What obstacle do you need to overcome by faith?
24 Feb 26
Today's devotional: taken from YouVersion, Devotions on F.I.R.E. Year One
Readings:
Numbers 11
Numbers 12
Numbers 13
Mark 5:21-43
For we walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).
What obstacle do you need to overcome by faith?
Sight can get you into trouble when you magnify the object of your sight above God. Ten of the twelve spies give the following report after they inspected Canaan, “There we saw the giants and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight” (Numbers 13:33). How quickly Israel forgets the display of God’s power in Egypt.
Moreover, Jairus seeks out Jesus to heal his daughter. Yet word comes while Jesus is going to Jairus’ home that the child died. Jesus responds to the distraught father, “Do not be afraid; only believe” (Mark 5:36). Our Lord then restores her life. Like Jairus, we cannot please God without faith (Hebrews 11:6). Our great God is more powerful than any barrier we may encounter.
Employment Point: Don’t let sight become your obstacle but exhibit faith in the Almighty.
———————-
Reflections
“He asked the Lord, “Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their ancestors?”Numbers 11:11-12 NIV
- this reminds me of my conversation with my mum where I asked the Lord. Why do You ask me to love her?! She is so difficult to love!
- But here, I am reminded that in the different seasons of my life, it is just part of my equipping and He is teaching me to love, to serve and to go above and beyond our own understandings. He is NOT asking me to do using my own abilities, but to fully surrender to Him and let Him lead the way. To come to Him and ask Him for wisdom.
- The Lord knows that Moses does not have the ability to carry His people. But He is asking Moses to trust Him and He will be the one who carry all His people. The same for us. None of us can do carry out God’s calling for us based on our own efforts. It is a process of learning to let go and trusting He is in ultimate control
“But Moses said, “Here I am among six hundred thousand men on foot, and you say, ‘I will give them meat to eat for a whole month!’ Would they have enough if flocks and herds were slaughtered for them? Would they have enough if all the fish in the sea were caught for them?” The Lord answered Moses, “Is the Lord’s arm too short? Now you will see whether or not what I say will come true for you.””Numbers 11:21-23 NIV
- Indeed what we see and know may limit ourselves or even box our Lord up. We forgot that He has the ability that is beyond human understanding. When faced with difficult or impossible situations, we sometimes find ourselves falling back on our own understandings. Lord, may You help us in our unbelief and build us up in our faith in You.
“But while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the Lord burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague.”Numbers 11:33 NIV
- this is a sobering reminder not to keep complaining or comparing about our situations. We know no better. He is teaching us that wherever we are at right now, it is definitely and already better than where we were before. Learn to be grateful, give thanks and praise our Father in Heaven.
“he said, “Listen to my words: “When there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, reveal myself to them in visions, I speak to them in dreams. But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?””
Numbers 12:6-8 NIV
- humans love to compare. And usually pride is involved. When we let pride or ego take over, we cannot see the Lord nor His hands in all matters anymore.
- Moses was different. The bible said that he is the most humble person on earth and the Lord treated him differently. But Aaron and Miriam wanted to be like Moses but they didn’t do what Moses did. Instead of learning to be humble, they wanted the reverse. They wanted power, control, status. That is not what is pleasing to His eyes
“Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.”Mark 5:22-23, 28-29 NIV
- Do we have the faith as that of Jairus or the woman who has bleeding issues? Do we trust that the Lord has the power to heal or do anything else that is above and beyond what we think is impossible?
“When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him..”Mark 5:38-40a NIV
- He the Lord has the power of transformation. We only have to believe. Let us not be stuck in the rut or of preconceived notions that nothing can change. We are not the Lord. If we do not believe, we are just like the people who laughed at Jesus. What message are we sending to others? That whoever we believe or say we believe is just air, it’s just nothing because we ourselves, who are the children of God doesn’t even believe?! How can we, expect the others to believe too?
————————
The Delight Of Sacrifice
BY OSWALD CHAMBERS
February 24
I will very gladly spend for you everything I have. — 2 Corinthians 12:15
When the Spirit of God has filled our hearts with the love of God, we begin to identify ourselves with Jesus’s interest in other people—and Jesus is interested in everyone. As his disciples, we have no right to be guided by personal preferences or prejudices. The delight of sacrifice comes from laying down our lives—not from carelessly flinging our lives away or giving them over to a cause but from deliberately laying them down for Jesus and his interests in others.
Paul laid down his life in order to win people to Jesus, not to himself. He sought to attract people to Jesus, never to himself (1 Corinthians 1:13). “I have become,” he wrote, “all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some” (9:22). To do this, Paul had to become a sacramental personality. He didn’t hide away or insist on a holy life alone with God, a life in which he’d be no use to others. Instead, Paul told Jesus to help himself to his life.
Many of us are so caught up in pursuing our own goals that Jesus can’t help himself to our lives. Paul didn’t have any goals of his own. “I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people,” he wrote (Romans 9:3). Wild, extravagant talk, isn’t it? No. When a person is in love, it isn’t extravagant to talk like this, and Paul was in love with Jesus Christ.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
The main characteristic which is the proof of the indwelling Spirit is an amazing tenderness in personal dealing, and a blazing truthfulness with regard to God’s Word.
————————
Reflections
The love of Christ will make us think twice about pursuing our own interests. Our own goals or plans will shift according to His purpose. It will be obvious because we will realised we cannot really plan so much ahead. Yes there can be plans but ultimately, whether the plan succeeds or not is solely reliant on our Lord.
