Tag Archives: faith

WHAT DOES REAL STRENGTH LOOK LIKE?

Posted on by
Reply

LifeLink Devotions for Monday, November 11, 2024

Recently I did a bunch of walking as I scouted some hunting land for the perfect place to see deer. The next day my leg muscles were sore, and my shoulders were aching from carrying all my gear. It’s hard getting old, but I know if I worked out harder and more frequently I would see some improvement.   

Moses and the people of Israel have had many opportunities to see improvement in the strength of their faith. They have seen the strength of the Lord during their deliverance from Egypt. His power was displayed in the plaques against Pharaoh, in the parting of the Red Sea, and in the miracles of provision in the desert. Now Moses is asking for a display of God’s real strength, and his request teaches us an important lesson about what we should consider the strengths of our own lives.

Numbers 14:17-18a  “Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed, just as you have declared: ‘The LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion.’”

When Moses asks God to display His strength, it is in the context of human rebellion. The people are refusing to walk by faith and take possession of the Promised Land. Moses knows God has the right and the power to destroy them and start over with a faithful few. So he intervenes on behalf of the people and says, “God, I know you are powerful enough to destroy sinners and their sin, but let the real strength of Your character be displayed by loving the sinners and forgiving them.”

I am deeply challenged by this. I find it easy to define strength in human terms, which are primarily physical. I also find it easy to define my responses and reactions to situations as strength because of my ability to accomplish the desired outcome.  

But there is a level of strength that is modeled by God in His everyday responses to our human behavior. It is to be the model for our growing faith and character as well, and it involves three things:

1.      God is slow to anger. His patience with people’s failures and inconsistencies is incredible, and because of that we survive each day. Maybe there are those around us who need a chance to survive another day.

2.      God abounds in love. He never stops doing what is best for others, even when they don’t deserve it. It is not a true act of love if it is earned. Maybe there are others around us who need to see real love.

3.      God forgives sin. Moses asked for forgiveness on behalf of the people. They did not realize they even needed it. They were so blinded by their sin that they thought they were right. God forgave them anyway. Maybe there are those around us who need a gift of grace – an act of forgiveness – even though they have not asked for it.

My friends, how do you measure your strength? God’s strength was displayed in its highest form by these three characteristics. May that be how we display ours.

Pastor John

ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

Posted on by
Reply

LifeLink Devotions for Thursday, November 7, 2024

 It is time for the Israelites to take their next step of faith and enter the Promised Land. But there’s another lesson of faith they must learn. There is a constant conflict between faith and human nature. Moses had learned some great lessons about trusting and obeying God. His faith was strong, but it was not yet a complete faith in God’s Word. We know from reading the rest of the story in Numbers 14 that he believed that God would take them into the Promised Land, but his human nature got in the way of taking a true faith-based step of obedience in this case. The sending of the spies was not the problem: it was the instructions to the spies that were wrong.

Numbers 13:1-2, 17-20  The LORD said to Moses, “Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe send one of its leaders.” When Moses sent them to explore Canaan, he said, “Go up through the Negev and on into the hill country. See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many. What kind of land do they live in? Is it good or bad? What kind of towns do they live in? Are they unwalled or fortified? How is the soil? Is it fertile or poor? Are there trees on it or not? Do your best to bring back some of the fruit of the land.”

God had promised that He was giving this land to the Israelites. His instructions to Moses were specific and simple – send some men to explore the land. At this point Moses had two options for the purpose of this mission. First, it could have been a mission of military strategy to find out the best possible route to go in and conquer the land. That would have been the faith-based purpose. It would have been the positive-minded purpose. The spies could have been sent with a conqueror’s mentality based on their faith in the promise of God.

But that’s not how they were sent. Moses chose the second option that was available to him. It is the option of human nature and the one we most often choose when confronted with a step of faith. Moses chose to send in the spies with a series of irrelevant questions to be answered that could only be an indication of his own uncertainty. If Moses truly believed that God would give them the land, then what is the relevance of what kind of land it was, or how productive the land was, or how big and strong the people were, or how fortified were their cities? Why did Moses need answers to these questions?

I think it’s for the same reason we ask questions when God gives us commands – we want to know more details to determine our willingness to obey. We want to know if obedience will put us at risk in any way. We want to see some of the fruit of obedience before we choose to obey. When God says, “Go through that door,” we want to open the door just a crack and look inside before we say, “I’ll go.”

