Do you motivate others to serve the Lord?
31 Mar 26
Today's devotional: taken from YouVersion, Devotions on F.I.R.E. Year One
Readings:
Judges 3
Judges 4
Judges 5
Luke 7:31-50
When leaders lead in Israel, when the people willingly offer themselves, bless the LORD! (Judges 5:2).
Do you motivate others to serve the Lord?
Deborah is raised up by God to stir the people to action. After Ehud dies, “the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD. So the LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan” (Judges 4:1-2). Deborah is an exceptional leader. Being a prophetess, she hears and proclaims the Word of the Lord (Judges 4:4). Not only that, Deborah knows how to motivate people. The prophetess desires a hesitant Barak to lead the troops. He finally agrees because she is willing to go with him (Judges 4:9). The courageous Deborah risks her life for the work of the Lord. God’s victory moves Deborah to praise the Lord through song. What a great leader!
Employment Point: Willingly offer yourself to do the work of the Lord and motivate others to join you.
———————-
Reflections
“Barak said to her, “If you go with me, I will go; but if you don’t go with me, I won’t go.” “Certainly I will go with you,” said Deborah. “But because of the course you are taking, the honor will not be yours, for the Lord will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman.” So Deborah went with Barak to Kedesh.”Judges 4:8-9 NIV
- when I read the above verses, I’m just in awe how afraid Barak is and how courageous Deborah is. Both of them leaned on something. Barak is leaning on Deborah for he knows that the Lord is with her but Deborah, being a woman, leans not on her own understanding but on Him alone. What a vast difference between the two!
- May the ladies all be like Deborah and have the faith in the Lord and have an intimate relationship with the Lord.
“When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table.”Luke 7:36 NIV
- I just learnt this recently, that reclining is a deliberate posture. It was the standard, culturally expected way to eat in polite society, indicating a relaxed, secure, and deliberate setting. However, a slave can never be in this posture.
- Symbol of Freedom: The Passover meal specifically required reclining to represent that the Jewish people were free and not slaves, a tradition upheld even by the poor.
- The U-shaped table arrangement (triclinium) enabled guests to lean on their left side, allowing them to converse easily and lean on one another, as seen when John leaned on Jesus' chest.
- He wants us all to rest in the security and freedom of being loved by Him
“When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.””
Luke 7:39 NIV
- Do not see wisdom from the world point of view. See wisdom from the God point of view. Look beneath the surface. Show great love to all. Have faith. It will grant us peace. Jesus sees your heart.
- Holy Spirit, fill me today with overflowing love for You and the others
———————-
Spiritual Hypocrisy
BY OSWALD CHAMBERS
March 31
If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life. — 1 John 5:16
If we aren’t mindful of the way the Spirit of God works in us, we will become spiritual hypocrites. Instead of interceding in prayer when we see another person failing, we’ll turn our discernment into criticism.
Be very careful that you don’t act like a hypocrite and try to fix other people before you yourself are right with God. The Holy Spirit isn’t revealed to us through the intellectual workings of our mind, but through the direct penetration of our souls. If we aren’t alert to the source of the revelation—to the fact that it is God, not us—we will become cauldrons of criticism. We’ll forget what Scripture says about our dealings with others: “You should pray and God will give them life.”
One of the subtlest burdens God puts on his disciples is this burden of using discernment when it comes to other souls. Why does he reveal certain things about others to us? It isn’t so we’ll criticize them. It’s so we’ll take their burden before God. It’s so we’ll form the mind of Christ regarding them, interceding with him on their behalf. God says he will give them life if we pray in this way.
To intercede in prayer isn’t to tell God our opinions or to let him in on the workings of our minds. It’s to stir ourselves up to get at his mind, his thoughts, about the people for whom we intercede. Is Jesus Christ seeing the workings of his soul in us? He can’t—not until we are so identified with him that we strive to know his mind. If we want Jesus to be satisfied with us, we must learn to intercede wholeheartedly on others’ behalf, as he intercedes for us: “Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them” (Hebrews 7:25).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
The attitude of a Christian towards the providential order in which he is placed is to recognize that God is behind it for purposes of His own.
