Daily Devotional – June 19, 2020

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A bit of encouragement from God’s Word

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Well, good afternoon. How is day 62 going for you thus far? 62 days.
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So that means we are now officially into the third month of the
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COVID lockdown. Well, didn't the sun this morning do a good bit of wonderful stuff for you?
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You look good. We'll look out the window, see the blue sky and the sun shining after a very wet weekend that last weekend and then day after day of clouds and clouds and wondering is the sun ever going to come out again?
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Well, I just want you to know we're making some progress on starting outdoor services.
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I said the other night, maybe, I don't know if I mentioned it yesterday or not, but that we're looking to start outdoor services, weather permitting, on June 7th.
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We may be able to do that a week earlier if we get everything together, trying to do that, and we'll let you know as soon as possible.
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Otherwise, I hope you can catch the Sunday morning worship service this Sunday, 1030 Central Time, of course.
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I'm going to be learning a new hymn. I found an old hymn. I've never seen it before, but it fits very well with our focus.
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I'm going to be focusing on the Ascension in Acts chapter 1. So again,
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I hope you can tune in for that. Monday, of course, is a holiday. Do you remember that? It's kind of gotten buried and overshadowed by all of the restrictions and the other news and so on and so forth.
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But it is. It's a holiday. So I'm not going to be doing the daily devotional on Monday.
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I'm going to take some family time, reserve the day for family. So I'll be picking that up again on Tuesday.
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Well, today is the last day of school for my kindergartner grandson. Congratulations to him on graduation from kindergarten.
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Last week was graduation for Allison, graduated from Sterling High School.
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So school's winding down, but she graduated without any pomp and circumstances.
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Some expert, I guess, determined that celebrating milestones is not essential in the middle of a lockdown.
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Well, speaking of school, have you seen the new guidelines from the CDC, the recommended guidelines for opening school in the fall?
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Here are a few juicy tidbits. I thought you might enjoy these. First of all, no sharing of electronic devices, toys, games or learning aids.
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So all those times when your kid's playing with another kid and they get into a tussle over the same thing and you say, you got to share, you got to share.
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Now they can be selfish and nobody's going to tell them otherwise. OK, here's another one.
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One -way routes in hallways. One -way routes in hallways. I mean, hey, it's working great at Walmart, right?
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And then another one. Put tape on the sidewalks and walls to ensure that kids stay six feet apart.
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I think they're probably going to need some of those bumper things. I saw on the news the other night this restaurant somewhere had created like these huge inner tube table things.
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And you get in the middle of this and it's like a three feet circumference or a diameter so that you'll never be more than six feet within six feet of somebody.
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I see the kids doing that. No field trips, assemblies or external organizations in schools.
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No field trips. I mean, that's what we lived for when we were in school, right? And then this one is a good one.
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One child per seat on school buses and skip rows between riders.
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So we're going to need to at least double the fleet of school buses, more drivers.
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I wonder how much more it's going to cost per pupil next year for school.
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I wonder how much my property taxes are going to go up next year. Oh boy.
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Do you need any more bad news? Well, what we need these days is light and some good news, isn't it?
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I just read this in the book of Proverbs today. Proverbs 15 .30 says,
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Let me read that again. Well, as I've mentioned even earlier, we experienced a taste of this proverb today already, right?
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We got up this morning and maybe you opened the curtains and looked out the window and there's the sun shining.
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And it just rejoiced the heart to see that sun shining.
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And didn't that perk up your spirits? I'm sure it did. Now a proverb, this is one of them,
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Proverbs 15 .30. A proverb is a maxim. That is, it's a statement that's generally true.
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It's generally observable in life. And we can see this generally observable truth in many areas of life, can't we?
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Think about how physical light rejoices the heart. Can you imagine living in Barrow, Alaska?
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From, let's see, when is it? Sometime in late
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December, early December, something like that through end of January. I forget exactly what the beginning and ending dates are.
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But for 67 days straight, there's no sun. It's just dark the whole time.
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It's no wonder that 10 % of the residents of Alaska suffer from seasonal affective disorder.
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That's kind of a debilitating form of depression that's simply due to a lack of light.
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And then on the other hand, it's no wonder that they have a great celebration in April to mark the return of the sun.
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And then they do get the pleasure of the sun not setting from mid -May until the end of July.
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So they're very happy in the summer and pretty depressed in the winter.
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Because physical light rejoices the heart. Well, so does the light of truth, doesn't it?
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The light of truth rejoicing the heart. We're having a pretty difficult time with that these days, aren't we?
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I mean, wouldn't it just rejoice your heart to hear one of these experts get on nationwide television and say,
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You know what? I was wrong. Here's the truth about, and then, you know, fill in the blank.
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Or to hear a politician say, look, I know I said I was doing thus and so for this reason.
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But the truth of the matter is, it was this. I was not being truthful.
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I wasn't being honest. The truth of the matter is this. Wouldn't you just love to hear a politician do that?
