Walking Through Holy Week – 1

Posted on by Dorci
“It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for Him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.

The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power, and that He had come from God and was returning to God; so He got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around His waist.

After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash His disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around Him.”
John 13:1-5

Sunday Praise and a Prayer As We Look Forward

Posted on by Dorci

“{The disciples} brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,

‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’

‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’

‘Hosanna in the highest heaven!'”
Matthew 21:7-9

***

“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.

And they cried out in a loud voice:

‘Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.’”
Revelation 7:9-10


Dear Heavenly Father, we praise you today and every day as we remember what you’ve done through your Son, and what you have prepared for our future. 

Christ’s triumphal entry was but a small foretaste of the victorious never-ending glory we’ll revel in while in the presence of our Savior and King. 

Thank you, Holy Father, for your immeasurable grace and mercy. Through all we must endure here, we look forward to this most joyful time, celebrating with You and one another the victory you’ve won for us. 

In Jesus’ most holy and precious name we pray, amen. 

 

Deep Calls to Deep

Posted on by Dorci

Like our bodies need the sun, food and water, our souls need to worship God.

God declared in Isaiah 43:7:

“…Everyone who is called by My name, and whom I have created for My glory, whom I have formed, even whom I have made.”

Paul echoes this in his letter to the brothers and sisters in Colossae “…all things have been created through Him (the Son, who is the image of the invisible God) and for Him.” (1:15, 16b)

But like so much of what God’s created, satan has taken our God-given need to worship Him and offers us a cheap counterfeit. 

Those who refuse to acknowledge God’s existence (and even some who do) will turn that need to worship toward something else. 

“They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised.” (Rom. 1:25)

Throughout time people have worshipped everything from vegetation to animals (the living and the golden kind), to the sun, moon, and stars. 

But what people mostly worship is one another and themselves. It’s our soul on junk food. There is nothing that will destroy it faster than worshipping people, or seeking to have others worship us, and there is no shortage of ways that people seek to be worshipped, revered, idolized, bowed down to, put on a pedestal, feared. 

I don’t know how many people I’ve heard who believed fame and fortune – self worship – to be the ultimate success, and after seeking all the world says is important, or even being thrust into it, fall into a pit of despair once they’ve reached that pinnacle and confessed they said to themselves, “Is this it?”

They’re left feeling empty, broken, and despondent. Many have believed there was nothing else to live for. 

The first thing Jesus did is resist the temptation of the devil in the wilderness to worship him.

The devil first tempted Him to stop seeking God by trying to end His time of fasting. Then he tried to lead Him to test God. Ultimately, he tried leading Jesus to worship him.  

“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ‘All this I will give you,’ he said, ‘if you will bow down and worship me.’” (Matt. 4:8-9)

The devil is methodical and predictable. If he can lead people away from God, he can get them to turn their God-given need for worship onto anything and anyone else, and he’s won. 

But Christ shows us the way by telling him, “Away from me, satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only. (Deut. 6:13).'” (Matt. 4:10)

When we, too, find ourselves in the desert of life, or the black depths of the oceans, we can be tempted to take any way out, to cut short our suffering, to take satan’s deal, but it’s only a short-cut to despair and regret. 

“Deep calls to deep…”

King David wrote these words in Psalm 42 describing a time of great turmoil in his life. It is in these great sufferings of life we hear God calling to us in the deepest recesses of our souls, and we call back to Him from there. 

Just as God knows what inhabits the loneliest of deserts and the deepest of ocean floors, God knows what’s in our hearts. Never do we need to be afraid to invite Him into whatever is going on in our hearts and lives. 

The only fear we should have is in not calling on Him, on not worshipping Him, and turning instead to something or someone else. 

So what is our remedy to keep from being caught off guard? To being tempted to turn to any other form of worship?

Abide!

Abide in the Vine-in Christ, and in His love. Hang on as dearly to Him as a branch holds fast to its vine for nourishment and life. 

That is true worship. And from our worship of Him in spirit and in truth, He, our Creator, our King, our Lord, our Sustenance, our Light, our All, will nourish our souls with Himself and give us all we need for the abundant life. 

In Him,
Dorci

Run In Such a Way

Posted on by Dorci

His name is Zach, and he loves to run. I mean he loves it. He ran cross country and track in high school. He studied runners like Usain Bolt and Zach Bitter, and started eyeing the pros. 

His philosophy wasn’t to look at the greats and think he could never do what they did.  Instead, he looked at them as human beings as he was, as having goals and simply training hard and going for it, and Zach saw no reason he couldn’t do that, too. 

