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dc 06/13/08 |
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Daily Courage Devotional
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"I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this
mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt
in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be
done for him.
MARK 11:23 NIV
Pixar made an animated film a number of years ago
called A Bug's Life. It was about the life of....bugs. One of the
characters is a chubby caterpillar with a German (by way of Arnold
Schwarzenegger) accent named Heimlich. All throughout the film
Heimlich anticipates his metamorphosis when he will transform into
a beautiful, beautiful butterfly. He is a chubby rubbery thing
and would certainly have to change (a lot) to be a beautiful
butterfly. At the end of the film Heimlich is in his cocoon,
his chubby rubbery caterpillar head poking out of the top. The
cocoon opens and his caterpillar body slides out unchanged. He
plops on the ground and as he does two little wings pop out of his
back. They are tiny like corn kernels. His wings begin flapping and
soon he is flying (about two inches off the ground). He yells to
those "below", " Look! I'm flying! I am a beautiful butterfly" and
before he flies away he says, " You all look like little ants from
up here!" Which is mostly because they are ants.....
All this aside, Heimlich is
flying. Heimlich, the chubby caterpillar transforms into a
"beautiful" butterfly. When you pray for something over an extended
period of time and it happens are you grateful to your God who made
it happen because you believe in Him? Or do you question why you
still also have a caterpillar body beneath your "wings"? The wings
God gave you?
K
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dc 06/12/08 |
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Daily Courage Devotional
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Jeremy LeFevers provides today's dc. This
terrifying event in the life of his family serves as a testament to
God. Philippians 4:4 is today's scripture as it has been three of
the last four days. It seemed only fitting.
"REJOICE IN THE LORD ALWAYS; AGAIN
I SAY, REJOICE!" Philippians 4:4
Friday June 6, 2008 will go down as one of the
more terrifying days of my life. Shana, Taylor, Wes, and Will were
all down at the Apartment complex pool enjoying some fun in the sun
and cool water on these hot days of summer. The kids all have
floats and have gotten really brave, jumping in and splashing
around from the pool's edge. One after another, each would jump in
and look for Shana's applause and a thumbs up. There was another
resident there that aided as the perfect distraction for Shana at
the time. She and Shana had just been discussing how the kids are
brave and love to take risks. All of a sudden, Taylor begins
screaming, pointing to the water on the deep end of the pool, "Mom!
Will!" Shana disregards her screams for a pause because Taylor has
a tendency to overreact. But she keeps screaming, "WILL!" Shana
says very quickly where is Will? "Mom, he's down there!" Shana
does a quick head count, sees Taylor, sees Wes, and then a lone
float on the other end of the pool. Shana bolts, kicking off her
shoes and tossing her sunglasses, completely clothed and dives in
to save him. He's completely outstretched on the bottom of the
pool, not moving, lifeless. Shana snatches him up, swims to the top
and tosses him, literally, onto the side of the pool. He lands on
his stomach, and God took that punch to his gut and pushed all that
water out of him, and within a few seconds of no movement and
lifelessness, Will coughed and started screaming. Just for
precautions sake, we took him to the ER to make sure everything was
ok. He was eventually admitted to the pediatric ward for 24 hours,
and after that 24 hours was up he was well and ready to go
home.
Sunday, Shana and I sang a duet choir special
called "Forever More". It's about the praise and worship he
deserves and how we will forever more offer it up. Sunday could
have been a very different day. God saved our baby boy, and I will
forever praise him and thank him for that. We don't know how long
he was under water, but we are so eternally grateful that God
spared his life and showed once again how awesome He
is!
Jeremy
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dc 06/11/08 |
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Daily Courage Devotional
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written by Ken MItten
I wanted to speak a bit more to
the topic I raised yesterday. Crying publically, offering worship
and praise to God. Some men are not wired to do this or it truly
puts them out of their comfort zone.
As I prayed and pondered this I
was struck by something else: men adapt. If I attend a church where
everyone, including the men of the congregation, tend to raise
their hands and express themselves "emotionally" (There is probably
a better word...All you former seminary students should feel free
to chime in.) during services then I may begin to follow suit.
Here's what struck me......men adapt. By our very
nature men adapt.
So that said if I attend a church
where others appear to not fight the welling up and overflow
of the Holy Spirit as we discussed yesterday and I do not feel
comfortable doing this but assume that I must to maintain or
establish my position there, do I begin
pretending that I am moved? Do I begin
acting like I am moved? Do I go through the
motions while in front of others?
Apparently the thing that struck
me was several questions.
God does not ask us to pretend to
be moved or act like we are worshipping Him. He does not want us to
study videotape of congregation members and mimic their expressions
of worship in a hope that we will also appear genuine. This
concept applies to all aspects of our daily Christian life and
is why I think men can become discouraged in attempts to act more
Christian. Worship is a highly personal thing. When it occurs
during a Sunday service it becomes public by its very
nature.
As humans how do we keep our
concerns about how we are perceived by others from getting in
the way of how we worship and praise our Heavenly
Father?
