DAY 232 - According to the Power at Work Within Us

Exodus 14:13-14, 19-20a, 21-23, 26-29, 31 (NIV)  ¹³ Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. ¹⁹ Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, ²⁰ coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. ²¹ Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, ²² and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. ²³ The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea. ²⁶ Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.” ²⁷ Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the LORD swept them into the sea. ²⁸ The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived. ²⁹ But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. ³¹ And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the LORD displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.

Ephesians 3:20-21 (NIV) ²⁰ Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Off in the distance, a huge cloud of dust was rising in the air. The unmistakable thunder of the armies of Egypt were growing louder and louder. The people were utterly defenseless, trapped against a huge body of water and calling to Moses for help. The story of Moses parting the waters has been heard so often and pictured in film so vividly that it is hard for us to hear this event in a new and fresh way. Rather than trying to relive the Exodus form the perspective of the people of Israel, I want to see it through the eyes and heart of Moses.

Remember that he, too, had questioned the wisdom of God’s call. He too had wondered about the power of God’s promise, and had taken a lot of convincing. But now he stood firm in faith, and his confidence in the power of God grew as the armies of Egypt approached. Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. For the people of Israel the parting of the sea was an experience of deliverance and triumph. For Moses it was an experience of power and an expression of triumph over his own doubts and fears.

Can the same thing be possible for us? Is that same power available to you and me? The Passover, the Exodus and the parting of the waters are parallel events to the Lord’s Supper, the Resurrection, and the Pentecost when God sent the power of His spirit upon the waiting disciples. And that means the power that parted the waters is available to us as well. It is a power given to accomplish God’s plan and purpose for human life. It is a power that comes to us from an outside source. This power is not self-generated. We can channel it. We cannot create it.

This power is not given to people because they have reached a certain stage of holiness or perfection. It is available to us with all our frailties, failings, and faults. God does not wait until we are perfected to work through us.

The armies are still pursuing us. Their threat and their thunder still make their presence felt. Here is our hope: God has given us power over the pursuing armies. God has given us power to part the waters of self-doubt that allows people to reach the shore of self-esteem, the waters of self-seeking that allows people to reach the shore of real security. We can part the waters of past regrets and future fear and reach the shore of real freedom and courage.

We tap into the source of power through Scripture, through prayer, through the sacraments, and through the gathering people of God, the church. Fear not. Stand firm. See what God will do. These words came from one who himself had doubted. God is at work within us to do far more abundantly than we ever dreamed possible.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope January 19, 1986

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

Day 231 - Hey! Let’s Be Careful Out There

John 17:6-11, 17 (NIV)  ⁶ “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. ⁷ Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. ⁸ For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. ⁹ I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. ¹⁰ All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. ¹¹ I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. ¹⁷ Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.

“Hey, let’s be careful out there” is police Sgt. Phil Esterhaus’ classic one liner from the television show Hill Street Blues (1981-1987). “Out there” for us is the possibility of sudden death, or lingering illness. “Out there” is the possibility of losing a job, or being passed over for a promotion. “Out there” is the possibility of being rejected and of being alone, or of being swallowed up by a competitive world. “Out there” is where feelings of anger, fear, and guilt often get a hold in our life and slowly release their poison. We have been told not to expect any special favors from God “out there,” and that our faith does not spare us from pain and problems.  All of this is true, but it is only half true.

During those last days in Jerusalem, Jesus prayed for His disciples. The prayer clearly included protection for the disciples. Jesus was not spared conflict, trouble, pain, and death, yet He clearly expected God to give the disciples protection. The protection is not that of escaping life’s trouble and pain, or that we be spared from trouble and pain. Jesus knows the stuff you and I are made of, that there are limits to the trials and troubles we can deal with, and that there is one who seeks to use the trial to drive a wedge between God and us.

The prayer is for protection of God’s presence with us, that no misfortune, or illness, or distress will have power over us to destroy our relationship to God, to break the back of our confidence in God’s goodness and power. We are limited, yes. We are weak, yes. We are disposed to illness, and doomed to die. Yet, God is for us. Distress and trouble may temporarily hide that truth from us, but does not change it. Troubles and distress are always temporary. God is permanent. He does not always deliver us from difficulties and distress, but He never abandons us to them. “Sanctify them by the truth.” Jesus is praying that the spreading of God’s truth be our reflex response to difficulties and distress. That the spreading of God’s truth will stabilize us, enable us to cope. God has built into us the strength of His truth. It is sometimes battered, but never destroyed.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope October 13, 1985

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

DAY 230- Power House

Proverbs 8:1-11 (NIV)  ¹ Does not wisdom call out? Does not understanding raise her voice? ² At the highest point along the way, where the paths meet, she takes her stand; ³ beside the gate leading into the city, at the entrance, she cries aloud: ⁴ “To you, O people, I call out; I raise my voice to all mankind. ⁵ You who are simple, gain prudence; you who are foolish, set your hearts on it. ⁶ Listen, for I have trustworthy things to say; I open my lips to speak what is right. ⁷ My mouth speaks what is true, for my lips detest wickedness. ⁸ All the words of my mouth are just; none of them is crooked or perverse. ⁹ To the discerning all of them are right; they are upright to those who have found knowledge. ¹⁰ Choose my instruction instead of silver, knowledge rather than choice gold, ¹¹ for wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her.

Revelation 3:1-3 (NIV) ¹ “To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits^[ of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. ² Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. ³ Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.

On the surface, the church in Sardis was doing well. They were not being persecuted. They were not bogged down in false teaching. They were active, prosperous, and well thought of in the community. But, they were dead. They lacked the life-giving power of God’s Spirit. They were doing good deeds, but they were not accomplishing God’s work.

The challenge to the church at Sardis was to receive the life giving presence of God’s spirit to their deeds, so that God would not be simply an external power and authority, but one who lived in them, transforming their thinking and feelings, renewing their minds, inspiring their hearts, and working through their words and deeds.

When the goals come from the Head of the Church, the body also receives the power to do them. The Lord is gracious to us and understanding of our nature. But I believe the challenge to us is to be a listening church. A living church is a listening church. As obvious and simple as that may sound, in our headstrong and headlong ways of doing things, it may be one of the most difficult things to practice. Just as love for other people is seen in a willingness to listen to them, so love for God is seen in a willingness to listen to His Word as found in Scripture, in prayer, and as that Word incarnate in the lives of His people.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope November 4, 1984

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

DAY 229 Management by Objectives

Joshua 1-9 (NRSV)  ¹After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord spoke to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying, ²‘My servant Moses is dead. Now proceed to cross the Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the Israelites. ³Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, as I promised to Moses. ⁴From the wilderness and the Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, to the Great Sea in the west shall be your territory. ⁵No one shall be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you. ⁶Be strong and courageous; for you shall put this people in possession of the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them. ⁷Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to act in accordance with all the law that my servant Moses commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, so that you may be successful wherever you go. ⁸This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful. ⁹I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.’

Goal setting and planning are important both to organizations and to individuals, but goal setting and planning can become a poor substitute for learning to live by a sense of call. Joshua was one of the most able managers, planners, and organizers in Israel’s history, yet he lived by a sense of call that came to him by God.

We set goals with a reasonable hope of accomplishing them. That is hope without the call. Carried over in to our life it means that we try to live out our days in something like peace and with the ones we love. To live by the call is to believe the promise of purpose. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, as I promised to Moses. You have a reason and a right to be here. To live by the call is to believe the promise of power. No one shall be able to stand against you all the days of your life. No obstacle can block us from achieving God’s purposes. To live by the call is to believe the promise of presence. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you.

To live by the call is to be set free from trying to achieve what is reasonably predictive. It is knowing that we do not know what means God will take to touch a life or accomplish His will. We do not know what roads He will lead us down.

