LifeLink Devotions

Wednesday, November 8, 2023

Have you ever read something from God’s Sacred Word and have it so overwhelm you that you struggle to find words to express what is happening in your heart? That’s me right now. So, all I can do is tell you about it and let the Holy Spirit do the same for you as He needs to.

I sat down at my desk and opened my Bible to Isaiah 57 to continue my study of this prophetic book. I got into my devotional vehicle (ask me about this if you don’t know what I mean) and I started my morning journey at verse 14 where I had parked yesterday.

“And it will be said: “Build up, build up, prepare the road! Remove the obstacles out of the way of my people.”  For this is what the high and lofty One says— he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.” Isaiah 57:14-15

I slammed on the brakes. I put the car into reverse. I backed all the way up to verse seven.

“You have made your bed on a high and lofty hill; there you went up to offer your sacrifices.”

There it was. I thought I had seen it when I had traveled that way before. My pride is an obstacle to the work of the Lord in my life. I have been pursuing a high and lofty hill in opposition to the One who is High and Lofty.

I spent a few moments considering the ways I continue to offer sacrifices to the god of self-fulfillment.

I put the car back in drive and moved forward again to verse fifteen. I slammed on the brakes again.

“I live in a high and holy place…”

God lives in a high and holy place, not on a hill. Holy means set apart. I can’t reach Him. No matter how hard I try or how high I climb, I can’t get to His place.

Carefully I took my foot off the brake and proceeded.

“…but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit.”

From His high and lofty place, the High and Holy One has come down to me! I could not get to Him by going up to a high and lofty place, but He would come to me if I went down to a place of humility. The lower into the dust of contriteness I go the more accessible I become to the High and Holy One.

I think I will park here for a while and enjoy His presence.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions

Tuesday, November 7, 2023

As I read through Isaiah 57:3-13, I was personally convicted by verse 12.

Isaiah 57:12  “I will expose your righteousness and your works, and they will not benefit you.”

As a result, I was inspired to put down my thoughts in the form of poetry. I know I am not nearly the poet that some of you are, especially my friend Linn, but I trust what I wrote will touch your heart and move you towards a deeper understanding of trusting God.

I sit and ponder, at the break of day,

            How much of life is lived my way.

Choices are made that bring me rewards;

            People are hurt by my sneers and my words.

The lust of the flesh and a life of pride,

            Are waging a war with the Spirit inside.

It’s easy to worship the world and its things,

            Seeking contentment in sin’s offerings.

Hiding in secret the things that bring shame,

            Rejecting the honor that’s due to Your Name.

My sin saps my strength and makes me so weary,

            But still I am not repentantly teary.

I find worldly ways to get my strength back,

            Without bended knee I’m back on my track.

In fear of rejection I’ve chosen this course,

            Seeking man’s approval to cover my remorse.

It doesn’t make sense, but it seems to be true,

             That I fear man’s responses more than You.

Expose all the ways that I seek good to do,

            While knowing full well it’s for me and not You. 

Teach me that my ways will bring no return,

            See that for You does my heart truly yearn.

After all has been said, I choose this today,

            To make You my refuge, to live in Your way.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions

Monday, November 6, 2023

There’s something about a full moon.  The last one we just had was magnificent, probably because I saw it from my tree stand. It was literally possible to drive the car without headlights on. I was amazed again at how God created a lifeless orb of rock that could reflect light so brilliantly. It has no light within itself. It only reflects the light it receives from the sun. God placed it in the perfect position to reflect just the right amount of light. 

Night has fallen upon our world. It is morally dark. Isaiah describes the condition in verses ten through twelve of chapter fifty-six.

• Israel’s watchmen are blind, they all lack knowledge;
• they are all mute dogs, they cannot bark;
• they lie around and dream, they love to sleep.
• They are dogs with mighty appetites; they never have enough.
• They are shepherds who lack understanding; they all turn to their own way, each seeks his own gain.
• “Come,” each one cries, “let me get wine! Let us drink our fill of beer! And tomorrow will be like today, or even far better.”

