Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way. – Psalm 139:23-24
John chapter 4 tells the story of the woman at the well and her encounter with the Messiah. It is a fascinating story on so many fronts, especially given the religious and cultural norms of the time.
After a small bit of chit-chat about water and thirst, the discussion suddenly gets very serious when Jesus tells her to go get her husband. Admitting that she didn’t have a husband, Jesus seems to get rather brutal and appears insensitive when he reveals her marital status and history.
Couldn’t Jesus have been more tactful? Why be so blunt about it? If it had been me, I would have approached it more gracefully, I think.
But Jesus knew this woman, and he loved her. So, he did what was best for her: he went straight to the source of her thirst. Her life had been filled with inconsistencies, rejection, loss of hope and love, perhaps betrayal, a life filled with shame and probably no small helping of guilt. She was thirsty, but all the things she had tried have been disappointments.
You see, we have to be made to confront ourselves and our need honestly. It isn’t until we recognize the truth about our thirst that Jesus can help us. He gave the woman dignity and something that could fill the aching hole in her soul.
Here’s another beautiful truth: not only did it help her, but many in the village found their thirst cured, too.
If it seems that Jesus is being too hard and insensitive with you, it could be because you’ve not yet honestly been forced to confront the truth about yourself yet. Let me encourage you to pray for the Spirit to search your heart to reveal what is unclean and needs to be confessed and forgiven. It is only then that you can find the Living Water that can quench your thirst forever.
PRAYER: Lord, open our hearts and reveal to us the truth that we need to acknowledge so that which we so long for can be found! In Jesus’ name, Amen.
If you could take someone from the middle ages in Europe and bring them into the modern world, or take a modern human and plop them into the middle of medieval Europe, what kinds of differences do you think would be most noticeable? Surely the speed of life would be different, the hardships different in nature, travel would be different, and communication would be radically different (no TV/internet, etc.).
Philip Yancey, in Rumors of Another World, posed this question and came up with a fascinating insight from which we can learn much: “A peasant in medieval Europe oriented life around two worlds. Although the world around him contained much hardship – poverty, disease, crime, near-constant warfare – he took solace in the images of another world portrayed in his place of worship. The scenes painted in the Sistine Chapel, or on the walls of his village church, he accepted as literal truth. He understood life on this physical planet as one small slice of eternity and sought to make the connection with the spiritual world he could not see. He believed that God has revealed how we ought to live and will one day hold us accountable.
“In contrast, the average citizen of modern Europe perceives only one world, the here and now. She assumes that rational people make society’s rules based on a common good…at the moment of physical death, existence ends, and there is no God to hold us accountable.
“Which view of the world, the medieval or the modern, more closely resembles that articulated by Jesus? “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world yet forfeit his soul?” – if Jesus was in fact visiting this planet from another dimension, he could not have asked a more penetrating question. Apparently, to him, a connection with the spiritual world had more value than all the material goods put together…Jesus bluntly rejected a one-world outlook on life.”
What world do you think of the most? What world do you truly value? In which world do you try to live?
We may feel lucky to live in the modern world for a variety of reasons: better medicine and longer lives, being able to communicate with loved ones who live far away, less hard physical labor, etc., but I’m not sure we’ve got the better end of the deal. While we may be grateful that we didn’t live in medieval times, I tend to think that what the modern world has lost, the sense of wonder and amazement and solid belief in another world where a God awaits to hold us accountable, is far more valuable than all the modern conveniences and medicines combined. May we weep for what we’ve lost. God does.
Psalm 96:10 (NLT) – Tell all the nations that the Lord is king. The world is firmly established and cannot be shaken. He will judge all peoples fairly.
PRAYER: Father, correct our thinking and beliefs and make them in harmony with Yours! In Jesus’ name, Amen.
On the unusually cold morning of January 28, 1986, the Challenger space shuttle blew apart 73 seconds after liftoff, killing all seven astronauts on board. But according to some conspiracy theorists, six of the seven crew members still live among us.
Some of the examples are:
Captain Richard “Dick” Scobee, is now the CEO of a Chicago marketing-advertising company called Cows in Trees.
Pilot Michael J. Smith is professor Michael J. Smith of the University of Wisconsin.
Mission Specialist Judith Resnik is a professor of Law at Yale Law School.
Payload Specialist (and “Teacher in Space”) Christa McAuliffe now only uses her first name, Sharon. She has an almost entirely different face than that of Christa’s, and is an adjunct professor at Syracuse University College of Law.
Payload Specialist Gregory Jarvis is the only person that the conspiracy theorists believe died, because they couldn’t identify a double for him.