K
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dc 06/10/08 |
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Daily Courage Devotional
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written by Ken Mitten
"REJOICE IN
THE LORD ALWAYS; AGAIN I SAY, REJOICE!" Philippians
4:4
Dave Cary delivered the message
this past Sunday at church. A personal story he told has stuck with
me. Dave shared that when he was pastoring in California he had
been invited to speak at a church in L.A. During the service, he
became emotional as he spoke of the Lord to the congregation. The
pastor of this church made his way to the pulpit, put his arm
around Dave and asked the congregation to lay hands on him/to
surround him in prayer as he was certainly struggling with
something.
Thing is: he was not struggling.
He was rejoicing in the Lord. Sometimes during worship or at any
time the Spirit will place so much joy in your heart that it cannot
do anything but well up and overflow. It must be
released.
He must have been troubled
though because: 1. He was a man.
2. He was crying
3. He was crying in public as he led
others.
The views of the world permeate
even in the church world. What better place for a
man to be emotional than while he is preaching? If the
emotion is real, not conjured up to effect those observing/not
inserted for dramatic effect. When we are truly open to the Holy
Spirit we have no choice but to be emotional. Our heart fills. We
well up and overflow.
This can happen even to men!
Amazing as it may seem......
K
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dc 06/09/08 |
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Daily Courage Devotional
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written by Nate Pruitt
Written by Nate Pruitt
REJOICE IN THE LDRD ALWAYS; AGAIN I SAY,
REJOICE!" Philippians 4:4
A letter written by Paul in prison, in a prison where he is
probably growing quite sure will be his last "home" before
eternity, and these are his words. I have to pause here to say that
there is so much in this subject playing on my heart I can't even
imagine expressing it adequately here, but I must press on with the
hopefully prayer that the Spirit will bridge the gap.
What on earth is Paul talking about here? What are all these
admonitions in the New Testament (oh, and they are well throughout)
that encourage us to praise God, to rejoice in Him, to pour upon
Him our adoration in the most horrible of circumstances and
sufferings? To answer these questions we have to get over
forgetting about God. That's the reality, as simple as that, we
call God friend, father, brother (in the person of Christ) and we
get so calm and confident that we lose the immensity of Who we
share these relationships with- GOD ALMIGHTY!
I was once told in a sermon that, "we praise God because He is God,
and we thank Him for the things He does." That's a huge thing
there. See, God is God and there is no other criteria upon which He
could possibly become more worthy for praise. Sometimes we want to
praise Him conditionally- when life is bad we remind Him that
if life was good we would want to praise Him (obviously we don't
tend to say those words, that would be stupid, but it can often be
the spirit of our prayer). Of course when things are good
thereafter (should that even happen, since those who lack gratitude
tend to miss blessings that are right in front of them) it doesn't
take long before praise slips our minds. God, however, is always
God. Why do we rejoice always? Because God is always God. Since He
is never changing we are to be ever-praising!
"But being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into
heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus
standing at the right hand of God;" and he said, "Behold, I see the
heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of
God." Acts 7:55-56. Stephen is going to die, this is no happy
ending, there is no last second miracle to save his life. Reality
for Stephen in this moment would seem most dire and horrible. Yet
Stephen isn't caught up in the world and the reality as though
such things are of the most importance. He is full of God, and
intently seeking God with his gaze. His life ends in the very act
of worship- of lifting His eyes to God and longing to praise Him
while those around him gnash their teeth in anger and hasten to
take him where stones will be hurled at him with most vicious,
cruel and sinful hatred. Where is the good in this? The same place
it is when we are in any hardship, because we won't escape them
all. Some hardships are a prison that hold us until a sword is
readied for our neck as in the case of Paul. However, one thing
remains the same, there is an interceding Great High Priest who is
also our Brother, having shared in our suffering (and we in His if
we live to serve Him), and with Him is great blessing we could
never fathom on earth. He is there on our behalf, though we are
completely undeserving (and we should thank Him for that), yet even
more so He is there perfect and fully worthy of our praise.
Praise is to be completely unconditional, it calls us to remember
God DESPITE our reality. Yes, it is hard to praise God through
tears of sorrow. Yes, it is difficult to capture the beauty of God
revealed when we struggle to see good in our lives. But we don't
praise God because of the good He does in our life, we praise God
because He IS THE GOOD IN LIFE! Both now and for
all eternity.
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dc 06/06/08 |
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Daily Courage Devotional
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In the third chapter of the book of
Exodus, God speaks to Moses through a burning bush as you probably
already know....
God tells Moses that he has chosen
him to deliver Israel.
I stumbled on a guide that identifies five
excuses Moses offers to God for not "taking the job".
1. Who me? I'm nobody. (Ex
3:11)
God's Response:
I'll go with you.
2. People will ask me hard questions like,
"So who is this God who sent you? (Ex 3:13)
God's Response:
Tell them my special name: I
AM.
3. Nobody's going to listen to me. (Ex
4:1)
God's Response:
Here are two miracles to get their
attention.....
4. I'm a lousy public speaker (Ex
4:10)
God's Response:
Who made your mouth in the first place? I
did.
5. C'mon-----just send somebody else! (Ex
4:13)
God's Response:
Okay, you can communicate through your
brother, Aaron. Now, that's enough---get moving!
Sound familiar? Care to share any personal
"burning bush" moments?
K
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dc 06/05/08 |
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