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Wouldn't that just rejoice your heart? Well, you know, even unpleasant truth is better than a pleasant lie, isn't it?
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Yeah, the light of truth rejoices the heart. Oh, and then theological light rejoices the heart too, at least of those who believe it.
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In earlier devotionals, in these daily devotionals, I talked about some of these rays of theological light that can be truly helpful in this otherwise frustrating time.
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Things like the sovereignty of God and the triad of omnis, you know, the omniscience, the omnipotence, the omnipresence of God.
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That God knows all things. He can do all things. He is everywhere at the same time, everywhere present at the same time.
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And then there's the theological light of the providence of God, that God is at work in this world and what's going on in this world.
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This is not taking him by surprise, and there's not a thing of it that's not happening without his superintendence.
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And then there's the theological light of the ultimate plan of God for this world. We don't know when it's all going to work out and that a plan is going to be accomplished, but the theological light that he has a plan and that everything is working toward that ultimate plan, that rejoices the heart.
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And then, speaking of politicians, there's that theological light of the word that says the heart of the king is in the hand of the
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Lord. So, light, the light of the eyes rejoices the heart.
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And then the other half of the proverb says, and good news refreshes the bones.
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Good news refreshes the bones. Why is there so much unrest in the states of Illinois and California and New York and Michigan and Minnesota and so on?
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Why so much unrest? Well, isn't it a lot of it got to do with wave after wave of bad news?
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You can't turn on the news or open the newspaper these days without being confronted with bad news of some kind, and it pretty much dominates whatever media that you happen to be taking in.
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And yet, there's so much that's happening in so many different areas, and it's all coming so fast.
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There's almost this compulsive need to keep up, to stay up to speed with whatever is happening.
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But then we can feel so easily, like the lyrics expressed in Don McLean's old hit from the 1970s,
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American Pie, where there's that one stanza where he says, But February made me shiver with every paper
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I'd deliver. Bad news on the doorstep. I couldn't take one more step.
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But we have to keep going. How? Good news.
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It's good news that refreshes the bones and gets the feet moving again.
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Take in some good news, and it'll refresh your bones. I'd encourage you to rehearse the good news, the good news of the gospel of Jesus.
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So looking at all these chunks of bad news that you are confronted with every day, ask yourself this question of the news.
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How does this chunk of news illustrate the need for the gospel?
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What sin or sins scream a need for repentance and forgiveness?
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How does the gospel answer this or solve this problem?
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And then don't only look at the news on a macro level. That's an easy thing to do these days, looking at the news on a macro scale.
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What's going on in the world? What's going on in the nation? What's going on in our state? But look at the news on a micro level, and there you'll find good news.
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Look at the news and what's happening around us, in our community, in your neighborhood, in your own home, around you.
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Look at the news on a micro level. For example, this morning, for the first time in,
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I think, three years, we put up this little wooden birdhouse. It's one of these things, you put it on the outside of a window, and it's got a one -way piece of plastic that you put behind it, and the back of the birdhouse is open, so you can see into the birdhouse, but the bird sees a reflection of itself and can't see you.
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Well, we put that thing up about three years ago, and there's never been a bird in there. Well, one's finally built a nest in that little birdhouse, and it's good news to hear that bird chirping this morning, and slide back the little thing so we can look in and see him in there and singing away.
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Someone stopped by the church the other day and stuck their head in the door and said,
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Who needs some compassion these days? Well, there's a piece of good news. Hey, the farmer's market opened last
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Saturday in Sterling, the new farmer's market downtown. Nice new facility, beautiful place, and the farmers sold out of their stuff.
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That's good news. And the same day that the farmer's market sold out, a young couple got married here at the church.
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They're looking forward to a lifetime together. They're not looking for the end of the world to come next month.
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They're not looking for all of this COVID stuff to destroy life. They're looking forward to a lifetime together and building that life together.
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And then the next day, another couple got engaged, so they are obviously looking to the future with some hope and anticipation as well.
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There's good news to be found. And when we find it, when we hear it, doesn't that refresh the bones?
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I think indeed it does. So I'll leave you with that today. As you go through the day and you go through the weekend ahead, have your eyes open to heart rejoicing light.
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Have your ears open to bone refreshing good news.
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It'll make your day a whole lot better. So let's pray and ask God to open our eyes and our ears.
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Father, open our eyes to the light that we might see something that refreshes our heart.
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Open our ears to the good news. The good news of the gospel and the good news that we might see and hear around us.
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And may that refresh our bones. We pray this in Jesus' name and for his sake.
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Amen. All right. Well, I hope you have a wonderful holiday weekend, a long weekend.
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And maybe it won't be a whole lot different from any other weekend, the way these things are going these days. But anyway,
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I hope it'll be a good one. And I hope you keep your eyes open for the light and your ears open for the truth.
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And you can make it to the worship service and watch Sunday morning. Look forward to having you at that time.