Post Sunday Devotional June 8, 2008

“Away with you, Satan! For it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.” Matthew 4:10

We love those straight forward, confident, don’t mess with me statements. This is one of them. When offered the easy way out, a way other than God willed for His life, Jesus stood firm, didn’t buckle and with one statement dispatched the most powerful and deceptive evil being out there. Jesus didn’t only speak confidently, but He lived out confidently what He spoke. All of us know the falseness of strong words with wee little mouse like actions to follow. It normally turns us off from ourselves or whoever else shows this attitude time after time. But oh how we are drawn to those who both speak and live as they speak. They inspire us and challenge us to lead lives beyond what we ever imagined.

Worship Him in all circumstances and events in our lives. Seek His Kingdom and His righteousness first (Matthew 6:33), abiding in Him (John 15:1-5), knowing the love of Christ that we may be filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19). Worship is the praise and exaltation of God, centering honor on Who He is, centering our attention on Him and not our own feelings. Because we normally base worship around how we feel it is normally easy to worship when we are feeling good, or all is “right” in our lives. What about when things aren’t going so well? Jesus had been fasting for 40 days, the Bible tells us He was hungry, things could have certainly been better! His stomach was probably regularly reminding Him of that. How easy does worship come forth from us when we are struggling? Do we instead ask ourselves; why should I worship God when things aren’t going well for me? Or maybe we do not worship Him during these times because we sense that God has abandoned us, left town and thus He is not even there to be worshipped.

Jesus still worshipped God despite His circumstances (He was in a desolate place, dry and dirty and He was flat out hungry and the company stunk…remember He was hanging out with Satan) and yet He clearly stated that He would worship God in the midst of all this! He saw life on this earth differently than most of us do. Even though Jesus was driven out into the wilderness, He did not abandon what He knew. He did not abandon what He had been taught. He did not cease to worship God. Let’s face it for many of us we struggle waking up, then we struggle dealing with the morning chaos within our homes, then we struggle with our commute, then we struggle with our boss or our jobs, then we struggle with the commute home, we struggle with the rising gas prices, we struggle with what our government is doing, struggle with what our schools are doing, struggle with what our neighbors are doing and then we make comments like, I can’t wait to be in heaven! Do we honestly feel that a statement like that honors and worships God, when we live and behave like He isn’t even present today? Do we honestly feel that encourages other believers around us? Do we really think unbelievers will be attracted to the God we worship when we act allow the world to discourage us so much that we can’t wait to get out of here?

Here is reality for us all God has saved us, but has not removed us from this earth. He has instead called us into His Kingdom and that Kingdom that is here now includes; waking up even when it is waking up with just a few hours of sleep, it includes communicating with our families, driving in traffic to work, serving our employer, adapting to our economy, praying for our government and its leaders, showing our schools and neighbors the love of Christ and you can fill in the rest of what it includes in your life. Have we forgotten that those are the things that God has given us and placed in our lives? Should we not worship Him in the midst of that by living with Christ in our today instead of dreaming of a day that isn’t here yet?

The tests, the temptations in life are typical for all men, women and children (1 Corinthian 10:13) and listen to how James the brother of Christ puts it to us in his letter:

“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces, patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete lacking nothing.” James 1:2-4

Count it all joy! We must face up to the ordinary events of our lives, the chaotic events in our lives and embrace them (that doesn’t mean we always love them, but we accept them joyfully as part of the life God has called us to be part of). It is then that we are speaking and living the same, just like Jesus did.

When the devil did flee the scene finally in Matthew 4:11, because he knew he had lost this round, immediately God’s messengers, His agents, the angels came and ministered to Jesus. Many of us may not be sensing the peace and comfort of God sending His angels to minister to us because we are too busy allowing the darkness to remain in our lives. Let me share a personal example with you….