So on his high school graduation day Zach announced to his mom he wanted to run a 100-miler before he turned 20. He had ten months to train.

Zach was laser-focused on his goals. He began training with a coach and ran his first 5K, then a 10K, then a 26-mile marathon, and then a 50-mile ultramarathon.

Throughout the process fellow runners embraced him, encouraged him, and supported him every step of the way. 

Finally, he was ready, heart, mind, and body. He signed up for the Coldwater Rumble ultramarathon. One hundred miles. 

The runners gathered at sunrise. At 19, Zach was the youngest. 

He ran throughout the day with only a few refueling pitstops along the way. He was tired, his body ached, and his feet were on fire, but he was determined to keep running. 

His coach ran alongside him, encouraging him, and whenever he circled back around after another 25-mile lap, his cheering section was there to help him keep going. He finished lap 3 – 75 miles. 

The trail was dark now. It was the middle of the night, but a secure headlamp lit his way. 

By sunrise, Zach was dealing with a hip flexor strain that caused him to slow to a walk for a bit, but he stayed in the race. He was determined, and soon he picked up his pace again. 

The sun was up, and while some runners had dropped out of the race, Zach neared the finish line with a smile on his face, his goal in sight, and his family and friends cheering him on. 

At 28 hours, 6 minutes, and 36 seconds, he crossed the 100-mile mark.  At 19, he was the youngest to ever finish the race.

Oh, did I mention Zach has autism?

Zach’s perceived weakness by some was in reality a strength. He’d always been very focused as a kid, and that focus helped him achieve a goal that, at his age, no one else had. 

Though I’ll never be this kind of runner, every aspect of Zach’s story inspires me to keep running in the race I’m called to in Christ. 

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.”
1 Corinthians 9:24

Run in such a way…  

We are to take our spiritual race seriously.

We may look at the so-called spiritual greats – Paul the apostle, who wrote much of the New Testament, John the apostle, who recorded words from the LORD Himself, George Müller, Jim and Elisabeth Elliot, Billy Graham, and countless others, and think we could never do what they did. But why not? They were human beings like we are, who simply had a strong faith in Jesus Christ that caused them to run their race in obedience.

Who knows what God may want to do through any of us? Any perceived or even actual weaknesses we have don’t need to limit us. If we let Him, God can use those weaknesses to be the very things that propel us forward because when we are weak, He is strong on our behalf. 

Suffering may seem to be a weakness, but it is our training ground. As we look to Christ in and through it, He’ll teach us to persevere, to trust Him, to grow stronger in ways we never would have otherwise.

At times in our race, we’ll need to sit down and rest, or we may even fall. It’s okay. We all do at one time or another. Get back up and keep walking, keep running. 

And we need to cheer one another on to victory. There are times the most discouraging thing is not the world, it’s not the fall, it’s not the suffering. Sometimes the most discouraging thing is not being supported and encouraged (or even actively discouraged) by those who should be cheering the loudest. 

In the spiritual race, we’re not running against each other. We are each running a unique race purposed just for us, but we are running together. Let’s be brothers and sisters who pick one another up, who take a hand, who pray and encourage and love as we watch one another run our races. 

And no matter what, our Coach will always be by our side. He’ll run the race with us, giving us everything we need, and we can trust Him to never leave our side.

“Therefore…let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”
Hebrews 12:1a-2

So, let’s put on and keep on the proper attire for our race – our spiritual armor, and our light – God’s Word, and keep running with our eyes on the prize of eternal life with Jesus Christ.

When he’d crossed the finish line, Zach said, with a smile, “I’m tired, but I’m happy. I finished the race.” 

May we, too, say, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”  2 Timothy 4:7

And if you’ve never signed up for this race, you’ve never known Jesus Christ personally, the Bible says this: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

If you believe that Jesus is who He said He is, that He is the Messiah, the Savior who came to die on the cross as payment for our sins, and you desire to put your faith in Him, to give your life to Him and begin following Him, just talk to God and let Him know. You can pray a prayer that goes something like this: 

Dear God, please forgive me for my sins. I believe your Son Jesus died on the cross to pay for my sins and I accept His payment. Please come live in my heart and lead me in this race called life. I pray in Jesus’s name, amen.

If you have any questions please let me know. God bless you!

For Him, 
Dorci

 

 

 

 

 

Scripture Picture – Galatians 6:9

Posted on by Dorci