Naomi - A Place of Service

  ***Attention***  This month's devotional will be the last of the Refreshing Daily in God's Word. Starting in June this blog will have a new exciting format. Stay tuned for the official announcement.

Bible Reading: Ruth 1

Key Verse: Verse 20  - “And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.”

Key Words: Call me not Naomi, call me Mara 

There are several things we know about Naomi.  First of all, we know her husband’s name was Elimelech.  We know she had two sons, Mahlon and Chilion.   We also know that they moved to Moab because of a famine in Bethlehem.  It was in Moab when her sons met and married wives.  Mahlon married Ruth and Chilion married Orpah.  After the death of her husband and sons, Naomi decided to return to her homeland of Bethlehem.  Ruth made the journey back with Naomi, Orpah decided to stay in her homeland of Moab.

The name Naomi means pleasantness, a delight; and as you read the story of Naomi, she was a delight to at least Ruth, and I am sure to others as well.  But it was not always that way.  We read in Ruth 1:20 where she said, “Call me not Naomi, call me Mara (bitterness).”

As you read Naomi’s story it seems that joy returned as she found a place of service for God through her ministry to Ruth.

Albert Schweitzer was a man willing to abandon a great career in order to serve his fellow man.  In 1913, he sailed for Africa, having turned his back on fame, money and prestige.  His first hospital was an old abandoned hen house and his first operating table an old camp board.  On a trip to the United States, a reporter asked, “Dr. Schweitzer, have you found happiness in Africa?”  “I have found a place of service,” he replied, “and that is enough for anyone.”

                                                                                    Dr. Mike Rouse

What to do: 

            ✞ Be a delight to others; find a place of service for   God.

Deborah - A Picture of Courage

 ***Attention***  This month's devotional will be the last of the Refreshing Daily in God's Word. Starting in June this blog will have a new exciting format. Stay tuned for the official announcement.

Bible Reading: Judges 4

Key Verse: Verse 4 - “And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time.”

Key Words:  And Deborah 

Have you ever read the story of Deborah?  She was a prophetess, a wife, and a judge in Israel.  To say she was a leader would be an understatement.

In our text we see Deborah, the warrior.  Deborah led ten thousand warriors into battle against Jabin and the army of Canaan. 

As Deborah and her army arrives at the battlefield, they see Sisera with his nine hundred chariots of iron.  Though they had far inferior equipment, they rose as one when Deborah said, “Up; for this day is the day in which the Lord hath delivered Sisera into thine hand:...” (Judges 4:14), and so it was.  Deborah was indeed a picture of courage, as we all should be.

Now our courage may not be on foreign soil in the heat of battle, it may be on our job or in our community; but we still need to be courageous for God’s glory.

Peter Cartwright, a 19^th-century circuit-riding preacher, was an uncompromising man.  One Sunday morning when he was to preach, he was told that President Andrew Jackson was in the congregation and was warned not to say anything out of line.  When Cartwright stood to preach he said, “I understand that Andrew Jackson is here.  I have been requested to be guarded in my remarks.  Andrew Jackson will go to hell if he doesn’t repent.”  The congregation was shocked and wondered how the President would respond.  After the service, President Jackson shook hands with Peter Cartwright and said, “Sir, if I had a regiment of men like you, I could whip the world.”

Can God count on you to be courageous in the spiritual warfare of today?

                                                                            Dr. Mike Rouse 

What to do: 

            ✞ Ask God to give you the courage to stand daily for righteousness for God’s glory.

Rahab - A Picture of God's Grace

***Attention***  This month's devotional will be the last of the Refreshing Daily in God's Word. Starting in June this blog will have a new exciting format. Stay tuned for the official announcement.

Bible Reading: Joshua 2 and Hebrews 11:31

Key Verse: Verse Hebrews 11:31 - “By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace.”

Key Words: the harlot Rahab 

The story of Rahab is strange to many.  It presents many moral challenges and difficulties.  It’s really hard to imagine Rahab with her moral life and her life of religious paganism belonging in God’s Hall of Faith.  Commentators have tried to explain away the blot of prostitution from Christ’s lineage insisting that in those days a harlot was actually an innkeeper.  But the truth cannot be ignored, Rahab was a harlot.

