James 4:7-10 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
Over the past month, I decided to purposely disconnect from all social media and I must say, despite the craziness in the world — I found myself more at peace, by simply disconnecting.
And speaking of being disconnected, one missionary tells of his experience about being assigned a car that would not start without a push. After pondering this problem, he devised a plan. He went to the school near his home, got permission to take some children out of class, and had them push his car off. As he made his rounds, he would either park on a hill or leave the engine running. He used this ingenious procedure for two years.
When a new missionary came to take over his station, he proudly began to explain his arrangement for getting the car started. As he was talking, the young missionary picked up the hood only to find that the only trouble was a loose cable. He gave the cable a twist, stepped into the car, pushed the switch, and the engine roared to life.
For two years, needless trouble had become routine — but the power was there all along — and the only thing that was needed was a better connection!
So it is for us as believers, we can walk through this life stumbling and struggling … having a loose connection with God — or we can determine to be steadfastly connected to Him — and His unlimited power.
As James clearly says, “Draw near to me, and I will draw near to you,” so we have the choice to be as close or as distant as we want to the King of Kings! God’s decision to be intimate with us was already made when He displayed His love for us through the sacrifice of His Son! Now it’s in our hands … what kind of relationship do we want?
So let’s resolve to spend some time under the hood, double checking those connections, and making whatever adjustments necessary to get better connected to God — and His omnipotent power. Amazingly, if you go through the self-inspection process — you’ll begin going through personal revival — and true revival begins one person at a time — perhaps it’ll be you this weekend!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]As we enter this season of Teshuva (Repentance) during the month of Elul, we enter a unique season approaching the Fall Feasts. This month initiates a 40-day countdown to Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), and is traditionally known as the time the King would visit His people.
As we continue our study of the men who followed David, another characteristic was their ability to war.They learned how to battle with both the right hand and the left hand for hurling stones. If you have ever thrown a ball, you know that you can aim effectively with your dominant hand — but try it with the opposite hand — it’s far more difficult to throw accurately. But the men that followed David learned to throw with both arms effectively! It must have taken months of training to develop such skill.
When David was a fugitive from Saul, the men who followed him recognized his rightful place as King of Israel, and they developed a deep loyalty to him, this little band. As we read yesterday, these men were transformed from distress, debt, and discontentment [1 Sam. 22:1-2] into becoming mighty men of war. Having joined David, they quickly realized that they were joining a conflict.
Last night, Jewish people around the world will mourn Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the fifth month of the Hebrew calendar year. Some of you may know that a lot of bad things have happened to the Jewish people on this date, the first of which was when the spies returned with an evil report of Canaan, the Promised Land, recounted in Numbers 13 and 14. Both the first and the second Temple were destroyed on this exact date, hundreds of years apart. The Crusades began on this day in 1095. The Jews were expelled out of England on this day in 1290, and again were expelled from Spain and Portugal on Tisha B’Av in 1492. And there are many more examples of this infamous day in Jewish history!
An ancient legend tells of a king who walked into his garden one day to find almost everything withered and dying. After speaking to an oak near the gate, the king learned that he was troubled because he was not tall and beautiful like the pine. The pine overheard their conversation and added that she, too, was upset, for she could not bear delicious fruit like the pear tree. The pear tree heard his name and began to complain that he did not have the lovely odor of the spruce. And so it went throughout the entire garden.
In the midst of a serious heat wave, wildfires are spreading across Europe causing thousands to evacuate. This reminded me of a story I once read.
I can’t begin to tell you. So many people I’ve shared the Gospel with have answered, “Well — I don’t need that, I’m a good person.” No, we’re not. We have a tendency to compare ourselves with our neighbor, thinking how nice or how giving we are compared to him or her. But none of us are good by God’s standards. Our good works are like filthy rags, according to Isaiah.