Psalms 62:5 My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.
It never ceases to amaze me, the way the devil uses our offenses and our “offendedness” to divide and conquer marriages, relationships, churches — even entire nations!
Many of us are not careful enough about the things we say and more importantly, we get offended way too easily. As we were discussing this topic recently, a good friend gave this analogy and we loved it:
If you are holding a baby and his little arm swats you in the face, would you take offense to that? Of course not! We know the little guy didn’t intend to hurt us. We respond with “awwww” or laughter or something to that effect. But if it is a friend, a family member or a brother or sister in the church who offends us with a little swat of his words or actions, we are undone. We expect more from them! What hypocrisy! We become angry and we want to defend ourselves, fight back or leave forever.
Yeshua (Jesus) said NO! He said that even if someone despite-fully uses us, that means on purpose, that we are to respond in love! We as human beings are troubled and sinful. We are not perfect and we should never expect others to be, no matter what their positions are in the church. God is perfect and He is the one from whom our expectations should come — no man.
So let’s be quick to forgive, and slow to anger! Turn over all of those offenses to the Lord and allow Him to restore His perfect shalom over us!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]Since moving to Israel we’ve been thrust into a Middle Eastern culture of “extreme hospitality”. The above parable from Luke takes place in a similar cultural context, and it powerfully illustrates how God wants us to approach Him.
Unless you’re up on your biology, you’re probably wondering, “What in the world is a coney?” I certainly was. After doing a little research, I discovered that a coney is a rock badger.
I ran across a profound story that shows what happens when the family structure breaks down — but this didn’t have to do with people — it had to do with elephants.
As some of you may know, a bomb exploded in a bus within blocks of our Jerusalem apartment when we first moved to Israel. That morning, my wife and I, along with our newborn baby, were heading to the city center to run a few errands when suddenly we heard the explosion. Within minutes, the sirens were screaming from every part of the city as officials quickly made their way to the scene. Later that month, the bus I was supposed to be on drove away as I watched it carry away the 50 or so people who would be critically injured and the 8 who would be dead seconds later, when that bus exploded before my very eyes. So, to put it mildly, we have seen firsthand how terrorism works and how it affects people.
We know a Christian woman who has struggled with her past for years. She rarely thinks or speaks of anything else. And as a result, her life has just spiraled downward, despite all our attempts to minister to her. It breaks our hearts to see.
Today marks Holocaust Memorial day here in Israel. At ten o’clock in the morning on this day, war sirens sound calling the entire Land to remembrance of the 6,000,000 Jews who died and many more who suffered under the Nazi regime during WW2. People in their homes and workplaces rise in silence; cars come to a halt, even on the highways; pedestrians stop where they are and pause… for one minute as the sirens wail, we remember.
Two hunters came across a bear so big that they dropped their rifles and ran for cover. One man climbed a tree while the other hid in a nearby cave. The bear was in no hurry to eat, so he sat down between the tree and the cave to reflect upon his good fortune. Suddenly, and for no apparent reason, the hunter in the cave came rushing out, almost ran into the waiting bear, hesitated, and then dashed back in again. The same thing happened a second time. When he emerged for the third time, his companion in the tree frantically called out, “Woody, are you crazy? Stay in the cave till he leaves!” “Can’t,” panted Woody, “there’s another bear in there!”