LifeLink Devotional for Monday, November 19, 2018

Author John Maxwell said, “The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That’s the day we truly grow up.”

The Apostle Paul, writing to the people who made up the church at Colossae, describes thanksgiving as originating in our heart, resulting in thankful activity in our lives.

Colossians 3:15-17  And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

In other words, the activity of thanksgiving flows out of the attitude of our heart.

Hearts that are ruled by Christ are at peace, and they produce thanksgiving even when all around us is unpeaceful. An attitude of thanksgiving will be present in a person who is ruled by Christ and allowing the word of Christ to dwell in them.

Attitudes are a choice. Sometimes circumstances don’t seem to give us a choice, but the choice is always there. We justify our attitudes by blaming the circumstances, when actually we need to blame our own choices.

Chuck Swindoll is one of my favorite preachers. His statement about attitude is powerful.

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company…a church…a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past…we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude…I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you…we are in charge of our attitudes.” 

But, as we learned yesterday, our choice to have a thankful attitude is strongly influenced by the level of trust we have in God. Many of us allow our pride rather than God’s character to dictate our attitudes.

A young woman who won a coveted award smiled when her mother said, “I was praying you would get it.” “Well, thank you,” she replied, “but I earned this by my own hard work.”

Some people feel so sure of their self-sufficiency that they resent any implication that they owe God a word of thanks for the good things that come their way. And if we aren’t thankful for the good things, we certainly won’t be thankful for the things we think are bad.

Such an attitude could be justified only if a person were able to say, “I brought myself into the world, I endowed myself with all my talents and abilities, I raised myself, taught myself all I know, and I control my present and future.”

Remember the quote from John Maxwell? “The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That’s the day we truly grow up.”

Start your grown-up life today with an attitude of thanksgiving.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Monday, November 25, 2024

As Moses addresses the nation of Israel prior to his death, he instructs all the tribes to be united in their possession of the Promised Land. But two tribes resist going in and want to have land provided for them on the east side of the Jordan River.  Moses agrees but challenges them to join in helping the other tribes conquer their land. Here’s how Moses explains it in Numbers 32:20-24.

Then Moses said to them, “If you will do this – if you will arm yourselves before the LORD for battle, and if all of you will go armed over the Jordan before the LORD until he has driven his enemies out before him – then when the land is subdued before the LORD, you may return and be free from your obligation to the LORD and to Israel. And this land will be your possession before the LORD. But if you fail to do this, you will be sinning against the LORD; and you may be sure that your sin will find you out. Build cities for your women and children, and pens for your flocks, but do what you have promised.”

There are two primary lessons I want to share today and tomorrow from this story.   

First, as the Israelites drew closer to the place and time of their entrance into the Promised Land, several of the tribes decided together that they liked the land of the Midianites that they had just conquered. Based on the size of the flocks and herds that they captured in the conquest, this was obviously a productive land for raising sheep and cattle. These two-and-a-half tribes looked at their present situation and decided that what they had right now was the best they could ever hope for, and asked for permission to make this territory their land.

When they were confronted with the possibility that fear had overtaken them and that they were about to refuse God’s promise as their fathers had 40 years earlier, they proved their commitment to the nation and to God by volunteering to send their fighting men with the rest of the nation’s army to go and conquer Canaan. Not only that, they volunteered to be the front lines of the army in all of the conquest. Even though they were choosing to come back and live in the present reality no matter what the new land showed them, they wholeheartedly committed themselves to accomplishing God’s purpose for the sake of the whole nation.

That is the challenge for all of us in our church ministry.  Maybe you have trouble seeing the benefit to moving ahead by faith with a new ministry or a new building. You would prefer to stay right where you are until we have more sure evidence of God’s provision and plan. Maybe God is using you to help the rest of the people reevaluate their direction and decisions. But maybe you need a greater measure of faith to step out of your comfort zones and expand the spiritual sphere of influence of your church. Are you holding back others from conquering territory in your church, or are you joining them to expand the Kingdom of God. Are you prepared to come to the front of the line in support of where God may be taking you.

These are critical times for the church, and Jesus Christ our King does not call us to strengthen our comfort zones but rather to expand our influence. Are you holding back your church from new ministry because of your lack of faith in God’s promises, or are you volunteering to be on the front line of conquering new territory for the King?

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Friday, November 22, 2024

Moses had one more thing to do before he died and turned over the leadership of Israel to Joshua. In direct obedience to the command of God in Numbers chapter thirty-one, Moses was to send an army to destroy the Midianite people who had attempted to subvert the nation through sexual immorality and idol worship. Under the guidance of Balaam, the Midianites sent their women to seduce the men of Israel and lead them to their places of worship of Baal. God punished the men of Israel, some 24,000 of them, with death, and the nation was purified. But God’s judgment of sin was not done.

