Walking With Jesus

When Getting Out of Bed is an Act of Worship

“For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith. And who can win this battle against the world? Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God.” (1 John 5:4-5 NLT)

There have been days, even seasons in my life when I felt I had no good reason to get out of bed. It may have been for physical or emotional reasons, but it was a struggle to get up, and sometimes I just couldn’t force myself to do it. When that happens, we too often conclude that God is not pleased with us, or we must have done something seriously wrong. But I’m comforted to know that great men of God like the Prophet Elijah and the central figure in the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther, also struggled with emotional issues.

In a recent Breakpoint article, John Stonestreet wrote: “Clearly, people are suffering. In a culture shaped by a ‘critical theory mood’ claims of suffering can be thought of as a desirable way of elevating a person’s moral status. It is also not a coincidence that this suffering has accompanied a culturewide loss of a sense of meaning.

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A 2021 Lifeway Research study found that nearly 60% of American adults wonder about how they can find more meaning and purpose in their lives on at least a monthly basis. Rates of depression, suicidal ideation, and suicide are up across all demographics. Even as the wider world is struggling, there is a notable exception.

In 2019, the Pew Research Center found that 36% of Americans who attend church or are ‘actively religious’ regularly report being ‘very happy.’ In other words, faith in God, marriage, family, and a sense of duty to something larger than ourselves are often what provide people with the richest sense of meaning.”

Are we to conclude that we’re governed by our emotions? That how we feel trumps what we know to be true? Even when I’m emotionally struggling, it doesn’t negate my mind from understanding that if I love God I not only need to submit to His authority in my life, I want to. Because of that, sometimes just getting out of bed is an act of worship, an effort to declare in my soul that the Lord Jesus is still in control and ruling my life.

Am I as productive when I’m struggling? No, but neither am I defeated in my spirit. I know that God loves me and is for me, and while I don’t understand why He allows these “setbacks” in my walk with Him, I accept them for what they are, seek to walk faithfully through them, and trust Him to heal and help me move beyond them as quickly as I can.

A problem arises when our emotions rule our lives, and we conclude we have no choice but to give in to our negative feelings. This can be heightened especially when we have no anchor for our soul. If we have no sense of positive and ongoing meaning for our life, it’s often a short step to believing that our life has no meaning.

For me, knowing Jesus is with me and for me, and that He died in my place magnifies my life’s meaning when I yield my life and allegiance to Him. My relationship with Jesus is my anchor in the presence of my emotional, mental, and physical storms. He gives my life meaning that can’t be erased or put on the proverbial back burner simply because I’m not feeling well.

If you don’t have Jesus as your “Anchor,” please click the link to Ron Hutchcraft’s Bridge to God and commit your life to Him today. You’ll never regret it!

Blessings, Ed 😊

Are You Being Transformed?

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” (Romans 12:2 NLT)

One very easy way to answer the question asked above is this: “Are you learning to know God’s will?” But equally important is: “Are you learning to consistently DO God’s will?” I may know the mechanics of playing the piano, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m going to be any good at it. Knowing how to do something and actually doing it are two separate things.

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, salvation isn’t a one and done experience, any more than sanctification. Both have definitive starting points, but they build from there. Dr. David Jeremiah speaks to this when he wrote: “Consider both dimensions of the Gospel in your life: saved and being saved. Is there evidence of the power of the Gospel in your life?”

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When I had shoulder surgery, had I not done my assigned exercises at home and followed through with my physical therapy appointments, the surgery would have been pointless. It’s like that when it comes to a relationship with Jesus. As with every other relationship we enjoy, our relationship with Jesus has a beginning point. My walk with Jesus began in April of 1963, but it continues because each day of my life we spend intentional time together.

But it doesn’t end there. Jesus is Lord; therefore, He gives direction to my life. Without His guidance and instruction, largely through His Word, I wouldn’t know how to grow in my walk with Him. Perhaps that’s what Melissa Kruger had in mind when she wrote: “Faith in Jesus leads to a life transformed by Jesus.”

