Author: londavis@hotmail.com

Today’s text is from 1 Peter 5:8-9a

“Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith.”

As a child, the thing that scared me most was the devil. When I was 5, I had an aunt who used to tell me stories about the end of the world and the judgment day. I still remember some of the nightmares I had. I wasn’t a bad kid, but I was easily afraid. Besides, the devil always seemed too cunning for me to handle.

Do you have the same feeling? Is it possible to defeat the devil? Is he too tricky to be beaten? Is it possible that he has you so firmly in his grip that you will not be able to free yourself? The most crucial thing you should know about Satan is that he is the father of all lies.

 John 8:44 speaks of the devil and says, “He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” 

Let that sink in for a moment. Everything you hear from the devil is a lie. He is unable to speak truthfully. Everything he says contradicts God, the source of all truth. All of the devil’s whispers about his power and your inability to defeat him contradict God’s word.

2 Thessalonians 3:3 says, “But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.” 

Our heavenly Father is a perfect, capable protector from Satan. He promises to establish us and guard us. He is always with us and always knows exactly what we need in order to withstand the temptations of Satan.

 1 Corinthians 10:13 teaches us, “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape.” 

God is faithful. We do not fight the devil and his temptations alone.

Lonnie Davis

The background for our text finds Israel running from Egypt. Surrounded by the enemy, they did not see any escape. So we read our text for today from Exodus 14:11-15

“Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” 

Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.  

Okay, so they were afraid and wanted to go back to the old ways when their slave masters took care of them. Haven’t you ever been there? Times used to be hard, but the new ways are unknown. Let’s just go back to how things used to be before I started my new life.

Moses assured them that God would not let them down. He assured them, “The Egyptians you see today, you will never see again.” Then he told them, “The Lord will fight or you.” Even that is not enough!

God finally tells them to stop complaining and just move on!

Now that is a message I need. Do you like me, get stopped by fear? Just move forward! He will help. He will fight for you. Only trust him. In fact being frozen with fear is really just not trusting God to be faithful. 

Here is the great lesson from this story: Once you know what God wants you to do, just do it! Trust Him. He will fight for you.

Lonnie Davis

Our text for today is James 4:13-15

“Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”

May God bless the reading of his word.

Life is short. We are not made for here. We are made for there. On this idea, a poet wrote, “Grow old with me. The best is yet to be. The last of life for which the first is made.” Sometimes when I read those words, I think, “That’s baloney.” Then I think again and realize the truth.  One writer explained the joureey of the ages in this way:

“When the sun goes below the horizon he is not set; the heavens glow for a full hour after his departure. And when a great and good man sets, the sky of this world is luminous long after he is out of sight. Such a man cannot die out of this world. When he goes he leaves behind him much of himself. Being dead, he still speaks.”

When the sun sets, it does not die. What really matters is what you do with the few years of life that God has granted you. One man recognized this and talked about how people, as they age, might be compared to old ships. He noted that some old wooden ships rot and others end their ship days with very fine wood that is used for other things.

Some of those old ships were still beautiful because of the wood from which they were made. Others grew more beautiful over the years because they absorbed the seepage of the loads they carried over the decades.

So there is also a vast difference between the quality of old people who have lived self-indulgent, useless lives, and the fiber of those who have sailed over seas and carried cargoes as the servants of God and the helpers of their fellow men.

Lonnie Davis

Our text for today is Romans 12:19-20

Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. Therefore if your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him a drink; For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.”

May God bless the reading of his word.

What do you do when life isn’t treating you fairly? Sometimes it is because it is someone who is treating your unfairly. Anger and then bitterness are often the emotions we experience after feeling mistreated. This is especially valid if we’re not happy with how things turn out. 

The offending party may refuse to acknowledge their error or even lay the blame on you. If you’re a Christian, you already know that God expects you to forgive the person or individuals who hurt you or mistreated you in accordance with His Word. When that happens, our soul cries out, “It isn’t fair!”

I’m not going to debate what is or isn’t fair. I can only say that a lot of things in life are unfair, but fortunately we worship and serve a God who values fairness. It means that if we follow Him, He will make things right in due course. 

It may seem unreasonable to demand us to forgive someone who has wronged us even if they won’t repent or accept responsibility for their actions, but God commands us to do just that. Why? Because when we forgive, we are actually doing ourselves a favor rather than our enemies.

