LifeLink Devotions for Wednesday, March 19, 2025

George Mallory was an English mountaineer who took part in the first three British expeditions to Mount Everest in the early 1920s. Mallory and his climbing partner both disappeared somewhere high on the North-East ridge during their attempt to make the first ascent of the world’s highest mountain.

Before his disappearance, when Mallory was asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, he famously answered, “Because it is there.” But on another occasion George expanded his answer:

“If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life.”

A personal letter to George’s wife, Ruth, reveals even more about what drove him to climb the mountain. “Dearest,” he wrote, “… you must know that the spur to do my best is you and you again …. I want more than anything to prove worthy of you.”

However, although George Mallory became famous for his achievements, his son John had a different perspective. Proud of his father but sad too, John would later write, “I would so much rather have known my father than to have grown up in the shadow of a legend, a hero, as some people perceive him to be.”

Here was a man who had misplaced priorities, yet we call him a hero. Joy is not the highest objective of life. The priority of life is not to prove ourselves worthy to anyone. That priority is symptomatic of a deep need for identity and proof of personal value which will never be found in the pursuit of accomplishments but only in the pursuit of Jesus Christ. The result of such misaligned priorities is the loss of personal relationships as witnessed by Mallory’s son John. Whenever the priorities of life are determined by personal need or selfish ambition we will hurt the very ones we may be trying to impress.

Ephesians 6:4  “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

If we are going to align our priorities with God’s Word I believe it starts with accepting God’s declaration that He has qualified us in Christ and that we have nothing more to earn or prove. (Colossians 1:12) Having done that, we will invest in relationships that are primarily giving in nature, not receiving. Out of the abundance of peace and joy that are now ours because our identity in Christ is sufficient, our priority can be to give of ourselves to benefit others. We should do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than us. We will look not only to our own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:3-4)

Make the commitment today that your priority will be others, not self.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Tuesday, March 18, 2025

2 Corinthians 4:17-18  “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

I’ve been thinking about priorities.  I want to know which ones are draining me rather than fulfilling Christ’s purpose in me. As I started my review I came across a story from  Gordon MacDonald.

“In ancient days when the king of Siam had an enemy he wanted to torment and destroy, he would send that enemy a unique gift, a white elephant, a live, albino elephant. These animals were considered sacred in the culture of that day. So the recipient of that elephant had no choice but to intentionally care for the gift. This elephant would take an inordinate amount of the enemy’s time, resources, energy, emotions, and finances. Over time the enemy would destroy himself because of the extremely burdensome process of caring for the gift.

“Our spiritual enemy uses the same strategy on us …. Let’s say you are able to buy Packer season tickets, but because you now have a lot of games to go to, you no longer have time to serve in some area of ministry. Or let’s say you buy a summer cottage, but now you miss most weekend worship services between the beginning of May and the end of September. Or let’s say you buy a health club membership to get in shape. You used to get up early in the morning to read your Bible and pray, but now you don’t have time because you’re working out before you go to work. Or let’s say you approve a spot for one of your kids on a traveling sports team, and now you’re too busy to join the fellowship of Christ’s Body the church in attendance or in ministry

“Are there white elephants in your life? Are you spending money on things that take your time away from God? The money isn’t the problem; the activities aren’t necessarily the problem; the problem is a white elephant “gift” that has pulled you away from God-honoring pursuits.”

None of the above mentioned “gifts” are inherently wrong. However, they can become destructive to what Jesus calls “abundant life” when they take up so much of our time, resources and energy that we use them as excuses to justify our lack of involvement in Christ’s purpose for us. We have redefined the abundant life in terms of wealth, opportunity, and fun, not only for ourselves but for our families as well.

Today let’s make it our priority to not place value in the white elephants that have been given to us. Life is filled with options, but just because they exist doesn’t mean they are good for us. Under the direction of the Holy Spirit we will become discerning about which opportunities are for God’s glory and not our own fulfillment. We will place value on eternal things, and center our life, our decisions, our resources, and our energies on what Christ says are of value to Him.

