Sunday, January 25, 2015

His Word


[The following is the manuscript of my sermon delivered on Sunday, the 25th of January, 2015.  This service also included guest speaker, Dale Moorefield with The Gideons International.]


The first miracle recorded in the Gospels of both Mark and Luke came as Jesus was speaking with authority in the synagogue.  Today we’ll be taking a brief look at His word, beginning with that first miracle as recorded by Mark in the 1st chapter of his Gospel, verses 21 through 28…
21 Then they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath He entered the synagogue and taught. 22 And they were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
23 Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, 24 saying, “Let us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You come to destroy us? I know who You are — the Holy One of God!”
25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be quiet, and come out of him!” 26 And when the unclean spirit had convulsed him and cried out with a loud voice, he came out of him. 27 Then they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? What new doctrine is this? For with authority He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him.” 28 And immediately His fame spread throughout all the region around Galilee.
--Mark 9:21-28 (NKJV)
Let us pray...  Father, we are here to worship You and to hear Your word and the words Jesus spoke with the authority You gave Him.  Speak to us now, O Lord, with that same authority so we can fully receive Your message.  May Your Holy Spirit write it on our hearts and may we carry it back into the world that so needs to hear Your voice.  In the most precious name of Jesus we pray.  Amen.


You probably all know about the Mutiny on the Bounty.  First Mate Fletcher Christian led a mutiny against Captain William Bligh.  Not living up to his surname very well, Christian set Bligh and his supporters adrift in an overcrowded lifeboat, kidnapped some women and took some slaves from Tahiti, and carried them and most of his fellow mutineers off to Pitcairn Island.  The little group quickly unraveled there, drinking whiskey distilled from a native plant, killing one another and dying from local diseases.  In the end, only one of the original mutineers survived, John Adams, who found himself surrounded by a somewhat odd assortment of women and children.

And then an amazing thing happened.  Adams was looking for useful supplies when he came across the Bounty’s neglected Bible.  As he read from it, he took its message to heart and began teaching his small community.  He taught the colonists the Bible’s scriptures and helped them obey its instructions.  The message of Christ so transformed their lives that twenty years later, in 1808, when the ship Topaz landed on the island, it found a happy society of Christians living in prosperity and peace, free from crime, disease, murder and mutiny.

Jesus still speaks with authority, and miracles still happen even today.


Do you remember the story of when Jesus was 12 years old and Joseph and Mary took Him to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover?  When they headed for home, about a day out Joseph and Mary noticed Jesus wasn’t with them.  They went back into the city and found Him in the Temple with the teachers, listening and asking questions, amazing everyone who heard Him.

Well, that turns out to not be an exception.  Luke tells us in chapter 4 verse 16 of his Gospel that it was Jesus’ custom to go into synagogues on the Sabbath to teach.  And Mark tells us He taught and spoke with authority.  Of course we know that authority came directly from God.  The very words coming from His mouth brought miracles into being.

A man possessed by an unclean spirit cried out to be left alone!  That man, that spirit within him, knew exactly who Jesus was.  He even said so, in verse 24, and identified Jesus as “the Holy One of God”.  But Jesus told the spirit to come out and leave that man, and His very words, His voice, drove the spirit out and away.  Those who witnessed all this were so impressed they commented that even unclean spirits obey His words.  His word.


Back when I was a Gideon, our guiding scripture was from the prophet Isaiah, chapter 55, verse 11.  Listen to verses 10 and 11 from that amazing book of prophecy…
10 “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven,
And do not return there,
But water the earth,
And make it bring forth and bud,
That it may give seed to the sower
And bread to the eater,

11 So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
--Isaiah 55:10-11 (NKJV)
God, through His prophet Isaiah, notes that the rain and snow fall from heaven and nurture the earth, making it fruitful for the benefit of all His creation.  He then declares that in the same way, His word goes out from His mouth and does not come back empty but instead accomplishes everything God intended for it.  His word.

