Planting and Watering

Do you like to garden? Does it feel good to get your hands dirty, digging in the soil to plant vegetables or flowers? Do you like tending to the plants, fertilizing and watering them? Have you considered how that applies to your faith?

Planting and tending to a vegetable garden takes time and energy. Many do not have such gardens because of the investment required. The same is true, to a lesser extent, with flower gardens and flowerpots. They don’t require quite as much time but do require some.

The Apostle Paul uses the analogy of planting and watering for explaining the growth of the church and the members faith. Though he was speaking nearly two-thousand years ago, the analogy still holds true today. Our faith needs to be tended by pastors and teachers.

Because our faith needs to be tended to, we need to be in worship services whenever we can. We need to participate in Bible studies. The more we can interact with and hear God’s Word through teachers who have studied it, the more God can grow our faith. Make no mistake, it is not all about knowledge. However, the more knowledge we have, the deeper our faith can grow.

How can we help ourselves? First, we can read God’s Word. Second, we should pray as we are heading to worship services and Bible studies. We should ask God to open our hearts and minds to understand what he wants us to understand. We should ask God to deepen our faith through them.

I pray we all strive to be in worship services and Bible studies. I pray we read God’s Word. I pray each one of us will pray that God deepens our faith through worship and Bible studies. Go to worship services. Participate in Bible studies. Ask God to reveal his understanding to you.

1 Corinthians 3:6-7 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.

Act Wisely

What does it mean to you to answer a question wisely? When someone acknowledges you have answered wisely, do you feel good? Are you appreciative that they noticed? Does it encourage you to answer wisely again? Is this true when you give an answer about God?

We take a variety of tests as we progress through school. Many of us take a variety of tests to be certified for our jobs. Those tests require specific answers. When someone else asks us to pontificate on a particular issue, we may answer emotionally rather than wisely.

An answer is wise if it has significant thought put into it. It requires research and knowledge mixed with the thought. It includes considering multiple viewpoints and perspectives. A wise answer provides insight to an issue others may not have thought about. It also is a truthful answer.

Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was and answered by giving the two great commandments—love God and love neighbor. The scribe, or lawyer, replied that Jesus was correct in giving His answer. He added they are more important than burnt offerings. Jesus then told the scribe he was not far from the kingdom of God. Jesus had seen the man had answered wisely.

We should also think about the truths Jesus stated, ponder them, and learn from them. Jesus taught great lessons that are meant for us to think about and discern how we can apply them in our lives. When we apply them, we are acting wisely, and Jesus acknowledges it. We may not see Him acknowledge it in the same way. Yet, Jesus blesses us as we wisely use His teachings.

As we act wisely and speak wisely according to Jesus’ standard, we step closer to the kingdom of God. We take another step toward living as Jesus would have us live. As we begin living more as Jesus wants us to live, we begin living the abundant life He came to give us.

I pray we all seek to learn Jesus’ teachings. I pray we discern how to apply His teachings in our lives. I pray each one of us will act wisely and live the abundant life Jesus intended for us to live. Learn from Jesus. Apply His teachings in your life. Act wisely. Live the abundant life.

Mark 12:34 When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

The Greatest Commandments

Jesus gives us the two greatest commandments. We often shorten them to “love God and love your neighbor.” That is fine for a quick response or quick recall to our minds, but are we failing to remember the full meaning of those commandments by doing so?

Read today’s passage slowly. Concentrate on each word. Break them down into bite sized chunks. When we do so, we find there is quite a lot packed into them. Let’s take a look.

The first commandment is known as the Shema by the Jews. It starts with stating God is one. We, too, confess there is one God. However, we recognize three personhoods within the one God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is why we will call Jesus both the Son of God and God interchangeably. It is also why we say God lives within us through the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Mark records Jesus saying we are to love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Though we may look at these as being separate, they overlap one another. The meaning behind heart is our physical, mental, and spiritual life. Soul can mean our inner life or life principle. Mind refers to our cognitive functions—thinking, comprehending, reasoning. Strength is our vitality or life force that motivates all the previous functions. We can sum them up by saying we are to love God with every fiber of our being.