The facts have repeatedly shown that Challenger tragically fell from the sky due to an O-ring failure after the ship was launched in unsafe temperatures.
In a recent article in Popular Mechanics, Professor Marta Marchlewska at the Polish Institute of Psychology explained the cause for such conspiracies. “People who say that astronauts are still alive refuse to accept that bad things accidentally happen to good people. So, there’s someone behind the disaster or it simply did not happen.”
The author of the article then summarizes: “A conspiracy theory tames the great chaos around us, which is the likely explanation for these implausible ideas. It’s easier to blame the imagined secret machinations of influential people, serving dark agendas, than admitting life can be a cruel beast.” – Stav Dimitropolos, “Why Conspiracy Theorists Refuse to Believe the Challenger Astronauts Died,” Popular Mechanics, (1-28-22)
What does this have to do with Christianity? Consider how easily people believe lies these days. People are tempted to believe a lie when the truth challenges our false beliefs. People want to believe that good things happen to good people and bad things to bad people. People want to believe they we are able to be good – good enough in fact to “deserve” a place in heaven.
But not one bit of that is true. But, as followers of Christ, we have something far more trustworthy to tame the great chaos around us. We have the love and grace and mercy of God. We have the everlasting, eternal Creator on our side. We have the Truth – and it is the truth that sets us free – not lies. We have the knowledge of who is truly in control of the destiny of all things. We have his promises – which will always prove to be true. We have his Spirit to guide us into all truth. Why don’t we use it more? We don’t need lies.
PRAYER: Jesus, give us your Spirit to discern the spirits, to test what is good and true and pure and to reject all the lies of Satan! In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do, and he will bless you for it. – 1 Peter 3:9 (NLT)
Surviving a cobra bite in Nepal is simple, or at least that’s what some natives believe. They hold to the idea that if the victim of a cobra bites the snake back right away, and bites hard enough to kill the cobra, then the venom that has been injected is rendered harmless.
There’s only one problem, as a farmer found out. The farmer was bitten in August in Biratnagar and later told BBC News that he went about his business normally after fatally biting his attacker. He managed to survive only after his family convinced him that perhaps the custom/superstition was ridiculous and they rushed him to a hospital. (BBC News, 8-13-2012/News of the Weird, 10/29/12)
I think there are a couple of worthwhile lessons here:
FIRST: human superstitions are not fact; they have no saving power and are rather ridiculous and foolish. Just believing something is true certainly doesn’t render it true. There are those who suggest that Christianity is a foolish superstition. How can one tell a superstition from something that is true? It’s not that hard, really. All one must do is to test the evidence for the claims to ascertain what is true and what is false. And there is plenty of evidence for Christianity, but not any for the idea that biting a cobra in return for being bitten is a way to make the venom harmless!There’s a ton of misleading, false information and conspiracy theories out there right now that are leading some of the “elect” down snake holes – don’t fall for them!
SECOND: we are cautioned by Peter not to “repay evil for evil.” Granted, most of us will never be bitten by a cobra or will bite one in return even if we had been bitten. But we are often “bitten” by the actions and words of others. We have a sense that if I can only bite back, it’ll feel better and help me heal from the wounding. Balderdash. Might as well bite a cobra to deal with the venom within us. It’ll be just as effective as injecting poison into the one who hurt us.
We already have plenty of poison in our hearts and tongues. Jesus wants to remove that poison from us, not have us use it against others.
PRAYER: Jesus, we may from time to time be able to curb our tongues and not lash out at those who have injured us, but our hearts are another matter entirely. Take the poison out of our hearts and minds and heal us! In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Sometimes no one ever really knows what lurks beneath until things get a good shake. An April earthquake in the region of the Solomon Islands shook loose a World War II torpedo boat which had rested on the ocean floor for over 60 years. The boat’s hull was intact—explosives and all. A bomb unit was deployed to detonate the torpedoes safely.
Experts believe the PT boat is just one of many pieces of military wreckage that pepper the coastline of the islands. This piece is particularly fascinating in that it’s the same variety of military craft U.S. President John F. Kennedy commanded.
Jay Waura of the National Disaster Management Office said, “We were amazed by this finding, as previously this wreckage had long been sitting under the sea and rusting in peace without anyone knowing about it.”
Luke 8:17 – For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.
There is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed. We like to believe in exceptions – and in particular that WE are the exception to the rule. But Jesus is clear: “There is NOTHING hidden that will not be disclosed…”
Whatever things we are trying to hide from the sight of the Lord are clearly visible to Him now…and they will be made visible to all one day. I don’t like that. If you don’t like it either, then we should change how we live.
