DAY 275- Angels Watching Over Me

Psalm 91 (NRSV) ¹ You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty, ² will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust.’ ³ For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence; ⁴ he will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler. ⁵ You will not fear the terror of the night, or the arrow that flies by day, ¹⁴ Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name. ¹⁵ When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them and honour them. ¹⁶ With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation.

The Psalmist is celebrating an occasion when he has known the protection of God. And we experience those occasions as well. God sometimes works through the circumstances of our lives to protect us. We are at the right place at the right time. Accidents are avoided. People change their minds. With no pre-planning on our part, we are spared. Call it the work of the Lord, angels having charge over us, or synchronicity, sometimes events happen that give protection to our life and well-being. We believe the hand of God is at work in these events, but God is under no obligation and sometimes life caves in around us. Even if our mind knows better, our heart feels betrayed. Our understanding of God’s work is partial. It needs to be complemented by an understanding of God’s work within us.

God does give protection, sometimes by engineering the circumstances of our life, but always by giving us the inner resources we need. And, He is generous in providing us with people and prayer and the Scripture and whatever else we need as armor to combat the terror that comes by night and the arrow that flies by day. The Psalmist says that God provides these gifts to those who live in the shelter of the most high, who abide in the shadow of the almighty.

Abide means to stay with or to remain in. The opposite of abide is to run off, to become separated from. Not abiding is the senseless sin of self-protection. It is a frantic, futile effort that ignores the truth that to be human is to be insecure.  And self-protection has a bad habit of backfiring on us. Abiding is the continual action of trusting in the trustworthiness of God. It is perseverance in surrendering to God’s work and God’s will. It is a constant whispering of “yes” to God.

We fall back on our belief that God is good because God has declared that goodness to us through the instrument of the Cross. The Cross declares to us that in the worst of circumstances, when God appears absolutely uncaring and uninvolved, that those are the times when He cares the most and is most intimately involved. We are not spared life’s problems and pains. That much is obvious. But the Cross also declares that when pain and problems and danger and death have done their worst, we are saved and safe, held by the strong thread of God’s good will. 

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope May 9, 1993

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

DAY 274 - The Launching of A Life

Matthew 3:13-17 (NIV) ¹³ Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. ¹⁴ But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” ¹⁵ Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented. ¹⁶ As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. ¹⁷ And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

John 6:28-29 (NIV) ²⁸ Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” ²⁹ Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

Most of us have had some kind of launching event in our life. It may have been when we went off to college, or to the military, or to our first job. For Jesus, that event was His baptism in the River Jordan. The baptism of Jesus is an event with many meanings. It is the way He launched His public ministry, identified Himself with sinners, and affirmed that John’s call for repentance was true and important. It was the way God revealed His approval of Jesus. But, more than all those meanings, the meaning Jesus Himself gave was this: Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.

Righteousness meant conformity to God’s will. It meant doing what was right in God’s eyes and revealed in His word. It meant a right relation to God, conduct that conformed to God’s will, inwardly and outwardly, and an ordering of society where people were treated fairly according to God’s standard of fairness.

Certainly, Jesus did not mean He had to be baptized to become righteous. His baptism was a public statement and pledge that He would live His life and carry out His work on God’s terms, as God required.

Do we accept God’s terms for our relationship to Him or do we set the terms? God’s terms are not too tough to handle or too stifling to obey. Baptism tells us that the first requirement in our relationship with God is one of trust. We place our lives, as sincerely and completely as possible, in God’s hands, entrusting the direction of our life to Him. We confess our inability to direct them by ourselves. We acknowledge that we often have a hard time knowing clearly and convincingly what He wants, but we are committed to find out.  

The fist requirement in our relationship to God is one of trust. The central issue of our life is no longer one of whether we are succeeding or failing, whether we are being liked or rejected, whether we are getting our way or being frustrated, but whether we are being faithful or unfaithful, whether we are adventuring with Him or against Him.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope January 8, 1989

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

DAY 273 - Freedom

Galatians 5:13, 17-18, 24-25 (NIV) ¹³ You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. ¹⁷ For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. ¹⁸ But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. ²⁴ Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. ²⁵ Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

Why do some live with a wrinkled brow of worry while others seem to exude an air of peace? This question is about living freely, and the answer lies in remembering there are two sides to the Cross. The front side of the Cross is what happens when human beings get their own way … the most devious people but also the most decent. The front side of the Cross is the bondage we make for ourselves as we try to control and manipulate life independently of God. But there is another side to the cross, the side no one noticed that day on Golgotha. From the backside we see that the Cross was a freely chosen strategy of God in His Son to subject Himself to all of our bondage that He might loose us from it.