———————-
Reflections
Father may You remind us and to bring to our minds the person that we ought to intercede for. Let this be part of our journey in helping us to learn to be more like You and to also be able to see things from Your perspective.
Thank You Father that in Your mercy, You gave us revelations on what happened in the life of others and asking us to pray for them and not judge them. Lord, we know that we are all work-in-progresses and so none of us is perfect. However, Father I pray that our souls will be sensitive to Your teachings and be humble to also accept correction and rebuke.
Teach us Your ways O Lord, and open our eyes to see the deeper issues at hand. Grant us obedient hearts and be willing to change, to transform and to surrender to Your word, that we will begin to live a brand new life in You.
———————-
Lent devotion Day 42/53
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 26:36-56
HOLY WEEK: TUESDAY
Put this passage alongside the other time when Jesus took Peter, James and John away with him by themselves. In chapter 17, the four of them went up a mountain, and the disciples watched in amazement as Jesus was transfigured before them, shining with the glory of God and talking with Moses and Elijah. Now the same group of three are together in a garden, and the disciples watch in amazement as once again Jesus is transfigured, this time with the sorrow of God. Again, he is very much aware of the ancient scriptures which said it must be like this (verses 24, 54, 56).
This scene in Gethsemane is absolutely central to any proper understanding of who Jesus really was. It's all too easy for devout Christians to imagine him as a kind of demigod, striding heroically through the world without a care. Some have even read John's gospel that way, though I believe that is to misread it. But certainly Matthew is clear that at this crucial moment Jesus had urgent and agitating business to do with his father. He had come this far; he had told them, again and again, that he would be handed over, tortured and crucified; but now, at the last minute, this knowledge had to make its way down from his scripture- soaked mind into his obedient, praying heart. And it is wonderfully comforting (as the writer to the Hebrews points out) that he had to make this agonizing journey of faith, just as we do.
'If it's possible — please make it that I don't have to drink this cup!' The 'cup' in question, without a doubt, is the 'cup of God's wrath', as in many biblical passages (Isaiah 51.17; Jeremiah 25.15, and elsewhere). Jesus was resolutely determined to understand this fateful moment in the light of the long scriptural narrative that he saw now coming to its climax in his death. But, precisely because of that, he realized in a new and devastating way that he was called to go down into the darkness, deeper than anyone had gone before, the darkness of one who, though he was the very son of God, would drink the cup which symbolized God's wrath against all that is evil, all that destroys and defaces God's wonderful world and his image-bearing creatures.
We can see this very process working its way out as the story unwinds. All the strands of evil in the world seem to rush together upon him. The power-seeking politics of the local elite. The casual brutality of imperial Rome. The disloyalty of Judas. The failure of Peter. The large systems which crush those in their way, and the intimate, sharply personal, betrayals. And everything in between, the scorn, the misunderstanding, the violence. The story is told in such a way that we see and feel, rather than just think about, the many different manifestations of evil in the world. Matthew invites us to see them all converging on Jesus. That is what this story is all about.
We are encouraged to see this scene, too, as somehow a revelation of the glory of God. It is one thing to be transfigured in the sense of shining with the dazzling light of God's glory. It is another thing, perhaps equal if not greater, to be seen in agony, sharing the sorrow and pain of the world. Perhaps the two scenes need each other to be complete. Certainly our own pilgrimage, if we are faithful, will have elements of both. One of the reasons we read and reread this extraordinary story is because we know, in our deepest beings, that the scriptural story to which Jesus was obedient must be our story too. Matthew, telling us that Jesus' disciples all forsook him and fled, wants us by contrast to stay the course, to see this thing through, to witness the glory of God in the suffering face of his crucified son.
TODAY
Teach us, good Lord, to watch with you in your suffering, that we may learn also to see your glory.
————————-
Sharing a song that came to mind when I read this reflection
https://youtu.be/n-uGMWCWkAI?si=y-jJPwVwQmHy-owz
Let’s pray:
Indeed Father Lord, everything else I count it as loss. It is a blessing to know You and be known as Yours, to share with You in Your suffering and to be with You in glory. Thank You Father. In Jesus’s precious name we pray. Amen 🙏🏻
Comments
Post a Comment