Time Out! Devotions

Romans 12:1-13 (NCV)

¹ So brothers and sisters, since God has shown us great mercy, I beg you to offer your lives as a living sacrifice to him. Your offering must be only for God and pleasing to him, which is the spiritual way for you to worship. ² Do not be shaped by this world; instead be changed within by a new way of thinking. Then you will be able to decide what God wants for you; you will know what is good and pleasing to him and what is perfect. ³ Because God has given me a special gift, I have something to say to everyone among you. Do not think you are better than you are. You must decide what you really are by the amount of faith God has given you.⁴ Each one of us has a body with many parts, and these parts all have different uses.⁵ In the same way, we are many, but in Christ we are all one body. Each one is a part of that body, and each part belongs to all the other parts.⁶ We all have different gifts, each of which came because of the grace God gave us. The person who has the gift of prophecy should use that gift in agreement with the faith.⁷ Anyone who has the gift of serving should serve. Anyone who has the gift of teaching should teach.⁸ Whoever has the gift of encouraging others should encourage. Whoever has the gift of giving to others should give freely. Anyone who has the gift of being a leader should try hard when he leads. Whoever has the gift of showing mercy to others should do so with joy.⁹ Your love must be real. Hate what is evil, and hold on to what is good.¹⁰ Love each other like brothers and sisters. Give each other more honor than you want for yourselves.¹¹ Do not be lazy but work hard, serving the Lord with all your heart.¹² Be joyful because you have hope. Be patient when trouble comes, and pray at all times.¹³ Share with God’s people who need help. Bring strangers in need into your homes.

Do you feel ill equipped to serve the Lord? A sense of inadequacy is one of the many excuses people use to avoid ministering for Him, but it is not a valid one. Failing to follow His call has three consequences: 1) we hinder God’s work on earth, 2) we miss a blessing for obedience, and 3) we lose out on rewards in heaven.

Jesus Christ knew all about the human tendency to feel inadequate. That is why He assured His followers they would receive a Helper—the Holy Spirit—who would come to abide in them forever. The Spirit enables, energizes, and equips believers to serve the Lord. One of the ways He aids us is by providing spiritual gifts, which are special capabilities given to believers.

Our heavenly Father has a ministry in mind for each of His followers. Therefore, necessary spiritual “equipment” has been selected to help us carry out His work. These gifts will complement and augment the natural talents our Creator built into us before birth. It is His purpose that we combine the two in order to serve Him with all of our heart. Even the smallest job contributes to the Great Commission and the strengthening of Jesus Christ’s body, the church.

The Lord has a plan for every believer. To ensure that we can meet the Lord’s expectations, He first builds natural talents into us. At salvation, He adds a spiritual gift. Then God opens doors of opportunity and the Holy Spirit manifests His power so that we can carry out the work set before us.

(devotional by Dr. Charles Stanley from the February 2010 issue of In Touch magazine)

1.     What a friend we have in Jesus,
	all our sins and griefs to bear!
	What a privilege to carry
	everything to God in prayer!
	O what peace we often forfeit,
	O what needless pain we bear,
	all because we do not carry
	everything to God in prayer. 

2.	Have we trials and temptations?
	Is there trouble anywhere?
	We should never be discouraged;
	take it to the Lord in prayer.
	Can we find a friend so faithful
	who will all our sorrows share?
	Jesus knows our every weakness;
	take it to the Lord in prayer. 

3.	Are we weak and heavy laden,
	cumbered with a load of care?
	Precious Savior, still our refuge;
	take it to the Lord in prayer.
	Do thy friends despise, forsake thee?
	Take it to the Lord in prayer!
	In his arms he'll take and shield thee;
	thou wilt find a solace there.    AMEN!

 --- Joseph M. Scriven 1820-1886 ---

(from Crosswalk.com)

Seven-year-old Mencia Abreu and her brothers, Alex—age five—and Ricky—age two—slept wherever their parents laid them down. Sometimes on the streets of Queens, New York. Sometimes in a shelter or a grimy room in a cheap hotel. They played in alleys, parking lots, and dark hallways that smelled of stale liquor.

But one day, the Abreu children’s fragile world was shattered when Jose, their dad, was arrested on drug charges. Suddenly they were fatherless as well as homeless.

In jail, Jose was devastated. Overwhelmed by guilt, he had no hope that he could ever make things right again.

Then, in his most desperate moment, Jose met the God of mercy and forgiveness. Jose accepted Christ as his savior.

