Category: Devotions

I am working in a job that is hugely rewarding but is increasingly frustrating. Today I heard how one of our missionaries has been presenting 9 x 30 minute gospel presentations on the television in a muslim-majority country. Today I heard of 7 new churches being planted. Day after day it is the same, stories of new churches, stories of helping the poor, sponsoring children, reaching the trafficked woman, taking the good news to those who don’t have any, crossing borders, going into places that have never heard of good news, birthing new Churches amongst the new Christians, training their leaders.

So why am I frustrated? Well actually I am choosing to be confident.

I am confidently asking you for some money. Specifically one pound a week.

If you are my friend or know me, please give me a £1 per week.

If I have helped you in anyway, made you laugh, made you cry, please give me a £1 per week.

If I have pastored you, preached to you, hatched, matched or despatched you (yes even that), please give me a £1 per week.

If you are a past friend, present friend or would like to be a friend, please give me a £1 per week.

Like this, comment on this, share this, copy this, above all please give me a £1 per week.

I wish all you need do is click a button but my work is also set in the dark ages. So here is what you need to do, copy and paste this: http://www.elimmissions.co.uk/poundbypound

and do whatever you need to do no matter how long and laborious it is but PLEASE GIVE ME a £1 PER WEEK.

3,000 people isn’t much is it?

I feel like I am begging, but I just need you to give me a £1 per week.

I am not running a marathon or getting water thrown at me.

I am just saying to you please give me a £1 per week.

Thank you

Paul

£1 in the UK probably won’t get you very far: a small cup of tea, a pack of doughnuts, maybe a bunch of bananas? But around the world your £1 could be someone else’s lifeline. We want to encourage you to give just £1 a week, in fact less, just £4 a month to Elim Missions and see the huge impact that this small amount will have on others. With Pound by Pound we want to not only help those who have so much less, but also give everyone the opportunity to make a difference!
Find out more and give today http://elim.im/poundbypound

#BeChurch As we come to the end of our mission’s month we look back on everything we have prayed for so far and ask for the Holy Spirit to guide and bring His power to our faithful, obedient steps. We pray that church planters and leaders will be filled once again with Your spirit so that they may carry out Your work with the spirit leading them. As we leap with excitement into the coming week, may we stand out from the crowd because of your revolutionary love. We ask that not only our neighbour’s lives can be changed but that our towns, cities and nations can be transformed by You at work in us. Start a work in the lives of those who don’t know you Father and who may be struggling, we pray that your hand will be upon them and they will feel your touch on their lives. As we seek You first we invite Your Holy Spirit to reign down on us and to minister to us in new ways. http://elim.im/prayerline

Awakening hope – Ruth 2: 19-23

Through his kindness
v20. He has not stopped showing kindness…
Kindness comes from the word hesed.
It is the sense of loyal love, commitment and totally faithful no matter what. It has no claim on it so that you cannot earn this kindness.
Kindness came on Naomi’s loss. She had lost her husband and two sons, her credibility, her identity and her future.
Kindness came on Naomi’s suffering. There was deep pain in her heart.
Kindness came on Naomi’s guilt. She had moved away from the ‘House of bread’ it turned out to be the wrong decision.
Everyone of us will experience grief, and there will be times of personal grief when a special loved one dies.
Is there pain in your heart? Are you experiencing unfair treatment? There are always breaks in the cloud when kindness falls from heaven like soft rain, washing away sadness and discouragement.
Kindness is falling today.

Awakening hope – Ruth 2: 19-23
No matter what has happened Hope can be revived.
Through His name
v19 The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz.

Can you imagine the sheer delight in Naomi that the man who had given Ruth so much as she was working in his field is a close relative of hers. “Tell me his name, tell me his name Ruth”. “Naomi his name is Boaz”

“Tell me his name, what gives you such amazing hope? Who is he? Tell me his name” His name is Jesus. He is still living, and because He is living my hope is alive and active. His name is Jesus, though he is known by many names, the greatest of which is the King of kings and Lord of lords.”

“…The appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ …the King of kings and Lord of lords.” 1 Timothy 6:15

“On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written:
KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.”
Revelation 19:16

No one can compare with Him.
He will never be overthrown, there will never be anyone to better Him, no greater power will suddenly emerge.
No one can constrain Him.
He faces no threats. He experiences no frustration.
No one can conquer Him.
He is totally and absolutely invincible.
And you are working in his field today!

How did you spend today?
My day was really busy.
Yet throughout the day I didn’t forget.
I remembered our missionaries who died.
Yesterday 23rd June 1978, 830pm, it didn’t get any worse for our Elim missionaries at the Emmanuel Mission School in Katerere, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe).
Terrorists came over the hills from Mozambique and headed for our missions station. The missionaries had just finished their evening meal when they captured and led them to the school field. What they did to our missionaries was unthinkable. So much so that the bishop of the Church in Rhodesia and South Africa said the next morning when he visited, ” we saw no humanity there”.