There is an old chorus we used to sing in church when I was a kid. The lyrics are my prayer for today:

With eternity’s values in view, Lord.
With eternity’s values in view;
May I do each day’s work for Jesus
With eternity’s values in view.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Monday, March 17, 2025

A grandma’s wisdom is usually spot on. As a little boy I remember standing in my grandma’s kitchen in Cleveland, Ohio while she made bread. She made the most amazing bread without a written recipe. I wish she had written it down so I could taste it again, but I can still vividly remember its incredible flavor.

On the kitchen table was a huge lump of dough – probably enough for at least a dozen loaves of bread. I followed my grandma’s instructions and retrieved a large container of flour from the cupboard and brought it to her. She removed the lid and carefully inserted her hand into the flour and grabbed just enough to spread a thin layer over the table and the lump of dough. She replaced the lid and made sure the container was out of my reach as she prepared to knead the dough.

Back and forth over the table she moved that dough, lifting it, folding it, punching it and squeezing it. Every once in a while she would pause, remove the lid from the flour container, and sprinkle a thin layer of flour over the table. In one such pause she asked if my hands were clean and if I would like to sprinkle the flour. What little boy wouldn’t? So I washed my hands, dried them thoroughly, and plunged my hand deep into the flour bin. Flour exploded into the air, covering not only my arms but grandma’s as well.

She stopped me with a gentle word of rebuke and said this to me. “John, be careful. We can’t waste the flour like that. Waste not, want not.”

I asked her what that meant, and she explained in words a seven-year old could understand. “When we waste things, we will want more things. But if we use them carefully they will last longer, and we won’t need more.”

I thought of that bit of wisdom from grandma when I filled my car with gas this last week. In Eau Claire we have two major companies that have caused price competition for automobile fuel. The gas stations in their area are consistently ten to fifteen cents cheaper than stations in other parts of town. I happened to be in that area of town, so I filled up my car’s tank. It took eleven gallons. I had saved a whopping dollar and a half over the cost at the station near my house.

Don’t laugh – waste not, want not. It made me wonder how many other areas of my life are wanting because I am wasting? So as I remembered my grandma’s wisdom, I decided to review the five basic principles my wife and I try to live by in our management of the resources God has entrusted to us.

• I will save more and spend less.
• I will make good use of what I already have.
• I will look for the best value.
• I will budget my money, time, and energy.
• I will not confuse what I need with what I want.

I can guarantee you that when Jesus said, “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much,” He meant it. How do I know? Because I am living it! Thanks grandma for showing me how to knead dough so I don’t need dough.

Waste not, want not.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Friday, March 14, 2025

Years ago, in response to the news, people rushed to the stores to buy what they could. Within hours the shelves were empty. Warmth was the goal, and for those who trusted their natural gas furnaces and fireplaces, warmth was threatened. Electric space heaters became a priority.

As my wife and I sat layered in sweatshirts and blankies in our living room with our electric space heater near us, I began to wonder what would happen if the natural gas supply was completely shut down. I would have no way to heat my house except an old fieldstone fireplace that seems to suck more heat out of the room than it emits. I wondered if I should spend some money and begin to prepare for the possibilities of tragedy. I began to feel like a doomsday prepper.

Now I’m not opposed to planning wisely and having contingency plans in place. What I am opposed to is the worry that typically accompanies such plans. So is God. I want to be prepared, but I don’t want my preparations to diminish or replace my trust in Jesus Christ’s promises. I do not want to live life weakly by looking at life weekly. I want to live life fully by trusting God faithfully.

Jesus knew that worry weakens us. He spent a substantial portion of the Sermon on the Mount addressing it. Here are some sound bites from what He said in Matthew 6.