PRAYER: Holy Spirit, I pray that your Presence will continually remind us that all shall one day be revealed! In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Proverbs 3:5 (NIV) – Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.
Recently, the world lost someone that many of us consider to be a hero when Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon, passed away after complications from bypass surgery. To many, Armstrong was the epitome of the calm, cool, assured astronaut…a man who was unafraid. He was amazingly cool as he took control of the Apollo lunar module and flew it manually towards a better landing site, even as Buzz Aldrin counted down the rapidly dwindling fuel supply. Shortly after they were on the ground, he left the first human footprint in the dusty surface of the moon. And now he is gone.
The landing had us all glued to the TV. In retrospect, it should provide us all with lessons about how much we need to depend on something solid, a solid foundation, while we are moving at a distance far from home. In Houston, TX, was the control center. The three spacemen dared not disregard the voices and instructions from the control room as they circled the moon and later as two of them landed on its surface.
Paul tells the Corinthians that anything they attempt to do should be based on one thing: the dependability of Jesus Christ. He arose, doing what he said he would. He tells us that we, too, shall rise. Those facts should serve as our control center. We dare not disregard it as it is, like it was for Apollo 11, a matter of life and death.
As the landing was taking place way back in 1969, one news commentator made a comment that we would do well to remember: “These men cannot remain on the moon. They must follow instructions. They do not have only themselves to think of but also the entire project.”
Think of that whenever you are tempted to act and think independently of the control center, Christ the Lord. You have not only yourself to think of, but also Christ and His Kingdom. In the words of Maximus from the movie Gladiator, “What we do echoes in eternity.” We can get discouraged over a particular failure, but we have to think of the entire project – which includes our being raised from the dead and being found faultless before the Throne and the One Who sits upon it!
PRAYER: Let us clearly hear Your instructions and Your voice, Your encouragement and Your guidance – and may we follow Your guidance! In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Galen is out of the office until 9/13. DayBreaks from the archive will be featured until he returns.
Have you ever had the experience of observing something while standing next to someone else, and then when you talk about it later, your recollections are rather different? Perhaps you focused on the people in the situation. The other person may have focused on the sounds, the smells, the movement. When it comes to being a witness in a court of law, it can be pretty amazing how differently people see the “same” thing.
Robertson McQuilkin shared an interesting story: “…that fact is illustrated by an interesting experiment conducted by a research psychologist. He placed two different pictures in a stereoscope. The left eye was to see a bullfighter; the right eye, a baseball player. Then he asked some Mexican subjects and some American subjects to peer through the instrument. Most of the Mexicans saw the bullfighter, most of the Americans saw the baseball player. What is behind your eyes often has more to do with what we see than what is before our eyes.”
In the context, McQuilkin is talking about our humility as we approach the study of the Word: “Therefore, we must develop a healthy suspicion of ourselves and of our own ideas, and a view of the Bible that separates it from our own past thinking and experience (insofar as humanly possible) to let it speak not what we already believe or want to believe, but what it says…the surrendered heart wants to know what the Bible says, not what it can be made to mean.” (Understanding and Applying the Bible)
Wasn’t the experiment McQuilkin described fascinating? We see what we expect to see, or rather that with which we are most familiar. How sad when we approach the Word of God that way! For instead of seeing a new, previously undiscovered truth, we often approach His priceless Word with our preconceived notions of what God is teaching and saying in a given passage, thinking: “Oh, I know what this says already.” And we may miss a great blessing, a stunning new revelation from the Spirit of what that passage is communicating.
I pray that God will open our eyes to see all of His truth that it is possible for humans to see and grasp. May the scales fall from our eyes, as they did from Saul of Tarsus so that we may see truth – and nothing but the truth.
PRAYER: There is so much you want to tell us, to teach us and you are so eager for us to learn!! Erase our pride of thinking we know all about your marvelous Word and that we’ve got it mastered! In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Galen is out of the office until 9/13. DayBreaks from the archive will be featured until he returns.
Mark 8:22-25 – They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?” He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.” Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.
Vision is such a precious possession. Of all the senses that we would most hate to lose, most of us would probably hate to lose our sight. Imagine never being able to see the face of your loved ones, to see a puppy frolic in the yard or a calf leaping wildly in a field of green grass.
