Sunday March 22, 2015

Posted on March 22, 2015 by Don Schmidt

Joshua 24:15a  But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve,

In 1996 my two oldest sons and I went on a mission trip to Romania with a small group led by a close friend from Seattle.   We flew into Munich, picked up our van and spent the first night in Europe at the YWAM castle in Hurlach, an hour west of there.  The next morning we left early to beat rush hour in Munich.  We had to drive south from Hurlach and pick up the highway going east toward Munich and then on to Hungary where we would spend the night.  We got on the highway and after about 15 minutes, John, my oldest son asked an important question: “Dad – since when does the sun rise in the west?”

We had inadvertently taken the wrong ramp and were headed for France – not Munich and Hungary!  Thank God that it wasn’t a rainy morning and that my sons noticed this major discrepancy.  The dawn and the sun coming up on a clear morning are kind of hard to miss.

We need to recognize that life is filled with opportunities to take mistaken directions in terms of the attributes that characterize our lives.  The wrong choices become easier to make when we are distracted from following the Lord and become preoccupied with other things.  Instead of choosing righteousness, we make choices that are more appealing to our fleshly nature.

We get careless and wind up going the wrong way without being aware of it.  Such decisions frequently made become life habits and contradict or undermine our faith: situation ethics, shading the truth, the ends justify the means, a little promiscuity, cutting corners, let someone else do it, no one will know, getting even – hey everybody does it.  If you’re reading the Bible and are sensitive to the Holy Spirit, you hear echoing within you, “Don’t go that direction!”

Unfortunately, just hearing doesn’t mean listening and obeying.  Worse, our spiritual eyesight becomes dull and we don’t see the warning signs around us – (i.e., the sun rising in the west!)  We become comfortable with our Christianity being something we put on like a T-shirt.  Outward appearance might seem okay but inwardly we become filled with rot and decay.  Look at our society – about 75% consider themselves Christian, but you sure wouldn’t know it by looking at our culture.

We must recognize that our choices are the true reflection of whether we have chosen to serve the Lord.  It’s not what we say.  It’s not what we think we believe.  It’s not what we do on Sunday mornings.  The consequences of our choices are immense.  “Choose for yourselves this day….”

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Thursday March 19, 2015

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Don Schmidt

1 Corinthians 8:3  But the man who loves God is known by God.

In these past few days we’ve seen that we love God by obeying His commands.  If we want to love Him, He has given us a very precise answer on the way it is done – the only way it is done.  And it is something that we can grow in.  Our ability to love Him is not static – He intends for it to grow all the days of our lives!  When Jesus said to walk in His ways, this is what He meant.  Think of the intimacy reflected in today’s verse for the ones who do.

I would like to offer a different perspective on commands for your consideration.   January 21, 2005 while in Brazil with our son and family, I was struggling with this whole issue of truly loving God.  That evening, in a wonderful experience with the Lord and His presence, He brought to mind a movie that has been a favorite of our family.  The movie contains something that He just opened to me that night that continues to bless me to this day.  (I love to reread my journal entry where this is all recorded)

Have you seen the movie Princess Bride?  Peter Falk is a grandpa reading a love story to his grandson – the story of Princess Buttercup and her servant Wesley.  Every time she gives Wesley a command to do something he utters the phrase, “As you wish.”  Her “wish” is his command.

It becomes clear in the movie that “As you wish” means “I love you”.  They go through all manner of adventures and the movie has a wonderful ending.  For the sake of this illustration, don’t think of God’s commands as commands, but think of them as His wishes.  So, we are responding to wishes instead of commands.

Then think of being in love. You want your loved one to share with you their wishes – to which you respond, “As you wish.”  (Remember the expression ‘Your wish is my command!’)  You then go and do what they wish to bless them and please them and be overwhelmed with joy as you do.  God shares His “wishes” with us in His word.

All of His  “wishes” become opportunities for you to lovingly say to Him, “As you wish.”  “As you wish.”  “As you wish.”  Each and every time is your opportunity to love Him by what you do, and to say “I love you” to Him.  Your heart will be filled with the desire to learn and embrace all of His “wishes” so that you can do more and more of them.