Moses laid the groundwork for failure by giving the spies the wrong instructions. As we said before, in the rest of the story Moses is commended along with Aaron, Caleb, and Joshua for being the ones who wanted to obey, but Moses still had something to learn about how to obey. Obedience is not conditional on the outcome, benefits, or risk. Obedience is the product of a mature faith that totally and unconditionally trusts the word of God. When we add our human reasoning to God’s direction we are setting the stage for failure. 

Let’s learn from this and apply it to the current situations and directions that God is giving us. Stand strong in faith on the promises of God, and let’s get going!

Pastor John

RESIST THE RABBLE

Posted on by
Reply

LifeLink Devotions for Friday, November 1, 2024

It has been a year since the Lord delivered the Israelites from Egypt, and the people have been commended for their growth and dedication to God. They have learned some valuable spiritual lessons and have started to understand the awesome nature of their God. They had been camped in one place for a while, and the security of that place gave them comfort and peace. But when God rises up and begins to move them again, they return to their discontent. You can read the whole story in Numbers chapter eleven. Here’s a sample of what happened.

“Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the LORD, and when he heard them his anger was aroused…The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing…” 

Why are we so prone to complaining? There are a couple of reasons. First, it is our human nature to get comfortable with the immediate and to lose sight of the goal. How many times have you gone on a long family vacation with a destination in mind, only to find that along the way you grow physically weary and emotionally worn and wish you could turn around and go back home? This is what was happening to the Israelites. The inconveniences of packing and the hardships of traveling became the focus of the immediate and they forgot to look at the finish line. Let’s be careful in our lives that we have not allowed the comforts and security of our present situations to keep us from moving forward when God rises up and leads us on an exciting adventure to a promised land.

Second, we are told specifically that much of the complaining was a peer-pressured response to the outsiders that were among them. Moses specifically calls them rabble, and the word literally means a promiscuous assemblage of people. These people that traveled with the Israelites were from various races and backgrounds and had escaped Egypt with Moses. They were not in tune with the Lord God and were not committed to Him. They were on the fringes. They only wanted the personal benefits that seemed to be available from following God. When those benefits did not meet their personal standards, they complained, and the Israelites joined with them.

What a sad picture of today’s church: so many people simply attend for the personal benefits they can receive. People show up in church because they have a need to be met. People make a verbal commitment and even volunteer for service just so they can continue to use the church for personal gain. These people are the first ones to complain when things don’t go their way, and their attitude is highly contagious. I have seen Godly saints drawn into the web of wailing because they have allowed the influence of rabble to become important to them. I have heard long-time faithful followers of God begin to reflect on the way things used to be and wish they could go back because the past has been romanticized, the present is being criticized, and the future is minimized. This is the cycle of death for a church and for an individual.

This cycle seems to start, in most cases, with an outside influence of sin and faithlessness. We must always be on our guard and protect ourselves and our churches from this rabble. Do not allow the influence of popular opinion and worldly culture to diminish our faith in the Person, plan, and provision of the One True God. Yes, it will be hard, and increasingly so as the world continues to reject the ways of God. We will be persecuted for our stand against sin when the world no longer defines their behavior and choices as sin. It will become hard for us to keep our eyes on the goal of finishing the race.  But finish we will and we will finish well. We will be faithful and true. We will remain pure and holy. We will be the worthy vessels of God’s glory, made worthy by the blood of the Lamb. To Him be glory for ever and ever, Amen!

Pastor John

STEADFAST FAITH

Posted on by
Reply

LifeLink Devotions for Monday, October 21, 2024

Over the weekend you were asked to consider this question. “Has my faith in God increased to a level that allows me to not seek options other than God when my present circumstances don’t work out the way I want them to?”

What a challenge. I hope you experienced personal growth as you learn to put your faith in the nature of God and not in the activity of God. We tend to be faithful only when things go well, and when they don’t we turn to options other than God. I trust you see the deception in all of that and are growing in your faith.

Now, here’s the second reason why we tend to return to our old ways of sin and self-management of life. In Exodus 32, the Israelites did not persist in their faith because they were not experiencing any movement. They wanted to see Moses come down from the mountain so they could know what was going on. They wanted answers, and when there was no movement they sought to create their own answer.