If He agrees everything will be like an open door. We will not need to struggle so much and issues or things will just fall into place. However the reverse is also true. If there are so many obstacles, we ought to think why it is happening or are we trying to force our way through?
I remember the time when I wanted to visit my ex-husband in the US and it was fraught with difficulties. But at that point in time, my only focus was I want to be with him. We will be able to overcome all the challenges together. To have faith that those obstacles were mere tests of our love. He was apprehensive but I was really determined, to a point I didn’t really care how but it has to happen. Well happened it did, but was a lot of hassle and a lot of pain and sorrow. Because our timing clashed and he just couldn’t really make much time to meet me.
In retrospect, I felt during that time, there was no peace. But because I wanted it, I pushed it through. But truly thank God that He protected me throughout the journey.
I look at that episode as a reminder on a few things
- always wait upon the Lord. Don’t force things through and don’t rush. If it is meant to be there won’t even be obstacles. It will be a door that is swung wide open. It will be so smooth flowing. The timing will be just right and there won’t be any need to fight anything. There will only be peace, no confusion. If it is forced, we will suffer consequences and have to go on a reroute.
- Have the kind of love I had for my ex-husband for Christ Jesus. The kind of love that is fully sacrificial. Nothing else matters because He is all I want.
- Allow Him to make changes. Surrender all decisions into His hands. For He knows best
————————
Lent devotion Day 7/53
taken from YouVersion, Lent for Everyone
Lent for Everyone is a devotional created and written by N.T. (Tom) Wright. For each day of Lent, there is a reading chosen from the Gospel of Matthew, plus a reflection by Wright. These readings have grown out of a project encouraging Lent reading in Northern England. This is the second in a three-volume series based on the Revised Common Lectionary of the Church of England.
Today’s reading:
Matthew 6
WEEK 1: TUESDAY
At the very heart of Jesus' vision of the kingdom — of heaven's kingdom coming on earth — we have a picture of one person, secretly in their own room, praying.
Prayer is a mystery. I've often heard people saying, with a sneer, 'It doesn't go beyond the ceiling, you know.' But the point of prayer, at least the way Jesus saw it, is that it doesn't have to. Your father, he says, is there in the secret place with you. He sees and knows your deepest thoughts and hopes and fears. He hears the words you say. He hears, too, the things you can't put into words but want to lay before him anyway. Prayer, in fact, isn't a mystery in the sense of 'a puzzle we can't understand'. Prayer is a symptom, a sign, of the mystery: the fact that heaven and earth actually mingle together. There are times when they interlock; there are places where they overlap. To pray, in this sense, is to claim a time and place — it can be anywhere, any time — as one of those times, one of those places.
If prayer is about heaven and earth overlapping in time and space, it's also about them coming together in matter, in the stuff of this world, the clay from which we are made. To pray, in this sense, is to claim — think about it and realize just how daring this is! — that the living God, enthroned in heaven, can make his home with you, within you. To make this point vividly, go into your room in secret and pray there. Take God seriously.
But, when you do so, realize one more thing. If prayer is about heaven and earth coming together at one time, in one place, within the lump of clay we call 'me', then it's going to change this person called 'me'. In particular, it's going to make me a forgiver. Jesus was quite clear about this. All of us have been hurt, wounded, slighted, annoyed by other people. How much more have we ourselves done that to God! Yet we want him to be with us, to hear us, and — yes! — to forgive us. How can we not be forgivers too?
So the great prayer comes together. Utterly simple, utterly profound. A child can learn it; an old, wise saint will still be going deeper into it. Heaven is not far away, and it's where we meet the God who, with breathtaking confidence, we can call 'Father'. Familiarity must not imply contempt. His very name is holy, and we must honour it as such. And what we most want — the strange phenomenon of which prayer itself is a supreme example! — is that his kingdom should come and his will be done on earth as in heaven. When we pray, we pray for that goal but we also pray within that promise.
We then place our needs, whether simple or complex, within that framework. Bread for the day ahead. Forgiveness of debt — the debts we owe to God, the debts too (this may surprise some) we owe one another. And then, importantly, rescue: rescue from the time of testing, of trial, whether that be personal temptation, frequently repeated, or the 'tribulation' which Jesus, like many others of his day, believed would come upon the world before God's deliverance finally dawned.
And rescue, too, from the evil one. Much of Jesus' public career was a battle with the powers of darkness. That isn't surprising, since he was announcing that God was taking back control of the world from those powers. When we pray this prayer, we are caught up in that battle, too. But we don't face the danger alone. We claim his victory, his rescue, rather than face danger alone, his deliverance. The mystery of prayer. This prayer lies at the very centre of the 'sermon on the mount'. It should be at the centre of our life, our own kingdom-obedience.
TODAY
Lord, teach us to pray; teach us to forgive; make us your people. Yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory.
—————————-
Let’s pray:
Father forgive us for we do not know better. Forgive us when we do not know what humility looks like and wanted more of the earthly things. Search our hearts Lord and show us what it means to have the servant heart filled with love. Help us to love others like how You loved us. Seeking nothing but You alone. Wanting nothing but eternal life. Help us with our unbelief on the things that we think can never change and understand that Your hand, is never too short. Help us build our prayer life and pray in step with You. In Jesus’s name we ask and pray. Amen 🙏🏻
Amen
ReplyDelete