Maybe before we go on we should take a moment and review that list, and prayerfully consider under the influence of the Holy Spirit which of those things might be true of our own hearts. Please do that. You see, we are God’s watchmen of our day. We do not want the darkness to invade us. Don’t read on until you have sought the Lord on each of these items…………………………………………………..

Now, having dealt with the darkness in our own hearts, we are prepared to penetrate the darkness around us. I’m sure the Holy Spirit has already shown you the application. God created us in Christ Jesus to be the reflection of His Light to the world around us. We have been placed in the perfect position in relationship to the world so that we bring the light of the Son to those in darkness.

But unlike the moon, we are not mere reflectors of the Light – we are the Light. We have the Son that the world needs to see. Jesus, the Light of the world, lives in us. The issue we must deal with is why the Light doesn’t shine better. We seem to be stuck in the new moon phase of life when the world needs us to be in full moon phase. We are participating in the darkness rather than illuminating it.

The solution is simple – “Lord Jesus, illuminate me!  I turn my face towards you so that I am no longer in the shadow of the world. Then will you be able to use me to illuminate the darkness around me.”

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions

Friday, November 3, 2023

Prior to any of my international mission trips, I meet with the travel nurse at my medical clinic. It is necessary to review my inoculation records so that I will be sufficiently protected from any potential tropical disease to which I might be exposed. We look at maps that display the regional diseases and discussed the exact itinerary of my trip. After careful consideration of the risks, vaccines are chosen and I get inoculated. Some of them require a second dose, and one requires a third dose. The third dose makes it permanent soi I never have to be inoculated for that disease again.

There is much debate in our day about the value of vaccines. I can see where that same debate takes place in our spiritual lives. One such debate is addressed in Isaiah 56:6-7.

Isaiah 56:6-7 “And foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD to serve him, to love the name of the LORD, and to worship him, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant—these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”

In this encouraging chapter of hope, God is informing those who are on the outside that they will be fully accepted into the Kingdom of the Messiah with full benefits. Those who had been excluded will now be included. In the past they had felt like sub-standard people who weren’t good enough to be invited to an exclusive club. They saw the power and provision of the One True God but had no access to Him. They had been left without hope and without joy.

Suddenly word comes down from the CEO that the membership policy has been revised so that now anyone was welcome. I imagine that when God invited all the excluded to be included in His Kingdom with full benefits that there was some enthusiasm. The house of God was being opened to everyone, regardless of race, creed, nationality, political preference, financial status, or physical disability. The weak, the hurting, the guilty, and the untouchable would have equal access to the altar of God. Their hopelessness would be replaced with joy.

JOY! That inner peace and contentment of knowing that regardless of our circumstances or feelings, our Sovereign God is working out His eternal purpose independent of us, yet beneficial to us. JOY! That inexpressible quality that supersedes the feeling of happiness because it is not based on what is happening but rather on what has happened when we were welcomed into the House of God. JOY! It is “peace dancing in our lives.” (F.B. Meyer)

But here’s the hard part – at least it’s hard from the standpoint of maintaining the dedication needed to experiencing joy. God connects joy with prayer. Outsiders will be granted joy not just by having access to the House of God, but to the house of prayer. God declares that His house will be a house of prayer. That’s the vaccine. If we want to be inoculated against hopelessness and despair, we must be determined to pray. If we will avoid the downfalls of discouragement, we must pray. If we are to overcome the deepening feelings of fear based on the political and social condition of the world, we must pray. Prayer is the vaccine against all the diseases of the heart and mind that destroy joy.

But in our minds, we debate the need for prayer. We turn to our own remedies first. We consider the risks of prayer and let them influence us: risks like time commitment that will affect our schedule of events, or the hurtful words of others who will accuse us of being overly spiritual when they see the power of God being lived out in our lives. So powerful are those arguments in the hands of our enemy that we dare to even consider not being inoculated. We even ask why joy is really all that big of a deal. Really?

Today, I cry out to my Lord – “Inoculate Me!” In response, God says “Come into my clinic. You will recognize it by the sign out front. It says, House of Prayer.”     

Pastor John  

LifeLink Devotions

Thursday, November 2, 2023

Who am I?

