March 22 – Our King

Psalm 24:7-10⁷ Lift up your heads, O you gates;       be lifted up, you ancient doors,       that the King of glory may come in.⁸ Who is this King of glory?       The LORD strong and mighty,       the LORD mighty in battle.⁹ Lift up your heads, O you gates;       lift them up, you ancient doors,       that the King of glory may come in.¹⁰ Who is he, this King of glory?       The LORD Almighty—       he is the King of glory.       Selah

 

The pre-Christian Psalms 24: 7-10 gives a decisive description of the Christian faith and joy.   In faith it previsions the message of the life of Christ. The passage is dramatic and joyous.  God has arrived at the gates and will enter to dwell with His people.  “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in,” says the Psalmist in the rapturous language of a prophet of good news. He identifies the King of glory as “the Lord strong and mighty . . . the Lord of hosts.”

The living message of these words is repeated in the life of Christ through whom God is with us.  Giving new meaning to “lifted up,” Christ says in John 12:32: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” Christ is both the door and the King of glory who enters the door.  He says in Revelation 3:20: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come into him . . .”  The God of the Psalmist is shown through Christ to be the great beyond that is within.  The King of glory of the Psalms is furthermore revealed through Christ to be “the Lord of Lords, and King of Kings” (Rev. 17: 14). 

In this passage from Psalms 24, the dramatic, poetic language only partly conveys the joy.  The Os, no words at all, merely sounds of rapturous venting, give us a hint of the trumpeting joy of the Psalmist. O the joy that Christ indwells and fulfills!

Charles Workman

 

Prayer:

Our Father, I lift up the gates of my soul and open the door of my heart because it is You who knocks.  I want You to abide in the depth of my being.  I want to be the voice and the living image of Your word and spirit.  O, thank You! Thank You for the joy of Your living presence!

 

March 21 – Our King

Matt. 27:27-31

²⁷ Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. ²⁸ They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, ²⁹ and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. ³⁰ They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. ³¹ After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.

 

            Can you picture this scene in your head? I can see Jesus standing there stripped of his clothes as the soldiers place the crown of thorns on His head. Blood is dripping down His face as the thorns were driven into His skin. Then comes the ridiculing by the soldiers. They give him a staff and then kneel in front of Him.  The Scripture records them saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” I imagine them saying more than that. I hear them hurling insult after insult at him. I picture the soldiers having fun and laughing hysterically after each insult. I see them spitting all over him and striking him with the staff they gave him. It was humiliating. The soldiers that did this were horrific. They were insulting and spitting on the true King and they enjoyed it. These people were sick. What was wrong with them?

            I pose a different question, what is wrong with us?  Don’t we mock Jesus too? We do not do it as literally as the soldiers did because Jesus is not here on earth with us, but we do it. We talk about Jesus being our King and we go to Shiloh, or UCF, or our local church service and sing songs or hymns about how much we love Jesus and how wonderful He is, but do these songs really affect us or do we sing them just to sing them? Many times, as soon as we make that first step outside of the sanctuary or chapel we go back to the exact way we were and leave behind everything we just sang, heard, and experienced.  We say He is our King, but we don’t live like it. This parallels exactly to what the soldiers did. They said He was their King but they didn’t mean it at all. A lot of times, I think we do the same thing. So, next time we call Jesus our King, let’s really mean it and live like it.

Rich Harvard

           

Prayer:

You are our King. Help us to say that with reverence and not just say it, but also mean it. Let us not mock you, but let us mean everything we sing and say to You. Help us to focus on You throughout this Lenten season. Amen.

March 20 – Our King

Isaiah 53:3-6³ He was despised and rejected by men,       a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.       Like one from whom men hide their faces       he was despised, and we esteemed him not.⁴ Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows,       yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;       the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.⁶ We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way;       and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

 

            There is perhaps no more beautiful picture than that of the God who knit me together and sustains me, on His knees in tears of fear and pain.  Only three days later He would be resurrected to make His triumphant ascent into Heaven, body and soul reunited in perfection; but such a victory would only come to pass after He experienced the bitter sting of a violent and unforgiving separation from His Father.

            Such a separation may seem of no significance to us, but together with His Father, Jesus had ruled as King of Kings for eternity, and was suddenly sent down into our midst, to suffer at the unforgiving hands of men.  He came to be sacrificed as a lamb taken before the slaughter.  Now in only a matter of hours He would hang upon the cross.  As He hung, His innocent, royal blood would trickle down upon the souls of men and women of all nationalities; it would cleanse every soul, making our sinful hearts white as snow.

