Served With Love

By Carin LeRoy –

The first night after arriving home from my honeymoon, I wanted to make my new husband a nice meal, so I decided I’d make my Mom’s homemade potato soup and cornbread. I thought that would be a goof-proof meal. It would be the first meal in our little home. After work, I got busy peeling potatoes and putting all the ingredients in the pot to boil. Everything went well. That is, until I realized I burnt the soup.

Oops. I guess I had the burner on ‘High.’

We ate the soup anyway, and I don’t remember my husband complaining. He knew better than to fuss about his new bride’s food. That was the first of many meals I’ve cooked for my family. While raising four children, food became an important part of family life. I’ve had many nights when I’d rather not cook, but when there are four starving kids and a fellow who comes home hungry, it’s a part of life.

Rather than think of it as drudgery, consider it a way to serve and show love to your family. Good nutrition is essential to good health, and we do want our loved ones to thrive. The virtuous woman gives us a good example when we read that “she gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls,” (Proverbs 31: 15 NIV). I don’t have servant girls and I’m not keen on getting up while it’s dark, but I can provide food for my family. Reach for the cookbook (or the frozen casserole) and serve up some love to your family today.

PRAYER: Lord, keep me mindful that showing love to others is a reflection of Your love for us and that even the mundane things of life are a way to serve and love our family.

BIBLE VERSE: “Do everything in love….” (I Corinthians 16:14 NIV).

 

God’s Lincoln Log

By Cheri Cowell –

During the summer, hours can be spent with a set of Lincoln Logs creating houses, forts, and castles. If you play with more than one set you can even build a whole town. Of course, the real challenge is to see how big you can make your building before it falls over. We learn quickly if we set that first block securely, then we have a better chance of having our building stand tall.

God also likes to play with building blocks, and He, too, knows about setting that first one just right.

Today’s verse is placed within a parable. Spoken to the Pharisees before His arrest, Jesus tells the story of God planting a vineyard (representing Israel), and providing well for it. He then sends many prophets to speak to them about His plans, but the Israelites ignore these prophets. So, He sends His Son, Jesus, to give His message. Jesus tells the Pharisees He knows about their plot to kill Him, but He also predicts His return by talking about the capstone. The capstone or cornerstone of the building is the foundation upon which all other stones are set. The message is clear, if we need to be careful in setting that first block when building our play forts, how much more careful should we be in choosing the capstone or cornerstone for the building of our lives?

PRAYER: Lord, please help me place all my building blocks upon You as my Capstone so my tower will still be standing when all others have fallen to the ground.

“Haven’t you read this passage of Scripture: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes?” (Mark 12:10 NIV)

Uprooted

By Susan Dollyhigh –

The gladiolus plants stood tall and proud in my neighbors’ garden just waiting to burst forth into bloom with their beautiful pink, purple, red, white and orange flowers. But my neighbor decided she was tired of her gladiolus garden so she uprooted them – flowers, stems, bulbs and all. Tossed into a pile, they were destined to be thrown away.

As any good neighbor would do, I walked over to see what was going on and arrived just in the nick of time. I scooped up an armful of the long, green stems with the bulbs still attached and rescued those orphaned plants. As I prepared to transplant them in my garden, I noticed the dried-up, brown, onion-looking bulbs were actually, well…ugly. But I knew inside those bulbs lived everything they needed to once again grow strong, tall stems and produce beautiful flowers. The bulbs just needed someone who cared to replant them in just the right soil.

Sometimes we, too, may be uprooted in life. Major moves, divorce or loss of loved ones can all leave us feeling uprooted. We may feel that we’ve been thrown away by those we love and maybe, even by God. We may feel that our heart has withered down to just an ugly, brown bulb.

But just like that gladiolus bulb, inside we still have everything we need to grow back strong and tall. We just need someone who cares. That Someone is the Lord our God. When we cry out to the Lord in prayer, He hears our prayers and sees our tears and will heal our broken hearts. With our mended hearts planted in His love, we’ll survive any uprooting life may bring our way.