• “And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?”
• “And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”
• “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ …your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.”
•  “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

Worry weakens us because it replaces trust in God’s plans and promises with trust in our own plans and provisions. The Prophet Jeremiah heard the Lord address that issue as well. “Thus says the LORD: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

When Jesus visited His friends Mary and Martha, Mary came and sat at His feet, while Martha stressed over how the house looked and what to serve her Guest to eat. She even came to Jesus to complain. Jesus simply said, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”

The good portion of life is the time spent in fellowship with the Savior, putting all the worries and cares of life aside. When we switch those priorities, we are weakened. Everything that typically causes us concern is to be brought to Jesus. The Apostle Paul said, “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” (Philippians 4:6)  Seems pretty clear to me – anything and everything is to be turned over to God. That means anything and everything that makes us anxious makes us weak unless we turn in trust to God.

John Newton wrote a short verse that declares the truth by which we should all live when it comes to daily worries.

“What Thou shalt to-day provide,
Let me as a child receive;
What to-morrow may betide,
Calmly to Thy wisdom leave.
’Tis enough that Thou wilt care;
Why should I the burden bear?”

Worry weakens.

Anxiety annihilates ability.

Trust tranquilizes turbulence.

Let Jesus calm the storms of your life and give you peace.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Thursday, March 13, 2025

I intentionally do not watch the Grammy’s or the Oscars. After reading what made headlines one morning after one of those awards shows I’m glad I don’t watch them. My response to what happened must come from a heart that totally trusts the Divine purpose of God in all things.

My goal is to not respond to those who are opposed to Christian thought and theology except with a heart of compassion as for a blind man stumbling towards a precipice of certain death. He does not need a reminder of his blindness, or shouts of impending doom. He needs someone to come along side of him and gently redirect his steps.

There is a spiritual darkness that blankets our culture in sins of self-fulfillment. Our response to that darkness must not be directed at the culture, but rather at the one who may be caught up in the swarm who wishes to escape. Our activity should be to enter the culture and rub shoulders with the culture as Jesus did, so that when any one wishes to reach out and touch even the hem of His garment, they will be able to do it by touching us.

In order to do that, we need to be in a place of intimacy with Jesus that provides grace, strength, and wisdom. We need to be alert to the presence of Jesus and His purpose in all things. We will not respond with the heart of Jesus if we have not first captured His heart through intimate friendship and fellowship with Him.

Ours is not the first culture to be caught up in the horrors of self-honoring sin. One such culture was in the days of Abraham around 3500 years ago. The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were about to be destroyed by a righteous, loving, and just God. As a culture they had chosen to pursue the sins of self-gratification to such an extent that they stood publicly opposed to God and His truth. God’s judgment was pending.

On His way to announce the verdict and impose the sentence, Jesus and two angels stopped off at the tent of Abraham. He knocked, and Abraham invited Him in for a meal and for intimate fellowship. Jesus draws near to reassure us in the face of judgment. Standing before the Lord, Abraham was prepared for the impending tragedy and was permitted an intimacy in which he seemed possessed by a passion for God’s righteous dealings.

Do not fear the things that are coming, but open to Him who knocks for admission. He has come to spend the dark hours in your fellowship, as a mother runs to her child’s bed when a sudden thunderstorm appears.

May our response to the judgment that is coming on the darkness of the world not be one of fear but of faith that comes from fellowship with the Father. May we not respond with judgment that is not ours to impose. May we respond with compassion to seek out the few who desire deliverance from the darkness as Abraham did for Lot and his family. May we respond with courage to ask the Lord of Judgment to show grace in the midst of it as Abraham did. May we be the ones who extend His arm of rescue to those who desire deliverance. May our focus always be on the one that is prepared to listen rather than the throng that is moving as a mob.

When confronted with the darkness of sin in our culture, let us react with reverence and respond with reason so that it expresses the hope that lies within us, the hope of glory, and the certainty of God’s perfect purpose.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Wednesday, March 12, 2025

There is something comforting about loose-fitting clothes. I used to own a lot of them, but they seem to have all shrunk. One of my favorite sweatshirts was off-white. It was hard for me to keep it clean. Those of you who know me well know that I am usually not allowed to wear white or light colored clothing. It has nothing to do with how it looks on me, it has to do with my sloppiness. Whether it’s eating or just everyday activities, I get things dirty. Not just ordinary dirt, but hard-to-remove stains.