In Bible Study recently, we’ve started taking a fairly in-depth look at the Gospels, working chronologically.  Part of that study focused on how John describes Jesus before He took human form as “The Word”.  John opens his Gospel by clearly declaring, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”  Jesus is God’s Word, sent straight from the Father’s mouth to accomplish everything God intended Him to, returning only after He had provided a means of salvation for God’s most beloved creation: mankind.


Jesus.  God’s Word.  The Word of authority that even unclean spirits obey.

There are still plenty of people walking around with unclean spirits, and I’m not talking about just the truly demon-possessed.  Pedophiles, serial killers, rapists, drug pushers, porn merchants, slave traffickers, psychopaths…  I don’t think it too much a stretch to say these types of people have very unclean spirits within them.  Maybe even a few believers could use a little internal washing every now and then.

Jesus can still speak authority into their lives and drive out those filthy spirits and replace them with His Light and the Holy Spirit.  Just like in the story of the Bounty mutineer Adams, Jesus can still speak miracles into being through His word.  But they can’t hear His word if it is not made available to them in one form or another.  What if Adams had not found the ship’s Bible?


Let’s try a little exercise…  Follow along with me and snap your fingers…    (Snap your fingers once every second or so for about 15 or 20 snaps.)  If you’re good, you can use your left hand.  How about both hands?  OK, that’s enough.  That was fun, right?

Well, every time we snapped our fingers, somewhere in this big old world… two people died.  In our 20 or so seconds of snapping, nearly 40 people passed from this earthly existence.  How many of those do you think ever had the chance to know and accept Jesus as their Lord and Master?  How many found salvation through Him and His word?

In just a few minutes you’ll have the opportunity to donate to the Gideons and help them provide Bibles throughout the world.  Through them, you can help place the Gospel of Mark and the prophecies of Isaiah into the hands of millions of people each year.  Together we can increase the odds of those 2 people each second having found salvation through Jesus before their passing from this life to the next.

We can give financial support to this wonderful effort, and we can give our prayers asking God for His support, and that He will open even more doors for the Gideons into countries where they are not yet allowed.  Be generous in your giving so that others might gain eternal life.

Help spread His word, God’s Word, throughout the world.

Amen.


Let us pray…  Heavenly Father, Creator of all there is, speaker of Life, we thank You for Your Word that brings Light to the darkness of this world, that speaks with such great authority into our lives.  We thank You for those who made sure that Your word was available to us, so that we could come to know You and Jesus and experience Your mighty works within us.  And we thank you for Your Holy Spirit that now lives within us, replacing the unclean spirit that Jesus drove out of our hearts.

Forgive us, please Father, when we get all caught up with the busyness of life and forget the business Jesus left us: that of spreading Your word and the Good News of Jesus throughout all the world.  Please bless the Gideons for carrying our this task so well and bless us for helping them with our dollars and our prayers of support.

Hear us now, please Lord, as we pause in the silence of this place to open our hearts to You in personal prayer…

And the Word of Your mouth, it shall not return empty; it shall bless the earth wherever it is heard.  Help us make Your word read and heard by all the earth, O Lord.  In the most glorious name of Jesus Christ our Redeemer we pray.  Amen.


Monday, January 19, 2015

Taking Our Part


[The following is the manuscript of my sermon delivered on Sunday, the 18th of January, 2015.]


A few minutes ago I told the kids that miracles are signs pointing to God.  And that Jesus performed many miracles while He walked this earth, as much as a way to highlight God’s power as to show His love.  Today I’d like to look at a few of those miracles, starting with what Matthew recorded in the 9th chapter of his Gospel, verses 18 through 26…
18 While He spoke these things to them, behold, a ruler came and worshiped Him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay Your hand on her and she will live.” 19 So Jesus arose and followed him, and so did His disciples. 
20 And suddenly, a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind and touched the hem of His garment. 21 For she said to herself, “If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well.” 22 But Jesus turned around, and when He saw her He said, “Be of good cheer, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And the woman was made well from that hour. 
23 When Jesus came into the ruler’s house, and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd wailing, 24 He said to them, “Make room, for the girl is not dead, but sleeping.” And they ridiculed Him. 25 But when the crowd was put outside, He went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose. 26 And the report of this went out into all that land.
--Matthew 9:18-26 (NKJV)
Let us pray...  Lord God, we bow our heads in Your presence.  You are an awesome God, a loving God, a wonderful God and we adore You.  Speak to us now, Lord, the message You have for us this day as we worship and praise You.  In the blessed name of Jesus we pray.  Amen.


