Tag Archives: devotional

Which Way?

Posted on by
Reply
Walter's Wiggles

Walter’s Wiggles, Angle’s Landing Trail, Zion National Park

Determining truth in a world filled with lies is difficult. Lies always disguise as truth. Some lies are actually half truths. Some lies we use to hide our shame. When we cannot cope with the truth about ourselves we lie. Lies lead to more lies, and we get further from the truth. The biggest lie is that there is no truth. But, when one gives up seeking the truth, then you are truly lost.

Jesus answered, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”  John 18:37

The question is who are you following, which way are you going.?

Morning Feast

Posted on by
Reply
morning lupine

Morning taste of glory

Let the morning bring me word of Your unfailing love  Psalm 143:8

As I begin this day my thoughts gravitate to my failures, lack of discipline, lack of prayer, too much TV, wrong thoughts, and I feel pulled down unable to enjoy the day due to my shame. But then a voice says it is by grace you have been saved (Eph. 2:8-9). Therefore let us approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need (Heb. 4:16). I grab hold of these words, laying aside my self-doubt and shame, to begin this day again in Christ. Renewed to pray for my family, trusting that my failures will not foil God’s love and provision for them. That His love has not diminished and remains as wide and long and high and deep for me as it is for the greatest saint (Eph. 3:18). By faith the day changes from one of struggle with sadness and shame to one of victory and thanksgiving unto the LORD. Knowing He is good, His love endures forever (Psalm 136). This is my morning feast, my wake up coffee.

O taste and see that the LORD is good! Happy is the man who takes refuge in Him!  Psalm 34:8

Recapturing Innocence

Posted on by
Reply
Innocence

Oh, the peace of innocence

Often, when I try to pray, past memories harp at me about why I’m unworthy to go before God. Only when I pray trusting in the power of Jesus to forgive all my past and future, am I able to enter the peace of God’s presence. Placing my faith in the His grace, and the power of Christ’s blood is the key. God’s love then quiets the cacophony in my head and brings me to innocent communion with Him.

In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.         –Ephesians 3:12

I need the Lord’s help to remember the sufficiency of His grace. I need the Lord’s help to forget the ugliness He has forgiven. I need the Lord’s help to live for Him in the innocence He gives.

The Land of Miracles

Posted on by
6
Mount Rainier-Berkeley Park

Berkeley Park, Mount Rainier National Park

Berkeley Park is a place of flowers and mist, a peaceful place for healing of the soul.

Have you ever prayed for healing? This appeal to God is little scary for me. It is even scarier when the prayer is for a child with a life threatening illness. I am scared because I don’t know if my faith measures up to what is required. Can I muster the faith required, or will one little deviation, one little doubt, one little slip cause the miracle to crumble? That is what one father worried about when he asked Jesus to heal his son.

“‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for him who believes.”
Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”                Mark 9:17-24

This man knew the faith needed to heal his son was beyond his ability. I think it is beyond most people’s ability to summon that kind of faith, even the disciples couldn’t do it. But Jesus healed the boy because He is the author and perfecter of faith and interceded with God on behalf of the man and his son.

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.  Hebrews 4:14-16

I may not have what it takes, but I can go to my high priest, Jesus, and pray: “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief.” Knowing that brings peace to my soul.

When Lupine Call

Posted on by
Reply
Lupine

Come and enjoy

The lupine are so inviting, but many people just drive by not realizing what they have missed.

But I tell you it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgement than for you. Matthew 11: 24

Does this verse mean judgement will be metered out based on some sort of reverse merit system? Scripture also states that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6: 23), how are some more dead than others? I think this instead refers to knowing you had great gift before you and instead of receiving it with joy, you passed it bye. How dreadful to spend eternity with the thought of what might have been. Thinking of the “great wedding feast,” but knowing you chose to do something else. It is easier to bear the loss when you chose hell over heaven than to know you just ignored the invitation.

Glory

Posted on by
3
balasomroot glory

Glorious

This flower is one among hundreds on this hillside. Hardly worth taking its picture, until you get the early morning sun behind it and then — Oh my, it is glorious.

Christ in you, the hope of glory.  Colossians 1:27

Come Let Us Worship

Posted on by
2
Lifting Hands in Worship

All nature worships

Psalm 95

Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
For the Lord is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.

Everyone worships something. Some worship nature, some wealth, some humanity. It is important to ask yourself what you worship for you will become like what you worship (Psalm 115, Rom. 1:25). With this in mind there is only one worthy of worship — the creator of all things.

Worship of God starts with bowing before Jesus, bowing in spirit and in truth (John 4:23-24). In other words humbling myself and calling Him Lord of all. This act of worship involves offering my body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This holiness can only happen by God’s grace given to me through Jesus Christ (Romans 12:1). Thus, I begin worship by bowing before the Shepherd of my soul and end being made into His likeness. Jesus becomes for me the Alpha and Omega of worship.

Spring Cascade of Color

Posted on by
3
Spring Bouquet

Balsamroot spill over from the heights

This picture, from above my home, shows the Spring cascade of color.

The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom… But only the redeemed will walk there,
and the ransomed of the Lord will return.
They will enter Zion with singing;
everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee away. Isaiah 35:1, 9-10

My hope is not in the beauty of this world, but in Jesus my creator, my redeemer, my shepherd, my king. Only in Him do gladness and joy reside forever. Only in Him will sorrow and sighing be excluded from spoiling eternity.

Harbinger

Posted on by
2
Glacier Lily

Harbinger of Spring

The Glacier Lily is one of the first wildflowers announcing Spring. It is a welcome harbinger of all the beauty coming in the weeks ahead.

To get this picture I had to get down close to the ground, upon trying to get up my joints and back complained mightily. The groan told me Spring had long since come and gone for my body. But those aches and pains reminded me of another harbinger that holds an even greater hope.

For while we are in this tent (our mortal body), we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. 2 Corinthians 5:4-5

The Holy Spirit is a harbinger of what is to come. But more than that, God’s Spirit is an initial deposit in us of all the good He wants to bestow.

Because of His Spirit within, I can rejoice in my groaning for I know it is temporary, and God will use it to mold me into something far greater than the Glacier Lily.

The Well-worn 23rd Psalm

Posted on by
1
ps23

Aspen grove, Grand Canyon North Rim

This psalm is so familiar that reading it my mind often goes on auto-pilot, wandering unthinking through the words. Other times I get sidetracked into some memory from childhood. When this happens I have to remember to ask the Holy Spirit to open my eyes and heart, to make these verses jump off the page. After all Jesus calls the Word of God life giving food (Matthew 4:4). Isaiah compares the Word of God to rain and snow sent to accomplish a mighty task, for God’s power stands behind it (Isaiah 55:10-11). Jeremiah 23:29 declares: “Is not My word like fire, and like a hammer that breaks rock to pieces?” So when the words just sit on the page lifeless, I need to ask God for help.
The following is not the final word on this psalm but what I needed for this day.

The 23rd Psalm is about God’s relationship with me:
It is not a prayer, that I say, asking the Lord to be my shepherd. It is God saying “I am your shepherd, I will watch over you.
It is not about my finding water, or a place of rest — I just follow.
It is not about what I try to achieve. He is the one who directs me in path of righteousness by the power of His name.
He is there in darkness and in light, in the good and the bad, no matter where, always, no time outs.
It is not about what happens when I am good enough, or wise enough, or have faith enough. It is God telling me about His relationship to me because it is by His grace, and love, and forever.
Thus the 23rd Psalm is not my prayer to God, but His prayer to me.