That question plagues people. We have tried to answer it in a variety of humanistic ways, none of which has succeeded nor satisfies. We may think that educational success will identify us as a genius. We may believe that advancement in the work sector will identify us as professionals. We have been led to believe that financial security identifies us as successful. We try to be humorous, believing that will identify us as popular. We labor intensely to become accepted by others so that we might identify ourselves as worthy. We spend hours developing our skill at a sport so that we might be identified as a hero. We have granted permission to people and to our performance to identify us as valuable.

That, my friend, is why our lives are broken. But God has a wonderful plan for the restoration of broken lives. It is pictured in Isaiah 56 as God proclaims His promises to the broken-down nation of Israel. Go back and review:

In verses 1-2, the first step in the plan is to be changed. Then, in verse 3, we are accepted and included in God’s family. Then finally, in verses 4-5, we are given a permanent identity.

Isaiah 56:4-5 “For this is what the LORD says: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant—⁵to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off.”

Here’s some background information. God is speaking directly to eunuchs. A eunuch was a slave or captive that had been castrated for two primary reasons. First, it would make them less manly, thereby making them more manageable servants. Second, it would keep them from ever procreating and becoming a threat.

The practice was so detestable to God that there were laws implemented in the Jewish nation concerning it. The law excluded eunuchs from public worship, partly because mutilation was often performed in honor of a heathen god, and partly because a maimed creature of any sort was deemed unfit for the service of YHWH. Yet during the reign of the kings of Israel there were eunuchs in the nation that served in the palace. However, no eunuch was ever able to worship in the temple, nor were they allowed to own land or inherit property. They had no identity with the nation in which they served.

It is to these men of no importance or identity that God comes in Isaiah 56 and says, “I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off.” WOW! That overwhelms me. Not only does God give these broken-down men a name, but He elevates them to a position that is better than a son or a daughter. He gives them an eternal identity that will never be cut off (Note the play on words).

Doesn’t that restore your hope? Can you now see what grace does? No matter how broken your life; no matter how mutilated your name is; no matter how cut off you seem to be from the rest of humanity; God will give you an eternal identity.

No longer will you have to depend on people or performance to identify you. No longer will you need to ask the question, “Who am I?” Let God tell you who you are. And if you want to know who God says you are if you are in Christ, check this out:

WHO I AM IN CHRIST

I am accepted…
John 1:12 I am God’s child.
John 15:15 As a disciple, I am a friend of Jesus Christ.
Romans 5:1 I have been justified.
1 Corinthians 6:17 I am united with the Lord, and I am one with Him in spirit.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 I have been bought with a price and I belong to God.
1 Corinthians 12:27 I am a member of Christ’s body.
Ephesians 1:3-8 I have been chosen by God and adopted as His child.
Colossians 1:13-14 I have been redeemed and forgiven of all my sins.
Colossians 2:9-10 I am complete in Christ.
Hebrews 4:14-16 I have direct access to the throne of grace through Jesus Christ.

I am secure…
Romans 8:1-2 I am free from condemnation.
Romans 8:28 I am assured that God works for my good in all circumstances.
Romans 8:31-39 I am free from any condemnation brought against me and I cannot be separated from the love of God.
2 Corinthians 1:21-22 I have been established, anointed and sealed by God.
Colossians 3:1-4 I am hidden with Christ in God.
Philippians 1:6 I am confident that God will complete the good work He started in me.
Philippians 3:20 I am a citizen of heaven.
2 Timothy 1:7 I have not been given a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind.
1 John 5:18 I am born of God and the evil one cannot touch me.

I am significant…
John 15:5 I am a branch of Jesus Christ, the true vine, and a channel of His life.
John 15:16 I have been chosen and appointed to bear fruit.
1 Corinthians 3:16 I am God’s temple.
2 Corinthians 5:17-21 I am a minister of reconciliation for God.
Ephesians 2:6 I am seated with Jesus Christ in the heavenly realm.
Ephesians 2:10 I am God’s workmanship.
Ephesians 3:12 I may approach God with freedom and confidence.
Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions

Wednesday, November 1, 2023

Isaiah 56:3 “Let no foreigner who has bound himself to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely exclude me from his people.” And let not any eunuch complain, “I am only a dry tree.”