Some of you know that I lost my first wife to cancer.  It started in her lymph nodes and took her breasts.  She fought it, through surgery and chemo and radiation treatments.  And she suffered so much.  With cancer, the treatment seems almost worse than the disease.  It left her weak, beaten, and demoralized, but she went into remission.

Then the cancer came back, in her liver.  This time she was too weak to fight, too tired to withstand the sickness and pain again.  She only wanted it to end, so she declined further treatment.  And cancer took her from my daughter and me, way too early.

I had a good friend I worked with who developed lung cancer.  Like my first wife, he agreed to suffer through the treatments for the sake of his family.  One day, while he was still trying to recover from the body-wracking effects of chemo, he came by and we talked a bit.

He told me, “Richard, why would I want to prolong all this pain and discomfort when I know there is such a better place I can go to?  Why would I want to stay here and suffer, when I can see heaven just a little ways ahead?”  And you know, I had to agree with him.

My own experience of watching my wife go through what he was enduring led me to believe, like him, that it just wasn’t worth all the mess and suffering for a few more weeks or months or even years here on earth.  If you believed in heaven, in God’s love and grace, why would you want to stay around?

Well, my friend’s cancer returned also, and he passed shortly afterwards.  By that point, I had firmly resolved that if anything like this ever happened to me, I would not fight even once.  Especially after I knew I was saved and heaven bound, I could see no reason to fight just to hang around for a little while longer on this miserable earth.

And then just last week, the Holy Spirit of my most loving God showed me this passage in Matthew’s Gospel and spoke to me simply, “Your Father wants you to live until it is time for Him to bring you home.”  I believe most of us feel that when it’s our time, when God is ready to take us back to Him, we will go, no matter what our circumstance.

But the thing is, at least from what the Spirit told me, that it must be in His time, not ours.  To me that says we have no choice but to accept whatever treatments or lifesaving attempts are available to us to prolong our lives until God is ready to call us home.


In our Gospel reading, this woman had experienced a severe health problem for 12 years!  But she had heard about Jesus and she had faith in His miraculous healing touch, so she went to Him.  She approached Him and according to the Gospel of Mark, she reached out and touched His robe.

Jesus said she was made well because of her faith, and that is indeed true.  But if she had not taken the time, gone to the trouble, of approaching Jesus in the first place, she would have had no chance to put that faith into motion, to reach out and touch the Master’s robe.

And then there’s the “ruler”, the father whose daughter had died.  He showed great faith in Jesus’ healing touch too!  His daughter was dead but he knew – he knew – that Jesus could restore her life!  So he too went to Jesus.  He too did whatever it took to approach Jesus to ask Him to prolong his daughter’s life.  And like the woman, his faith and effort were also rewarded.

Can’t we say in both cases that they prayed to Jesus by approaching Him in person?  Well, we can approach Him in the Spirit through prayer.  More to the point, though, in both cases these two took an active role in the healing process.


I’d like to quickly look at one more example from our scripture, this time from the Gospel of John, the beloved disciple, the 11th chapter, verses 32 through 44…
32 Then, when Mary came where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” 
33 Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled. 34 And He said, “Where have you laid him?” 
They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.” 
35 Jesus wept. 36 Then the Jews said, “See how He loved him!” 
37 And some of them said, “Could not this Man, who opened the eyes of the blind, also have kept this man from dying?” 
38 Then Jesus, again groaning in Himself, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” 
Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to Him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.” 
40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?” 41 Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. 42 And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me.” 43 Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!” 44 And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Loose him, and let him go.”
--John 11:32-44 (NKJV)
Lazarus was very ill so his sisters sent for Jesus, knowing He could heal their brother.  But He delayed His departure and Lazarus was already dead and buried before Jesus arrived.  Jesus wasn’t through, though – He wasn’t finished with this family just yet.

