The Power Of Love

by David C. McCasland

Read: Zephaniah 3:14-20
The Lord your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love. —Zephaniah 3:17

Bible in a year:
Psalms 126-128; 1 Corinthians 10:19-33

The documentary film Young@Heart gives a rollicking look at a senior chorus of 24 singers whose average age is 80. Filled with humor and poignant moments, the film includes this remarkable singing group’s deeply moving performance at a New England prison. When the concert concludes, the singers walk into the audience, greeting the surprised prisoners with handshakes and hugs.

The inmates’ unexpected amazement at this personal touch reminds me of the book of Zephaniah in which the prophet brings a powerful message of God’s presence and love to His people during a dark time: “The Lord your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing” (3:17).

According to Bible teacher Henrietta Mears, Zephaniah “begins with sorrow but ends with singing. The first of the book is full of sadness and gloom, but the last contains one of the sweetest songs of love in the Old Testament.”

God’s love for us is always astonishing, especially when it touches us at a low ebb of life. During our darkest times, the Lord comes to us with His joy, His love, and His song.

If your heart is filled with sadness,
Or you struggle with despair,
Turn to God, who’ll bring you gladness
When you sense His love and care. —Sper

In God’s garden of love, you are His forget-me-not.

Reminders Of Love

by Anne Cetas

Read: John 19:1-7, 16-18
God is love. —1 John 4:8

Bible in a year:
Psalms 132-134; 1 Corinthians 11:17-34

After the US entered World War II in 1941, Estelle tried to talk her boyfriend Sidney out of joining the Army. But he enlisted and began his training in April of the following year. For the next 3 years he wrote her love letters—525 in all. Then in March 1945, she learned that her beloved fiancé had been killed in combat.

Although Estelle did eventually marry, the memories of her first love lived in her heart. To honor that love, she published a book of Sidney’s wartime correspondence more than 60 years later.

Like those letters, the Lord has left us with reminders of His love—the Scriptures. He says: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you” (Jer. 31:3).

“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love” (John 15:9).

The Bible also tells us that “Christ . . . loved the church and gave Himself for her” (Eph. 5:25).

“[Jesus] gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us” (Titus 2:14).

“God is love” (1 John 4:8).

Read God’s Word often and be reminded that Jesus loves you and died for you.

With lovingkindness I have drawn you,
Proving that My love is true;
Do not neglect to read of that love,
Written in My Word for you. —Verway

Nothing can compare to the love of God.

The Only Place To Start

by Dave Branon

Read: Galatians 1:6-12
If anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. —Galatians 1:9

Bible in a year:
Psalms 54-56; Romans 3

When a publishing company asked me to write an endorsement for a new book, I said I’d be glad to. It appeared to be a helpful effort directed to young people, challenging them to live for God in a changing world. But as I read the book, something troubled me. Although it had lots of Scripture and great spiritual advice, it didn’t explain that the starting point for any relationship with God is salvation through Jesus Christ.

The writer seemed to imply that the essence of living spiritually in modern society is based totally on action—good deeds—and not on saving faith in Christ. I didn’t write the endorsement.

The culture of the church is changing rapidly. Often left behind in the rush to find exciting new ideas is the essential nature of the gospel. The apostle Paul was astonished that people so readily embraced a “different gospel” (Gal. 1:6). What he preached was not from man, but a direct revelation from Jesus Himself (vv.11-12).

We must never let go of that true gospel: Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again for our justification, declaring us righteous before God (Rom. 4:25; 1 Cor. 15:3-4). This alone offers the “power of God to salvation for everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16). If we want to live for God, this is the only place to start.

No one can say he doesn’t need
Forgiveness for his sin,
For all must come to Christ by faith
To have new life within. —Branon

Faith is the hand that must take God’s gift of salvation.

The Waggle Dance

The Waggle Dance
READ: John 4:27-36

Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. —John 4:29
How do bees lead one another to nectar? Scientists say it’s all about the “waggle” dance. The theory was regarded with

skepticism when it was first proposed by Nobel Prize-winning zoologist Karl von Frisch in the 1960s. But now, researchers in

the United Kingdom have used tiny radar responders attached to worker bees to support von Frisch’s theory. They’ve confirmed

that the bee orients its body toward the food source and uses the intensity of its waggle dance to signal the distance to

other bees.

The woman who met Jesus at Jacob’s well also found a way to lead the rest of her community to what she had found—living water

(John 4:10). They were drawn to discover why this woman with five ex-husbands and a current live-in was saying, “Come, see a

Man who told me all things that I ever did” ( v.29).

As the crowd was on its way, the One who on other occasions had called Himself “the bread of life” (6:48) was telling His

disciples that His food was found in doing the will of God (4:32,34).

Jesus is living water and food for our soul. Joining Him to do the will of God and finish the work He has given us to do is

the ultimate source of nourishment. — Mart De Haan

Keep your witness bright and clear,
So the world may see and hear
God’s salvation far and near,
That others too may know Him. —Hess

When you have found food for your soul lead others to the Source.