Paul says that the world has been crucified to him, both the good that the world has to offer and the worst that the world might attempt to do. When the world gave to Jesus its worst, He continued to trust, and God honored that trust in raising Jesus from the dead. And that is what Paul means, that he has already died to the worst that the world can do to him. And, of course, no one can ever live entirely free until they have broken the bondage to fear of death’s finality.

What is true of the best the world can offer is certainly also true of the worst that the world can do to us. The world can offer us success but it can also deny us success and give us failure. The world can offer us love, but it can also deprive us of love and give us loneliness. But certainly the worst of the worst that the world can do to us is what it did to Jesus. It can take our life and give us death. Death is ultimate bondage and the most convincing evidence that you and I are not in control, that life is not at our beck and call, it is not organized around our needs and wants.

The cross is the dividing line between believing in ourselves and our dreams for our life and trusting in God who has His own plans for us. The Cross is the place where we either put to death His sovereign will over our life or we die to our own efforts to keep everything under our control. We stand either on the front side of the Cross in bondage to the best that the world has to offer and the worst that the world promises to do, or we stand on the backside where we are set free.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope October 23, 1988

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

DAY 272 - Deliver Us From Evil

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Galatians 1:1-4 (RSV) Paul an apostle -- not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead -- and all the brethren who are with me, To the churches of Galatia: Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father; to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.  

“Grace to you,” Paul says, “and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age.” Commentaries point out that “deliver” here does not mean deliverance from the presence of evil, but deliverance from the power of this present evil age.

Evil is a pervading power to influence us to do wrong. Evil is more than a flaw or a character defect that we can overcome by self-effort. Evil breeds out of more than being raised in a dysfunctional family, or because we were poor, or because we were too easily wealthy, or for any other purely human reason. Evil is always more than the person or group doing evil. And evil is always deceiving. Even the wicked often claim they have a righteous reason to do evil, and often religion helps them find that righteous reason. The final answer to why human beings make each other miserable has to do with the presence and power of evil.

How powerless Jesus appeared against the power of evil. How could this Galilean carpenter turned itinerant preacher who draws after Him a motley mob of religious bureaucrats, prostitutes and a garden variety of sinners conquer evil. How could this Jesus whose life ends on a Cross as an object of ridicule believe His death would conquer evil? Yet, Jesus saw the conquering of evil to be His mission on earth, to set the prisoners free from the clutches of evil.

Jesus saw Himself as the strong arm of God, armed with God’s power, spearheading the attack on the power of evil, but He appeared so powerless, crucified on a Cross, King of the Jews written on a placard over His head as a kind of joke. But, the joke backfired and Jesus proved to be a King in a way that no one could have possibly imagined.

Jesus did more than teach us how to deal with a few moral flaws in our lives. Jesus did more than offer teachings on raising our children so they would turn out good. To be delivered from this present evil age is to be delivered from the fear and terror that some people seek to inflict on others. Jesus is the power of God for salvation to deliver us from this present evil age.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope November 4, 2001

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

DAY 271 - A Day in the Life of the Holy Spirit

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From Acts 16 (NIV) ¹⁴ One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. ¹⁶ Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. ¹⁸ She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her. ²² The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. ²³ After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. ²⁵ About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. ²⁶ Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose. ²⁷ The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. ²⁸ But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!”²⁹ The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. ³⁰ He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” ³¹ They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved —you and your household.” ³² Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. ³³ At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his household were baptized.

Have you had the experience of trying to tell someone something you knew as true but they would not listen? Do you know the frustration? Paul was frustrated in his effort to serve God and do the right thing. Do you know that frustration? His first missionary journey was less than a shining success. Paul set out to set the world on fire for Jesus Christ but at best he simply started a few brush fires.

Everywhere Paul went he experienced frustration, until Philippi, until Lydia. In Philippi we see a snapshots of the power of the Holy Spirit opening Lydia’s heart to trust the good news of Jesus, driving out a superstitious spirit from a girl, and freeing the jailer from the life of superstitious hopes in the gods, self-sufficiency, and trust in the Roman government.

