Daily Devotional 5/20/20

Good Morning, First Methodist Family.
Join Victoria DePass as she continues our devotional series entitled, “God Is For Us”.



Daily Devotional 5/19/20

Today I have a special guest with me for the video devotional. I’d like you to meet Crackers, our family hamster. Crackers is a Syrian Hamster who joined our family on Valentine’s Day. My eight-year-old daughter is trying very hard to work her way up to having a dog – we are starting very small. Crackers, while adorable, is the most nervous, fearful creature I think I have ever met. It has taken her a long time to warm up to us – to not run and hide, cowering in fear any time she sees us. She’s come a long way!

I do have to work with her each night on becoming more social and accustomed to us. The other night, I had her out of her cage and I was enjoying watching her go from toy to toy, crawling in and out of a soft blanket that I had put down. Every time she came out of a hiding spot, she would look up at me and start trembling again. She would tentatively step out from hiding with her eyes still cautiously watching me. I told her, “You know, life would be a lot more fun for you if you would just trust me and trust the fact that I will NEVER hurt you! I give you fresh water and food every day, a cozy soft bed; I clean up after your countless messes and I give you extra things you don’t even need. I just know you will enjoy them, like toys and treats, because I enjoy seeing you enjoy them!” … Then it dawned on me, the soft voice of the Holy Spirit – “And the same goes for you, Kara. I provide for you every day. I have been nothing but trustworthy and faithful your whole life. Life would be a lot more fun if you would just trust me and who I am!”

We are in the midst of these daily devotionals on the theme God is For Us. And that’s the truth – He REALLY is FOR us! That’s great news and I don’t think we let the reality of that fully sink in.

In my last staff devotional during the Psalm 23 series, I mentioned that I have been reading a book called “Life Without Lack” by Dallas Willard. In it, Dallas says that it isn’t what we DON’T know about God that is our problem. Our problem is what we THINK we know about God that just isn’t true. Jesus came in essence to say, “Forget everything you think you know about God. I’m here to show you what God is really like and it is very good!”

I love this quote by Dallas Willard, “God loves to gush forth with His goodness.” John 4:14 says, “but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” Dallas goes on to say, “Nothing so delights God as giving to anyone and everyone who will receive.”

A favorite verse of mine is Psalm 34:8, “O taste and see that the Lord is good!” Taste and see – experience, reach out, receive the goodness that is being offered to you. Like my hamster, I’ve come a long way in learning to trust God and His goodness through years and years of experiences with Him. There are still times though when I go right back to trembling, questioning His very nature. I slip and doubt God’s goodness, stumbling into false thinking such as “Be careful what you pray for, you just might get it!” Have you noticed when people say this, it is always meant in a bad way? Such as, God might use what you pray against you, so be very careful how you word your prayers! Or if you pray for patience, then God is going to dream up the most horrible situations you could be in to REALLY teach you patience – as if God is saying “ha, ha, ha, I’ll show you; YOU asked for it!” God does teach and guide us, but God is wholly and purely good. He teaches us as the gentle guiding shepherd that we can fully trust.

We must continually learn and lean into the fact that GOD IS FOR US! Life is so much more enjoyable when we can relax in this truth! Like I provide for Crackers, my hamster, God provides daily for us, taking excellent care of us, providing not just the things we need for survival, but out of His goodness, providing things just for our enjoyment because He delights in seeing us enjoy them!

Journaling is a practice I have enjoyed since I was in junior high school. It helps my mind to focus to write out my prayers to God on occasion. At the start of each new year, I enjoy looking back over the previous year or years of journal entries. Having a written account is proof to me of God’s faithfulness and presence. Being able to see how situations that were big concerns at the time, later worked out in unexpected ways. Other situations that seemed a big deal at the time that I had completely forgotten about as the year went on. Journaling is helpful because of the fact I do so easily forget. I need the written reminder that God indeed is good! We are all part of God’s story of His faithfulness to His people. This story is written down for us in the Bible as our written account and reminder that we continue to live out today. The good news that God is for us!

