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Good weekend to you my “Walking with Jesus” friends!
I love weekends, how about you? It’s a great time to reflect, relax and prepare isn’t it? Reflect on the week just past; relax from the toil of the week, and prepare for the new week ahead…right? Have you discovered the power in doing this spiritually? Using your weekend to reflect on what God did during the past week; relax and refresh yourself in mind, body and spirit, and spend some good time preparing your heart to fully engage with God in what HE wants to accomplish in this next week?
All this past week we’ve been focused on one very important word in God’s vocabulary . . . REMEMBER! All through the Bible and history, God calls us, His people, in every generation, to look back over our lifetime, and beyond that, into our family heritage, and then even wider into the history of God’s people… and LEARN from the past! Have you developed this very important life skill? Have you taught it well to your children and grandchildren?
This weekend, let’s begin our transition from looking back and learning, to looking forward and preparing to step into our tomorrows. May I give you two great stories from the history of God’s people that will help us? 1 Samuel chapter 7 is the first. You’ll recall a woman named Hannah was infertile, and cried out to God, with a vow, that if God would open her womb and bless her with a son, she would give that son over to the LORD, for all his lifetime, in dedicated service to God. You’ll find that story in 1 Samuel 1.
When we come to 1 Samuel 7, Samuel is now the spiritual leader of Israel, but over the years many people have become lazy in their spirituality and they’ve become idol worshipers, and the nation of Israel has come on hard times. So the people come to Samuel asking him to lead them back to God. As they are worshiping and repenting of their idolatry, their enemy the Philistines approach to attack them, thinking they are more vulnerable in their worship time. God intervenes powerfully in defense of His people and the Philistines are routed. Then Samuel sets up a large rock as a Pillar of Remembrance and names the place “Ebenezer” saying “Thus far the LORD has helped us”. Do you notice what it says next in 1 Samuel 7:13 “So the Philistines were subdued and did not invade Israelite territory again. Throughout Samuel’s lifetime, the hand of the LORD was against the Philistines.”
Do you see the power of repentance and worship, and the power of remembering what God did, as they lived the next several years under the protecting hand of God? Can you imagine many years later, an old man coming by that place with his grandsons, stopping at that stone pillar, looking out across the landscape and saying to those grandsons, ‘let’s sit right here for a while, let me tell you a story about what happened in this very place many years ago, as God came to our rescue, and how my life has been blessed all these years, because of that day…” My friends, how does REMEMBERING prepare you and then propel you into the future of your life? How does REMEMBERING give you important God stories which warrant re-telling to your descendants, because those events have shaped who you are? Do you see the difference between the power of remembering the important lessons of God at work in your past, and the tragedy of forgetting or worse disregarding God’s involvement in your past?
As we close this week together, here’s a final look at the power of Remembering God at work in your past. Psalm 126:5,6 “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of Joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him.” Oh my, how powerfully hopeful is that? Have you experienced it?
Have you stood faithful to God and His truth, His promises, when you were in difficult, dark, painful times… perhaps even times so painful you wept? Have you stayed the course of life, upon which Jesus was leading you, even in very difficult times, unwilling to give up, even though there was no evidence things were going to get any better? These two verses remind us that God honors that type of faithfulness and often, years later, His faithful people will see the reward, the blessing, the harvest of their faith!
How many great Bible stories recount this powerful truth for us? How about young Joseph, sold by his own brothers to be a slave.Then spent 13 years in slavery, some of it in prison falsely charged by his bosses wife, and apparently forgotten in prison. . .but God was working His larger plan and purpose. The Pharaoh had a dream he could not understand and it frightened him. Joseph was brought from prison, interpreted the dream giving all the credit to God, and was elevated to be Prime Minister of Egypt responsible for famine management! In that role he was able to bring his father Jacob and all his family to live in the bounty of Egypt and save them from starvation! (Genesis 39-48)
Or how about Daniel, dragged off as a young teenager, from Jerusalem and taken into captivity in Babylon, yet there he remained faithful to God in all ways, and was blessed of God with great intelligence, and elevated to be an advisor to the most powerful leader on earth! God sustained him there as Daniel served perhaps 60 years or more, advising 4 different emperors, and even surviving the lion’s den, with God’s protection, all because he remained faithful to God in the hard times, and God included Daniel strategically in His great purposes and plans.
Friends, we’ve been through some very dark weeks and months recently. Have you remained faithful to God, and God’s Word? Have you sought to honor Him with all aspects of your life, your words, your attitudes and your choices? Have you been looking back to learn the lessons from your past that God wants to teach you, so you can now walk forward with Jesus, into His future for you? As you do so, keep your eyes open, and watch for the evidence of God inviting you into His great strategies in these special days, in your part of the world. He may want to involve you soon in a great harvest of some type. A harvest that only He could accomplish, through the faithfulness of His people!
Refresh this weekend, take a moment and jot down in your journal a few important things God has said to you this week, for on Monday, we’ll look closely at taking the second major step out of the darkness of these past months, as we ‘walk with Jesus’ into His future for us.
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Click to read today’s chapter: I Samuel 7; Psalm 126:5,6. (At the top you can choose a different translation.)
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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