The Walking Stick

The Walking Stick

"And Aaron's staff...had not only sprouted but had budded,
blossomed and produced almonds." Numbers 17:8

If you've ever made a walking stick for going on a hike, you know the process. First, find a good branch from a tree, not too thin and not too thick. Then strip all the bark off it and, lastly, leave it in the sun to dry out. And no doubt, that's what Aaron did, along with many others, during their journey through the wilderness, walking through the arid Sinai Peninsula.

Aaron took a branch off an almond tree and it became his trusted staff, strong enough to support and steady him as he walked. That is until one day when God had need of it. God said "I'm going to rid myself of this constant grumbling about who should be in charge" and He used the walking sticks of the leaders to do it. Each of the leaders of the twelve tribes gave Moses their walking stick, he carved their names on them, and then placed them in the Tabernacle as God had commanded him.

As we consider these walking sticks, these branches off trees, we have to remember that they were once full of life, with leaves and buds that flowered and fruit that appeared on the branches. And they had been cut off for a purpose that seemed far less important than bearing fruit for others to enjoy. These branches off trees had been stripped bare and laid in the sun to thoroughly dry out before being used. Sometimes we go through similar experiences where we are left feeling dry and barren, without hope for our future, not realizing that God still has a plan for our lives.

In the story in Numbers 17, the Lord said that the staff of the man He had chosen would sprout leaves again, a pretty incredible, even impossible thing to happen. Twelve hours after being placed in the Tabernacle, Moses gathered up the walking sticks. Eleven of them were unchanged but Aaron's had budded, blossomed and produced almonds. It is a powerful example of what the Lord can do in our lives as we spend time in His presence. You may feel dry in your walk and relationship with the Lord but there is hope if you will spend time in His presence.

The miracle of the almond walking stick is a miracle waiting to happen in your life, taking you from feeling dry and cut off, to seeing your life blossom like never before. And the key, and really the key for every situation we face, is getting into His presence. For David to write in Psalm 16:9 "in your presence is fullness of joy", David must have had his own walking stick experience, a time when he allowed God's presence to transform him and fill him with life, with joy, and with a renewed purpose. The Lord wants to do the same for you, restoring hope and filling you with life as you experience the power of His presence.

God Bless,
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church

Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace

If the Bible is the most popular book of all time, then Amazing Grace is without a doubt the most popular song of all time. Written in 1773 by John Newton, it has become America's spiritual national anthem for events of any magnitude. Amazing Grace has been heard at the Olympics, at presidential inaugurations and in crisis situations of every kind from the 9/11 tragedy to the more recent Utah coal mine disasters.

John Newton could write about grace because he had experienced it in his life. His mother, was was training her son in the scriptures, died just before his seventh birthday and John was shipped off to boarding school a short time later. Abandoned and abused, he ran away from the boarding school and returned to England living a life far from the values his mother had tried to instill in her son. As a young man, by his own admission, he was "a slave to doing wickedness". Newton made his way to Africa and took up with a Portuguese slave trader journeying across the Atlantic with human cargo. Then grace came raining down on John Newton life:

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost but now am found
Was blind but now I see

The storm on March 21, 1748 was unlike anything Newton had sailed through as it rocked the ship and began to flood it's holds. The storm was so severe that John began to contemplate death at sea without a Christian burial. When he was sent below by the captain to retrieve something, the man who took his place was immediatley washed overboard and grace-the unmerited favor or kindness shown to one who is totally undeserving-began to work in John Newton's life.

For the rest of his life, Newton believed that that wave had been meant for him and that he was saved for a higher purpose. As it can for each of us, a moment of grace is able to change a lifetime and an eternity. Newton found his way back to the God that his mother had so trusted in and served the Lord faithfully for the rest of his life as both a pastor and noted writer of hymns.

John Newton could say as Paul "I am what I am by the grace of God". Grace-that favor given freely to those who are without hope and without God in the world. Grace-the gift that is greater than all our failures and shortcomings.

