Month: April 2023

Are you a Perfectionist? I used to think that I was, but then I realized that I had not done perfect things, so….

Well, today’s illustration is for all of you who struggle with getting things done because you consider yourself a perfectionist.

The Effective Teacher.

A ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. 

“All those on the left side of the studio,” he said, would be graded solely on the _quantity_ of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its _quality_. 

His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pounds of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot — albeit a perfect one — to get an “A”. 

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work — and learning from their mistakes — the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

Our Study verse for today is: John 4:24

“God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

Why this Verse

This verse lets us consider the nature of God how God thinks about worship. Two things: God is a spirit and Worship must be done in the right spirit and with Bible truth as the guide.

The Story behind the verse:

This verse is part of a conversation between Jesus and a Samaritan woman at a well, in which Jesus tells her about living water and reveals that he is a prophet. The woman then asks him about worship, and Jesus responds with the words of John 4:24.

One Commentary explained this verse this way.

This expression “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth” carries one of the four descriptions of God found in the New Testament. 

The other three are:

“God is light” (1Jn 1:5), 

“God is love” (1Jn 4:8,16), and 

“God is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29). 

Jesus was endeavoring to convey to the woman that God cannot be confined to one place nor conceived of as a material being. Whether one is on a mountain or in a city with the temple, God is everywhere and can be worshipped anyway.

Let me leave you with three Take-A-Ways from this great verse.

1. The nature of God:

This verse affirms that God is Spirit, emphasizing that God is not a physical being with a human form. Rather, God is a spiritual being that transcends the physical world.

2. The requirement for worship:

This verse states that those who worship God must worship Him in spirit and truth. This implies that worship is not just about outward actions, but also involves an inward attitude of the heart. Worship must be with the heart and truthful.

3. The universality of worship: 

This verse does not limit worship to a particular location or form. Rather, it emphasizes that anyone, anywhere can worship God in spirit and truth.

If you want a printed version, go to www.daywords.com

Lonnie Davis

Many people today have been disappointed in God because he did not answer their prayer the way they wanted or expected. That is not fair. This disappointment in how God has dealt with them is built on the premise that we always know what is best for us. Many thus lower their opinion of God or even deny him altogether.

Perhaps one reason many may not have confidence in the character of God is that they never had a high enough opinion of God in the first place.

God has been talked down and reduced, modified, edited, changed, and amended until He is not the God that Isaiah saw “high and lifted up.” In fact, folks often say things like “my God would never…” whatever, but God is God.

Because God has been reduced in the minds of people, they do not have that great confidence in His character that used to be prominent with believers.

We need confidence in God because it is necessary in order to really respect Him. For example, you cannot respect anyone in whom you have no confidence. Extend that principle upward to God and you see that if you cannot respect God, you cannot worship Him.

Where there is no respect there can be no true worship. Worship rises and falls with me and you depending upon whether our idea of God is low or high;

We must walk our journey with God where everything begins – with our trust and confidence that God will always do what is right for his followers (See Romans 8:28). We must believe that the Father knows best and has the best in store for us. Anything else lowers our image of God in our hearts. 

So we say with the Psalmist.

Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let thy glory be above all the earth.

PSALMS 57:5

I didn’t write the following note, but it is one of the most beautiful thoughts ever written about Jesus. It is called “One Solitary Life.”

He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant. He grew up in another village, where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was 30. Then, for three years, he was an itinerant preacher.

He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a home. He didn’t go to college. He never lived in a big city. He never traveled 200 miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself.

He was only 33 when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his garments, the only property he had on earth. When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave, through the pity of a friend.

Twenty centuries have come and gone, and today he is the central figure of the human race. I am well within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned–put together–have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that one, solitary life.

I’m Lonnie Davis and I didn’t author these words, but they are certainly thoughts worth thinking.

Text: Job 1:1-3

“There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job…this man was the greatest of all the children of the east.”

With these words we are introduced to Job.

The Bible says that Job was the greatest man in the East (understand that to mean he was the richest man in the East). In Job’s day, the East was the richest part of the world. 

Yet Job never slept in an air-conditioned house or drove a car on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. He never flew in a jet plane or watched a movie on television. He never called a friend on the telephone to check up on him.

I have done all these things. 

If Job was rich, then what am I? 

What are you?

Ours is the age of being victims. It is the time of “Woe me and how come bad things happen to me. 

Folks, you live in a land of plenty and in the richest land at the richest time in the history of the world. You eat at fancy restaurants and get cold water out of a refrigerator. God has given me and you much. We are left with one thought from Luke 12:48.

“To whomever much is given, of him will much be required.”

Read that again, 

Sometimes I sit with loved ones and talk about what we can do to bless others. We all need to have that conversation, not with our loved ones, but with ourselves.

Lonnie Davis

Thou Fool!

I love it when someone starts off a sentence with “My Momma used to say.” 

Sometimes they are words of sage advice – “Don’t go outside with wet hair or you will get a cold.” Sometimes they are words of Biblical advice – “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.” Of course sometimes these are wrong, but we heard them anyway.

One that I grew up with is “Don’t ever call anyone a fool.” This rule is based on a misunderstanding of Matthew 5:22, “Anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” What this verse is teaching is not about the word “fool,” but not to be contemptuous of one another person. 

The Bible uses the word fool many times. However, the main import of the Bible teaching is not about a person being called a fool, but about people being a fool when they behave as a fool.

Here are a few examples:

A Fool is:

1. A fool is anyone who believes he is always right (Ecc 5:1).

“Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.”

2. A fool is one who will not learn from pain (Proverbs 17:10).

“A rebuke impresses a discerning person more than a hundred lashes a fool.”

3. A fool is anyone who will not save a part of what they earn (Proverbs 21:20)

“The wise store up choice food and olive oil, but fools gulp theirs down.”