Now the Lord’s ways are past finding out.  We are told in Isaiah 55:9, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

In Matthew 1:5 we find that Rahab is right there in the Messianic lineage.

I believe this is a perfect picture of God’s grace, showing us that salvation is not dependent on human goodness but on God’s grace.

A beggar stopped a lawyer on the street in a large southern city and asked him for a quarter.  Taking a long, hard look into the man’s unshaven face, the attorney asked, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”  “You should,” came the reply.  “I’m your former classmate.  Remember, second floor, old Main Hall?”  “Why Sam, of course I know you!”  Without further question the lawyer wrote a check for $100.  “Here, take this and get a new start.  I don’t care what’s happened in the past, it’s the future that counts.”  And with that he hurried on.

Tears welled up in the man’s eyes as he walked to a bank nearby.  Stopping at the door, he saw through the glass well-dressed tellers and the spotlessly clean interior.  Then he looked at his filthy rags.  “They won’t take this from me.  They’ll swear that I forged it,” he muttered as he turned away.

The next day the two men met again.  “Why Sam, what did you do with my check?  Gamble it away?  Drink it up?”  “No,” said the beggar as he pulled it out of his dirty shirt pocket and told why he hadn’t cashed it.  “Listen, friend,” said the lawyer.  “What makes that check good is not your clothes or appearance, but my signature.  Go on, cash it!”

The Bible says, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”  That promise is a “negotiable note” of infinite value.  And as sinners, all we need to do is “exchange” it by faith for eternal life.  Don’t let the “tattered clothes” of your past keep you from cashing God’s “check” of salvation.

                                                                                      Dr. Mike Rouse

What to do:

            ✞ Accept Christ as your Savior today! 

Miriam - Part 2

***Attention***  This month's devotional will be the last of the Refreshing Daily in God's Word. Starting in June this blog will have a new exciting format. Stay tuned for the official announcement.

Bible Reading: Numbers 12

Key Verse: Verse  8- “And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman  whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman.”

Key Words: And Miriam ... spake against Moses 

As I study the Word of God, I find it’s a dangerous thing to turn on your family.  For example, Cain turned on Abel and was cursed all the days of his life.  Joseph’s brothers turned on Joseph and went through a horrible famine.  Absalom turned on David and died hanging from an oak tree.  In our text Miriam turns on Moses and as a result, she is smitten with leprosy.

The same can be said for those who turn on their spiritual family as well.  Saul turned on David (as a result of sin) and battled with depression.  Demas turned on Paul and went back into the world.  No doubt he received the world’s reward.  Judas turned on Jesus (and no, I don’t believe Judas was saved) and he went out and hung himself.

It just appears as though to me that turning on your family is a dangerous thing.

The evidence is convincing that the better our relationships are at home, the more effective we are in our careers.  If we’re having difficulty with a loved one, that difficulty will be translated into reduced performance on the job.  In studying the millionaires in America (“U.S. News and World Report”), a picture of a “typical” millionaire is an individual who has worked eight to ten hours a day for thirty years and is still married to his or her high school or college sweetheart.  A New York executive search firm, in a study of 1,365 corporate vice-presidents, discovered that 87% were still married to their one and only spouse and that 92% were raised in two-parent families.  The evidence is overwhelming that the family is the strength and foundation of society.  Strengthen your family ties and you’ll enhance your opportunity to succeed. 

                                                                        Dr. Mike Rouse

What to do:

            ✞ Be a vessel to strengthen your family.  Turning on your family is not a wise or safe thing to do.

Miriam - Part 1 (The Fugitive)

***Attention***  This month's devotional will be the last of the Refreshing Daily in God's Word. Starting in June this blog will have a new exciting format. Stay tuned for the official announcement.

Bible Reading: Exodus 15:20-27

Key Verse: Verse 17 - “And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.”

Key Words: And Miriam 

The life of Miriam is a life of spiritual ups and downs.  In Exodus 2, as a young lady we find her obeying her mother and watching over her baby brother, Moses, as he is floating in a basket on the Nile River.

Here in Exodus 15 we find her as the sister of Aaron, singing praises to God for leading them over and through the Red Sea.

We then hear of Miriam in Numbers 12, when she is questioning Moses about his authority.  As a result of her actions, she was smitten with leprosy (Numbers 12:10).