We are tortured as long as we harbor grudges, rage, and bitterness. Until we let go of the problem and trust God to make things right, we are actually letting the person who wounded us to continue hurting us. If you have anything against somebody, just forgive it, let it go. This is a gift you give yourself.

Lonnie Davis

Our Text for today is Habakkuk 3:17-19

Though the fig tree may not blossom,Nor fruit be on the vines; Though the labor of the olive may fail, And the fields yield no food; Though the flock may be cut off from the fold,And there be no herd in the stalls— Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. 

The LORD God is my strength.

Have there ever been instances in your life when God’s presence seemed to be absent? Even if we try to hold onto our faith when life’s worst happens, it’s simple to doubt God. The Apostle Thomas, because he lost hope, is often referred to as “Doubting Thomas.” Even Jesus on the cross cried out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.”

It is not shocking that we sometimes feel that way. When a loved one passes away far too soon, where is He? Where is God in death, illness, and divorce? When battles break out, where is He? Yes, sometimes we are left looking for God in the midst of everything because it appears like the world is heading toward catastrophe.

What are you dealing with right now? Does it seem like everything is going wrong in your life? How are you going to handle it? 

Of course, you cannot always choose what you will experience, but you can always choose how you will experience it. 

Choose patience and joy and trust that God who can see farther than  you can, can see the end of this too.

You can choose to say with Habakkuk, who in the midst of tough times said, “Yet, I will rejoice in the Lord…the God of my salvation.”

Remember, this struggle is temporary.

Lonnie Davis

One of my favorite scenes in the Bible is the funeral scene of Abraham in Genesis 25:8-10. We begin by reading that verse.

^“Then Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people. And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah. There Abraham was buried, and Sarah his wife.

That is the way to go – in a good old age, surrounded by your people, and buried by your children.

When you have lived for a few decades, you think about what it means to get old. One man wrote a poem (H.S. Fritsch) that has helped me through the years. I want to share that with you now. Perhaps it will bless your life.

Age is a quality of mind.
If you have left your dreams behind.

If hope is cold,
If you no longer look ahead,

If your ambitions’ fires are dead
Then you are old.

But if from life you take the best
If in life you keep the jest,
If love you hold;

No matter how the years go by,
No matter how the birthdays fly –

You are not old.

I didn’t wrote that poem, but they resonate with me.

Lonnie Davis

God Will Test You

In John 6, when the disciples saw the big hungry crowd following Jesus, Jesus tells his disciples to give them something to eat. Maybe this is where the idea of a church dinner first came from? Well,  anyway, our text tells what comes next. – John 6:5-7

When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Eight months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”

Why would Jesus tell them to get food for and feed 5,000 people? Actually the text tells us. the Bible says, “He asked them only to test.” “He already had in mind what he was going to do.”

You too will face tough situations. You might not know what to do, but you need to ask yourself, “Is this a test?” If God is watching, and of course he is, then we need to remember that it is a test. Handle this crises so that God is pleased with your faith.

Proverbs 17:3, tells us God works this way with us. “The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the heart.” Heat doesn’t make silver or gold. It merely reveals it. The heat and pressures of life don’t make you strong. They just reveal your true strength. Perhaps, even strength you didn’t know you had.

God is not bound by our human limitations. He can turn our problems into victories, our struggles into successes, and our weaknesses into strengths.

Lonnie Davis

Thousands of people were following Jesus to hear him preach, but thousands of poeple bring there own problems. They might not get tired, sick, or weary, but eventually they always get hungry.

With this background we begin with the reading of Mark 6:35-37

 By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. “This is a remote place,” they said, “and it’s already very late. Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” But he answered, “You give them something to eat.” They said to him, “That would take eight months of a man’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?”

In the middle of nowhere, a remote place, how do you feed more than 5,000 people? The disciples have a suggestion.

Send the people away. It doesn’t have to be our problem, they think. Let them buy something for themselves. Actually, I get it. There seems to be no other solution.

But Jesus has another idea. He tells the disciples, “You give them something to eat.”

Do you see the cycle? 

They say, Let them go somewhere to eat. In other words, let’s duck this problem.

Jesus said, “No, You handle it.”

There are a two great lessons to learn from this story.

#1. Handle your problems. 