The word in the verse above translated “transform” is the Greek word “metamorphoo” (met-am-or-fo-o). It’s the word from which comes our English word “metamorphosis.” It literally means “to change into another form.” On the Mount of Transfiguration Jesus’ appearance was transformed, it became resplendent with divine brightness. On some levels He became unrecognizable.

In a similar way we, as a new creation in Christ Jesus, become “transfigured” into the likeness of our Savior. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” That’s a miraculous transformation in terms of how the Father now views us. How is that possible? It’s not. That’s the point. It’s a miraculous transformation in the way God the Father sees us through the lens of His sinless Son.

We’ll not be perfect until we get to heaven, but the longer we walk with the Lord, the more we should resemble Him in our thoughts, actions, and attitudes. That’s what Dr. Jeremiah was addressing when he said we are “being saved” and that there should be “evidence of the power of the Gospel in our lives.”

There’s a sense in which God the Father immediately sees us completely transformed into the likeness of His Son, but from a practical standpoint that is a lifelong process that should reveal itself in our lives by the power of the Spirit working in and through us.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

The Footprints of God

“When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid; indeed, the deep trembled. The clouds poured out water; the skies gave forth thunder; your arrows flashed on every side. The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind; your lightnings lighted up the world; the earth trembled and shook. Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters; yet your footprints were unseen.” (Psalm 77:16-19 ESV)

Are you following the footprints of God? If you are they will surely lead you through the storms of life. We can only see God’s footprints with the eye of faith, but they are surely there. Sometimes we miss them because we mistake our troubles, tragedies, and trials as coming from the devil, which sometimes they are, but never without His permission. But just as the footprints of God led Him into the fiery furnace with three faithful teens, He walks before us in and through every detail of our lives.

The greatest tragedy of our lives isn’t our difficulties and heartaches, it’s facing those seasons without an awareness of God’s Holy presence with us. When my mom dropped dead during the Thanksgiving holiday many years ago, we grieved because we thought she was alone, but she wasn’t. When she fell, she landed in the arms of her Savior. She was never alone for one second. And neither are you, my dear brother or sister.

You’re not experiencing the circumstances in which you find yourself today by accident. If you look closely, you’ll find God’s footprints leading you through the rubble. We never suffer loss without the great gain of God’s holy presence comforting, guiding, equipping, enabling, and supporting us. Our loss is when we fail to realize we’re never alone.

Kneeling by my bed shortly after my divorce, sobbing, feeling alone and without hope, I cried out: “Lord, I’ve lost everything!” To which He responded as clearly as if He’d spoken the words audibly: “You haven’t lost everything because you haven’t lost Me, and I’m all you need!” I was in the fire, but I wasn’t alone.

Where have the Lord’s footprints led you in this season of your life? No matter how dark, lonely, or frightening, keep your eyes on Jesus and you will never lose your way. As I age, my body and mind try to scare me. It’s as if they’re seeking to be a foretaste of things to come, but I refuse to be afraid.

Whatever the future holds for me it won’t be as bad as hanging naked on a Roman cross, like my Savior did when He died in my place and yours. The Lord assures me that whatever my future holds, He holds my future, and I need not be afraid.

A neighbor on my street, whom I hadn’t met, took his own life recently. It’s as if we think we can bypass the pain of dying if we take things into our own hands, but to me it’s a coward’s way out. If I believe the footprints of God will never lead me where the arms of God won’t hold me; if I fail to believe that if I’m alive my life has purpose; if I seek to default on my commitment to live my life to the end for Him; then I’ve failed to follow where He’s leading; I’ve forfeited God’s will for my own.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

When Sin Is Celebrated

“Jesus replied, ‘I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.’” (John 8:34 NLT)

In the early 1970’s Dr. Karl Menninger published a book entitled “Whatever became of sin?” In the era in which we now live sin is so advertised, applauded, and accepted that it doesn’t seem to be problematic except to those whose sin has captured and incarcerated them.

