Blog Archives
Three Mondays This Week! Lord, have Mercy!
Devotional thought on my first day back in the office:
17 Everything you do or say, then, should be done in the name of the Lord Jesus, as you give thanks through him to God the Father. Colossians 3:17 (TEV)
Monday morning started early in Hong Kong, as I was up at 4:30 am. FInalize jamming things into a suitcase, jump in a taxi – then to the airport. A flight to Tokyo, where at five in the afternoon I boarded another plane. Eventually fell asleep about 6 hours later… to wake up on Monday morning, and landed at LAX. That was the second Monday literally, and here in my office, 16 hours later, I face the grind of a third Monday, getting the paperwork and studies down for the week….
Three Mondays… capping a 12 day tour – 5 sermons, 8 Bible studies, tons of encouraging and trying to help those who have sacrificed so much to serve God on the foreign mission field.
Let me be honest – its hard to get my desire up to kick into high gear… to get focused, to plan out my short week. And oh wait – a pastor’s conference coming up – Thursday afternoon through Saturday Morning.
And then, in devotions this morning – the above passage comes into my view…. and this..
If we really want to sanctify our work, we have inescapably to fulfil the first condition: that of working—and working well!—with human and supernatural seriousness. (1)
Part of me – wants to dismiss these things as if they are too pietistic, to hear them as law and thereby dismiss them, assuming that grace will overcome my lack of desire, and my lack of action. THe excuses flow quite naturally, from the old Adam. You’ve worked hard – you need time to rest, to recuperate, let others… and in my heart…. I know that is why Paul wrote Romans 6:1 – should I let my sin abound… no.
My only cure… my only way to get back in the groove…is too look to that supernatural seriousness – to realize that I am not working alone – that the Lord is with me. To realize that this work, whether it is doing prep work on a sermon, or visiting shut-ins, or looking through worship for this week and planning Lent… it is all about the greatest, most incredible thing I have ever heard, or experienced, the thing that sustained me on the foreign mission field, and now sustains us, as we work together in this mission field in the USA.
Something so basic, we begin and end every study here at Concordia with it… we use it over and over in our services, as if we need to be constantly reminded of this very things…
The Lord is with you! And with our spirits..>>
He is here…
Time to get back to work… with HIM!!!!!
What an incredible blessing – to see Him working!
(1) Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). The Forge (Kindle Locations 2558-2559). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.(1)
Praying for Miracles…
Devotional thought of the day.
It is Thursday morning for me, just about 6. I am sitting in a terminal of an airport in Tokyo, waiting for the next connection and a five hour flight to my first destination for this trip. Very tired.. yet…
About the time I crossed the international date line, I read…
The power of working miracles! How many dead—and even rotting—souls you will raise, if you let Christ act in you. In those days, the Gospel tells us, the Lord was passing by; and they, the sick, called to him and sought him out. Now, too, Christ is passing by, in your Christian life. If you second him, many will come to know him, will call to him, will ask him for help: and their eyes will be opened to the marvellous light of grace. (1)
That is my hope on this trip – that I will be able to see, or hear about later, the work that God does, as we interact with people, as we share with them the gospel, as we teach them that God desires to walk with them….as Isaiah points out – with the same desire that a bridegroom desires to see his bride. It is a message hard enough to communicate to people in the USA – there seems to be some kind of block to realizing God’s love and desire for them to be in His presence. May they – as well as those I will minister to – and minister alongside – know your love!
May the people you pass by today – realize that they have been visited by the Holy Spirit, for God dwells with you.
(1) Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). The Forge (Kindle Locations 2445-2449). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