My story is not unique. It’s painful for me, just as yours is for you, and it is a pain that must be resolved because ultimately, it’s a lie. The pain comes from the belief that we never fit in. That pain is magnified by combining it with circumstances that we choose to validate the feeling. My circumstances easily validated my pain. I never had a town that I called home. I never had a friendship that lasted more than 5 years because we moved often. Every time we moved, I had to try to fit into a new culture and social context. I chose to believe that I was unaccepted and worthy of it. I chose strange behaviors to compensate, which only made it worse. My wife can verify the reality of my self-destructive behavior. I really believed I didn’t fit in.

We long for someone to accept us. We crave being included. We fear being told we are not welcome. It is so powerful in us that we begin to perceive every word and action of others as a statement of their unwillingness to make us their equal. It becomes a destructive thought pattern.

God knows that about us. When He created Adam and Eve, He perfectly accepted them. But then the Enemy of God and His creation entered the scene and convinced those first two humans that God didn’t really accept them because He was holding out on them. There was something He didn’t want them to know, and if that was true then they weren’t fully accepted. They believed the lie, and we do too. We believe it about our friends. We believe it about our family. We believe it about our boss or our co-workers. We even believe it about our church family and our pastor. Pastors even believe it about their congregations. We believe that we don’t fit in and will never really be accepted.

Read these words of the Lord carefully.

Isaiah 56:3 “Let no foreigner who has bound himself to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely exclude me from his people.” And let not any eunuch complain, “I am only a dry tree.”

God declared that when His salvation appears and His righteousness is revealed, all the people of the world could find a place of acceptance. It would not matter if someone was a foreigner or a slave, they would be given an equal place in the Kingdom. Acceptance in God’s Kingdom would not be based on one’s nationality, one’s gender, one’s abilities, or one’s heritage, but rather on one’s acceptance of God’s covenant.

If you are feeling like you don’t fit in anywhere, then the truth of Isaiah 56 is for you. It is time to stop living your life as a response to a lie, and time to start living in response to God’s love. If you read the following Scripture carefully and honestly, you just may discover, as I have, the great truth of God’s grace – we are accepted. When we cry out to God and say, “Include me!”, He does. Hallelujah.

Isaiah 56:3-8 (NLT)

“And my blessings are for Gentiles, too, when they commit themselves to the LORD. Do not let them think that I consider them second-class citizens. And my blessings are also for the eunuchs. They are as much mine as anyone else. ⁴For I say this to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbath days holy, who choose to do what pleases me and commit their lives to me: ⁵I will give them—in my house, within my walls—a memorial and a name far greater than the honor they would have received by having sons and daughters. For the name I give them is an everlasting one. It will never disappear! ⁶“I will also bless the Gentiles who commit themselves to the LORD and serve him and love his name, who worship him and do not desecrate the Sabbath day of rest, and who have accepted his covenant. ⁷I will bring them also to my holy mountain of Jerusalem and will fill them with joy in my house of prayer. I will accept their burnt offerings and sacrifices, because my Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations. ⁸For the Sovereign LORD, who brings back the outcasts of Israel, says: I will bring others, too, besides my people Israel.”

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Isaiah 56:1 “This is what the LORD says: “Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand and my righteousness will soon be revealed.”

Vacations are good for a lot of reasons, but for me the greatest benefit to a trip away from normal life is that the Lord gets more of my attention. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is. Staying busy with all our stuff and our agendas is one of the symptoms of the disease that has invaded our spiritual lives. We know the symptoms exist, and we can even identify them, but we are in denial about the disease that causes them. The disease is humanism.

That’s right, we Christians, who are to be followers of Christ, are much of the time followers of self. We have chosen a humanistic approach to life, to goals, to success, to decision-making, to everything, and then to attempt to satisfy the longing of our soul we have wrongly added what we call faith in God to it all. We have made a religious choice that we think complements our humanistic choices, when we should be destroying all dependence upon the flesh and living continually in the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

What do we think Jesus meant when He said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life  will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?”

Deny yourself. Lose your life. Those are the things that mark a follower. But for some reason we have assumed a right of leadership not granted by God. We have arrogantly and probably ignorantly decided to ask God to fulfill our wishes and desires. We have become the leader of God rather than the follower of Christ.