The second commandment implies that we must first love ourselves, then love others. Though this is true, it does not mean we put ourselves above others. Instead, it means we are to love everyone as God’s creation. We can interpret this to mean the same as loving God. If we love God with our entire being, we will also love his creation, including ourselves and others.

Jesus finishes His answer to the question posed by stating there is no greater commandment than these. In other words, we are to make these two commandments our top priority. If we obey these two commandments, everything else falls in place and we will obey all other commandments naturally. Therefore, if we are struggling with obedience to God, we must first ask ourselves if we love God with our entire being and love others in the same way.

I pray we all choose to love God with our entire being. I pray we choose to love ourselves and others. I pray each one of us understand that by obeying these two commandments we will obey God’s other commandments. Love God. Love yourself. Love others. Be obedient.

Mark 12:29-31 Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Be Redeemed

Are you looking for good things? Do you want the best for you and your family? Do you the best available to you? Do you know eternal redemption is available for everyone? Do you it is because Jesus Christ came to be the perfect Lamb of God, to give Himself up to save the world?

The Israelites lived with a sacrificial system for hundreds of years. Every year they had to provide a perfect sacrifice to have their sins forgiven, both as individuals and as a nation. It was only through the blood of the sacrificial animal that they could be forgiven.

When Jesus came down from heaven to walk this earth as a human, His purpose was to eliminate that sacrificial system. Not only did His sacrifice eliminate the need for the Israelites to sacrifice to be forgiven but His blood covered the sins of the entire world. Through His sacrifice everyone, even those who were not Jewish, could come to God, be redeemed, and eternally saved.

Each one of us can be redeemed and eternally saved. Not because of anything we have done to earn it but because of what Jesus has done. How? We confess our sins, put our faith in Jesus, and accept Him as Lord and Savior. Make no mistake about it, it is a big decision. It is only we should make lightly. It requires us to open our hearts and minds to be changed by God.

Jesus is our High Priest. He is at the right hand of God the Father, continually interceding on our behalf. When we stand in judgment, we will be exonerated, seen through Jesus as being righteous. Though we have not earned it, Jesus has made it available to you. Make the choice to accept the redemption that comes through Jesus today.

Know that Jesus is the perfect Lamb of God. Know that Jesus came to abolish the sacrificial system. Know that Jesus came to be the perfect sacrifice that would save the entire world. Confess your sins before Jesus. Accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. Be redeemed by Jesus.

Hebrews 9:11-12 But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.

Who to Trust

Today’s passage from Psalms is very appropriate for the times we live in. So many people are putting their hope into a specific candidate, government support, or other human institution. What the Psalmist knew nearly three thousand years ago is still true today.

We live in a material world. We seek after material solutions. We often look to people in power to solve the problems we see all around us. It is a false sense of security to believe one person in power can rectify all the issues we face. There is only One who can fully fix them.

Our frailty limits our ability to see fully the way God sees. It is not merely physical frailty but psychological and emotional frailty. Our minds are not able to comprehend what God comprehends. As the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly.” All the more reason to put our trust in God.

As the Psalmist writes, the plans of a human leader fail once they have died. As stated, we should not put our trust in government leaders. Not that we are to be cynical, but that we should trust in God and do for ourselves all that we can do. Trusting someone else to ride in and save the day is setting ourselves up for disappointment.

God alone is always with us. God alone oversees the entire earth. God alone knows what will has happened yesterday, what is happening today, and what will happen tomorrow. He does not control us like a puppet master, but he is in control of all things. If we want to see a sweeping change occur in our world, we should pray that God move mightily throughout the world, bringing people to him. It is only by people coming to God that our world will change for the better.

I pray we all see to fruitlessness of trusting human leaders. I pray we trust God in all situations. I pray each one of us goes to God in prayer and asks him to move mightily throughout the world. Do not trust human leaders. Trust God. Trust him always. Ask God to move mightily. Ask God to change our world.