These are snapshots of God’s power at work in strange and unexpected ways. When we prepare for the journey of trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit, everything is under our control. But, once launched on the journey we enter a place where we are not in control. Once launched on the journey we live by faith. We trust even though we never foresee how or when God will choose to intervene and touch our life. We do not know which roads God will call us to travel. We do not know how God will exercise God’s power and at any moment break out in such a thing as we never imagined. It is this spirit of expectancy, of not knowing but trusting, waiting, and following God’s will as best we know it, this spirit of wondering what God will do next that distinguishes a living faith from a dead religion.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope May 27, 2001

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

DAY 270 - How Inclusive Should We Be

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Acts 11:1-18 (NIV) 11 The apostles and the believers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. ² So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him ³ and said, “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.” ⁴ Starting from the beginning, Peter told them the whole story: ⁵ “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was. ⁶ I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles and birds. ⁷ Then I heard a voice telling me, ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.’⁸ “I replied, ‘Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’⁹ “The voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ ¹⁰ This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to heaven again. ¹¹ “Right then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. ¹² The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house. ¹³ He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. ¹⁴ He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.’ ¹⁵ “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. ¹⁶ Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ ¹⁷ So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?” ¹⁸ When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

Does it make any difference how inclusive we are? It does, and here is why: who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way? Do we, individually and as the church, help or hinder the work of God? God gave Peter a vision, not an argument or an opinion, and did not ask for a vote. God gave Peter a vision, and it happened three times. And at the very moment of the vision there was a knock on Peter’s door and three strangers, all Gentiles and servants of a Roman officer were standing before him. They had been sent to Peter to both give something Peter needed and to receive from him something they needed, and with that Peter understood the vision was not about food that was unclean, but rather about people he had always thought were unclean. God gives the vision. God gives people to help understand and implement the vision.

When Peter spoke of Jesus and saw the response of the people, he remembered scripture and the Word of the Lord slid some solid conviction under his feet. The vision was not just about food. It was about people he had always thought were unclean. The invitation from the men sounded so much like God’s invitation to take and eat that Peter then understood.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope May 13, 2001

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

DAY 269 - Tabitha, Arise

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Acts 9:36-40, 42 (NIV) ³⁶ In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (in Greek her name is Dorcas); she was always doing good and helping the poor. ³⁷ About that time she became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room. ³⁸ Lydda was near Joppa; so when the disciples heard that Peter was in Lydda, they sent two men to him and urged him, “Please come at once!” ³⁹ Peter went with them, and when he arrived he was taken upstairs to the room. All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them. ⁴⁰ Peter sent them all out of the room; then he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, “Tabitha, get up.” She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up. ⁴² This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord.

The raising of Tabitha was not about eternal life. Her time to die would return, but for now she was an exception to the rule that said death is permanent. But, why Tabitha? Why would God make her the exception? Granted, she was a disciple of Jesus. She was a very good person. She made clothes and gave them to the village widows. But, she has a minor role in the church at Joppa and even after being brought back to life she does not seem to play an important role in continuing the work of Jesus. If God was going to make an exception, why not make Stephen the exception, rather than allowing him to endure the hard, slow death of being stoned? Stephen was boldly proclaiming the truth about Jesus when his life was cut short. Why not make Stephen the exception? Or James, or Peter?

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If our “why” questions question the choice and the fairness of God, we may hear no answer. But if our why question is about what God is saying to us and showing to us in making Tabitha an exception to the rule of death, then we can hear an answer that will make a difference to our life.

Why Tabitha? Because God chose to show to the church again that there is someone more powerful than the permanency of death in the world. That Someone is Jesus. Tabitha, arise. Arise out of the certainty that many had about death. Arise out of the shaky belief that the resurrection of Jesus was only for Jesus and is uncertain for you or me. Arise out of a forgone faith where everything is a forgone conclusion and the expectancy of hope has been dashed by the reliability of death and rules. Tabitha was raised temporarily from the dead to demonstrate the permanent power of the risen Christ, and to call women and men to a life of faith in the rule of God. And many people believed in the Lord. That is why Tabitha was raised. Tabitha, arise is the presence of the risen Christ.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope May 6, 2001

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell