Category: Devotions

Joel 3

Apparently … The number of different ways that Starbucks can serve a cup of coffee is 19,000! That’s why the queues are so long! Decisions decisions!
Joel sees another queue, quite a long one in fact, multitudes.
Evangelists say the valley of decision is now made by the sinner, theologians say it is the end-time judgment made by God.
Thankfully there’s not 19,000 different decisions to make.
Just 1 decision in fact based on a question and asked from different perspectives, (no matter what your stance on what v14 refers to).
“What did you do with Jesus Christ?”
How do you answer today?
How will God answer tomorrow?

Joel 2

“On all people”.

In an Elim magazine ‘Elim Evangel’ in 1929 and referring to the commencement of Elim Missions 10 years after our first missionary went to India the vision is clearly stated:
“All Friends of Elim will be interested to know that the foreign missionary interest which has been kept in view from the beginning of our work has now been consolidated in the definite formation of an Elim Alliance Foreign Missionary Council to organise and foster our proclamation of Joel 2 v28, the promise of Pentecost to ‘all flesh’, as logically including the far horizons of missionary vision, and to ensure that the activities of beloved Elim brethren and sisters who have gone or are about to go to various foreign fields should be established in the strength which better organisation can give.”

Since then, men and women, many with their children have continued to be sent by their churches to many parts of the world as long-term missionaries. We have 84 of these people. Every year many more leave the UK for a short term missions posting working alongside these missionaries and our indigenous leaders.
Take a map, point in any direction and Elim will not be too far away. It is staggering how the Holy Spirit is moving upon ‘all people’.
All over the world the Spirit is moving. Whether I am with one of our churches under a tree in Africa or or in a rented Catholic building in Europe as I was a few days ago, the presence of God is here, speaking, reaching and healing lives. Pentecost is here. The best news of all is wherever I go I am also hearing the Church say to me, “We want to go on Mission. We want to go into new areas, help in anyway we can, please use us.”
No one is sitting, it seems where the Spirit is, everyone is moving!

As I read a report from 1929 I begin to get excited for what is possible. In what sounds like an Indiana Jones story …. Elim Evangel July 1929:
“It is well that we should appreciate the difficulties of missionary effort, as it enables us to pray more intelligently. This is from the Rev Harold H Cook, missionary in Brazil. The Xingu Indians live in a region little explored, about two thousand miles from the coast of Brazil. In order to reach them from the port of Rio de Janeiro, a journey of nearly two months is involved. Approximately six days by rail, Seven or more days by steam-boat, twenty by mule, twelve by canoe, with five or more days to build canoes, and more days (or perhaps weeks) waiting for connections. The journey is over mountains, plains, rivers, and across stretches of country that few, if any, white men have ever trodden. At times rivers must be forded, bridges built, paths made”.
My goodness, I wish I could meet this Harold today! Does he have any relatives who are walking in this pioneering spirit?
I am inspired, moved, encouraged that the words of Joel are still for today. It’s on all people friends. You, your Jerusalem, your Judea, your Samaria and to the ends of the world.
Come on let’s go!

Joel 1

Locusts don’t have a king to get them organised. They don’t have a government to call them into battle. By instinct the locust knows it has to be in community with other locusts. When that occurs, they are able to destroy whatever stands in there way.

The Bible often speaks of the locusts ability to destroy and of course John sees them in the final apocalypse, in Revelation 9. John says behind these terrifying locusts is Satan.
God allows Satan to unleash the locusts. Of course these are not insects at the end time and neither were they in Joel’s prophecy. They are demon-controlled, led people who hate other people not of their belief system, especially Christians.
They may mask it by just looking like a small insect. They may appear as a religion of peace and yet however when the day of coming together arrives they can leave a trail of destruction. Shattered lives, terrorised communities, villages, towns devastated in a few hell-filled moments of sheer hatred. Christians are experiencing this right now as I type these words.
Today a family of Elim missionaries face some difficulty because of bombs and attacks that are becoming ever nearer to the area of the city they live, targeting areas where Christians are living.
God loves the whole world, no matter what their religion or creed.
He loves those who hate. He loves the terrorist who believe others should not have the right to exist.
And we too should do all we can to reach the locust with the love of Christ. For their sake not ours.
The locust-men only have a limited time to do their torment. They will never destroy the Church.
But the Son of Man is coming soon and the question He asks is this: can I find faith here? (Luke 18:8).
Will those non-believers begin to trust me as they are facing such evil?
Will the Christians remain strong in adversity?
Will he find the Joel’s here on earth saying (v19):
To you, O Lord, I call …

Hosea 14

Let us go to the end of the book and see that when it comes to the ways of the Lord we will either walk in them or stumble in them.
The ways of The Lord are right.
But what are those ways?
It has to be more than a list of rules because otherwise no one will walk in them.
God’s ways are not just thoughts or perceived attitudes towards something, it is the how life is lived.
It is the customs, institutions and achievements of a particular nation, people or group, it is called culture. The culture of God.
Within this culture lay the tests and the provocations of God. He does this to teach His way to us.
Remember Genesis 32 and the struggle of Jacob? At what point did Jacob realise that the one who began the fight was not an enemy but a friend? Do you know that within the ways of God lay struggles that are not your enemy but God Himself? You will either walk through this or stumble.
At what point did Jacob realise that the request from the angel of the Lord to “Let me go” was a provocation, a tease? He really did not want Jacob to let go of Him. What if Jacob had let go? It would have been the worst thing he could have done though that was what God was asking him to do. Do you know that within the ways of God lay provocations to let go of your destiny and they come from God Himself asking you to state the level you want to live with Him at? What kind of relationship with God do you want?
Again you will either walk through this or stumble.
All of this is found in the culture of God.
The ways of God are right.
We need to adjust continually, to learn daily what it is to walk in His ways, to know His culture.

