RESURRECTION by Susan Slade

JOHN 15:13 EXTRAVAGANT LOVE

Extravagant LoveBy Susan Slade

John 15:13

Greater love hath no man than this,

That a man lay down his life for his friends.

Romans 5:7-8

For scarcely for a righteous man will one die:

yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.

But God commendeth his love toward us, 

in that, while we were yet sinners, 

Christ died for us.

According to Jesus Himself, the ultimate outpouring of love is to give one’s life for one’s friends. Jesus did more than that. The cross was the focal point of HIStory. In reality, we were Jesus’ enemies, and yet He was willing to die to pay the ransom for the sin of all who would believe for all time. It is incomprehensible that He would do such a selfless act for the disciples He cherished, but He went beyond dying for His friends to die for sinners yet unborn. His love is beyond complete: it is extravagant, unfathomable, and indescribable. He endured the cross on our behalf to transform us into His precious jewels, His treasured possession. He erased our sin in order to adopt us into His forever family, that we could experience Him fully and worship Him eternally.

Have you personally experienced this extravagant outpouring of love? The same God who spoke the world into existence placed Himself into the limitation of human flesh so that He could die on behalf of all who would believe and trust in Him and His sacrificial death on the cross. However, God’s love does not end with Jesus’ death on the cross. On the third day, Jesus rose triumphantly from the dead, left the tomb, and appeared over the course of forty days to more than 500 witnesses. Jesus Christ is ALIVE! If you have not placed your heart in the nail-scarred hands of Jesus, do so today. Then not only will your eternity be secure in Heaven, but you will experience the greatest love of all. If you are already one of the Lord’s forever family treasures, remember what your redemption cost Jesus, and celebrate His love and your freedom from sin. Celebrate the fact that He has transformed you from worthlessness to being His multifaceted jewel, reflecting His image to the world.

LUKE 8:15 - CULTIVATING FRUIT

CULTIVATING FRUIT

Luke 8:15

MSG    “But the seed in the good earth—these are the good-hearts who seize the Word and hold on no matter what, sticking with it until there’s a harvest.

TPT  “The seed that fell into good, fertile soil represents those lovers of truth who hear it deep within their hearts. They respond by clinging to the word, keeping it dear as they endure all things in faith. This is the seed that will one day bear much fruit in their lives.”

VOICE “But some people hear the message and let it take root deeply in receptive hearts made fertile by honesty and goodness. With patient dependability, they bear good fruit.”

James 1:2-4 (NIV) Consider it pure joy,

my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that

the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 

Let perseverance finish its work so that

you may be mature and complete,

not lacking anything.

James 5:7 (NIV) Be patient, then,

brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains.

The soil that yields a significant crop is the person whose heart has been tilled and cultivated by the Holy Spirit. When that person hears the word of God, she not only responds enthusiastically at the time but perseveres, sticks with the commitment made to the Lord. A farmer plants the seed and then must wait for the harvest. I had a small garden outside my classroom. One year, my second graders planted radish and carrot seeds in late February. The twenty-one days or so that it took for the radishes to be ready to eat seemed like an eternity to seven and eight-year-olds. They patiently took turns taking out the watering can to keep the soil from drying out, and a few minutes of recess time were devoted to checking for weeds. Harvest day was joyous as they tasted the fruit of their labor. A few of them spit it back out but were still thrilled that they had grown their own radish. Our growth with the Lord requires daily attention as well. We must not lose faith or patience with the process of cultivating spiritual maturity during the times of trial. We must be faithful to drink up the water of God’s word. We need the sunlight of encouragement from other believers. We need to keep the soil loose by obedience to what God has shown us. The reward will be to grow in Christlikeness displaying the Fruit of the Spirit:

Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

As we mature in our relationship with Jesus, we will bear fruit in the form of others surrendering their lives to Him as we share the Gospel. The children were a bit upset about the carrots. I was only able to pull a scrawny beginning of a carrot to show them before the end of the school year. I continued to water and weed our carrot bed and harvested them in June. We must not get frustrated and lose patience when our sharing does not seem to produce an immediate crop. We must also remember that sometimes we plant, others water, and yet someone else reaps the crop. But, ultimately, God is the Lord of the harvest:

1 Corinthians 3:5-9 What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. 9 For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.