What we don’t understand is that God will not be led. Instead, He lets us go ahead, but all on our own. Oh, He never forsakes us, and never really leaves us, but He stops listening to our demands for what we want. He stops providing fixes for our failures. In His jealous love for us He allows us to fall on our humanistic faces, so we are in the proper position to pick up a cross.

But even when we are on our faces, we tend to justify how we got there, and we develop plans for how we are going to get up. We make resolutions to save more, spend less, eat less, and exercise more. We make commitments to watch television less, study more, pray more, and sin less. But far too often those resolutions are prescriptions we choose to take to relieve the symptoms when we have done nothing to cure the disease.

The only cure for the disease of humanism is death – spiritual death. The right to self-government of our lives must die. The right to fleshly fulfillment must die. The right to social success must die. The right to financial security must die. In other words, the right to our own rights must die.

Only in death can there be life. We have done our best to try to prove that wrong. We have tried to add life to death. We have attempted to bring eternal life into the context of our humanism and call it salvation, which denies the resurrection power of Jesus Christ. How can we know His resurrection power if we do not die? But we try. To admit it doesn’t work is to admit human failure and to de-value our lives, neither of which is acceptable to modern man’s philosophy of self-worth.

It is only at the point of death to self that the life of Jesus can be experienced. Many of you know that and are living that way. But maybe we have lost or minimized our first love for God’s incredible grace. We have, whether in a few or in many areas, replaced it with love for humanistic pursuits.

Today begins a new adventure of denial of self. We need help from God. We need to help each other. When I am guilty of exalting self rather than denying self, tell me. Do it with love and a humble heart that recognizes that you may be doing the same thing in some area of your life. Together we will die to self and be transformed by the renewing of our minds so we can prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. (Romans 12:1-2)

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions

Monday, October 30, 2023

I know I often use sports analogies, but I must do this because it is a good illustration of the truth God has placed in my heart this morning.

In my closet are several articles of clothing that represent the football team I support. Now for those of you with humorous minds, I know what you are thinking. “And that’s where they should stay.” But I don’t have them to hide them. I wear them. In fact, it is so well known that I am a fan of this team that even when I wear that color of clothing without any reference to the team on it, people make comments about my team. It happened one Sunday at church when I wore a purple sweater.

In the past few years, when another team that is popular in this area has played for the championship, I have supported my friends by wearing the colors of their team. One year I even wore an official team jersey of that color to a church event. The people who saw me when I came in with that jersey on were shocked. They were confused. They knew that I was taking a stand for something that I had never supported before. I felt out of place. It was awkward. They had no reason to believe that I was being sincere, for there had been no past experience upon which they could base their trust.

Isaiah 56:1 “This is what the LORD says: “Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand and my righteousness will soon be revealed.”

Soon and very soon the Salvation of the Lord will be upon the earth. Soon God’s righteousness will be revealed by the Righteous One appearing on the earth to establish His kingdom. It will be a kingdom ruled with justice and perfect righteousness. The weak will be made strong. The poor will have all their needs met. Victims will cease to be victimized and every act of sin will be exposed. Hate will disappear in the presence of perfect Love.

When all this happens, what will the people of the world say about you and me?

• Will they know that we have been consistent supporters of God’s kingdom?
• Will they recognize the banners now flying over the earth because they have seen us wearing the same colors proudly every day?
• Will they be thankful for the foundation that we laid in their lives and in our culture that prepared the way for the King to take His throne?
• Or will they wonder with good reason why at the last minute it appears we are switching teams?

Think on these things.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions

Friday, October 27, 2023

I am in awe of the immensity of God. Never mind that in my mind I know the fact that He is limitless – today my heart has captured it in a fresh way.

I saw this picture in an old National Geographic magazine while in a local waiting room.

This is a centuries-old supernova remnant. Its rose-tinted shock wave is blasting outward at more than 11 million miles an hour. It hangs in the Large Magellanic Cloud orbiting the Milky Way like an iridescent holiday ornament.

When I read the description of this picture and saw that for several hundred years the shock wave of this exploding star has been travelling at 11 million miles an hour I was blown away. My mind cannot comprehend how big the universe is that God created, and He holds it all in the palm of His hand.

