sacrifice

A Worshipful Splurge (Prayer Devotional for the week of November 16, 2014)

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I don’t splurge on very many things, but I have a bottle of perfume that cost about $40 on sale, which is expensive, in my book. I justify paying so much because I can make a single bottle stretch for a couple of years. The other morning while getting ready for work, I applied some hand lotion, and instead of waiting to let it soak in and dry, I immediately reached for that bottle of perfume, and it slipped right through my greasy fingers!

 

Thankfully, it landed in a basket in an open drawer and did not bust. I would have been disappointed to waste it, not to mention having to deal with cleaning up the mess. My whole house would probably smell girly, much to my sons’ chagrin! As I finished getting ready (more carefully!), I thought about a perfume story that I remembered from the Bible.

 

All four gospels give some account of a woman anointing Jesus with expensive perfume (see Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 7, & John 12). We’re not talking $40 type of expensive, either. The Bible says that this special perfume cost about a year’s income! Maybe some people nowadays would spend that kind of money on a fancy car or an original masterpiece of art, but I can’t imagine anything other than a house that most people would pay so much for.

 

Anointing usually involves pouring oil on one’s head, and Matthew and Mark bring attention to the extraordinary cost of the perfume as she anointed Jesus, but Luke and John share some additional details that I find remarkable. John mentions that the woman also anointed Jesus’ feet, then wiped off the perfume with her own hair. Luke adds that she was crying while she anointed his feet, and she wiped off her tears and the perfume with her hair.

 

You and I may not have the means to give extravagant financial offerings to the Lord, but each of us can give him things that are even more important: our love and our lives. The perfume anointing was an outward display of the woman’s heartfelt worship. In the same way, we can offer the Lord our sold-out hearts in worship every day.

Ministering within the Ministry (Prayer Devotional for the week of September 21, 2014)

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Like a married couple drifting apart from each other as they start raising a family, sometimes we can get caught up with important things in ministry that detract us from other as-important (or even more-important) priorities. Raising kids is an important calling, no doubt. Cultivating a healthy marriage simultaneously can be difficult but doable, and maintaining strong individual relationships with the Lord is the foundation. Neglecting the foundation can damage the whole house, and there are no magic formulas or shortcuts.

We read in 2 Chronicles 29 that Hezekiah assumed the throne of Judah at only 25 years old. He didn’t wait around before he undertook a massive foundation repair project – literally and figuratively. Verse 3 tells us that he went to work in his very first month to overhaul the temple. It had fallen into disrepair and desperately needed a thorough cleaning. So, he called together the Levites (the clans of priests) and commissioned them to assist in the renovation work.

Hezekiah acknowledged that his predecessors’ priorities had gotten out of whack, and he was committed to making things right before the Lord. In his case, things really were bad: previous rulers had abandoned the temple and quit making sacrifices to the Lord completely. They had neglected their ministry, and God was not happy about it.

I would submit to you that the issues we face as a church family aren’t usually as blatantly obvious as tell-tale foundation cracks in the wall. Sometimes, it can be seemingly minor ways that we begin to neglect to care for each other, the church facility, our pastors, our staff, our volunteers, the community, and our visitors. We begin to expect that things will work smoothly because they always have, yet we don’t make the effort to figure out why or how or what we can do about it. Donuts & coffee magically appear in the fellowship area each Sunday morning. Restrooms are clean and magically stocked with toilet paper. The bulletin magically shows up printed and stuffed with announcements. Volunteers magically show up in the nursery. Canned goods for the food pantry magically appear stacked in the lobby. Of course, none of those things happen magically at all. They require a lot of behind-the-scenes work from several people, week in and week out.

I like how the Living Bible translation sets up verse 12 in saying that “the Levites went into action” when Hezekiah called them to help. The Message paraphrase says that they “stood at attention.” The point is that they were ready and willing to put all hands on deck to reprioritize and get the job done. May we go and do likewise.

A Chance of Rain (Prayer Devotional for the week of August 10, 2014)

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I’ve never really minded the rain. I don’t particularly care if my hair gets wet, and I like watching the rain fall. Growing up in the Houston area, I learned to interpret weather forecasts differently from most people. You see, if the news said that there was a 30% chance of rain, that meant it would rain 30% of the day – it was a given that there would be rain, of some sort. The question was only how much rain.

One of my favorite Bible stories has to do with rain … rather, the lack thereof. I encourage you to take some time this week and read 1 Kings 18. Elijah is one of the most remarkable people in the Bible; I would love to have a teaspoon of his faith! The passage begins in the middle of a terrible drought: three solid years without a drop of rain. Elijah was the only living prophet of the Lord, and King Ahab had succumbed to the influence of false gods.