We last read of Miriam in Numbers 20:1 where she dies in Kadesh as she wandered in the wilderness, evidently a fugitive from God, for the word Kadesh means a fugitive.

Some years ago there was a television series entitled “The Fugitive.”  The show was about a doctor who was charged with murdering his wife, and as a result he was fleeing from the law: he was a fugitive.  Each episode found the fugitive...

Ø  Constantly on the run,

Ø  Constantly living in fear of being found out,

Ø  Constantly in turmoil and never at peace.

Living the life as a fugitive from God will never lead to peace, only to turmoil.  Let me ask you today, are you a fugitive – are you running from God?  If so, you’ll never have peace until you say “enough!” and stop running from God and run to Him.

                                                                                    Dr. Mike Rouse

What to do: 

            ✞ Don’t run from God, but run to Him. 

Jochebed - Applying Faith

***Attention***  This month's devotional will be the last of the Refreshing Daily in God's Word. Starting in June this blog will have a new exciting format. Stay tuned for the official announcement.

Bible Reading: Exodus 2:1-10

Key Verse: Verse   – “And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months.”

Key Words: she hid him three months 

We all know the story of Moses and how his mother, Jochebed, protected Moses from death and went so far as to put the young baby in a basket and place the basket in the Nile River.  We also know that Jochebed assigned Moses’ older sister, Miriam, to watch over the basket until Pharaoh’s daughter came to bathe, and how Pharaoh’s daughter took Moses back to the Egyptian palace and God allowed Jochebed to raise her son in Pharaoh’s palace.

Through all of Jochebed’s actions she demonstrated her faith in God.  Having faith in God, though, is not easy.  Consider the following.

“A man slipped and fell off a cliff while hiking on a mountaintop.  Luckily he was able to grab a branch on his way down.  Holding on for dear life, he looked down only to see a rock valley some fifteen hundred feet below.  When he looked up it was twenty feet to the cliff where he had fallen.  Panicked, he yelled, ‘Help!  Help!  Is anybody there?  Help!’  A booming voice spoke up, ‘I am here, and I will save you if you believe in me.’  ‘I believe!  I believe!’ yelled back the man.  ‘If you believe me, let go of the branch and then I will save you.’  The young man, hearing what the voice said, looked down again.  Seeing the rock valley below, he quickly looked back up and shouted, ‘Is there anybody else up there?’”

Talking about faith is easy, but unapplied faith is no faith at all.

                                                                                   Dr. Mike Rouse 

What to do: 

            ✞ Put your faith in God and put your faith into action.

Dinah - The Defiled One

Bible Reading: Genesis 34

Key Verse: Verse  5- “And Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter: now his sons were with             his cattle in the field: and Jacob held his peace until they were come.”

Key Words: that he had defiled Dinah his daughter 

As you read the story of Dinah and how she was sexually molested by Shechem, it saddens one’s heart.  Most scholars tell us Dinah would, in all likelihood, have been around the age of fifteen.

As a result of the action, Dinah’s brother slew Hamor and Shechem (verse 26).  This is a story that could be told over and over again in today’s world.

But all of this could have been prevented if dad (Jacob) had stayed out of pagan country.  Jacob had gone to the city of Shechem which is in Canaan (chapter 33, verse 18).  This was land his grandfather, Abraham, had avoided because of their pagan beliefs.  The principle here is clear.  Dad, don’t take your children into Canaan (paganism), keep them from the vultures of the world.  It’s your job as dad to protect your daughter physically, as well as spiritually.

A farmer went each week to the Farmers’ Market to sell, among other things, the cottage cheese and apple butter made on his farm.  He carried these in two large tubs, from which he ladled the cottage cheese or apple butter into smaller containers the customers brought.  One day he got to the market and discovered he’d forgotten one of his ladles.  He had no choice but to use the one he did bring for both products.  Before long, as the two products got mixed in with each other, he couldn’t tell which was which.  That’s the way it is when the child of God loses his or her purity – he or she is no longer different, distinct, from the people of the world. 

                                                                                 Dr. Mike Rouse

What to do: 

            ✞ Young people, stay pure.  Parents, protect your children from impure situations and environments.