No Substitutions Please

No Substitutions Please

"If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves
and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then
I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land."
II Chron 7:14

Searching the menu, I finally found what I was looking for - "two eggs, hash browns, toast, two sausage, two bacon, and ham ----- $3.99" with one condition added below "no substitutions please". You could get a good price on a great breakfast, you just couldn't make any changes. No asking for all bacon (crispy of course), or all sausage links and, especially, no trying to get pancakes instead of the hash browns.

As I have been thinking about the promises of God found in the Bible, blessings that He offers us, breakthroughs that He wants to give each of us, the conditions associated with those promises have really stood out to me. Isaiah 1:19, for example. promises that "we will eat the best of the land" -that our lives will be blessed with the best that the Lord has. But it includes a condition, something we have to do if we are to walk in that promise; it will only happen "if we are willing and obedient".

The scripture from II Chronicles 7:14 above promises that the Lord will send revival if His people will do certain things, humbling themselves, praying, seeking the Lord and turning from sin. It is an incredible promise of what the Lord will do if God's people will take the steps He outlines.

But we need to realize that, just like the restaurant offering a breakfast special, these conditions to God's blessings and promises have an unwritten "no substitutions please" attached to them. So often we try to bargain with the Lord. We want all that He has promised us but we are hoping to receive them on our own terms. We cannot substitute good works for praying and seeking God's face. We cannot substitute faithfulness in giving for humbling ourselves and turning from sin. And showing up at church every Sunday will never be a substitute for holy living.

God's promises are all "yes and amen" as Paul wrote in II Corinthians 1:20. Let's all purpose in our hearts to follow the path to blessing, the roadmap to change, and the recipe for a breakthrough outlined in God's Word. But when we are tempted to negotiate with the Lord about what is required of us, remember today's devotion "no substitutions please"!

God Bless,
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church

The Prescription

The Prescription

"If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in
me.....streams of living water will flow from within him."
John 7:37-38

I hadn't bothered to say anything about the dry skin that was discoloring my knuckles, it just didn't seem like much of a big deal. But my wife's insistence encouraged me to ask the doctor about it to which, after a cursory inspection, he prescribed a prescription that in no time has solved the problem. In America, we have drug stores on almost every corner, built around the incredible number and cost of prescriptions issued every day for a wide variety of ailments and conditions.

Think of it! If you have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, a throat infection, a cough, sinus problems, pink eye, dry skin, depression, sleeping woes, irregular heartbeat, allergies, ........the list could go on forever, prescriptions can be given for almost everything and they usually work.

My thought for today is that the Word of God, the Bible, in the same way that a doctor prescribes medicine, prescribes solutions to the everyday problems of life. The verse above begins with "if anyone is thirsty. It addresses the issue of a person feeling empty, desiring more from their life, and provides a very simple prescription - "let them come to me and drink". And as I started to consider many of the problems we all face, the Bible is a book of prescriptions. "If anyone is sick........., if a person wants to get right with the Lord........if someone is being trapped and ensnared by the words of their mouth......if you have a relationship that needs mending.......the Word of God can be viewed as a the ultimate book of prescriptions.

You just might need to make an appointment with the Great Physician, spend some time in His Word to discover the prescription He has written out for your life.

God Bless,
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church

Do Not Disturb

Do Not Disturb

"Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the
Lord til He come and rain righteousness upon you."
Hosea 10:12

On our trip to Frankenmuth, there it was, hanging on the inside of the door, the very important "Do Not Disturb" doorhanger. That little sign, written in four languages at the Bavarian Inn, is the guarantor of uninterrupted sleep on those rare mornings when you can sleep in on a hotel stay. And if you are like me at all, you've made the mistake of not putting the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door only to be startled awake by the sound of the hotel door opening and a voice saying "housekeeping". That mistake is one you hopefully only make once.

By now you're probably thinking of ways to use one of those hotel doorhangers to your advantage. Maybe having one at home so your family knows to leave you alone for a few minutes or hours. Or how about one at work, hanging from your office door so that everyone knows to keep away and let you get some work done. If hotels start to find "Do Not Disturb" signs missing, we'll know why.

