Circumstances can loom intimidating and large. In today’s passage the disciples found themselves in a circumstance they knew was bigger than them, “a great windstorm” and “waves… breaking the boat” they were in. When they woke Jesus who was asleep in the boat, they asked Him a question that I’m sure I have asked God before, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Or in my words it may have sounded like, “God, don’t you care…?”
Then Jesus speaks, “Peace! Be still!”
“Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” These are the questions that Jesus asks as they sat in the boat in the “great calm.”
Every day as they walked with Jesus, the disciples saw Him perform miracles, speak with wisdom like no one else, heal, cast out demons, etc. He displayed that He indeed is Lord, and sovereign over all. He is supreme in power and dominion.
In my life, God has come through, time after time after time. Why would I be afraid and have no faith? Jesus displayed His sovereignty on the boat that day with His disciples, He has not changed.
Jesus shows me my Heavenly Father. My God is Sovereign over the storms that may blow in my life. The safest place to be in a time of storms and uncertainty is in the boat with Jesus! He alone has the power to say, “Peace! Be Still!” And bring calmness in uncertainty! He is in control. He is Sovereign and my sovereign God loves me.
““Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied…But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel.” Acts 9:5, 15 NIV
Today is Acts 9
180 degree turn around… I was one way. Now I am not. This is what Jesus did for Saul. This is what He has done for me.
Saul hated Christians. He stood by and approved of the killing of Stephen. He searched out the Christians in their homes and had them arrested. Then He met Jesus!
An encounter with Jesus will change you. What you were is changed to what God wanted you to be all along, a “chosen instrument” of His. Saul “immediately… proclaimed Jesus… saying “He is the Son of God.”” Everyone around Saul “{was} amazed.”
I know this kind of change in my own life. Jesus took me, an anxious woman tormented in her mind, and gave me peace.
Jesus has the power to give us a “180 degree turn around” in our lives through His Holy Spirit living in us. All we have to do is HEAR/ LISTEN TO His voice as Saul did on the road to Damascus and OBEY whatever Jesus says! He truly gives us New Beginnings!
“…he received living words to pass on to us. Our fathers refused to obey him…” Acts 7:38-39 NIV
Today is Acts 7.
Stephen stood before the council of religious leaders. A group of men had “secretly instigated men” to speak lies about him. Then Stephen spoke. He recounted the history of the Jewish people. He spoke of how time and time again God had come to them and rescued them, yet they had chosen to go their own way and worship the false gods of the nations around them. God gave them “living words.” Yet they “refused to obey.”
This is true of us today. Jesus came as the living Word to us. He has provided us with His Holy Scriptures so that we can listen to His Word and have it transform our hearts from being dark and sin filled to hearts in His image. Yet, we often refuse to obey.
Stephen used the term, “stiff- necked people” to describe the men who would not listen to the “living words” of God. He said they resisted the Holy Spirit just as their fathers (ancestors) did time and time again. Simply put, they would not obey what God said. These men had hard hearts that wanted to do what they wanted to do when and how they wanted to do it. They didn’t want to walk in the ways of God. They wanted their way…
Hearing the truth, they did not repent. Instead they chose to kill Stephen for speaking the “living Words” to them. They resisted and rejected God…
May that never be said of us. We must listen to the Word of God. We must receive it so that we can obey it and be transformed by it. The Word is the truth that brings freedom into our lives.
“Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.” Acts 5:42 NIV
Today is Acts 5.
Can’t stop talking!!
What the disciples had experienced with Jesus was real. They were willing to stand boldly and proclaim it. Even in the midst of threats by the authorities, prison, and beatings, they could not stop talking about Jesus.
When they were told to stop, Peter replied, “We must obey God rather than men…” God had given them a command, “Go…and tell the people all about this new life.”(verse 20 ESV) They obeyed!
When we have a real encounter with Jesus and experience the Holy Spirit living inside of us, we are changed. We can’t stop talking about all that He has done! “Every day… from house to house” everywhere we go, we cannot stop “teaching and preaching” who Jesus is!
“By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as you can all see… Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,” Acts 3:16, 19 NIV
Today is Acts 3.
Miracle! A lame man, who was well known for begging at the gate of the temple, was healed in Jesus name as Peter and John spoke to him! He began to leap and jump and praise God. Crowds started to gather. Peter, once again, testified of Jesus and His resurrection. He spoke of the power of Jesus name and having faith in His name. This power “completely healed” the man.
Peter speaks to the greatest need of the crowd, their spiritual hearts. Wholeness starts there. The people were sick with sin. “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.”
God never changes. He is still the God of miracles. I have seen more than one miracle in my own life. These miracles testify to us of a God who is able to bring complete healing not only to us physically, but spiritually. Our hearts have been darkened, diseased by our own sin and selfishness. We are burdened by the weight of our guilt. But God offers us a New Beginning. Our sins can be blotted out and “times of refreshing may come from the Lord.”
Repent and turn back to the God! He longs to live connected to us in a deep and intimate relationship where we receive His life, wholeness, and healing. moment by moment of each day.