Psalm 146:3-4

Do not put your trust in princes, 

in mortals, in whom there is no help. 

When their breath departs, they return to the earth; 

on that very day their plans perish.

Tough Decisions

Have you had to make tough choices? Have you had to choose between doing what you want and what you know to be right? Which did you choose? How did it turn out? Would you change your decision if you had to choose again? Are you choosing to follow God’s lead?

Tough decisions are part of life. Some are tougher than others. We may need to choose between doing what we want to do and what we know we should do. We may have to choose between going with friends or following God. It can be a tough choice.

Ruth had a tough choice to make. He husband had died. Her mother-in-law was returning to Israel. Neither of them had a way to provide for themselves, other than begging. Naomi released Ruth of any obligation, even encouraging her to return to her parents’ home. Ruth could have gone home and sought finding a new husband. Instead, she chose to continue with Naomi. Not only that, but she chose to worship God along with Naomi.

Our choices can be very difficult. They may seem to be choosing between the lesser of two evils. But if we choose to follow God’s path, we can be assured it will be to our benefit. God will provide for us as we walk the path he wants us to follow. I have personally experienced God providing on multiple occasions, one such situation I mentioned yesterday.

When we are confronted with tough choices, we need to pray and listen. God will speak to us. He may speak through a person we trust. He may speak to us through actions of others. He may speak to us with a quiet voice in our minds or through a “gut feeling” to guide us. If we are unsure, we should ask for confirmation and wait until we receive it.

I pray we all seek God’s guidance. I pray we ask God to guide us with tough decisions. I pray each one of us will spend quiet time with God in prayer and listen for him to speak to us. Seek God for tough decisions. Ask God for his guidance. Spend quiet time in prayer. Listen for God to speak.

Ruth 1:16-17 But Ruth said, “Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die— there will I be buried. May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!”

When Things Go Wrong

Have you had something happened that appeared to be bad only to see how it worked out for the best later? Did you recognize it at the time? Did you recognize it later? Have you recognized it at all? Did it strengthen your faith? Did you give God the credit for using it for good?

Sometimes, things happen that we believe to be bad. They may even be bad. Yet, we are not to lose heart. We are to continue to believe God is in control. We are to believe that God can bring good from the bad. He has done it in the past and he can do it again in the future.

The pandemic was bad. Many, many people died during it. Many more continue to deal with the effects of being isolated for such a long time. However, God worked good through it in my life. I had been fired from IT consulting job. The additional unemployment payments I received allowed me to study and go to school to be a pastor.

We see in the book of Ruth how God uses another bad situation to work good. There was a famine in Israel. A man named Elimilech moves his wife and two sons to Moab to find food. Ultimately one of the sons marries a woman named Ruth. When we look at the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1, we see Ruth’s name listed. Is it not amazing how God can use something bad to create good?

The next time something bad happens to you, do not wallow in misery. Instead, ask what God is doing. Ask what good he will bring from it. Ask God to reveal it to you. Do not ask God to give you what you want but reveal what he is doing that will result in good for his kingdom and according to his plan.

I pray we do not see bad things as the end. I pray we seek to see the good God can work from the bad. I pray each one of us will ask God to reveal to us the good he is doing in the midst of our struggles. God can work good from bad. Ask God to reveal his good to you. Know he is always working and always with you.

Ruth 1:1 In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and two sons.

Love Is…

What is your definition of love? Do you believe it to be a feeling? Do you consider it to be an emotion? Have you fallen in love? Do you tell others you love them? What if there is a different kind of love? What if God has something else in mind?

Loving another with our feelings is fine. After all, it is that kind of love that causes us to find spouses and care for our children. We use that kind of love to express our feelings toward foods, pets, clothing, vehicles and homes.

But God loves with a different kind of love. He loves us with agape love, which we call unconditional. What does that mean? It means that God decides to love us. Though he may not like what we do, he chooses to love us anyway.