Believing

A young man who had been raised as an atheist was training to be an Olympic diver. The only religious influence in his life

came from his outspoken Christian friend. The young diver never really paid much attention to his friend’s sermons, but he

heard them often.
One night the diver went to the indoor pool at the college he attended. The lights were all off, but as the pool had big

skylights and the moon was bright, there was plenty of light to practice by.
The young man climbed up to the highest diving board and as he turned his back to the pool on the edge of the board and

extended his arms out, he saw his shadow on the wall. The shadow of his body was in the shape of a cross.
Instead of diving, he knelt down and asked God to come into his life. As the young man stood, a maintenance man walked in and

turned the lights on. The pool had been drained for repairs.

I WILL MOVE THE ROCK

I WILL MOVE THE ROCK

A man was sleeping at night in his cabin when suddenly his room filled with light and the Savior appeared. The LORD told the man he had work for HIM to do, and showed him a large rock in front of his cabin. The LORD explained that the man was to push against the rock with all his might.

This the man did, day after day. For many years he toiled from sun up to sun down, his shoulders set squarely against the cold, massive surface of the unmoving rock, pushing with all his might. Each night the man returned to his cabin sore and worn out, feeling that his whole day had been spent in vain.

Seeing that the man was showing signs of discouragement, Satan decided to enter the picture by placing thoughts into the man’s mind such as: “You have been pushing against that rock for a long time, and it hasn’t budged. Why kill yourself over this? You are never going to move it.”

Thus giving the man the impression that the task was impossible and that he was a failure, these thoughts discouraged and disheartened the man even more. “Why kill myself over this?” he thought. “I’ll just put in my time, giving just the minimum effort and that will be good enough.”

And that he planned to do until one day he decided to make it a matter of prayer and take his troubled thoughts to the GOD. “LORD,” he said, “I have labored long and hard in your service, putting all my strength to do that which you have asked. Yet, after all this time, I have not even budged that rock by half a millimeter. What is wrong? Why am I failing?”

To this the LORD responded compassionately, “My friend, when I asked you to serve me and you accepted, I told you that your task was to push against the rock with all your strength, which you have done. Never once did I mention to you that I expected you to move it. Your task was to push. And now you come to me, with your strength spent, thinking that you have failed. But, is that really so? Look at yourself. Your arms are strong and muscled, your back sinewed and brown, your hands are callused from constant pressure, and your legs have become massive and hard. Through opposition you have grown much and your abilities now surpass that which you used to have. Yet you haven’t moved the rock. But your calling was to be obedient and to push and
to exercise your faith and trust in My wisdom. This you have done.”

“I, my friend, will move the rock,” says the LORD.

At times when we hear a word from GOD, we tend to use our own intellect to decipher what He wants, when actually what GOD wants is just simple obedience and faith in HIM…

“By all means, exercise the faith that moves mountains; but it is still GOD who moves the mountain.”

Belly Laughs

Belly Laughs
By John Fischer

Not long ago I spent three days in a hotel in rural Indiana. In the lobby of my hotel was a group of six women who spent the better part of a day laughing and carrying on while they worked on a sewing project together. These six women, ranging in age from fifty-five to eighty, shared an obvious camaraderie that evidenced itself in their animated conversation, laced with a generous supply of laughter—what I would call belly laughter, a deep-from-way-down-inside-because-we’ve-gone-through-so-much-together laughter that was highly contagious. And when I saw their Bibles come out, I knew I had to find out more.

I almost fell in on them I was eavesdropping so close, but one of them caught me and invited me in. That’s when I found out they were at one time all from the same town and were meeting back at this hotel as a sort of semi-annual reunion. I could see why they would make the effort because they indeed had something special going here.

When I asked them why they were still meeting, I received a litany of divorce, cancer, dead husbands, and lost children that would have kept a sitcom supplied with material for more seasons than Friends ever dreamed of. There was history behind those belly laughs. There was an obvious spiritual center to this group, but not a rubber stamp. There was a Roman Catholic, a southern Baptist, a Methodist, a Pentecostal, and two who named no church affiliation, yet I couldn’t help thinking that they were having church there, and it was a church I wouldn’t mind joining.

The “youngest” and spunkiest among them was quite clearly the eighty year-old who was actually the excuse for this particular get-together having just turned eighty that week. I commented about how she didn’t look a day over sixty-five. That’s when one of the other women quipped: “Oh she’s eighty, alright. Why do you think she’s been trying to thread that needle for the last 15 minutes!” Belly laughs followed with birthday girl, the loudest.

What held these women together wasn’t just a religious experience, it was their shared human experiences as well, their love and respect for each other and their ability to let each other’s character come out of the box where I would wager it stays most of the time when they are not together like this.

I actually found myself being jealous of what these women had, until I realized I could have it too. It requires commitment, stark honesty, love, acceptance, and refusal to judge one another. It requires needing and serving one another. This is something we all need.