A Pure Heart

“For God examines every heart and sees through every motive.” – 1 Chronicles 28:9 (The Message)

What do you think God finds when examining your heart? Are there places you are afraid for God to find? Are there motives that God will love? How do you know?

I once found this story.
Two monks were returning to the monastery in the evening. It had rained and there were puddles of water on the roadsides. At one place a beautiful young woman was standing unable to walk across because of a puddle of water. The elder of the two monks went up to her lifted her and left her on the other side of the road, and continued his way to the monastery.
In the evening the younger monk came to the elder monk and said, "Sir, as monks, we cannot touch a woman?"
The elder monk answered "Yes, brother".
Then the younger monk asked again, "But then Sir, how is that you lifted that woman on the roadside?"
The elder monk smiled at him and told him " I left her on the other side of the road, but you are still carrying her."

One monk dwelled on that which is considered good, while the other monk decided to do good. I wonder if that is what it means to say that God sees through every motive. Sometimes we worry so much about what others think we fail to meet the need right in front of us. However while we may have saved face in the eyes of the world, what were we then in God’s eyes? Perhaps it is time for us to pray that God gives us the wisdom to do that which keeps our motives pure in those mighty eyes.

With hope and joy,
Garrett

Doing Good and Doing Love Anyway

“But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” – Luke 6:27-28 (NRSV)

What is the whole point of this verse? As we go about our Missions Week how can this verse guide our future? Do you pray for those who abuse you? How do you think Jesus expects us to act toward our enemies?

This is from "The Paradoxical Commandments" by Dr. Kent M. Keith that Mother Teresa had on the wall of her children's home in Calcutta.
Anyway
People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.

Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.

Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies. 

Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. 

Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.

Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.

Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you help them.

Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.

Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, It is between you and God;

It was never between you and them anyway.

Our lives are meant to glorify God! So when Jesus talks about doing good to those who hate us it isn’t about them, it’s about God, it’s about us! I have probably used this “Anyway” illustration in a different weekly devotional, but sometimes it is good to hear again. Love and will change the world, but it begins with us. Today choose to love no matter what and then we will become people who glorify God no matter what.

With hope and joy,
Garrett

Keep Doing Good

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. – Galatians 6:9 (NIV)

When have you grown weary? Did you keep on going? What about those times you have given up? Do you regret having given up? What type of harvest have you reaped by doing good? Who have you seen do good in the face of adversity? Did he/she reap a harvest?

Kenny Walker became deaf at the age of two after a bout of meningitis. As he got older he grew both in size and strength, and never let his deafness keep him from his love of football. Walker was an excellent high school player that caught the attention of several colleges. When asked where he wanted to go he signed “N” for Nebraska, and that is where he went.
Walker was a great player while at Nebraska being named an All-American and the Big Eight Conference “Defensive Player of the Year.” But perhaps the most amazing moment of his college football career came during his final home game. Traditionally, senior players were introduced alphabetically and ran onto the field, welcomed by a cheering crowd. Because Walker is deaf the university wanted to find a special way to honor him. The fans were all taught before the game how to sign the word, “Applause,” and were told to sign their ovation in silence while standing and waving their hands from side to side.
Standing in the stadium tunnel, Walker could feel the vibration of the cheering crowd as each senior ran on the field. When he ran out suddenly the vibrations stopped. Confused, he looked around the stadium to see over seventy-five thousand fans standing for him, waving their hands in a way only a deaf person would recognize as applause.

In that moment Kenny Walker reaped the harvest of continuing to fight on where others would quit. If we do not give up there is a harvest for each of us to reap one day! All harvests may look different, but that will make them no less incredible. Today and forever more let Christ guide our steps to the places where we can do good. Our example may even inspire others to do good, and perhaps that will be our harvest, others doing good by doing the work of God they first saw in us.

With hope and joy,
Garrett

Pleasing God and Making Heaven

Do not forget to do good to others, and share with them, because such sacrifices please God. – Hebrews 13:16 (NCV)

Do you do good to others? If so what have you done? What do you share? How has good been done to you? Who have you witnessed sacrifice much? Why do you think all of this pleases God?

I have heard a story many times that goes like this:
A man spoke with the Lord about heaven and hell. The Lord said to the man, "Come, I will show you hell."
They entered a room where a group of people sat around a huge pot of stew. Everyone was famished, desperate and starving. Each had a spoon attached to their hands that reached the pot, but each spoon had a handle so much longer than their arms that it could not be used to get the stew into their mouths. The suffering was terrible.
"Come, now I will show you heaven," the Lord said after a while. They entered another room, identical to the first – the pot of stew, the group of people, the same long-handled spoons attached to their hands. But there everyone was happy and well nourished. "I don't understand," said the man. "Why are they happy here when they were miserable in the other room and everything was the same?"
The Lord smiled, "Ah, it is simple," he said. "Here they have learned to feed each other."

If we all did good to others we would have heaven here on earth! In these times when we worry about what might come next, and how we might cope with the little we have sometimes we need the reminder, “Do not forget to do good to others…” Such sacrifice pleases God simply because then we become more like the truest human being there ever was, Jesus Christ. Life easily becomes hellish when we decide to hoard things we have leaving others in need because then suffering is everywhere. That first church in the book of Acts was a place where “there was no need among them.” Let us not only believe that such beauty can still be true today, but also act like it can as well by doing good, sharing, and sacrificing what we have in the name of love and Jesus. We might just discover that life is heavenly!