The Apostle Paul describes this kind of love in 1 Corinthians 13. He tells us what it is and is not. Patience means that God bears our failures. Scripture also calls it forbearing or long-suffering. Kindness is showing mercy, not merely being nice.

When Paul states what it is not, he starts with envy. We are not to covet what others have. Not being boastful means not bragging about ourselves. Not showing arrogance means not to look down our noses at others. Not being rude means not to be disgraceful or dishonorable in our actions or words.

We wrap this definition up as a decision we make every day. We are forbearing with others, show them mercy, do not covet, do not brag, do not look down our noses, and do not act dishonorable.

I pray we all choose to love every day. I pray we love one another as God loves. I pray each one of us will demonstrate love to our brothers and sisters in Christ. Choose to love every day. Allow the Holy Spirit to change you. Love as God loves. Love one another. Know that God chooses to love you.

1 Corinthians 13:4-5a Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.

Seek to See

What are you seeking today? Is it something you have been trying to accomplish for quite some time? Have you made progress toward your goal? What are you not seeing? Is there an obstacle in your way that you can’t see? Have you asked God to open your eyes?

We often set goals we want to achieve. Some of them are easily achieved while others are much more difficult. We may decide we need to try harder to achieve the difficult ones. However, it may not be that we need to work harder but see the obstacle in front of us.

One of our greatest obstacles is our inability to see. We think we see, but we miss what is in front of us. We are looking through human eyes rather than through God’s eyes.

A blind man heard Jesus was walking by and called out to Him. Many in the crowd tried to silence him, but he cried out even louder. Jesus called the man to Him and asked what he wanted. It was a test. Would the blind man, whose only means of providing for himself was to beg, ask for a few spare coins or would he have faith to ask for his sight? He had faith.

Just as Jesus gave the man his sight, He can give us our sight. He can remove the blindness we have acquired from our culture. He can open our eyes to see as He sees. But He will only do that we are open to radically change our lives and put our full faith and trust in Him. When we are ready to do that, Jesus will open our eyes when we ask.

Imagine how radically different the blind man’s life was after he could see. He no longer needed to beg. He could now work a job and provide for himself. He was able to live a brand-new life. This can happen to us as well. When we ask God to open our eyes, to see as he sees, our lives will change for the better in ways we would never expect.

I pray we all ask God to open our eyes. I pray we desire to see as God sees. I pray each one of us decide to be open to a life altering change for the better, no longer worrying about cultural norms. Open your heart. Open your mind. Ask God to open your eyes. Seek to see as God sees.

Mark 10:51-52 Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

Exalted Above All

If you were creating your own God, what qualities would you give him/her? Would your created God be powerful? Would your created God be good looking? Would your created God grant all your wishes? Would your created God be your best friend? How do you think that would work out?

We often designate our own Gods, even if we don’t create them. How? Our God is whomever or whatever we worship by spending our time on them. We can put people on a pedestal and worship them. We can worship material things, spending all our time on them.

The God of everything created is unlike any God we can create. After all, he created everything we see. We may think we create things, but we can’t truly create them. We can be creative in one way, but we cannot create the way God created. We take what he created and make something from them.

God sent his Son to be our high priest. He intercedes before the Father on our behalf every moment of every day. He can only do that because He is holy, He is blameless or sinless, and He is unstained by the world though He lived in the world. Our high priest is separated from us because of His sinlessness. He stands apart. He is exalted by God above all else.

Jesus is our high priest. He came down from heaven to live within His creation. Though He took on human form, He did not submit to our frailties. He overcame the weakness of the flesh to be perfect and sinless. Because of His being sinless, He was the perfect Lamb of God. Therefore, He has been exalted above everything and everyone else.

I pray we all know that Jesus intercedes for us. I pray we know He is our high priest. I pray each one of us understands Jesus is holy, blameless, undefiled, and exalted above all others. Know Jesus intercedes for you. See Jesus as your high priest. Know Jesus is blameless. Know He has been exalted above all.

Hebrews 7:26 For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.