Month: August 2016

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PWTE Daily Devotion

What’s In a Name?

Names Matter.

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

Junque Drawerfx2This sign is outside a business that used to sell items on consignment. It’s closed now, but it was once brimming with antiques, aging and ageless collections, jewelry and items made by hand. Some of the items were rare and valuable, some were just stuff. But the sign outside the business conveyed that this was no ordinary junk—these objects were special. Instead of calling this place the junk drawer, reminding us of where we put items that have no real use or home, they added a “que” to the end and all was magically transformed into something of great value. It’s all in the name!

Yet no matter what the name, it’s still just junk to many people. After all, someone is selling these things because they don’t want to give up valuable space to store them anymore.  Fortunately, it’s true that “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

“But now, O Jacob, listen to the Lord who created you. O Israel, the one who formed you says, ‘Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine.’”   Isaiah 43:1 New Living Translation

“And I will give you treasures hidden in the darkness—secret riches. I will do this so you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, the one who calls you by name.”
Isaiah 45:3 New Living Translation

Aren’t we blessed to be Christ’s treasure? We are so valuable to Him that He gave up His very life to create a place for us in heaven. He added the perfect ending to our name—child of God—and that makes our name the most special. He knows us by name because He chose us to be His children. It’s even written down in His special book that we will be His forever. So rejoice! No one belongs in a junk drawer, no matter how it’s spelled. Our value is unsurpassed in God’s eyes! No matter what we call ourselves, Christ names us His own!

Text and photo copyright by Desiree Bustamante

Categories
PWTE Daily Devotion

Life Under the Rainbow

Colorado Springs, Colorado

As people who follow Jesus, our lives are covered by the promises of God.

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.
“Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember my
everlasting promise to every living animal on earth.”
Genesis 9:16 God’s Word to the Nations
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Colorado Springs, Colorado

I had just pulled into the parking lot of our local grocery store, and as I looked for a parking spot I noticed people pulling out their cell phones and pointing them to the sky. It doesn’t take a person with a doctorate in human behavior to know that there was something significant in the eastern sky. As I turned my head to see what had caught my fellow shopper’s attention, I noticed the most brilliant double rainbow I have even seen.

I was on sensory overload. This rainbow arched high into the early evening sky. Every color was on rich display. The north end of the rainbow was only 100 yards from me at the east end of the parking lot. It was as if I could see the pot of gold.

Unfortunately I had shopping to do, so I picked up the items on my list believing that I would only see the remnant of the bow when I returned to my car, but it hadn’t disappeared. The rainbow lasted long enough for me to drive home, grab my camera (and dog) and walk to an open spot where I nailed this sight on my camera’s sensor.

This rainbow was so large I could only capture it in a panorama, and even then I couldn’t seize the entire spectacle.

Dorothy might sing of somewhere over the rainbow, but it is what was under this rainbow that caught my attention. There were homes, auto dealerships, an athletic club, stores and a hospital under this rainbow.

No matter where we are, we’re under the grace of God’s promises.

God has kept his promise to never destroy the world through a deluge again. His promises can be trusted, even his promise to never destroy us because of our sin. However, instead of a rainbow as sign of this promise, God gave us a cross on which his Son covered our sins.

Life is different when we live under the cross.

Copyright Douglas P. Brauner

Categories
PWTE Daily Devotion

All Rubbish

What is Truly Important in Your Life?
 You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

 

“…I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.  I consider them rubbish…” Philippians 3:8

My life sometimes feels full of rubbish.  Or at least that is the way I felt yesterday after I had picked up yet another bucket of pieces of wire, rusty metal, and other materials left on my property by the former owner.  Every time I dig, cultivate or move any soil on my land, I collect more unwanted artifacts that my uncle has left behind.

photo

Call it what you will; rubbish, trash, or garbage, there is plenty of it not only littering our land, but also littering our lives.  What seemed so important to have at one time in my life is now just excess baggage littering the landscape.  Saint Paul, in our text above, says this about all his hard earned accomplishments and awards he had gained, the praise of men and the pride of his life.  Paul says, “I consider them rubbish” in comparison “to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

What seems important in your life?  Do appearance and career and money and status and the like seem most important to you?  Does having your 10 minutes of fame and being someone important in your local sphere of influence rank high as what has value for you?  Honestly, are these things not just temporary baubles that will soon be nothing but discarded rubbish along the road of life?  What is it that is truly important in the scope of your life?  In the scope of eternity?

I am placing my energy, my time, my labor on “the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”  To know Him is to have all things.  To know His mercy and love, the greatness of His forgiveness and peace, is to have all things.  To know His wisdom and His power, His sorrow and His joy, this is what is truly important.  For what is of Christ will never fade away.

Praise God that my Lord does not cast me off as an unwanted piece of rubbish, but loved me so much that He gave His life for me.  How can anything in this world rival that all redeeming love?

Dear Lord Jesus, you are all the world to me.  I consider all things as rubbish compared to knowing You and Your surpassing greatness.  Forgive me for forgetting what is truly important in my life.  You are my all in all. Amen.

Picture and Text Copyright Steve Nickodemus