Dr. Menninger wrote: “When a trout rising to a fly gets hooked on a line and finds himself unable to swim about freely, he begins with a fight which results in struggles and splashes and sometimes an escape. Often, of course, the situation is too tough for him. In the same way the human being struggles with his environment and with the hooks that catch him. Sometimes he masters his difficulties; sometimes they are too much for him. His struggles are all that the world sees and it naturally misunderstands them. It is hard for a free fish to understand what is happening to a hooked one.”

It seems at times that those of us who profess the sacred name of Jesus lose sight of the struggles we had, or perhaps still have, with our adversary. As an unbeliever we finally came to the end of ourselves, admitted our inability to meet our own needs, and sought forgiveness and new life in Jesus.

It seems ironic to me that we then too often forget or ignore the same issues with which we wrestled when we see them in a friend or loved one. It’s as if we look down from our ivory tower of perfection onto the peons who don’t have enough willpower or grit to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. How quickly we forget from whence we’ve come.

God’s heart grieves the lostness that infects the lives of so many today. When I was growing up there was still such a thing as public shame and humiliation. Now the vile and ungodly behaviors of people are celebrated and extolled as desirable. Pastor Corky Calhoun wrote: “Modern sin is no longer confessed and repented, it’s now declared and celebrated!”

The world today is dark and frightening. Even a trip to the grocery causes thoughts of fear from what we might encounter or who might be lurking, waiting to take whatever they can from whomever is vulnerable enough not to put up much of a fight. But my concern, as I hope is yours, doesn’t focus on how dark the world is. It’s always been dark, that’s why Jesus came in the first place.

Only the light of Christ’s purity can chase away the darkness of our dying souls. Only our devotion and determination to walk closely to Him will free us from fear and anxiety because of what “might” happen. Fellow Jesus “freaks,” we already know what the future holds, and it isn’t fear if we know, love, and serve King Jesus.

Fear is for the “fish” who are still hooked, still struggling to be free, never stopping to realize that freedom is a gift we can never give ourselves. It’s a gift that was bought and paid for by the blood of our Savior. Though sin is commonly, openly, and disgustingly celebrated, we as Jesus followers can be the light that can point the way to freedom, wholeness, and hope in Jesus.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Have You Come to the End of Yourself?

“There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13 NLT)

For whom are you laying down your life? What does that even mean? The words in the verse above are the words of Jesus hours before He would be nailed to a cross. He was literally at the end of His life, laying down His literal life for His literal friends – YOU and me! Sacrifice doesn’t get any clearer than that. A person’s life’s mission and goal aren’t fulfilled in a clearer fashion than Jesus’.

We can say we’re “laying down our life” for our wife when we take out the trash or wash a few dishes, or we can “lay down our life” by going out of our way to pick someone up for church, but those things are laughable and, while good, aren’t fulfilling God’s will for our life.

We can’t lay our life down for anyone unless and until we first lay it at the feet of Jesus. Yes, of course, we can lay down our literal life for someone, and that’s admirable, but it doesn’t illustrate the kind of sacrifice Jesus made until He gets all the glory, honor, and praise. As long as there’s a twinge of desire for us to get glory from it, it robs the Lord of the glory due His Name.

B.J. Thompson wrote: “It’s not until you come to the end of yourself that you’ll discover the ugliness of your brokenness and the beauty of God’s grace.” Jesus didn’t come to the end of Himself on the Cross, but in the crib. He was born with a singular focus – to lay down His life for His friends, and that process began the moment He was born.

For us that process begins the moment we’re born again! We come to the end of ourselves when we die to ourselves, as illustrated in our water baptism. And we rise to new life in Him, offering ourselves on the altar of His will to be used in any manner He determines. To believe we can yield our life and allegiance to Jesus and continue to live anyway we choose is to misunderstand the meaning of being a Jesus follower.