How often are we tempted to rush into the still moments of God’s timeline and force movement? We probably do it often. None of us enjoys the times when God seems inactive. We pray for answers, and none seem to come. We want an immediate answer of yes or a no but are unwilling to accept the answer of wait. Wait is a weight we cannot bear. “Maybe God needs our help to motivate some activity,” we say. Do we realize the serious implications of such a statement? If we believe that God needs our help in any way, then we cannot believe that He is truly God, and we place ourselves above Him. It is no wonder that the Lord’s anger burned against the people because of their impudence.

Do not fight the quiet times of God’s apparent inactivity. His glory can still be seen all around you, as it was on the mountain. His promises are still valid and will not fail. He had promised the Israelites in Exodus 19:5-6 that “if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” He affirmed that promise to us as well in 1 Peter 2:9-10 which says, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”  

God does not need our help to keep the plan moving: it is moving just fine and according to His timeline. So in those quiet times of inactivity, do what the people of Israel were called to do when Moses left for the mountain to meet with God – wait, and live in consecrated, holy expectation of God’s arrival. He will show up with the answer when He knows it’s best, or He will show up as the final answer and takes us to Himself. Be persistent to live by faith according to what you now know, and God will give you more to know when you need it.

Pastor John

FAITH IS PATIENT

Posted on by
Reply

LifeLink Devotions for Friday, October 18, 2024

Yesterday we left Moses in Exodus 19 telling the people of Israel about their incredible deliverance from Egypt and that it was God who bore them up on eagles’ wings and carried them to Himself. When they heard this, the people made a promise to Moses that they would obey everything God would tell them to do. So Moses went up on the mountain to find out the details of how God wanted the people to live in relationship with Him. The people all witnessed the awesome presence of God on the mountain and watched as Moses entered it. But would they persist in their faith while he was gone?

Thirteen chapters later in the book of Exodus we find our answer.

Exodus 32:1-4  “When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.”  So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

Moses has been gone for forty days, and during that time the glory of God was visible on the mountain to all the people. But the thrill and excitement of the initial event had worn off. The people were tired of sitting still, and they needed tangible results to their faith. Because they weren’t moving forward and were seeing no supernatural activity of personal benefit, they decided to look elsewhere for leadership. Imagine that – in full view of God’s glorious presence that appeared to the people like a consuming fire on top of the mountain, they declared their distrust in the ability of God to lead them and instead declared that an inanimate image of a calf cast out of gold was their real God. Apis, the Egyptian bull-god, had kept them safe in Egypt, and maybe now this god would guide them to safety once again.

Why is it that we so quickly return to our sinful bondages? I see from the example of the Israelites a couple of reasons. Here’s the first one.

  1. Their faith was still in the activity of God and not in the nature of God. They could see the evidence of His nature on the mountain, but because there was no activity they looked for another object of faith to generate action. This is a hard lesson for us all to learn. Even when the activity around us seems to be moving against us, God is still carrying us to Himself on the wings of eagles. Our circumstances do not determine the faithfulness of God. Our circumstances are there to show us the faithfulness of God if we will persist and be patient.

On Monday we will look at the other reason why we return to our fleshly bondages. For the rest of today and this weekend, spend some time processing this question. “Has my faith in God increased to a level that allows me to not seek options other than God when my present circumstances don’t work out the way I want them to?”

Pastor John

AVOIDING BURNOUT

Posted on by
Reply

LifeLink Devotions for Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Yesterday we began looking at the advice the father-in-law of Moses gave him so he could become a better leader and avoid burnout. It starts with recognizing that we are only representatives of God to other people, not replacements for God.

Here are the next three principles taken from Exodus 18.

2.      Use every meeting with a person seeking God’s advice to teach them how to personally apply God’s law so they become more dependent upon God than upon you.  Moses was told, “Teach them the decrees and laws, and show them the way to live…” It is easy for us to enjoy the attention and ego stroking we get when people depend on us, but it is our privilege and duty to lead them into dependence upon God.

3.      Give the people a sense of purpose and responsibility. Jethro said, “And show them … the duties they are to perform.” Everyone needs to know they are needed and appreciated and that their life is accomplishing some purpose. One of the most important aspects of leadership is to encourage people to dream and then empower them to pursue the dream.