He prayed to God.  Jesus stood there in front of everyone and prayed, “Father, thank You for always listening to my prayers.  But just to show these people how powerful You are and that You indeed sent Me to them, I say this: Lazarus, come forth!”

At this point there was nothing Lazarus or his sisters could do to participate in his healing.  Jesus could, and did participate!  But He did it in His own time - in God’s time – and Lazarus came forth from the tomb.

The woman had faith that Jesus could heal her so she went to Him – she actively participated in her own healing and He made it happen.  The “ruler” came to Jesus and worshiped Him!  He had faith and trusted that Jesus could restore his daughter to life.  When everyone else thought the girl was dead and gone, with nothing left to do but to bury her, the ruler knew otherwise.  And Jesus showed otherwise, just like He did for Lazarus.

God wants us to be actively involved in our own healing.  And that includes having tests run even if they return bad news.  That includes taking medicines and procedures even if the cure seems more hurtful than the disease.  That includes seeing all kinds of doctors and specialists even if none of them seem to agree on or even know what to do.  That includes doing whatever it takes, even if we don’t want to.

The ruler came to Jesus and worshiped Him, the woman came to Jesus and touched His robe, Martha and Mary sent for Jesus and He prayed – they all actively participated in some way.  And God responded to each one – immediately for two, later for the other.  He will respond to each of us – immediately for some, later for others.  God will heal us, Jesus will raise us from the dead, but only in His timing, not ours.


I usually open my message with some sort of illustration, either humorous or poignant.  This time I’d like to close with one, and leave you with something to chew on.

There was a special on TV 3 or 4 years ago, where CNN correspondent Lisa Ling went to a meeting of a renowned faith healer.  There she interviewed a man named Steve who was left with a brain injury and speech impediment after a terrible car crash at the age of 18.  To make matters worse, he fell off a roof some years later and was paralyzed from the waist down.

Doctors told Steve he would never walk again, but Steve said that God told him he would, that this was his time to be healed!  He did what it took to get to that meeting where he was completely convinced he would leave walking and pushing his wheelchair.  His faith was absolute, with not a single doubt that God was about to heal him.

On the last day of the meeting, Steve’s turn came.  He made his way forward to the row of people awaiting the healer’s touch.  The faith healer placed his hand on Steve’s forehead and said “Bam!”.  A group of the healer’s assistants quickly came over to Steve, prayed over him, and held him up under his arms waiting for the healing to take effect…  But after a couple of minutes, they set him back in his wheelchair, his condition unchanged.

Ms. Ling became concerned for Steve, worried about what would happen to his faith because he had been so completely convinced he would be healed.  When she found him, though, she was amazed.  He was disappointed, sure, but not despondent – his faith was not shaken in the least.

In his halting voice, Steve told her, “It wasn’t my time to be healed.  But one day I will walk and run – when I get to heaven God will give me a new body.”  Then Steve laid his hand on Lisa… and prayed for her.

Steve did everything he could to actively participate in his own healing, but it just wasn’t the right time yet.  It wasn’t God’s time yet.  He knew it would come though, one day.

And this is a miracle, too.  Not a miracle of healed legs or a healed brain or any other body part.  This is a miracle of the soul, of this man’s spirit, and the light of Jesus shining out of his heart.

After all, a physical healing is always temporary, even if it holds good for years and years.  But a spiritual healing, a healing of one’s faith – that lasts for eternity.

Amen.


Let us pray…  O Father, we thank You for Your grace and Your mercy.  We acknowledge all the many times You touch us, all the mighty wonders You bring into our lives.  We know we are unworthy of Your great love and compassion, and that makes us all the more thankful.

Forgive us, Lord, when we try to rush things, when we try to take things in our own hands rather than leave it all to You in Your timing.  Forgive us when we would prefer to take the easy way out rather than to trust in Your grace and mercy.  Help us realize as Paul finally did that Your grace is sufficient, that when we are weakest, then we are strong.

Hear us, please Lord, as we take just a moment to speak to You silently from our hearts, giving our thanks, asking for Your help…

Father God, You promise all things will work to the good for those who love You and follow Your voice.  Please give us the courage to face our darkest hour, the strength to withstand pain and suffering, until that beautiful moment when You take us home.  In the most glorious name of Jesus Christ our Redeemer we pray.  Amen.


Sunday, January 04, 2015

On the 11th Day of Christmas


[The following is the manuscript of my sermon delivered on the first Sunday of the new year, the 4th of January, 2015.  Our service today also included Holy Communion.]


Our modern popular culture would tell us that Christmas ends on December 25th, but we didn’t always think that way.  A song written back around 1782 in England listed gifts given throughout the 12 days of Christmas.  Christmas begins on the 25th and continues through those 12 days and ends on Epiphany, January 6th, considered by the church as the day the Wise Men visited the young child Jesus.  Let’s look at that visit as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, the 2nd chapter, verses 1 through 12…
1 Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, 2 saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.” 
3 When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. 
5 So they said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet: 
6 ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
Are not the least among the rulers of Judah;
For out of you shall come a Ruler
Who will shepherd My people Israel.’” 
7 Then Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, determined from them what time the star appeared. 8 And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the young Child, and when you have found Him, bring back word to me, that I may come and worship Him also.” 
9 When they heard the king, they departed; and behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came and stood over where the young Child was. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. 11 And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 
12 Then, being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way.
--Matthew 2:1-12 (NKJV)
Let us pray...  Father, we came here this morning in the name of Jesus to worship You, just as the Wise Men came from afar to worship Your Son.  Speak to us, O Lord, through the words You have given Your servant and through Your Holy Spirit stirring our hearts.  In the blessed name of Jesus we pray.  Amen.


Most of you know I come from a scientific background. I never thought that science excluded Christianity.  Rather, I see science as a means of supporting Christianity, as do many others in scientific related fields.  For instance, in his book, Science Speaks, Peter Stoner applies the science of probability to just eight prophecies regarding Christ. Stoner says, "The chance that any man might have fulfilled all eight prophecies is one in 10 to the 17th.”  That’s a 1 followed by 17 zeros - one hundred quadrillion.  Stoner suggests that if "we take 10 to the 17th silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas, they will cover all of the state 2 feet deep. Now mark one of those silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly. Blindfold a man and tell him he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up that one silver dollar we marked. What chance would he have of getting the right one?" Stoner answers his own question, "Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing those eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man… providing they wrote them in their own wisdom."

Now Stoner based all that on just eight prophesies being true.  Those who have done the research conclude that Jesus fulfilled over 350 Old Testament prophecies.  Over 350!  If the odds of fulfilling only 8 of them are 1 in one hundred quadrillion, what do you suppose the odds would be of one Man fulfilling over 350?

As Matthew tells the story of the Wise Men’s visit, he repeats what Herod’s chief priests and scribes quoted from the prophet Micah when they tell of the place of Jesus’ birth: Bethlehem.  That was just one of the prophecies Jesus fulfilled.


Today is the 11th day of Christmas.  According to that old song I mentioned earlier…  On the 11th day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, 11 pipers piping, and a whole list of other wild gifts, ending with a partridge in a pear tree.  The Wise Men brought gifts too; expensive gifts worth more than all those in the song combined.

We tend to lump the visit of the Wise Men together with the birth of Christ on Christmas Day, even putting them in nativity scenes.  In actuality, this very likely occurred as much as two years after Jesus’ birth.  Matthew’s Gospel says they visited the young child in the house with His mother Mary.  And a little further on in chapter 2 he notes that Herod ordered the murder of all the male children in Bethlehem of up to two years old.

But when the visit happened isn’t as significant as what it means to us.  Those wise men brought gifts to the young Christ child fit for a king, for a man, and for God.  Gifts that showed these men understood that Jesus was fully man yet fully God.

Gold, frankincense, myrrh… 11 pipers piping…  None of these gifts can even come close to what my true love, God, sent to me and you that day we celebrate on December 25th.  For God sent us His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.  God sent us the gift of eternal salvation.

But strangely, so many people refuse to take it, to unwrap it and claim it as their own.  Why?  Some simply don’t believe in God or Jesus or heaven and hell.  They don’t accept the scientific concept of this one Man, the Son of Man, beating astronomical odds and fulfilling all the prophecies foretold of the true Messiah, the long awaited Christ.  They would rather take their chances on there being no hell than on giving up the lifestyles they want to live.

Then again, some folks just don’t feel themselves worthy of such a gift and so won’t take it as their own.  Of course we’re not worthy!  That’s the whole point!  God sent Jesus to us when we were dead in our sin.  If we were worthy, if we were right with God, we wouldn’t need Jesus!

On the first day of Christmas and the 11th day and every day, our one true love sent to us the gift of His amazing grace.  He gave us what we could never deserve.  God sent His Son to save us all.

Oh, and there’s one other gift the Magi brought to the Christ child.  Do you know what it is?

The Wise Men entered the house and saw the young Jesus with His mother and they bowed down and worshiped Him.  That’s a gift God wants from each of us - to worship Him.  But there’s one thing about worship I want you to keep in mind.  If we limit our worship to a place, such as a “house of worship”, then the minute we leave that place we leave behind our attitude of worship.


When I first started this message, I mentioned Epiphany, which we observe in two days, coinciding with the Wise Men’s visit.  Epiphany is the Christian celebration of two times when the divinity of Jesus was made manifest, the two main events when the Godhead of Jesus was clearly revealed to man.  The first we just covered: when the Wise Men visited the Christ child.  The second occurred at His baptism by John in the River Jordan.  Listen to how Matthew describes that event, in chapter 3 of his Gospel, verses 13 through 17…
13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. 14 And John tried to prevent Him, saying, “I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?” 
15 But Jesus answered and said to him, “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he allowed Him. 
16 When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. 17 And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
--Matthew 3:13-17 (NKJV)
The revelation of Jesus as God couldn’t be any clearer than that, could it?  God Himself declared Jesus to be His own Son

Now an epiphany isn’t just something we can read about in the Bible, it’s also something we might experience ourselves.  Some of you may have had your own epiphany.

Mine came during that period when I was trying to discern God’s will, trying to decide whether to enter the ministry or not.  Believe me, this was a huge decision.  I still held to a worldly mindset that I was absolutely the last person that should be a preacher!  We were in prayer at one of our pastors retreats some years back, seeking God’s will, when I heard His voice repeating over and over: “Preach My word”.  “Preach My word.”

I’ve been trying to do so ever since.  And I’ve been sharing that little personal epiphany with anyone who will listen, along with my testimony of how Jesus has changed my life for the better.  That epiphany is part of my testimony.  It made God and Jesus just as real for me as their visit did for the Wise Men, as God’s words did for John and any others who heard His voice at the Jordan River.

And just as Matthew shared two very important epiphanies with us, I feel it equally important we tell others of our own personal experiences with God.  Don’t let your epiphany go untold.  Share it with others.  Testify for our Lord.  On the 11th day of Christmas, and every day.

Amen.


Let us pray…  Father in heaven, thank You for loving us so much that You sent Your Son into the darkness of our world that Your light might be spread to all corners of the earth.  You are our true love and the gift You sent us is without equal.  We did not deserve it, nor can we ever match Your great grace and generosity.  All we can give in return is our love and our worship.  May our offering please You.

Hear us now, Father, as we pause and speak to you individually in the silence from our hearts…

Father God, reveal Yourself to us.  Give us our own epiphany to share with others, that we might testify for You with great conviction.  Tell us in some personal way that Jesus is Your Son, and give us the strength and courage to share that with the world.  In that most glorious name of Jesus Christ our Lord we pray.  Amen.