But with the New Year only hours away, we want to make sure that that little sign is not found somewhere it doesn't belong. One of my prayers for you is that the Lord would work in your life in a new way in 2009, bringing you into fresh pastures of blessing, of opportunity and of fruitfulness. David wrote so simply in Psalm 119:126 "It is time for thee, Lord, to work". Now is that time, a time for God to do a work on the inside of each of us, knowing "that it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13).

Let's each make sure that in 2009 the Lord has full permission to work in our lives as He sees fit, according to His plans and purposes. And if you are one of those people who have a "Do Not Disturb" sign hanging around your neck, either letting the Lord know that you're comfortable with your life, or that you're afraid of what He might do, start the new year by taking it off and ripping it up. And then tell the Lord that He has permission to work in your life as He sees fit, trusting Him to do great things in the coming new year!

God Bless and Happy New Year,
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church

The Manger

The Manger

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
peace to men on whom his favor rests."
Luke 2:14

Approaching the inn in Bethlehem brought a sense of relief to Joseph and Mary after the long and difficult ninety mile journey from Nazareth. Mary, nine months pregnant, would finally be able to put her feet up and Joseph could stop worrying about the health of the woman he loved.

We all know the Christmas story and that things didn't turn out exactly as expected for Joseph and Mary; the inn was crowded with travelers and there was no room for them to stay. Whether the innkeeper had compassion on them and let them stay in the stable area, or whether they had to move on and find their own way, we don't know. But we do know that the announcement of the birth of Jesus by the angels included "you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger".

The circumstances Joseph and Mary found themselves in that Christmas Eve were not what anyone would envision for the birth of a child, let alone the Son of God. But it is another powerful lesson that our lives are not governed by the circumstances we find ourselves in, that our success is not measured by the natural surroundings we face this Christmas season.

The child found lying in that manger is now a King, the leader of a religious movement with hundreds of millions of followers, the most powerful person ever born to a woman. I think it's safe to say that being born in a stable didn't hold him back, didn't keep Jesus from fulfilling his purpose and destiny in life. In fact, I'm sure you will agree with me that being found in a manger, a place normally reserved for animals, turned out to not be such a big deal considering all Jesus accomplished (and is still accomplishing in each of us!).

This Christmas season, let the circumstances of the birth of Christ encourage you to take your eyes off your circumstances, whether they are good or bad, comfortable or difficult, restful or trying, and realize that it is your faith in God, and the attitude of faith you approach life with, that will determine the success of your life. May the manger of Bethlehem, and the life it held, cause you to be filled with hope both for today and for the bright future ahead!

God Bless and Merry Christmas!
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church

The Darkroom

The Darkroom

"I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places."
Isaiah 45:3

Working at Eastman Kodak Company in the days before digital cameras replaced film as the means of capturing photographic images provided me some insights that I might not have otherwise gained. And one of those is from a trip to a darkroom. If you're picturing one of the small closet like darkrooms that you see in movies, think a little bigger; it was a factory without windows, entire floors of a building operating in darkness to protect the light sensitive film.

My summer job delivering material and equipment took me all over Kodak Park, the name given to the myriad of buildings that comprised the company. And almost 40 years later, I still remember the trip to the darkroom, entering a darkness so thick that movement, even by the dull glow of the "dark lights", was nearly impossible. For a novice like me, each step taken was with great caution; there was no hurrying or rushing through that delivery, the darkness didn't permit it.

The film manufactured in those darkrooms became the source of pictures capturing events and creating memories all over the world, images that would be treasured for years to come. Baby pictures, wedding albums, vacation photos and many more, all the result of a product that could only be created in an environment requiring almost total darkness.

The promise that the Lord would give us "treasures of darkness" carries with it the implication that we would all experience times of not being able to see what lies ahead, times of facing uncertainty about our future. But the promise goes beyond the Lord bringing us through those times; He promises that we will emerge into the light with treasures to carry with us for years to come.

If you find yourself in a darkroom, you already know that hurrying through is not an option when you can't see where you're going. My recommendation is that you pull out a favorite photograph, from the days of film in cameras that had to be developed, and take a good look at it. And as you're treasuring the memory of that picture, stop to remember that the film that made it possible could only be created in a darkroom.

And then rest in the knowledge that even in the darkest of times, the Lord will give you treasures and riches that will last a lifetime.