Many of you may know that I have been driving around the miraculous Brown Van that would not die. The transmission has been slipping for over a year, yet it would still run at 4000 RPMs. The radiator was shot and thus the heat would need to remain on, which made for some pretty sweaty drives across town on hot days, but I was enjoying the fact that it continued to defy the laws of mechanics and passed inspection yet again back in January (legally I may add, no bribes were given!) because my families other car would be paid off in September so I just wanted Brown Van to make it until then. Well sadly on Monday, June 2, 2008 at approximately 6 pm, Brown Van passed on. It died right before the Bradford Bridge on Rte 125 across the street from Wendy’s. I was on my way to the church for a pre-marital meeting with Nelson and Tracy who are to be married this August. Now in the past when unexpected things like this happen, I get pretty angry and anxious inside. They mess up my schedule, they mess up our families finances and so on. But as we talked about on Sunday if we are truly going to grow as disciples’ of Christ we won’t simply be zapped with the abilities, tests will come our way to grow that character of Christ within us. So I coasted to the side of the road, put on the hazards and began to make phone calls. Which as I dialed, I thanked God for the cell phone, remember the pre-cell phone days, I either would have had to go to a pay phone and make a collect call, go knock on a strangers door to make a phone call or walk home, but now many of us are blessed to have cell phones, so I called Nelson and Tracy and apologetically told them we would have to cancel our meeting. I called Nicole who was at Madison’s baseball game and told her that my schedule was now different. I called my oldest daughter Alex and Heidi at home and asked Heidi to text me some phone numbers for tow truck companies. Then I got out of the car, took out my bags, gazed at the Merrimac River and said, God what do you want me to do with my newly revised schedule? So I began calling the men who were going to the men’s retreat that wanted to caravan up together and through those phone calls was able to map out our plan for driving up to the men’s retreat. In the meantime I had received some tow truck numbers via text messaging, but unfortunately when I called these numbers they did not answer, but no worries, for God began to send His angels to me to minister to me during that time. Tracy who knew why I cancelled our meeting pulled up behind me at the foot of the bridge and said, “How can I help?” I told her I was trying to find a tow truck company that would answer the phone, so she used her contacts to track down a tow company, which of course she had those contacts, for of course God knew who to send to me to minister at just the right time and through those contacts I was able to contact a company willing to come out. Tracy then took me to the ATM machine because the tow company only took cash. After bringing me back, I then saw one of my daughter’s friends Mom drive by in busy traffic, she saw me and to my surprise two minutes later she came driving the other way and stopped traffic to yell across the street with a beautiful smile to see if I needed help, once she knew I was OK, she then drove on, only to turn back around in order to continue on to where she was going. What a blessing to watch someone care that much to drop what they were doing to minister to me in my time of need! Then Mike Alfaro found out what had happened and even though he was not even close to Haverhill he called to make sure I knew that if I needed rides or help to call him. Then my Father-in-law who happened to be in town to watch my daughter’s baseball game drove up and made me laugh as only he can do and to let me know he was going to get some pizza so we could all eat once I returned home. Then the tow truck driver was kind enough to trade me the cost of the tow for my now dead van, which I thought was one sweet deal and an immediate removal of a potential 3 month driveway eyesore. Thus normally a stressful situation, a stressful test that unfortunately in times past would drive me to anger and eventually sin, but this time, just sticking with God opened up the door to a downright enjoyable hour and a half on a bridge in Haverhill. Yeah, it still cost me, but the blessings of the testing of my heart and the blessings of remaining in the light of worship far outweigh what I had to sacrifice. You just flat out cannot out give God.

So, away with you Satan, I’m only going to worship God for what I have in my life, for where I am in my life and what I have in my life are His, I already know I have heaven awaiting me, so in the meantime I’m going to remain here for as long as He desires me and I’m going to be a minister of encouragement and love.

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF

Are you seeing God in all areas of your life or just some? What maybe stopping you from seeing Him in all areas of your life? (Fear, mistrust, unbelief)

Look back on recent events in your life. Where (at what point) have you abandoned worship of God for worship of something else? Why?