Laying down our life for Jesus doesn’t signal the end of our physical life, it signals the beginning. We don’t come to the end of ourselves when we die physically, but when we’re born again of the Spirit of God. We die, not when we stop breathing, but when the Spirit of God floods our beings with Himself. G. K. Chesterton wrote: “A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”

The trouble with “living sacrifices” such as ourselves, unlike Jesus, we want to wiggle off the altar and escape to settle for far less than the call of Jesus demands. We want to look and be respectable, so we won’t bring disgrace or shame to the beautiful name of our Savior, but the problem with that is, it’s not what He saved us to become.

Dr. David Jeremiah wrote: “Rare are the occasions when one person is called upon to die that another might live. Yet we can demonstrate the ‘greatest love’ in countless other ways when we die to our own desires and choose the good of another over ourselves.” Dying to self means dying to self-reliance and self-sufficiency, but it also must supersede our love of self.

We come to the end of ourselves when the desires of another become greater than our own desire. We don’t begrudgingly concede, but joyfully initiate the privilege of doing what will please another in favor of that which would most please us. The joy and satisfaction of seeing another’s pleasure fulfilled doesn’t become greater than our own, it becomes our own.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Humanity’s Most Dangerous Drug

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be My witnesses, telling people about Me everywhere – in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8 NLT)

“Power is perhaps humanity’s most dangerous drug,” writes Rebecca McLaughlin, yet power is the most cherished gift of God to a believer! The word translated “power” in the verse above is the word “dunamis (doo’-nam-is)” which is the word from which comes our English word “dynamite.”

Ideally, at least for a Jesus follower, the Holy Spirit releases His power through us to be witnesses with our words and deeds, not to point people to us, but to Jesus. Think of the words that have challenged and or changed you across the years of your life. Words like: “stupid,” “dumb,” “fat,” “ugly” and many other derogatory remarks.

Balance those with words like: “brilliant,” “gifted,” “beautiful,” “leader,” “smart,” and many more complimentary words that affirmed, encouraged, and built you up. Words have power to those who believe them, both positively and negatively. Once I invited the Lord Jesus to become my Savior and Lord, over time, I’ve learned to block out anything that didn’t agree with the words He uses to describe me. Words like: “loved,” “gifted,” “treasured,” “called,” “chosen,” “forgiven,” “empowered,” and many other life-giving affirmations.

On many levels it depends on who you choose to believe and from whom the words are derived. The Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon wrote: “Self-sufficiency is Satan’s net where he catches men, like poor silly fish, and destroys them.” Self-sufficiency is often the result of believing that power is derived from pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps; by working hard and making a name for ourselves; by earning money and enjoying its accompanying prestige, often by walking over others on our way up.

Power isn’t given, it’s demanded, and it often leaves carnage in its wake. Power becomes our god and we’ll do anything to feed the feeling it gives us. And the irony is, we don’t have to be a Napoleon or a Hitler in order to be empowered, all we need is a small office and a title and we’re good to go.

While I was pastoring, our only other staff Pastor resigned, so we began a search that resulted in an invitation to a young couple, whom I knew well, to come and candidate for the position. They came and it was a wonderful weekend. The church seemed responsive, and, in my mind, I couldn’t have hoped for a better turnout and response. But when the vote was tallied, they received only a 51% affirmation. I was crushed.

As I reeled in disbelief, one of the members of the governing body got right in my face, almost nose to nose and said to me: “I just wanted you to know who’s really running this church.” That’s the disastrous “drug” that is crippling the church and grieving the heart of God. It reminds me of A.W. Tozer’s words: “It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it.”

That experience changed the trajectory, not only of my ministry, but of my life. Admittedly, I was naïve and wanted to believe that people who served in positions of leadership at the church truly loved Jesus and were people of integrity, but I quickly learned that wasn’t always the case. I held on a few more years, but it soured my spirit and led me to leave ministry, which led to personal failure on many levels, resulting in the demise of my marriage.