God Bless,
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church

The Return Home

The Return Home

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me because He has
anointed me to preach good news to the poor." Luke 4:18

Growing up in a city for thirty years and then leaving for a new job would mean saying goodbye to family members, friends, and neighbors who had been an important part of your life. Jesus had done just that when He left Nazareth to begin His ministry. It was many months later when He returned to Nazareth and you can imagine everyone's excitement to see the carpenter's son that people from all over had been talking about lately. News of the miracle at Cana, only four miles away, would certainly have reached their ears and His fame had spread far beyond his small hometown.

But the return home didn't go as expected; the people in Nazareth were satisfied to welcome Him home as a carpenter, even as someone now performing miracles as He traveled the country but the Messiah? For Jesus to announce Himself as the Messiah was totally outrageous, outside the bounds of what they expected or would accept. The good citizens of Nazareth saw Jesus in the light of the ordinary and the commonplace, blinded by familiarity-that wasn't who they were used to!

The sad thing is that we too often do the same. We allow our dead, dull familiarity with "religion" and with church to rob us of our sensitivity to the presence of the Lord and, in so doing, we miss the very one we are needing the most. Like the people of Nazareth, we want Jesus on our own terms, to fulfill our preconceived ideas and expectations of what He is like, and when He moves in a different way, we reject it. Think about it, Jesus was unacceptable to the very people He grew up with.

When the people rose up in anger, Jesus literally moved on. He set up shop in another city, Capernaum, and made that the base for His ministry. But what did the people of Nazareth miss as a result?

1. They missed seeing what Jesus could do in their lives.
2. They missed being a part of His plans and purposes.
3. They missed the opportunity of a relationship with their Savior.

And those are all the things we miss when we allow pre-conceived ideas and mindsets to dominate our thinking. Let's all commit to going to church this week planning on an encounter with God, expecting revival to break out, and with a willingness to change in any areas the Lord wants to put His finger on in our lives. Don't let familiarity with the things of God rob you of all the good things the Lord wants to do in your life.

God Bless,
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church

Tunnels

Tunnels

"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and
when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over
you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned."
Isaiah 43:2

On our annual school trip to Washington, one tradition is the student's trying to hold their breath going through the tunnels under the mountains in Pennslvania. Some make it and some don't but one thing is for sure: when they see the end of the tunnel, they get a renewed strength to hold on until the end.

Those tunnels are fairly short, only a mile or so, compared to Japan's Seikan Tunnel which stretches for 33.5 miles and is 240 feet deep at it's lowest point. The Chunnel, the tunnel that connects France and England, is equally impressive, undergound for 31. 4 miles and reaching a depth of 250 feet under the English Channel. And to think that we have some friends that won't use the Detroit Tunnel, a mere 5160 foot tunnel under the Detroit River because it's too scary - no going under the English Channel for them anytime soon.

With the exception of the bright lights and shiny tiles that line the tunnels, we can draw some interesting parallels to the spiritual tunnels we all go though, those dark times in our lives when we face difficult circumstances that try our faith. We all experience them, situations that come upon us without warning in which the outcome is uncertain and the duration unknown, a darkness that only our faith helps us to navigate. Like the natural tunnels we described, they are of different lengths and different depths, some much more severe than others and some longer lasting than other. And, often, the promises of God are our only hope as we walk (here's the key word for today) through the valleys and tunnels of life.

The verse in Isaiah 43 is filled with those promises. After each experience that we pass through ("through" means they are not permanent but only temporary), comes a promise "I will be with you", "they won't sweep over you", and "you will not be burned". Each of those promises carries part of the truth; God will be with us as we go through our tunnels, He won't let them overwhelm us, and they won't destroy our lives.

Our granddaughter Hope's coming home from the hospital was the end of a tunnel for our family. Even though we had the assurance that the Lord would bring her through, it was still a tunnel, especially for Catherine and Chad, of not knowing exactly what was going on in that little body and how long the hospital stay would be. We are thankful for a God who walks side by side with us through our difficult times and who is faithful to bring us through by His grace and mercy.

Do you find yourself in a tunnel today? God has promised to bring you through it. And I can say with certainty, there is a light at the end of your tunnel!

God Bless
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church