Well, these are three, but the Bible gives us many more. For example 

* Anyone who ignores his father’s wisdom (Proverbs 15:5)

* Anyone who argues frequently (Proverbs 18:6-7).

* Anyone who will not listen to counsel (Proverbs 24:7).

* Anyone who focuses on things and stuff instead of God (Luke 12:20-21).

None of us like to be called a fool or thought of as one, but if we want to avoid having God think of us as a fool, we must be sure that we do not do the things a fool does.

Lonnie Davis

There are days that bring one never forgets. I won’t go into all of mine, but they are there. Yesterday was one such day for the family of Viola Gierisch. She was, no is, a great lady, but more than that she is a great Christian. She was always ready to help people come to Jesus. She led more people to Jesus who went to work at their company, than many preachers do. She loved this story, so in honor of her, I want to share it.

Caterpillars Don’t Die

The story is told of a quite happy caterpillar who found that his life was  changing. He noticed that things weren’t like they used to be. Finally one 
day he began to crawl out of his skin. He was quite surprised to see that 
though he was changing, he was still okay.  Soon he found himself a beautiful butterfly.

He was no longer bound to the trails of the earth below but could fly on the winds above. He was no longer the ordinary-looking caterpillar, but was now a beautiful butterfly. He soared above, looking down on the old shell that was still down below. He thought how lucky he was to have made such a marvelous change.

As he looked below, he saw some of his old caterpillar friends, crawling 
slowly across the old trails that he had walked. They found his old shell 
and began to weep. He tried to shout to them that all was well, that he was 
even happier, but he did not seem to be able to reach them.

From his lofty position, he looked down on those he had left behind and watched as they gathered around his discarded shell and wept. He could not tell, them, but leaving the old shell behind was not the end, it was just the beginning of the real beauty that God had in store for him. 

He knew that someday, they would join him and understand that caterpillars don’t die, they just become beautiful butterflies.

I’m sure that most Christians have longed to hear more stories about Jesus, especially about his years as a youth. What was he like at 13? Did his brothers and sister always get along with him? Did they ever tell Mom on him? Well, someday in heaven we can sit down and talk to him and his brothers about Jesus as a youth.

There is one verse about Jesus that I read, but only quickly. 

Luke 2:52 states: “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” 

Only 14 words, but much can be observed from this short, often overlooked verse. Here are four.

1 Jesus grew in wisdom: 

As Jesus got older, Jesus got wiser. Despite being divine, Jesus had a human nature and had to learn and develop like any other child. By the way, this suggests that wisdom is something that can be acquired and developed over time. There is hope for me and you.

2 Jesus grew in stature: 

He once was a helpless baby who needed to be fed and burped. He grew into a teenager and then a man. He was human, just as we are.

3 Jesus grew in favor with God: 

I find this thought most amazing of all. God the Father, grew to hold Jesus in higher regard as time went on. When your own children were born you loved them completely, but as time goes by your admiration for them grows. Jesus always had a close relationship with the Father, but God was pleased with his growth and development.

4 Jesus grew in favor with man:

According to this verse, his neighbors and those around him grew to really like him. He was not that rude or unruly kid next door. Even then people could say to their own kids, “Why can’t you be more like Jesus?” Other people noticed and liked him.

You still might want to sit and talk to Jesus’ brothers in heaven for the stories, but from this verse, you at least know a few more thoughts about Jesus in his growth from his boyhood years.

Lonnie Davis

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There are two words that can help us through every kind of trouble. They are found in the middle of 2 Corinthians 7:5-6.

 “We were afflicted on every side: conflicts without, fears within. But God, who comforts the depressed, comforted us.”

Our modern world can make us all understand Paul’s cry that he was “afflicted on every side.” We can have overdue mortgage payments, job insecurities, friends that will not speak to us, and that person at work who seems bent on making our life miserable. Those are the things we might face. Sometimes life seems hard. Yes, we have “conflicts without” and “fears within.”

Paul was no stranger to trouble. Next tie you think you have hard days, read Paul’s list:

 “In…imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep…….in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.” (II Corinthians 11:23-27)

How does one live through being “beaten times without number, often in danger of death and sleepless nights, hunger and thirst?” It makes our little list sound rather simple. 

Well, our list is not simple. It is not easy. But the secret to dealing with our hard places is the same secret that Paul used. It is found in verse six of our text. After Paul says he had all these fears and conflicts, he then says, “But God.”

Two words! Two words that can turn everything around. Two words that make all the difference in the world. Two words, that are available to us at any time. “But God!”

“But God who comforts the depressed, comforted us.”

~Lonnie Davis

I’ll never forget the first time I met her. She was already retired and still busy, busy. She was known to be the the kind of person who told you what she thought, whether or not she thought. Even the local radio station knew her because she called them a lot to tell them her opinion about everything. 

The day I met her we were at church and though a certain scripture was not being discussed, she let me know that 1 Peter 3:1 didn’t work because she had tried it. The passage reads, “Wives …submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives.”

I didn’t argue with her, but I did know God and I knew that God didn’t get it wrong.

Sometimes we are like her about another scripture. 1 Peter 5:7 says, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” To challenge us all on our willingness to follow this text, I share a short, but sobering word from a poet named Ben Hildner.

As children bring their broken toys, with tears, for me to mend
I brought my broken dreams to God because he was my friend.
But then, instead of leaving Him in peace to work alone
I hung around and tried to help . . . with ways that were my own.
At last I snatched them back and cried, “How can You be so slow?”
“My child,” He said.  “What could I do?  You never did let go.”

These words have come to my mind on many occasions. I share it because I wanted you to have it in your own mind. It would be a blessing for you to commit it to your heart.

Lonnie Davis