If the soil of your heart was well cultivated, and the seed of God’s word took a firm hold there, it was the work of the Holy Spirit preparing and drawing you. In order to maximize your fruitfulness of character and in witnessing, you need to continue to draw on God’s food found in His word, the Sonlight found in the fellowship of believers, as well as the cultivation of the Holy Spirit continuing to root out the weeds in your life. 

2 CORINTHIANS 5:17 - BRAND NEW

BRAND NEW

Christ died to save us; lives to raise us;

We can be born again.

From death to life now, the Bible tells how

We can become new men.

Feel the conviction, change your direction,

Surrender your life to the Lord.

He won’t ignore you. He will restore you.

God will stand by His word.

Life is glorious: we are victorious

When we live in His light.

He will guide us, stay right beside us

As against Satan we fight.

Sin can’t conquer us; in the Lord we trust.

Christ will always come through.

If we confess to Him, then we rest in Him,

We can start out brand new. 

COLOSSIANS 2:14 DEBT CANCELED

Debt Canceled

Like erasing words on a white board,

You wiped away my sin.

You left no trace of transgression

and brought me to life again!

“And when you were dead in your transgressions 

and the uncircumcision of your flesh,

 He made you alive together with him, 

having forgiven us all our transgressions,

having canceled out the certificate of debt 

consisting of decrees against us

and which was hostile to us; 

and He has taken it out of the way, 

having nailed it to the cross.”

Colossians 2:13-14 (NASB)

ĕxalĕiphō¹⁸¹³ – to smear out, i.e. obliterate (erase tears, fig. pardon sin): - blot out, wipe away.

            I’ve had an interesting array of jobs in my life, and the best was the venue God worked through to give me my children. That one also involves a story of canceled debt. Howard originally hired me to keep an eye on his teenagers while he traveled with his job. That evolved into helping them with their home-schooling as well. Then I quit my full-time teaching job and spent every morning teaching Tom and Esther. Howard purchased a new home computer and printer to enable me to work from home transcribing, to be able to create lessons for his children, and to allow my students to type reports and stories at my house.  The understanding was that I would deduct a small monthly payment for the computer from the bill I sent to Howard. After just a couple of months of slowly paying him back for the computer, Howard canceled that debt telling me not to deduct it from my wages anymore. What a generous gift!

            However, I still had tremendous debt due to medical and dental expenses charged on credit cards. I was depressed and could not see a way out. About the time Tom and Esther became adults and left home, my father was diagnosed with cancer. I moved in with my parents to help around the house. No one blotted out my over $25,000 of credit card debt; but under conviction that my debt was not glorifying to God, I began slowly paying it off.  After my father passed away, I continued to live with my mother; and God enabled me to pay off all those credit cards. Talk about a burden lifted!

An old chorus begins, “I owed a debt I could not pay.”  The deficit created by my sin was comparable to owing millions of dollars with interest compounded daily. There was no way I would ever be able to satisfy the righteous requirements of God. However, Jesus obliterated that debt when he died on the cross in my place. He nailed my bill to the cross marked “paid in full.” When I realized what Christ had done for me, I went from being dead and defeated by my sin to being forgiven and alive in the Lord. God also allows me to start fresh with him each day by confessing my sins and allowing him to cleanse me from all unrighteousness (I John 1:9).

Lord Jesus, thank you for paying my debt on the cross. May the change you’ve wrought in my life bring honor and glory to you. Help me to express my gratitude in service to you and enable me to show others how to be debt free.

Luke 7:27 - JOHN THE BAPTIST

JOHN THE BAPTIST

From before he was born, John the Baptist was a spirit-filled prophet. The angel had told the priest, Zacharias, that his barren wife, Elizabeth, would conceive, and the baby would be “filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb” (Luke 1:15b). When Mary, the mother of Jesus, visited her relative, Elizabeth, the fetus in her womb jumped for joy at sound of Mary’s voice because he recognized that the baby inside her was the Messiah (Luke 1:43-44). When John became an adult, he lived in the desert until time to begin his ministry (Luke 1:80). Many prophets exhibited what seemed to be eccentric behavior. For example:

·       Isaiah walked around naked (Isaiah 20:2)

·       Ezekiel cut and divided his hair (Ezekiel 5:1-3)

·       Jeremiah wore a yoke and bonds (Jeremiah 27:2)

·       Elijah doused his sacrifice (1 Kings 18:33-35)

