Sunday March 1, 2015

Posted on March 1, 2015 by Don Schmidt

Colossians 3:15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.

Whenever I go outside I love to hear the soft song of a Mourning Dove.  It is something that has always been dear to me.  I am thrilled that these special birds have been common wherever we’ve lived.  During our last year in Colorado Springs we had the blessing of a pair of these doves nesting on the top of our trellis below our deck.  Daily we were able to see them and watch the whole process from building their nest to raising their young.

When I see or hear Mourning Doves a wonderful process kicks in. I stop, enjoy their beauty, think of my Lord Jesus, and am filled with gratitude for Him and the blessings He has given me. My enjoyment of these birds triggers this process that leads me to a quiet, rich reservoir of gratitude for my God.  Gratitude is priceless and is one of the most important attributes we can have.

I also love bouquets of fresh flowers.  One of my favorites is blue hydrangeas.  The blue color is rich and deep and they are so beautiful.  At Williamson Christian College where I worked there is a large bush of them.  I tried to keep a vase of these flowers on the front desk where everyone could be blessed by their beauty during the day.  The wonderful thing is that these flowers trigger the same process within me that the Mourning Doves do.  I go from seeing and enjoying their beauty to savoring the richness of my love relationship with God.

I believe this is a process that we all can and should experience repeatedly each day.  We are surrounded by beauty, whether in flowers, birds, nature or the people around us.  We need to ask the Lord open our eyes to see and enjoy it – to recognize the moment.  It is then simply a matter of His Holy Spirit creating the links within us that go from seeing beauty to enjoying the peaceful place of gratitude for Him.  The neat thing is that pretty soon we start seeing beauty everywhere and it all leads us to Jesus.

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Saturday February 28, 2015

Posted on February 28, 2015 by Don Schmidt

Psalm 139:23, 24 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Eureka!  I don’t know how much this word is used today.  Possibly most people think of a brand of vacuum cleaner when they hear it.  Historically this was an exclamation attributed to Archimedes that he made to express his triumph of discovering an important process involving gold.  It was a shout made by gold miners when they discovered gold.  It became a general term used to describe the discovery moment when something being looked for was found, or a difficult problem was solved.

Teachers talked about students having ‘Eureka moments’ in their studies – those wonderful times when the ‘light goes on’ and something that has been elusive is finally understood.  Think of the times when reading the Bible, the Lord opens our eyes and we see something we haven’t seen before.  A verse or a truth just comes alive and it’s like discovering gold.

Sometimes these ‘Eureka moments’ occur when the Lord opens our eyes to see behaviors and attitudes in our lives that are negative and hurtful, both to us and to others, and we just haven’t ‘seen’ them.  It’s like our grasp of the obvious has been turned off.  We’re clueless to the red warning light flashing on the dashboard before us.

On the one hand, my life has too many of these embarrassing moments where Jesus has opened my eyes to see and understand such things in my life.  But on the other hand, they are unspeakable treasures because they are answers to the prayer of this verse.   They are ‘Eureka moments’ because they are priceless ‘doorways’ to repentance.  They are intended to lead us to times of forgiveness and transformation – not condemnation! They enable us to become more like Jesus.

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Friday February 27, 2015

Posted on February 27, 2015 by Don Schmidt

Romans 1:20 and Ephesians 2:10

We are in a time of amazing special effects in the entertainment industry.  Things we see in movies appear real but aren’t.  Think about all the sales appeals made to us.  Claims are presented as real & marvelous but often experience with ‘said’ products reveal they aren’t what they are represented to be.  How often are we alerted about scams?  Being able to discern between what’s real and what isn’t is an essential skill.

Along this same line of thinking are two verses that have an extraordinary relationship with each other.  At face value they both refer to something God has made – His workmanship.  In the Greek, the word is ποιημα (poiema) and in the New Testament it only appears in these two verses.  But the critical fact is that in one of these, we Christians play an absolutely critical role in what the world perceives as real.

Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

Ephesians 2:10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

The first verse in Romans speaks about how God is (and always has been) revealed to mankind through nature – His creation.  He declares that it alone is sufficient to reveal His existence.  Psalm 19:1-4a speaks so eloquently of this truth:

 1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.

3 There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.

4 Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.

The second verse in Ephesians (2:10) speaks about how we Christians – His people – are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works.  We have written how God wants His people to love Him – to walk in His ways – to reflect His glory.  His intent and equipping of us is so that the world will see Jesus when they see us.

