderful illustration of our lives in Christ.  He intends for our lives to show forth the “pink attributes” – the grafted in desirable ones that come from walking in His ways.  If we don’t live as He directs us, we produce the old nature “white attributes” – that come from being polluted by the world.  If we try to have it both ways, the result is an intertwining of pink and white – righteous and unrighteous – and the unfortunate message that sends to those around us.  Left undealt with, the unrighteous white will slowly replace the righteous pink.

May we live lives that only produce the righteous attributes of Him.

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Monday April 6, 2015

Posted on April 6, 2015 by Don Schmidt

James 4:3  When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

Why do we do what we do?  What is our motivation?  Do we do things to get blessed?  Do we do things to express our love for Him and one another?  Or, does a lot of other stuff become involved creating a mix of motivations?  Today’s verse highlights that we can have wrong motives.  Not much of a surprise there.

Having pure and right motives is wonderful.  Hopefully it will be true of us with ever increasing frequency.  Unfortunately, there are times when our motives are not what they should be.  Disobedience because our motives aren’t what they should be is not an option.  When we know God wants us to do something, whether through the leading of His Spirit or through His Word, we are to do it.

Think of the times where we encounter problems with co-workers, teachers, friends, clients – people we have to deal with.  The Lord says it’s easy to love those who love us.  It’s the unlovely ones that can pose such problems for us.

In such situations I am so grateful for the Holy Spirit and His convicting power.  He not only shows us when our motives are wrong, but he provides the grace to recognize it, confess it and deal with it redemptively.  By looking to Him in faith, we can find ourselves in a transformative process where He uses our obedience to be the framework to create the right motives within us.  When we cry out to Him to do it, it consistently happens – although it might take longer than we would like.

When the Holy Spirit reveals problems with our motives – or anything else for that matter – we see that they are not obstacles but opportunities for Him to transform us more and more into the image of Jesus.

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Sunday April 5, 2015 – Easter – He is Risen!

Posted on April 5, 2015 by Don Schmidt

Luke 24:30-32  30When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

This incident of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus encountering Jesus is one of the more wonderful ones in the Bible.  They were downcast – even though they were aware that some of the women had been to the tomb and had a vision of angels telling them that Jesus was alive. They didn’t understand what had happened or why.

They had such hope in Jesus and it was snatched away from them in such an incredibly vicious way.  Then as they were walking, something unusual happened to them.  Jesus himself came along and walked with them, but they were kept from recognizing him.  The scriptures are clear that understanding of the unfolding events of Jesus’ suffering and death were hidden from the disciples whenever Jesus spoke about it prior to his death.  It was only afterward that Jesus opened their minds so they could understand the scriptures.

So Jesus joined them as they walked along, and said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

Then, since it was nearly evening, they stopped for the night and strongly urged this man walking with them to stop and stay with them.  It’s apparent that they were deeply moved by what he had said to them, even though they didn’t know who he was.  Because they insisted that he stay with them, they experienced the wonder of God in having their eyes opened to see this man was Jesus – raised from the dead.

Isn’t it fascinating that God would have Jesus appear to these two men but prevent them from recognizing him?  It was important for them to listen to the message of this stranger and understand the “why” of what happened to Jesus.  The events that happened to him were foretold in Scripture and they needed to understand it – rather than simply see Jesus and get excited.  When God opened their eyes to recognize Jesus, they understood!  The life, death and resurrection of Jesus were fulfillment of God’s purpose.

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Saturday April 4, 2015 – Holy Saturday

Posted on April 4, 2015 by Don Schmidt

Matthew 5:16  In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

Remembering Johnny Hart:  Johnny Hart was a Christian and the cartoonist who created the comic strip “B.C.”  He passed away at his drawing board 8 years ago on Holy Saturday – or as he called it, “kick butt Saturday”  in view of Christ’s victory over the underworld.  While Johnny was alive B.C. appeared in 1300 newspapers with 100 million readers.  It was considered the most widely read strip in the world.

