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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. When he reached
a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one
of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a
dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to
heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above
it stood the Lord, and He said:
“I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God
of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.
Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to
the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth
will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch
over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not
leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord
is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”
He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is
none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”
Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed
under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called
that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz. Then Jacob made a vow,
saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am
taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely
to my father’s household, then the Lord will be my God and this stone that I
have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that You give me I will
give you a tenth.” Genesis 28:10-22
After David was settled in his palace, he said to Nathan the
prophet, “Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of the covenant
of the Lord is under a tent.”
Nathan replied to David, “Whatever you have in mind, do it,
for God is with you.”
But that night the word of God came to Nathan, saying:
“Go and tell My servant David, ‘This is what the Lord says:
You are not the one to build Me a house to dwell in. I have not dwelt in a
house from the day I brought Israel up out of Egypt to this day. I have moved
from one tent site to another, from one dwelling place to another. Wherever I
have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their leaders whom
I commanded to shepherd my people, “Why have you not built Me a house of
cedar?”’
“Now then, tell My servant David,
‘This is what the Lord Almighty says: I took you from the pasture, from tending
the flock, and appointed you ruler over My people Israel. I have been with you
wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you.
Now I will make your name like the names of the greatest men on earth. And I
will provide a place for My people Israel and will plant them so that they can
have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not
oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning and have done ever since the
time I appointed leaders over My people Israel. I will also subdue all your
enemies.’”
“‘I declare to you that the Lord will build a house for you:
When your days are over and you go to be with your ancestors, I will raise up
your offspring to succeed you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his
kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for Me, and I will establish his
throne forever. I will be his father, and he will be My son. I will never take My
love away from him, as I took it away from your predecessor. I will set him
over My house and My kingdom forever; his throne will be established forever.’”
Nathan reported to David all the words of this entire
revelation. 1 Chronicles 17:1-15
Now the camp of Midian lay below him in the valley. During
that night the Lord said to Gideon, “Get up, go down against the camp, because I
am going to give it into your hands. If you are afraid to attack, go down to
the camp with your servant Purah and listen to what they are saying. Afterward,
you will be encouraged to attack the camp.”
So he and Purah his servant went down to the outposts of the
camp.
The Midianites, the Amalekites and all the other eastern
peoples had settled in the valley, thick as locusts. Their camels could no more
be counted than the sand on the seashore. Gideon arrived just as a man was
telling a friend his dream. “I had a dream,” he was saying. “A round loaf of
barley bread came tumbling into the Midianite camp. It struck the tent with
such force that the tent overturned and collapsed.”
His friend responded, “This can be nothing other than the
sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has given the Midianites and
the whole camp into his hands.”
When Gideon heard the dream and its interpretation, he bowed
down and worshiped. He returned to the camp of Israel and called out, “Get up!
The Lord has given the Midianite camp into your hands.” Judges 7:8-15
This ends today’s reading
from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
NOTE: Today marks a special milestone for The Christian Walk
ministry as you are about to read the 2,000th devotion. I pray it will bless
you in a special way and invite you to check out all the other messages the
Lord has placed on my heart through all these years of writing.
Dreams. They are the
mystery of the sleeping world. We can find ourselves dreaming at nearly anytime,
both asleep and awake and we can all definitely say we've had our share of
dreams, both good and bad. But where do
they come from?
This very question has
intrigued psychologists for years now. In fact, dream analysis has been turned
into a regular science in its own right with those studying dreams referred to
as psychotherapists.
One of the most famous
researchers in the quest for the origins of dreaming was Dr. Sigmund Freud. Freud's
work produced his theory that dreams were expressions of unfulfilled wishes or
desires arising from the unconscious mind. He believed that a dream's meaning
is often disguised since so many of a person's inner wishes are centered on
social taboos. Thus, dreams were found to hold much symbolic meaning when left
open for interpretation and, subsequently, more and more research. Freud's
findings were documented in a book titled "The Interpretation of
Dreams", published in 1900. And despite the extensive attention given to
dreams since Freud, the interesting fact is that while there have been many
findings on the physiology of dreaming, there is little really known as to
their content beyond mere speculation.