            What a paradox it seems, that the slaughtering of an innocent man by the hands of His beloved would have been ordained­­—indeed, contrived—by the very author of justice.  But this only seems a paradox.  The same author designed all of creation’s behavioral patterns and confines, yet at times He transcends such confines to show the miracle of His power.  In this same way He transcends all of justice to show the miracle of His love.

            Jesus sacrificed Himself as King of all creation, to be mocked, criticized and slain by the very men He had come to save.  Through this sacrifice I am fully justified, though undeserving, and made perfect in the sight of God.  May it be our prayer to always revere and worship Him for such abounding love.

Alex Poythress

 

Prayer:

Lord, I as your sinful child lift up my feeble hands in adoration of you.  I thank you for your love which transcends my understanding of justice, but shows me the miracle of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.  Please show me what it means to have the love and humility of Jesus, to trust you through such mockery and torment, as Christ so meekly trusted you.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

March 19 – Our King

John 12:12-19

¹² The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. ¹³ They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting,   ”Hosanna!”   ”Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”   ”Blessed is the King of Israel!” ¹⁴ Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it, as it is written,¹⁵ “Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion;      see, your king is coming,      seated on a donkey’s colt.”

¹⁶ At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that they had done these things to him.¹⁷ Now the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. ¹⁸ Many people, because they had heard that he had given this miraculous sign, went out to meet him. ¹⁹ So the Pharisees said to one another, “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!”

 

This is a story that many of us have heard since we were little.  Maybe some of us even carried palm branches down the aisles of our churches to commemorate this event.  What stands out to me now, though, as I am reading this story when I am older, is the disciples’ reaction to what was going on.

            Often I catch myself thinking, “If only I had been around when Jesus was on earth.  Things would have been so much easier.”  It is as if I think I could have asked Jesus what to do and how to act 24/7.  I would never worry about making sure my actions were within “God’s will” because He could simply speak directly to me and tell me what to do.  Often now, as I am making decisions regarding my future, I wish that God would speak directly to me to answer my questioning.  However, this story makes it clear that life was not that cut-and-dry for the disciples.  In fact, when crowds of people went out meet Jesus as he rode in on a donkey, the disciples were confused.  They had forgotten the prophecy and did not understand Jesus’ actions.  You see, even then, the Lord preferred that some things required faith. 

            Although God may never speak from a cloud to tell you what to do, there is no way to hide God’s glory and what is good about Him.  I think this is what the Pharisees realized when one said to the other, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.”  People, then and now, cannot not deny that there is something simply attractive about following the Lord, even when we don’t understand where we are going.

Heather Powell

 

Prayer:

Dear Lord, Please help me to seek after you, in all circumstances, even when I don’t understand.  Help me to follow your ways in all that I do.  Amen.

March 18 – Our King

Zechariah 9:9-10

⁹ Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!       Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!       See, your king comes to you,       righteous and having salvation,       gentle and riding on a donkey,       on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

¹⁰ I will take away the chariots from Ephraim       and the war-horses from Jerusalem,       and the battle bow will be broken.       He will proclaim peace to the nations.       His rule will extend from sea to sea       and from the River to the ends of the earth.

 

            Matthew and John link Zechariah’s beautiful description of a coming king to Jesus’ triumphant entry on Palm Sunday.  In Zechariah, however, we find not only a “gentle” (NIV), “lowly” (NKJV) and “humble” (NRSV) king riding on a donkey, but also a “righteous” (NIV), “just” (NKJV) and “triumphant” (NRSV) king who will eliminate war and rule over all the earth.

            When we look up from the Bible, we are met with a very different world.  With faith we might proclaim that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection has “already” brought peace, but looking at the injustice in our city and war in our world, we must also confess that this peace is “not yet.”

            If the universal peace prophesied in Zechariah is to come, what is required of us?  I’m struck by the beginning of verse 10.  Chariots, war-horses, and battle bows will be eliminated from the places where God’s people live.  While some of this weaponry belonged to their enemies, the people of Ephraim and Jerusalem would have had their own chariots, war horses, and bows in which they took great pride.  Yet, these too are cut off by God.

            Where I grew up it seemed like everyone worked building and overhauling warships.  A beautiful portrait of the U.S.S. Enterprise cutting through stormy sea hangs on the wall in my house.  My father began and ended his career working on her.  Perhaps defenses like her contribute to peace in our world.  Yet, Zechariah suggests she has no place in Christ’s coming kingdom.

            While few admit to liking the blood and death of war, we often love the glory, style, and technology of war.  As we prepare to wave branches of victory this Palm Sunday, can we realize that we must allow Christ to eliminate even our own treasured defenses? 

David Bains

 

Prayer:

Reign in us, O Christ; open our hearts and minds to your transforming peace.  Amen.