Jesus came to enable us to do just that.  Further, Ephesians 3:10 states that “His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms,”

Putting these two verses (Rom 1:20 & Eph 2:10) together reveals a stunningly important reality:  God has made us both to be critically important revelations. Creation is a general revelation that God exists.  We Christians are to be a specific revelation that Jesus Christ is Lord!  

What do communities see when they look at the Christians in their midst?  Do they see Jesus or do they see something not at all reflective of Him.  How we, who claim to be Christians, choose to live determines whether the picture we reveal is one of Jesus – or one that undermines the power of Gospel because our lives don’t reveal Him

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Thursday February 26, 2015

Posted on February 26, 2015 by Don Schmidt

Joshua 23:11  So be very diligent to love the LORD your God for your own well-being.  (Holman)

One of the things so precious to me is what I typically experience during the worship portion of our Sunday service or house group.  It is a mix of wonder, gratitude, amazement and heartfelt love that Yahweh – our God – is my father and has made me His own.  I am one of His sons!  He is not distant – nor is He aloof.  He is my loving father.

Our four sons, John, Jamie, Andrew and Michael, will hug me when we see each other.  They will do this anywhere in front of anyone.  And our hugs are not perfunctory or just a little embrace, a little squeeze.  Our hugs are experiences in themselves!  We will embrace and hold each other tightly and just ooze with love and affection and joy in each other.  We then look at each other and smile.  My sons love me – and I love them. (I am in tears sitting here just thinking of my sons and the blessing they are to me).

This is what I experience with our Lord!  At times I want to pinch myself because it is so unbelievable. This is what He wants for all of us!  But this isn’t the end of it.  He gives us a way to respond so that we can experience the joy of giving back to Him.  We love Him in return.  Yes, we are commanded to love Him.  But when we understand how He loves us, our loving response isn’t a ‘have to’ but a ‘get to’.  WE GET TO LOVE HIM IN RETURN!  We GET TO walk in His ways!

But it gets even more amazing!  The more that our lives express genuine love for Him, the more He enables us to experience His limitless love for us!  There is so much of Him that we will not experience if we don’t.  In reality, He’s given us the keys to a storehouse of treasure that He wants us to have – if only we choose to use them.

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Wednesday February 25, 2015

Posted on February 25, 2015 by Don Schmidt

Titus 2:13-14  while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to devote yourself to doing things for someone when your heart is filled with gratitude for what they’ve done for you?  Reciprocating the kindness and love is a wonderful opportunity to express that gratitude.

Gratitude is a powerful motivation to do the right things that we’ve been talking about in our recent devotionals.  It’s particularly important now that we’re in the Lenten season with its focus on repentance, prayer and fasting.  Easter is about 7 weeks away.  May we be moved to make it a very important time in our lives.  We have an advantage over the early disciples.  We know what happens!

One of my favorite worship songs highlights so wonderfully what we have in Jesus – and what He did for us.  The song is “You Are My King (Amazing Love)” by Billy James Foote.  I am so blessed by the overwhelming sense of gratitude and love welling up within me as I worship with this song.  The words of the song contrast what we have – with what happened to Him and His sacrifice for us.

Read these words slowly and see if you don’t experience the same thing that I do:

I’m forgiven because You were forsaken
I’m accepted, You were condemned
I’m alive and well, Your Spirit is within me
Because You died and rose again

Amazing love, how can it be
That You, my King, would die for me?
Amazing love, I know it’s true
It’s my joy to honor You

May we never let it grow old that Jesus gave His life for us – that we never cease to be moved by His love and sacrifice.  The movie, The Passion of the Christ shows so vividly what Jesus went through.  It was the only way for God to make us His own.  He wanted us to be His children – His family – His people.  Without Jesus’ sacrifice, it couldn’t happen.

We’re forgiven
We’re accepted
We’re alive and well
His Spirit is within us

BECAUSE

Jesus was forsaken
Jesus was condemned
Jesus died
BUT Jesus rose again!

Amazing love, how can it be that You, my King would die for me?  Amazing love, I know it’s true.  It’s my joy to honor You.

Here is a link to enjoy this wonderful song sung by Newsboys: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNousF-YMHo

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Tuesday February 24, 2015

Posted on February 24, 2015 by Don Schmidt

Psalm 116:15  Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints

Five years ago I received word from his wife that a wonderful Christian friend went to be with the Lord.  Only the Lord knows to what degree my salvation was due to the seeds sown by this man.

It was my sophomore year in college at Western Michigan University.  I was not a Christian and didn’t think I could be one.  What little faith I might have had was long gone after a year of college.  Dan Crabtree was a new student in our dorm and lived across the hall from me.  His roommate was loud, crass and boisterous and had a bit of drinking problem to put it mildly.