Power in the wrong hands can be destructive and dishonoring to the Lord, but when the power of the Holy Spirit is released to do what only He can do in a broken life, resurrection, restoration, and renewal can become a reality.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

True Grace

“I have written and sent this short letter to you with the help of Silas, whom I commend to you as a faithful brother. My purpose in writing is to encourage you and assure you that what you are experiencing is truly part of God’s grace for you. Stand firm in this grace.” (1 Peter 5:12 NLT)

What first comes to mind when you see in print or hear the word “grace?”A workable definition is “an undeserved or unmerited favor of God.” Given that definition would you consider severe hardship and persecution a gift of grace? Likely not, yet that’s exactly the context of this letter written by Peter.

Like anyone else who loves and trusts the Lord Jesus, when we’re struggling it’s helpful to receive encouragement and assurance from someone whom we know understands what we’re going through. After my divorce, seriously wondering if the pain would ever stop, it was helpful when someone who had survived the trauma of divorce, would give me a word of encouragement.

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On one occasion someone was seeking to encourage me, and their words were genuine and helpful, so I asked him how long he’d been divorced. “Five years,” he answered. My heart sank, uncertain how I was going to make it through the next five minutes. But the reality is, by God’s grace and with His help life does go on, one difficult and weary step at a time.

Suffering, in whatever form it comes, is hard and challenging, yet, Peter gives us some sound advice when he tells us: “what you are experiencing is truly part of God’s grace for you.” So, the logical question then becomes: “How can all this hardship and pain be an undeserved and unmerited favor of God?”

Thomas Brooks wrote: “True grace works the heart to the hatred of all sin, and to the love of all truth.” And some, if you’re tracking with me, may wonder – “what’s suffering have to do with ‘the hatred of sin and the love of all truth?’” Quite a lot actually. You see, we tend to believe that grace is the “dessert” of the Christian faith. It’s like ice cream and pie instead of fruit and veggies. In other words, we see grace as “easy to swallow,” as compared with taking medicine when we’re sick.

As I understand Scripture, grace is the gift of God in helping us to become more like Jesus, and the reality is, we can’t bypass suffering if we love Him and desire to grow in His likeness. And please don’t hear what I’m not saying. I’m not insinuating in any way that suffering is pleasant or even that it should be, but it is beneficial.

Like medicine when we’re sick, the Lord “gifts” us with opportunities to grow and develop our spiritual muscles when He puts us through the training of hardship, trials, and difficulties. These circumstances will either push us away from the Lord or draw us closer to Him, but they’ll never leave us the same. If we see them as the true grace gifts that they are, though we may be challenged in ways we can’t conceive how we’ll survive, if we understand they are from the Lord and are given for our good, we look for the “light” in the darkness.

We seek to be attentive to the voice of our Shepherd as He leads us through the darkness and pain. We look for the “breadcrumbs” He leaves us that confirm we’re on the right path. We hold tightly to the words He gives us – not the sermons, but the crisp and clear words of encouragement: “Hold on!” “I love you!” “You’re the apple of My eye!” “You’re precious to Me!” “I am with you!” “You’re going to make it!” “The best is yet to come!” “You’re almost there!”

These are the words of true grace.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Are You Able?

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in Me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5 NLT)

If you’ve been around church or Jesus followers for any length of time you’ve likely read or heard the above verse. If a branch is removed from an apple tree how many apples will it bear? None, right? It’s not rocket science. If you have a connection with Jesus, you have the potential to bear fruit; however, if you have no connection there will be no fruit.

What’s hard for many of us is to realize how helpless we are without Jesus. Even as believers we tend to look at a verse like John 15:5 and say something stupid like: “Oh, that just refers to ‘spiritual’ things.” Yeh, I get it, I used to say dumb things like that also. Think with me for a minute. Take a breath! Seriously, take a deep breath.