4.      Set up a workable system of accountability and authority. Here’s the instruction Moses received. ”But select capable men from all the people – men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain -and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves.” Organize the people into small groups and delegate responsibility to qualified people to oversee the groups. This is a great model for the church today.

What was the guaranteed result of such leadership? Stress reduction and satisfied people. Here’s what Jethro predicted for Moses. ”You will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied.” As a pastor, that’s what I want. That’s what I have. I thank God daily for the qualified people around me who carry the load and for the servant-hearted people like you who have accepted the wisdom of Godly leadership. Maybe some of these principles will help you in the leadership issues you experience at your work or in your family.

Pastor John

FAITH DOESN’T GRUMBLE

Posted on by
Reply

LifeLink Devotions for Tuesday, October 8, 2024

Exodus 16:2 “In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron.” 

Have we ever considered how many of our negative reactions and responses to people and circumstances are really directed at God and how they offend Him deeply? I think this is a much more serious issue than we want to truly face. I think that our understanding of this issue reflects on our view of God and His sovereignty.

Imagine with me for a moment the latest incident you observed of a rebellious child in the grocery store. I hope it wasn’t with your own child, but it is certainly a possibility because we have all had it happen to us. Little Johnny has just walked with his mommy past the Froot Loops in the cereal aisle and has expressed a strong desire to have some. Mommy explains to Johnny that she already has cereal at home for him. An argument begins because Johnny wants this cereal, and he wants it now. He stomps his feet and refuses to move along. He may even scream a little and say things about how he never gets anything that he wants. He closes with a statement about how he is going to starve because there’s nothing to eat at home.

Sound familiar? But let’s analyze what is really happening. Johnny has become so self-absorbed with the Froot Loops that it causes him to stop and refuse to move on in his life until he gets what he wants. His focus is so distorted that he irrationally evaluates his condition and the historical faithfulness of the food supply at home. He has chosen to not see beyond the immediate. What you have here is a perfect definition of the word “grumble” from the original Hebrew language. It is the word loon, and it literally means to stop (usually overnight); to stay permanently; to be obstinate. We could honestly and truthfully say that stubborn people are loony.  

But the real issue with Johnny is this – he has declared his mother to be unfaithful and irresponsible. No matter how much she explains to him that she will feed him and provide for him, he chooses not to honor her but rather to attempt to manipulate her into giving him what he wants. He manipulates through stopping, stomping, screaming, and scaring. He literally places himself above his mother in authority and in his ability to determine what is best for him.

This is serious: not just for Johnny, but because it is so true of our own lives in relationship with God. Complaining about our current situation and the people who are influencing and affecting our lives is a direct rebellion against the faithfulness and responsibility of God to determine what is best for our lives. It stinks with the smell of a dead and decaying body being placed back on the throne of one’s life. Quite a word picture, isn’t it? But that is exactly my intention. Our old nature and the flesh were to have died and been buried with Christ at the time of our salvation. Jesus was given full access to the throne of our lives, and He was declared Lord and sovereign of all. But how many times have we replaced Jesus on the throne with the corruption and compost of our dead self by complaining and manipulating to get our own way? This certainly is not the life of focused faith that pleases God.

So next time we’re tempted to stop and stay at a place we think we should have received something for ourselves, remember Johnny, and focus on the Lordship of Jesus Christ who has been and always will be faithful and responsible to bless us with every spiritual blessing from on high so that we can fulfill His divine purpose.

Pastor John

FAITH OVERCOMES INSECURITIES

Posted on by
Reply

LifeLink Devotions for Thursday, September 26, 2024

Exodus 4:10-12 

We tend to be insecure people. Some of us cover it with arrogance. Some cover it by striving for excellence. Others simply succumb to it and live timid lives. Moses tried the third option, making all kinds of excuses to God to remain in his obscure profession of tending sheep. But God had bigger plans for him, and He was helping Moses grow his faith to maturity so he could overcome his insecurities.

Moses tried to declare himself a nobody, to claim theological ignorance, to claim to have no authority, and now today he claims to be a poor public speaker.  We read about his excuse in Exodus four starting in verse 10.

Moses said to the LORD, “O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.” The LORD said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

In other words, “I got no grammar and people are bored when I talk.”

