Running on Empty

Running on Empty

“The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.
Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.”
                                                                         Mark 2:27-28

In this age of cell phones, laptop computers and other electronic devices, we are constantly reminded that batteries go dead and have to be recharged or replaced. With my laptop, it can only go so long on a full charge before the warning light flashes telling me that, unless I take immediate action, it’s about to be unusable. On a trip to New York, the Buick can go about six hours, give or take, until it runs out of gas, and the lawn mower can make it through one full mowing before it does the same. Using up energy in the process of use, no matter what the situation, and the need to replenish it, is one of the easiest concepts to understand.

Maybe I should have said that it is one of the easier concepts to understand when it comes to everything but our physical bodies, emotional health, and spiritual strength. Plugging in and filling up are absolutes when the item being considered is made of nuts and bolts but for some reason we struggle with doing the same when it’s about us as individuals. We get too busy or tired to eat properly and replenish the nutrients our body needs to function properly (and yes family, I’m addressing this to myself too). We push ourselves to accomplish more and more, multi-tasking as if our life depended on it, without stopping to take a deep breath and recharge the internal, invisible batteries of our hearts.

Both spiritually and emotionally, we run our wells dry and try to function properly on a dead battery and an empty gas tank. That is why Jesus separating himself from his disciples to spend time in prayer and fellowship with the Father is such a great and necessary example for us today. No matter what needs He faced, and no matter how great the demands on Him were, He realized that more than anything He needed the strength and replenishing that came from His time spent with the Father. And despite the masses who needed the supernatural touch that only He could provide, Jesus was regularly found in the temple or synagogue spending time in God’s presence and in the Word.

His example reminds us that we have to move from where going to church is one more duty for us to perform to that place where we delight in the refreshing it provides. Our perspective has to include what Jesus said above that “the Sabbath was made for man”, a time set aside for man to refill – and that includes a healthy dose of God’s presence, a Texas sized portion of His Word, and several helpings of fellowship with those walking the same road that we are on.

God Bless
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church

Connect the Dots

Connect the Dots

“For God is working in you, giving you the desire to
obey Him and the power to do what pleases Him.”
                                                              Philippians 2:13

The picture represented by the dots scattered across the page is not always easily recognizable until you begin to connect the dots, as the name of the simple game indicates, drawing lines from one dot to another until the picture begins to take definition and become clear. And the games range in difficulty from those made for children to adult versions in easy, medium, and hard formats. The principle of connecting the dots, with all its variations, can also be applied to our walk with the Lord and can provide each of us with a valuable lesson.

When we face situations, for example, that really try our patience, we can look at them as isolated incidents to be reacted to, and totally miss the point of what God is trying to accomplish in our lives through them. So often those situations happen over and over again because we are failing to “connect the dots” between our current struggles and God’s desire to build character in our lives and to prepare us for our future. Our failure to connect the dots in our walk with the Lord can be fatal to our attitudes, to our spiritual priorities, and to the needed breakthroughs we are longing for.

The principle has to make us step back and look at the circumstances of our lives: the delays and the waiting, the conflicts and the struggles in relationships, the stretching and the call to walk in faith, the challenge to be faithful and to go the second mile, and the pain and sorrows we too often encounter. In a vacuum, we would certainly react to each of these life situations with a kind of disdain for the difficulties they present. But looking at the bigger picture, where we are cognizant of the need to connect the dots, should cause us to respond with acceptance and a cry for grace to help us through.

The lesson has hit home with me; the need to start to connect the dots before frustration sets in and mistakes are made is very clear. Just as connecting the dots results in a picture being revealed, connecting the dots in a game where God has a plan and a purpose for each of our lives is crucial to the endurance we need, to the determination required, and to the acceptance of where God has each of us at this time in our lives.

God Bless,

Pastor Joe

Gateway Church

Enough Already!

Enough Already!

“All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; 

He’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; 

He’ll always be there to help you come through it.

                                                    I Corinthians 10:13 MSG

This week’s list of stories is getting so long that I need to get this devotion typed and sent out before I read one more example of people who went beyond their difficult circumstances to accomplish much with their lives. Consider this week’s list:

• Today it was a boxer who broke both hands in World War I, was told he would never box again, but refused to give up and went on to win the heavyweight championship of the world.
  

• Wednesday lesson was from the life of Glen Cunningham, a young man who almost lost his life when he was so severely burned that he was told he would never walk again. Despite that, he went on to set record after record in the one-mile run, achieved world class status as a runner, and was elected to the Track and Field Hall of Fame.
  
• In getting ready for a Washington, D.C. trip meeting, I noted our annual stop at the FDR Memorial and was reminded that the former president, who led our nation through The Great Depression and World War II, battled the paralysis that resulted from polio for much of his life and his entire presidency. It is more than a play on words to say that he refused to let his disability cripple his dreams and aspirations.
  