Did you take that breath all on your own? Careful, don’t let thoughtless words leave your mouth. Just so we’re clear, no, you did not. We do nothing, literally and absolutely nothing without Jesus. Even if someone isn’t following Him, they still can’t do anything without Him.

Timothy Keller wrote: “We aren’t even capable of truly wanting Jesus without His help.” Even the desire to seek Him comes as His Spirit directs. The Lord formed us in our mother’s womb even before we had a mind to think. He is with us when He breathes life into us at the moment of our birth, He’s with us in our moment of death when He enables us to express the last breath of air from our body, and He’s with us in every moment in between.

He sets in motion each of our bodily functions and nothing moves in, through, or on our behalf without His help. Very smart people who don’t walk with the Lord can toss a ball in the air or kick a rock and say: “There, I did that all by myself,” not realizing there is no oxygen without Jesus, and without oxygen there’s no life.

Even the functions of our human body are orchestrated and ruled by the Lord. If we’re ever going to do anything of eternal value as a child of God, we have to realize that it’s got to originate and grow out of our absolute dependence upon the Lord. To think we can do anything of spiritual significance on our own is to seek glory for ourselves that should only be given to the Lord.

Obviously, the Lord gives us the capacity to think, to reason, to love, to care, to serve Him and each other, but the energy to do any of that originates with the Lord. He is the supplier and sustainer of everything we need to be everything He desires us to be. However, there is one thing the Lord gives us that is independent of Him – our will.

We can choose to follow and obey Him, or to do what only pleases us or to submit to His authority and do what pleases Him. The irony is, as a human being under the influence of our sinful nature, we struggle nearly every second of every day to learn to harness our “wild side,” and to willingly and whole heartedly yield our will to God’s.

Satan is a defeated foe who is destined to spend an eternity in hell with his devilish emissaries and with each human being who has chosen to follow their (Satan’s) will rather than God’s will. So, the one area in which we exercise complete control is our will, unless and until we yield our will to God. Even then in each moment we must decide who we’ll follow; whose will, will become ours? God’s or the enemy? You alone must decide.

My prayer for you as for me is that we’ll be able to make the right choice in this minute and the next and the next.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

What’s It Costing You?

“But don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it? Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of money, and then everyone would laugh at you. They would say, ‘There’s the person who started that building and couldn’t afford to finish it!’” (Luke 14:28-30 NLT)

Have you ever started something with full intent on completing it, but got sidetracked, so it stands as a monument to your inability or lack of desire to finish it? Two boxes in my office hold cameras I intend to install, but I’m now going on my second month, and they haven’t moved. It’s sad when it’s a house project, it’s sadder still when it’s your life.

In the verses that precede the ones above in Luke 14, Jesus uses some of the strongest and perhaps some of His most misunderstood words in the Bible. His audience is a large crowd, not unusual at this point in His ministry, but it’s as if He’s purposely trying to rattle their proverbial “cages” to get them to think seriously about what it means to be His disciple.

In verse 26 He says: “If you want to be My disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison – your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters – yes, even your own life.” As in virtually every verse in the Bible, seeing and understanding it in context is critical. When He spoke these words, Jesus was moving toward Jerusalem, which in His mind was the Cross.

Everything Jesus has thought, said, or done to this point in His life has been to prepare Him for the Cross. He above all people knew where His journey was leading and I can imagine, nearly on a moment-by-moment basis, He was counting the cost of His life and ministry. Might He have ever doubted? Based on such seeming frivolity and lightheartedness of those who were following Him, perhaps at times even among His trusted twelve, did He ever question why He was even making this journey?

Surely if anyone had, it was Jesus who placed His love of God the Father above every earthly relationship. Did that mean He couldn’t or wouldn’t love generously those in His literal and spiritual family? Of course not, but in light of the agony of His own heart and mind, He wanted to convey to those who were following Him, in the strongest possible language, what it meant to be His follower.