For example, let’s just randomly assign an explosion time of 200 years ago; it could be older than that. With 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year multiplied by 200 years we get one million seven hundred fifty two thousand hours. That means the rose-tinted ring has already traveled over 19 trillion miles. Yet when you look at the picture, the ring has not yet reached the nearest neighbor stars. The heavens truly declare the glory of the Lord.

This is significant today as we consider the closing verses of Isaiah fifty-five. They put a cap on several chapters of Messianic promises concerning the restoration of Jerusalem after its abandonment and destruction caused by the people’s sins which led them into captivity.

Isaiah 55:12-13 “You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.  Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the LORD’S renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed.”

God says that the day is coming when the people will return to the city in renewed glory, and when they do they will go out in joy be led forth in peace. Everything in nature will burst forth into praise to the Lord, and what had once been a land filled with thorns and thistles will now be a land of productivity and promise.

As I thought about that, and looked at the picture again, I realized that the thorns and thistles of my life that are so burdensome to me are less than specks to an awesome God who holds the universe in His hands. The problems of my life are not worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed in me when Jesus returns. We have the certain hope – the guarantee of God – that everything we consider hardship right now will be replaced with joy and peace when God finishes His work in us.

Just think – God’s Star exploded on earth 2000 years ago. The shockwave of His glory is filling the earth. You can see it. You can know it. You can live in it. Let everything in your life come under its influence. Don’t let the thorns and thistles speak. Instead, let every part of your life burst into song – “Joy to the world, the Lord has come!” After all, God is bigger than any problem you have.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions

Thursday, October 26, 2023

Even when it’s not raining, we tend to carry umbrellas.

The reason we carry an umbrella when it’s raining is so that we won’t get wet. We have big ones attached to our golf bags and little ones stashed in the pocket on the inside of our car door. We have them leaning against the wall next to the door of our house, and we even carry built in umbrellas called hoods attached to the collar of our jacket. We don’t want to get wet. Wet is uncomfortable. Wet is cold. We want to stay dry and warm. Hooray for umbrellas!!!

Unfortunately, we have carried our love of umbrellas into the spiritual realm. You see, just as it is impossible to not get wet when you stand unprotected in the rain, it is equally impossible to not get wet when exposed to the Word of God. But that makes us uncomfortable, so we put up our spiritual umbrellas.

We sit in church listening to the message from the Lord, and whenever the Word of God make us uncomfortable, we pop up an invisible yet very real umbrella to protect us from the conviction.

We put up umbrellas of many styles and colors, representing a variety of personal interests and objectives, but they all have the same purpose – to keep us dry and comfortable in our present little world of experience. We have them stored all over our lives, so that at any moment we can pop one up to protect us from any rain that might fall. Every umbrella is designed to distract us from the reality of the rain that is falling around us. Up it goes and off we go into our own little thought world of self-indulgence, seemingly protected from the shivers of self-examination.

Yet the benefit we think we are receiving by staying dry is leading to our demise. The shivers we are avoiding are making us shrivel. It is when we get wet that we flourish. It is the rain of God’s Word that produces fruit. When we are saturated with the rain of God’s truth we are able to see God accomplish His purpose in us.

Isaiah 55:10-11 “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

We are stained people. Stained with sin. We must get wet to be washed. That is why Jesus came to earth, to wash us in the water of God’s Word. He uses the Apostle Paul to tell us that in Ephesians 5, where God says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing  her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”

You and I cannot be holy, stainless, unwrinkled, and blameless if we don’t let ourselves get wet. We must take down our umbrellas and let the water of the Word wash us. Every stain needs a good soaking. Every protective covering we have put on or put up to shield us from the rain of God’s Word must be removed. We must do what little children do when it rains – take off all our clothes and run naked in it, letting it soak every part of us. Our shields – our umbrellas – will never do what God’s Word can do. As Agur, the author of Proverbs 30:5 says, “Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.”

Years ago there was a dear old saint who came to me consistently after worship and shook my hand. As she did, she said these words – “Thank you for washing me in the Word today.”

She had no umbrellas. She was ready for rain.

Pastor John