• The book I’m reading contained another similar story. “I beg of you to keep the matter of my deafness a profound secret to be confided to nobody, no matter whom …..” was written by none other than the famous composer Ludwig van Beethoven who, when speaking of his increasing deafness, wrote to a friend on the subject, “I am resolved to rise above every obstacle.”

Enough already! The message that our problems are not our real problems rings loud and clear. The message that our adversities, our unique circumstances, the problems and challenges we face in life are not excuses that give us the right to give up and languish in self pity has been received and acknowledged. The examples above are the smallest of samplings of life testimonies that we are more than capable, and equipped by God, to rise above every challenge we face and accomplish God’s wonderful purposes for our lives.

God Bless,

Pastor Joe

Gateway Church

Over the Wall

Over the Wall

“But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
                                               Joshua 24:15

Saying something like “if you do it, I’ll do it” can either get us in a lot of trouble or cause us to launch out and try something that takes a lot of stretching. When the 14 year old girl asked us, many years ago,  if we wanted her to show us how to get down to the pool at Texas Falls in Vermont, we said sure, but without realizing the commitment we were making. She calmly walked to the edge of the rocks, stepped off, and dropped the 40 or so feet into the water. My stomach did a perfect somersault as I realized that no self-respecting 25 year old could not follow through and take the same plunge that young girl had so graciously demonstrated. With heart pounding, I will never forget that jump, a jump that my words committed me to taking into the most refreshing, exhilarating pool of fresh water I’ve ever experienced.

President Kennedy used to tell a story about his grandfather with a very similar point. His grandfather grew up in Ireland and talked about climbing some of the 10 – 12 foot high, jagged cobblestone fences that his group of friends passed on their way home from school. Some were difficult and dangerous to go over for these boys who wanted to climb but didn’t want to get hurt doing it. One day Fitzgerald, President Kennedy’s grandfather, took off his cap and threw it over one of the most difficult walls to climb knowing full well that he now had to climb the wall or face certain discipline from his parents for going home without his cap.

Asking that young girl to show us how to get down to the water at the base of Texas Falls committed me to a jump that I seriously doubt I would have taken if my words hadn’t required it. But now 35 years later, I can laughingly look back on the best jump of my life. Fitzgerald might not have climbed that difficult wall but throwing his cap over the wall ended the discussion; he was going over no matter how difficult it was. And we know he survived to tell a grandson who took on some incredible challenges in his short lifetime also.

Telling others we’re going to do something, or announcing something that once we say it, we can’t easily back out of it, even if we wanted to, can be like our throwing our cap over the wall. It forces us to stretch and to move beyond what is comfortable and certain in our lives. Is there something you have felt challenged to do for a long time but fear has kept you standing at the top of the cliff, or looking up from the base of the wall? Maybe today is a good day to throw your hat over that wall by publicly declaring a goal you have or a desire that God has placed in your heart. It just might be the step that puts you over the top!

God Bless
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church

Partnerships

Partnerships

“For we have become partner with Christ if in fact
we hold our initial confidence firm until the end.”
                                                 Hebrews 3:14

Partnerships are formed for a wide variety of reasons: one person may bring the finances to a business while the other has an idea or invention that sounds promising. In another situation, one person might have manufacturing expertise while another has the marketing skills needed to convince people to buy their product. Partners compliment each other and form an enterprise that neither one could succeed at without the other. And to think that we have been called “partners with Christ” is quite an amazing thing.

The story is told of a mouse who was riding on an elephant’s back as they took a journey together. After traveling for some time, they came to an old, wooden bridge and began to cross it ever so carefully. Despite its creaking and wobbling under the weight of the travelers, the bridge held up and they made it to the other side. It was at that point that the mouse declared, ever so boldly, “We really shook that bridge, didn’t we?” And of course we know the answer, which is yes; they really did shake that bridge together! The mouse’s eight ounces and the elephant’s two thousand pounds, taken together, were almost too much for that rickety old bridge to handle.

The story is a cute reminder of some of the dynamics of our relationship with the Lord. Without a single doubt, it’s clear that the person who enters into a true, sincere, and wholehearted partnership with our God can and will shake the world. They will, as was said of the early church, turn the world around them, families, friends, neighbors, and even their local church, upside down. Sometimes accepting that we are like the mouse in the story is hard to swallow, but that reality can free us to partner with God in the works He is calling us to do.

What is amazing is not so much the choice that people make to give all to God and follow in His work, but that God, the all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-seeing God, would choose to partner with us. In spreading the good news of God’s salvation through Jesus Christ, God has all the wisdom, strength, and power that He contributes to the partnership. On our part, we make our bodies available as living sacrifices to do God’s good and perfect will. And together, you and God, me and God, we can shake the world.

God Bless,

Pastor Joe

Gateway Church