52 Life Changes Which Affect Your Community

~1~
2010
52 Life changers to
effect change in
your community
A series of sermons/ devotional readings which focus on personal
changes which will empower the people around you.
Dr. Paul R. Friesen
p
Hewlett-Packard
1/1/2010
How Should We Live to Change Our World?
Dedication
These sermons were first given in 2009 and 2010. Though the
numbers are few the topic has been in my heart for a long time. I
dedicate this to my grandfather who went places others wouldn’t. He
believed the ones who needed to hear didn’t come to church. The
mantle that he wore has possibly been passed on to me. We change
our community through God’s change of our lives first of all. God is
not limited to this, but His desire to show the world who He is
through His chosen people is real. Let us offer the peace that compels
us to the world that needs it; the power that indwells us to those who
are caught in webs of their own choosing; confidence to walk beside
those who are hurting and abandoned except by God.
Dr. Paul Friesen

2010
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Topic List -- in order of delivery
Devotion 1 Know Jesus

Devotion 2 Changing our Lives to reflect God’s Freedom
Devotion 3 Changing our lives to reflect God’s holiness
Devotion 4 Jesus is Everything
Devotion 5 Jesus is Coming
Devotion 6 Live your Faith
Devotion 7 Changing our Lives to reflect God’s Holiness
Devotion 8 Having Less Stress / Casting your Care on Jesus
Devotion 9 Forgive One Another
Devotion 10 Fill God’s ears
Devotion 11 Changing Clothes
Devotion 12 Willing to be led
Devotion 13 Stop arguing over …. Unimportant things
Devotion 14 Stay focused
Devotion 15 Share each other's burdens
Devotion 16 Knowing who we are
Devotion 17 Guard your heart above all else
Devotion 18 Forgetting the past / looking forward to what lies ahead,
Devotion 19 Live for Eternity
Devotion 20 Celebrate the freedom of truth
Devotion 21 Speaking about what we have seen and heard.
Devotion 22 Let God do His job
Devotion 23 Depend on God Alone
Devotion 24 Preparing your mind
Devotion 25 See people like Jesus sees them
Devotion 26 Stop the fighting
Devotion 27 Trust God from the bottom of your heart
Devotion 28 Is anything too hard for me?
Devotion 29 Make allowance for each other's faults
Devotion 30 Looking forward
Devotion 31 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Devotion 32 Grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord.
Devotion 33 We have peace with God
Devotion 34 If any of you need wisdom, you should ask God
Devotion 35 Slow to speak and slow to become angry
Devotion 36 Be disciplined
Devotion 37 Build an alter
Devotion 38 Find grace in God’s eyes
Devotion 39 View God as a God of joy
Devotion 40 Shine brighter
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Devotion 41 Stay focused

Devotion 42 Serving others worshipping God
Devotion 43 Be generous with your lives
Devotion 44 Let the mask slip
Devotion 45 Show proper respect to everyone.
Devotion 46 Know more about God
Devotion 47 Help each other succeed
Devotion 48 Never stop being thirsty
Devotion 49 Christ living in me
Devotion 50 Bring out the best in others
Devotion 51 Commit your way to God
Devotion 52 Wait and listen
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Devotion 1
Know Jesus
Reading ~~ Psalm 2:1 -12
In this series we want to look at Jesus and how great a Savior He is.
Today we will see that His life was not all miracles. We like to see
Jesus as a miracle worker, because He is the Savior.
In the Psalms we find several things that show us what Jesus life was
all about.
In this Psalm we find that the life of Jesus was predicted many years
before Jesus came. This is not unique to the Psalms. Most of the bad
part of Jesus life can be found in the Old Testament like Isaiah and
the Psalms. The miracles are not usually found there.
We can almost read this Psalm like the newspaper today. The kings
of the earth have taken their place, and the rulers are fixed in their
purpose, against the Lord, and against the king of his selection,
We find so many leaders today who are against God’s people. David,
the king in this Psalm was being chased by Saul. The king had fixed
in his mind to destroy what God had chosen.
The first point in thinking about David, Jesus, and us Christians is

that all of us were chosen by God.
The second point here is that God protected David and Jesus from
anyone who wanted to harm them. God has a purpose for everything
in your life.
David was chosen by God but he had to wait to become king. He had
to hide for several years. Jesus came down to us as a man and has had
to wait for so many years to return as KING.
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The third thing that we find in this Psalm is that God has already
given Jesus the authority to rule the world. Psalm 2:7 I will make
clear the Lord's decision: he has said to me, You are my son, this day
have I given you being God has made it very clear that there is only
ONE SON OF GOD.
Jesus is coming soon. It has been written by so many and we almost

forget that soon is soon. The signs are here. The kings of our
countries are rising up. But Jesus will come to give us the Crowns we
deserve but also to destroy those who have opposed HIM and His
plan.
The Psalm did come true but this principle is a theme through the
Bible.
As we start this new study we need to put Jesus in the center of our
life so that we will be ready when He comes and not be destroyed or
crushed as a piece of pottery.
 Are you ready for Jesus today?
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Devotion 2
Changing our Lives to reflect God’s Freedom
Reading ~~ James 2:12-26
Last week we found that we needed to bear each other’s burdens

rather than focus on the sin that was committed. This does not take
away the consequence. Rather this attitude of Christ is to bring us to
accountability for our own mistakes.
James is a book about living out our faith. James is the book to read if
you want to know how to live by faith. Like Paul had written before
that it is the value of our faith that is more important than any other
thing in our life.
For James, who writes to the Jewish Church, faith and tradition were
very important. It was tough to accept the idea that the world could
now have gentiles having salvation. Therefore, James writes in verse
12 - Let your words and your acts be those of men who are to be
judged by the law which makes free.
But which Law makes you free? Laws are made to restrict us. They
are there to penalise us or to protect us. Like speed cameras restrict
your need for speed and penalise you if you disobey. But the speed
limit is there to protect everybody from hurting each other.
We always want to be free from the Law. This concept is the hardest
one to learn but James does a good job showing how it works. The
Law that sets us free is the Law of God.
In the next verse James writes that we will be judged as we have

judged others. This can be scary. It is also something that we say in
anger when we get criticized. We hate to be judged but we judge
others all the time.
The Law of God sets us free to serve God, to exercise our gifts and
talents to their fullest. This is because we cannot control what others
do, but God can. We can only change ourselves. We can only control
ourselves.
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If God is the center of our life then we are free to serve and let God
control the direction of our service.
In verse 24 James writes -- You see that a man's righteousness is

judged by his works and not by his faith only. Now we have said that
the value of our faith needs to be high. But if the value of our faith is
high we can do two things. We can hide it, or we can demonstrate it.
God loves challenges. If we are to be righteous we do not need to

make new laws which are restrictive and penalising. We need to
understand God’s Law and show the world what real faith is. Faith is
not based in what we can do, but on what God can do.
If we are to live like James suggests in this book we must set

ourselves free to let God do His work. This means that we see our
works like God does. God sees what we do as a demonstration of our
faith. James uses the stories of Abraham and Rahab as good
examples. When we set the direction of our life to God’s direction we
will set ourselves free to live our faith in the real world.
God looked at the choices Abraham and Rahab made and blessed
them both. They showed the world that the world makes choices on
what they see today. They made choices that challenged their faith in
God, and God took the challenge seriously.
Many people make choices of jobs because of the pay or benefits

today. When we go God’s way the road looks tough and dangerous
not always glamorous and rich. But when we take God’s choice we
show the world the value of our faith and challenge God to
demonstrate His power to the world around us.
How should we live? We need to live our lives with an active faith,
challenging God to show Himself to the world through our choices of
faith, not being reckless but rather choosing directions which God
has chosen which makes us free to serve.
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Devotion 3
Changing our lives to reflect God’s holiness
Reading ~~ 1 Peter 1: 3-16
Changing our lives to reflect God’s holiness (1 Peter 1:13-16). Our

walk with God will be joyful and satisfying when we stay focused on
eternal life instead of temporal things that we often occupy ourselves
with (1 Peter 1:3-9).
I had a discussion with, a Korean friend the other day. We discussed

the idea of what God was like. It was an interesting discussion and I
think if we are to look closely at God we may find that God is not all
love joy and peace.
Peter who writes our scripture today has a few things to say about the
God we serve. I say serve because as the Apostle Paul writes in
Romans we should choose our Master. We often see God as a soft
cuddly guy. In reality He can be a very hard Master. So why choose
to serve Him?
God is a Holy God. He sees everything in black and white. You are
saved or you are not. You have accepted His sacrifice or you have
not. It is the only decision that counts with God. That sounds harsh
but it is the beginning of our choice of Masters that brings us the
benefits of being His servant.
God never sees us as servants. God sees us as family members. This

is different than the other choices of master we have. Let us read
what Peter has to say about God and how we should live our new
Christian life. In verse 3 Peter says that God is full of mercy and give
us hope. This is not the ogre that some people think God is.
In verse 4 Peter writes that God is fair and forever new, waiting in
heaven for you. God is perfectly fair. He never changes the rules. He
treats everybody equally. He never gets old. God understands our
stresses. God knows the pressure of culture and economy. But God
does not change the rules because we make bad decisions.
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Have you ever played a game with your friends and changed the rules.
The game is maybe a little bit boring so you change it to make it
more fun. Sometimes our life is a bit boring. Sometimes we think
being a Christian is no fun. We want to change the rules so that we
can have more fun.
God cannot do that. In real life if you have the power, peace, and
confidence that God promises, life will be exciting. Some people say
we shouldn’t struggle. Live should be always happy. Some people
will even say you are in sin if you are not happy. This creates a lot of
stress in many people. We are always in sin. We cannot get out of it
because we are born in sin. But we can see our struggles differently
than the world around us.
Peter says that we struggle so that that we can test how good our faith
is. Good meaning how much value does it have in God’s values.
Verse 7 - So that the true metal of your faith, being of much greater
value than gold which, though it comes to an end, is tested by fire,
may come to light in praise and glory and honour, at the revelation of
Jesus Christ:
When we consider what is valuable to us what do we think about?

Most often we think about the material things we have. We think
about our family and relationships. But do we ever think about our
faith as more valuable than all the rest of our life?
How should we live as Christians? That is the question we want to

answer. If we look at this scripture we find that the first part of living
to change our values, changing our values from physical to spiritual.
The second is to use God’s rules for our life not ours. Life is full of
tests but it is the value of the reward when the test are over that we
need to focus on.
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Devotion 4
Jesus is Everything
Reading ~~ Ephesians 1: 1-12
We discovered last week that Christ came to live in His disciples. We

chose to be more than a follower but a disciple. He is in us so that His
work could continue in the world. He is in us so that He can
demonstrate His ability to change lives.
Today I have chosen the topic of Jesus is everything because He is.

How can we understand this idea?
To understand this idea we will ask about what we need. To know if

Jesus can do what He says we need to know if can meet our needs.
We need food and water to live. We need some money to buy things.
We need relationships to build us up and help us see clearly
sometimes.
But there are other things that we need. We need wisdom to make
good decisions. We need love to give and give out. We need peace so
that we do not get stressed out. We need joy because when we have
joy the stress and insecurity we have will go away. We need strength
to face the world everyday. We need patience so we do not react
sharply to everything that gives us stress. We need satisfaction in life
because it makes us feel good about what we do and who we are. We
need power to give us the confidence that the direction of our life is
the right way.
We need Jesus because Jesus can do all of these from heaven. We are
also made by God and we need a relationship with God to meet all
the needs. When Jesus lives in me our needs, wants, and desires are
in His thoughts every moment of every day.
Jesus has the power to change our life if we want Him. Jesus has the
power to make our life complete. Jesus is a can do man. He can do
because He is first living and not dead like other prophets. He can do
because He sits at the right hand of His Father, God.
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The Holy Spirit is the seal of our salvation. But He is more than that.
He is our Comforter when we get stress. He is our guide when we get
lost or make mistakes. He is the person who makes us feel guilty. He
is God living in me.
 In your life today are you confident in Jesus living in you?

 Is your relationship active and fresh with God?
 Do you listen to the Holy Spirit?
Jesus can do everything. We just need to ask him. Have you done that
today?
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Devotion 5
Jesus is Coming
Reading ~~ Matthew 24: 3 -14
Jesus was worried about His disciples. They could not understand
who He really was. They had a lot of questions to as and such a short
time to ask them all.
Have you ever had that problem?
You want to ask your teacher something but you can’t seem to find
the right time or the right words to say it. The time is coming when
Jesus will die and go back to heaven. He told them when He was
going to come back. He told them the signs to look for, but they had a
hard time imagining the things would happen. To the disciples the
end was close and coming. Their desire was to have Jesus push the
Roman Army away. He was their Saviour in a physical sense. Jesus
told His disciples that they should be careful about false teachers.
This was a great danger because their desire was so high that they
would not see the truth. Jesus was talking to us today as well.
There is an increase of teachers who have big churches but are not
true to the Word of God. People follow them because they do
miracles and have a large following. We follow the popularity of the
preacher and do not look closely at the truth of his teaching. This
does not mean that Jesus cannot do a good work through them.
God is not limited to a man’s teaching. Jesus said that there would be
wars but this was also not the end. It was a sign of the end.
They should not get stressed. Today we have many wars and rumours
of wars. We have Presidents who want to stop war because of popular
demand. We should not get stressed over war. Korea is always faced
with war. The news is full of war. But as Christians we need to stand
and show how to understand this. We have the Peace of God inside
of us so we need not get caught in the emotions of our culture. That
Christians were to be hated is not found so much today. The Church
was persecuted by Rome and many died. But this is coming.
Christianity is becoming a religion to fight against and Islam the
religion to embrace. The religions which promote oneness in
ourselves are attracting many people.
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Selfishness not Selflessness is becoming the norm in our culture.

There are so many things that we can see today that the disciples
could not see. If you read Revelation, Daniel, and Romans you will
find that nations will rise against Israel. There will be a one money
system and government. All these are not far away. Now they are not
here but they will be. The Church will not be the place to run but to
persecute.
The challenge is to stay true to the Word of God. We cannot just go

to Church and believe. We need to become strong in our faith. It was
the faith of the disciples that allowed them to experience the Holy
Spirit’s power. It is faith that gives us salvation and it is faith that will
be our guarantee of future home in heaven.
How is your faith today?
It is based on Jesus Christ or is it based on Jesus and culture?
As we look closer at some of these ideas I hope you will grow in your
faith.
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Devotion 6
Live your Faith
Reading ~~ Titus 2:6 – 15
How should we live now? If Jesus is coming soon this is a good

question. It is not something we think about a lot of the time. It is
something that we don’t worry about.
In today’s economy there are so many stores changing. The

customers are spending fewer dollars and the struggle to pay school
and living bills gets higher. So the question is again, how should we
live in our world today?
Some would say that we need to be rich and healthy because God has
promised us this. Some would say that we need to follow the best
way in everything. The problem is which is the best way?
Which Pastor is the best?

Which Church is the best?
Which religion is the best?
Which school is the best?
If you remember last week we said that life would get tougher for
Christians. It is because we are Christians that we can do what Titus
is writing to the churches. Let us read these verses together. 2:6 To
the young men give orders to be wise and serious-minded 7 In all
things see that you are an example of good works; holy in your
teaching, serious in behaviour, 8 Saying true and right words, against
which no protest may be made, so that he who is not on our side may
be put to shame, unable to say any evil of us. 9 Servants are to be
under the authority of their masters, pleasing them in all things,
without argument; 10 Not taking what is not theirs, but giving clear
signs of their good faith, in all things doing credit to the teaching of
God our Saviour. 11 For the grace of God has come, giving salvation
to all men, 12 Training us so that, turning away from evil and the
desires of this world, we may be living wisely and uprightly in the
knowledge of God in this present life; 13 Looking for the glad hope,
the revelation of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ;
14 Who gave himself for us, so that he might make us free from all
wrongdoing, and make for himself a people clean in heart and on fire
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with good works. 15 On all these points give teaching and help, and
make clear what is right with all authority. Let all men give you
honour.
The key to living in the end times is to live with honour. This is the
hardest. People will criticize you for many things and it is your
response that will live forever. You can come to church every day
and not have honour from your neighbours. You can look good in
Church but not be good Monday through Saturday.
He first writes in these verses to be wise and serious. We need

wisdom because there are so many temptations to follow people and
not God. This is why we found last week that there are going to be
many false teachers. They are attractive to us so we need to be more
mature in our faith. We need to take our faith serious so we can be
wise.
Second he writes that we should be an example of good works; holy

in your teaching, serious in behaviour. I think the good works are not
so hard. We like to help those who have need. But in today’s world
we need to be careful to see which is a scam and which is not.
The Church is usually the social worker in tough times. We need to

be holy in our teaching which is balanced and pure.Our teaching
needs to be based on the WORD of GOD not tradition and here say.
Not on others books first. Our teaching must come from our
relationship with God because He is a living God. The reason why
we need to see these things is so there are no accusations against
which no protest may be made, so that he who is not on our side may
be put to shame, unable to say any evil of us. This is the hardest part.
To live so there is no challenge to our life is hard. I have made a
philosophy that the only thing to fight for is integrity. Integrity comes
from a life that is consistent.
You will be challenged but if you live your life right and say things
which are true the challenge will put the challenger to shame. When
you have integrity you will not have to fight.
You do not need to argue you just need to continue and though it is
very painful people will understand in the end. Jesus did this. Many
people criticized Him for the way He did and said things. It took
them a long time to get people to understand but He didn’t fight them,
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He continued living His Father’s will. As leaders we need to train our

people so that, turning away from evil and the desires of this world.
This has happened to me. When I left Canada there were many
people who criticised me for doing it.
My children had to go to school and hear the gossip and it hurt them.
After three years people started to realise that what was being said
was not true. We may be living wisely and uprightly in the
knowledge of God in this present life. We need to look for the glad
hope, the revelation of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus
Christ, who gave himself for us, so that he might make us free from
all wrongdoing, and make for himself a people clean in heart and on
fire.
Jesus continued His life even though death was at the end. He did it
for you and me. He did it so that we can live the life He wants us to
live. He did it so that when He lives in us we can show our
neighbours and community the peace, the power, and the confidence
in our life that only the Holy Spirit can give us. We cannot live the
way Titus writes without the Holy Spirit in control.
We will fight against those who hate us. We will fight to keep our
pride. But Paul writes in Ephesians that we shouldn’t fight the fight.
That is GOD’s job. We need to stand firm in the truth of our
relationship with Jesus Christ.
In the end the integrity of our faith is the only thing that matters. In
the end it is our relationship with Jesus Christ that matters, not how
big our car is or how rich we are.
 Where is your life like today?

 Are you fighting battles that are God’s?
 Are you living the faith in your power or God’s?
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Devotion 7
Changing our Lives to reflect God’s Holiness
Reading ~~ Galatians 6:1-10
As we study some ways to live, we must understand it is not just

survival. God has called us to live in this world as Ambassadors. God
has called us to change the world through the way we live. Paul gives
us some ideas of how we should live so that Jesus can be glorified
though us.
In chapter 6:1 Paul writes, “Brothers, if a man is taken in any

wrongdoing, you who are of the Spirit will put such a one right in a
spirit of love; keeping watch on yourself, for fear that you yourself
may be tested.”
It is so easy to criticize other people. It is easy to blame our teachers

for our poor marks. It is easy to blame the other driver for our
accident. It is just easy not to take responsibility.
But Paul writes that we shouldn’t do that. That is what the world does.
We need to be different. This doesn’t mean that we ignore the truth
about others or ourselves. It means that we need to be honest.
Someone asked me the other day about Jesus choice of Judas and
Thomas as disciples. Why did Jesus choose these two who He knew
were going to betray him and doubt who He was?
Sounds silly don’t you think? Choosing people who you know would
not be faithful. Let us look at this principle of helping one another
together. First we all sin. That is normal so we will all be caught in
sin now and again.
Second, ALL sin is equal in God’s eyes. We like to think of sins as

little ones and big ones. As children we sometimes talk about white
lies and real lies, but a lie is a lie. So when we are caught in sin by
another how do we respond?
How are we different than other people? How are we different than
the other religions around us? Sometimes we are no different or even
worse in our reaction to the faults and failures of people. I know I am
often critical of things that seem dumb or stupid.
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To show the Christ we have inside of us we need to react differently.

Paul writes that we need to first go with love not anger or critical
mind. That is hard sometimes. To help us we need to look at
ourselves first. We need to see our emotion and mind to make sure it
is full of love for the person. Why do we do this first?
We do this first because we can also be tested and we are also sinners.
When our mind and emotions are ready we can go and take the
burden or share the burden of the other. We may be critical but we do
not just yell and criticise the other. We do not need to gossip but say
it face to face in love. When we do it in love we come along side the
person to share the load of the stress and help the other person change
to the mind of Christ. Isn’t this the goal of living the Christian life?
To reflect the Jesus in me to the world is what we do. We have no
choice because Jesus lives in you and me. What does this reflection
show to our neighbours?
To live free we must commit to the Jesus in us. When we want to

change people to our ideals we get stressed. When we help people
change to be more like Christ we also develop into more like Christ.
When we help people change to be more like Christ we have less

stress because God is doing the changing I am sharing the burden.
 Am I changing to reflect Christ more?

 Am I helping the world around me see Jesus through my
reactions to the stress in my life?
If we are to live with Power, Peace, and Confidence as Christians the

answer needs to be yes. If we answer no we need to pray and ask
God for help.
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Devotion 8
Having Less Stress / Casting your Care on Jesus
Reading ~~ Philippians 4: 6 – 13
Living as Christians in today’s world is not easy. We have the same

emotions as other people. We desire things like other people. So
when Paul writes this chapter to the Philippians he is writing because
there is a small concern.
Remember the hardest thing we have to do as Christians? That is to

keep our eyes focused on Jesus. I think the second hardest thing is to
do what Paul says in the first verse of our reading today. That is to
give our cares to Him. In Korea people worry about image so much it
consumes their life. But they are not alone.
My parents always used to tell me that I needed to be careful of what

I wore or what I did because of other people’s opinions. We are so
worried about our image that we forget about the image of Jesus we
give to the world.
Now you cannot really separate the two ideas. The choice is to act
like Jesus was watching or to act only in public to please other people.
Can you imagine how Paul wants us to live? Having no cares?
Actually not being burdened by our cares is a better understanding.
If we didn’t care we wouldn’t be good parents or teachers. If we

didn’t plan we wouldn’t be good business people. What Paul is
saying here is that we need to let God take care of things we cannot
control. We cannot control the future. We cannot control other
people’s reactions. We can only control what we do. Jesus will take
care of the rest.
We get stressed out because we worry about things that are not ours.
We worry about our image to the world. We worry about the desires
that we have that someone might see. But God sees everything all the
time. He sees things we do not see. In verse 7 we find that the result
of this letting go let God idea is peace. But it is not the kind of peace
that is on the outside. The kind of emotion that we show to our
friends. It is not shallow and changeable. Rather it is deeper than
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anything. It is a peace that gives us the confidence to move forward

in any storm.
Remember the Gospel story about Jesus in the storm. His disciples
were at peace as long as there was no storm. They were confident as
long as there were no problems. The Gospels are full of these stories.
What Paul is talking about here is the confidence to tell others that
everything is ok. Paul had such an experience on the way to Rome.
When the snake bit him he had the confidence to say everything was
going to be alright. Did he care? Did it hurt? Of course he did. But
the confidence to give assurance of the end result was what made
Paul different.
Paul writes to the Church in Philippi from experience. He writes to

follow him. To live our lives rightly is to choose the right person to
follow. We need to focus our eyes on those things that are true,
whatever things have honour, whatever things are upright, whatever
things are holy, whatever things are beautiful, whatever things are of
value, if there is any virtue and if there is any praise, give thought to
these things. We should not focus on those things that take our eyes
off of these things, or following people who encourage us to do
differently. John writes in Revelation that there would be false
teachers and that many would follow. The people who follow God
have the peace and confidence that money can’t buy. It isn’t
dependent on anything else other than God and the power of God.
How should we live?
Following is easier when we do not have to carry a backpack full of

cares and worries. Living is easier when we are free to serve and not
burdened by the weight of stress that is God’s not ours.
 What do you care about that is God’s care?

 What gives you stress that you need to give to God?
 Who are you following today?
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Devotion 9
Forgive One Another
Reading ~~ Ephesians 4: 22 - 32
How should we live in this world? It is turning faster and prophecy is

being fulfilled every day. We can see it clearly. What is the hardest
thing we do as Christians?
This is key to understanding how we can survive and live in this

world. The hardest thing in this world is to keep our eyes on Jesus.
We need this if we are to do what Paul writes in Ephesians. A little
later Paul will write about the armor of the Christian. Paul encourages
us to put away the old person. This is something we do find easy at
any time.
The key to success is to keep our eyes on Jesus. The second part of
what Paul writes is why the Church is different, or should be different,
than any other, yet is not, most of the time.
The problem is what Paul writes here. Right at the end in verse 32
Paul writes. “And be kind to one another, full of pity, having
forgiveness for one another, even as God in Christ had forgiveness
for you.”
Forgiveness is what we preach, but it is often not something we

practice. This is because if we are not focussed on the Jesus ALL the
time we cannot do it. Other religions preach it as the way to take
away your stress but often deny it for their enemies. This is where the
Church and Christians are or can be different. In Africa Islam only
gave food to their people. Other people starved.
The Church gave to all people and gained integrity in the community.
This is a good example of not separating the one from the other. But
then we hear the words, “ I won’t or can’t forgive you.” When a
Christian says they forgive but do not let go of the hurt they do not
understand how healing forgiveness can be. We like to get even later.
This means we do not have a right view of God and His Son Jesus.
Paul encourages us to put away all wrong words and things. The
writer of Proverbs says that if we bless the one who curses us we
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bring fire on his head. Forgiveness is not done when we do not have
our eyes fixed on Jesus. It cannot happen because then we fix our
eyes on ourselves.
We see our self as the one hurt but it is God. We want to take
responsibility for revenge when it is God’s job. When we fix our eyes
on Jesus we can do what Jesus did to us. He forgave us so we could
be free to serve Him. When we serve Him we have power, peace, and
confidence. If we do not forgive we bind the other.
It is the opposite of what we should do as Christians. We are to We

need to help people experience the freedom of Christ not bondage to
us. Forgiveness is all about how we see Jesus. Forgiveness is all
about our relationship with God. We serve a personal living God. Or
do we?
When we fail to forgive or struggle to forgive we show the world

who Jesus is to us. We show the world what value our relationship is
and the power that we have to overcome the pain and the hurt to
create healing. How should we live?
 What keeps us from forgiving?

 How much more power would we have if we were to fix our
eyes on Jesus all the time?
 What do you care about that is God’s care?
 What gives you stress that you need to give to God?
 Who are you following today?
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Devotion 10
Fill God’s ears
Reading ~~ Exodus 15: 11 - 27
Living in today’s world can be hard. There are so many things we

desire, so many things we do not really need but cannot do without.
In today’s world we fill our ears with music from Mp3 players which
take away our ability to listen carefully.
Because I teach conversation I know how hard it is to get my students

to listen. I also have 4 children and they also have a hard time
listening. Maybe that is why God told His people that to live with
power, peace, and confidence.
The people of Israel had trouble with listening. The story of dus gives
us some ideas that help us understand why it is so important. If you
remember the story the Israelites had gone into slavery in Egypt.
They lived a good life for slaves. They could worship their God.
They could stay with their family. They just had to work long hours
for little pay. They wanted to get out of Egypt.
God heard their prayers and cries. The people went into the desert.
They needed faith. They needed courage and strength. They needed
to listen. But they didn’t and God brought different diseases.
In the history of Israel this was a problem. It was a problem with

everyone. It was a problem with the Priests. It was a problem with the
Kings. It was a problem with the people as they complained about
God’s care for them.
God’s care for them was not what they had wanted. In the desert they
wanted more than a prophet to lead them. God gave them a king. Still
they would not listen.
Listening to God is not always easy. He does always send an angel to

tell us. He does not scream at us. His voice is soft and gentle. He is
patient with us.
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We also do not listen enough to God. We allow ourselves to be

caught in the desires of our hearts not God’s heart. So how do we
know what is mine and which is God’s?
That is a good question. I can’t answer for you. For me it is easy

sometimes. I know when it is something I want. I get frustrated and
often get impatient. When it is God’s will there is peace in my heart.
This peace gives me the confidence to continue when people criticise
my direction. I can stay focussed.
Sometimes I do not hear Him because there is too much noise in my

ears. The noise comes from people who think they know the truth.
They are people we want to stay friends with. We focus on them and
not on God. This is where the problem is.
I have a friend who I appreciate. This person has told me many times.
“My friends say that ………” The list is long. This person says they
listen to what I say, and that is true, but the friends have their ear. If I
tell the truth it is the friends who they listen to who determine right
from wrong.
We do the same with God. We listen to God but then we don’t

believe and follow because we think that our friends know us better.
They know our situation better.
In real life God knows every breath we take. He has numbered our
hairs and knows our every thought. So why don’t we listen more
often?
Most often it is because we have too much stress. We have too much
stress because we have lost our focus on the Truth, Jesus Christ.
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Devotion 11
Changing Clothes
Reading ~~ Isaiah 61:1-11
In the last chapters of Isaiah there is a message of hope. Isaiah is a

book written to Israel first and to us. He outlines the Easter story and
then gives us hope for salvation.
Today we want to focus on the idea of new clothes. In the New

Testament Jesus talked about old and new wineskins. The idea is the
same. It is important that when we think of theology that the theology
is taught in both the Old and the New Testaments.
When we become Christians we are a new person. The problem is

that we like the old and the new doesn’t always make us feel good.
We are scared of the changes it will bring.
Imagine you had an opportunity to buy a new set of clothes, but you
had to go shopping with me and I would choose what you bought.
There is no limit to what you will get. But you must only buy three
things, and you must throw out all your old clothes first.
Would you like that?
Maybe for the men it would be ok. For the ladies I think they would
feel uncomfortable. Me! Buying your clothes?
It takes a lot of trust. I used to buy my wife a new 4 piece set of

clothes with shoes and handbag every year. I would give it to her on
our anniversary. Then one day she got angry because I had not
included her in the idea. It was my surprise and I took all year to find
just the right color and style.
This is how we often view our Christian life. We view it like

someone has set rules for us and controls things. This person makes
changes in our life that we don’t like or want. We like to keep a little
bit of the old. We like to hold to just a few things.
“Please God!” We cry out. “Don’t make me throw out everything.”

Or we tell Him what we want and expect Him to buy it for us.
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If we are to live our life with the peace, power, and confidence we
need to consider the clothes that Jesus has given us.
In verse 10 we read that Jesus has given us … for he has put on me

the clothing of salvation. Salvation is the undergarment of everything
we wear. It is the most important thing in our drawer or closet.
Salvation is the garment that covers all of our sins in the sight of God.
Salvation comes from the blood of Christ. The blood of Christ gives
us access to the power of God. The blood of Christ is the channel of
communication through which we talk to God effectively in our
prayers.
The second piece of clothing which God has given us is the “robe of
righteousness”. Once we have salvation God wants us to wear the
robe of righteousness. This is the piece of clothing that the world sees.
Righteousness is what makes us different than all the other people in

the world. There are many people that say they are Christians but
they refuse to put on the robe of righteousness. They just use the
underwear of salvation. They think it is enough. But we are not
dressed as a Christian without righteousness. Righteousness is the
robe that gives us the peace to live our life differently.
The third part of our dress is the headdress. Isaiah understand the
brides mind when he writes, “as the husband puts on a fair head-
dress, and the bride makes herself beautiful with jewels.”
A bride is proud of her choice of dress. But when she puts on her
headdress she feels nervous. Did she make the right choice? As she
puts the headdress on and the jewels she gains confidence. She gains
confidence because the person she has chosen to commit herself
gives here peace and power she needs.
The headdress is what gives confidence. It is what confirms the

decisions of commitment that she has made.
The picture that Isaiah gives us is one that we can see the ideas of
how we can live our lives with the promises of power, peace, and
confidence. It gives us a picture of how we can be successful.
 Have you changed the clothes in your closet yet?
 Have you put on all three pieces of clothing God has given
you to wear?
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Devotion 12
Willing to be led
Reading ~~ Psalm 23
There is a story of a person who went to a counsellor. He had a lot of

stress and he needed some answers. The counsellor told him to repeat
this psalm three times a day for 30 days. If he still had stress he
should come back and get some more counselling.
The man thought the counsellor was really strange but he tried it.
After 30 days was finished he went back to the counsellor. He was
asked if he still had stress. The man said, ”No! I have a deep peace. I
can’t believe it.”
To live in our world today we need to let go of our control. This is

hard but again we find ourselves focussing on the idea of who is God.
One of the problems we find today is that our view of God is
distorted. We need to reset our ideas of who God is.
That is why this psalm is so important. The Lord is my Shepherd is

very important in our life today. Let’s look closer. The role of a
shepherd is to feed, guide, and shield us. This whole psalm is about
God’s care of us. The key is to let Him care for us. In English key
ideas are found in the action of the object.
The first one is I shall not lack. This means that I will have
everything I need, not everything I want. Now it is hard to imagine
that God means this if you are in a country where war and violence
makes you run to a camp in the desert.
It is hard to imagine this when your child dies of hunger because

there is no food or water. But this is not about the physical part of life.
It is about our relationship and how we see God in our world, the
Lord as Shepherd, and we as sheep. The Shepherd is responsible for
the welfare of His sheep. He makes sure that His sheep lack nothing.
But when we focus on the things like the physical we lose sight of all
the issues. We have a free will and the fight for control is always
there.
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We often forget what we pray about. God answers and we have

forgotten that He is leading us to the best way, or the best
outcome in our life.
The Lord is my Shepherd is also about He leads me. We want to

be leaders. We do not like following. We want to change our
world but the world is changing us not us them. We need to let
God lead us. We need to practice following. We do not need to be
reckless with our life or our choices. We do not need to be
ignorant. But, this is what separates the sheep from the goats.
Goats, if you watch them like to fight more than sheep. Sheep
need to be lead. The Lord does this for us for our sake and to keep
us righteous. He does this so that the world will now that He is
God. That He is in control.
It is at this point that we must make the choice to give our life to
God. It is at this point that our view of God must be understood
right.
It is from this point in the psalm that we see the benefits of letting
God lead our lives. It is from this point that we can live our life
with power, confidence, and peace. It is from this point that we
can live our life without fear. So let us review where we are in our
life. We need to look and see who we are following. Are we
wandering off the path that God is leading us on?
It is not always a new path so it is easy to follow. Is our pasture

green and peaceful where we can relax? If we are to live our lives
right in the world today we need to consider if we are willing to
be lead. If we are not willing to be lead we will choose the wrong
way. If we are not willing to be led we will not be able to have
peace in our lives, or the power and confidence that this psalmist
writes about. We need to be willing to be led.
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Devotion 13
Stop arguing over …. Unimportant things
Luke 10; 30 ~42 14
This is a most interesting story. Jesus tells a story to the men and
Mary sat and did nothing but listen to Jesus. In these short verses we
find ourselves. The men are the ones who are thinking about
positions and status. The women perform their roles taking care of
the house.
We find Jesus looking at culture differently. He looked at culture as

needing change, but not in roles but in how to find answers to the
problems they all had. If I was to ask you how much time you spend
arguing, what would you say?
Some of you would say that you never argue. Some would say that
you argue a little. Some would be more philosophical and ask what is
an argument?
I would say that if you are a normal person you argue quite a bit. The
question is what do we argue over? Most of the time it is about rules
or personal gain. We argue because something is important to us.
In this first story the question was, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus

showed through the story about who the real neighbor is. The person
who asked this was a person who obeyed the Law. In his opinion he
had done all the right things. Truly the view of a normal man.
He was proud of his giving to the poor and his reputation. He thought
his neighbor was the person beside his apartment, or maybe the poor
person collecting garbage. What Jesus told him was that his neighbor
was the Samaritan. A mixed person who nobody like or cared for.
People would walk on the other side of the street to avoid them in
Luke’s time.
Mary and Martha are the ladies in this story. I have two sisters and
they always argue. It is about unimportant things. Small things about
whose turn it is to do dishes or clean the floor.
As a teacher mothers argue about how good their child is. The mother
thinks that the child is good while the teacher thinks the child is lazy.
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Most if not all arguments are about perception. These two sisters had
different sets of values or perceptions of what is most important.
My question to you is what is most important to you in your everyday

life? Is it making money, or having a clean house, making your
children happy, or for students having better toys than your friends.
How many would say sitting at Jesus feet is most important? The
pastor of course but most of us would not consider it important. It is
for a short time in the morning or evening maybe. It is your answer to
this question that will help you understand the attitude that is
necessary to live our lives as Christians in today’s culture.
To Martha the sharing of the load was most important. Jesus was a
guest and you had to make sure the house was tidy and nice for Him.
Anything else was not important.
We often see our Christian life like this. We are busy keeping it clean.
We don’t do things that would make it dirty. We are busy arguing
about things which are less than most important.
We need to first take time at Jesus feet. We need to absorb what He is

teaching us. Jesus doesn’t mind a cluttered house. He is not
concerned about our position, or how much money we have.
When we think of how much time we spend on the most important

things, do we consider that we should constantly be at Jesus feet. It
should be our first desire.
What is so important that it takes us away from sitting at Jesus feet?
Only you can answer that.
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Devotion 14
Stay Focused
Reading ~~ Colossians 3: 1 -13
Colossians is a wonderful book. There is so much to learn from this

small book. There is only one problem with these encouragements.
The problem is that people take one or two of them and make them
like laws. But as we look at scripture we need to look at the whole of
the idea. Let’s look at the first verse we read today.
3:1 If then you have a new life with Christ, give your attention to the
things of heaven, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. In
this first verse we find our theme that we have had for the past few
weeks. If you have a new life in Christ how should we live?
We have focussed on the idea that Christians need to show Christ to

the world through our lives. One key idea that we find over and over
as foundation to finding the peace, power, and confidence, is that we
need to stay focussed on Jesus. In this verse it says we need to focus
on the things above. This is so important.
In English we like to say we need to be down to earth. We need to

real. But what is real? In our eyes we find ourselves looking at the
physical. This means we concentrate on money and pursuit of
happiness.
In Church history happiness was sometimes looked down on as sin.

That is not what Paul is writing about. It is not what Jesus wanted
either.
When we become Christians our life needs to make a change; a

change to a lasting deeper peace; a life of more confidence in our
hardship; and power of Christ to overcome all things. But, as I say
this the problem is that Christians often have the least respect. They
make rules that are focussed on the outward not the inner secret life.
God is concerned about the secret life. What looks good on the
outside is not always what is on the inside.
The second conclusion we find here is the idea of forgiving one

another. Let’s look at some principles that Paul writes here before he
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says this. 3 For your life on earth is done, and you have a secret life
with Christ in God. 5 Then put to death your bodies which are of the
earth 7 among whom you were living in the past, when you did such
things. 8 But now it is right for you to put away all these things.
These four statements are the foundation of Paul writing, “and

having forgiveness for one another, if anyone has done wrong to his
brother, even as the Lord had forgiveness for you:’ verse 13.
When you become a Christian these things should happen. If you do

not do these things forgiveness will not happen. If you cannot do
these things you will never rise above where you are now.
For some that is ok. Some people have money, security, good family,
and fun. They have everything but the peace, power, and confidence
that they desire. They have all the physical things but still it is not
enough.
To rise above these things we need to understand how important it is

to forgive one another. In order to make forgiveness effective you
need to focus on things above the hurt that was done. You need to
focus on your secret life with Jesus not the outward life you live for
others.
How is your secret life with Jesus? Does it reflect the outer life you
live for others?
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Devotion 15
Share each other's burdens
Galatians 6: 1 -10
In the church this is the hardest thing to do. Sharing money and
sharing food is not hard, but sharing what is giving you stress can be
difficult.
People talk about things and don’t keep confidences very well. To
share burdens is to open ourselves for criticism. To share burdens
takes a lot of trust. That is why we don’t do it often.
But Paul was not talking about sharing our secrets. Paul is writing
here about someone who is caught in a wrong and how Christians
should respond to it.
Remember that we want to learn how to live a Christian life in our

culture and community more effectively. When we find or see one of
our friends stealing or cheating or doing something wrong what do
we do? Maybe your friends never do this. But there are many people
that do and they are called Christians. Sometimes it is attitude.
The normal response for a Christian in a church who is found out

doing something wrong is to beat them down. To run away from
them. The strong ones will come along side.
In Paul’s culture the church was young and immature. People who
became Christians were not transformed immediately. They needed
help to understand the new life and relationship they had entered.
Paul starts with this first situation about sharing the burden of the
struggle to be righteous. Paul writes that these strong ones should
come alongside being careful that they too don’t fall into the same sin.
Paul continues with sharing the burden as a responsibility to cover

those who sin with protection so they don’t do it again and
accountability for us.
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Forgiveness is what we talked about before sharing the struggles of

growing in Christ. Falling and failing and getting hurt. Our response
to these things set us apart from the world around us.
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Devotion 16
Knowing who we are
Reading ~~ Psalm 139: 1-16
One of the most interesting ideas in scripture is who God is. We

know who God is. We know many names for God. The problem is
we do not comprehend His greatness in our lives. To impact the
world around us we must not only understand but give recognition to
who God is and His power. When we truly believe in God the way
we say we do our world will change.
In this Psalm David acknowledges who God is. If you are to read the
Psalms that David wrote the theme is God. We read the Bible and
pray. We do good deeds because we feel we have to. Being a
Christian is a chore and many times a bore.
In history the power of God has come when we focus on God. So

often we talk about ourselves in our prayers. We talk about ourselves
in our conversations. Sometimes it is attitude. The normal response
for a Christian in a church who is found out doing something wrong
is to beat them down. To run away from them! Sometimes the strong
ones will come along side. In Paul’s culture the church was young
and immature.
I have so many conversations with people that talk about themselves.

I listen and give short responses. A few times people come to me to
ask about God. People are searching for answers to their life’s
problems. God has the answer.
In the Old Testament the Law that God gave was to help keep the
people focussed on Him. In the New Testament we find the
Sadducees and the Pharisees lost the focus. They focussed on keeping
the tradition and them rather than giving the power and the glory to
the God they claimed to worship.
Today we focus on relationships. We focus on happiness and self

satisfaction. We pray for our needs and ask God to bless our desires.
In this Psalm David shows his understanding of him and God. When
David was successful he gave God the glory. He focussed on God.
Today we want to focus on who am I.
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The question to ask is do I focus on God enough?
To change our world we need to focus our life on our position with
God. I know people who talk all the time about God. It gets boring
and people run away from them. This is not what I am talking about.
To focus our life on God we need to understand just how big God is.
He understands everything because He made us. He knows the future
and the past. He knows what we need and desires to give it to us. To
focus on God means we focus our desires on His. To do this we need
to remind ourselves of who we are in Christ.
This means that we do not focus on the doing but the living. We need
to live our faith not do our faith. “I am fearfully and wonderfully
made!”, David writes. We find in the book of Genesis that God made
us in His image. The problem is that because of sin we are
unbalanced. When we focus on who we are and who God is we will
live a balanced life, which is full of power, peace, and confidence.
The question then is what keeps us from living this life of peace,
power, and confidence?
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Devotion 17
Guard your heart above all else
Reading ~~ Proverbs 10:12 - 23
Proverbs is a book we need to go through very slowly. It is so full of

wisdom. Wisdom that is timeless and can fit any problem we have.
But these proverbs also need to be studied in sections. Today we read
a few verses. We want to focus on verse 23. The topic is the heart.
Verse 23 says we should guard our heart because it is the source of

life. We don’t think too much about our heart unless we are older.
But it isn’t the physical heart that Solomon is talking about here.
In one way the heart is the source of life because it pumps our blood
around and around and never complains too much. But it is
interesting why the heart is so important to the wisdom of Solomon.
We are told to guard our hearts because it is the center of everything

we think, do, and say. If you study the word heart in scripture you
will find that most of the time it refers to this definition. Solomon
contrasts the evil person and the righteous person in these verses.
It is what he says about the evil is important. The evil person seeks to
live for today. Now that is not all bad. We need to think about today,
our work, our study, our commitments.
Solomon writes that sleep will not come to the evil man until he does
evil. In contrast the righteous man is said to be brighter all the time.
In real life this is hard to understand. This is because the non-
Christian seems to get ahead in life when our Christian life seems to
be so dull.
In real life we can’t see ourselves getting ahead if we don’t cheat a

little bit. We live in a culture when cheating is normal and accepted.
It is thought to be the only way to get ahead. A little lying and a little
cheating will get you a better grade and a lot of happiness.
It was no different than Solomon’s time. If you read the bible and
history the cheater won in the beginning only to lose in the end.
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Sometimes it is easy to think we can cheat and have success. It is true.

We can.
But then we must ask ourselves if the outcome is what Solomon says
it will be to the person who protects their heart. Solomon says that the
life of the righteous person will be brighter and brighter until the end.
It is hard to see that far ahead. It is hard to see it at all when we are
stressed. Why should we guard our hearts? Well it is not only our
hearts but how does it get to our hearts.
Solomon tells three ways to get to our heart. He says, “take learning
in your hands”. Our hands can do many things now that we have
computers and cell phones. We can so much more than the people in
Bible times. We need to be careful what we let our hands do. They
can easily open our heart to pain and misfocus.
He says, “or be walking”. This means that we should watch where we

go. Feet usually follow a path. We need to choose our friends and
paths wisely. To choose friends who do not travel in the light or down
narrow paths will open our heart to pain.
He says, “let your ear”. Ears are the most dangerous. It is not the
music we listen to but what the friends say. If we believe what we
hear we can be easily persuaded to let our heart be hurt. The last are
the eyes. Solomon says that we should not let them, the sayings and
wisdom he was giving go from your eyes.
We often think that the road for Christians is narrow. To understand

this thread throughout scripture, we must understand the idea of
maturity. Solomon says here that verse 12 “ When you go, your way
will not be narrow, and in running you will not have a fall.
This means that if you protect your heart by caring for your ears, feet
and eyes you will make choices and have freedom in Christ that
others will only dream of.
If we do what Solomon says we will experience a freedom in Christ

that will empower us, fill us with a peace that others envy, and give
us confidence to influence the world around us.
We try to protect our heart by keeping our road very narrow. We live
in fear of falling because we see God in the wrong light. It is in Christ
that we can only experience we desire. We must make choices to
protect our heart. Are we making the right choices? What is keeping
us from experiencing the freedom of Christ?
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Devotion 18
Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead,
Philippians 3: 10 -21
Philippians is a great book for encouragement. In this chapter Paul

writes about his testimony. In the beginning verses Paul writes about
his life before he met Christ.
In today’s world I have found a lot of blame being put on others. To

impact our world we need have two choices. The choice we make
will impact our life and those around us.
Let us consider the choice Paul made. He had a desire to serve God.
His desire was so great that he put people in jail because of it. Then
he met the real Jesus. His life changed and he found himself with no
friends and many enemies. Paul had choices to make. If you read
about Paul’s life in scripture you find that the choices he had to make
were not always easy.
Paul writes in verse 10 that we read that his desires changed from
serving God to knowing God. Now that is a big decision. It is a big
choice, but to change the world we need to understand this.
The New Testament is used as a tool to send missionaries around the

world. The Old Testament is about knowing God. Together the way
the Church changed the world around them was to experience a
relationship with God.
Just serving God means we are just servants not sons and daughters.
Jesus said that we are sons and daughters. So why do we act like
slaves not heirs to a kingdom?
Because we hang on to the past. In verse 13 Paul writes that he has let
go of the past and has moved forward. It is the first step to knowing
God. Paul never forgot the past but he did not let the past bind the
freedom he had in Christ. This is a key theme of forgiveness as well.
It is a key theme to salvation. Letting go of the past allows us to grow
in Christ. Letting go of the past allows us to see our neighbors as
Jesus sees them. That was the secret of Paul’s life. He had a bad past.
He was a murderer. But, he was also a redeemed man.
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If Paul had held on to his past sin he would never have experienced
the power of Jesus in his life. If Paul had help on to his past emotions
he would have never been able to minister effectively to a church that
struggled with God’s choices.
This letting go is also the key to the unity of the Church which is
grounded in Christ. It is the key to setting our life goals. It is the key
to being guided by Christ.
If we do not let go of our past we can serve God as only servants.

If we do not let go of our past we will lack the power to move
forward to the point of confidence.
If we do not let go we will never experience the peace that God has
promised. I told some students the other day that the only thing
stopping them from success was themselves.
This is the same in the Christian life. The only thing that keeps us
serving God not knowing God is our hanging on to our past failures.
 How do you see yourself today?

 Are you serving or are you living your position as sons and
daughters of God?
 What attitudes and things from the past keep you from
experiencing the peace, power, and confidence that God
wants you to have?
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Devotion 19
Live for Eternity
Luke 6; 21 – 35
This is an amazing set of verses. You can find similar ones in the
book of Matthew we call them the beatitudes. We should call this
sermon now and forever. In Jesus teaching he talks about now and
later. A study in contrasts! The contrast is between what we have and
what we are going to have.
Many people suggest today that we get close to the world because it
has all the answers. We live in fear of criticism so we follow people
not God. Since we want to focus on how we can live in this world
these verses are very important. Jesus is talking not only to the 12
disciples but those who had followed him. This large group of people
were both rich and poor.
Jesus knew that tough times were coming. That being a Christian
would not be popular. One of the keys to the Christian life is that we
live for eternity. In these verses Jesus is talking about that exactly.
What is now is not forever. This theme is found from Genesis to
Revelation in the Bible.
To be effective in our witness to the world we need to focus on the

forever. But Jesus also addresses the idea of living our life with
integrity. When I talk to people about the church they tell me how
rotten it is. It is greedy and it doesn’t listen. What a shame for the
Church, which claims to be representative of the true God, to have
such a reputation.
Jesus knows the hearts of men. He knows that when we have things
we are never satisfied. If we are to live our lives to change the world
around us we must be able to accept that people do not like it when
we have something they don’t. We have peace, power, and
confidence. We have what they want and can’t find.
There are many preachers who say we should not accept anything
less than greatness and riches. You do not find this as regular
systematic teaching of scripture. What we do find is that if we live for
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the physical pleasures they will last only for a short time. If we live
for eternity we will find ourselves stronger.
When you read these verses you can get confused. Jesus teaches,
happy are you who are in need of food now for they will be full. How
can you be happy when you need food? The teaching continues with
these opposites. It is the attitude of focusing on eternity that people
who have nothing have. The ones who have everything struggle to
keep it and lose their focus.
Today people want to have jobs, which is normal. This is not what
Jesus is talking about. We need jobs for living. We need to focus on
how much we have in Christ not how much we have in the bank.
Too often we live for today. We desire for today.
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Devotion 20
Celebrate the freedom of truth
Reading ~~ John 8: 22 – 32
What is truth? Jesus says it will set you free.
I think this is one of the hardest questions to answer. If we can

answer this question well, we can weather the storms in our life.
There is so much insecurity and people try planning for their
future. Planning is good but why be a slave to it, when you can
be free.
In some ways we are scared of freedom. In the Old Testament

freedom and God was rarely mentioned. In the New Testament
the choice was much more open and the freedom to choose was
a topic of discussion.
Does freedom mean there are no rules? Absolutely not! It is the

obedience of the rules that gives us the freedom. The problem
is who sets the rules?
In these verses we find that the leaders of the Jews were

confused at Jesus teachings. They were bound by the laws that
were not God’s laws but their own laws. They had lost the truth
and therefore their freedom. They had added to the truth and
lost their freedom.
If we are to change our world we must have an answer to the

stress that we find around us. The answer is freedom in Christ.
Freedom in Christ is what makes us different than other

religions and people. But we need to understand how Christ
defined this freedom. Jesus said, “but the One sending Me is
true”. The “One” here is God the Father. To have this freedom
that truth gives us, we must have a relationship with God.
Jesus then says. “ the One who sent Me is with Me. The Father
did not leave Me alone. This “One”, who is God, never leaves us
alone. That is why He promised us the Holy Spirit.
A person asked me about the role of the Spirit.
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One thing that the Spirit does is to let us know we are not alone.
To understand the freedom that the truth gives us is to be
secure in our relationship with Jesus Christ. This means that
we need to have an active spiritual life so that there is no fear.
Fear casts out truth.
It distorts the truth and takes away our freedom. Then Jesus
teaches his disciples that for I do the things pleasing to Him
always. When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know
that I AM.
The key here is, I do the things pleasing to Him always. We all
love freedom. We hate rules to live by but we focus on the rules.
What Jesus is teaching us here is that to have the freedom we
must understand who God is. If God is a person who makes us
live by rules we are servants to Him. When you lift up the Son
of Man, then you will know that I AM. This teaching is about
what we do in our life.
People ask me why I came to Korea, or why I am a teacher, etc.

In real life everything I do I do to please God. To please God
always we need to know who God is. We must put our desires
away and concentrate on Him.
Experiencing this freedom can be done only when we

experience God. Truth is not found in God. Truth is God. The
more we know God the more freedom we will have.
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Devotion 21
Speaking about what we have seen and heard.
Reading ~~ Acts 4:6 – 20

What have you seen God do lately?
Sometimes that is a hard question to answer because we want to say

nothing. It is often the case even for me. The reason is that we are
looking for the big things. In these verses we find two things that will
help us be the change in our community and our lives.
If you remember, we had been asked to think about the reason we

were criticized. In these verses the disciples Peter and John are asked
to defend themselves. They were criticized for healing people by the
leaders of the spiritual community. They were criticized for following
Jesus.
The thread we find here is that the defence is about what was seen
and heard. The second thread is the command to stop doing.
We find that the two disciples that had the less education than the
other disciples, and who had the confidence and power to stand and
defend what had happened. Their defence was simple. The Jesus that
you rejected did it.
This is a key to how we should live. One thread in theology that we

find from Genesis to Revelation is that God’s purpose is to give us
peace, power, and confidence. There are many different views of how
we get this but the key is obedience to God.
Jesus promised that the disciples would do the same things He did.
And they were doing it. But to do it the disciples had to get more
education. NO! That is not true. All they needed to do was obey.
Sometimes we make things too complicated.
The problem with this is to know who to obey. Another problem is to

know that it is God speaking. How do you know that it is God
speaking to you? I think this is the biggest question today. To the
disciples the choices were clear but today there is a lot of confusion. I
have many friends that have asked me this question.
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Many Christians live a life of fitting rules and following just what
they have been taught. The disciples lived their life because they had
seen and heard Jesus in real life. There is no one exact answer to this
question of determining if it is God speaking to you. That is because
we are all different and God talks to us personally. But there are
principles that we can use to make the choice less stressful.
The first is to have a living relationship with God. This is different

than a doing relationship, or doing the actions that fit the rules. The
disciples had experienced Jesus in real life. This Jesus is still living
today and does the same things today.
The second is to obey what he wants you to do. In the Old Testament
He wanted Israel to focus on Him in their life. That was the reason
for the Law. It was about being different and about faith. The doing
became living for some but not all. For some, they got tired of doing
and complained and went a different direction. This change of
direction created defeat for the nation and slavery of the people.
In the New Testament God wanted the same. Just now it is personal
not national, but He is the same God. The second was obedience. In
the Old Testament the Law was hard to live by. It was the ONLY
way to have peace in the nation and victory in war. Obedience today
is also the principle to have the peace and power that God wants for
you.
God doesn’t speak in a loud voice. God never creates confusion in

His children. To know what God wants is to recognize what He is
doing in your life. The second is to testify about what He is doing to
other people around you. This is what Peter and John did. We want to
talk about what we have done and accomplished. We tell people that
God helped us and take some credit for ourselves.
God wants all the credit. When He gets all the praise there is no
question about our ability. There is no question about our integrity.
There is no question about anything because no one can question the
absolute truth and integrity of God. If we want the fearlessness of
Peter and John we must testify to what we have experienced with
God, giving God ALL the glory.
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To change our world all we need to do is testify to what we have seen

and heard, giving God all the glory. The leaders did not change their
mind. They continued their way but the world around them changed
and the people who witnessed the miracles were changed. That is
how we should live our lives in our world today.
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Devotion 22
Let God do His job
Romans 5:1 -15
As Christians it seems that we have a hard time believing what we

say we do. By this I mean that we have a lot of knowledge but lack
experience. This lack of experience creates lots of words but also a
lot of insecurity. This insecurity makes us hold on to people not God.
This idea is important to understand and a key to the power of God in
our lives.
In a conversation I had with a professor the question was whether

non-Christians should be involved Christian music clubs. Though I
understand the dangers, what better place to see God at work?
Worship is something that should impact people toward a deeper
relationship with Jesus.
The last few weeks we have stated that our personal experience is
important for our lives to be effective cultural changers. Today we
find the same thing being written by the apostle Paul.
Paul starts this chapter with the idea of righteousness through faith.
This means that we must have the faith to believe in the work of
Christ. It is this small faith that gives us hope in the glory of God. It
is this hope that allows us to endure any experience.
In the conversation I had with the other professor the question came
up, how much of the bible do we really believe? This is a good
question. Remember last week I had asserted that knowing about God
is not knowing God. Reading the Bible can be just like reading
another book. Then it gets boring and soon we put it on the side.
When we read the bible to find answers to our secret questions we
find that God is speaking to us there. When we pray we can hope that
maybe God will listen, but God has not only promised to listen but to
answer.
Paul writes in verses 3-5; 3 And not only so, but let us have joy in our
troubles: in the knowledge that trouble gives us the power of waiting;
4 And waiting gives experience; and experience, hope: 5 And hope
does not put to shame; because our hearts are full of the love of God
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through the Holy Spirit which is given to us.
Let’s look at the sequence here because it is important. In the

beginning Paul wrote that with our little faith we became righteous in
God’s sight. This opened a relationship with Him personally. Now he
is writing that we can have joy in our troubles because we have hope
in the knowledge that God knows our problems and He will answer.
God knows that we make mistakes. That is what we do. We follow

people and not god many times. We get impatient and get stressed.
Then we do go in directions which God has not chosen. But, because
we have hope in God’s power and knowledge we can learn to be
patient. Not only patient, but patient with joy.
This hope comes from the love we have for God that is not natural
but comes through the Holy Spirit. We all have a desire to know
about God because He is our creator, but to have a love for God is not
a natural idea. We have love for ourselves naturally. The faith that we
had in the beginning, that gave us righteousness, gave us the Holy
Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives us the love for God. The more love we
have for God the more we have strength to be patient. The more
experience this strength the more hope we have. The more hope we
have the more peace, power, and confidence we have in our life.
Why don’t we believe?
Most of the time it is because of our view of God. Our god is our
buddy or friend. We say He is more but we just want to be friends
with Him. We fight the fight our fights when God can do a better job.
Our hope comes when we let God do what He does best. When we
allow God to lead and guide us. When we wait for God to move will
experience God in new ways. When we hope in God because we have
a relationship, we will find we have confidence our friends can only
desire.
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Devotion 23
Depend on God Alone
Reading ~~ Matthew 11:16-30
Mathew is a book of great teaching. Matthew is the historian of the

four gospels. We find the lineage of Joseph and the story of John the
Baptist.
In these verses we have strong contrasts of ideas closing with the end.
Let’s look at the contrasts first. In the first verses we read about the
culture that Jesus was born into. It is like the culture we are in now.
We see the people around us crying and yelling like children in the
market place. Now you don’t see it here much in the market because
we have stores. But, if you go to the traditional market or a real open
market like you would find in the Philippines or Africa the children
yell at each other like they are having fun. There is no discipline in
their life, just lots of fun.
Then we find Jesus saying that He threw a party and nobody showed
up. Jesus had performed many kinds of miracles but nobody saw
Jesus as the real Saviour. The One who could set them free, not from
the Romans, but real freedom from the bondage of the Law. When
Jesus wept over Jerusalem nobody wept with Him. Another contrast
in how insensitive the people had become spiritually. They were
doers not people who lived in a relationship with their God.
Jesus was also not a respecter of persons. He talked with a Samaritan

at the well. He told His disciples to get grain on the Sabbath.
Everything He did was criticized by the spiritual leaders of God’s
chosen people. Jesus could not seem to convince people of His desire
and mission here on earth. Did He go to the wrong places? If He had
gone to Tyre and Sidon would those have been better?
You can almost read that here until you read a bit farther. It would
seem that because of the hardness of the leader’s hearts God hid the
secrets of Jesus mission and purpose from them, preferring to open
the eyes of the children who had a simple view of life.
The educated people were trying to figure God out. They studied the
writing of the law and created great orations about its interpretations.
They, like we, require a lot of debate about trivial matters. We desire
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to know who is God. We want to define the Trinity and Jesus, the
Son. But who knows Jesus, but God himself. Not only God, but those
to whom God has chosen to reveal Himself. That is why we have the
Holy Spirit. God has chosen to reveal himself to us through the Holy
Spirit.
Now the Holy Spirit is not in the disciples as we have Him today.
The issue here is that it was assumed that if you had education, you
knew more about God than other people. That was not true, but we
have fallen into the trap of this today.
It is not that education is right or wrong. It is that knowing God is not

dependent on education. It is dependent solely on a relationship with
Jesus Christ not understanding Him. The power and freedom that
Jesus promised is not based on how smart we are but on an active
relationship with Him.
The question is then is who is more important in our life to hang out
with Jesus or Others?
 We depend on people first and ask God second.

 Or, we ask people when we don’t think God has given us the
right direction.
 It is a hard choice. When we spend more time with Jesus we
make better choices more times. And when we make mistakes
Jesus is always there to correct it.
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Devotion 24
Preparing your mind
Reading 1 Peter 1:13-25
When I was young, I was taught that if you memorized the Bible you
could be tougher than anybody else. By tougher I mean that you
could be more patient. You could endure more hardship. Just because
you have scripture to speak back to Satan.
That we should memorize scripture is true. To this Apostle the

problem is that we have missed the point a little. Satan is anti-Christ,
and our weak point is our mind. We think too much. The mind is
attached to our emotions and our desires.
This is why we find the whole of scripture focused on the teaching

that we need to prepare and protect our mind. In these few verses we
find that Peter and Paul say the same things but to different people.
Paul writes to Gentiles like you and me. Peter is writing to the Jews.
The Jews had the Law already and felt very special. Peter helps them
understand the idea of working for salvation is not the way to go.
Peter writes first that they should prepare the mind. This was
important because to the Jew preparing the mind was part of their
daily worship routine. They understood that to worship they had to
cleanse the mind. They had many rituals to prepare their mind and
body. It has not changed from then to now.
Most churches do not go through a process of mental and physical

purity on Sunday. A few people get up to pray at 5 a.m., but the
general person coming to church does not pay attention to that. They
come tired and their mind is full of stress. This affects our worship
which allows Satan to invade our emotions. It is at this point that we
lose our spiritual power in our everyday life.
As we focus on how we can live effectively on our culture we need to

consider what Peter says here. Peter says that we should prepare your
min first. The second is to be holy is in every detail of your life. This
is an impossible but Peter tells us how we can do it. Again the Jews
knew about the blood sacrifice and practiced it as the Law stated.
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But we now serve a living Christ. We do not need to sacrifice live

animals today. It is the blood of Christ that covers us and makes us
holy. But holiness is again we do not really concentrate on. When we
do we forget to be like Christ but obey the letter of the Law. We
make rules and barriers for people to achieve to see them as holy
people.
With a living relationship with Jesus Christ we understand holiness

not as rules but as a goal that can be achieved only in a relationship
with Jesus Christ.
Third Peter addresses the desires of the Jews to be free. Free from all
the laws that made their life a burden. They saw freedom as a
physical idea. Free from the Romans.
Jesus saw freedom to be empowered in their lives.Peter also had

experienced this freedom through great struggle as we read in the
book of Acts.
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Devotion 25
See People like Jesus sees Them
Reading ~~ John 7: 12 -27
Imagine who will be in heaven in the future. This can be a great

topic for discussion. Who will go to heaven? I was asked that by
a Korean person awhile ago. He asked me if he would go to
heaven. I told him it was not my decision but there was one
way to be sure.
For some people it is just great discussion. Their view of God is

just a God of love. But God is a God of justice. He doesn’t bend
the rules like we do. He likes to see things in black and white.
We like to see things in color or gray. John writes about Jesus

differently than the others. He was the one whom we are told,
that Jesus loved. He writes about the confusion that was found
in the people when they experienced Jesus.
There are several arguments here. The first is how Jesus got his
education when he didn’t go to Seminary. I think we have this
same argument but not with Jesus, but with other people who
are successful.
Jesus was a carpenter’s son and a humble mother. He had no

University degrees, but He seemed to do things others could
not. The idea is no different from the Church as Paul writes. We
are gifted by God for His purpose. The arguments today are the
same. The problem is we focus on what we understand not the
gift of the person. We have become focused on the standards of
the world not God.
Because John was a Jew he also wrote to Jews. They lived

under the Law. The rules for their life were hard and made
harder by the leaders of the Synagogue, so the arguments here
are from the leadership and Jesus answers them.
Jesus answered them with a simple argument. 17 If any man is

ready to do God's pleasure he will have knowledge of the
teaching and of where it comes from--from God or from myself.
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The first is to be ready to do God’s pleasure. The problem is

that often we want to do God’s pleasure only when we see it
benefiting ourselves. In verse 18 Jesus says ~ The man whose
words come from himself is looking for glory for himself, but
he who is looking for the glory of him who sent
him--that man is true and there is no evil in him.
The second is our motivation. Often our motivation is about

keeping ourselves equal with our neighbours. There is nothing
wrong to want to be better. The problem is that we start
looking at others differently. We become like the leaders that
John is writing about here. Vs. 19 Did not Moses give you the
law? Even so, not one of you keeps the law. Why have you a
desire to put me to death? Then Jesus tells the honest truth to
them. No one keeps the Law. This is the message of the book of
John and the essence of who we are.
We try to keep ourselves looking good but it is never good

enough. In my life it has been the same. I felt called of God to
be a preacher. So I looked to others for direction. Each pastor
and teacher gave me different directions. The directions were
given so that I could achieve the goal of pastoring in a specific
denomination or organization. Cut my hair. Change how I
dressed. Obey all the rules. But I could never get it right. I was
never good enough. I didn’t have the image they wanted. When
there was trouble scripture was second to image.
Today I want you to focus on what Jesus is saying here. I want

you to see people around you as Jesus saw them. He didn’t see
people as Baptists or Presbyterians. He didn’t see them as rich
or poor. He saw them as people who needed Him.
In verse 19 we find that Jesus asks the perfect question. Vs. 19

“Did not Moses give you the law?” Moses did give the Jews the
Law from God, but what did Jesus give? Jesus gave us the door
to gifts beyond our imagination. Jesus gave us life. The Law
gave the Jews hardship and death.
Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit. The Spirit who seals our hope,
and frees us to experience the peace, power, and confidence
that we long for.
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Jesus gave us access to the knowledge and wisdom of God to

see others differently. They are not just people. They are people
with a need. They need Jesus.
Finally John writes in verse 24 “Let not your decisions be

based on what you see, but on righteousness.” We can only do
this if we have an active relationship with Jesus Christ.
Who will go to heaven was the first question today. It doesn’t

matter which Church you attend, how often you read the bible
or pray. Jesus is the only door. All those who have an active
relationship with Jesus Christ and are covered by His blood
will get this reward.
We don’t know when Jesus will return. With the earthquakes,

typhoons, and war growing around us we need to be ready. We
need to see the world around us as Jesus sees it. They need a
relationship with Jesus. We should not judge from the outside
but from the inside as Jesus sees it.
 What has Jesus given you that is worth telling other

people?
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Devotion 26
Stop the fighting

Reading ~~ Philippians 2: 1 -18
There is a common complaint about Christianity. That is that they
don’t need enemies because they hurt themselves. This means that
Christians fight amongst themselves.
What a terrible reputation to have in a world that is crying out to us

for peace. It is a terrible thing to preach peace to the world when we
are at war within ourselves. Philippians is about the joy and gladness
we have as Christians. It is an admonishment of the apostle Paul to
the Church at Philippi to not lose this joy. But this joy is not just for
ourselves but for the joy of those who are around us. For Paul it was a
sense of fulfillment and success in ministry to see the churches he
planted experiencing the joy of their Christianity.
There are dangers though if we become unbalanced in what Paul is

teaching here. When we read these verses we find ideas like verse 7
But he made himself as nothing, taking the form of a servant, being
made like men; …. he took the lowest place, and let himself be put to
death, even the death of the cross. 9 For this reason God has put him
in the highest place.
This is what Christ was and is to us. Our desire is to be like Christ.
What a great idea. It is a great goal to have. But we missed something
here! We missed the idea that came before these verses. The idea
found in verse 3 “ Doing nothing through envy or through pride, but
with low thoughts of self let everyone take others to be better than
himself;”
How does this fit with what we said at first? Fighting about who is
better or richer or has power takes away from the power of God. If
we see others as higher than ourselves we are in danger of low self-
esteem. If we have no pride in ourselves we are in danger of
depression.
So what is Paul writing here? What does Paul mean when he writes
in verse 12 that we need to work out our salvation with fear? If we
follow Paul as he writes here we would follow like children doing
what we are told without any questions.
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But Paul is not writing this way at all but it is often what is taught.
Paul is writing, if we read the whole chapter and book of Philippians,
we find the key in verse 10 “So that at the name of Jesus every knee
may be bent, 11 And that every tongue may give witness that Jesus
Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 13 For it is God who is
the cause of your desires and of your acts, for his good pleasure.”
The whole of our life needs to be focused on giving God the glory.
This idea fits the whole of scripture and all of Paul’s writings. But it
also shows how silly we can be if we take just a few verses of
scripture and apply it to our lives and teaching.
The church has lost its power because it has chosen not to build on
this cornerstone of teaching. The power we desire is never far away.
The peace that we want to lessen our stress is never far away. The
confidence in our future is never far away. We just have to let God
have the glory. We must let others do better than us. We must reset
our goals in life to match those of God.
There is nothing so exciting as the joy that Christ gives. There is

nothing so powerful as a person who is confident in a time stress.
There is nothing so encouraging as seeing people grow deeper in their
relationship with God, which in turn brings more joy to their life.
To feel like we are complete is a different feeling. To not desire to be

something we are not, but encouraging others to be more Christ like
is opposite to our culture. But what Paul is saying here is true. Paul’s
one desire was to see the church grow in maturity which was
reflected in its unity.
To be unified as Christians not denominations runs against our

cultures. Too many pastors are insecure. They are scared another
bigger church will take their people, and that is often true. We must
be careful not to take our eyes off the goal of becoming more mature
which affects all other people in our ministry circle.
You may not be a pastor or leader today but if you are a Christian you
are a minister to others. Your joy will be the change in others and will
help bring unity to the Body of Christ. Today we need to ask
ourselves the question. What takes away our joy in Christ? What
takes away from the unity in Christ which will change our
community and culture toward a more mature relationship with Jesus
Christ?
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Devotion 27
Trust God from the bottom of your heart
Reading ~~ Proverbs 3: 1 - 13
Trusting ONLY in God!
We have a saying in English. If it looks too good it probably is.

That is good wisdom usually. You find a job that pays a lot of money
and looks good usually has a problem somewhere. That is not always
true but it is often the case. To trust God for everything is really hard
but it is the key to our confidence.
Trust is the scariest thing to do. To give up ourselves to the care of

another is stressful. In this chapter there is a promise that we forget. It
is a great promise that we forget about most of the time. We can
extend our life if we just trust in God. Now this isn’t always true
because there are wars and natural disasters, and crime, but to the
Jews as a nation it was very true. They could live in peace if they just
trusted and obeyed God. But if you read the Old Testament you will
find that the Jews often forgot.
Verse 5 is what we want to focus on today. This version says is so

well. Put ALL your trust in God and not into our own reason. In ALL
your ways give ear to Him and he will make your path straight. In the
old King James version it says acknowledge Him. There is a
difference in meaning which is maybe lost in the old English
translation.
Acknowledge is a great idea. We do something and then say it is God

who helped me. Give ear to God means that we should listen first.
There is a difference in action and who gets the glory. Often we find
professional athletes say that God has been their guide, or it is
because of God that they won. Not often do we find the loser saying
it is because of God.
If we follow the ALL in these verses God is a Person who wants to

be on both sides; if we lose a game, and tell people about God. We
acknowledge that God is in everything we do.
The question then does God fail? We would say no! Of course not!
But God wants to be in on our failures. He wants to the consulted
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first so that we can be winners. This is what verse 5 is all about. Most
of the time we put our experience, culture, tradition, and
understanding together to make decisions. God is just one small part
of the equation. If we follow verses 5 and 6 we find that God wants to
be first ALL the time.
But we are impatient and though we say that God’s ways are our
ways we are too impatient for God to talk to us. The theology of all is
God’s is found from the beginning of the bible to the end. All is
important. God doesn’t want some or a few, He wants ALL. He
wants to be FIRST not second or last. He doesn’t like to share.
We cannot realize the power we seek, or the peace we crave, or have
the confidence we long for, until we give Him ALL.
The question is what things do we share with God? What keeps us

from seeking Him first? Solomon writes that if we give Him ALL He
will set our path straight. This means that there will be a shift in our
life. It will change everything we do. This can be very scary but after
we find that God knows best, we can move forward with new goals
and ideals.
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Devotion 28
Is anything too hard for me?
Jeremiah 32: 17 -27
Trust as we found last week is built on experience. We trust in

someone because they have proven to be safe and secure. What they
have said has been true.
Faith on the other hand is something you do because you believe the
person who told you. There is no questioning. Remember last week
we found that we should not rely on our experience in our
In this prayer from Jeremiah we find some interesting ideas. In the

beginning Jeremiah acknowledges God’s power, “there is nothing
you are not able to do”. At the end of the prayer god ask Jeremiah the
same question, “…is there anything so hard that I am unable to do it?
Jeremiah is commonly known as the weeping prophet. His book is

full of sadness. It is about how much God loved His people, but they
continually rejected Him.
Look at this prayer again and you will find that Jeremiah says exactly
that. God had taken them to places where they were successful and
secure. God had done what He had promised them. The Jews had not
didn’t do their part.
The second idea is how God gives His rewards. Jeremiah writes ~~
giving to everyone the reward of his ways and the fruit of his doings:
God gives to everyone equally according to His standard. This is not
about salvation. It is about our present and future rewards.
This can get confusing when we think of how people struggle with
money, food, stress, etc. today. Many people ask how a God who
rewards equally can give some so much and others so little. That is a
good question. But think of Jeremiah’s culture. Jeremiah’s culture
was thinking that God should protect them and give them rewards
because they are Jews. They were the chosen people.
They forgot to think about their attitude and obedience to God’s
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commands. They had done nothing of what God had asked them to
do. They had instead made idols in their prayer rooms. They had
alters on their roofs. They were worshiping a dead god they could see
and hoped that the true God would rescue them.
Isn’t this what we see today?
Our nation Korea is not at war. We do not have other nations building
forces around us. But as Christians we are facing an increasing
challenge to who we are. People often ask me about the state of the
Church. In my opinion I can see the end coming sooner than later.
I say this because we res on the fact that we are Christians. We are
increasingly doing what Israel did in Jeremiah. Korea’s church
revolution is almost over. People are still going to church but often
they are not choosing only Jesus. They are choosing Jesus as the next
one to try. They are choosing the Church which gives the best benefit.
The church is reacting to this pressure to keep money coming. Many

Christian Universities are sacrificing Christianity for secular teaching.
To make a change in our culture we need to believe in the power of
the true GOD.
It is a matter of faith. When we believe ONLY in GOD we can feel

secure in a world of chaos. As the world begins to cry for security
and hope we can offer solutions which come from our obedience to
what God has asked of us.
The world will not get better. The storms we face now will not get
less powerful. The challenge to our Christian values will become
stronger.
What will we do?
If we are only rely on God as the rescue person we may find

ourselves disappointed. If we are people who have a active living
relationship with Jesus Christ we can be rest in the power of a true
and living God. The one who created the world and you and me.
Jesus is coming soon.
 How will God reward you?
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Devotion 29
Make allowance for each other's faults
Colossians 3: 1 – 17
When you read these verses we can understand some of the

issues that Paul struggled with in the church. There was a lot of
pride in the church. Not pride because they were Christians but
pride because of their position and their works.
If we focus only on verse 12 we would think that we should go

around and be self condemning almost. If we read some of the
other verses we would find that we should forgive everything
that others do. Or we should have pity on others that are
different than us.
But if we read the whole we find a balance in Paul’s writing.

Paul addresses the issues that had taken the focus of the church
away from God. As I said a couple of weeks ago the church
often has no problem shooting themselves. They become their
own enemy. This church struggled with their culture around
them. They wanted to reach out as Gentiles but had a few Jews
coming.
They wanted to increase their members so allowed people to

choose Christ and hang on to their past. I have talked about
these issues already and in Paul’s writings we find them again
and again.
Paul writes that we should keep our mind on things above

because we are born again. This is very hard. How often do we
think wrong versus good when we see things? It is the easy way
to do things. We need to keep focused on things above if we are
to rise above our culture.
We look at image first and then godliness second. The problem

of Colossians keeping focused. They focused on the small
things and ignored the more important things.
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Paul then writes a solution to the problem. The basis of which

is the mind of Christ. Forgiveness is the answer not tolerance. But
forgiveness the way Christ gives it is never easy.
Christ does not hold our past against us. He forgives us and forgets
about it. At the same time He is patient for us to change our ways.
But He will not wait forever. He does punish, and He does not
tolerate sin in any form.
Forgiveness in the Body of Christ is the key to its healing power.

Intolerance of sin in our personal life is the key to God’s power in our
lives. So why do we struggle with tolerance and forgiveness?
We struggle because we struggle with our old man and our new man.
We do our Christianity not live it. Or as Paul writes in verse 15 Christ
is not the ruler of our hearts. If Christ does not rule there is no peace.
There is no love and without love and peace there is no power.
Therefore the rule is to do everything in the name of Jesus. That

means that we put Jesus first in everything. He is the motivation for
everything we do as Christians. None of us are perfect. We all make
mistakes. With the mind of Christ we can change our culture and
demonstrate the power of God.
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Devotion 30
Looking forward
Philippians 3:7 -16
I have found it often frustrating to have people look at the past and
determine the future. Especially in Christian circles. We are
supposed to be different. The example of Paul is the best one we
could have. Paul the person who hunted Christians in the name of
God, and now a preacher for God.
In Canada I could never live up to the demands of the church, the

seminary, or other people. Yet, it was as if God had called me to
preach. My past history as a person who had made wrong choices
kept haunting me. To look forward and not backward is not an easy
thing to do. We do not forget like Christ does. We have long
memories. This small flaw in our character often takes way from the
power of the church. Our culture looks at material things to determine
value.
This was the same in the new church that Paul had entered, but the
Philippian church had embraced his teaching and not his past. There
is a question that I ask myself now and again. It is how much would I
give up to know Christ? Or, how can I continue except to look f
forward.
Often when we find ourselves in a problem we find other people in

much bigger problems. Paul writes in verse 8 that he has lost ALL
things but they are nothing compared with the reward he will have in
Christ. This runs counter to how we live today mostly, but it is a key
to how true Christianity works.
Now don’t get me wrong. It is not wrong to have things. It is not

wrong to desire things. We need these to live and to improve our jobs
etc. The idea here is that the value of them is often higher than that of
our reward in our relationship with Christ. It is also how we view our
future and our maturity as Christians.
To Paul, looking forward was the only way. But not only forward but
beyond his present frustrations to the ultimate future of living in a
Christ controlled world. I have had many conversations and
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discussions with people who struggle with today. If we look only at

today we can become depressed and disappointed. Paul had the
solution.
We can forgive and love and be nice to each other. That is not enough
because most of the time we remember the past. We just show a good
face. What we need to look beyond the present to the future. We need
to be driven by the future of a life with Jesus Christ.
We can’t ignore the present problems. But we do not need to be

controlled by them. Paul’s drive to ministry was not to build
Churches and bring fame to who he was. Rather he wanted only one
thing. That was to achieve the goal being with Christ.
Paul was motivated by only one thing. That was being with Christ in
person. As we enter the Christmas season we speak of the wise men
and the shepherds, of Mary and the immaculate conception. But we
need to look beyond the celebrations and traditions to a celebration of
the future.
Traditions are great for memories but our Christian life is not about
memories only. It is because of Christmas that we have a future life
with Christ. He alone is our hope for the future. But He is more than
a hope for the future. He is our future. He is the reason we do what
we do. He is the reason that we live. He is the power in our life and
the power that not only can but will change the world around us. But
first we need to have Him change us. Many of us practice Christianity
but we want God to change us in the way we want, not we change to
God’s way.
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Devotion 31
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Ephesians 5:8-21
This is an interesting selection of verses. Many people look at the

verses which follow and are blind to these. These verses are
specifically written to focus on the fruit of righteousness. That is light
which shows everything with no shadows.
As we have been considering the ideas that can help us change our
culture and community in which we live we have to look at these
verses. It is a key to all of the Apostle Paul’s teaching. Some people
look at verse 21 to control people, or for an excuse to treat people like
servants to them. So what does Paul really say here.
First, the focus of these verses is on you and me personally. The light
of righteousness is not about an outward shining light. It is about an
inward light which shines into our lives. Righteousness is all about
the relationship of God to us through Jesus Christ and the perfection
that can be made to make the communication and power unhindered
in our lives. It is not about helping others. It is not about anybody else.
Just God and me!
The light here is a Godly light which will reveal every motive and
secret. But it is not our job to tell the world about their sins. It is
god’s responsibility alone. This is because there is no righteousness
that I can offer anyone, for any confession. Verse 17 says it the best
here. “be conscious of the Lord's pleasure.” How often do we ask if
God is pleased with what we do?
Most often it is when we have done something good. We know when

He is not pleased and so we don’t ask. Do you think God takes
pleasure in our thinking like this?
In everything we do we should consider God’s pleasure. The reason

is because we wants God’s blessing on the things we do. The way we
study in school. The way we do business! The way we work in our
job. Everything! Why? Because we want God’s blessing yes. But we
also want the peace, power, and confidence that only He can give us.
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Read how many words which are ALL style there are in these verses.
 everything which is good and true,

 no company with the works of the dark
 all things, are made clear by the light
 be full of the Spirit;
 Giving praise at all times
Most of them of are about introspection or inner looking. So often we

look outside and not inside. Paul knew this and writes because it is
not easy to look inside ourselves first. Paul’s statement to be ruled by
others is the hardest. That is because we forget the last half of the
verse.
I watched a movie the other day. The question was made, “Who
would you rather be mad at you, your partner or your wife?” I would
like to ask you almost the same question. Who would you rather have
be mad at you, God or your friends?
I would rather have my friends angry at me than God. What can my

friends give me that God cannot? What can God give me that my
friends cannot?
Being ruled by others in the body of Christ means that we are ruled
by Christ first. When the church functions with people who are ruled
by Christ first and not themselves, we not only can but will change
our culture around us.
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Devotion 32
Getting to know God
2 Peter 1: 1- 13
Have you ever asked anybody who God is? Then you ask, “Who is
Jesus?” People know who Jesus is but often have a fuzzy view of
who God is.
To the pastor or old Christian God and Jesus are the same. To the
regular person they are two very different people. Most people try to
be like Jesus, because that is what we are told to do. That is what the
Bible tells us to do. To Peter and the Jerusalem church knowing God
was very important. Jesus was great but had not me the expectations
of the Jews.
We must remember to whom Peter was writing to. He was the

evangelist to the Jews mostly. Let us look at the ideas that Peter gives
us for understanding who God is. God and Jesus are linked here as
the same person but with different functions.
In the first verse he writes about the righteousness that we have

FROM GOD. In verse two, which is the focus of today’s sermon, we
are encouraged to get to know God better. In verse 3 Peter writes that
it is His power that we have EVERYTHING for living. This is
important because we often think that life is not going well. The idea
that God is not only the creator, but the Person, who controls
everything is vital to our relationship with Jesus Christ as well.
Peter writes that it is the knowledge of him who has been our guide
by his glory and virtue; God is our guide, not because of He is the
creator and controller, but because of His character.
God does not only create us and leave us. God is our guide if we let
Him. But He desires most of all that He is the glory. We often forget
about this part in our relationship with Him. We struggle with our
desires and think that God has other desires. What God wants most of
all is that we give Him the glory in everything. His desires are our
desires. He wants to have a relationship with us and through this he
has given us the hope of great rewards highly to be valued; so that by
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them we might have our part in God's being, and be made free from
the destruction which is in the world through the desires of the flesh.
Peter writes that knowing God is the way to made free from the
desires that other non-Christians have.
I am reminded so often of the Muslim ideas and the commitment they

have toward their view of God. The problem is that is not about a
relationship with God. Jesus is missing. So how can we know God
better?
This is the biggest question that we all have. Peter answers this well.
If we practice joining virtue to faith, and knowledge to virtue, 6 And
self-control to knowledge, and a quiet mind to self-control, and fear
of God to a quiet mind, 7 And love of the brothers to fear of God,
and to love of the brothers, love itself.
These are all easy to say but hard to do. We can only do these things
through getting to know God better. By getting to know God better
our culture and neighbours also will get to know God better. We do
not have to be angry but forgiving because God is forgiving. We can
offer healing because God is the Healer.
Getting to know God better helps us understand God better. By

getting to know God better we can become more like God in both
virtue and character.
By knowing God more we become more secure in our hope, power,

peace, and confidence, which makes God more attractive to the world
around us.
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Devotion 33
We have peace with God
Romans 5:1-12
Peace is something we hear about almost every day, if you listen to

the news. We desire peace in our country. When there is peace there
is no fear.
Paul writes here that peace needs to be part of our experience with
God. Paul is very firm here about Jesus role in this peace. It is
through Jesus Christ that we have peace with God. There are many
that try to have peace through a works system. It will never work.
This past week I read about the Korean model that had committed
suicide in France. She had reached the top of everything. But she
didn’t have the peace that she longed for. The Christmas season is all
about peace and hope. We sing about it and speak about it but it
seems to elude us. Did you know that Christmas is the season when
suicides are at the highest level?
What happened to the peace that was supposed to come? I think it got
lost when we lost grace. Now grace has never been lost but the power
of grace has been lost to many Christians today. Paul loves the word
grace. He uses it a lot together with righteousness. Both of these
words are used to show how great a work Christ did for us. Not by
being born but by being resurrected from the dead.
The peace that we desire is only when our lives are covered with his
blood. Imagine the Old Testament Jew only covering half his door
with the blood. Or using a sick sheep because they were too lazy to
go get a good one. The Old Testament is about a works oriented
salvation. Now Christ has done the work for us, at least the blood part.
His sacrifice has enabled us to have peace much easier. We just have
to keep brushing our lives with His blood.
It is this covering that enables us direct access to God. It is this

covering that enables us to have access to the joy that comes with the
peace. When you are at peace you are enabled to have joy. When you
are enabled to have joy you become stronger to face any problem in
your life.
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The peace that we have cannot be bought. No one is rich enough to

pay for it. No country is rich enough to have the power to achieve it.
In the end the world will seek a leader who can give peace and
security to the world. A false hope and a false peace.
Paul links our whole experience to God through Jesus Christ. Peace is
a great thing! The question I need to ask is why do Christians
experience so much depression. Now we are normal people with
normal struggles. We have good days and we have bad days. But if
we are to change our world and our culture to a more peaceful one we
need to wonder why Christians are not experiencing it.
I think it is partially due to our lack of teaching about this whole idea.
The second is that though we have moments of joy and strength and
peace and confidence we are looking for more. We think there needs
a super man mentality. We need this supercharged power in our lives.
But the peace that God gives us is different. David writes about the
peace of the pastures that he knew. But David had his troubles. But
when he was at peace with god the nation of Israel was at peace. The
joy of serving Christ as master of our life is not a struggle. The
confidence we have to move forward knowing God has prepared a
path for us.
When we have god’s peace it changes our world around us. It is

attractive. That is why people go to temple stays, to experience the
peace and simplicity. But it is all gone after they go back to their job
and home. God’s peace does not last a moment. It will last a lifetime
if we let Him.
The recipe that Paul gives us is easy. A little faith to accept the gift of
salvation gives us the rest of the ingredients. When we accept the gift
of Christ, we receive the Holy Spirit. When we have the Holy Spirit
we are to be so full of love for God that the peace and power to live
are waiting for us. An easy recipe to say, but not so easy in real life.
Not easy because we have to give control of our life to another person.
Christmas is about peace. Let’s encourage our neighbours to
experience it with us.
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Devotion 34
If any of you need wisdom, you should ask God
Matt.2: 1 -14
Wisdom is something that we all want. At Christmas we have two

stories about people who come to worship Christ. They are two
groups of people who had two different theologies and two different
economic situations.
The shepherds that we often focus on were from the poorest. They
didn’t always have a nice home. They spent their time with their
animals of protection. They had no education, yet were chosen to be
the first to arrive at the birth of this king.
The wise men, as we call them were not Christians. They were not
even Jews. They were astrologers who had seen some strange things
in the sky. They were educated and rich, so very different than Herod.
They were people who were searching for a world leader. They were
wanting to make peace with this new king who was born. They were
not threatened like Herod about a new baby king.
Today we want to focus on the idea of wisdom. Wisdom is something

that comes from experience. This is why we call them wise men.
They had lots of experience predicting the future by looking at the
stars.
The Romans, led by Herod, seemed to lack this important idea. The
Kings advisors had never considered a king would be born so close to
them. It made them uneasy because of their jobs, as protectors of the
empire of Rome.
We have this contrast of wisdom and lack of wisdom in the

Christmas story. As we celebrate Christmas there are so many things
that are in our mind. Vacation is coming and we need to know what
to do. The New Year is coming and we want to plan ahead. We need
wisdom.
James writes in his book "If any of you need wisdom, you should
ask God, and it will be given to you. God is generous and won't
correct you for asking." Wisdom is something that God can give
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because He has all the experience. The nature of God is that He

knows everything. Jesus, the Son of God, experienced all the physical
things that we did, still he also asked for wisdom from His father.
When James writes about God we find a softer side of God. God the
giver of all things.
Sometimes we need instant wisdom. In fact we need it a lot often.

That is what prayer is all about. Prayer is about this seeking of
wisdom through constant communication with God. It is about instant
knowing of what to do, and then acting on it with confidence.
I had left my lights on the other day in my car. My battery was dead.
As I walked I knew I had insurance which would bring help. But I
prayed for someone to help me. I had help quickly. Then I forgot my
bags in his car and went home. When I came back how could I find
the car. There were too many of them. I prayed again for help. He
parked almost in front of me. I saw my bags and he opened his car.
My mistake turned into a call for help and wisdom and God gave it
and provided it. I have sometimes wondered where God is when I
needed Him. I searched a long time for the king of my life, like the
wise men did. They had travelled for a long time following only a
star.
As we seek to change our culture we need wisdom. We don’t always

need more education. God’s wisdom is most likely not what we
would normally do. That is the difference between God’s wisdom and
ours. We are often restricted by culture, but God has no restrictions.
God has unlimited resources He wants to give us.
To James God was a generous person, who gave just because we ask.
As we say this, we need to understand that god may not give to us if
we are selfish in our asking.
Herod was the opposite of the wise men for the east. He was selfish
and insecure. He wanted power, and demanded respect. He did not
want a king under his nose. It would make his life hard. This is often
what we find in our lives. We ask for God’s wisdom but do not do
what we know. We feel insecure because it is different and
sometimes against what is in our culture. We can’t see how it will
benefit.
To be leaders in our culture we must be followers. We must follow

where God leads knowing and believing that the change will come
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because the new king has arrived in our lives and hearts. This
Christmas let us be wise people because the king that was born is
coming again. We need to be ready for His coming.
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Devotion 35
Slow to speak and slow to become angry
Matt.1: 18 - 25
Imagine Joseph and Mary. Two people who should have been angry
at God. They loved each other maybe but god did put them into a real
stressful situation. They should have been really angry at Him. They
were scared. They had traditions to worry about. They were honest
people.
Imagine what you would do if you were Joseph or Mary. What would
you do? I remember when my daughter had her baby. Some of the
Koreans told me to have her abort the baby or give it away. Some
people told me that she was an embarrassment to me. I was not proud
of her situation and I could have been angry. But what good would
anger have done? Would it have helped? It would not have helped
our relationship.
Some people wonder is anger is Christian. You will find that first
God gets angry. His character is slow to anger and longsuffering. So
anger that is against what is not right is ok. God’s anger is always
balanced with love. Our anger is often very unbalanced. We lose
control in our anger.
We find that Joseph and Mary react very differently to the problem
they were in. Joseph reacted with some anger and lots of frustration.
Anger at the God they had worshiped. Mary was very different. She
became quiet and kept her frustration to herself.
Mary was a young lady who had no value in the culture of the day.
Women in the culture of the day were the property of the husband. To
be pregnant without a husband put her to great shame for herself and
her family. Rejection was coming unless Joseph obeyed. But who
could he tell.
In the book of James we read 1:19-20 -- Everyone should be quick to

listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger
does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. -- This is
what the angel wanted Joseph and Mary to understand. Getting angry
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was not the way to go. It was not the reaction that they should do
because it would not bring the righteous life that God desires.
Joseph and Mary had choices to make. Most of the choices were not
in line with god’s righteousness. Most of them were about their
image and needs not God’s. We or some of our neighbours or people
we know have the same choices. Many Christians today are
struggling this season with choices. It is easy to follow culture and
tradition. It is easy to get angry at God.
But the goal of the Christian is to live out our relationship, not just do
it. Our goal in life is to be more like Jesus not react like our culture.
God’s goal is to bring righteousness to our life so that we can be
empowered to change our culture. God is not bound by our culture
and wants to set us free to serve Him not our culture.
Mary and Joseph each had to make their own decision. Their decision
to move forward in their relationship was important. It was scary.
They didn’t know the future but they had a strong belief in their God.
You may never have been angry with God. Your life has never had
any struggles, but with every decision the first thing we need to think
about is our relationship with God.
Angels will not always come to us to help us make those decisions

but we will have the peace that passes understanding which empower
us to move forward with what we know is right in God’s eyes.
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Devotion 36
Be disciplined
Luke 2:15-32
Today we celebrate the birth of Jesus. We usually focus on the story

found in the gospels.
This year we have focused on how we can change our culture through
our relationship with God. This means that we need to look close at
the people. The Jews were without a Jewish King. They were slaves
to Rome.
This was same situation that is found in Judges chapter 21. It is also
the situation the world is going, and is a sign of Jesus coming again.
Christmas is about the celebration of Jesus as a baby, but as
Christians we are encouraged to look at Jesus coming as a King.
We preach a gospel of peace on earth when the world around us cries

for peace. We sing Joy to the world when people around us are
drowning in depression. So Christmas is not only about the birth of a
king to the Jews, or a challenger to Herod’s position. It is about the
beginning of hope.
To the Jew the world seemed hopeless. Jesus was the beginning of
their hope for a future. Our message of hope needs to be in our own
lives first. We need to encourage one another with the message that
Jesus is coming soon, so don’t get depressed. Don’t lose hope. Our
message at Christmas is also one of change.
Next week is the new year. We will celebrate the time with renewed
confidence of a future. But we cannot see very far. We feel insecure
because we see only one month ahead or maybe only one day.
Scripture tells us to give our life to Jesus. That means all the time in
the future and the past. It is when we do this that we can have hope.
For some the message of Christmas is about life. We celebrate the

birth of a child as a blessing of life, a new life which needs nurturing.
This is where we, the Christians can be involved. As Christians we
are called and encouraged to nurture the younger and newer
Christians.
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Nurturing is what God does with us so we can become more mature.

Birth is just the beginning. The hard work is the nurturing and
discipline of our children. But our goal is to be more like Jesus.
Jesus lived His life under the guidance of His father God. His parents
did their best. They followed the command to go to Egypt. They took
care of him as their son. But they didn’t see the truth of Christmas.
Christmas today is what Mary and Joseph saw so many years ago.
They were poor. They had their struggles because of the demands of
the day and the choices they were forced to make. They saw Jesus as
just a human son. Many Christians do the same. We celebrate with
programs and stories, with dramas and choirs. We buy gifts for each
other and get caught up in the celebration. This is what the shepherds
did. They got caught up in the idea of freedom from the Romans.
Today many will accept Jesus because He has promised us hope for
toady and the future. He has promised to release us from the burden
of our sin. He has promised to be our Saviour.
Christmas is the time of year when we can look at our relationship

with Christ and ask where is it going.
 Is this our Christmas?

 Is this what we tell our neighbours or friends?
 Is our life built around friends and culture and Santa, or is it
ruled by Christ?
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Devotion 37
Build an alter
Judges 6:12 -24
Today we have wars in the news every day. In the verses today God
called his people to war. We don’t like war because there is the pain
of losing our loved ones.
Today we celebrate a new year on the Julian calendar. It is a time

when we ask ourselves what we will do in the next. What things will
change?
The people of Israel were faced with a decision as well. They had
done many things wrong and God had taken away His power and
blessing from them. They needed a leader and a challenger to the
army that surrounded and controlled them.
God chose Gideon as the man to do the job. Now we know that he
was a poor man from the tribe with the fewest people. He was not the
people’s first choice but he was God’s first choice.
God’s first choice is what we want to be. It should be the first goal
for our life this year. Gideon had many excuses why he couldn’t do
what God wanted him to do. But god didn’t change His mind.
Instead He challenged Gideon to go because God has sent him.
Gideon’s reaction to this challenge was two things. The first was to
prepare an offering. Today we don’t make offerings to God. In Korea
the bowing deeply at New Years (Solal) is often done, but not God.
To Israel an offering was demanded by the Law for sins done. It was
the only way to have salvation and God’s blessing. It was a form of
reverence for Gideon to prepare an offering. Gideon made it for the
angel. Now we don’t think we see angels today. But Gideon didn’t
understand it was an angel at first. Only when Gideon saw the fire did
he believe.
In this New Year we need to listen to God. God in this story looked
like a person. But His spoke the words that only God could speak. He
said that Gideon would win the battle as one man.
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Gideon needed a sign but he had to obey to get the sign. This year we
need to focus on what is God saying to us through other people. We
need to listen to what God asks us to do. Listening is the hard part.
Our minds are full of other things around us. Then we focus on
ourselves. We need to make more effort to focus on Him and His
directions.
The last thing that Gideon did was to make an alter. We do not make
alters today. We often consider them to be from idolatry. But altars
are made as a symbol to remember an event for the future. Altars for
Israel were about places to come back to. They were symbols of what
God had done for the person or the nation.
There were altars which were used in sacrifice like the one Abraham
used. But each time they built an altar at a special place they had a
special name for God. They couldn’t say the name for God but they
could describe God. They increased their view of God by building an
altar in His name and using a description.
I have chosen a few of the many names for God that are found in the
Bible. Let’s try to memorize a few for the New Year. Use them and
add to them this year as you remember the times when you find God
has blessed you. Make an altar to remember God by with a special
name that describes God. By describing God we get to know and
understand God more.
Let’s try them
 ab-ee-ale' father (that is possessor) of God; Abiel,

 ab-ee-hoo' (that is worshipper) of Him (that is God);
 aw-beer' mighty (spoken of God): - mighty (one).
 ad-beh-ale' (in the sense of chastisement); disciplined
of God;
 ad-o-noy' the Lord (used as a proper name of God only):
- (my) Lord.
 oo-ale' wish of God; Uel, an Israelite: - Uel.
 oo-ree-ale' flame of God; Uriel,
 eeth-ee-ale' God has arrived;
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Devotion 38
Find grace in God’s eyes
Genesis 6: 5 - 22
This is an old story. We teach our children about it all the time. But
we find the same situation today. Noah was a godly man in a world
driven by greed. He was the only man that seemed to be following
God’s path.
Today there are a few more people who are like Noah but they are
getting fewer and fewer. The path the world is taking is the same as it
was then. God’s attitude is the same as well. The difference is that
God has promised not to send a flood to cover the earth again.
If we are to read Revelation we find the seven churches. Churches
which had some serious problems and not many of them had found
grace in the sight of God. From Genesis to Revelation God has been
waiting for his creation to turn themselves around to come again to
respect and love the Creator Living God.
Paul writes about the culture of the Rome and how it was going to
fall. He shows us step by step how the culture went down step by step
until it destroyed itself. We find in these verses today that the world
was evil in God’s eyes. We find that God, as patient as He is, did not
wait forever. There is a point where patience is gone. It is hard to
think of God this way. We often ignore it. We like to think of God as
loving and kind.
In reality He is a patient person, but His patience is not forever. The

only thing that saved Noah and his family was Noah’s commitment
to God. I often here Christian teachers talk about their goals. Most of
them are about money. Few of the goals are about spiritual things.
We want so much to find God’s will for our church and our life.
Imagine God asked you to build a boat like He did Noah. Would you
be brave enough to build it?
Finding grace in the eyes of the Lord does not mean a perfect life. It
does, however, focus on who we listen to. Noah was a man who
didn’t have the bible. He didn’t have a pastor. But he did know that
there was a Person who controlled all things. While his neighbours
were gaining in popularity and doing things which were against God,
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he was giving worship to his God. Noah was laughed at. Noah was
I’m sure thinking that what he was doing was very strange.
To find grace in God’s eyes we must learn to listen to God only. This
is the hardest. I have many people who want to know the will of God.
If I ask them what God is telling them they don’t know! I know a
professor who asked me if God ever talked to me. He means like a
real voice.
I have heard God’s voice. But I also used to search like others. I
asked the church. I asked my parents. I asked many pastors and
counsellors. In the end it is only God that had the answer. Finding
grace is what gave Noah the hope and confidence to continue. Noah
knew that what God said was true. He had confidence and planned
for the future. In today’s world we have pension plans and
government programs. But what kind of program will keep you from
what God will do to the earth in the end?
In the book of Revelation God will again destroy the people of the
earth. There is no pension plan or program that will help you. Those
who have not found grace in the eyes of God will be punished like
those in Noah’s day.
There is only one way to find grace in God’s eyes. That is to accept
His gift of Jesus Christ. That is number one. The second is to learn to
listen to Him first and only. That is the hard part. We value
friendships and family. We value our job and position. But do we
value what God wants us to do more?
To find grace in the eyes of God we must make choices which are not
always popular. We must have confidence that God is strong enough
to keep His promise till the end. We must remind ourselves that God
will not wait forever until He comes again to reign.
 Be strong in the Lord.

 He alone is able to protect us.
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Devotion 39
View God as a God of joy
Psalm 32: 1 – 11
Joy and laughter are not always the same, but we often think that is.
Laughing is healthy for you. I remember when I saw an older lady
with many wrinkles. I was just a young boy then. I asked the question
why she had so many wrinkles. My mother told me that they were
happy wrinkles, because she was smiling all the time.
Now we don’t like wrinkles usually as ladies. There are so many

wrinkle creams on the market. We want to be young forever, but why
not allow ourselves to have a few wrinkles. Joy is something that I
grew up without a lot. Laughing at silly things we were asked to be
quiet. We had many rules there was no laughter. But this view of
what Christianity is can also be the view of how we see God.
Imagine the people of Israel living everyday with the idea that if they
sinned their nation would suffer. This may not be what you
experience, but it was true for Old Testament people.
Today I want to define the two words I have give you above, laughter
and joy. If someone laughs you think they are full of happiness and
joy. But that is not really true. Many people laugh to hide their
embarrassment or hurt feelings.
If we look at what we have been talking about the past few weeks,
joy is very different than laughter. Laughter is often for a moment.
We laugh at a joke. We can take laughing classes. But we do not
experience joy. That is because joy is different.
We have talked about peace, power, and confidence as keys to

changing our world. Joy should be included in this group. Joy is a
deeper satisfaction that you hear around is different than the laughter
you. This idea of being different is the same with peace, power, and
confidence. They are different than our world around us. They are
different because they are based on a relationship with God. They are
based on the idea that if the world around us falls apart we can have
joy because we have God in charge of our life.
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David experienced a lot of hardship because of Saul’s refusal to let

go of the throne. David experienced hardship because of his sin as the
king. But he also knew about the joy that comes when we stay
focused on God.
Joy is a Christian word. As we develop our relationship with God we

need see him different than the hard man we often find ourselves
thinking about. Now we need rules and we need to have boundaries,
but we need to evaluate them with our view of God.
We used to sing the song based on Paul writings in Philippians,

“Rejoice in the Lord for this is the will of God.” It is a command. It
is a side of God that we often miss. The joy of the Lord is different
than the happiness and laughter we normally have.
James writes that we need to be careful of our boasting James 4:16

But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.
The focus of our boasting needs to be God not ourselves. As we have
mentioned many times the difference in our desire for power, peace,
and confidence is that we do not get it from what we do. We also do
not get joy from our actions. It is actually a deep happiness that
comes from our security in God’s ability.
How we see God is very important. If we have joy because of what

we have or have done we have happiness. If we have power because
of our money or position we boast in our ability not God’s, and that
can be gone tomorrow.
To have joy when people around us struggle can be very attractive.

By seeing God as having joy in our success as people, as having the
ability to laugh and enjoy life, our lives will change. It doesn’t mean
that God ignores the Ten Commandments or makes salvation
different. It means that as a Father He enjoys seeing His children with
a deeper sense of satisfaction which changes our attitudes toward
those people or situations which cause us stress.
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Devotion 40
Shine brighter
Matthew 5: 13 – 26
What is the difference between Christians and other people? I do not

mean church people. I mean Christians. In today’s world Christians
are increasingly criticized for their self service. They are as greedy as
all other people.
Many people say we are all just sinners, which is true. But we are
sinners saved by the grace of God. We have a relationship with God
that is different than others.
If you remember when the New Year opened I said we needed to

know the names of God better. We focus a lot on Jesus which is good
and right. But it is God the Father that Jesus makes reference to here.
Getting to know God for who He is and what He wants us to do will
help us live our lives so we can change the world around us. We get
confused often because we see God as a distant person and Jesus as
the closer one. But in reality it is God the Father who is in control of
everything.
This idea is that what we do we can do for ourselves and give God
some percentage of what we gain. This makes God the same as the
gods of the world. God does not want appeasements. He does not
need you or me or our money. His desire is a relationship with His
creation.
God is the same in the Old Testament as He is in the New Testament.

God never changes. Our culture changes. Our circumstances change.
Our relationships change. But God NEVER changes. In the Old
Testament He demanded 100% of his people serve Him 100% of the
time. In return He promised victory from the Kings that surrounded
them. He promised them a land that was to be the leader in their
world. All of it leading to glory to God in the highest.
Glory to God is what every action we should have as its goal. It is

central to the chapter we were reading from today. A foreign teacher
tells me often, “I used a game from your book” , or “ I used an idea
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from your book”. She is promoting me to the students by using the

book. She is encouraging me to continue my work.
The same works for Christians. Many want to know the will of God
in their life. They want to know the direction of their life and pray
hard. They go to church and ask many questions. Often they see their
desires as not good. The frustration that we feel when ewe can’t
answer these questions drives us crazy. The answer is found here.
Everything we do should be focused on bringing glory to God. My
parents always told me, sometimes angrily, that this is how I should
do things.
The idea is good but then I questioned the idea of keeping their image
right not God’s. We think that God needs our image to be good so
His can be. This is not correct thinking. We need God to keep us
balanced because He is always balanced. He is never out of control
and when we confuse this we get unbalanced and self centered.
This chapter is often called the Be- attitudes chapter. In this chapter
Jesus is teaching His disciples the attitudes they should have, if they
were to follow Him. The attitudes ran opposite to the culture of the
day. The focus was on others not themselves. The center of which
was not in serving others to please God. Rather it was serving others
so that THEY could praise God.
Many Christians serve God. They give money and time. They go to
far countries to establish a church or school. These things are all great.
But then I hear in churches how many people come to our church.
How many churches we have started as if there is a competition? Not
often do you hear the focus on those giving glory to God. It is
mentioned, but first the praise goes to the mother Church. It is the
one danger that we have as Christians and it was hard for the
disciples in the New Testament as well.
To serve God and God alone is hard. We want recognition that we are
great. We want to know our work has value. If we serve God the way
we read here in the Gospel of Matthew we will find that we will have
a peace that does not drive us to burnout. We will have confidence
when we think we have nothing. And we will have power to give
balance to those around whose life is out of balance.
In this New Year let us make this as a goal. To see the praise of God
coming from those to whom we have done a service to God.
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Devotion 41
Stay focused
Psalms 37: 1- 24
David was a person called of God to be the king. The problem was
that King Saul didn’t want to quit being King. It seemed that the
people who didn’t love God were doing better than those who did.
God didn’t see it as a problem, but others did. The longer the problem
lasted, the anger Saul got, and David had to be more patient.
We find several ideas in this Psalm about how we should live to

change our culture. But they are not found only here. As I have said
many times before, theology needs to be the same throughout the
whole Bible. That is because God never changes.
The first is to stay focused on God’s plan not ours. This does not
mean that we need be poor and say we enjoy it when we don’t. It
doesn’t mean that when others have success we should stuff our
jealousy. That is not real and not Godly.
What this means is that we should not follow others because they
have success as much as us. We must remain focused on the fact that
God is in control at all times and we need to work with God’s plan.
We often do not see the future because our eyes see too short. We
find many references to looking at our plan day by day and let God
look down the road.
But this Psalm says a lot more. In verses 3 and following we find
some key words. The first is a series of three ideas. “Have faith”,
“Rest in the land”, “Go after righteousness”. These three need to be
done together. Most of us have some faith. That is easy. As long as
we can see our security we have faith. It’s when we find others doing
better and our world becoming shaky that we find faith hard.
The second is a little harder. Rest in the land is not easy. Imagine the
Israelites being surrounded by nations which wanted to kill them. It
was hard to rest. Imagine David having King Saul trying to find him
so he could kill him. Again rest was hard. To have rest means that we
need to get rid of stress.
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How can we get rid of our stress? It is with faith and trust. Both need
to be focused on God. How do we stay focused? We need to be
actively pursuing righteousness. I say active because when we are to
actively pursuing that we become focused on other things.
The next principle is to delight in the Lord. There is a promise in this

one. The promise is that He, that is God, will give you the desires of
your heart. What a promise to carry this year with us! Imagine, if we
focus on the goodness of God how He will fulfill our desires. But if
we focus on the goodness of God our desires will change.
We said last week that we need to serve others so they can give praise
to God. This is how our desires will change. The change from getting
praises from men to getting praise from God. Finally we find that we
have a hope for the future that others do not have. Many people have
hope but few are secure in their hope. That is why we focus on
ourselves. We are not secure in how big God is. The Psalmist says
that verse 17 -- the Lord is the support of the good. 18 The days of
the upright are numbered by the Lord, and their heritage will be
forever.
The Lord is on our side. He is our protector, like He was for David.
He is our hope because He has called us. He is the guarantor of our
hope of eternal life. To live in our lives to change our culture we need
to stay focused on God’s plan not ours. We need to seek His praise
not others. We need to delight in the Lord and His ability to keep His
promises.
 What takes our focus away from God?
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Devotion 42
Serving others worshipping God
Romans 12:1-21
We used to sing Jesus and Others and you what a wonderful way to
spell Joy. This is so very true if we think that serving others is a part
of our worship.
Often we confuse the issues with serving others. Serving others is a

great idea, but often it is at the expense of who we are. This is an
unbalanced view of what Christian service is.
Paul is very clear in what he wants to tell us about our serving of

others. It is because we want to worship God that we consider our
bodies a living sacrifice. My parents and many mission organizations
have confused this idea. They have sacrificed their lives, given
themselves as sacrifices but not always for the right reasons.
We mentioned in a sermon before that we should praise others so

they can give praise to God not us. This is a key to changing our
world. This is a key to understanding our relationship with God. This
makes us different than the other religions in the world.
As we near the end of this series we want to focus on this idea.

Serving others so they can give praises to God.
Paul writes so much in this chapter we cannot use it all. The idea is
that we all are different so we need each other. This means that we
should not desire what others have but focus on using what we have.
This is hard in our Korean culture. It is hard in American culture. It is
hard because we want and need to be praised by others. We need
people to come to our church. We need to know that we are doing a
good job, so we seek the praise of men not God.
Selflessness is a great idea, but it is not what Paul is saying here. A

concept that Paul wants us to understand, and is found in the whole of
scripture is the idea that Israel and the Church are an image of God to
the world.
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This means that when we work together in harmony we demonstrate

the power of God to the world. We are so limited in ourselves when
God is unlimited. But when we are together in harmony we show a
God to the world that has many sides.
I said we should practice the names of God more this year. This is
because we will begin to see God as larger and more precisely than
we do today.
What Paul is writing here is the principle of Christian balance

through service. The key is balance. God is always in balance.
Harmony implies balance. When we are not in harmony we are out of
balance.
Billy Graham was often criticized for meeting the Pope and other
religious leaders, but he was never criticized for wanting to be the
leader. He had a message from God and he preached it. He did not
desire to be more or do more than what he was gifted to do.
We don’t need to give up who we are to serve others. We don’t need

to follow anybody but God, but in serving others and have their
praise go to God we change our world.
The key is that the praise goes to God not ourselves. God loves praise.
From Genesis to Revelation we find that God does not want to
compete for our attention. The problem is that we do not see our
relationship with God this way.
What does this mean for us? We need to focus on how we see
worship. It is more than coming to church, praying, or reading
scripture. The purpose of worship is to give praise to God. If we see
our service as worship then God alone will get the praise.
In the end God will give us reward. He has promised and He will
deliver.
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Devotion 43
Be generous with your lives
Matthew 5: 13-26
When we hear the words generous we often think of time and money.
Mostly money! Generosity is something that we all can do and most
of us do. We give money at times when our culture sees it as
appropriate. We give time often when we get praise for it. As we near
the end of this series we are focusing on the idea that we worship
God through others.
This idea is throughout scripture but not only in the church. Many
religions demand that we serve others so that we can have hope of
eternal life.
Salt and light are two basics. I told a friend that a star, which has light,
also has gravity. Gravity means that it attracts things. In scripture it is
also a symbol of uncovering bad things. This is especially true to the
Christians. It is a sign of God working in you. But the change is never
easy. This is why becoming a Christian can be both energizing and
painful. We want to feel secure in our future so we become Christians.
Then when God shines His light in our lives we find out how messy
they really are. We find our lives are not as clean as we wanted other
people to think. We want to keep our image. Then we stumble and
people see the real YOU.
In the scripture today we find the theme of what we do should help

people praise God. Not your god or your church but the TRUE and
LIVING God. The purpose throughout scripture is for God’s creation
to bring praises to Him.
If we are to be salt and light we need to be able to give flavour and

light to those on the path we are on. This means that we don’t need to
all rush out to another country to be missionaries. Rather we all need
to add influence to a crazy world. By adding flavour we bring the
emotions of those who need balance into balance. We open ourselves
up so that people can see the real us.
The real me! That is the hard part. When I went to Canada after high
school, people said,”Speak your mind!”. I did exactly that but they
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really didn’t want to hear what was inside of me. So I had to learn to
communicate differently. I had to learn to be salt to my community
and my church. I had to learn to add flavour not just hot spice form
the anger I had.
Many teens and adults think that church and Christianity are boring.
That may be true but it doesn’t have to be true. So Christianity has
gone and copied the world. This has created a weak Christianity. We
copy the world when we should show the world a different way.A
new way! This is why we should be salt and light. Salt is not the
flavour of the month but a value. Did you know that salt was
considered many years ago as money?
It has been used as having more than flavour. We forget about that
part of the culture. Salt was more than a flavour it was a vital part of
life. Salt is used to preserve things for later. It is a part of almost
everything we eat. Imagine kimchi without salt. By adding salt to our
culture we take the boring church and add value to it. Christianity has
value. It gains value as the relationship with Jesus Christ grows.
Light is the second part here. Light shows the cracks and the
problems that we have. It shows our weaknesses up we become open
to criticism. Nobody likes criticism. But as we face ourselves and our
weaknesses we allow God to give us strength.
Light penetrates the deepest darkness. With many people feeling

depressed around us we can offer some light into their world. Our
light never has low batteries. Our light never loses power. Our light
just gets brighter. This does not mean that we can see the future. It
means that we are able to see the problems and offer solutions.
That means that as salt and light we need to be in the culture we live
in. We need to add value to the community in which we live. We
need to also shine a light on the cracks that take away the hope and
power of the people who live around us.
 Are you being salt and light in your neighbourhood?
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Devotion 44
Let the mask slip
Luke 12:1-21
Masks are always fun to wear. They hide who we are from other
people. They are also used to scare people on Halloween or
traditional spiritual rituals and dances.
In today’s world we find that we too like to use masks. We

smile when we are hurting. We withdraw when we lose control
of our emotions. We are just normal people. If we read Genesis
we find Adam and Eve also tried to hide, but they tried to hide
from God.
In today’s world I find people using a lot of energy trying to

keep the mask up. In English sometimes call it keeping up with
the Jones’s, or in Asian culture it is called “saving face”. It is
this mask that we want to focus on today.
If we are to change our culture we can’t be the same as them.

We need to be different. We need to show them what God can
do when we let Him. This means that they need to see inside
the true me.
Last week we found what Matthew meant when he said we are

salt and light. Today Luke writes that there is nothing that will
not be found out. Jesus is teaching people here. They wanted to
hear what He had to say. Luke writes the discourse. Jesus knew
that the people want Him to be their king. He knew that they
all had secrets. They feared the leaders of their synagogues.
They were all hiding their true face. Jesus focuses on the truth
of our life in this chapter of Luke. If we are to change our
culture we must rest our values to those things which have
value.
Imagine for a moment that all the desires you had last week
were in the newspaper; Your name, and your secrets out so that
all could see.
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 What would you think?

 Would you be scared?
 Would you be embarrassed?
I think I would be. I think all of us would be, but the truth is
that we cannot hide from God. Jesus says that we need to fear
the person who can send us to hell. That is the only fear we
need to have in our lives. Now we do not need to fear hell if we
have an active relationship with God through His Holy Spirit. It
is this security that only Christians have but often ignore.
The problem is that we think that now we are Christians so we

do not have to worry. We can live how we like because our life
is now secure. We give to the Church and attend Church. But is
it enough? Do we feel secure and peaceful when we lose our job
or someone close dies young?
The second idea that we find here is the idea that we do not
need to prepare and be scared when we have to face hardship.
Jesus says here that we will be given words to say when we
need it. I have often found this to be true. It is also why I think
we need to consider prayer as the breath of the Christian, not
only a few short minutes in the morning, or at meal time. It is
our breath of life which is given from God. To do this we need
an active relationship with God. This is most important. We
cannot feel free to take off our mask if we are scared of people.
We cannot take off our mask if we are insecure in our
The third idea here is found in verse 21 So that is what comes

to the man who gets wealth for himself, and has not wealth in
the eyes of God. To take off our mask we need to reset our
values to those of God’s. Our desires need to be His. When we
are out of balance in our desires we try to keep our secrets
hidden. We hide our desires from others to save face.
 So what are you hiding today?

 What secrets keep you from taking your mask off?
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Fear the one who can send you to Hell. No one else’s opinion
matters. To change our culture we need to take off our mask
and let people see what and how God can change in their lives
so they can experience the same power that we have through
God’s cleansing power and light.
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Devotion 45
Show proper respect to everyone.
1 Peter 2:9-25
Respecting others as people is so hard. Respecting another person

who worships different is harder. Many people ask me about different
religions. Some people ask me if they will go to heaven. These are
good questions.
It is easy to be critical of other religions. But we need to be different.

Peter was very aware of this struggle. Peter opens these verses
with, ..you are a special people.” We are different. We are a holy
people, committed wholly to the true and living God. Our job is to
take the virtues of God, the character of God, to the world. This
means that we need to know God. We need to know His character.
We do this by having an active relationship with Him.
Peter is a great book to read about how we should live to change our
culture. What we need to understand and focus on. Peter was called
to be among the Jews and they criticized the Gentiles a lot. This is
what Peter is writing about, the issues that Jewish Christians had with
non-Jews.
Peter calls them to obey the Laws and let God take care of the
problems. Give respect to those who are over you because of who
they are. I think this is one of the hardest things to do. At the same
time we should not use our position as a cover for doing wrong.
Peter knew that people, who had better positions such as leaders, are
tempted to abuse their power. This is a big problem with many
leaders. We listen to the news and find that politicians and cultural
heroes have failed. We read or hear of different Church leaders who
have fallen. As Christians it is not about what we say but how we live
that is important. It is about the character of God that we need to
discover, so that others can also discover Him and give Him praise.
We have said many times the last few weeks that our goal is not to
get praises from men but that men give praises to God because of us.
Our response to our circumstance, whether it is good or bad will
show the world what our God is like. The problem is that many
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people who go to Church do not know god’s character. We prefer to

focus on others theologies and sins. We get out of balance.
Peter gives us the example of Christ. The perfect man who responded
as we should to those who criticize us for our stand to do what is
right. In these verses Peter helps us to see that we should not be what
others are. We need to respond differently. But to respond differently
than others we need to know the character of God. To change our
character we need to know and experience God’s character. We need
to focus on helping our culture and our world give praise to God not
us.
We do not need to agree with other’s beliefs but we do need to

respect them. The challenge here is for us to show the world who the
real God is! Peter challenged those in his church as it was changing.
Peter challenges us as our culture changes.
Peter says here, “...you were … and now you are ….”, repeated here
in verses 9 and 10, equal the challenge that the Apostle Paul gives his
followers. God doesn’t want to be equal to others. God wants to be
above others. He has called us not be equal in our culture but above
our culture.
This is so hard for us to do. We need to respect others beliefs because

that is what Jesus did as a reflection of His Father. We want to be
above our culture and react differently but do the same as the others.
The key is not only being a Christian but having an active minute by
minute second by second relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
We can be above the world. Let us pray for it to happen.
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Devotion 46
Know more about God
Isaiah 40:18-31
Someone asked me this question. Do people from centuries before go

to heaven? I replied that I cannot know who goes to heaven. That is
God’s job. But we can see God around us. It is hard to worship a God
you cannot hold in your hands or see in a physical form. Isaiah asks
this at the start of these verses.
Why do we need to see an object for our worship when God can be
seen all around us? There is no image that we can make that can
equal God. What Isaiah does here is to try and help the people see
God through what they know.
Verse 21 is a great verse for this challenge. Let’s read it again

together! 21 Have you no knowledge of it? Has it not come to
your ears? Has not news of it been given to you from the first?
Has it not been clear to you from the time when the earth was
placed on its base?
Can you answer these questions? Remember Isaiah wrote these a few
hundred years ago. For some Christians the answers would be, How
silly!”. For others the answers would be harder to give. They have
heard of salvation and accepted the gift of it. But they could not
answer these simple questions.
This is why many Christians are not strong. Their mind is not clear
about the things of God. They know lots about God but they do not
have a relationship with Him. As we come to the end of our series we
want to answer some of the questions.
People don’t always ask them but they think about them. When they
ask do we have an answer for them. An answer that is real. An
answer that they can grasp and hold on to. My grandfather used to
preach in the bar. It was not here most people go, but in his mind it
was where people who needed God went to. People with questions
about why their life and relationships weren’t working.
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Imagine the picture that Isaiah gives here. A picture of a God who is
sitting above the earth, seeing and controlling everything. It is
different than what we view of God. Many people see God as far
away because we have the Holy Spirit down here.
What Isaiah says here is so important to the answers we should give

to the questions I first asked. Isaiah was speaking to a country which
felt insecure. They had lost their focus and needed reassurance and
refocus. They saw the nations around them as stronger than them and
their hope of survival was not strong.
Isaiah is about the hope that god gives to Israel His chosen people.
Isaiah is a book to Christians not those outside the Church. That is
why I said before that Christians are not strong. There is too much in
between them and God. This stuff, as I call it, clouds the view of who
God is. It dulls the ears so that they can’t hear God. This is what
happened to Israel.
They had traditions and sacrifices. They had their spiritual books, but
they had not absorbed the teachings that they had heard and seen. Our
culture and our country are becoming like Israel today. We have
churches on almost every corner. We have books and bibles in our
houses. But still we are not strong. Have you not heard that the god
that we serve, are not match for the true God. The idols that we carve
with our philosophies and our theologies have no power.
Why do we think that, like Jacob or Israel, The Lord's eyes are not on
my way, and my God gives no attention to my cause? Isaiah replies
with -- The eternal God, the Lord, the Maker of the ends of the earth,
is never feeble or tired; there is no searching out of his wisdom. 29
He gives power to the feeble, increasing the strength of him who has
no force.
We are so much like Israel when life doesn’t go our way. We can’t
see God for who He is. My challenge to you today is to reconnect
with the true God. Not the church or the preacher. Not the
philosophies or theologies, but with God Himself.
By staying focused on God we will find that God never sleeps, our
God is always in control and when we are tired and life goes a
different direction than where we would like God will renew our
strength.
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That is God’s promise. That is the best answer to those who question,
“Where is God”. When we have a relationship with God we will have
the peace, power, and confidence we desire and those around us will
be attracted to God and praise God.
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Devotion 47
Help each other succeed
Ecclesiastes 4:1-16
Most preachers do not use this book. It is complicated book to

understand but full of wisdom. Each verse is powerful in its wisdom.
We will focus on one theme that we find here. Solomon saw the
wrongs and evil that was in his world. He also saw something that we
often do not talk about. As we focus on how we can change our world
we need to consider Solomon’s admonitions here.
Solomon saw that many evil people were content to live their lives
full of desire. A desire for themselves to get ahead in life. A desire to
be above others because of their insecurity of the future. The person
who lives for themselves only will not care about those around them.
Israel, God’s chosen people had fallen into this deception. People
became envious of their neighbour and their desire to go faster and
have more was their only motivation.
Our culture has become the same way. People are working faster to
make more money. Their desire is n the wind and they have no rest.
Their purpose in life is live for today because they have no hope for
the future.
In this chapter we find Solomon saying two is better than one. This is
not about a marriage proposal but a change of focus in our lives. It is
about helping others have success. If we can remember that our focus
is to have others give praise to God not us we can see this clearly.
Solomon saw that people were doing things to get recognized and
feel that they were successful. There were many people who were
alone in his kingdom. Two is better than one because they can share
the load. What a great idea.
But sharing takes risk. Sharing means we need to trust another. In my

experience, people are not good at keeping secrets or not judging.
Perhaps yours is different, but our world is changing so that trust is
becoming higher risk. The idea of team is strong in Korea, but team is
not the focus here.
If we take this idea to a whole Bible idea will find the New
Testament teaching is about each having a gift and together he gifts
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work to show God to the world. What Solomon saw was this
imbalance of desire in his people. Israel was God’s chosen nation. As
a nation they had distanced themselves from God.
Helping others succeed means not to be envious of their success. We

focus on our physical state not the spiritual state. When we do this we
become protective of our self and lose focus on our purpose. Our
purpose being to help people bring praises to the Almighty God, the
God that we serve.
Success in this life is great and we need praise and encouragement.

That is why the Apostle Paul writes that we should encourage each
other, and pray for one another. These are hard when we are focused
on our self. It is hard to be true to these commands if our desire is to
be better than our neighbour, have more money than our neighbour.
Solomon writes in the later verses that the one who is to be king will
not have delight from the generation after him. This means that in the
moment that we live people will respect us for who we are, but in the
end they will move on and we will be forgotten.
This is so true. The past ideals and respect are fast becoming
unfashionable. We need to find better business models, and open
relationships. We need to water down our belief system so we can
grow our circle.
This is not what Solomon is saying here. Nor is it what the Bible
speaks about. What Solomon is saying here is that we need to live for
eternity. When we focus on eternity we will find that God is closer.
The power that He alone promises is there. Those around us will be
more successful and bring glory to God.
This recipe for success in our lives is not about physical or financial
success. It is about being closer to God. It is about our eternal
rewards and having less stress today. It is about living life with a real
purpose. Let’s try this recipe in our lives this year.
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Devotion 48
Never stop being thirsty
Proverbs 1: 1~24
It is a simple idea that we never stop learning. I have had professors

who have told me that they already knew it all. Therefore I was silly
to ask them. This attitude is common amongst people in general. This
means that our neighbours and friends and we are the same. We are
no different. But we are supposed to be different. If we are to change
our culture we need to look at our attitudes.
If you read the Gospels you will find that Jesus often used the foolish
things to confuse the smart leaders. He challenged them with their
own arguments. God used a donkey to speak to His prophet who was
going the wrong way.
Attitude is a key factor to change. To change with a skewed or not so

good attitude will reflect on the success or failure of the change.
Attitude will also reflect on the peace, power, and confidence you
have to push forward towards the goals that God has set before you.
Solomon says in verse 6 here that, “the fear of God is the beginning
of knowledge”. We have set a goal to learn more names of God this
year. In my opinion most Christians do not have a fear of God. This
is because we see God as a God of love, which He is.
But we ignore or forget that God is a God of justice. Our God is a

God of power. Therefore we need to have a fear of His power.
Through Jesus we have our sins forgiven, and then we go and sin
some more. This is not what He said to the lady at the well. He told
her,” …your sins are forgiven, go and sin NO MORE”.
To continue learning we must discover the whole of God. As David

wrote in the Psalms; “Like the deer thirsts after water, so I will thirst
after you.” We need to have a thirst to learn more about God. For
many pastors and Christians the thirst is about power and money. To
thirst for God is near the bottom of the list. The people around us
thirst for God. They want to have the peace that passes understanding.
They want what God offers, which is sad to say, not what many
Christians have to offer.
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In verses 8 – 19 we find Solomon talking to those who are enticed by

the world. We could say teenagers here, but the truth is that we can
apply it to those who are not mature. By never topping being thirsty
for truth and the wisdom of God we will be able to say, “NO!” to
those who would take more than our money.
Have you ever made a mistake and felt that you couldn’t go back, or
get out of the situation? What looked like a good idea turns out to put
us in a compromise which will cost us. If you have never been there,
I have. This is common in our community, both Christian and non-
Christian.
If we thirst after God’s wisdom we will still make poor judgments. At

the same time we will learn about God in a much deeper way. We are
so scared of making mistakes. God expects mistakes and He is a BIG
GOD. He is able to be there and fix things. It is not that there is not a
consequence but we find that God moulds us into His image. This
image that He makes will impact those around us more powerfully
than all the education and learning we can find anywhere else.
A never ending thirst for the wisdom of God in very situation will
make us powerful in our community. It is when we are thirsty for
God that we do not look at the sins around us, but actually for God’s
solutions to them. We will not be condemning of them but bringing
them to God for forgiveness.
In many cases we hang on to our traditions and look down on others.

This is when Wisdom, who is referred to from verses 20 ~ 32, will
laugh. She will seem to be far from you because you will have
ignored her.
But all is not lost. Solomon closes this chapter in Proverbs with the
fact that, if we choose to listen again; if we choose to thirst after a
deeper experience with the living God, we will have the peace, power,
and confidence that our culture desires.
 What do you thirst after?
Don’t say God when it is isn’t. You can fool me but you can’t fool
God.
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Devotion 49
Christ living in me
Galatians 2: 9~21
Paul is the author of Galatians and he argues for the grace of God in
this book. We take pride in the fact that we have the Holy Spirit. We
boast that Christians have this part of God in us. But if we are to
change our culture we need this person to have an active part of our
life.
Galatians is about an argument of the Law, Old Testament, and the

New Testament rules for Christians. It is similar to what Peter had to
experience about the clean and unclean. We have this same argument
in our culture today.
We hold onto our traditions while criticizing others for theirs. People
question us about our faith and we have simple answers that are
based on our traditions. For Paul this wasn’t enough. The issue was
that Peter lived a double life. His commitment was to his image and
he used the Law to make excuses for not eating with the Gentiles.
Isn’t this what we do often?
I grew up in the Church. We prayed for everything. We read and

memorized the Bible. Then when I started to desire to be a pastor,
people told me how to, “keep the image”. I wore the right clothes,
went to the right school, said the right things, etc. But I was tired. I
was tired of holding an image when people ignored the truth.
As missionaries argued and fought between themselves and their

missions, it was obvious that what Paul is saying here was not being
done. There is a need for discipline. There is a need to hold a line for
truth. But when truth is replaced with our image we find our
effectiveness in changing our culture diminished. People can see only
the outside, but they see the whole.
In my short experience I have found that people outside the church

are often more accepting and less condemning that those inside. This
idea runs against what we have said before. If we are to be effective
in changing our world we need to be real. This means that we do not
seek to tear down others so we can have more power. We do not use
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our culture as an excuse to ignore others who do not fit the mould of
good church people.
Peter here used his culture as a crutch. He used it to restrict the

Gentiles who had come from eating with him. It is a bit silly for a
leader to do this but it demonstrates to us the need to crucify our
desires, so our lives can have the power of the risen Lord.
Paul does not open to door to a freedom which ignores boundaries

here. Paul says that he could not have the power of the living Christ if
he did not sacrifice his desires first. This is where the problem is in
our thinking. We accept Christ, which is good. Then we continue to
struggle with our desires that we had.
So the things we need to put on our cross are things that get in the
way of the power of God in our lives. Like Peter the freedom to serve
Gentiles equally kept him from being the powerful leader that God
wanted in him.
Paul doesn’t say what his were, but I think his passion and energy
needed to be kept under control. He wanted to do so much more yet
he had to work with people. He had health problems which hindered
his effectiveness and perhaps brought criticism. Does this sound like
your life?
Probably not! Our lives are safe and secure. We do not worry too
much about these things. Does this mean that we have nothing to on
the cross? Well, it is true there is nothing, so why is there no power in
your life? Why is there no peace, just stress? Paul had stress, but Paul
also had power and confidence in times of stress. This is because he
considered his life not worth living without it. Without the power of
Christ life has very little value.
As we get closer to the end of this series we need to consider this

closer. We need to ask questions about our own lives. We need to ask
why there is no power. The danger is that we run around looking for
things to put on the cross. We think there is more and more and get
stressed. This is not what we need to do.
What we need to do is to relax and let God control our lives. We need
to get to know God better through an active relationship versus a
passive relationship.
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 What things do you need to put on the cross so that Christ can
be more effective in changing your life?
 What things make the death and resurrection of Christ

powerless in your life?
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Devotions 50
Bring out the best in others
Colossians 4:1~10
Colossians is a great book for encouragement. Paul writes some

special things here close to the end. Today we do not have servants
usually. But we do have bosses. Bosses are like masters very often.
When someone says they are Christians as bosses I often cringe a bit.
That is because Christian bosses are often worse than other ones, or
maybe because I expect them to be different. I expect them to behave
with a different passion, so I get disappointed. I think if you read
scripture Christians should have a higher standard. It is what makes
us different.
What Paul says here I think is very important. In verse 2 Paul says
give yourselves to prayer at all times. I know it is common for people
in Korea to get up at 5 o’clock for prayer. That is great. Then they
often struggle through the day to perform in their job efficiently.
What Paul is saying here and in other books is that prayer is an

attitude that we need to keep. It is like an open connection to God. It
is an access port, so that we can make right decisions at any time.
We talked about this idea the past couple of weeks. As we come close
the end of our series these ideas come together. We talked about
focusing on others praise to God as a motive in our worship. We
looked at crucifying our ideals and desires on the cross. But, having
an attitude of prayer is the key to all of these.
If we are in an attitude of prayer we will not be easily swayed away.

When we have the open portal of prayer active we will be able to see
our culture through His eyes. If we are to change our culture we need
to see it as God sees it.
God is not a complicated person. He only desires that all people

worship Him. Christianity is often seen as a negative because we get
these ideas mixed up. We find that Christians who are Christians for
their security are not secure. Insecure people make terrible bosses.
Secure in Christ persons make great bosses.
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The second piece here is to pray for an opening to share the gospel.
When I was in school some preachers preached that if you didn’t save
100 people a year you were not doing God’s will. Scripture does not
say this. First we do not save people. God does! Second, if we have
an attitude of prayer we need to pray for a right time.
I used to try and make opportunities for this and most of the time they
failed. Now I let God bring them to me. Letting God choose the
people to speak to, while living life in a state of worship. This works
so much better. I need to talk to people who God has prepared to
listen. God has given me a gift and I need to work with it. God has
given me a calling and I need to practice it.
We are not called to save the world. We are called to bring the best
out of people. The best means to exercise the power of God to the
people that God has prepared for them. This is where we see God
work best. God knows everyone and He can function best when we
let Him do His job. Our job is to be ready through our constant open
portal in our mind and heart of prayer. We are to be the flowing of
the power of God to our culture.
The problem is that we are impatient and jump ahead of God. This is
where we find Paul’s third point. In verse 5 he says, “Be wise in your
behavior to those who are outside.” We need not forget that people
see God through us.
If we are to change our culture we need to show them the real God.
We need to show them more than just an alternative. We need to
show them the difference between religion and relationship with God.
That takes a constant connection so that God can empower us.
 Does God bring out the best in you, and you the best in those
around you?
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Devotion 51
Commit your way to God
Psalm 37:1~16
This may be what we all do. The question is do we do it when things

go wrong? Do we do it when it seems that others are doing better
than us? When other people have more, do more, or make more than
us?
David was in a place where he was chased by Saul. Saul wanted to

kill him, and the Lord encouraged him to not be envious of Saul and
his position. This is a great Psalm for those who can’t seem to get
ahead, but it is not always seen as encouragement.
If you are stressed and you have someone say, “In God’s time”. It can
be frustrating because it is really not an answer to the problems we
face. As we try to change our world we need to have better answers.
Our world is seeking the peace that David is encouraged to have here.
Imagine David having to live in the mountains knowing that God had
anointed him to be King already. It must have been frustrating. Still
he needed to rest in the Lord and let the Lord work things out.
Over the past weeks we have focused on the idea that we need to
know God better. This situation was a challenge to David’s view of
God. David had faith but as we read in the Psalms he struggled with
God’s will and timing.
In this Psalm we find some keys to working through our frustrations.

The first is to understand that God’s time and our time are not always
together. God’s time is often a mystery and we should not get
frustrated but renew our relationship with God and His power. In
response to this we need to stay focused on the work God has called
us to do. We need to remain focused on living our relationship with
God, not looking at the success of those around us.
The second is to delight in the Lord. I cannot express how much we

need to do this. It is so easy to focus on our situation. It is so easy to
focus on the direction God wants us to go, we become blind to God.
We become deaf to God’s voice.
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What does it mean to delight in the Lord? First it means that we need
to make Him Lord of our life. It means there is no better place for us
than to desire to be in His presence. When we have this attitude the
flow of power from the throne of God will show our culture that He
alone is able to answer their questions.
Second it means that we don’t have to be stressed when people

around us get stressed. In this psalm we find the word rest. But it is
not about personal rest, it is about national rest. A rest for the country.
Later it refers to personal rest. If we consider other scriptures we find
that when we rest we will have renewal.
The answer to the questions of our neighbours is to show them how

this works. It is easy to give an answer but not easy to live it. To live
it means we will be strong to hold those who are weak. To live it
means that we are not driven to riches or to things but to experience
God deeper.
This is so different than the people around us. They will not
understand us, but they will come to us because we demonstrate
through our living a different life which is attractive because if its
peace, power, and confidence. Our answers are not just empty
quotations of scripture but real life in real time.
It is easy to come to church. It is maybe easy to pray and read the

bible. But it is not easy to live out a life that is resting because we
live in the shadow of the almighty God. It is not easy to desire only
god when everybody around us desires to get ahead and get richer. It
is not easy to get criticism from people around us because our values
are different.
We are a special people, like David, like Israel, like the disciples. We
live a life which has real answers because we have a real God who
has all the answers. In this psalm we find that god sees time
differently than we do. We look at the moment and God sees forever.
We see the evil man being successful for a few years. God sees the
evil one as having a future in hell. We need to see our world
differently. We need to see what we do differently.
The verse most quoted here is verse 4, but we forget the first part and
quote the second. God wants to give us the desire of our hearts, but
first we need Him to be the desire of our life. If we desire and focus
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on God, He will give us the desire of our hearts because they will
give glory to Him. We cannot have one without the other.
 Do you give good answers to those who ask you questions

about God?
Or do you live your life as a living answer to all the questions, a

living testimony of who God is, and His power to change the stress
into peace.
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Devotion 52
Wait and listen
Psalm 40:2~17
Sometimes we feel like the psalmist felt in verse 17, “Though I am

poor and in need, the Lord has me in mind; you are my help
and my saviour; let there be no waiting, O my God.”
What do you have to offer that other religions don’t? Possibly

you have never asked that, but I have. I have felt like the
psalmist did in verse 17 as well. The testimony of verse 4 is also
a part of my testimony.
When I was 16 I was very depressed. The burden of living was

so heavy I had given up. There was really nothing to live for.
One Sunday morning I chose to stay in my room. I cried out to
God and He gave me life. God made me shine so bright people
would ask me what happened. My answer was simple, “God
saved me!” God took me from the deepest part of life and out a
rock under my feet. He gave me energy that I had never had
before.
The response that happened when the change came was praise
to God. It changed other people’s relationship with God. This is
the second part of verse 4. We do not need to preach to others.
We just need to experience the change that only God can bring.
Does this mean that I don’t struggle? I do. I struggled to do the
calling of God for my life. I struggled to use my gifts in the
church. I became disillusioned with Christianity because it
didn’t work.
There are many people around us who feel the same way. I hear
it all the time that the church has only one desire, and that is
money. I had to learn one thing. That is to wait and listen. It is
so hard to do when you are poor and the things which you are
called to do don’t work out.
The first response is to run away, but you can’t run away from
God. I had to learn to wait and listen. Listening is not always
easy to do. Listen to pastors and counsellors. I listened to
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family and friends. In the end I just got tired and depressed. It
was then that I started to learn to listen to God.
It wasn’t that the others did not have wisdom. It was not that
the others wanted me to be worse. But they couldn’t seem to
see what God saw. I felt like the psalmist in verse 12 - For
unnumbered evils are round about me; my sins have overtaken
me, so that I am bent down with their weight; they are more
than the hairs of my head, my strength is gone because of them.
In this psalm we have David challenging God out if his

frustration. His feelings are seen here as real as ours are. I used
to pray that God would take away my gift or change it because I
had no place to use it. Often times admitting your struggles in
the church can end up with deeper struggles. A few weeks ago
we talked about being real.
Christianity is about a real relationship with a real God. It is

about changing our lives into focus with God’s desires. Too
often we focus on Matthew where Jesus tells His disciples to go.
We then go without listening and without waiting.
Now there is a time when we need to do things instantly. We

live in a world where instant is the normal expectation. As we
close this series I want to encourage you to wait and listen.
God’s desire is for all of his creation to worship Him.
This means that we have to ask ourselves if our lives are in a

state of worship. Most of us will not be there yet, but we can
work in it. This is where waiting is important. We can change
our culture when god changes our lives people will react to it.
I used to run after relationships and try to heal the world. We
can’t do that. We are more attractive when we have the peace of
God, the power of God, and the confidence that comes when we
have those.
God can do everything! He is a big God, but He has chosen us

to show the world who He is and how powerful He is through
us to our world.
 How attractive are you to the world around you?
Page
116
Conclusion
Jesus changed people. He never changed the culture around

Him. When He was doing miracles He was their King, but
when He refused to rise to their expectations they rejected Him.
Jesus chose to rise to His Father’s expectations. There are

many preachers who prefer to rise to their people. They are
charismatic and people follow them.
Jesus chose to die for this commitment, where we prefer to

save our life and our image. Our perspectives in life, as
Christians, are different. We are not anti-culture but offer a
greater level of empowerment to the culture around us.
Christians offer a counter culture which, when realized, will

result in heaven on earth. This was Jesus goal and should be
ours. Not to bring the physical heaven to an imperfect culture,
but to bring a new people into a right relationship with His
Father, who would in turn energise and empower the culture
until the real heaven arrived.
The key to this empowerment is to worship the true King of

Kings. No one else will do.
Page
117

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~1~

Dr. Paul R. Friesen

Dr. Paul Friesen

Topic List -- in order of delivery

Devotion 1 Know Jesus

Devotion 41 Stay focused

Reading ~~ Psalm 2:1 -12

The first point in thinking about David, Jesus, and us Christians is

Jesus is coming soon. It has been written by so many and we almost

 Are you ready for Jesus today?

Changing our Lives to reflect God’s Freedom

Reading ~~ James 2:12-26

Last week we found that we needed to bear each other’s burdens

In the next verse James writes that we will be judged as we have

In verse 24 James writes -- You see that a man's righteousness is

God loves challenges. If we are to be righteous we do not need to

If we are to live like James suggests in this book we must set

Many people make choices of jobs because of the pay or benefits

Changing our lives to reflect God’s holiness

Reading ~~ 1 Peter 1: 3-16

Changing our lives to reflect God’s holiness (1 Peter 1:13-16). Our

I had a discussion with, a Korean friend the other day. We discussed

God never sees us as servants. God sees us as family members. This

When we consider what is valuable to us what do we think about?

How should we live as Christians? That is the question we want to

Reading ~~ Ephesians 1: 1-12

We discovered last week that Christ came to live in His disciples. We

Today I have chosen the topic of Jesus is everything because He is.

To understand this idea we will ask about what we need. To know if

 In your life today are you confident in Jesus living in you?

Reading ~~ Matthew 24: 3 -14

Have you ever had that problem?

Selfishness not Selflessness is becoming the norm in our culture.

The challenge is to stay true to the Word of God. We cannot just go

How is your faith today?

It is based on Jesus Christ or is it based on Jesus and culture?

Live your Faith

Reading ~~ Titus 2:6 – 15

How should we live now? If Jesus is coming soon this is a good

In today’s economy there are so many stores changing. The

Which Pastor is the best?

He first writes in these verses to be wise and serious. We need

Second he writes that we should be an example of good works; holy

The Church is usually the social worker in tough times. We need to

He continued living His Father’s will. As leaders we need to train our

 Where is your life like today?

Changing our Lives to reflect God’s Holiness

Reading ~~ Galatians 6:1-10

As we study some ways to live, we must understand it is not just

In chapter 6:1 Paul writes, “Brothers, if a man is taken in any

It is so easy to criticize other people. It is easy to blame our teachers

Second, ALL sin is equal in God’s eyes. We like to think of sins as

To show the Christ we have inside of us we need to react differently.

To live free we must commit to the Jesus in us. When we want to

When we help people change to be more like Christ we have less

 Am I changing to reflect Christ more?

If we are to live with Power, Peace, and Confidence as Christians the

Having Less Stress / Casting your Care on Jesus

Living as Christians in today’s world is not easy. We have the same

Remember the hardest thing we have to do as Christians? That is to

My parents always used to tell me that I needed to be careful of what

If we didn’t care we wouldn’t be good parents or teachers. If we

anything. It is a peace that gives us the confidence to move forward

Paul writes to the Church in Philippi from experience. He writes to