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”John 1:14 NIV
When I was engaged to my husband Rich, he lived in a small apartment in St. Charles, Missouri. It held his bed and his clothes. It was a place he landed on occasion after work or school. It really was not his home. Cleaning it, decorating it, and making meals there was not a thing of concern to him. He was too busy with working full time and going to school full time. However, all this changed when we got married and I moved in. I did my best to give the apartment and his new life a woman’s touch. It went from a dirty bachelor pad to a cleaned-up home. It went from plain white walls to decorations and pictures. Rich went from his nightly dinner of McDonald’s cheeseburgers to home cooked meals. He went from sitting alone each night to companionship. I had come and turned a place he used only to sleep in, to a place where he abided with affection and found refuge and rest. With he and I together in that little apartment, we experienced home.
This month at WOW our verses are about a special relationship of oneness with God – home. Our spiritual hearts experience their true home as we live attached, connected, united, indivisible, and inseparable with God. It is God in man and man in God. As we have faith in Him, loving and obeying His Word, desiring to delight to do His will, we will experience this relationship with God. We will be led home to the heart of God expressed in His Word, knowing Him and all His goodness.
This week’s WOW verse speaks of this expression of God’s heart. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory…” Jesus is the Word made flesh. He came to dwell with us. Not only did He dwell with us, but He died on the cross so that the heart of God could once again dwell in the hearts of men like it was in the beginning before sin entered our world. This is the relationship of oneness with God that He desires for us to experience with Him.
In a small way, this relationship of oneness is similar to the relationship Rich and I experienced when we were married, and I moved into his apartment. When I came to dwell with Rich, our lives changed for the better as we have experienced home together. Jesus, the Word of God, came to establish a relationship of home with us, a place of intimate relationship. He has come to dwell within us through His Word. When we receive the Word into our lives, understanding what He desires to do within us, and believing every Word He is speaking, we will obey Him. We will truly experience Him and His love. We will know Him as our true spiritual home.
Perhaps as you read this, you realize that your heart has been empty and void of its true spiritual home? The Word, Jesus, is longing to come and reside inside of you. The Word wants to clean up the mess that sin has left behind in your spiritual heart. He wants to make Himself at home in your heart filling you with His love. He wants to change your heart into His image so that you can experience Him fully. May we receive the Word, understanding and believing Him. May we obey what He says! May our hearts experience this beautiful relationship of oneness, home, – attached, connected, united, indivisible, and inseparable – with Jesus, the Word!
“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 13:3-5 NIV
“Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” John 13:1 NIV
When I was a kid I had to wear prescription orthopedic shoes. I had foot issues and my feet often hurt. Often there were times that my mom would sit by me on the couch in the evening and ask me if I would like for her to rub my feet. It always felt so good. She loved me and offered herself as a servant to me not only by rubbing my feet but all the other sacrifices she did.
Jesus loved His own. He wanted to teach them a very important lesson — to serve. Why? Because living our lives as a servant focused not on ourselves but on God and His will is the way to a blessed life. (Verse 17) So Jesus washed feet. He displayed humility and love to His disciples.
The truth is you and I are by nature selfish and self focused. When we come to Jesus and ask Him for a heart that is like His, He gives us a new heart. This heart enables us to become more and more like Jesus. It gives us the desire to be humble and loving as He is. He empowers us to no longer be focused on ourselves, but focused on God and pleasing Him.
In this life, there will be many who we encounter that come to us with dirty, stinky, hurting feet. May our hearts desire be as Jesus desired on that night. May we love, bow down onto our knees, and wash the feet — meet the needs — of those around us.
Jesus help me to wash the feet of others so I can be like you.
“To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”” John 8:31-32 NIV
“If you hold…”. Continue, abide, dwell to Jesus’s teachings/ Word. That is the mark of a true disciple. It is impossible to pattern our lives after, give our lives to, and follow closely someone we do not know or relate to on a moment by moment basis.
Jesus warned that it is possible to encounter Him, but to not allow Him to dwell in our hearts. He told those listening to Him. “…you have no room for my word.” We can fill our lives with all kinds of ideas, passions, and pursuits and yet miss the most important pursuit of all, knowing God and His Word.
There is only one way to true freedom and to fulfillment. It is to make room for Jesus in our lives.
Jesus and God the Father are one. Jesus said that He did what He saw the Father doing. “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.” Hebrews 1:3. When we see Jesus, we see God the Father.
Jesus repeatedly spoke about “the one who sent” him. He wanted us to understand that He was not working on His own. He was connected in a real and intimate relationship with His Heavenly Father. Jesus said, “… but I know Him because I am from Him and he sent me.” Jesus had and still has an intimate relationship with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. They are one.
Jesus came to show us what our Heavenly Father is like. He revealed God to us. He also came to restore the relationship mankind lost long ago in the Garden of Eden. He came to restore our connection to Him through the Holy Spirit, who we can now receive to live within us.
When the Holy Spirit lives within us, we are able to identify with Jesus in His own words, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me.” May this be our desire. That we do nothing from ourselves and for our own ambitions, but that we live for the glory of God. That He is lifted up in our lives, and that we will display God as His visible representation — Image Bearer — to the World around us.
Your Love 