Hosea 13

I’m sorry but I just can’t get past the first 5 words this morning.
“When Ephraim spoke men trembled”
I’m a preacher.
So I can say this…
No I won’t say it, I’ll just give you some quotes.
You will know what I am saying …

“It is a poor sermon that gives no offense; that neither makes the hearer displeased with himself nor with the preacher” ~George whitefield

“The preaching that this world needs most is the sermons in shoes that are walking with Jesus Christ.” ~ D.L. Moody

“We are too busy to pray, and so we are too busy to have power. We have a great deal of activity, but we accomplish little; many services but few conversions; much machinery but few results.” ~R.A. Torrey

“The scriptures are given not to increase our knowledge, but to change our
lives.” ~Dwight Moody

Men trembled when Ephraim spoke.
Think about it.
We are all preachers in some way or the other.

Hosea 12

Maintain love and justice, v6.

Love we understand but justice is another thing.
We get confused with justice so easily.
We want justice.
We want things fair.
But what is this justice?
It is the identification of Christ who came and brought justice to the world.
Justice is to do. It is not a belief, but it is action.
It’s Hebrew word is mishpat which describes the emphasis being that of action.
It’s most basic meaning is to treat people fairly, with respect and honour, to treat them right.
The Bible especially says do justice to these 4 sets of people:-
The widow, the fatherless, the immigrant and the poor. (Zechariah 7)
Some leaders decide through their own hurts and insecurities to toughen up with people. They think they are being strong, but they are very weak. They violate justice. They rob the rights of people and soon God will rob them.
Why maintain justice? Why should we be concerned about these vulnerable people?
It is because God is concerned about them.
How we treat people is how we will be treat.

Hosea 11

How can I give you up?
Even if I could, I wouldn’t.
I called you and you came to me
But then others called you and you left me.
Yet I stuck with you then and I don’t intend to change my pattern now.
I taught you to walk, I led you, I bent down and lifted you up.
It is within your DNA to walk away from me.
Every time.
But I am committed to you. And that is final.
So I ask, How can I give you up?
How can I let you be ruined?
I cannot.
For I am not like you.
I am the Holy One, the different One.
And I am here with you.
I will win you back.
I cannot let go.
I will not let go.
I know you will return.
I am waiting.

Hosea 10

Not all growth is good.
Israel was a spreading vine. It grew. But it wasn’t good.
In its growth it became wild with many branches (Jer 2:21). It developed branches that became thick and it began to look like a tree (Ez 15:2).
The vine was never planted to be a tree.
Some today want to become something they were never created to be.
They long to be somebody other than they are. They seek applause from man, they hunger for the stage, they promote themselves, tirelessly striving to be noticed.
Be still. Be who you are planted to be. A vine.
Let God produce through you fruit that is quality.
Quality not quantity.

Hosea 9

They became as vile as the thing they loved, v10.

You become what you worship.

The Israelites began to worship idols and God says they began to look like them.

Much is rightly taught today of the Christian in the market-place and rightly so. We have to get out from behind our church walls and our Christian masks and sacred/secular places and be Christ wherever we are, be a friend of sinners. At the same time we must be careful not to let the world demand and take our worship. We are Christians and we belong to God. That never changes.

Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, told a story about a goose who was wounded and who landed in a barnyard with some chickens. He played with the chickens and ate with the chickens. After a while that goose thought he was a chicken. One day a flight of geese came over, migrating to their home. They gave a honk up there in the sky, and he heard it.
Kierkegaard said, “Something stirred within the breast of this goose. Something called him to the skies. He began to flap the wings he hadn’t used, and he rose a few feet into the air. Then he stopped, and he settled back again into the mud of the barnyard. He heard the cry, but he settled for less.”

Be who you are. God is not asking you to be anyone else.

Hosea 8

Put the trumpet to your lips ..

Wynton Marsalis, one of the most easily recognizable jazz musicians in our day and one of the premier jazz trumpeters of all time was playing with a small, little-known band in a New York basement club. A few songs into their set, he walked to the front of the bandstand and began an unaccompanied solo of the 1930s ballad, “I Don’t Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You.” One journalist records that the audience became rapt as Marsalis’s trumpet virtually wept in despair, almost gasping at times with the pain in the music.
Marsalis came to the final phrase, with each note coming slower and slower, with longer and longer pauses between each one: “I…don’t…stand…a…ghost…of…a…chance—”

Then someone’s mobile phone went off.

It began to chirp an absurd little tune. The audience broke up into titters, the man with the phone jumped up and fled outside to take his call, and the spell was broken. “MAGIC— RUINED,” the journalist scratched into his notepad.

But then Marsalis played the cellphone melody note for note. He played it again, with different accents. He began to play with it, spinning out a rhapsody on the silly little tune, changing keys several times. The audience settled down, slowly realizing that they were hearing something altogether extraordinary. Around and around Marsalis played for several minutes, weaving glory out of goofiness.

Finally, in a masterstroke, he closed the set seamlessly to the last two notes of his previous song: “…with…you.” The audience exploded with applause.

(John G. Stackhouse, Jr., Faith Today)

Let’s copy our God today who brilliantly brings beauty out of ashes, applause out of annoyance, heroes from holocausts and love out of loss.
Learn to play the trumpet not with a sound that everyone has to listen to or else, but learn to play weaving in the sounds around you. Be adaptable, blend and embrace the true sound into the hurts and sounds of loss that are definitely there.