To meditate on the word of God enables us to have an attitude of compliance and obedience so we know we are where God wants us to be, giving ourselves wholeheartedly to whatever tasks He sets before us.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope 1984

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

DAY 228 - Sharpening Up The Saints

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Hebrews 4:11-12 (NIV) ¹¹ Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience. ¹² For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

Revelation 2:12-17a (NIV) ¹² “To the angel of the church in Pergamum write:  These are the words of him who has the sharp, double-edged sword. ¹³ I know where you live—where Satan has his throne. Yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, not even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city—where Satan lives. ¹⁴ Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: There are some among you who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality.  ¹⁵ Likewise, you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. ¹⁶ Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. 

In the hands of Christ, the sword brings not a judgment of destruction, but of healing. Judgment not to condemn, but to save. The sword in His hands is used like a scalpel to cut away that which is false and illusionary. This is the way the judgment of Christ works.

The church in Pergamum was under pressure to join with the rest of the population in worshipping the Emperor. The church had resisted the pressure even to the point of remaining true to Christ when one of their own was killed by mob frenzy against their faith. They had resisted the pressure from the outside, but the church had lost its love for truth and were failing to test spirits to see if they were of God. They were allowing false teaching to be spread among the people. The church in Pergamum remained faithful, but their faith was being eroded from beneath them by tolerance of false teaching.

The Nicolaitans have long since vanished from the scene, but they left behind the assumption that “if I believe it that makes it so.” We call this subjectism. To repent is to recognize that in our aversion to narrow minded dogmatism we may have given up the search for truth. We have accepted uncritically the religion of our society and/or settled for the comfortable faith of subjectism. To repent is to become aware that it is important for our beliefs to correspond to reality. To repent is to continually measure what we believe against the Word of God in Scripture. It is essential that we hear with clarity the voice of Scripture and learn to distinguish that voice from all other voices that ring in our ears. It is important that we expose our lives to the power of the Word to open our eyes to see the truth about ourselves, our neighbors, our community, and our world. Christians should be tender hearted and tough minded so we might confront the world with the same truth that has confronted us.

From a sermon preached  by Henry Dobbs Pope October 28, 1984

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

DAY 227 - Lost Love

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Revelation 2:1-7 (NRSV) ‘To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands: ‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them to be false. I also know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name, and that you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then from what you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

The strength of the church in Ephesus was perseverance and purity of doctrine. The church had remained steadfast in their faith in Christ despite the opposition from the priest of the Temple of Diana. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. The ardor, the enthusiasm, the devotion, and the warmth of love was missing from their fellowship. In the same way, has the love that once sparked us been dampened? Have we lost the sense of compassion that has guided our life?

Where love is most likely to be eroded from our life is in our expressions of ministry if they become performances rather than acts of love. Every effective ministry begins in an act of love, as an expression of our devotion to Christ. The hard thing is to keep it that way. It isn’t easy. It is the natural drift of things to begin in the spirit of love and to end in drudgery. Without love, service becomes drudgery, speaking becomes noise, motivation is forced.

And, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. The lampstand is taken away. The lampstand is the life and light of Jesus Christ. When love for Him is no longer the motive for ministry we can say the words and do the work, but we do not convey or present His love to others.

Return to the center. Remember those moments when we have glimpses that the only life that matters is Christ’s kind of life. Remember those moments when Christ came to us in countless disguises through people, some who supported us and some who confronted us, all by the power of Christ’s love in them.

Let us allow our mind and heart to be receptive and to be vulnerable to the love of Christ for us. This giving of ourselves to Christ is never finished but always to be reaffirmed with a new decision and fresh surrender. Undoubtedly, Revelation is promising the experience of heaven to those who remain faithful. But I believe it is also true that as we maintain love as the motivation of our ministry we are able to sample the paradise of God here and now.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope October 21, 1984

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell