Grace by the Stream

Devotion
March 2003

Picture in your mind a large board with post-it notes stuck all over it. The notes cover the entire board. On each note is a single word. Baptism. Sex. Drugs. Rock and Roll Music. Whiskey. Wine. Rapture. Homosexual. Abortion. Think of any other words that the church gets divided over and put them up there too.

Now as we begin to remove the notes we see that there are letters underneath written on the board. You see and “E” and then an ‘S’. Another ‘S’ and a ‘J’ and finally a ‘U’. They spell JESUS.

That is the problem with all of this stuff written on the notes. They cover up the real message of the church. Jesus is the real thing we should be focused on so remove all the notes from the board and tell everyone about what you see when you are done. Jesus. To help are some verses on the subject of unity. Meditate on them and see what God would have to say to you about them.

Unity Message Verses

2Tim 2:23 Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments , because you know they produce quarrels. 24 And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. 25 Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.

Titus 3:1 Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, 2 to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men. 3 At one time we too were foolish , disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. 4 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. 8 This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone. 9 But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless. 10 Warn a divisive person once, and then warn him a second time. After that, have nothing to do with him. 11 You may be sure that such a man is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.

Mark 9:33 They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” 34 But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest. 35 Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.”

Phil 2:14 Do everything without complaining or arguing , 15 so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe.

John 17:13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. 20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23 I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Psalm 133:1 How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity ! 2 It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron’s beard, down upon the collar of his robes. 3 It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion. For there the LORD bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.

Romans 15:1 We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. 2 Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. 3 For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.” 4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. 5 May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, 6 so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7 Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.

Colossians 3:11 Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. 12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity .

John 13:34 “A new command I give you: Love one another . As I have loved you, so you must love one another . 35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another .”

Thanks for listening.

Jerry Robertson
Chaplain CMA Crossties

Newsletter Article
February 2003

Fulfillment

How many of you are fulfilled? Do you have the relationships you want? Are they perfect?
We were created for relationships. Perfect relationships.

Gen 3:8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day.

God came to be together with His creation. To talk together. To spend time together. That is the kind of relationships we were created for. We were also created to live forever. In Gen3:21 God said about this about us. “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” If we had not fallen, could we have taken from the tree of life? Perhaps that was what was intended all along. We would live forever. Now, how does that affect relationships? What keeps us from building better relationships? Time? If I had more time I could…….??? You fill in the blanks.

We could spend more time with our kids, spouses and friends. Build better relationships. Spend more time with God in the cool of the day. That sounds pretty good to me. How about a long ride in the mountains with friends, some lunch and no hurry to get back. We have all the time in the world. Really!!

Now the problem. We don’t have forever in this life. We don’t get to have the perfect relationships. We have misunderstandings. We don’t have the time to spend with our families, friends or God. So what do we do? The only thing I have found that works is to ‘get over it’. Now I don’t mean to be insensitive but not begin able to have the perfect relationships we so desperately desire can be really frustrating. Our spouses don’t understand us. Our friends are too busy to see us. Our kids have all the things that have to be done now. School projects, ball practice, term papers they need your help with. The house needs cleaned, dishes done, meals cooked and not enough time. We have to work late, get the quarterly report done by tomorrow and handle that difficult customer that didn’t get the shipment you sent. Now what?

I want to encourage you to ‘get over it’. I said earlier that you did not have forever in this life. But we do have forever if you have trusted Jesus for your salvation. This life will pass but we are destined for greater things. To fulfill what God created us for. To have perfect relationships with Him and others in His creation. Now, I don’t have all the answers but I know that the only things that are going to last are God’s Word and human souls and we have to focus on what lasts. Not on the stuff that is here for a little while and is then gone. So when it gets frustrating, overwhelming and distracting from the important stuff get focused on what is important and ‘get over it’. Give your kids a hug. Take your spouse out for some time together. Spend some time with your friends just enjoying them. Get together with God and walk with him in the cool of the day. Now that is what we were intended to do.

Doing my best to ‘get over it’,

Jerry Robertson
Chaplain CMA Crossties

Devotion
February 2003

Wish – To desire something
Suspect – To believe something to be so.
Hope – To expect something

What do you wish for? A new Harley, Honda or Ducati? A bigger bike? World peace? A new set of leathers? Do you have any reason to believe that you are going to get what you wish for? Is it your birthday? Has someone been nosing around about what you might like to have?

I have a friend named Dave that wanted a new Harley Standard. He had wished for one most of his adult life but realized that it was a lot of money and he had a perfectly good bike so why should he get another one. He just wished he could have it. Then Cheryl got him the Standard. Cheryl is his wife. They have been married for 25 years and she wanted to do something special for him so she decided that this was it. He suspected nothing. She had bought it and it was hidden in a storage unit just around the corner from their house.

Most of us wish that God would do what we want but when we find out that He had a different plan we might get angry or disappointed. Imagine if Dave wanted a new bike but thought that he just could not afford the Standard. Now he had decided to get something else but Cheryl told him that she didn’t think it was a good idea. In fact, she ‘put her foot down’ and said that she didn’t want him to get a new bike right now. Now Cheryl’s reasons were for Dave’s own good but Dave didn’t know that. Yet. How do you think Dave might be feeling?

If Dave suspected the truth, he might have felt different. Do you suspect the truth? Dave suspected nothing. Now if he had, he might believe that he was going to get the bike he really wanted but he really did not have any evidence that he was going to get it. Maybe Cheryl had accidentally left the sales brochure lying on the kitchen table. Now there is a reason to suspect something. Usually we have to have some evidence that something is true before we suspect it.

Do you have reasons in your life to suspect that God cares about you? That He wants to do something good in your life? Think about the last year, month, week or even day. Did God do something for you? Did He teach you something that you needed to know? It is not always pleasant as the time but it will be in the long run. If we begin to add up the evidence we see perhaps we can just plan on things working out for our good. That is what hope is all about.

Now if Dave were to have even more evidence about the bike, like perhaps a strange phone call on the caller ID from the local Harley dealer or a receipt for some piece of chrome that Cheryl bought that only fits a Standard, he might have a reason to hope after all. Now he begins to put 2 and 2 together. Their anniversary is coming up, Cheryl is acting kinda strange, you know, smiling a lot when she looks at Dave or changing the subject of a conversation on the phone when he walks into the room.

He still is not certain but he begins to have hope. Now after 25 years of marriage, he certainly can have faith in Cheryl. She has proven herself over and over again to be trust worthy. He knows that she always has his interests in mind and cares about him more than anyone on earth so it is easy to hope for something good. He may not know all the details yet but he has confidence that she loves him and will do something good for him.

God is like that. Over and over again He cares for us. You all have stories that you can tell, in fact, why don’t some of do just that in a minute. I think it will encourage all of us to hear what God is doing for each of us.

In 1Tim6:17 it says “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” For our enjoyment??? Is that possible???

Do you think that Dave is going to enjoy that new motorcycle? I would. Well, if it was a Honda I might enjoy it more 🙂 but you get the point. I have been a practicing Christian for over 20 years (yeah, still practicing) and I can tell you that God cares for me and I am sure that He cares for you. In fact it says in Romans 8:28 “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Who do you put your hope in? Put it in God who cares for His children and will provide everything for our enjoyment.

Now, what has God done in your lives lately?

Jerry Robertson
Chaplain CMA Crossties

Newsletter Article
January 2003

To all the Saints in Crossties,

How many of you reading this are saints?? Col 1:10-14 says “And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. ”

Now for us to qualify to share in the inheritance of the saints, don’t we have to be a saint ourselves? In several places in the scripture, we are referred to as saints. Do you feel like a saint? The thing that God has been pressing on to my heart this week is the fact that we are saints and often don’t feel like it. I think that this is because we have things in our lives that separate us from God and put space between us and Him. The focus I want to take this month is that we don’t have anything separating us from God as long as we are confessing our sins. In 1John 1:9 it says “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

Now we are forgiven but we don’t forget the sin, do we? Praise God that He does forget.

Psalm 103:8-12 says “The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west , so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”

That is pretty far, isn’t it. We can go North on this earth and eventually end up going South, can’t we. But if we travel East, we will be going East until we stop. We will never end up going West. Did you ever think about that? This is how from our sins (transgressions) are removed from us.

Hebrews 10:15-17 says “The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.” Then he adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more .”

The Spirit of God says to us that He will remember our sins NO MORE. When we confess sins to God He will forgive us our sins and He will remember them no more. If we pray to God about a sin we confessed yesterday, the bible says that He doesn’t even know what we are talking about. He has forgotten it. How can that be? If God is perfect, doesn’t He have a perfect memory? I guess He does but He has chosen to forget and He can do that perfectly too.

We cannot understand all of God’s ways. If we could, we would be God and well, we are not. I don’t pretend to understand all of this but I know it is true because of what God says in His word.

This is what God has been telling me this month and I believe that He wanted me to encourage you to confess your sins to Him so He can forget them. Then we can go out as the saints we are and do the work He has given us to do.

I closing, I want to send my greetings to all the saints in Christ Jesus, especially those in Crossties. Praise Him that He remembers not our sins but sees us through the blood of Jesus Christ who has washed us as clean as snow.

Greet each other as saints the next time you meet and encourage one another in His Name.

Your fellow servant (and saint) in Christ,

Jerry Robertson
Chaplain

Stirring the servants
January 2003

What stirs you up? What gets you going emotionally? Intellectually? Physically?

Does a warm spring day with the flowers in bloom stir you? The smells, the sounds, the sun.

Is it the back beat of some music or the sound of violins at the symphony? How about some great guitar playing that song that gets you to drive a little faster than you should?

Does it bother you when you see a homeless person along the street as you are driving by? Does that stir something in you?

Does it stir something in you when you see a bunch of bikes ride by the other way as you are stuck in traffic on your way to work? Does that get to you somehow?

Does it stir you when you see a biker at a rally or at a rest stop that looks lost or sad or to see them trying to find life by using drugs or alcohol to numb the loneliness that they feel? To see them join with others that are feeling the same loneliness to try and not feel lonely? Does that stir you?

Does it stir you when you hear God’s voice? His leading in what it is you are asking Him to guide you in. Do you follow that leading? You have heard God’s call to be here, haven’t you? Or are you just here?

We are called to witness to those we are placed in front of. To witness about God, about Christ and what they have and are doing for us and in our lives. Simply, to be a witness is to tell what we have seen, heard, felt or understood to have happened. Not to argue like a lawyer or decide like a judge but to simply be a witness. Is this your mission? Does it stir you to share Christ with those that don’t know Him?

Another question – do you believe in hell? Do you? Don’t give me the answer I’m looking for – do you really believe in hell? I know you know about it in your head, and you learned about it from Sunday school, since you were at the children’s meetings – I know all these things, because I know them as well – but do you really believe? An atheist once said to a Christian – an atheist! – ‘If I believed what you believed about hell, I would crawl on my hands and knees, across beds of broken glass and hot ashes, to the four corners of the earth to tell people – to warn people of hell!’. Do you believe in hell, Christian?

Elizabeth Dole, former United States Secretary of Transportation, in an address to students at Smith College: “On whatever path you now choose, I urge you to commit to a mission that stirs your soul. To be truly absorbed releases us from the limitations of ego. It melts the ice of apathy and cynicism. It gives purpose to our freedom and direction to our gifts, turning life into an honorable adventure and a source of joy. And … it brings fulfillment to our lives.”

What freedom we have in Christ. To no longer be bound by the law but to live as Christ lives because He lives in us. If we get out of the way, He does as He wishes with us and reaches to those in our paths to love on them. To draw them to Himself. This life I live is not my own but I have died and it is Christ that lives in me.

To not be lonely anymore!! Christ is always there. He promised to never leave you or forsake you. Does that stir you? He promised to come and get you and take you to the place He has prepared for you. To His Fathers house where there are many rooms. Now that ought to stir you.

Now, I don’t want you to think that you are somehow less if you are not stirred. And I don’t want you to try and stir yourself up. What I believe is that God does the stirring but we have to give him a chance to do it. Be still and know that I am God. That stirs me when I get slowed down and try and listen to Him. That may mean turning off the radio on the commute. Give that time to God in prayer. (keep you eyes open though). To give Him some or all of your lunch hour. Turn off the TV at 10:00. Give him an hour of your time somewhere in the day. Read your bible. Get still so that He can stir you up. Pray for Him to specifically stir you up for this mission that He has called you to. We are not here by chance.

In Nehemiah 2:12 it says “I had not told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem.” God puts these things in our heart without our knowledge sometimes and without our ‘help’ other than to listen to Him and see what it is He wants us to do.

He has stirred us with the bikes and He has given us the gift to use it for His glory. I can’t imagine anyway that I could be happier than when I am doing what He has called me to do. He has called me to ride and I am going to do it with joy. He has called me to share with those that I cross paths with. I have Enjoyed the Ride during the last year and I am looking forward to being stirred up by Him this year.

How about you?

Jerry Robertson
Chaplain CMA Crossties