John the Baptist was no exception. He wore clothes made of camel’s hair with a leather belt, and he ate locusts and wild honey (Matthew 3:4, Mark 1:6). I doubt many people accepted his dinner invitations. He came baptizing people to show their repentance of sin. He preached that the kingdom of Heaven was near (Matthew 3:1-2). John was imprisoned because he was so bold as to tell Herod the Tetrarch he was sinning by marrying his brother’s wife (Matthew 14:3). After he was imprisoned, he sent two of his disciples to ask Jesus if He truly was the Messiah or they should search for someone else (Luke 7:19). Jesus performed many miracles in front of these two and told them to report back to John what they had seen (Luke 7:21-22) and listed deeds Isaiah prophesied concerning the Messiah (Isaiah 35:5, 6; 61:1). Then Jesus explained to the crowd that they had not gone out to see John because of the beauty of the Jordan river or his fancy clothing but because he was, indeed, a prophet. He then validated that John was not only a prophet, but the prophet foretold in Scripture:

Malachi 3:1 Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.

You may remember the earthly end to the saga of John the Baptist. Herod’s wife (his ex-sister-in-law) had her daughter dance for Herod. When he promised her anything in front of many guests in reward for the dance, her mother instructed her to ask for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Thus, he was decapitated and his head served up as if it were the last course of the meal. Gross! However, that is not the end of his story. He entered into the presence of the Father having fulfilled his purpose as a prophet and with the confidence that he had been one of the first to recognize Jesus, the perfect Lamb of God. 

Silver Hair, Powerful Prayer by Susie Hale, Photo courtesy of Richard Wayne

Silver Hair, Powerful Prayer

By Karen Sue Hale

            Many people are guilty of putting our senior citizens out to pasture and thinking of them as no longer contributing to the welfare of society.  However, many of you reading this are in that over sixty age group and still lead active lives albeit at a slightly slower pace these days. If you are like the people in North Pointe Baptist Church’s Joy or Faith  classes or the class taught by Jerry Hines, you visit shut ins, greet visitors, serve dinner after memorial services, write encouraging notes to the pastor and staff, and many other deeds of Christian service in addition to encouraging the other members of your Sunday school class. You are not ready to sit in the rocker and be taken care of by someone else. But even if you are getting close to or are already at that stage of life, you may still make a tremendous difference in the lives of others.

       You are able to pray! You are able to pray with true understanding for the pains and concerns of many people because you have already walked where they now trudge, and the Lord brought you through it all. You can take the time to pray because you are no longer tied to the hectic schedule of the workday. Many times, you can stop and pray the minute someone calls with a need. You will spend time in fervent prayer because you can choose how to devote each hour of the day.

       Let me share one example of the power of praying grandmas and grandpas. My ex-sister-in-law who will always be my “sister” had to have her entire stomach removed in February of 1996 when she was thirty-eight years old. A few days before her surgery I asked the senior adult class at the church I attended at the time to pray for her. She is a Christian and was ready to be with the Lord, but she felt she was needed here to finish raising her two sons and see them graduate from high school. Those people who in many settings would be set aside as having lost their usefulness (aren’t we younger people foolish) prayed fervently for Debbie. It is now 2018. Debbie has endured many more surgeries and long hospital stays, but both boys are now out of high school and in the work force.

       The effective prayer of those gray-headed men and ladies has helped to produce another prayer warrior. Although many people have told her to go ahead, give up and die, it is Debbie’s testimony that she chooses to live life as fully as she can until the Lord calls her home.  She shared with me that even when all she can do is lie in the hospital bed, she still has the ability (and plenty of time) to pray for her family and friends. Whenever she is hospitalized, there is a steady stream of hospital staff at her door drawing encouragement from their patient. God has allowed her to touch many lives in the years since 1996, and the Lord willing, she’ll touch a few more. She prayed specifically for God to give me children, and He did so in an unusual way, but that is a story for another time.

       There have been many times that godly senior citizens have prayed for me or my loved ones, and God has mightily blessed. Remember that “…the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” (James 5:16b KJV) Though your bodies may become frail with age and some may accuse your mind of “slipping,” do not relinquish your call to intercessory prayer. It is a high calling and allows you to be “more than conquerors” (Romans 8:37) through the power of His might.

You have the golden opportunity

now that there is silver in your hair

to be God’s conquering warriors

through the power of your prayer.

KEEP ON PRAYING!