Still, dreaming has had
its effects on society. In fact, we've
incorporated the idea of dreaming into our everyday vocabulary in a variety of
plays on the word.
For example, has anyone
ever called you a dreamer?
We all have a tendency
to be so caught up in our future that we spend much time wishing for things to
come. Perhaps we wish for more money or
maybe higher success on the job possibly for better relationships with spouses,
family, or friends. In all these wishes, the common denominator is a hope that
things will be better than we currently have it because we can have a real
tendency to be dissatisfied with where we're at.
Ever wonder what God
thinks about that?
I, for one, find myself
feeling very guilty when I do this. For the Lord has blessed me with so much and
yet I still can find myself dreaming and yearning for more. I am definitely a
work-in-progress when it comes to just being satisfied with what God has
already done with a trust for the future that reinforces a belief that He will
always provide for those who are faithful to him in accordance with His will
and way.
We also have coined the
phrase, "The American Dream", described by Webster as an American
ideal of social equality and material success. Unfortunately, we too often
equate it with the latter more than the former and find ourselves driven by a
quest for materialism. Our quest might involve coveting a larger home to live
in, owning a nicer car, and making more income because more money means more luxuries.
Did you catch what is
missing as we pursue “The American Dream”?
There was no
consideration about what God wants for us. The object of our attention is on
ourselves.
Perhaps when we do put
God center stage, he would want us to focus more on the other aspect of “The
American Dream”: the quest for social equality. For when we turn to God for His
outlook on life, He would lead us to the matter of love, and in particular, the
matter of loving one another, regardless of status, sex, color, or national origin.
If we do this, loving one another as God does, then we can shape our world into
what God intended it to be when He created it, one where all are loved, valued,
and cared for equally.
Martin Luther King Jr.,
the man of God we honor and remember on this day, wrote and delivered a now famous
speech appropriately titled "I Had a Dream", a speech that contained a
vision we should all seek to adopt. In his speech, Dr. King shares the
following:
"Even though we
face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a
dream deeply rooted in the American Dream. I have a dream that one day this
nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, for we hold
these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal. I have a dream
that one day on the red hills of Jordan, the sons of slave and sons of slave
owners will be able to sit down together at the table of
brotherhood."
Written specifically to
address the nation's racial problems, Dr. King's call needs to be adopted by
all of God's people globally. Indifference and hatred must be replaced with
love and understanding; oppression replaced with freedom and democracy. His dream
simply must become a reality and the only way it can is if we let the Lord lead
us there.
Then there’s the occurrence
known as daydreaming.
While most of our
dreaming exists during a sleeping state, we all find ourselves falling into
trances from time to time while fully awake.
Ever find yourself
doing that?
Daydreams are known to
last only for a few minutes each and are defined as responses to periods when
full mental attention is not engaged. They have been found to consist of wishes
or fantasies dealing with everyday problems.
So what do you find
yourself daydreaming about?
Work? A loved one? A
vacation getaway in some exotic location? A problem you are trying to resolve?
The options are many
but let me ask you this:
Do you ever find God
speaking to you in times when your full mental attention is not engaged?
I know I do and as I
wrote several devotions ago, when those occurrences happen, I have to write
down what God is saying because if I don’t I might end up forgetting something
critical because when the Lord speaks, it is always important. In fact, a large
number of my devotional titles or themes come from times when the Lord simply
decides to speak to me and impart His wisdom and direction. In those times,
there isn’t a need to carve out time in my schedule to sit down and brainstorm subject
matter. Rather, God opts to speak to me in every day, mundane situations in
life when I might not be so thoroughly engaged mentally, away from the hustle
and bustle and relaxing. Frankly, I remain convinced that if it were not for
those times of rest and reflection, times when I can slow down and open my
heart and mind to the Lord, then I would find myself struggling to create devotions
that come so easily to me today. The bottom line is that God is always ready to
impart His guidance upon us. We just need to remain vigilant and open to receive
His instruction because as we see in our scripture passages, God does in fact
try to reach us through dreams.