Elijah did something ridiculous in his challenge to the prophets of Baal. Not only did he stand up against 450 of them, but he even drenched his sacrifice in water before asking God to light it on fire. What astounding, sold-out faith! You’ll have to read the chapter to catch the details, but suffice it to say that once Elijah was finished, there was no doubt whatsoever that the Lord was the one true God.

The sacrifice was one fantastic part of the story, but what happened next was equally amazing. Elijah climbed a mountain and prayed earnestly to God for rain. He sent a scout seven times to check the sky for clouds, and finally, a small cloud began to take shape in the sky. That measly little cloud quickly grew and became a torrential downpour on the thirsty land – God’s answer to Elijah’s prayer.

Are there things that you have been praying about for what feels like ages, and it seems like God hasn’t answered yet? Keep the faith, dear ones! Like Elijah, keep your eyes on the Lord and seek him earnestly with all of your heart.

Called to Sacrifice (Prayer Devotional for the week of April 20, 2014)

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As he concluded his inaugural address on January 20, 1981, Ronald Reagan shared a story about a young man named Martin Treptow who lost his life in the First World War. He related the story to the economic woes of the time by saying: “The crisis we are facing today does not require of us the kind of sacrifice that Martin Treptow and so many thousands of others were called upon to make. It does require, however, our best effort, and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds; to believe that together, with God’s help, we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us.”

President Reagan was referring to his goals for improving America’s standing as “the world’s strongest economy,” but I would like to suggest that similar words could be said of our faith-walk, particularly in the context of Easter.

For every Purple Heart recipient and Gold Star military family, there are thousands of men and women in the armed forces who serve our country sacrificially in less drastic ways. In the same way, Jesus doesn’t call each of us to follow in his literal footsteps by facing death for our faith. However, I do believe that he calls us to be ready, and to be willing to make sacrifices for what we believe. Romans 12:1 (ERV) puts it this way: “So I beg you, brothers and sisters, because of the great mercy God has shown us, offer your lives as a living sacrifice to him—an offering that is only for God and pleasing to him. Considering what he has done, it is only right that you should worship him in this way.”

It is too easy for us to become comfortable in our comfy little bubbles and forget that around the world at this very moment, our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ are facing very real persecutions – including death – for their faith. This Easter and in the weeks and months to follow, let us remember not only Jesus’ sacrifice and glorious resurrection, but also how we can put our faith into action so that “… with God’s help, we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us” locally and around the globe.

Palm Sunday: Rusty Nails

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We are having a Life group fair and communion service on Sunday night. All of the Life group leaders were asked to bring finger foods to share, and we’ll have tables set up in the back of the church for people to browse the groups and meet each other. Then, we’ll move to our seats and have communion together. I’ve been looking forward to it, and since my ladies’ group meets at Whataburger one (very early) morning a week, we’re serving Whataburgers cut into pizza-wedge slices with toothpicks. It should be a hit! 🙂

The staff and elders are tag-teaming during the communion service, and I was asked to do the intro for the theme “Rusty Nails,” which we’ll play at the end of the service. There will be a bowl of nails as a prop/visual. It’s a lovely song, and it was completely new to me:

 

I thought I would share with you my notes that I’ll be speaking from. It’s pretty short (isn’t supposed to be a sermon), but hopefully it will be meaningful to people:

I can’t tell you how many times I have naively prayed over the years, “Lord, use me.” From summer youth camps to college Bible studies to women’s retreats to Life groups and mission trips, I always had such good intentions. I wanted to minister to people, to help the hurting and save the lost. I guess what I really wanted was for God to use me in feel-good ways that made me feel needed and appreciated.

Jesus did a lot of feel-good things in his ministry, as well: he healed the blind and lame; he played with children; he fed the hungry; he had an audience anywhere he went. And yet, he knew – oh, so much more fully than I ever have! – what it truly meant to let God use him. When he prayed in the garden before his arrest, Jesus begged his Father to spare him from what he was about to have to do, but then, he relented and offered himself for God’s use.

I’m not going to sugar-coat it: sometimes, life is hard. It can be painful, and it often doesn’t make sense. When we offer Jesus his rightful place as Lord of our lives, it means that we have to make sacrifices in our otherwise self-centered lives. Yet, nothing … nothing that he calls us to do or to be or to give up could ever compare to what he has already done for us.

These nails represent the sin – your and my sin – that he willingly, painfully, sacrificially paid for on our behalf. They also represent the freedom that we experience when we give ourselves fully to him and say to him, “Not what I want, but what you want.”