Do you have a role model; someone you respect, someone you aspire to be like? Is this person someone you that you interact with on a regular basis, or is it someone you’ve never met? We all have role models, and role models all have one thing in common. At some point, those people will let us down, they will disappoint us. They will do or say something that causes you, and others, to pause and question whether or not that person is worthy to be emulated any longer. One of my role models was the director of the ministry school I attended. He was greatly respected by many people, including me. He regularly reminded that that we needed to live life beyond reproach.  You can imagine my shock and sadness when I learned that he had engaged in an extramarital sexual relationship with a woman whom he was counseling.

While it is okay to have role models, we must never allow that adoration to turn in idolization. To idolize is to love or admire to excess, simply put, to worship. Having role models often helps us to aspire to be better versions of ourselves. But idolizing someone (or something) often causes us to lose sight of reality and it the end, one result always happens, we get hurt and we hurt others. What is left is simply a pile of burned out ashes.  

We not only worship people, we worship things as well. What things in your life are central to your focus? We all worship someone or something. Where do you spend your time and money; that might be an indicator of what you worship. Just look around, do you see people worshipping money, sex, fame, more education, substances, family, just to name a few? And yes, even churches and church leaders get caught up in worshipping the wrong things from time to time.    

We are told in Scripture to worship God and God alone – above all else! The First Commandment (Ex 20:3) tells us: “You should have no other gods before me.” And the second (v.4) gives us this: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness, of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth below, or that is in the water under the earth.” 

Why do we worship God? Is He needy, wanting to always be flattered? Does His ego need constant stroking? There are certain people who might fall into this category, but not so with God. We don’t even worship Him simply because He commands it. We worship God because He is exceedingly worthy of our worship. He is beautiful and generous and ever-loving like none other. Praise and worship is (should be) our natural and spontaneous response. Read 1 Chronicles 16:25-29, Psalm 145:1-3, Revelation 4:8-11.

Worshipping the One who created you, who made you in Him image, is part of your created purpose (Isaiah 43:7, 21). Gratitude and worship, regardless of your current circumstances, has a powerful transforming effect on your heart.

Near the end of the Bible, as John looked up into heaven, he recorded what we saw and heard – “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.” (To read this is context, see Revelation, all of chapter 5.)

So today I ask, who or what are you worshipping that will eventually leave you empty? Worshipping God will never leave you in a pile of burned out ashes!

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We are all taught to say thank you to someone after they do something for us. Those two little words “thank you” reflect a polite expression of gratitude, or when used as “no thank you,” usually imply a polite refusal. Regardless of the context, we say thank you to someone after the fact. When is the last time you said thank you to someone in advance, or before something happens?

Today I want to look at the difference between praise and thanksgiving as it relates to God. I will begin with this opinion statement – We offer thanksgiving to God for who He is and we offer praise for what He has done (or will do). Let’s look at a passage in the Bible where God was thanked (praised) in advance.

We turn to 2 Chronicles chapter 20. The fourth king of the Kingdom of Judah, Jehoshaphat, was ready to go into battle against the Moabites and the Ammonites. He needed to come up with his battle plan and here we have Jehoshaphat sitting in his central command post with all his top military brass and the plan he comes up with is to send out a choir in advance of the army. I am sure the military leaders must have said: You have got to be joking! Three armies are ready to destroy us and you want to send out a choir? Here is what we read in 2 Chronicles 20:21 – “Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the LORD and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying: Give thanks to the LORD, for his love endures forever.”

Here we see God being praised in advance of a victory. King Jehoshaphat had faith, before the battle began, that God would deliver his people from defeat. Verses 22 and 23 tell us that this singing totally confused the enemy armies and they turned against one another and destroyed themselves.

So today, even if you see the odds being stacked against you, can you praise God before the battle comes, or while you are in the middle of the battle? Can you sing a victory song before the battle has begun? If you can, that is real faith! Giving God thanks (gratitude) after the battle is always is a good thing, but faith in action comes by praising God in advance of what He will do! God loves to demonstrate His power in and through those who expect Him to work.

Dear Father, please grant us all the gift of faith that can sing victory songs before the battle has begun? Give us faith that praises you before the miracle comes! Father, we come thanking You for increased faith in the days ahead. Amen

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Have you ever driven in fog? Or maybe through a torrential downpour or blinding blizzard? The road ahead, and the scenery alongside the road, that was once clearly visible is now not easily seen. During those moments you are forced to reduce your speed, turn off your car radio, take a deep breath, grip the steering wheel a little tighter and really focus on staying between the white lines. Your depth perception is distorted and your vision is limited. But once the storm passes or the fog lifts, things again come into clear view.

In life we face the same thing. The world around us does not always make sense. Maybe things in your own life don’t make sense. You have a hard time understanding why things are the way they are. It just does not make sense.  It could even be that today you look at your life and it just seems to be one new challenge upon top of another and you find yourself becoming disillusioned, discouraged, frustrated, maybe even hopeless. At every turn you seem to face another foggy stretch of road or blinding snow storm. The dreams you had, well, you have stopped dreaming and right now you simply just want to hang on and get through the fog without crashing into the ditch. You find yourself questioning your faith. You find yourself questioning God, or maybe you wonder if there even is a God in heaven.

The problem is not with God, the problem lies in us; we cannot see beyond the limits of our understanding. Thankfully we have a God who created the universe and everything in it. In Colossians 1:16 we read – “For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.”  

And not only did God create it all, but He also knows the big picture. In Isaiah 46:10 we are told that God knows the end from the beginning and ancient times from what is still to come. And throughout scripture we are told that one day our limited and blurry vision will be no more; we will see things as God sees them and it will all make sense. Let me share that promise of God with you – “We don’t yet see things clearly. We are squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us” (1 Corinthians 13:12, MSG).

