MONDAY 20 JUNE
1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21
Elisha anointed to succeed Elijah
Called to serve the Lord
Ever since the very beginning of God’s dealings with men, special people have been called by the Lord into His service as full time workers.
God revealed to Elijah that he was to anoint Elisha to be his successor. When he was called he was willing to give up his job as a farmer to work full-time for God as his prophet and spiritual leader. He sacrificed the ox he used as a beast of burden and used the wooden plough as fuel for the sacrificial fire!
Years ago while I was studying at Gatton Agricultural College I distinctly heard the Lord calling me to give up agriculture and become a priest. This I did the following year. It’s been my great joy to serve the Lord full-time ever since. History repeated itself when my son, James, also studying at Gatton, was called to the ministry.
A preacher in a small farming community in northern New South Wales challenged the congregation to consider giving their lives for full-time ministry. Little did he know that a young lad in the congregation responded. He later became Archbishop of Papua New Guinea - now our Bishop Bevan Meredith!
Jesus said that the harvest was plentiful but the labourers were few and asked us to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send labourers into His harvest field (Matthew 9:37-38).
Each one of us aught to be open to the Lord’s calling and be ready if He calls us, to be ready to follow immediately. There is a great shortage of men and women offering for the ministry. Obviously many are not hearing His call. We need to pray for the young people of our church. I am sure the Lord is calling many of them into full- time ministry. Pray that they will hear His call and follow Him.
PRAYER: Father, Lord of the harvest we see a harvest field ripe for harvest all around us. Please send labourers into this harvest field. Lord make me willing to die to self and follow you when you make your call, through Jesus our Harvester. Amen.
TUESDAY 21 JUNE
Psalm 16
The Joy of Serving the Lord
The closer you get to God the greater is your joy. As we come into the living presence of God we realize that His word is so true. As God shows us the path of life we receive the fullness of joy. We begin to experience a very special kind of peace and happiness which we know will never end.
The source of all this joy and happiness is the Lord God Himself. As He comes to live with us we realize that life without Him is absolutely empty and meaningless.
God always looks after those who have decided to follow Him! He has some fantastic promises for us. Not only will our lives here on earth never be shaken if we stay close to Him, but also He gives us a promise of eternal life and that we will live with Him for ever. No wonder our heart is so glad and our tongue rejoices. We are so very, very happy. As long as we stay close to the Lord our joy increases and life gets better and better every day. It’s so wonderful!
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, help us to be closer to you than anything else in this whole world. Help us to stay so close to you that we may have many gifts and talents to enable us to do much in your name, through our Saviour. Amen.
WEDNESDAY 22 JUNE
Galatians 5:1, 13-25
True Freedom
A woman once found herself in a very dangerous situation. A rapist who had already raped and murdered another person that day had jumped into her car and had a gun at her. Filled with God’s Holy Spirit she told him about Jesus and how He could set him free. As she was witnessing to him the police were searching for him. They could hear the police helicopters. He said to her, “I don’t want to go back to prison”. She replied, “You are in prison already”. He reflected for a few minutes and said, “You are right, you know”. In a few minutes he completely surrendered his life to Jesus. Jesus set him free. She dropped him off and he gave himself up to the police. He was taken to prison but he was free! Free for the first time in his life! Jesus set him free from those forces in his human nature that forced him to rape and kill.
All of us have a sinful human nature. It’s what causes us to commit sins and do the bad things we don’t want to do and hurt the people we don’t want to hurt. When we come to Jesus and put all our faith and trust in Him, He sets us free from the controlling power of the sinful nature. He does this by crucifying it and replacing it with His living presence.
God wants us to enjoy the freedom He has given us in Jesus. He doesn’t want us to be enslaved again! The way to stay free is to continue to believe that we have been crucified with Christ and that we no longer live but Christ lives in us. The life we have in our bodies we live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us! (See Gal. 2:20).
In verse 19 we have a list of the acts of the sinful nature contrasted with the fruit of the spirit in verses 22-23. Let’s examine ourselves against them and make sure that Christ has indeed set us free and that His Spirit is the controlling force in our lives.
PRAYER: Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross to set us free from the controlling forces of our sinful human natures. Fill us with your grace as we live by faith that our human natures have been crucified with you and that it’s no longer we who live but you who lives in us. In this miraculous way keep us free for ever. Amen.
THURSDAY 23 JUNE
2Kings 2:1-2, 6-15
A Double Portion of the Spirit
Two prophets stand out as mighty men of God in the Old Testament, Elijah and Elisha. They both spoke with great power and authority and signs and wonders accompanied their ministries. Elijah must have been extra special because he never died. He had a very supernatural exit from the earth when he was taken into heaven by the Lord God. As he was saying goodbye to him, Elisha asked one favour of Elijah. He wanted a double portion of his Spirit; the Spirit that enabled him to accomplish such a powerful ministry. As we read on in the Bible we see that Elisha indeed inherited the double portion of the Spirit he had prayed for.
When Jesus left the earth on the day of Ascension, He promised that those left behind would receive the Spirit in power. He made a double portion of His Spirit available to all of us when He was called to continue His work on earth.
Let us all pray for more of the Holy Spirit’s power that we may all do more for Jesus. As Elisha put on Elijah’s cloak, let us all put on the clothing of the Lord Jesus Christ. Clothed with Jesus’ mantle we can do greater things than He did (John 14:12). We can because it’s no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us.
PRAYER: Lord we know how much work you will achieve as we surrender ourselves to you. Clothe us with the mantle of the Lord Jesus Christ and give us a double portion of your Spirit that we may do all you want us to do. Amen.
FRIDAY 24 JUNE
Luke 9:1-11
He gave them power and authority
From all His disciples Jesus chose twelve and gave them special gifts to enable them to minister to the needs of the people. They gave up everything to follow Him and went around everywhere with Him. They got very close to Him and learnt much from Him. As well as learning from His teachings they learnt from observing how He dealt with people and how much He loved them. They saw His great compassion.
They also observed the tremendous authority He Had. He taught with authority, cast out evil with authority and healed with authority. The power of evil fell away under His power and authority. When people came against Him they floundered and went to pieces, then they became angry because they knew they were defeated. Before Jesus sent the Apostles out on ministry expeditions He gave them some of His authority and empowered them to drive out evil spirits and heal the sick. They also were given power to preach the good news of the Kingdom of God. As they went out He instructed them to live completely by faith! They were to trust God to provide all their needs. The more we trust God for material things (food etc), the more spiritual power we receive from Him.
They were also instructed to not force their ministry on anyone but to minister only where they were welcomed happily.
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, as you instructed the Apostles and gave them power to minister in your name, raise up in your Church powerful ministers. Draw them close to you to learn from you and give them all the power and authority they need so your kingdom may be extended. Amen.
SATURDAY 25 JUNE
Luke 9.51-62
Cost of Following Jesus
There is a great cost we have to pay if we want to follow Jesus, especially if we feel called to give our lives to Him as His servants and ministers. The first price we have to pay is to love those who come against us. When Jesus was rejected by the Samaritans the Disciples got very angry; they wanted Jesus to send fire from heaven to destroy them. Jesus rebuked them. He loved THE Samaritans even though they rejected Him!
The second and most important price we have to pay is to follow Him most resolutely. As Jesus went resolutely up to Jerusalem to lay down His life for us on the cross, so we have to follow Him whole heartedly. When we follow Jesus there can be no turning back. If we go a little way with the Lord, get cold feet and want to turn back, we make ourselves useless and totally unfit for His service.
To be used powerfully by Jesus we have to come completely with His authority. We can’t be with Him and want to do our own thing our way. He has to be Lord (boss) over every aspect of our lives. Jesus is calling us. He is calling you and He’s calling me. Let’s all totally surrender our lives to Him. Let’s listen to His word as we read the Bible and as we pray. Let’s be ever ready to obey Him in whatever He asks us to do.
PRAYER: Jesus, as you resolutely went up to Jerusalem to die for us on the cross, we hear you and want to follow you resolutely. Give us your Holy Spirit that we may hear your voice and be ever ready to obey you. Amen.
SUNDAY 26 JUNE
THIS WEEK’S MESSAGE
SET FREE TO SERVE CHRIST
Today’s Gospel tells us that when Jesus knew the time for Him to be taken up into Heaven was drawing near He resolutely set out for Jerusalem. He was so determined because He knew that He was about to make the biggest sacrifice anyone had ever made. He was giving His whole life to take away all our sins and to set us completely free!
All though His life Jesus gave himself 100% to His Father and other people. As soon as He left His Parents home, when his ministry began, He had no home of his own. He went everywhere where He was needed and kept on and on spending His life for others.
Jesus died on the cross to set us free from all the things in life that make us want to be selfish. Selfishness and sin are synonymous. Jesus died to set us free from ourselves and the desire to put ourselves before God and others. As Jesus died for us He gives us the power to die to self.
Jesus offers us His power, which is the Power to love, as a free gift for us to receive this gift only one thing is necessary. We have to be resolute and fairdincom. We need to totally surrender our lives to Him. This is what Jesus was trying to get across to us in today’s Gospel. He exaggerated a lot when he told those who wanted to follow Him to skip going to a funeral and not say goodbye to family. By using such exaggeration.
Jesus showed us that we must be 100% committed to Him when we choose to follow Him.
When we make this decision to give ourselves totally to Jesus and surrender ourselves completely to Him we make a most wonderful discovery. The World tells us that we are giving up our freedom but we discover a freedom much freer than anything we had ever experienced.
This freedom comes when we let the Holy Spirit take complete control of our lives.
He drives out of our lives the desire to do the acts of the sinful nature.(Read Galatians 5:19-21) and produces in us all the fruits of the Spirit: Love, Joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. (Galatians 5:22-26)
Doreen Irvine, a lady from Bristol in England who had once been a woman of the streets, a drug addict and Satanist, writes in her book, ‘Set Free to serve Christ’: “It is wonderful to wake up in the morning ready to face another day in Christ. But it was not always like that.” She goes on to say how awful it had been when she was bound by her sinful life. After she was set free she enjoyed her freedom so much that she resolutely spent the rest of her life serving Jesus by setting lots of people free.
Let’s all enjoy our freedom and at the same time let the love of Jesus shine out of us into the lives of the people all around us.
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, please set us free from self and all the tings of this world that draw us away from you. Then set our hearts resolutely to follow You and serve You all our days. Amen.