Good Morning Broken, Cared-for, Restored, Peace-filled, Worshipers! We are all broken and/or have been. We sow in tears, yet God collects our tears in bottles. He wastes nothing and is with us always. Life is hard! At times it really stinks! Sometimes all we can mutter is "Help!" to God. Even when it doesn't feel like it, He is always there pursuing us, loving us, wanting to help and comfort like a mother comforts her distressed baby. He's knocking at the door of your heart. Will you open the door? God knows and cares even when it doesn't feel like it. Still yourself and receive His love, comfort and peace.
You all know how I loathe Hallmark holidays. With Mother's Day coming, I've been praying about what to preach. Part of my issue is my empathy for those mourning, longing and struggling during any holiday. Many long to be mothers and can't. Some are mourning the loss of moms, and worse, a child. Some have terrible relationships with bad mothers. My tendency is to turn off the noise by preaching about something totally different during any holiday. Christmas, Valentines, Mother's Day and Father's Day can be very hard times for many. Let us keep our eyes open and be God's vessels of love, comfort, hope, help and peace. There are so many broken around us looking for some love, comfort and peace that we have in Christ. Check out our devos below and ask God how He wants to use you or how to receive His comfort and peace. He promises to turn our mourning to dancing, our sorrow to joy, and to redeem all the enemy has stolen. COME! Help! Amen
Prepare your hearts to worship! See you at 10 on Zoom or live with Children's Church. We are fast approaching our summer breaks. Ask God where He is leading you this summer and who to partner with as we go live, love. comfort and help those He is drawing. Pray for new connection points and opportunities. Thank God for the harvest and for raising up harvest workers (you!). Thank God for His provision as we follow that and His peace to new things He has planned for you and us. He is on the move and so are we as we continue to grow towards becoming a healthy, dynamic movement of God. Amen! May God lead and use you and us as he created you/us to do what we are created, gifted and empowered to do. Please Lord! Come! Use us! Amen!
ODB:
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Leaving home one morning, Dean found some friends waiting with balloons. His friend Josh stepped forward. “We entered your poems in a competition,” he said, before handing Dean an envelope. Inside was a card that read “First Prize,” and soon everyone was crying tears of joy. Dean’s friends had done a beautiful thing, confirming his writing talent.
Weeping for joy is a paradoxical experience. Tears are normally a response to pain, not joy; and joy is normally expressed with laughter, not tears. Italian psychologists have noted that tears of joy come at times of deep personal meaning—like when we feel deeply loved or achieve a major goal. This led them to conclude that tears of joy are pointers to the meaning of our lives.
I imagine tears of joy erupting everywhere Jesus went. How could the parents of the man born blind not weep for joy when Jesus healed him (John 9:1-9), or Mary and Martha after He raised their brother from death (11:38-44)? When God’s people are brought into a restored world, “Tears of joy will stream down their faces,” God says, “and I will lead them home with great care” (Jeremiah 31:9 nlt).
If tears of joy show us the meaning of our lives, imagine that great day to come. As tears stream down our faces, we’ll know without doubt that the meaning of life has always been to live intimately with Him.
By Sheridan Voysey
REFLECT & PRAY
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When was the last time you wept for joy? What do you think the meaning of life is?
Father God, thank You for the joy ahead for those who love You.
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SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Two themes dominate the Prophetic Books of the Bible—discipline and restoration. After the prophet Jeremiah warned the Israelites of God’s judgment and discipline due to their wickedness and sin (Jeremiah 1–29), he assured them that later God would also restore them (chs. 30–33). He would be their God and they would be His chosen nation once again (31:1). He would also bring them back to the promised land after the Babylonian exile (30:1-3; 31:8-9). Israel would be restored to enjoy the privileges and blessings as God’s “firstborn son” (31:9).
K. T. Sim |
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UR: God Cares
I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you. - Joel 2:25 (KJV)
Many years ago I was going through a very rough time, just coping day by day clinging to faith and trusting that God would help me soon. Then one day out of the blue when I was alone, this verse came into my mind: “I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten.” I received it as a promise from God that whatever I was going through would pass, and that God would restore what I had lost and bless me.
Years later, this verse is still vividly clear in my mind. As I look back now, I realize the Lord has indeed restored my life and blessed me in many ways. Through this verse, I’ve learned that God’s promise of restoration means that God can take what is broken and put it together again, making it better than it was before.
God has enabled me to use my past to help others today. As a life coach and youth mentor, I’m now able to empathize and understand better the challenges and helplessness others are going through without judgment or prejudice. God has indeed turned the ashes of my past to beauty — the beauty of helping those who are in the wilderness now. That in itself is a blessing.
TODAY'S PRAYER
Lord God, thank you for your promise that you will never leave nor forsake us when we are in the wilderness. Help us to trust in your promise of restoration. Amen.TWFYT:
Harvest Blogs:
May 5 - Inviting God into Our Daily Needs
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“Give us this day our daily bread.” (Matthew 6:11)
It is a mark of our independence that we never invite God into the simple, daily needs of our life. We think we can handle things, which is our most deadly deception. Often people will say, “God is not interested in the details of my life.” Apparently, they have not read their Bibles or studied the words of Christ:
“Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! (Matthew 6:26)
God cares about every part of His creation and has the capabilities to meet our every need. But we must give Him access. We must let Him in.
Ole Hallesby in his classic book on prayer cites Revelation 3:20 as one of the most important verses on prayer in the Bible. Christ is speaking to the church and says …
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.”
Hallesby writes …
“It is not our prayer which draws Jesus into our hearts. Nor is it our prayer which moves Jesus to come in to us … All He needs is access. He enters in of His own accord because He desires to come in. And He enters in wherever He is not denied admittance … To pray is nothing more involved than to let Jesus into our needs. To pray is to give Jesus permission to employ His powers in the alleviation of our distress. To pray is to let Jesus glorify His name in the midst of our needs.”
Christ wants us to let Him in wherever there is a need. So, Christ tells us to pray for our “daily bread.” It is beautiful in prayer to realize that He cares about our needs—both big and small—and wants us to come to Him every day with every need.
As we let Him in, He supplies. And, since He is the sole supplier, He gets more and more glory and the world around us gains a right opinion about God.
Father, I want to declare my complete dependence upon You! Forgive me for the times when I attempt to meet my own needs rather than ask You for help. Keep my heart in a posture of thanksgiving recognizing that everything I have or ever will have is from You alone.
---Adapted from Simply Prayer by Bill Elliff. This book is available at prayershop.org.
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- Praise your Father as the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries (Dan. 2:47).
- Give thanks for the mystery of salvation through Christ, which has been revealed to you through God's Word and Spirit (Eph. 3:3-6).
- Confess that there are times when you do not rely on his wisdom and insight in your daily struggles.
- Commit yourself to spending more time in God’s Word and prayer, seeking to understand the mystery of your life in Christ.
- Ask God to fill you with a spirit of wisdom and revelation (Eph. 1:17).
- Pray for those you know whose minds have been blinded by the gods of this age, unable to see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ (2 Cor. 4:4).
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| Prayer Points taken from Patterns for Prayer by Alvin VanderGriend. This book is available at prayershop.org. Use the code CONPSP3 at checkout to receive an additional 10% discount. |
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