“Hate” in this context isn’t to be taken literally. As one commentary I checked said: “In the most vivid way possible He told them that the man who followed Him was not on the way to worldly power and glory, but must be ready for a loyalty which would sacrifice the dearest things in life and for a suffering which would be like the agony of a man upon a cross.”

Not every person who follows Jesus is a disciple, that’s why so many bail out when it gets hard to walk closely with the Lord. Pastor Alistair Begg wrote: “If our Christianity costs us nothing, it is worth nothing.” Counting the cost of following Jesus isn’t anything that should seem unusual to any reasonable person. We count the cost, or should count the cost, before buying anything of significance; before investing our savings into an enterprise; before getting married or starting a new job; certainly we can’t jump into a relationship with Jesus without giving it considerable thought and consideration.

The reality is, following Jesus is going to cost us our life – certainly as we follow Him day after day, but in the world in which we now live, the possibility of literally giving our life in death because of our faith in Him is becoming a more real possibility with each passing day.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

When Words Aren’t Needed

“Through faith in the name of Jesus, this man was healed – and you know how crippled he was before. Faith in Jesus’ name has healed him before your very eyes.” (Acts 3:16 NLT)

The man to whom Peter referred in the verse above was a crippled beggar who was carried to the Temple every day so he could beg for enough money to enable him to survive. It’s interesting that his name isn’t mentioned, only that he was a beggar.

How like the thousands of people we pass by in the course of our daily routine. As we drive the streets of our city or walk to a shop, encountering nameless faces who mean nothing to us until one day we finally see ourselves in their lonely, frightened, and needy faces. Every face has a story, and every heart has a need.

As I’ve shared before, I’ve wrestled with bouts of depression throughout my life. There are times I feel anxious, yet uncertain of the reason I feel that way. I’m on the verge of bursting into tears, but I don’t know why. My wife and I were watching a program on TV, and I couldn’t hold back the tears. I know I’m loved by the Lord and many others, so why do I get so emotional?

Honestly, I wish I could explain it, but of this one thing I’m sure – in those times, at least in my life, but I suspect in others as well, I don’t need an explanation, I need a hug. I need to feel the warmth of my wife’s loving presence without the obligation to provide an explanation.

Pastor Rick Warren lost his son, Matthew, to suicide. He wrote in a recent Daily Hope devotional: “Our small group came over after Matthew died. They said, ‘We’re spending the night at your house. We’re not going to leave you here alone. We’re going to be with you.’ They didn’t try to give us any words of wisdom. They just gave us the ministry of presence. They slept on our couches and on the floor. I’ll never forget how it held us up.”

He said in the same article: “The deeper the pain, the fewer words you use.” Paul gives us needed insight when he wrote in Galatians 6:2: “Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.” In a group meeting I attended recently I sat beside a man and his wife whom I know, but we’re not buds. We met at church, but we go to different services, so we don’t see each other very often.

Last year his daughter died, and a few weeks after, his dog died. My daughter owns my heart and there’s no comparison between the loss of a daughter and the loss of a dog, but they both tear your heart out. I had no words of wisdom to share with my friend, but I simply said, “I pray for you and your wife every morning.” He choked up and I wish I had hugged him, but we were both sitting down, and it would have been awkward.

The point is simply this: be sensitive to the needs of people around you. When I’m “down” my wife picks it up before I speak a word. The Lord built her to be sensitive to the needs of others. She has devoted her life to helping people in need and continues that ministry to this day. It’s ironic that even though I’m prone to emotional struggles, I’m slow to recognize them in others. It’s sometimes hard for me to share my emotions with anyone, partly because I literally don’t know why I feel as I do.

All I know is God’s presence is the most satisfying and needed gift that you or I could ever need. I love Pastor Rick’s mention of “the ministry of presence.” How rich and comforting when the Lord’s presence is so real no words are needed.

Blessings, Ed 😊