Then, there are the times when we sin, and with painful remorse we come to the Lord and say, “Father – forgive me.”  To which He replies, “As you wish.”

(*Note: A few months later John Ortberg, one of my favorite authors, came out with a book titled, God Is Closer Than You Think.  It has a chapter titled “As You Wish”)

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Wednesday March 18, 2015

Posted on March 18, 2015 by Don Schmidt

1 Peter 1:8  9You never saw him, yet you love him. You still don’t see him, yet you trust him—with laughter and singing. (The Message)

After I met Jesus years ago, I remember being told about an older prominent Christian by the name of Rufus Moseley.  Apparently he had a great deal of joy and for some strange reason some church people had a problem with that.  One old dour-faced Christian came up to him and sourly asked, “Do you think Jesus ever smiled?”  Rufus looked at her, grinned and answered, “I don’t know, but He sure fixed it so I can!”

I love to think of Jesus smiling and laughing.  I’m so grateful for paintings I’ve seen where the artist has presented Him doing so.  Then there’s Johnny Cash’s film Gospel Road (done in the 70s but still is available) that has such wonderful scenes of Jesus laughing and smiling with the disciples and children.

There’s also a production called The Thorn that began in Colorado Springs about 20 years ago that is very similar to The Passion of the Christ.  It tells the story of Jesus, and the violence done to Him is vividly represented.  But this serious production also presents Jesus as a man who smiled and expressed such joy when the miracles were performed and in times with His disciples.

Think of Jesus healing crippled children and their stunned and ecstatic response.  Can’t you just see the incredible joy in His face as He performed these wonders?  Can’t you just see these children running to Jesus and jumping in His arms, squealing with delight! Think of His face and the utter joy it would express.

This is our Lord.  This is the One we live with and for.  The Amplified Bible presents today’s verse this way:  8Without having seen Him, you love Him; though you do not [even] now see Him, you believe in Him and exult and thrill with inexpressible and glorious (triumphant, heavenly) joy.   Oh my goodness, there are times when the wonder of what we have in Jesus is so overwhelming I can hardly believe it!  It seems too good to be true – BUT IT IS TRUE! Hopefully you have such moments of wonder too.  If not, know that they are there waiting for you.

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Tuesday March 17, 2015

Posted on March 17, 2015 by Don Schmidt

The Drop Box – Marvelous documentary about the work of Pastor Lee Jong-rak

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.

Last night we got to see a wonderful documentary – The Drop Box.  Below is from the website with the link.  Please see if it is still available in your area.  If not, pursue the links and read about this amazing story.

Every human life is sacred and worthy of love

Hundreds of unwanted babies are abandoned on the streets of Seoul, South Korea, every year, forgotten by the surrounding culture.

The Drop Box is a documentary about the work of Pastor Lee Jong-rak and his heroic efforts to embrace and protect his community’s most vulnerable children. By installing a drop box outside his home, Pastor Lee provides a safe haven to babies who would otherwise be abandoned on the streets to die.

It’s a heart-wrenching exploration of the physical and emotional toll associated with providing refuge to save those deemed unwanted by society.  But it’s also a story of hope. And a celebration of the reality that every human life is sacred, has a purpose and is worthy of love.

http://dropbox.focusonthefamily.ca/

“Not many movies can lay claim to having caused their maker to convert to Christianity, but that’s just what happened with The Drop Box the new documentary from filmmaker Brian Ivie.”

http://www.aleteia.org/en/arts-entertainment/article/the-drop-box-5773180824190976

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Monday March 16, 2015

Posted on March 16, 2015 by Don Schmidt

Ephesians 5:25  Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,

I was thinking about the pain of couples who quit loving one another.  I was reminded of a dream that is unquestionably the most powerful and vivid dream I’ve ever had.  This dream occurred several years after Donna and I went through some marital difficulties (1992) that were due primarily to me – my being unkind and behaving like a jerk.  A lot of it stemmed from me letting off pressure from work.  How blind I was!  At the time of the dream, our marriage had become the best it had ever been.  But in this dream Donna and I had divorced one another and that was the given for what then happened.

