This morning, the day after I wrote about my encounter with the stock clerk at Publix, I couldn't sleep and rose early to pray. I was drawn out of bed for a very specific prayer... On the day before I had written about a man I met at Publix whose nine year old son was in a life or death battle against cancer. Now, on this the morning after, my prayers are focused on this boy and his family, and this led me to pray about the trust I have that God heals.
Something happened this week that shook me, and took me back to the year 2016 when I was in what I hoped were the final stages of dealing with cancer. A couple of days ago I learned that someone very close to me, who had battled cancer once before, had been told, following a routine check-up, that the doctor had found two places which appeared to be cancerous tumors. This is a moment that anyone who has ever had cancer fears… the return of their old nemesis. The return of Satan to sift us yet again.
What is it about The Golden Rule, and God's Law of Love that make them so hard for us to adhere to in certain situations? Perhaps we have forgotten what makes them so precious, or maybe they have faded in our memories. Just in case we might be unfamiliar, confused, or have forgotten what these rules are comprised of let’s revisit them by taking a refresher course this morning (I need one myself from time to time)... love is like all things, we must practice it if we are to keep it fresh in our lives.
A couple of days ago I wrote about those who are young in Christ, and how they energetically worked in the church and elsewhere but confused this with devotion. Today I would like for us to study a thought that E.M. Bounds wrote, and which takes this a step further as he speaks directly to the clergy, and to church workers. He is concerned about the enthusiasm for the physical activities becoming our focus at the expense of our prayer life and faith in general.
The bible draws so many comparisons between plants, trees, and our faith or works. Knowing this makes today's scripture reading all the more special as we look at Jesus not as the branches, but as the vine. The vine consists of the trunk and its root, and although we consider the branches to be the most beautiful part of a plant, and the root to be unsightly, it is the root and trunk from which all new branches grow, and from these comes the nourishment that produces the fruit. Jesus is the vine.
As I thought about how we sometimes come face to face with our doubts, or suffer from a dwindling faith, I looked back on my own life as a Christian and could see how I had experienced moments like this too. Then I would come to the point where I realized that moving about and doing works doesn’t insure that I am devoted to my faith in God and Jesus. Over the years I have watched as people professed their faith, began frantically working in the church, and for church causes, then suddenly disappeared from the pews. They had missed the most important part of their conversion... that we can't earn it... it is a gift, and a free gift at that.
On this very morning in 2016 I was sitting in the common area of Centennial Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee waiting for my wife to complete physical therapy on her leg. She was rehabbing after knee replacement, and I was enjoying having this time alone in the waiting room which allowed me to contemplate my prayers and devotional reading from earlier in the day. Pastor E.M. Bounds had written that prayer should be aflame and it struck me as being truth. Here in the southern United States we would say, with quite a strong accent, "don't pray no milk toast prayer!" Truly, a prayer without emotion, or intense devotion, demonstrates very little sincerity and passion.
This morning I was moved by the Spirit into a time of passion and devotion that led me into a special time of prayer. Passionate prayer brings us close to God and allows us to feel his power and glory like nothing else. Every hair on our body stands up when this happens, sometimes we cry, sometimes we laugh, and sometimes we simply can’t speak at all or just moan in prayer. If there are some among us who need an example of passionate worship we can turn to Revelation 4 where we find an illustration of passionate worship and praise. Do you worship, praise, and pray passionately to the Lord?
"The Synergy of Devotion and Prayer" is more than a wonderful title for our devotional message this morning, it highlights how either one of them alone is only half the story. Just as our spirit of devotion reacts to prayer, prayer also reacts to our spiritual devotion. One feeds on the other as we delve deeper into God’s Word.
This coming Sunday being Palm Sunday makes today’s lesson all the more pertinent. There are three Sunday's when people attend church who don't typically come, and this is one of them. This is not a time to judge them, or look down our noses on them in pious condemnation of their faith, but to rejoice in their presence there with us, and embrace them. This is the time to open our hearts to them, and to smell the aroma of their religion and God as they are drawn back to the Church to seek, believe, and worship. May they fill the church pews, and the scent of their devotion waft over us on these holy days. They are the temple just as we, who might come to church every Sunday, are the temple… beware lest we destroy God’s Temple and destroy ourselves.
Faith and works have long been hot topics of discussion in the Church. The question is which is most important the religious works we do, or the faith we hold dear, and can we really have one without the other. Do you have them both in your life? Do you perform good works, the kind that any moral person can perform, but don’t believe in Jesus, or have faith in God? Or, do you believe and have faith in Jesus, but never demonstrate that in your works? Do you keep your faith, but are reluctant to live it outwardly?
My personal devotional reading this morning dealt with making all of the common things in our lives sacred. Pastor E.M. Bounds wrote that "It puts God not just in our praying and church-going, but in every aspect of life. The spirit of devotion makes the common things of earth sacred, and the little things great." Someone holding our hand as they pray for us, and telling us that we are going to be alright becomes priceless. A gentle touch conveys our love and caring even as the few words we speak in prayer comforts others. Touch; it seems such a small thing and yet is mentioned repeatedly in scripture. A common thing made holy by our devotion.
God performed miracles throughout the Bible, and He used various men of God and His Son Jesus to perform many of them, just as He uses men and women of faith to perform them today, but after the intense rush of faith, and the awe of that amazing moment has passed, what do we do the next day? Do we walk on, and simply let the fire of that moment die down, go to ash, and be forgotten, or is there more? Do we thank God in the moment, then recover the next day from the spiritual aftermath and hangover of it; that is left by the water that was turned to wine, or the words that God has spoken to us? Or is there “something” more?
My devotional reading on this day in 2016 was regarding the machinery of religion. E.M. Bounds used his daily lesson to speak of the heartlessness with which the machinery of our religion and church often operates. I, on the other hand, would like to speak today about the occasions when that machinery purifies itself in the word of God, and the blood of Jesus Christ; and how thus, having becoming pure and undefiled, it works wonderfully well. In this righteous state of faithfulness the product of our machine is love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness.
Sometimes when we are in a battle against the hardships of life we can become so involved in the struggle, and desperately calling upon the Lord in prayer, that even though we are saying the words, our depth of devotion and loving heart is absent from them. My devotional reading this morning warned against this, and today we will turn to a verse in Isaiah 29 to understand this further.