In his work, Understanding and Applying the Bible, Robertson McQuilkin was speaking about our depth of field. As a frequent airline traveler, I understand where he’s coming from: “The first time I flew over the Blue Ridge mountains I realized a little of the great difference a person’s point of view makes in his perspective. The heavens indeed are far above the earth, and these familiar mountains that had seemed so great when I had climbed them or driven over them could hardly be distinguished from one another. I actually asked the pilot, after we had crossed the range, when we would reach it! Big and little took on entirely different meanings. I came to wonder if we really see anything in divine perspective – as God sees it and as we will see it one day. We certainly see nothing in completeness. Our depth of field is very shallow. When we focus on one thing, other things seem to get out of focus with reality. Only God in His infinite scope of vision can keep all reality in focus. C. S. Lewis put it this way: ‘Five senses; an incurably abstract intellect; a haphazardly selective memory; a set of preconceptions and assumptions so numerous that I can never examine more than a minority of them – never become even conscious of them all. How much of total reality can such an apparatus let through?’”
In the story of the blind man, the first touch of Jesus yielded only a shadowy vision – something the man couldn’t really recognize clearly. His depth of vision and clarity of vision were not correct. It is not clear from verse 23 if Jesus actually touched the man’s eyes the first time, or merely spit on them (the ancients believed spit contained medicinal value – even today, when we hurt our fingers, don’t we often place them in our mouth?) and put his hands on the man somewhere. But in verse 25 it is clear – it takes the touch of Jesus to open blind eyes, restore sight, and allow us to see things clearly.
I believe we live in a Christian culture that is desperately in need of Jesus to open our eyes anew. We listen to the arguments of the world as to why abortion is okay. We listen to the world say that since teens will be teens anyway, that we should give them all free birth control at school. We listen to many of the world’s lies and don’t seem to be able to see through the smokescreen and see the truth of God behind it that says, “No! That’s wrong!” Satan can concoct some great story lines to make even the saints get confused and be led astray (Mark 13:22).
The shallowness of our depth perception should drive us to Jesus for healing for our failing vision. It should also make us humble before our fellow man when we realize how poor our vision truly is.
Rev. 3:17-18 – You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.”
PRAYER: Jesus, open our eyes to Truth, fill our hearts with courage, correct our flawed perspective, open our ears to Your voice and Your voice alone! In Jesus’ name, Amen.
When we were little kids, we all had our fears. Some strange character called “the boogey-man” haunted our nightmares and inhabited the spaces under our beds and in the closets of our rooms. But time has passed and we know that there isn’t really a boogey-man. Sadly, we’ve discovered that there are much worse things in this world than “the boogey-man”.
One of the things that our world and culture has done away with is hell. When is the last time you heard a sermon on the topic? It is in the bible – over and over and over – and unless you decide to trash the entire bible, you can’t trash hell. Truth: our wishes and hopes don’t determine reality. While we might wish hell was just a literary device (like the boogey-man) and that it would go away, God is the only One who can make such a thing happen. And while He hasn’t made hell go away, He has managed to snatch us out of hell’s grasp.
Listen to Calvin Miller’s reflection on the result of the “death” of hell and our role in our culture: “…traditional doctrinal values have been shot full of holes with the cannonade of multiculturalism. Salvation itself has been widened far beyond the definition of Scripture. Hell for the culturally elite isn’t there anymore. As hell has disappeared, heaven is generally broadened to include everyone who dies. All of this…goes to say that the secular realm will require our lives to be a sacrament. But his burden is light. There are strawberries in the darkness. We whistle in the darkness, indeed, we must or the old tune will be lost.
“But what is that tune?
“The tune is the unchanging nature of spiritual reality. This unchanging truth is grounded in God’s Word. Nay, it is God’s Word!
“However, God sent out his warnings against our time as it operates to change the content of His timeless truth. Jude 3 asks us to ‘contend earnestlyfor the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.’”
The fact that hell has disappeared for our culture makes it all that much more important for us to sing the Song, to whistle the tune of the truth to a world that longs to believe lies. Why does the world want to believe lies? Because they believe it sets them free. As long as there is no hell, they need not fear spending eternity there and they don’t need to fear judgment for their deeds. Jesus, however, wanted us to know the truth. Lies can’t give us freedom, only the truth can do so: “You shall know the TRUTH and the TRUTH shall set you free.” (John 8:32) The truth is that there is a heaven where God wants all of us to be – but there is also a hell where we can choose to be if that is what we choose. The choice still exists and people are making decisions about it day in and day out, moment by moment.
The world needs to hear the truth. Will you whistle the tune so that they can hear?
PRAYER: Let us not fear the truth, Father, let us run to the Truth and there find our true freedom! In Jesus’ name, Amen.