I remember the time I wore it two days in a row and spilled food on it both times. My wife had to wash it several times to get the stains out. In my defense, it’s hard to eat without spilling when laying horizontally in a recliner.

After she got it clean, I wore it the next day and went to the kitchen to prepare supper. You’ve already figured out the rest, right?

As I ate my hamburger plugged with bacon and red peppers, and dipped my crab sticks into melted butter, I suddenly noticed three dark spots on the front of my clean sweatshirt. My wife noticed them as well and reminded me of how hard she had worked to get it clean. I agreed that I would clean it this time.

After I was done eating, and cleaning up the kitchen, I remembered that in the past I used a combination of Dawn dishwashing soap and hydrogen peroxide to remove other stains in my clothes. So I put a few drops on each stain and let it sit while I washed the dishes. A quick spray with the kitchen faucet rinsed the butter and bacon grease right out, and the sweatshirt was perfect again. There was no evidence of a previous stain. I now know the reason why the dishwashing soap is named Dawn. Darkness is gone when dawn arrives.

The prophet Malachi declares that the Lord is coming and when He does He will be like a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s soap.

Malachi 3: 2  “For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap.”

Focus on the soap for a moment. The word fuller’s may be confusing. The basic Hebrew word means washing. The people of these ancient cultures washed their clothes by hand and then laid them out to dry in the fields. That’s where the phrase fuller’s field came from. So the soap that was used for the washing was called fuller’s soap. When someone takes soap and washes something, the expectation is that it will become clean.

That same expectation applies to our spiritual lives. When Jesus Christ comes to wash us with the soap made from His blood, we must expect to be made clean. There is not enough man-made soap in the world to clean the stain of sin from our lives. We have tried. The Lord declared it through the prophet Jeremiah when He said, “Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me, declares the Lord GOD.” (Jeremiah 2:22)

But the Fuller’s Soap washes the stain of sin away, never to be seen again. The blood of Jesus Christ, the eternal soap for the soul, removes the evidence that the stain was ever there. When Dawn arrives, darkness leaves.

We have a choice: live with the stain, or let Jesus remove the stain. But if we choose to let Jesus wash us and remove the stain of our sin, we still have another choice. We can choose to remember that the stain was there and live in fear that we will get stained again, or we can choose to trust the Fuller’s Soap to keep us clean.

As for me, I choose to live by faith in the constant cleansing of the Fuller’s Soap. “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”(1 John 1:7) I do not mean to say that I will carelessly live making a mockery of God’s grace, but that because of my love for Him I will walk in His light, knowing that when I do stain my life with the spill of sin, He never runs out of soap.

In other words, I will keep wearing the sweatshirt, not with the intention of spilling, but knowing that if I do, the stain can be removed. “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end;  they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23)

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Tuesday, March 11, 2024

Noble Doss dropped the ball. One ball. One pass. One mistake. In 1941, he let one fall. And it’s haunted him ever since. “I cost us a national championship,” he says.

The University of Texas football team was ranked number one in the nation. Hoping for an undefeated season and a berth in the Rose Bowl, they played conference rival Baylor University. With a 7-0 lead in the third quarter, the Longhorn quarterback launched a deep pass to a wide-open Doss.

“The only thing I had between me and the goal,” he recalls, “was twenty yards of grass.”

The throw was on target. Longhorn fans rose to their feet. The sure-handed Doss spotted the ball and reached out, but it slipped through his fingers.

Baylor rallied and tied the score with seconds to play. Texas lost their top ranking and, consequently, their chance at the Rose Bowl.

“I think about that play every day,” Doss admits.

Not that he lacks other memories. Happily married for more than six decades. A father. Grandfather. He served in the navy during World War II. He appeared on the cover of Life magazine with his Texas teammates. He intercepted seventeen passes during his collegiate career, a university record. He won two NFL titles with the Philadelphia Eagles. The Texas High School Hall of Fame and the Longhorn Hall of Honor include his name.