The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said this, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

So, today, you can have the confidence that it seems as if you are always squinting in the fog, you can trust that God is in control and that one day you will see it all clearly, and it will all make sense!

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Oh, how I miss the mild winters of eastern North Carolina and barefoot walks on deserted beaches. Here in Pennsylvania winters are often a different story – for the past several days we have experienced very cold temperatures and last night, got out first snow of the year. snowstorm. I really cannot complain. Friends of ours In Virginia are still digging out from under a foot of snow that fell a week ago, and until this recent cold weather, we had temperatures well above normal.  

The snow that blanketed the ground makes for a beautiful sight; the untouched snow covered golf course is serene and pristine, offering a sense of peacefulness. But it doesn’t take too long for that beautiful white snow to turn dirty and ugly.  

You have likely heard the phrase “white as snow.” This conjures up an image of pure white. What better describes whiteness than snow? Not only the intensity of the snow’s color on a winter’s day, but also the purity of untrodden snow.  In Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” Autolycus sings “lawn as white as driven snow.”

Scripture tells us that every man, woman, and child is a sinner, falling short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). We also know from Scripture that it is the blood of Jesus that cleanses us from our sin (1 John 1:7). In the Old Testament blood symbolizes the atonement of sin, the sacrificial cleansing that comes from the shedding of blood. And it is the blood of Jesus on the cross that cleanses us when we repent and turn from our sin.

Our lives are like that pure white snow; when we sin, that pure white turns dirty and ugly. However, because of God’s great love and mercy, by sacrificing His son Jesus Christ on the Cross to bear the penalty of our sins, when we turn from those sins (repent) we are made white as snow. Here is what we read in Isaiah 1:8 – “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”

King David spied on Bathsheba, the wife of one of his senior advisors, as she bathed on her rooftop. He had an adulteress affair with her, got her pregnant, and then had her husband Uriah killed as part of the cover up plot. The prophet Nathan confronted David about this series of sins. Psalm 51 is a beautiful psalm written by David after that confrontation. I encourage you to read this psalm in its entirety. It begins with these words – “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.” In v.7 we read, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”

And in v.10 we find a plea that I include as part of my morning prayer – “Create in me a clean heart (a pure heart), O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” David goes on to ask that he not be cast out of God’s presence (v.11), that he be restored (v.12), and to be delivered from his guilt (v.14).

So today, will you humble yourself and ask God to forgive you of your sins? When you do, you become in His eyes whiter than snow; like pure white untrodden snow, beautiful beyond all imaginable beauty.

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If we want health, wealth, and wisdom, the world says, “follow your heart.” Advertisers often subliminally create a feeling deep within us to go after what we want, what warms our heart, what we deserve. I recently heard someone say, “I feel it in my heart.” But what does Scripture say about the condition of our heart?

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” Jeremiah 17:9 (ESV)

And so, if you cannot trust your own heart for guidance, what then? Following God’s heart is a much better option!

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.” Proverbs 3:5-6 (NLT)

“Show me your ways, LORD, teach me your paths.” Psalm 25:4 (NIV)

Jesus offers a simple yet life-changing invitation to you today. He makes this plea knowing how messed up and how broken you are. He simply says, as He did to Matthew the despised and probably corrupt tax collector, “Follow me.” (Matthew 9:9)

To everyone, from His first followers (disciples) to you and me today, Jesus invites us, with all our dirty laundry, messes and all, to follow Him, and in doing so we begin to get cleaned up and put on a new, but not always easier, and better path!  

And this invitation is not just a one-time invitation. It is an invitation extended over and over again. Jesus first invites you into a personal relationship with Him and then He keeps inviting you to be refreshed and restored, reoriented and redirected, retooled and remanufactured, as you turn more and more from “following your heart” to following Him and His path.

Today and all throughout 2022, are you willing to take Jesus up on His offer?

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We all have our default “first thing” morning routine once the alarm clock awakens us. For some, it is press the snooze button, hoping to catch nine more minutes of shut eye. Or you might turn on the television to watch the morning news or catch last night’s sports scores on ESPN. Maybe you crawl out of bed and make your way to the coffee maker, desperately in need of that that first jolt of caffeine. You drag yourself to the shower hoping that the warm water loosens the stiffness in your back and neck from another restless night sleep.

Have you ever wondered why the snooze feature gives you only nine minutes? Why not an even 10? When the snooze feature was added in the 1950s, the inner workings of alarm clocks had long become standardized. This meant that the teeth on the new snooze gear had to mesh with the existing gear configuration. Yes, for those of you too young to remember, at one time, clocks were not digital, they really did run by mechanical gears

Originally, the clock makers wanted the snooze time to be ten minutes, but they could not get the snooze gears to align perfectly with the clock’s gears, thus they would need to make the snooze time either slightly longer or shorter than ten minutes. It was feared that giving someone more than ten minutes to “snooze” would allow them to fall back into a deep sleep, thus, nine minutes became the standard. Of course, today, with digital technology, any length of snooze time could be built into clocks. But most manufacturers still use the nine-minute snooze as standard. Even my iPhone’s alarm clock snoozes for nine minutes,          

Mornings are an important time of day. Before facing the day we should have a “first thing” routine of looking into the face of God. We should begin each day seeking God and His strength; the strength we will need to do whatever it is we will be doing that day. We should not begin the work of the day until we have had a few quiet moments with God.

David, in Psalm 5, gives us this model for beginning our day – “In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly” (v.3).

Jesus knew even He needed to put first things first each morning. We read this in Mark 1:35 – “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”

So, why not have a morning routine that begins, instead of snoozing for nine more minutes, with an appointment with God! By doing so, you can have a day influenced by His character and under His control! You can walk through your day doing all things through Him who gives you strength. (Philippians 4:13)

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