In the dream I walked into a small room and there in front of me was a small narrow table with Jesus sitting on one side of the table and a chair opposite Him.  I sat down across from Him and looked up into His face.  I don’t remember what he looked like but I will never forget his eyes and the tones in His voice.

With a smile on his face and joy in His voice He looked at me and said, “Tell me how you loved my daughter who I gave to you to be your wife.”  I did not say anything as my heart sank. (Remember in the context of the dream we had divorced.)  His smile vanished and there was no longer any joy in His voice when He began a series of rhetorical questions.  By the rising tone in His voice with each question, He knew the answers.

With great deliberation Jesus asked, “What do you mean you didn’t love her?!”  “What do you mean you left her?!!”  What do you mean you divorced her?!!!!” I cannot begin to describe the shame and distress that I experienced in the dream; hearing my Lord’s voice say again and again with growing incredulity and disapproval, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN….”  He wasn’t yelling, but if you’ve ever been called on the carpet and confronted by your father or a boss for serious mistakes you’ve made, you get the idea.

Then, all of a sudden, in the dream, I was Donna and the scene repeated itself.  Jesus asked with a smile and joy in His voice, “Tell me how you loved my son who I gave to you to be your husband.”  When He began the “What do you mean…” questions I immediately woke up.  What a mixture of pain and joy – pain at remembering the dream – joy and relief in knowing that Donna and I truly loved one another and had not divorced.

This dream was a priceless gift to me because it allowed me to see and experience the incredible importance that our Lord places upon marriage.   It also gave me a gut-wrenching taste of displeasing Him.  I cannot begin to describe how excruciatingly painful that was – and still is.  I pray that I never forget it.

But importantly, the dream generated a core conviction in the depth of my being that loving my wife is a primary way that I love Jesus.  If I don’t love her, I don’t love Him – and He and His word describe what love is.  Love is a whole lot more than affection.  What joy there is in waking up each day able to love our Lord and love our spouse!

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Sunday March 15, 2015

Posted on March 15, 2015 by Don Schmidt

1 John 5:3  This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome,

One evening I was really moved by Jesus’ question to Peter: “Do you love me?”  The more I thought about it, the question became alive to me – Do I love Him?  If so, how do I know for sure that I truly do love Him?  What if I’m deceiving myself?  The Bible has many examples of His people thinking they loved Him but their lives didn’t give any evidence of it – in fact their lives demonstrated that they didn’t!   Does He leave us to our own devices to determine if we love Him?

As I was crying out to Him about this, a sudden thought shot through my mind, “The answers are in the back of the book.”  This really spoke to me because I’m good at math.  All the math books I used had the answers to the odd problems in the back of the book.  Sometimes I had to start with the answers in order to figure out how to work the problems.  God was saying the answers to my question were in His book!

Loving God is defined by God as obeying His commands.  Scripture is filled with commands on how we should or should not live.  Culturally we have the unfortunate tendency to think of them as instructions or suggestions, but they are commands none-the-less – and every day we have nearly unlimited opportunities to obey them.

Every time we obey a command in Scripture, or respond to His Spirit, it is an objective, concrete expression of our love for Him.  (Think be kind, be gentle, don’t gossip, seek humility not pride, love one another, forgive, etc…)  We don’t have to wonder if we are really loving Him.  We just have to live His word. (Note: As a helpful aid, I have identified 25 different portions of Scripture in the NT that contain such lists and have them written in the back of my Bible under a title of ‘Loving God’.)

God also transforms our motivation.  Obedience (holding fast to His teachings and living in accordance with them) becomes something we don’t “have to” do, but we “get to” do!  It becomes a joy to do what Scripture says because His Spirit confirms in our hearts that we are expressing genuine love for Him.   The more we obey Scripture and the promptings of His Spirit, the more we love Him.  It’s like a dream coming true!

Part 5 tomorrow – A different perspective on commands.

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Saturday March 14, 2015

Posted on March 14, 2015 by Don Schmidt

John 14:15 “If you love Me, you will obey what I command.”

In our culture we tend to have an allergic reaction to certain words – obey and command are two in particular that Christians tend to react to.  Typical responses are to immediately think of such words as part of legalism or to counter with a ‘grace not law’ type of argument.