If you ignore them, they won’t go away. They will get bigger.

I once knew a man who would, when a problem arose, would retreat into his bedroom until the problem went away. You may have some form of that yourself. They #1 way of hiding is to retreat into tomorrow. Tomorrow I will handle it. Then tomorrow there will be another tomorrow. Your may think the problem goes away because it seems to settle down, but unhandled, unresolved problems are usually still lingering just beneath the surface of life.

#2. God always has a plan, even if you don’t know it. 

“You give them something to eat” must have seemed ridiculous to them. They didn’t have enough resources, or so it seemed to them. The only ridiculous thing was for the disciples not to understand that when Jesus told them to do something, he would always provide the resources for them to do it. 

God still works in that way. Once you know what God wants them just do it. He will help!

Lonnie Davis

Our Scripture for today is John 10:7-10

Therefore Jesus said again, “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

Notice how he starts this teaching, “I tell you the truth…” 

And what is the reason for the truth that he was telling them? He shares the answer with us at the end of verse 10, “I am come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

So why do so many of us live lives that don’t feel like an abundant life? Perhaps it is because we do to drink in the full experience of Christianity. The following story is a great illustration of how we miss so much in life and certainly in the Christian life.

The story is told of a little boy who lived on a farm in the 1800s. When he was a twelve-year-old, he heard that a travelling circus was coming to his little remote town. He had never been to a circus and was excited about the possibility. When he first heard the news he ran home and asked, “Daddy, can i go?” He was from a poor family, but the father sensed how important this was to his son, “If you do your chores ahead of time, I see that you get to go next Saturday.” 

On Saturday morning, with chores done, he went to his dad. His dad reached into the pockets of his work clothes and dug out a dollar. It was more money than the boy had ever seen. His father cautioned him and sent him on his way to town. 

On the way to town, the boy feet hardly touched the ground.  As he neared the outskirts of town, he noticed people lining the streets. He worked his way through the crowd until he could see what was happening. It was the approaching spectacle of a circus parade! The parade was the most amazing thing he had ever seen. 

Caged animals roared as they passed. Bands beat their rhythms and sounded shining horns. Acrobats did leaps and flips while flags and ribbons swirled overhead. After everything had passed where he was standing, a circus clown, with floppy shoes, baggy pants, and a brightly painted face, brought up the rear. As the clown passed by, the little boy reached into his pocket and took out that precious dollar bill. Handing the money to the clown, the boy turned around and went home. The boy thought he had seen the circus when he had only seen the parade!

God has promised us great things, but too many of us upon seeing the parade, clap and then go home and think we have seen the parade. 

Jesus did not come to make life average. He did not come to make life tolerable. He did not come to make life good. He came to give you life to the full. The NAS and KJV say, “Abundant life.” Jesus meant for you to have an abundant life now. 

Lonnie Davis

The Main Job

Our text for today is Deuteronomy 6:5-9

Before I read, let me explain what I am going to read. There are two commands. The first is to all folks. The second is to those who hold the most important job on earth. It is not the job of a king or a president. It is not the job of a teacher or a doctor. It is a job of a Godly mom or dad. 

The first verse we read is to all of us. 

[5] Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 

This is the greatest command.  Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. But the greatest job is found in the next four verses. It gives instructions to mothers and fathers.

[6] These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. [7] Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. [8] Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. [9] Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

So the greatest job is to see that our children know about God. Nothing is more important. Remember these words from Deuteronomy 6. 

I will close with reading a poem that reminds us of why. It is called “The Bridge Builder.”

An old man going a lone highway, 

Came in the evening, cold and gray, 

To a chasm vast, both deep and wide, 

Through which was flowing a sullen tide.

The old man crossed in the twilight dim;

The swollen stream was as naught to him;

But he stopped when safe on the farther side, 

And built a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim near,

“You are wasting your strength in labor here;

Your journey will end with the closing day,

You never again will pass this way.

You’ve crossed the chasm deep and wide

Why build you this bridge at eventide?”

The laborer lifted his old gray head,

“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,

“There followeth after me today

A youth whose feet must pass this way.

This chasm which has been naught to me

To that young man may a pitfall be.

He, too, must cross in the twilight dim.

Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.”

Miss Will Allen Dromgoole

Remember to help build a bridge for your children. Build is so they will have an easier path to God. 

Lonnie Davis