For example, Jacob's
dream, found in our Old Testament reading from Genesis, reveals much about the
forgiving God we serve. For even after Jacob had deceived his father Isaac into
giving him the blessing rightfully reserved for his elder brother Esau, God had
a plan for him to make up for his shortcoming and carry out the covenant which
was first given to his ancestor Abraham.
As Jacob states,
"Surely the Lord is in this place and I was not aware of it". Jacob
never expected the Lord to move as He did and we in turn learn that even though
we might not be seeking God, He is certainly always seeking us and so we need
to remain vigilant, ever watching and waiting for Him, always open to receive His
guidance.
Friends, God truly does
work in mysterious ways and has a plan for each and every one of us. It's the
reason why He has allowed our existence up to this very hour, so that we could
fulfill His purposes.
In Jacob's case, God
spoke to him directly through a dream and showed him his future. Next, we’ll
look at David and how God can send messages to us through dreams He gives
others.
As we look at our
reading from 1 Chronicles, we find David, bothered by the fact that he had
better accommodations that God's own Ark of the Covenant, being calmed by the
prophet Nathan who God had spoken to in a dream, assuring him that David's
place in heaven was secure and that his offspring would establish a temple to
house the Ark. Today, we know this dream became a reality as Solomon, David's
son and inheritor of the throne, later would build the temple, fulfilling
Nathan's dream and God's promise. Through the message God gave Nathan, David learned
that a lot of Israel’s future would be defined by his children, a point we
should keep in mind even today. For as we are serving God and raising the
children He has blessed us with to be knowledgeable and obedient to His word
and way, we are preparing them for God’s future service and the purposes He has
set aside for them, purposes to use them to make the dream of bettering God's
kingdom here on earth a reality.
And finally we have
Gideon. Faced with trying to overthrow the great Midian army, Gideon began to
lose the one foundation necessary for him to overcome the odds he was up
against: his faith. He not only doubted the men he had to fight with but his
ability to lead them.
Enter the Lord into Gideon’s
situation who told the doubting leader to go into the Midianite camp with his
servant if he was afraid to carry out what God was telling him to do. And when
he did, what did he overhear? Lo and behold, it was a man who was sharing a
rather bizarre dream with his friend, one in which a loaf of barley bread
rolled into the Midianite camp and brought destruction. The friend quickly
interpreted the dream as pending doom for the Midianites who he was convinced
would be attacked and defeated by Gideon who would be given the victory by God.
After hearing this
conversation, Gideon had what he needed, the bold confidence to go forward and
do what God had asked him to do, knowing the Lord was about to bring him
victory and that’s exactly what happened as Gideon courageously won over the
Midianites with only 300 men, armed with trumpets and glass jars. Through the
story of Gideon, we see how God will deliver us through times of challenge,
even when they seem insurmountable, and bring us to victory over hardship that
we may have only dreamed about defeating.
So as we see in today’s
devotion, dreams do become reality. At one time, I only dreamed I could write
as long and often as I have. Two thousand devotions seemed like it was
improbable but here I am reaching this milestone with God’s help. He has led
and guided me through this ministry journey and I believe He still has a long
way for me to go before He calls me to live with Him forever.
With this, what is your
dream? What would you like for God to do for you in your life?
Perhaps the answer
might be grounded in the prayers you lift up and the hopes you have. For when
we focus on God then we focus not just on who He is but what He desires for our
lives. A relationship with Him leads us to do the things He wants us to do at
the time He wants us to do them.
Jacob would carry on
the covenant promise God gave to Abraham. That was his purpose.
David would not be the
one to build God’s temple but he would bear the son who would do it, a son who
would inherit his throne.
Gideon would defeat an
army against seemingly impossible odds and learn in the process that when God’s
wills for something to happen, it happens through whoever He chooses to do it.
God has a dream for
each of us, just as He did for these three Old Testament figures, and His
dreams always will become realities.
Seek Him today and
allow His dreams for you to become a reality in your life.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
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