March 17 – Our King

Mark 1:1-11

¹ The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

² It is written in Isaiah the prophet:   ”I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way”—³ “a voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord,      make straight paths for him.’ “ 

⁴ And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ⁵ The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. ⁶ John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. ⁷ And this was his message: “After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. ⁸ I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”⁹ At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰ As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. ¹¹ And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

 

            This passage ends with a dramatic display of Jesus’ divinity in the Father’s words of affirmation and the presence of the Holy Spirit “like a dove” (verse 10).  This is the Divine King, prophesied in the Old Testament, the thongs of whose sandals we are not worthy to untie!  And yet, in this passage, this King chooses to do even more than allow us to untie the thongs of his sandals.  He willingly subjects himself to us, to our nature, and even to the symbols and ceremonies the Father has given us to enable us to experience him. 

            Though Jesus had direct access to the Father, and was indeed one with the Father, he chose to be baptized.  He submitted himself to John, a minister chosen by God to lead others to Jesus.  He submitted himself also to the ceremony of baptism.  In baptism we express obedience to God, but through it also we are granted a physical experience to help us know the spiritual one we undergo when we become Christians.  Jesus, it would seem, had no need of such a physical experience.  He was one with the Father from the beginning.  But he chose this experience because he was both divine and human, to show us how we, humanity, can relate to God.

            By allowing John to baptize him, Jesus modeled the very work he came to earth to accomplish.  He came to make a way for humanity to know God.  The names of Christ show us this: he compares himself to bread and wine, water, light—all physical things we know and can experience.  These images help us know and experience the nature and character of God.  Ultimately, Jesus underwent an intensely physical death to set us free from the spiritual death we deserve.  And finally, his physical resurrection brings to us spiritual life, the life we “live by faith in the Son of God,” both now and through eternity (Gal. 2:20). 

Tessa King

Prayer:

King Jesus, I praise you that you became a man, that just as we are both physical and spiritual beings, you are as well.  I praise you that you know us because you were one of us, and that through your life, death, and resurrection on earth with us, we can know you, who are truly beyond all words and descriptions.

March 15 – Our Hope

1 John 3:1-3

¹ How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.² Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.³ Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.

 

I am blessed to be the son of a man I am proud to call my father.  People who know us both often say we are just alike, and because I respect and love him, I count that a high compliment.  I am painfully aware, however, that not everyone feels this way.  A recent survey of Samford students indicates that 30% of undergraduates struggle with family dysfunction.  As University Minister, I regularly meet with students who are struggling with serious family problems of various sorts.  How different it must be for them to read John’s words celebrating God as Father and our status as God’s children!

To be called children of God, John claims, is evidence of God’s lavish love.  The promise that we will be like him someday is a genuine source of hope.  John sees this hope as our motivation for moral purity.  We live rightly, John says, not in order to establish a right relationship with our Father, but in gratitude for the right relationship the Father has already established through Christ.  Childhood brings hope, and hope encourages purity.

Some live lives haunted by failed attempts to please demanding parents.  The tendency is to treat spiritual life the same way, seeing God as similarly impossible to please.  For such people, John’s message is indeed good news.  As God’s children, we are pleasing to him, not because our lives are rightly lived, but because Christ’s life was sacrificially given.  His death and resurrection, accepted by faith, confers upon us status as his children, dearly loved and fully accepted.  We are now free to act from motivations of gratitude rather than demand, knowing that neither success nor failure can alter God’s unconditional love for us.  God is always the proud Father, and one day people will say we’re just alike. 

Matt Kerlin

Prayer:

God, we thank You that You are our Father, and You acted extravagantly to make us Your children.  Convince us of this truth that we may serve You out of gratitude and joy.

March 14 – Our Hope

Galatians 5:2-6

² Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. ³ Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. ⁴ You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. ⁵ But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. ⁶ For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

 

            It may be difficult in 2008 to practically relate to our lives laws about circumcision, as it is now a common practice done out of medical necessity and not from a call to righteousness.  But the heart of Paul’s message here is about freedom from the bondage of legalism and exclusivity.

            At the time this letter was written, the message of Christ and Christianity was beginning to spread to the Roman world and was being adopted by those from the Greek (gentile) worldview.  This was a problem for many Jews because they believed they alone were God’s chosen people, and also because the Greeks were coming to a faith outside of a Jewish history and understanding in which God, who created the world, was intimately involved in and sovereign over creation.

            Greeks were also not obedient to the laws which Jews followed as a part of their covenant with God, one of which was the requirement of male circumcision to distinguish the believers from the nonbelievers.  The Jews were still living as if they were bound by the Mosaic law which allowed them to be justified before God through ritual. 