Let us pray:
Father, today, may we taste and see that you are good. Help us to trust you. Show us where our thinking about you is just not true and replace these false ideas we have adopted with your truth, that we may know you as you really are and trust that you ARE for us! Thank you for this undeserved grace and for the good gifts you place in our lives for our enjoyment each day. Amen.



Daily Devotional 5/18/20



Daily Devotional 5/14/20

Good Afternoon, First Methodist Family.
Join Ty Lust, Director of Youth Ministries as he continues our new devotional series entitled, “God Is For Us”. 


Daily Devotional 5/13/20

Good Afternoon, First Methodist Family.
Join Pastor Melissa Shuler as she continues our new devotional series entitled, “God Is For Us”. 


Daily Devotional 5/12/20

Good Afternoon, First Methodist Family.
Join Pastor Kurt as he continues our new devotional series entitled
“God Is For Us”. 


Daily Devotional 5/11/20

Pastor Steve begins a new devotional series today entitled, God is FOR you, as he share a story about a conversation he and Alayna (his wife) had a few weeks after they first started dating way back in 1993.  

When Alayna and I began dating, I was twenty-two and she was nineteen. My goodness we were young. One evening we were hanging out and having a deep conversation about some of our past hurts. I can’t remember who said it first but we both agreed that we felt that God put us through hard stuff just because he knew we could handle it.  It was as if God was saying that there were a certain number of bad things that people had to go through, and since Steve and Alayna are so strong, I will just let them go through more than their fair share.  Crazy, right? I think we both had believed a serious misreading of I Corinthians 10:13 where Paul writes, “God will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear,” that got us to this place. I remember being surprised that someone else felt that same way and I think Alayna was surprised as well. We were both followers of Jesus at the time. I knew I was called to be a pastor and Alayna knew she wanted to marry someone going into ministry, and yet we were holding onto this false story about both God and ourselves that was negatively affecting every area of our lives. 

 

When we try to make sense of our challenging circumstances, persistent disappointments, difficult people, and even bad health by directly or indirectly blaming God for them, that will lead us to hold a false story about God. This false story is that the one who made us, the one who says he loves us with an everlasting love, would actually arrange the world where we suffer and remain constantly frustrated by the hard things of life simply because we are strong.  

 

Let’s just be real clear, negative circumstances have the power to deeply derail our lives. It is not our own strength that enables us to stand in the face of our circumstances, but it is rather holding tight to the good and beautiful truth that God is FOR you!  More than a half of a lifetime ago, Alayna and I were struggling to believe this all important truth.  What about you right now?  Do you believe that God is FOR you?  Or do you believe that God is against you? 

 

Romans 8 is one of those power packed chapters that would do us all well to memorize.  In this chapter, Paul is reflecting on “our present sufferings” (v. 18) and he asks this powerful and audacious question in v. 31b, “If God is FOR us, who can be against us?”  Well, how can we be sure that God is for us? Paul continues in v. 32, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” 

 

When we evaluate our hard times, both now and in the future, we should evaluate them through the lens of the cross. God does not leave us to our suffering, but spares nothing, not even his own Son, to rescue us from it and graciously give us all things!  This is the truth that we must allow to sustain us through negative circumstances. I love how Paul closes out this section of Romans beginning in verse 35, 37-39 as he concludes his reflection on suffering. He writes, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

 

Nothing out there can separate us from God, but something in our hearts and minds can. Alayna and I were being hindered in our life with God and others by the false story that we held. Our lives have been transformed as we have traded in that story for the true story that God is always FOR us. 

 

Over the next two weeks, our staff here at the church is going to be helping us explore this grand biblical theme from different stories in the Bible. You won’t want to miss any of them as we seek to deeply take hold of this deep truth.   

 

I want to leave you this evening with a song that Alayna and I learned in college.  May it strengthen us all as we trust the greatest truth that God is FOR us! 

 

Who shall separate us from the love of God? 

Who shall separate us from the love of God? 

Shall tribulation or distress 

Shall persecution or famine or nakedness 

Or peril or sword from the love of our LORD 

Who shall separate us from the love of God? 

Who shall separate us from the love of God? 



Daily Devotional 5/6/20

Join Pastor Steve as he concludes this series of Daily Devotionals on David and the Psalms as he share with us his favorite Psalm, Psalm 131.  We will start a new series of Daily Devotionals on Monday, May 11th, entitled God is FOR us based on Romans 8:31.  Grace and Peace!  


Daily Devotional 5/5/20

No Matter What Happens
 

I hope that this new day finds you well and at peace. I want to begin with the words of David in the fourth Psalm: 
 
1Answer me when I call to you,
    my righteous God.
Give me relief from my distress;
    have mercy on me and hear my prayer.

How long will you people turn my glory into shame?
    How long will you love delusions and seek false gods?
Know that the Lord has set apart his faithful servant for himself;
    the Lord hears when I call to him.

Tremble anddo not sin;
    when you are on your beds,
    search your hearts and be silent.
Offer the sacrifices of the righteous
    and trust in the Lord.

Many, Lord, are asking, “Who will bring us prosperity?”
    Let the light of your face shine on us.
Fill my heart with joy
    when their grain and new wine abound.

In peace I will lie down and sleep,
    for you alone, Lord,
    make me dwell in safety.

 
It is the last verse of this Psalm that stands out to me. Let’s read it again, Psalm 4:8 “In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.”
 
Pastors Steve and Kurt have been leading us on Sundays through a series on the Twenty-third Psalm. I hope, like me, that you have been inspired and refreshed by this series. I have been enjoying it so much and look forward to their new sermons together on Sundays! 
 
In the 23rd Psalm, David talks about God as the Good Shepherd who makes us lie down in green pastures. A sheep lies down because he is not wanting for anything. He is not frantically searching for food or other means of survival. He’s not running around in fear of a real or perceived danger. He is content and trusts that his shepherd is good and is watching over him.
 
When my children were younger, there were days (a lot of days!) that I would count the hours until it was time for them to go to bed. Confession: Sometimes I would start counting at 8 AM! When bedtime finally came, it was such a great feeling to have them tucked in their beds, leave their room, and think “Whew, done for the day!” … only to a minute later hear my name being called, or the sound of little feet coming down the hallway, or the sound of my bedroom door opening. This sometimes still happens, although thankfully less frequently now that they are getting older. Even now, it’s still the same very familiar: “I’m scared! I’m not tired! I just can’t fall asleep!” My husband and I explain that they are safe, there is nothing to fear, we are right across the hall, and that if they would just lie down and remain still for a few minutes with their eyes closed, sleep will likely come.
 
Some nights the fear would just take over and no amount of reassurance that we were a mere feet away in the next room would help. As weary parents, we would make a bed out of blankets for our son or daughter on the floor at the foot of our bed. They would be asleep nearly as fast as they crawled in! Being in our physical presence, they could finally relax enough for sleep to come. No matter what the night might bring, they knew they could face it because we were right there. 
 
A friend of mine recently recommended a book to me, Life Without Lack: Living in the Fullness of Psalm 23. I trust my friend and I know from experience that if she says a book is good and is worth reading, then it is… and I’m usually on Amazon ordering it.
 
The book is a compilation of eight weeks of oral teachings that the great theologian, Dallas Willard, did with a small group on the 23rd Psalm. In the book it says that from Dallas’ own experiences with Jesus, “he was convinced that the 23rd Psalm was not merely a pretty poem with charming sentiments but an accurate description of the kind of life that is available to anyone who will allow God to be their Shepherd.”
 
I’m only in Chapter 1 of this book but already have gained a lot from it! Dallas says that a life without lack is talking about a life from which fear is eliminated. Can you imagine that? – your life completely free of fear? I can’t. I worry, and worry, and then worry some more – about things that have happened, are happening, and might possibly someday happen. A life without fear is inconceivable to me, but that is just what is being offered and what is actually intended for all of us! 
 