Moses chose an army of twelve thousand men, one thousand from each tribe, and under God’s authority they wiped out the Midianite army. When the war was over, they had destroyed every Midianite male and every female old enough to engage in sexual activity. Only the young girls were saved and made slaves of the Israelites. The plunder they took amounted to 675,000 sheep, 72,000 cattle, 61,000 donkeys, and 32,000 female slaves. These figures give an indication of the size of the Midianite nation, and yet 12,000 Israelite soldiers defeated them easily without losing one soldier’s life. Not one! God was their Commander-in-Chief and their Protector.

There is an eternal principle of God’s justice that is learned from this story. We saw the disciplinary hand of God’s justice against His children for their sin. 24,000 men of Israel died. God’s justice begins in the lives of the people who have been called to be holy and have been given an inheritance with the saints in glory. You and I have experienced the discipline of God for sins we have committed. Hebrews 12:5-7 reminds us that a loving Father will always correct His children – “And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son. Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?”

But God’s justice will also punish the source of the sin and destroy it. His justice against sin will be complete and it will be utterly destroyed. Just as He destroyed the Midianites for being the source of seduction into sin for the Israelites, so He will also one day destroy the source of seduction into sin for all of us who are now His chosen people, which is the world. Even thought for now it appears that evil is flourishing, there is a day coming when the price for sin will be paid to a holy God, and that price is death.  

Yet in Jesus Christ we are delivered from the power of that seduction today. We do not have to wait until the Day of Judgment to be free from the seduction of sin. The indwelling Presence of Jesus Christ in our lives has already accomplished that victory for us. The influence of the world is still powerful, but “greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.” (1 John 4:4) “We have been set free from the power of sin and death.” (Romans 8:2) Through the love of Jesus Christ we have “been made more than conquerors.” (Romans 8:37)

In preparation for their entrance into the Promised Land, the Israelites were told to destroy all sin and sinful people so that the land of promise would be a holy place to dwell. You and I are living today in the Promised Land of God’s presence through Jesus Christ, and all the power of sin has been destroyed by His death on the cross. Let’s live in that victory every moment of every day.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Thursday, November 21, 2024

I was taught a lesson in humility by my dad when I was 15 years old. By humility I am referring specifically to the kind of humility it takes to turn over the responsibility for an important task to someone less experienced. I was 15 years old, and we were on our way to Colorado for a family vacation in conjunction with a national church conference. We were going to be camping, so there was a big travel trailer hooked up behind the car. We had made good progress from St. Paul into Nebraska when dad looked in the rear view mirror and said, “John, do you want to drive?” 

I only had my learner’s permit at the time, but I was ready, except for that big camper behind us. I had driven the car plenty of times, but now there was an added difficulty with which I had no experience. But dad stopped the car, got out, and gave me the keys. WOW! He trusted me with the car and the camper and the lives of the family. He knew that the only way to become qualified for a task was to be allowed to do the task and gain experience. He was still a qualified driver. He was not unable to perform the task of driving, yet he humbly surrendered his rights for the sake of training the next generation of drivers knowing that they would need those skills when they were out on their own in the future. Thanks, Dad!

Moses has reached a point in his life where his leadership is coming to an end. God has sent him up to the top of a mountain to get a view of the Promised Land, a land that he would never be allowed to enter because of his sin. But before he goes, Moses asks God to reveal to him who the next leader of the Israelites would be. I think if I were in that situation, the first thought I my mind would have been to ask God to forgive me and remove the consequence of my sin so that I could go into the land. Maybe I would make excuses for why the sin wasn’t really all that bad and the consequence was unfair. It would certainly be a priority to try to maintain some control and to “stay in the driver’s seat.”

But not Moses. He was a humble man. His immediate attitude was one of humble submission to the plan of God and of concern for the ongoing leadership of the people. That speaks volumes about the attitude of his heart, but then God takes it one step further. We read in Numbers  chapter twenty-seven verse twenty that God tells Moses, “Give him some of your authority so the whole Israelite community will obey him.”  It’s one thing to be willing to step aside for someone else, but it is something much more humbling to be asked to take part in the training of that new person and turn over some or all of your authority.

Think of the applications of this lesson to our lives today. If you are a parent this defines your role in raising your children. We watch as they drop dishes on the floor trying to carry them; leave the blankets crooked on a bed they were trying to make; leave tools laying around the garage after using them; miss whole sections of lawn as they use the mower for the first time; and on and on goes the list. We seem to be able to humbly accept our responsibility to develop leaders in our families, so what has happened in our jobs and in our churches? Why do we have so many people greedily hanging on to positions of leadership when there is a whole generation of new leaders just waiting to use their skills and dreams to take us to new places of promise?

In your job, or in your church, are you a humble and willing participant in developing the next wave of leaders, even if that means not accomplishing a personal goal? Is our purpose self-fulfilling or Kingdom fulfilling? Let’s be the facilitators of growth by letting someone else drive for a while.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Tuesday, November 19, 2024

The news is rarely encouraging. We let politics, inflation, gas prices, and injustice bum us out. It can ruin our day.  