PRAYER: Father, thank you that you hear out prayers and see our tears. Thank you for healing our broken hearts.

“The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17 NIV).

Praying with Grandma

By Carin LeRoy –

The story is told of two little boys who were praying with their Grandma one night before bed. The older boy prayed first about his day and all the things he had done. Then the younger brother started to pray in a loud voice.

“God,” he said, “I really need a bike, some new toys….”

He continued praying through his list of all the things he wanted. When he finished, his older brother said, “Why did you pray so loudly? God isn’t deaf.”

“Yea,” he said, “but Grandma is.”

This little boy had already decided how he thought his prayer should be answered, and by whom.  How many times do we do the same thing? We pray, but rather than wait on God’s answer and timing, we try to implement our own answers. Rather than trusting God, we seek out answers by other means.

One example of this in the Bible is Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 16. God promised that He would give them an heir, yet for years God did not fulfill that promise. Instead, Sarah decides to give Abraham her servant-girl to bear his child. Rather than refuse, Abraham agrees, and Hagar becomes pregnant. Strife then develops with Sarah, and years of anger, pain and resentment result. Instead of waiting on God’s timing for His promised child, they created their own answer. Thousands of years later, we still see tension between the descendents of Ishmael and Isaac.

In 1 Samuel, we read the story of Hannah, who also was barren. Fervently she prayed for God to give her a child. She waited for God’s answer and eventually gave birth to a baby. When he was weaned, she dedicated him to the Lord. He served with the high priest Eli, became a prophet and judge, anointing the first two kings of ancient Israel. He became a great man of God and leader of his nation.

Waiting on God’s answer for your prayers is worth the wait.

PRAYER: Lord, give me patience to wait for answers to my prayers. Keep me mindful that You know what is best and that Your timing is always perfect.

QUOTE: “God teaches us that an answer to prayer is conditional upon the amount of faith that goes into the petition. To test this, He delays the answer. The superficial pray-er sinks into silence when the answer is delayed. But the man of prayer hangs on and on. The Lord recognizes and honors his faith and gives him a rich, abundant answer to his faith-evidencing, persistent prayer.” E.M. Bounds

Is Freedom Free?

By Jarrod Spencer –

Most of us have seen a phrase that closely resembles this…Freedom Isn’t Free. Around that phrase you will typically find a picture of someone who has spared their life so we could be free – most often a patriotic picture of a soldier.

You could take that phrase and apply it to Jesus by thinking of Him as giving his life for our freedom. But, in order for something to be free, a price had to be paid at some point. When you think about freebies you receive at a fair, the sponsor had to pay for it in order to give it away. So, is freedom really free?

I am going to go in a different direction and say that freedom is free. Specifically, freedom in Christ. It is free to you to take advantage of. It is free to you to decide whether or not you are a going to commit. Like a piece of money that you see on the ground, you decide whether or not you are going to pick it up or leave it there.

When we lived in Illinois, our church had a once-a-week preschool. When I moved there we charged $10.00 per child for the whole year. Ridiculously cheap!  Sometimes, things are so cheap that we cannot find the value in it.

When it came to our preschool, it was probably so cheap that some people that were not familiar with it may not have noticed the value. If it would have cost $10.00 per month, at least, maybe it would have felt like there was more value in it. So, not everyone took advantage of this opportunity.

But, what about that money on the ground referred to above? If you decide not to pick it up, someone else will do it. Someone else is going to take advantage of gaining a bit of wealth. When it comes to a freedom that is found in Christ, if you don’t take advantage of it, it is your loss.

Unlike our American freedom, which once we are born, we possess it. However, Christian freedom is a choice; to take advantage of that freedom, someone has to act, to accept it.

Is freedom free?  In this case, YES!  The real question is, have you or will you take advantage of acquiring freedom in Christ?

PRAYER: Victorious Father, I am thankful for the freedom that we have in America, along with the freedom that I have in Christ. May I use these freedoms to Your glory as I go about my life sharing You with others.

BIBLE VERSE: Galatians 5:1 Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you. (MSG)

 

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