With hope and joy,
Garrett

Grieving the Holy Spirit

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. – Ephesians 4:30 (NIV)

What do you think it means to grieve the Holy Spirit? Is there something about you that might grieve God? Do you believe yourself to have been sealed by the Holy Spirit?

Once as a chaplain I was called to be with someone who “needed support.” When I arrived I was told the woman in the room had just watched her husband die in front of her. She was morbidly obese and had been bed ridden for several years. Earlier that day her husband arrived home and had a heart attack, falling to the ground. There was no phone within her reach and as she struggled to reach the phone to call for help her husband passed away only feet from her.
She was brought to us, and I was called to be with her, to make sure she wasn’t alone. I entered the room and the first thing that hit me was the smell. This poor woman had not bathed for years and the smell of years of neglect saturated each corner of the tiny room she in which she lay. Parts of her body were caked with layers of dirt and filth. I attempted some words of comfort, but they were inauthentic as I tried to situate myself as far as possible from her, as I tried to save myself.
For perhaps 20 minutes or so I stood far from her in this room. She a grieving widow, and me fairly useless, unwilling to even hold her hand. It was then I heard footsteps approaching the room, and I turned to the door in time to see a little girl, maybe 7 or 8 years of age run into that sad room. She ran right to the bed and jumped onto the woman. The girl threw her tiny arms around the woman’s neck, kissed her cheek and said, “I love you grandma. Don’t worry I’m here now and it will be all right.”
I wonder how much I grieved the Holy Spirit before that girl entered and taught me how to love.

When we do not live the lives to which we have been called and for which we have been saved, should we ever add to the misery of another living soul, and at those times we abandon Christian charity for selfish ambition of any sort, we grieve the Holy Spirit. However when we live into the reality of our redemption, the places we go become the places Christ can be found because he lives in us. Then there is no grieving the Holy Spirit, for the Spirit is celebrating that we have become the joy with which God created us!

With hope and joy,
Garrett

The Least of These

“Then those people will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or alone and away from home or without clothes or sick or in prison? When did we see these things and not help you?' Then the King will answer, 'I tell you the truth, anything you refused to do for even the least of my people here, you refused to do for me.'” – Matthew 25:44-45 (NCV)

When have you had need and not been helped? When have you not helped those in need? Where have you seen Jesus? What have you done to help? How will you change your life today to make sure you hear, “I tell you the truth, anything you did for even the least of my people here, you also did for me.”?

The following story is found at http://www.rogerknapp.com/inspire/hishouse.htm
It was a cold Sunday morning when members started arriving at church, snow flakes had just fallen, people were rushing in to get inside. To the warmth, to the dry sanctuary.
As the members were walking in they were astonished to see a homeless person laying on the sidewalk by the front door. He was bent over all covered up with an old black trench coat, that had many holes in it. His shoes had holes in it and you could see his socks filthy from months of grime on them. The man had a black hat on that covered his face. His hands filthy with dirt from probably digging in a garbage can some thought.
As the members made their way into the sanctuary, they were all discussing how this horrible filthy man, had the nerve to sleep at THEIR church doors! Finally the pianist started playing and the members all sat down in their seats. They were all looking around, wondering where the Pastor could be. You could hear people whispering, saying, "Pastor Joe is probably telling that homeless man he needs to leave the property." "What would visitors think if they seen him."
All of a sudden, you could hear a gasp! The homeless man was walking down the middle of the church aisle, he made his way to the front, and then to the platform!!! When the homeless man got to the microphone. He said "Good morning, how are you all?" The homeless man was their Pastor Joe! Not a word was said, no one moved all around. Even the pianist stopped playing.
Then Pastor Joe said, "Did any of you see Jesus outside this morning? He was cold, He was dirty, His clothes were filthy! However no one asked Him into HIS house."

The least of Jesus’ people are all around us and that means Jesus is all around us! Let’s go be the type of Christians Jesus wants us to be, Christians of action that make goodness happen!

With hope and joy,
Garrett

Encouragement!

When you talk, do not say harmful things, but say what people need—words that will help others become stronger. Then what you say will do good to those who listen to you. – Ephesians 4:29 (NCV)

 

Do you say things that are good for those who listen to you?  How can words make others become stronger?  Who have you hurt with harmful words?  What do people need to hear?  What will you say to spread peace and joy around you today?

 

The following story is by an unknown author found at: http://www.wow4u.com/hospitalwindow/index.html

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the room's only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back. The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation.

Every afternoon when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window.

The man in the other bed began to live for those one-hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and color of the world outside.

The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every color and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance.

As the man by the window described all this in exquisite detail, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine the picturesque scene.

One warm afternoon the man by the window described a parade passing by. Although the other man couldn't hear the band - he could see it. In his mind's eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words.

Days and weeks passed.

One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep. She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away.

As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.

Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the real world outside. He strained to slowly turn to look out the window beside the bed.

It faced a blank wall. The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window.

The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall. She said, "Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you."

 

We all need encouragement!  Words can hurt us, and words can make us feel great.  Christ often said the thing that gave people strength to keep on going.  Be his disciple and encourage others, so others may say of you, “he/she just wanted to encourage all.”

With hope and joy,

Garrett