Then suddenly, like a light bulb going on in our head, we realize how quickly the things of the world can captivate our thinking and turn our eyes from their intended focus on the wonderful hope we have in Jesus Christ for eternal life. We make plans for personal provisions and security, when Jesus has already provided for all that and more. We have far too many momentary lapses into looking at the world instead of looking above for the Lord.

In Numbers chapter twenty-one the Israelites continue their seemingly endless pattern of complaining, consequences, and correction. They need another trust lesson from the Father. This time God uses poisonous snakes as the teaching tool. To rescue them from this infestation, God had Moses make a bronze snake and place it on a pole, so that anyone who looked at it would live. Notice that God’s solution was not to take away the snakes or to stop the venom from being imbedded in the flesh of the people, but rather it was to stop the effects of the venom in their lives by looking to Him. 

What an incredible picture of our lives today in Jesus Christ. Jesus Himself uses this story to depict His own crucifixion in John 3:14-15. He said’ “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” Jesus tells us that if we look to Him as the people looked to the snake on the pole, we too will live, even though the Serpent still attacks and attempts to sink His fangs into our lives, poisoning us with the venom of the world. Satan has not been removed from the world, but the sting of his venom – death – has been removed.

We are tempted to look around us at all of the serpents that are coiled to strike us with their poison. They have disguised themselves to appear beneficial to us, yet their venom is deadly. However, when we are looking at our Savior Jesus, their venom is powerless. The snake of inflation cannot interrupt the flow of God’s provision. The snake of dependence upon oil cannot overpower our dependence upon the anointing oil of the Holy Spirit. The snake of war and injustice cannot take away our peace and justification in Christ. The snake of broken relationships cannot destroy the permanence of our relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

Take your eyes off of whatever snake is coiled to strike you right now, and look at Jesus. “In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade – kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Peter 1:3-5) He is our Hope and our Salvation. In Him we have life, and it is eternal and abundant. The snakes cannot invalidate your inheritance, so don’t let them infect your inclinations. Instead, “Incline your heart unto the Lord” (Joshua 24:23). He is faithful and will not fail.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Monday, November 18, 2024

When I travel I enjoy taking the scenic route. If I’m going someplace I’ve been before I will usually take the direct route, but if it’s a new destination I often take the scenic route, which may not be the fastest route. In fact, when the kids were younger and we went on a family trip or vacation, they used to harass me about going on another one of dad’s “adventures.” We did wind up in some pretty remote places sometimes – just ask them about the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. 

As the final leg of the 40-year journey to the Promised Land begins, the Israelites are faced with a trip-planning decision: do we take the freeway or the scenic route. The freeway led them through the territory of the Edomites, the descendants of Esau. The scenic route led them a long way around to the east of Edom and Moab. Moses thought it would be nice to go the direct route and save time, but God wanted them to take the scenic route for safety. You can read about it in Numbers chapter twenty.

Moses sent out a message to the Edomites and asked permission to go through their land on the king’s highway, and made certain guarantees about the trip. He promised that the people would not use any of the rest areas, and would not stop at any of the McDonald’s for food, and would not stop at any of the convenience stores for water. Most of all, the people would not stop at any of the scenic overlooks or take time to visit any of the points of interest along the way, thus avoiding all contact with the people of the land.

Why would Moses make such promises? If you read the instructions of the Lord given to Moses in Deuteronomy 2:4-6 you will find the answer.

Then the LORD said to me, “You have made your way around this hill country long enough; now turn north. Give the people these orders: ‘You are about to pass through the territory of your brothers the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. They will be afraid of you, but be very careful. Do not provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land, not even enough to put your foot on. I have given Esau the hill country of Seir as his own. You are to pay them in silver for the food you eat and the water you drink.’”

God told Moses to avoid the people that were contradictory to God’s purpose. God knew that any point of contact would give the enemy a foothold from which to thwart God’s divine plan. There is a deep spiritual lesson in this for us today. God has called us in our salvation to come out and be separate from all that is evil in the eyes of the Lord (see 2 Cor. 6:17). We have been commanded to be pure, even as He is pure because of the higher hope of heaven that we have ( see 1 John 3:2-3). We are urged to not even let our emotions, like anger, give Satan a foothold in our lives (see Eph. 4:27). There is a consistent theme in Scripture that the people of God are not to turn to the right or the left in their temporary journey through this evil land on their way to the permanent residence of God’s presence.

We must take the time to evaluate our life’s trip planning. Are we taking the scenic route, turning off the main road at any location that looks appealing to our flesh so we can indulge our appetites? Or are we staying on the Interstate taking the most direct route to God’s presence? I am not talking about avoiding all contact with unsaved people along the way. That would be disobedience to God’s purpose for us until we reach glory. I am referring to the sinful attractions of the world’s activities that distract and sometimes disqualify us from accomplishing God’s purpose. We must not take these side roads. We must not turn to the left or to the right. We must stay on the King’s highway and keep our eyes fixed on the Promised Land of God’s Presence. Be strong and be pure, for the Lord your God is with you.

Pastor John