I am overjoyed at how much I learn from people who claim to not be able to teach. I am blessed by the things people say when those same people claim they don’t know enough to be a blessing to others. I am amazed especially for myself at how I am ever able to say anything of value, but I have learned the lesson that Moses needed to learn – God not only gives us what we need to say but also teaches us how to say it so that it is understood. I think this happens in two ways, both of which are totally the work of God.

1.    God’s Spirit empowers our thoughts and our tongues and brings clarity of thought and speech.

2.    God’s Spirit prepares the heart of the hearer to be touched by what He says through us.

Moses needed to learn that when God calls someone to a specific task, He has already made provision for every detail of that task to be accomplished. Nothing is left to chance, and nothing is dependent upon our ability. All God asks for is our availability. He simply wants us to go – He will handle all the details.

There are many of you reading this today who have missed out on some tremendous blessings by not becoming teachers, preachers, or simply witnessing about Jesus to others. There have been many opportunities for you to do it, but you have always responded with a “No!” because you have based your decision on your own analysis of your abilities rather than on God’s ability to equip you. Isn’t it time to let God stretch you? Get out of your comfort zone. Stop asking all the “Who, why, where, and how” questions. The only valid question for us to ask is “What?” “What do you want me to do?” God is the Who. He knows the where and the why. He is responsible for the how. Mature faith only asks the what. So beginning today, when God tells us what He wants us to do, just go, and He will provide all of the rest. 

Pastor John

WHAT SIGN IS NEEDED?

Posted on by
Reply

LifeLink Devotions

Thursday, December 7, 2023

Isaiah 7:14 “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”

In 738 B.C., Ahaz became the king of Israel. His enemies were numerous, and fear of being overthrown captivated him. He was a king imprisoned in his own kingdom because he would not listen to God’s voice and trust God’s promises. God sent the prophet Isaiah to him to assure him that the enemies who were plotting his demise would not be successful. We learn from later historical records that these enemies twice tried to overthrow Jerusalem and were unsuccessful both times. But for now Ahaz would not believe God’s words. So, God offered to give him a sign that would prove His words were true. Ahaz, in a moment of apparent humility, refused the sign, saying, “I will not ask; I will not put the LORD to the test.” Yet Ahaz was already negotiating with Assyria to be Jerusalem’s ally and defender in the event of an invasion, and he was already stripping the temple of gold to pay for the alliance. Ahaz was refusing to trust God until his own resources were exhausted.

There’s a quick and powerful lesson for us already, and we haven’t even gotten to the best part yet. Like Ahaz, we tend to trust our own abilities and resources before we trust in God. I wonder how many roads we have travelled thinking we were on the right path when they were only detours from the main road of God’s will. We chose those roads because they seemed correct and convenient within the context of our own conscience, but they did not conform to God’s communication with us. We ignored His signs and proceeded down the path of our own experience. We looked only at the immediate, at the expense of God’s future. In our pride, we depended on our own knowledge, abilities, and resources when we could have had God’s. What a mess we have made of life by not listening to God!

When he refused the sign God offered, God said He would choose one for him. Now think about this for a minute. What sign would you want to see? You could ask for anything in the “deepest depths or the highest heights.” (verse 11) Would you ask for a mountain to rise out of the middle of the ocean with a mansion already built on top? Maybe you would ask for the stars in the sky to be permanently arranged to spell your name for everyone to see every night. What sign would you seek that would prove to you that God is both real and trustworthy?

God chose this sign – a virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a baby boy who will be God himself. God could have chosen to reveal His power over creation, but instead He chose to reveal Himself to His creation. Instead of showing us what He can do, He showed us who He is. Instead of enhancing the mystery of who He is, He solved the mystery by coming as one of us so we could know Him. Rather than risk the rise of fear by demonstrating some miraculous power over nature and further separating Himself from us, He eliminated fear by revealing to us His nature of love and drawing us to Himself. God’s sign for all the world to see is Jesus, God in the flesh, saving man from his sin.

Ahaz would never get to see that sign because He refused to trust God’s Word. Millions have not seen the sign today either because they are looking for the wrong kinds of signs. Or maybe they aren’t looking for a sign at all because they believe they are still capable of managing their own outcomes. They are not listening for God’s voice, and even if they hear it they refuse to trust what He says.

Immanuel – “God is with us” – is God’s sign to the world. We who have heard His word and have seen His sign, become the sign to others who do not yet believe. God is with us. Let His sign be seen clearly.

Pastor John