Until his death is 1807, Newton observed March 21 as a special day of remembrance, a day he marked with "humility, prayer and praise". In the busyness of life, let's never forget all that God's grace has rescued us from and acknowledge, as we look at others struggling through life, "there go I but for the grace of God". And realize that His grace is still available today to strengthen and enable us for all we face.


God Bless
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church

The Average Person

The Average Person

Studying the average person can reveal some unusual things such as:

1. The average person (in America) will eat 35,000 cookies in their lifetime.
2. The average person falls asleep in about 7 minutes.
3. The average person is about a 1/4 of an inch taller at night.
4. The average person loses between 40 and 100 strands of hair a day. (That is something I definitely cannot afford to keep doing!)
5. The average person walks the equivalent of twice around the world in their lifetime. (If that isn't a good argument for buying expensive shoes, I don't know what is)
6. An average woman says 7,000 words a day. ( A man - just over 2,000 words)
7. The average person laughs 15 times a day. (Definitely not enough for good mental health.)
   

But this devotion isn't about statistics and interesting facts about the average person. It is something much, much more serious: THE AVERAGE PERSON IS MISSING!!!!

The latest survey found that no-one feels they are "the average person". In fact, in almost every recent survey, the average person believes he or she is better than the average person. Sly And The Family Stone wrote the song Everyday People and end each verse with "I am everyday people". They may be the only average people left in our nation of over 300 million people.

But seriously, Paul wrote this in Romans 12:3

"For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought."

When we think of ourselves more highly than we should, we end up in denial about our problems, our weaknesses, and about who we really are. We end up seeing ourselves in a distorted fashion in which we exaggerate our strengths and minimize our shortcomings. And the problem that causes is that we lose an essential ingredient in changing - the ability to see ourselves as we really are. Jeremiah 17:9 says "the heart is deceitful above all things.....who can understand it?" When you stop to think of it, very few unfaithful people think they are unfaithful. Very few gossipers think they gossip. Very few mean-spirited people think they are mean-spirited, you get the idea.

Time after time, we rationalize our behavior, the choices and decisions we make and the way we treat others, rather than acknowledging to the Lord and to ourselves what we are really like. And we end up, just as Paul warned, thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought.

And therein is one reason that the Word of God has to have a significant place in our lives. As we read it, we see ourselves reflected in the words and in the stories and we can begin to make the changes needed to become men and women who can be used to reveal Christ to a lost and dying world.

God Bless,
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church

Listen

Listen

"If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord .......if you pay attention to his commands..." Exodus 15:26

There are certain promises in the Bible that attach a not so easy to do condition that we have to fulfill - listen. The promise in Exodus 15:26 is that we would experience the Lord as Jehovah Rapha, the Lord who heals us. The condition is that we have to listen carefully to His voice and obey what He commands.

But we know that listening isn't all that easy. One of the fun activities I used to enjoy doing as a principal was playing Simon Says with the students. You remember the game: if the command was preceded by "Simon says" then you had to do it. If there was no "Simon says" before the command and you did it, you were out of the game. There were some students who wouldn't last one minute. Others could do well for a while but they eventually lost concentration and missed a command. And then there were the Simon Says champions. Whether you spoke slow or fast, used your best fakes, tried every form of trickery, they listened and followed the commands.

These students always knew when to move and when to stand still. (Some of you right now are remembering how good, or bad, you were at Simon Says.) What was the difference between the winners and losers - their ability to listen to the instructions being given, to the words being spoken. In the same way, we each need to develop our listening skills. Abraham heard the voice of the angel telling him not to kill Isaac, pretty important, especially if you were Isaac. Elijah heard the still small voice encouraging him and directing his future. And Paul heard the voice of Jesus declaring God's purpose for his life.

Isaiah 30:21 says "Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying 'This is the way; walk in it' ". Our ability to hear what God is saying, our skill in listening will have a major impact on our lives. Whether keeping us from making mistakes, or giving direction at crucial times, the voice of the Lord, if we can hear it, will guide our steps. Our job is to learn to block out other voices and distractions so that we can clearly hear the one voice that matters most.

God Bless,
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church