Dan was a Wheaton College student who became a guest student for the year at WMU because Linda was there – she was his fiancée.  Dan loved Jesus – and was so different from anyone else I had ever met.  The more I got to know him, the more I enjoyed being with him.  I remember wondering how he could wind up with the roommate he had.  They couldn’t have been more opposite, yet Dan didn’t react negatively.

That year was a very difficult one for me but Dan was an oasis in the middle of a desert.  When I think of that year, my first memories are of Dan.  He was a true friend and loneliness was something I struggled with.  The following October I met Jesus – the impact of which was like a tsunami of love leveling a Matterhorn of doubt!  I can remember thinking of Dan after it happened and the marvelous example that he was for me.

Later on, when I was thinking of getting more schooling, I thought of Wheaton, because Dan went there.  I graduated from Wheaton Graduate School in 1978.  Over the years we were able to reestablish our friendship.  Donna and I have wonderful memories of times with Dan and Linda – their warmth and hospitality.  We didn’t get to see them often but time and distance could not diminish the treasure we had in them.

Much to my regret, I hadn’t talked with Dan for several years, I wasn’t aware that the illness had flared up again.  Fortunately, he was one of those I had been sending my devotionals to.  Less than two weeks before he died I received a reply email back from him: “- thanks for your investment and thoughtfulness.  Dan”.  I cannot put into words what his encouragement meant to me.

May we so love Jesus that our lives will shine for Him and be His witness to those around us like Dan’s life was to me and so many others.  May we be thrilled at the prospect of helping others to meet Jesus!

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Monday February 23, 2015

Posted on February 23, 2015 by Don Schmidt

Joshua 23:11  So be very careful to love the LORD your God.

I once was able to attend a meeting in which the author Stephen Covey spoke (7 Habits of Highly Effective People).  There was a large crowd and the theatre that he spoke in was in the round.  He was in the center and the crowd surrounded him.  He asked everyone to raise their arm and point in the direction that they thought was north.  There were people pointing in all manner of directions.

He proceeded to place a compass on an overhead and was able to identify which way was north.  He made a comment that has always stuck with me.  He noted that, “Which direction is north is not subject to public opinion!”  It is what it is and we cannot change it.  Life is filled with principles that are true.

Some time ago a newspaper, The Tennessean, had an article on cheating with cell phones in high schools and colleges.  The writer (Jennifer Brooks) noted “In one recent study, more than a third of teens with cell phones admit to using them to cheat, at least once.  Half of them admit to cheating with the help of the Internet.  Worse, the survey released by Common Sense Media two years earlier found that many of the students saw nothing wrong with their actions.”

Think about that last sentence – students cheating and seeing nothing wrong with their actions.  Even more distressing is the whole-hearted embrace of sexual impurity and immorality by society.  From God’s perspective, sin is sin.  Our opinion doesn’t change the fact.  We are surrounded by a culture that okays all manner of behavior that is incompatible with loving God.

I am reminded of a wonderful article by Rick Reilly of two 11-year-old twins who were hockey players and their family.  He wrote about an event that happened to them and the article is titled Doing The Right Thing.  Honesty was more important to them than $50,000.  Think about the title of his article.  This is the very point we are dealing with.   Who or what in our lives determines what “the right thing” is?

That is the beauty of becoming passionate about loving Him.  We recognize our utter dependence upon His Spirit and Scripture to instruct us how to do it.  We want our lives filled with righteous thoughts, attitudes and actions.  We want our eyes open to see things in our lives that shouldn’t be there – some of which we might think are okay, but in God’s sight they’re not.  He gives us the grace to repent and change.  Loving Him is to be our passion and goal.

Note:  Here is the link to Rick’s article:  http://espn.go.com/espn/commentary/story/_/id/7599623/11-year-old-hockey-fan-nate-smith-doing-right-thing

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Sunday February 22, 2015

Posted on February 22, 2015 by Don Schmidt

Colossians 3:17  And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

In the summer of 1970, I was in my last quarter at Michigan State.  I had been a Christian less than 2 years and was going to be married in September after graduation.  I had seen and experienced genuine miracles since becoming a Christian, but nothing like what the Lord did one summer day.

Donna was in Lexington, KY working at a Christian ministry.  Randy, a college friend offered to drive me down for a weekend to see her.  This meant missing a Botany Taxonomy 4 hour lab on Friday.  The instructor said that if I helped set up the plots on Thursday afternoon for the field work, I could miss the lab on Friday.