Most fans remember the plays Doss made and the passes he caught. Doss remembers the one he missed. Once, upon meeting a new Longhorn head coach, Doss told him about the bobbled ball. It had been fifty years since the game, but he wept as he spoke.

We all live with regrets. The memories of past failures and hurts haunt us. We spend a great amount of time and energy trying to right the wrongs in an attempt to heal the wounds. We sometimes seek revenge against the ones who hurt us.

Such was the case in Israel at the beginning of the reign of King Saul. Some men, described in the tenth chapter of First Samuel as worthless men, tried to discredit Saul and keep him from being honored as King. They spread the word that Saul was incapable of leading the nation and bringing victory against their enemies.

On another front, the Ammonites were invading part of Israel’s land and making frightening threats about gouging out eyes. When Saul got word about it, he rallied the people of Israel, and under the power of the Holy Spirit of God he came with an army of men and wiped out the Ammonites.

During the victory celebration people started to demand justice against the worthless men who had dishonored King Saul. They fully expected that their king would respond according to the flesh and want to make a public spectacle of these guys who had been so wrong. Who wouldn’t want to set the record straight?

But King Saul, with the wisdom of God, said, “Not a man shall be put to death this day, for today the LORD has worked salvation in Israel.” The past didn’t matter. What mattered is what God was doing in the present and what He had planned for the future.

The Apostle Paul understood this truth when he wrote in Philippians 3, “But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,  I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.  Let those of us who are mature think this way…”

We all have multiple memories of past hurts and failures. Do not let them define you or consume you. Bury them under the present Presence of Jesus Christ in your life. Do not spend time focused on death when you are the possessor of eternal life. Release the hurt and let it go for good. Embrace what Jesus is doing today.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Monday, March 10, 2025

Psalm 149:4  “For the LORD takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with salvation.”

We are surrounded by constant messages to be beautiful and good-looking. Every day we are bombarded with the lure of gym memberships, exercise programs, diets, and even pills, all promising that if we just looked better we would feel better about who we are and have a happier life.

Did you know that in 2009,  45.5 million people in America had a gym membership and spent 20 billion dollars on them. But here’s the real shocker – according to StatisticBrain.com only 33% of the people who had memberships actually went to the gym.

You see, we all want to look better, but two things keep us from getting there. Maybe we don’t want to do the work it takes to have that picture perfect body, or maybe after all the work we’ve discovered that it didn’t really change the quality of happiness in our lives. I think down underneath we all know that happiness doesn’t really come from how we look. If it did, we wouldn’t see so many beautiful people in so much trouble and even ending their own lives.

I came across a quote that stuck out to me. It’s from the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote – “There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us.”

But there can be no wish to scatter joy if we do not have any joy. So where does the joy come from so that we can scatter it to others and thereby be made beautiful?

First, we must understand that human existence in sin is the great joy killer because it is downright ugly. I mean hideously ugly. Repulsively ugly. Yet we have embraced it because we have been lied to by the enemy of our souls and told that it’s really kind of pretty. We have declared what is ugly to be beautiful in an attempt to make ourselves appear beautiful.

The truth is that we haven’t change our appearance one bit. In fact, it has made us uglier than ever. Every chance we get we step on our neighbors, co-workers, and friends to move ahead of them, believing that this gives us more value. We lie, cheat, and steal to fluff up our own financial pillow thinking that when we lay our head on it we will have peace. We are dreadfully ugly.

It is only when sin is conquered that beauty can be exposed. Beauty can’t be seen in the dark. Only when the light – the True Light of God’s salvation – shines on us will the beauty of life be seen. Only in the joy of the Lord can we find the strength for each day.

“And do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10) 

“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Psalm 16:11)

The reason for such joy is that when we renounce sin and its lies, the Lord takes pleasure in us and adorns us with salvation. (Psalm 149:4) We are made beautiful in Christ. In God’s eyes, every one of us who is covered in the blood of Jesus is eternally beautiful.