On this night there was desolation.
An orgy of carnage, mutilated bodies of 13 missionaries, one had to tried to flee through the bush but died later. What they did to the missionaries is unspeakable.
Later the terrorists were caught or came forward to confess, some sought forgiveness.
They gave their accounts of what transpired that night.
The missionaries had been singing hymns as they were violated and killed.
They sang in surrender to Christ and to comfort their children.
Local Africans said later that on some dark nights when the wind blows through the trees the sound of hymns in the midst of cries of fear and pain can be still heard drifting across the sports field at the school.

They laid their lives down. They were ‘my witnesses’.
May we all live our lives in the light of their death.
May we all give money to the Church planting Elim Missions is resourcing around the world in honour of their lives.

No I didn’t forget.

He is more than enough! – Ruth 2: 14 – 18
He is very safe
“Even if she gathers among the sheaves, don’t embarrass her. Rather, pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebuke her.” 2:15-16
Boaz protected Ruth, he called that there be no embarrassment or rebuking of her and he made sure that her work was productive. The fields were a dangerous place to work, particularly if you were a foreigner as Ruth was. Naomi is relieved later when she hears Ruth has been working in Boaz’s field, for she knows that in someone else’s ‘you might be harmed’v22.
Ruth worked in Boaz’s field and she did not know but this was the safest place to be.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me. I will fear no evil for you are with me. I will fear no evil for you are with me. I will fear no evil for you are with me.
Why was Jesus asleep in the boat during a storm? It was because he felt protected and provided for by His Father. He was safe. It is only possible to make the discovery of being safe when in a place of turmoil and danger.
So whether you are in a home-made wooden boat as the earth is being flooded, or walking through the middle of the Red Sea, or firing a stone at Goliath, or having fellowship with a den of lions or spending a whole day in the fields working on your own. It is only then that you realise that the most potentially dangerous places can be the safest places of all. Why? I will fear no evil, for you are with me and He is more than enough.

Expectation leads to Encounter – Ruth 2:1-13
We need to live lives of an expectation of favour from the Lord.
An expectation of favour that says, ‘Let me go to the fields.’
What caused Ruth to say ‘Let me go’?
c. Her secure position
“May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.” 2:12
This prayer of Boaz uses imagery for God like that of Moses:
“Like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young,
that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions.” Deut 32:11
The Psalms speak of the wings of God as places of safety (Ps 17:8); places of refreshment (Ps 36:7); places of stillness (Ps 57:1); places of hope (Ps 91:1).
For Ruth it is the place of refuge.
“O Lord, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in times of distress.” Jeremiah 16:19
Ruth had come to know Naomi’s God, the God of Israel. She had found Him to be accessible to the troubled and bitter person. That He was the One to turn to when needing help, safety, relief from distress, trouble and affliction.
We will face many problems, attacks, failures and sins. God welcomes us to run to him and under His wings we find security.

Expectation leads to Encounter – Ruth 2:1-13
We need to live lives of an expectation of favour from the Lord.
An expectation of favour:
That says, ‘Let me go to the fields.’
What caused Ruth to say ‘Let me go’?
Faithfulness
“She went into the field and has worked steadily from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter.” 2:7
We must understand that our lives will contain significant amounts of time spent working steadily from morning till night doing something that is mundane, humbling and simply not what you know you could do given half the chance.
Yet it is in that place that faithfulness is born.
There will be times when you find yourself in a place that tries and tests you more than you think you could ever possibly imagine.
You have given so much, your arms ache from reaching out, your legs are buckled, you are burnt from the midday sun, you cannot give another ounce of your life and you know that come the morning you will have to do it all over again.
“God of my destiny, I want to become somebody, I have been expecting your favour, my expectancy has overcome the disabilities in my way, it has caused me to do what I can do, but where is my encounter?”
Yet, God doesn’t seem to be taking any calls. The answering machine of heaven is switched on.
There are times when you will just have to say “My encounter may not look like it is going to happen in the near future, but I’m remaining faithful because I still believe it’s going to take place”.

Expectation leads to Encounter – Ruth 2:1-13
We need to live lives of an expectation of favour from the Lord.
An expectation of favour:
That says, ‘Let me go to the fields.’
What caused Ruth to say ‘Let me go’?
a. Information
The Levitical laws commanded the harvesters to leave behind a portion of the crop including the edges of the fields of grain to be collected by the needy, the helpless, the poor and the traveller.
Ruth did not let the shock of her unexpected events or her grief at what she had lost keep her away from what she could be doing in gleaning the fields.
It is so much easier to stay in bed and wait for destiny to knock at your door than it is to get up and do what you can do.
Ruth went into the fields because she knew that that was what she could do. Maybe Naomi told her about this clause in the Levitical law. But knowing something isn’t good enough. Information is not enough, revelation is great but if there is no application of the information then so what?
Sometimes we can read too many books and hear too many sermons! Some sermons need to be preached in the same way containing the same message week after week until people live in the light of them.
What do you know? If you didn’t receive anything new from God’s Word for the rest of your life but just did what He has already told you then your life would probably still be transformed for the better.
Daily prayer times, reading the Bible, meditating on His Word, loving other people, giving 10% of your income and giving offerings on top of that, telling people about Jesus, worshipping Him, being filled with the Holy Spirit, faith and trust, obedience and holiness. We know so much!
Ruth acted on what she knew.