Picture yourself in a quiet time and suddenly Jesus is there with you – just you and Jesus – face to face.  With a loving yet serious look, eye to eye, he says to you, “If you love Me, you will obey what I command.”  I imagine that would catch your attention.  Afterward those words would likely burn within you.

“If you love Me…”  One of the problems we have in English is that there is one word for love.  That word love applies to everything around us.  We love our sports team.  We love fried chicken..  We love beautiful sunsets.  We love walks in the woods. It goes on and on.  We love potato chips.  We love God.  What does the word “love” really mean – particularly since we use it so frequently to describe such a wide variety of things.

“If you love Me…”  With these words comes the realization that God wants us to love Him.  In fact it’s more serious than that because there is an implication in this verse that is truly shocking.  At face value, the verse says if we love Him, we will obey what He commands.  But consider the implication of the reverse: If we don’t do what He commands, we don’t love Him.

It’s imperative that we understand this is not talking about earning our salvation.  It is coming to grips with the fact that the God of the Universe – the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ – wants, and expects, His people to love Him.

Let that sink in.  Loving God is not optional, nor something to be approached casually.  It is at the very heart of our faith.  It is what defines us as Christians – the people of God.  The wonderful news is that He does not leave us to our own devices to figure out what loving Him means.  He gives us the answer!

Part 3 of 5

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Friday March 13, 2015

Posted on March 13, 2015 by Don Schmidt

John 13:35 “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

In yesterday’s devotional we saw that in order to receive the promise of John 8:32, you had to be a disciple of Jesus.  A disciple is one who holds fast to His teachings and lives in accordance with them.  Today’s verse, gives us a primary answer on how those around us will know if we are His disciples.  It is critical to note that the criteria focus on how we actually live our lives.

Back in the Jesus People days of the late 60s, my wife Donna told me of a phrase written as graffiti on a tunnel wall at North Carolina State University.  The phrase was, “If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”  Think about that for a minute.

Let’s take it a step further and place some restrictions on acceptable evidence: 1) Church attendance is only acceptable if it is backed up by other evidence, 2) Your verbal testimony is not admissible as evidence – only the testimony of others reporting what you’ve said and done is admissible, and 3) Evidence is primarily going to be provided by the testimonies of those who know you, work with you, interact with you or wait on you, i.e., clerks, waitresses, storekeepers, parking lot attendants, etc…

How will others describe you?  Simply put, what kind of person are you?  What kind of neighbor?  Friend? Acquaintance?  How do you treat people?  Suppose it goes further and they are able to identify everything you watch, read, or view – TV, phones, computers, whatever.

Will the evidence presented confirm that we are loving people?  Upon examination, will the testimony confirm that we hold fast to the teachings of Jesus – that we live our lives in accordance with them?  Or will the testimony present a picture where our Christian testimony (verbal) is at odds with our lives?

Part 2 of 5

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Thursday March 12, 2015

Posted on March 11, 2015 by Don Schmidt

John 8:31, 32  To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

The context in which a scripture is set is frequently very important to both the understanding of the verse and its application.  Unfortunately Christians and people in general have a tendency at times to over look this fact.   A good illustration of this point is Ps 14:1, which contains the statement, “There is no God.”  But the context makes a world of difference.  The entire verse reads, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”

This importance of context really applies to today’s verses.  The portion that is so frequently quoted is the 32nd verse, “…you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  It’s usually presented as a Biblical promise that one is set free simply by hearing or recognizing the truth.   But a closer examination reveals that the context has a very important qualifier in verse 31.

This promise is part of an “If… Then…” situation.  If the first condition is true, then the benefit or desired result will follow.  If the first condition is NOT true, then it typically won’t.  The full context presents the two components of what Jesus is saying: 1) IF you hold to my teaching…2) THEN you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

The context provides a lot of clarity.  Jesus is also defining what is required to be a disciple, who then can be the recipient of the promise.  It’s not just a matter of acknowledging Him as Lord.  A disciple is one who holds fast to His teachings and lives in accordance with them.  The promise specifically applies to that individual who is a disciple.

Part 1 of 5…

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