I still can scarcely believe the scenes that unfolded before my eyes yesterday. I’m heartbroken and saddened. But, upon reflection yesterday morning, I’m not surprised and it all makes sense. This isn’t going to be a political diatribe, but about truth and the power of words for good or ill. What is so insidious is that when we hear certain words or statements being made for long enough we come to believe it is true – even if it isn’t.
The simple fact is that truth and lies have always been at war. It started in the garden of Eden. A simple reading of the text would cause one to think that the very first time that Satan breathed out the lie: “You shall not surely die!” that Adam and Eve fell for it hook, line and sinker. Satan has been lying to us ever since. It started with that one tiny word “not” and lies continue to take on a life of their own. It may be that the fall happened the very first time, but I suspect not.
Why do I say that? Think about it a moment. What does it take for falsehood to become commonly believed? Is it not a re-speaking of the falsehood a number of times over time? Does a heresy gain traction in the church the first time a false teacher says something? Typically not! There is often a violent reaction initially, but over time people have heard it so much that it no longer sounds radical or heretical. And the false teacher gains power and a following that support the false teaching.
It has happened in our country. We used to believe marriage was for life. We used to believe marriage was between a man and a woman. We used to believe the Bible was the inspired word of God. We used to believe in a concept called sin. We used to say that pride was evil and humility was good. But over time, little by little as each false word fell like small hammers, the chips started to fly and sadly those things are no longer considered to be true.
And it happens to believers. Scripture warns us of the great danger of false teachers knowing we are gullible. We are told that false Christs, false prophets will show great signs and wonders to the point that some of the elect can be deceived. We are warned Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God. – Romans 12:2, CSB
Do you get that? DISCERN what is good….don’t take what we hear at face value in undiscerning ways! That is how we can separate the false teacher/speaker from a true heart.
I fear that too often we choose who we will support based on what they say. But Jesus was pretty clear about how to test things. He didn’t say “By their words you will know them”. He said we would be able to judge based on their DEEDS. The old saying that “Deeds speak louder than words” is true, but it is true that often it begins with words that perpetuate the deeds.
And again: Matthew 5:16 (NIV) – In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good DEEDS and praise your Father in heaven. Jesus doesn’t say that they’ll hear your good words. He knows how meaningless, but also how dangerous, words are. His words “Depart from me you workers of iniquity” will carry eternal force. Words are very serious, indeed. They have tremendous power. The ancients believed that they were like an arrow that was loosed from a bow and that once spoken they could never be taken back. That’s how serious words can be. Arrows can kill.
But what of those who simply fail to discern and follow blindly along because they’ve heard something long enough that they believe it to now be true? The beloved apostle had instruction and warning for us on that score: 2 John 1:10-11 (NKJV) – If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him; for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds. What’s he saying? If someone is speaking falsehood (in this case specifically about doctrine, but the principle is true in other cases) and we don’t discern properly, we share in the evil deeds. And that’s serious!
It can be hard to discern when there are tiny deceptions embedded in statements that are mostly true. But it’s even more important to discern in such a case. Bigger lies are (or at least should be!) easier to spot.
We live in a time when it has become the norm to say that each of us has our own truth, that there is no absolute truth. What utter rubbish! Two diametrically opposed statements or “facts” cannot possibly be true. If there is ever any one thing that is true, there has to be an ultimate Decider/Proclaimer of what is true. That means that there is absolute truth. But we must discern it!
I’m not trying to make a political statement here but if you feel you must draw political implications after what we witnessed on January 6, 2021, that’s your choice. I’m much more interested in the bigger topic of truth and the great and serious danger I see of people being misled by inflammatory rhetoric and fine sounding arguments, thinking that ungodly things are godly, that lies are truth. Our real enemy doesn’t sit on a kingly throne or in a white house. Our real enemy that is behind all that went on and is going on is the “father of lies”. Make no mistake about what it is that he’s trying to accomplish: he wants your very soul!
What I’m writing today may sound old-fashioned and very closed-minded. Truth, my friends, never changes. What was once truly true will always be true because the One who IS the Truth never ages or goes out of date. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow and ever shall be!
Discern what is good, pleasing and the will of God! Don’t believe it because you read it on the internet or saw it on the news or because a friend told you something. Discern, believers!
PRAYER: God, give us discerning hearts and minds to test what we see and hear by the One who is the Truth and not be led astray by words cleverly disguised. In Jesus’ name, Amen. Copyright 2021, Galen C. Dalrymple. ><}}}”>
DayBreaks Devotions 