Life without lack is possible solely because of the presence of our Good Shepherd. Like my children, I often keep pacing internally getting all riled up and fearful and my Good Shepherd is reminding me to lie down, be still, He is here, and I can trust His goodness.
 
God’s goodness is as true today as it ever has been. We must cling to that regardless of the circumstances we are facing today. We must trust the presence of our Good Shepherd and then we can surrender to His rest.In peace we can lie down and sleep, for He alone makes us dwell in safety. (Psalm 4:8)
 
 
Instead of questions today, let me leave you with a challenge:
 
In Life Without Lack, Dallas Willard makes this interesting statement –
“Memorizing Scripture is even more important than a daily quiet time, for as we fill our minds with great passages and have them readily available for our meditation, ‘quiet time’ takes over the entirety of our lives. Memorization enables us to keep God and his truth constantly before our minds, allowing his Word and wisdom to help us.”
 
So let me challenge you to memorize a passage of scripture this week. If you have never memorized Psalm 23, that’s a perfect one to start with, or Psalm 1, or just the verse that I mentioned – Psalm 4:8. Then, instead of the anxious thoughts taking over, recite the new scripture passage in your mind. Recite it over and over until it beings to take root deeply in your life and see how God uses His Word to remind you of His presence and truth. 
 
I’ll close with the words of a prayer from Life Without Lack:
“Lord, slip up on us today. Get past our defenses, our worries, our concerns. Gently open our souls, and speak your Word into them.” Amen.
 
 
A life without lack is a life in which one is completely satisfied and sustained, no matter what happens. No matter what happens!


Daily Devotional 4/29/20

Bringing it all – Psalm 51 

Psalm 51 is a passage that a lot of people know. It sounds familiar to many of us as we read it, but as we look at the life of David and where he finds himself in this moment I wonder if we can’t find ourselves there too. I encourage you to read the whole chapter but I want to pull from a few verses that I think are important reminders today.  

 

  1. I think that it is most important to start where it starts and to hold this verse as a filter for the rest of the passage. David has been called out by God through Nathan for the bad things that he has done. In this he starts with “Have mercy on me, o God, according to your steadfast love: according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.” I think that its very important to remember that weather you yelled at your kid when you probably shouldn’t have or did something as serious as David had just done, grace and mercy are from God and through God alone. Seeing him and his grace first allows us to move forward.  

 

  1. It is through that filter that we then address verse 3 which says “For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me.” Many people try to hide or run from their sin. Not only is this silly because God already knows, but it also leaves you hiding and running from God who wants to do something about it. When we can step forward knowing that we deserve the wrath of God but that his mercy is offered instead should make us the most grateful and humble people of all. We can humbly set all of our sin and shame before God knowing his goodness and mercy will meet us there.  

 

 

  1. Verse 17 sais “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart o God, you will not despise.” While this passage goes on to talk about how God desires sacrifices, we know that Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice and that Gods people not longer practiced this. However, I think that the sacrifice of our pride in brokenness is something that God will always desire. Not because he likes to see us broken, but instead because it is the place where we can find wholeness in Him.  

 

  1. I once heard a pastor pray before a time of worship and he said “Lord, help us to give all that we know of ourselves to all that we know of you.” While that stuck with me for a few years, It took on a new meaning when I got married. When you are young there is a temptation to think that you know all that there is about yourself. I mean after all it is yourself that you are talking about. However, when you get married and move in together, you begin to learn more about yourself than ever before. You learn there are things that you have always done one way and all of the sudden there is a different way to do it. Your behaviors and the ways you respond to situations are all through a different lens than ever before. I think that in many ways we are all in that space right now. We know our spouse and we know our families. However, we may have never known them quite like this. And as we learn and grow in who we are as families with all of the struggle and sin and joy and gladness, we are called to bring It before God. With humility and honesty for Him to make whole. None of us are perfect parents or spouses or even roommates. But when we recognize who God is and recognize our sin and all that we struggle with, then we through humility and honesty can repent of our sins and find newness in Christ.  

 

 

  • What have you learned about yourself and your family during this time?
  • How can you bring that knowledge and those experiences before God so that He can be at work in them?