            Paul’s hopeful declaration was that Christ’s life, death, and resurrection had supplied justification and righteousness for all of time for anyone who chose to believe.  This meant anyone was free to enter the Kingdom of God, regardless of whether or not they subscribed to Jewish laws and worldviews.  Furthermore, those who were condemning others on the basis of compliance (or lack thereof) to the law were themselves condemned because they were discounting the gift that God gave through Christ.

            We now have the same hope of life in God’s kingdom because of the grace that came through Christ.  There is no earning our righteousness by praying, reading, fasting, or serving more.  We cannot change God’s favor; we can simply live in grace.

Abby Hebert

 

Prayer:

Lord, in this season of devotional fasting, remind us that we practice spiritual disciplines not to earn your favor, but to create a space for you to fill.  Teach us to accept your grace as readily as you offer it.  Amen.

March 13 – Our Hope

Hebrews 6:13-20

¹³ When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, ¹⁴ saying, “I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.” ¹⁵ And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised. ¹⁶ Men swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. ¹⁷ Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. ¹⁸ God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. ¹⁹ We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, ²⁰ where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.

 

            Hebrews 6:13-20 gives us a glimpse into the epic truth of Jesus as the anchor, the hope, and the forerunner of those who are the Body of Christ. 

            Verses 13-18 describe how Abraham, through patience and faith, held onto the promise of many descendants and received the first fruits of this promise of God in the form of his son, Isaac.  However, although God’s promise was fulfilled tangibly before Abraham’s own eyes by the miraculous birth of Isaac, the epic nature of the promise surpassed Abraham’s lifetime.

            Just as God’s promise to Abraham was so grand that it transcended Abraham’s life on earth, the promise of close communion between God and man through Jesus Christ follows the same pattern of Abraham’s promise. 

            Verse 19 describes Jesus as the “hope” and “anchor” of our soul.  The beauty of Jesus is seen in the truth that we have hope not only today, but we also, like Abraham, have only received the first fruits of what the Lord has promised to us!  Verse 20 describes Jesus as the “forerunner” on our behalf into the inner sanctuary of God. The Greek word “prodromos” is used in verse 20, which translates as a forerunner, or one who goes to scout a territory in order to bring a following army. Jesus has gone as a forerunner, as a high priest, into the Holy of Holies of heaven above.  Not only has he gone there, he is coming soon to take us there. Like Abraham, we have seen a tangible fulfillment to the promise of God in this age through the Holy Spirit, but also like Abraham, the promise of God is epic and transcends our life on earth. 

            Jesus is our hope for life today and he is our unmovable anchor of hope, hidden in the temple of God who will soon bring us into the heavenly temple of the Father!

Steven Williams

 

Prayer:

Father, thank you for your epic vision and plan seen throughout history! Jesus, thank you for being the forerunner into the heavenly temple, for giving us your Holy Spirit, and for the day that you will come and take us into the Father’s house. Give us steadfast faith like Abraham to hold onto the hope that is Jesus. Give us revelation of your identity.  Our hope lies in you Jesus, not in denominations, not in man’s words, not in this world, but in your name and the intimacy with you Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Life is worth living because of you. Amen.

March 12 Our Hope

Psalm 46:1-3

¹ God is our refuge and strength,
       an ever-present help in trouble.

² Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
       and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

³ though its waters roar and foam
       and the mountains quake with their surging.
       Selah            

Do you ever feel like everything around you is crashing down?  Like the walls are caving in?  Sometimes it can be so easy to lose hope.  Why are we, as Christians struggling with this?  Shouldn’t we always be happy?  Ideally, maybe so. But, life hasn’t been ideal since Adam first disobeyed God.  Life is going to get difficult and at times, it’s going to seem like everything that we grasp onto for security is crumbling around us.  We so badly cry out for something to withstand us; a friend, or some sort of hand that may offer us strength amidst our battle, but we feel alone and scared.  Take Job for example.  Job was a Godly man and yet God allowed him to be completely stripped of everything until he had nothing left but the Word of God to stand on.  Like Job, our hope is in the Word of the Lord.  Everything that we grab onto for stability will eventually fall away, but God asks us to stand on the foundation that He alone has given us.             

In this passage, the psalmist is describing how even when the very earth that we live in begins to fade, and the mountains literally fall into the sea, God will provide us with hope, strength, and a shelter to take refuge in during the storm.  Therefore, God has given us hope and the courage to face any challenge.  For He is greater than anything we may face.   

Ryan Hoffman 

Prayer:

Lord, thank you Lord for always coming to my aid in times of trouble and despair.  I pray that I would trust you with my very life.  No matter how crazy of a thing you may ask me to do or say, grant me the courage to stand tall with the strength of Your Word beneath my feet.