He grew rapidly in his new faith and eagerly shared it with his wife, Mayra. But Mayra was hopelessly addicted to cocaine and wanted nothing to do with her husband’s Jesus.

But God had other plans.

On Christmas Eve, the Abreus heard a knock on the door. “There was a UPS guy with a big box,” Mayra explains. It said, “from Jose Abreu.” But how could that be? Jose was in jail. Then Mayra remembered Angel Tree.

The kids were ecstatic. There were gifts from Dad!

As Mayra recalls: “I cannot describe to you the joy that my children and I felt when we opened [the presents]. I thanked God right there. I cried, and went on my knees. This is when I knew that God loved me, and I accepted the Lord Jesus Christ into my life.”

She also prayed that God would free her from her addiction to cocaine. And He did—believe it or not—on the spot.

That story took place 16 years ago. But even more amazing is what happened afterward. Reunited after Jose’s release, Mayra and Jose devoted their lives to serving prisoners and their families through Prison Fellowship and its great program Angel Tree. They even took children of prisoners into their home while their mothers were in prison, adopting numbers of them.

Jose went home to the Lord in 2008, but Mayra continues her work of love.  And it all started with a knock on the door—because someone cared enough to send Christmas gifts, and the Gospel, through Angel Tree.

This year, we need you to be part of the next miracle in someone’s life. We have an extraordinary challenge ahead of us. Churches across the country have committed to reach more than 300,000 prisoners’ kids with gifts and the Gospel this Christmas.

But as of right now, we have 50,000 children signed up for Angel Tree who live in remote areas of the country where there are no churches. And we need your help to reach them.

But you can help. Please go to AngelTree.org. For each donation you make of $35.20, we will send a prisoner’s child a Christmas gift, an age-appropriate book containing the Gospel, and actual greetings from their parent in prison.

When you go to AngelTree.org, you can even specify the age and gender of the child you’d like to reach. And of course, you can reach more than just one child if you are so led. It’s so simple, but so important.

And, like the Abreus, it can even bring a whole family into the kingdom of God.

You and I have the privilege to do for others what God does for us. How do we show people that we believe in them?

Show up. Nothing takes the place of your presence. Letters are nice. Phone calls are special, but being there in the flesh sends a message.

Do you believe in your kids? Then show up. Show up at their games. Show up at their plays. Show up at their recitals. It may not be possible to make each one, but it’s sure worth the effort. Do you believe in your friends? Then show up. Show up at their graduations and weddings. Spend time with them. You want to bring out the best in someone? Then show up.

Listen up. You don’t have to speak to encourage. The Bible says, “It is best to listen much, speak little” (James 1:19 TLB). We tend to speak much and listen little. There is a time to speak. But there is also a time to be quiet. That’s what my father did. Dropping a fly ball may not be a big deal to most people, but if you are thirteen years old and have aspirations of the big leagues, it is a big deal. Not only was it my second error of the game, it allowed the winning run to score.

I didn’t even go back to the dugout. I turned around in the middle of left field and climbed over the fence. I was halfway home when my dad found me. He didn’t say a word. Just pulled over to the side of the road, leaned across the seat, and opened the passenger door. We didn’t speak. We didn’t need to. We both knew the world had come to an end. When we got home, I went straight to my room, and he went straight to the kitchen. Presently he appeared in front of me with cookies and milk. He took a seat on the bed, and we broke bread together. Somewhere in the dunking of the cookies I began to realize that life and my father’s love would go on. In the economy of male adolescence, if you love the guy who drops the ball, then you really love him. My skill as a baseball player didn’t improve, but my confidence in Dad’s love did. Dad never said a word. But he did show up. He did listen up. To bring out the best in others, do the same, and then, when appropriate:

Speak up.

You have the power to change someone’s life simply by the words that you speak. “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21 NKJV). That’s why Paul urges you and me to be careful. “When you talk, do not say harmful things, but say what people need—words that will help others become stronger” (Ephesians 4:29).

Earlier I gave you a test for love. There’s also a test for the tongue. Before you speak, ask: Will what I’m about to say help others become stronger? You have the ability, with your words, to make a person stronger. Your words are to their soul what a vitamin is to their body. If you had food and saw someone starving, would you not share it? If you had water and saw someone dying of thirst, would you not give it? Of course you would. Then won’t you do the same for their hearts? Your words are food and water! Do not withhold encouragement from the discouraged. Do not keep affirmation from the beaten down! Speak words that make people stronger. Believe in them as God has believed in you.

From A Love Worth Giving
Copyright (Thomas Nelson, 2002) Max Lucado