Sounds freaky, doesn’t it. People who cover their sin with cultural beauty remain ugly, but those who cover themselves in blood – Christ’s blood – are transformed into the most beautiful of all beings. The joy of our salvation is the Great Beautifier.

And when we spread that joy to others, we become beautiful to people as well, not just to God. This is what I take from what Emerson said: by spreading joy and not pain we become beautiful in complexion, form, and behavior.

Today, let people see the beauty of Jesus in you, and they will call you beautiful too.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Friday, March 7, 2025

Here’s a thought.  “Light is invisible. We only see its effects.”

For you brilliant scientists out there, I’m sure you have a way of explaining light so that it makes sense to a person of average intelligence like me. But I have some questions.

Why is space dark?

Why in a dark room, when I shine a pinpoint-focused flashlight against the wall, do I see only the spot on the wall and the area between the light and the wall remains dark?

Or why can I see a spotlight shining on a person on stage but the area between the source of the light and the person remains dark unless there’s something in the air to reflect the light waves?

Is it possible that light, in whatever form it travels, as waves or electromagnetic radiation, is invisible in its nature and only visible when absorbed or reflected by another object?

Here’s the spiritual application that God is clarifying for me. Follow these simple thoughts.

The Bible says God is Light.

The Bible says no one can look upon God and live.

Therefore, pure light is invisible to the human eye.

We can only see light at its source and the effects of light on the objects it touches.

Jesus, who is God, came into the world as the Source of Light for the world, and unless we look at Him we are in darkness.

John 1:4  “In [Jesus] was life, and the life was the light of men.”

John 8:12  “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

John 9:5  “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

John 12:46 “I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.”

We can see the reality of Jesus by looking at the people whose lives are being influenced by His light.

Jesus chose us, His followers, to be the objects that have absorbed the Light so that we can become light to those around us.

1 Thessalonians 5:5  “For you are all children of light, children of the day.”

Ephesians 5:7-8 “Therefore do not become partners with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.”

The world is in grave darkness. We are the Light the world needs. Jesus said, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16) And the Apostle Paul said  in Philippians 2:15 that we are to be “blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.”

We are the ones God has chosen to bring clarity to what is invisible. Shine brightly my friend.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Thursday, March 6, 2025

2 Samuel 15:15  And the king’s servants said to the king, “Behold, your servants are ready to do whatever my lord the king decides.”

One morning several years ago I discovered a poem by A. L. Waring in my files. It was from a devotional by Frances Havergal that I had started reading.

I love to think that God appoints
My portion day by day;
Events of life are in His hand,
And I would only say,
Appoint them in Thine own good time,
And in Thine own best way..

Before I could read more of the devotional I was distracted by my computer alert which dinged to say someone had posted something new to Facebook. Of course I had to go look. It was someone who was asking for help. Her son needed a ride to school because her husband had accidently taken her car keys to work with him. They lived in the area of our church where I was in my office. I immediately responded that I could be there to do that right after I finished my devotions.

God’s appointments require man’s availability.

I returned to the devotions and read this from Frances in her old English style.

“If we are really, and always, and equally ready to do whatsoever the King appoints, all the trials and vexations arising from any change in His appointments, great or small, simply do not exist. If He appoints me to work there, shall I lament that I am not to work here? If He appoints me to wait in-doors to-day, am I to be annoyed because I am not to work out-of-doors? If I meant to write His messages this morning, shall I grumble because He sends interrupting visitors, rich or poor, to whom I am to speak the message, or “show kindness” for His sake, or at least obey His command, “Be courteous?” If all my members are really at His disposal, why should I be put out if to-day’s appointment is some simple work for my hands or errands for my feet, instead of some seemingly more important doing of head or tongue?”

Let me ask you – Are you, as His servant, ready at any time to do whatever He asks?

God’s appointments require man’s availability.

Pastor John

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/confidence/id1559931973?i=1000697857897