Because Johnny periodically included his Christian faith in the strip, some newspapers censored them.  One of the B.C. cartoons the LA Times first refused to run was his Palm Sunday 1996 strip featuring the famous character Wiley sitting against a tree, tablet in hand, writing a poem entitled “The Suffering Prince.” Here’s the poem:

Picture yourself tied to a tree,
condemned of the sins of eternity.
Then picture a spear, parting the air,
seeking your heart to cut your despair.
Suddenly—a knight, in armor of white,
stands in the gap betwixt you and its flight,
And shedding his ‘armor of God’ for you—
bears the lance that runs him through.
His heart has been pierced that yours may beat,
and the blood of his corpse washes your feet.
Picture yourself in raiment white,
cleansed by the blood of the lifeless knight.
Never to mourn,
the prince who was downed,
For he is not lost! It is you who are found. 

Over the years I have been blessed by so many of his strips.  Holy Saturday is the anniversary of his passing.  How fitting for him to meet Jesus on such a special day!

Here is a link to one of Johnny’s Good Friday cartoons where he addresses the question of why call Friday “Good”:  http://thezagrodnys.com/2012/04/05/good-friday-cartoon-bc/

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Friday April 3, 2015 – Good Friday

Posted on April 3, 2015 by Don Schmidt

Luke 22:61-62  The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter.  Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times.”  62And he went outside and wept bitterly.

I cannot imagine the pain that Peter experienced after he denied Jesus the third time and the rooster crowed – and he saw Jesus look right at him.  Their eyes met!  Peter knew – that Jesus knew that it had happened just as Jesus had said it would. Then Peter went outside and wept bitterly.  It was bad enough that Jesus had told him a few hours earlier that it would happen; but to have Jesus witness it and to look right at him at that very moment is pain and a sense of failure beyond imagining.

Peter had some other difficult moments.  When he walked on water he sank.  When he rebuked Jesus for talking about his coming suffering and death, Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!”  In the garden when Jesus was being arrested, Peter drew his sword and cut off Malchus’ ear, earning a rebuke from Jesus.

I find it so encouraging that in spite of these events, Jesus didn’t reject Peter and send him packing!  Jesus chose him because he believed in him.  When Jesus spoke to him of the denials, he also said, “And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”  After Jesus’ resurrection, the angel told the women who had come to the tomb, “But go, tell his disciples and Peter.”  Then Jesus appeared separately to Peter.  Think of what each of these would have meant to Peter as he struggled with his actions of denying his beloved Lord.

Peter was a mixture, just like you and me – lots of potential and lots of things to work on.  In spite of difficulties noted above, Peter was the one who did walk on water. He was the disciple who first acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God.  He spoke for all the disciples to the crowd in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. He was rescued from prison by an angel.  He was also the one who received the vision from God regarding the gentiles who then received the gospel at Cornelius’ house.  Peter was one of God’s chosen servants who never gave up and God used him mightily.  What an example he is for us!

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Thursday April 2, 2015

Posted on April 2, 2015 by Don Schmidt

Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Are we aware that our lives are being conformed to something – it’s just a matter of what that something is?  What is right?  What is wrong?  What is appropriate?  What is wise?  The more we do things or see others around us do them, the more susceptible we become to accepting those behaviors as the norm.  Sadly, we can accept some very wrong things as being okay, simply because we have unknowingly been conformed to a worldly standard.

Think of typing a note in an email that requires us to hit spell check in order to have errors identified.  But then we only do that if spelling and grammar are important to us.  Even if we reread the email carefully, we can miss all manner of mistakes – that are only caught by clicking on spell check.

Now, think of typing in word processing software where as we type, misspelled words or duplicates have red lines under them.  Grammatical problems have green lines under them – the warnings are there as we type.  We then have the option of correcting them or leaving them.  The choice is ours.

The Lord wants us to live lives where we become aware of problems, issues, sin, etc… as we encounter them or are making decisions.  He provides the warnings if we but have eyes to see and ears to hear.  The Holy Spirit is a fully functional ‘Spiritual check’ that we don’t have to click on for him to work.  But, the more we are conformed to the pattern of the world, the less we notice the still, small voice speaking within us.  Worse, we can lose any awareness of even caring that we are doing what is right.

Suppose our lives were laid out as documents with all our thoughts, intentions, beliefs, actions put into grammatical form with a fully functioning “Spiritual” spell check in place.  What would our ‘edited documents’ look like?  Do we know or have an idea?  Would they be filled with red underlings?  If so, how would we respond?  Would we experience remorse from the recognition that all the red indicates a life that doesn’t love our God?  Would we have the desire to repent and make the needed changes?

This illustration is far more accurate and applicable than you might imagine.

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