The weather was rainy on Thursday.  After helping the instructor and some others set up the plots, Randy picked me up.  We were located next to an expressway entrance.  We no sooner got on the expressway and cars began honking and pulling off the road!  There in front of us in a field to our right was a tornado, touched down and coming right at us – several hundred yards away!!

At that moment, the Spirit of the Lord came down in the car and I came against the tornado in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth and commanded it to disintegrate in Jesus’ name and it disintegrated – right in front of us!  It did not jump up into the sky – it just disintegrated – poof!  We praised the Lord all the way to Kentucky and back.

On Monday I was in class waiting for it to begin and telling the other students (college seniors and grad students) about the tornado we’d seen.  A little voice in my head said to tell them the rest of the story.  So I took a deep breath and told them exactly what happened – as I just described it here.  They knew I was a Christian, but when I said how the tornado just disintegrated they all lost it – big time!

Amidst the laughter and uproar, I sat there thinking “Oh Lord…”.  But then the instructor entered the room and came over to where she lectured.  I looked up at her and asked her if she had seen the tornado on Thursday afternoon.   Her answer stunned the class and stopped all the laughter and ridicule.  She said, “Yes we all did.  And it was the strangest thing.  As we were standing there watching it, all of a sudden it just disintegrated!”

I cannot help but think of one of my favorite professors there at MSU who was Jewish and an atheist who I witnessed to after this experience.  He felt he could explain away most of my testimony – BUT….  I can remember him looking at me and saying with a serious thoughtfulness, “I don’t know what to do with the miracles.”

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Saturday February 21, 2015

Posted on February 21, 2015 by Don Schmidt

Psalm 37:4  Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart.

Yesterday we looked at I Kings 3:5 where the Lord appears to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.”   As we proceed, it is important to remember that this is not a test – in terms of a right answer means acceptance and a wrong answer rejection.  It is the “quality” of our answer, in the context of our lives and our relationship with the Lord that is important.

Today’s verse is remarkably similar to the scenario we have been considering.  We simply change the question from, “What do you want me to give you?” to the Lord asking you, “What are the desires of your heart?”  If you’re like me, that can be a tough question to accurately answer.  The difficulty isn’t being able to verbalize an answer, but lies in whether the answer I give truly reflects my heart.

But this verse does something wonderful.  It tells you how to get the desires of your heart – whether you are aware of what they are or not.  The key is to delight yourself in the Lord.  Consider it an “if, then” situation.  If we delight in Him, then He will give us the desires of our heart.

This is a wonderful “trap” He has set for us.  When we focus on delighting in Him, He transforms our motivation and our desires.  We become caught in the wonder of delighting in Him – that becomes a major desire of our heart!  We find ourselves caring less and less about getting anything.

The focus changes from us to Him.  We become thrilled with the realization that delighting in Him is something we can grow in.  The more we delight in Him, the more we are able to delight in Him.  Delighting in Him, and all that entails, can become the desire of our heart!

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Friday February 20, 2015

Posted on February 20, 2015 by Don Schmidt

I Kings 3:5  At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.”

Suppose when you went to bed tonight the Lord appeared to you in a dream and said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.”  What would you ask for?  Do you know?

Some answers to this question are better than others.  Solomon’s answer (1 Kings 3:6-9) was pleasing to the Lord and He specifically noted some of the things he didn’t ask for.  I don’t think that Solomon was trying to please Him; he was just answering the question as honestly as he could.  The Lord was pleased with his honest answer.

That honesty is what we need to look for within us.  What answer truly reflects where we are?  What might we learn about ourselves by our answer?  We can submit our answer to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to show us anything we need to see.

Years ago when I was a young Christian, I wanted a supernatural ministry, but I was unaware of a problem I had.  One night in a dream, Jesus took me to a river nearby and told me to pick up the cloak that was there by my feet (just like Elisha in 2 Kings 2:13).  He told me to strike the water with the cloak, so I did.  The river immediately parted just like it did for Elisha!

Jesus then asked me if I saw anyone else around or were we alone. I saw no one else; we were alone. He then asked me how much it meant to me. With that question came the painful realization that it didn’t mean as much because I wanted people to see me do it. I wanted to be recognized as a man walking with the power of God.

The wonderful thing is that I didn’t feel condemned or put down.  I was embarrassed but mostly I experienced the loving touch of someone who was for me and wanted me to be free of anything that would hinder me.  In my repenting He affirmed me – I was His!  Fortunately God is so good and kind at showing us our faults and weaknesses and helping us to repent.

Note: Lent is a wonderful season of repentance.  Pray that the Holy Spirit will open our eyes to see the things we need to repent of.

To be continued…

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