Are you heralding the most important announcement ever?
21 Mar 26
Today's devotional: taken from YouVersion, Devotions on F.I.R.E. Year One
Readings:
Joshua 4
Joshua 5
Joshua 6
Luke 2:1-24
I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people (Luke 2:10).
Are you heralding the most important announcement ever?
God dispatches the angels who are members of His advertising agency for their infomercial to His chosen audience: the shepherds. These lowly men are ceremonially unclean because their occupation keeps them in the fields and away from the Temple. The angels give the following advertisement: “For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). The term advertisement is defined as a notice or announcement in a public medium promoting a product, service, or event. We have the greatest event to proclaim to mankind. Let’s not forget the simplicity of that message. John writes, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
Employment Point: Proclaim the good news about Jesus to all people.
———————
Reflections
“And the priests came up out of the river carrying the ark of the covenant of the Lord. No sooner had they set their feet on the dry ground than the waters of the Jordan returned to their place and ran at flood stage as before.”Joshua 4:18 NIV
- what a sight it must have been, bearing witness to this event which defies all reasonable logic and gravity, glorifying the Lord in the process.
- These are all eye witness accounts of what truly happened. We know that because Luke is a doctor by training and he challenged himself to write only the truths, which he eventually is convinced that Jesus is real.
“He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.””Joshua 4:24 NIV
- this verse explains why the Lord wants to let His people cross over the Jordan river.
- It is a reminder not just to them but also to us. We need not physically be there to experience it ourselves to know that His hand has the power to change and transform and therefore to remember to always fear the Lord our God
“Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the Lord had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over, their hearts melted in fear and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites.”
Joshua 5:1 NIV
- This reminds me of another verse “What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”Romans 8:31 NIV
- our Lord God who is also our Abba Father has this kind of power to overcome evil. There’s really no need for us to worry over a lot of things but He had already ran ahead of us and prepared the way for us. Indeed, we do not need to fear of what is ahead. God is with us.
“Now the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in.”Joshua 6:1 NIV
- we knew the ending that the walls came down on the seventh day. But have you thought about the perspectives of the people in Jericho? I am sure they heard about how the Lord is with the Israelites and they know that it is no use fighting because they will definitely lose. So what was their strategy?
- They decided to close themselves up to the world and hide behind their own walls, thinking this would be the wisest thing to do. Their trust is in the walls, the fortress whom they think will never fall but the Lord had better plans. Nobody needs to fight, for the Lord fights for them.
- This is a reminder to us all that whatever challenges that may deem impossible to solve, whatever obstacles that we thought we have no way to overcome, we really need not bother too much about it for if it is His will, no one and nothing can stop.
———————
Interest or Identification?
BY OSWALD CHAMBERS
March 21
I have been crucified with Christ. — Galatians 2:20
Paul doesn’t say, “I’ve decided to imitate Christ” or “I’m interested in following Christ.” He says, “I have been crucified with Christ”: he has become identified with Christ in Christ’s death.
In my spiritual life, the essential need is to sign the death warrant of my sinful disposition. I must issue a moral verdict against the idea that I have a right to myself, drawing on every emotional and intellectual tool at my disposal to make the decision Paul made. When I do, when I come to the decision to identify myself with Christ’s death, everything that Christ won on the cross is realized in me. By freely committing myself to God, I allow the Holy Spirit to impart to me the holiness of Jesus Christ.
“The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God” (Galatians 2:20). My individual life continues, but the wellspring of my character, my ruling disposition, is radically altered. My body remains as it was, but the satanic belief I used to have—the belief in my right to myself—is destroyed. Paul emphasizes that he is living this life “now.” It isn’t a life he plans to live one day; it’s the life he’s living “in the body”—the body that other people can see. This body bears witness to the life of Christ within it: “And I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (v. 20).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
The life of Abraham is an illustration of two things: of unreserved surrender to God, and of God’s complete possession of a child of His for His own highest end.
———————
Reflections
When we realised that we have been crucified with Christ, we will agree that the old self in us no longer lives. We now live a risen life that comes as a blessing because of Jesus’s death and resurrection. He has conquered death and lives and we too, is able to say bye to our old ways and start life from a fresh sheet of paper. It is definitely not something that we earned or worked for. No amount of hard work or toil or sweat can earn us this salvation. This is the Lord’s gift for us, which we should always be thankful and grateful for.
So indeed we no longer lives, but Christ who lives in us. Also not forgetting that He who lives in us is greater than he who is in the world. So let us not be troubled by the things of the world but to just anchor ourselves to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Have our total trust in Him and just rely on Him for every decision, every action and every speech. May we all be guided by His wisdom and knowledge and allow Him to be the head and Lord over our lives.
———————-
Lent devotion Day 32/53
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 23
WEEK 4: SATURDAY
We stood in the autumn light beside the huge waterfall, mesmerized by the sheer volume of water pouring over and crashing down on the rocks beneath, unable to hear ourselves speak because of the rush and roar of the turbulent river. Then, as we walked back up the path to where we'd parked the car, we thought of all the tiny streams we'd seen earlier in the day, tinkling along gently high in the hills, and how each one had contributed to the massive flood we had just witnessed. Down they come into the valley, each making its way and lending its weight to the wide, powerful river.
Something of that same sense, of thousands of different streams each contributing to an eventual waterfall, is contained here, as Jesus concludes his solemn denunciation of both the official and the self-appointed guardians of Israel's ancestral traditions. Jesus looked back, up into the far hills of Israel's history, and saw a long line of prophets and righteous people who had been rejected by the leaders and opinion- formers of their day. Again and again it had happened. Little by little the streams have grown into a flood; and now Jesus sees the present leaders, his own contemporaries, flowing along in the same tradition. Right back as far as Abel, the first murdered man, right on to the more recent prophet Zechariah son of Barachiah, Israel's leaders have rejected and killed those who were sent to them; and now they are doing the same one more time.
What Jesus can see as well, though, is that there is a great waterfall just ahead. All this weight of water will not simply stop when it comes to the cliff: it will crash over it, thundering down to the depths. A mighty disaster is on the way. Many others had warned of similar things; Jesus, like the prophet he was, can see it only too clearly. And when it happens it won't be arbitrary. It won't be an accident. It will be the direct result of all these small streams of rebellion coming together into the greatest rebellion of them all.
But that isn't the end of the story. In the middle of the warning, Jesus speaks of his own longing to do something about it. God has indeed abandoned the Temple to its fate (verse 38). But, like a mother hen gathering the chickens under her wing to protect them against a fire, or a fox, Jesus has longed to gather Jerusalem and its people to himself so that he could take upon himself the full force of the coming disaster. Somehow, as we go through the next four chapters of Matthew's gospel, we need to remember that we are watching two different scenes: God's judgment on his rebellious people, and Jesus standing in the way, offering to take that judgment upon himself.
TODAY
Lord Jesus, Messiah and King, help us to stand in awe at your solemn words, and in gratitude at your offer of rescue.
————————
Let’s pray:
Father we are truly grateful that You held us close to Your heart and cares so much about us. Help us to remember of Your Sovereignty and to have the reverend fear of You and not take You for granted. It is by Your hand that we are saved and it is through You that we learn to love. Help us Father, to be loving children of God so that we can be good witnesses of Your great love. In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen 🙏🏻
Comments
Post a Comment