Let us Pray - Lord God, Creator and Maker of us all, speak in the calming of our minds and in the longings of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts that we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.
The story is told about how Satan called a worldwide convention of demons.
In his opening address he said, "We can't keep Christians from going to church. We can't keep them from reading their Bibles and knowing the truth. We can't even keep them from forming an intimate relationship with their saviour. Once they gain that connection with Jesus, our power over them is broken."
So let them go to their churches; let them have their Pot Luck Suppers and fellowship events, but steal their time so they don't have time to develop a relationship with Jesus."
"This is what I want you to do", said the devil.; "Distract them from gaining hold of their Saviour and maintaining that vital connection throughout their day!"
"How shall we do this?" his demons shouted.
"Keep them busy in the nonessentials of life and invent innumerable schemes to occupy their minds," he answered. "Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, and borrow, borrow, borrow. Persuade the wives to go to work for long hours and the husbands to work 6-7 days each week, 10-12 hours a day, so they can afford their empty lifestyles. Keep them from spending time with their children. As their families fragment, soon, their homes will offer no escape from the pressures of work!"
"Over-stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that still, small voice trying to talk to them. Entice them to play the radio or cassette player whenever they drive; to keep the TV, VCR, CDs and their PCs going constantly in their home; and see to it that every store and restaurant in the world plays music constantly. This will jam their minds and break that union with Christ."
"Fill the coffee tables with magazines and newspapers. Pound their minds with the news 24 hours a day. Invade their driving moments with billboards. Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, mail order catalogues, sweepstakes, and every kind of newsletter and promotional offering free products, services and false hopes."
"Keep skinny, beautiful models on the magazines and TV so their husbands will believe that outward beauty is what's important and they'll become dissatisfied with their wives. Keep the wives too tired to love their husbands at night. Give them headaches too! Make them dissatisfied with one another so they begin to look elsewhere. That will fragment their families quickly!"
"Give them Santa Claus to distract them from teaching their children the real meaning of Christmas. Give them an Easter bunny so they won't talk about his resurrection and his power over sin and death."
"Even in their recreation, let them be excessive! Have them return from their recreation exhausted. Keep them too busy to go out in nature and reflect on God's creation. Send them to amusement parks, sporting events, plays, concerts, and movies instead. And when they do go out on the mountains or to the shoreline - get them do it on their day of worship - and make them so active in what they do there that they don't have time to pray, time to think, time to remember their God or thank him for his goodness.
"Keep them busy, busy, busy!"
"And when they meet for spiritual fellowship, leave them with troubled consciences. Crowd their lives with so many good causes they have no time to seek power from Jesus. It they must talk to God, make sure that they don't take time to listen to God. Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and family for the good of the cause."
"Do this and it will work!", Satan concluded.
"It will work!" His demons replied.
So they the convention ended. The demons went eagerly to their assignments causing Christians everywhere to have little time for their God or their families. Having no time to tell others about the power of Jesus to change lives and to meet their real needs.
I guess the question is, has the devil been successful at his scheme?
You be the judge!
Are you being drained? Are you failing to see what the point of it all is. Are you losing hope? Is joy harder and harder to find? Are you finding it harder and harder to remember the goals and the dreams that God has placed in your hearts? Are you feeling besieged from all sides and unable to get it together?
In today's Gospel reading we see Jesus on the Sabbath doing many things - he has already, as we can see from earlier paragraphs of the same chapter, attended worship at the Synagogue and there, during worship, cast an unclean spirit out of man and brought him healing. Then he went with his disciples to Peter and Andrew's home - and there he brought healing to Peter's mother-in-law. Later, in the evening. a huge crowd gathered at the door and Jesus healed many of the sick - many of the possessed. It was a full day. Very full. Very busy.
The next morning, very early in the morning - while it was still dark, we hear that Jesus got up, left the house and went to a solitary place, a quiet place, where he prayed. It must have been for quite a while, because we discover in the passage that Simon Peter and his companions go looking for him - and when they find him - they tell him that everyone is looking for him back in Capernaum - people with needs, people who want healing, people who want his touch, his word, his hope.
The passage concludes with Jesus telling his disciples - "Let us go somewhere else - to the nearby villages - so I can preach there also. That is why I have come." And so he does.
He travels through Galilee, preaching and healing and driving out demons - spreading by word and deed the good news of God's Kingdom - the news that God is near at hand, the news that God is coming to deliver his people, the news that God is forgiving, that news that God will raise up all who wait upon him, the news that God will give strength to those who turn to him; the news that God loves all people and wants everyone to draw near to him, everyone to repent and to believe in him, everyone to trust, to know, and to follow him so that he may shower them with the blessings that last forever, so that they may have peace in their hearts and live in peace with one another and with God..
And always - always, we find as we read the Gospel accounts - we see Jesus drawing aside from the crowds that gather to hear him and to be healed by him to go and to pray. Always we find Jesus leaving his disciples for a time and going to a quiet place by himself for a talk with God, for a time of waiting upon the Lord, for a time of developing his relationship - and maintaining his relationship with God - for a time of strengthening - a time of remembering - a time of being "re-attached" to the Father.
How about us? Do we remember why we are here in the first place? Do we recall the simplicity of what God wants of us? Do we recall the glory of what God has promised us? Do we recall how God has helped us in the past?
Do we remember where there is fuel for our tanks, food for our journey, supplies for our task, recovery for our soul, hope for hearts, and direction for our days?
Do we turn aside from the hustle and bustle - the fret and the worry - and allow God to inhabit us - to fill us - to restore us - to guide us so that we can do with those days what God wants us to do? So that we can be what God wants us to be? What God has made us to be?
The message of God for us today in the prophet Isaiah is precisely this.
It is a call to a people who are living in exile - in bondage - to take heart.
It is a call to them to remember who God is and how God has helped them in the past.
It is a call to them to come to God so that everything can be put into perspective.
It is a call to them to wait upon God, to listen to God - as well as to speak to God, so God can raise them up, so God can restore them to health, so God can unfold his plan for them, a plan in which their freedom is to be restored, their nation rebuilt, and their cup of suffering replaced with the cup of eternal joy.
In his address to the nation on the day of the Shuttle Disaster President George Bush quoted from this section of Isaiah as he sought to bring comfort to the nation.
As he spoke of the 7 men and woman who died in their quest to help bring people to get closer to the stars, he called everyone to remember the big picture - and how God cares for each one within it.
Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? Remember that God brings out the starry host one by one, that He calls them each by name, that because of his great power and mighty strength not one of them is missing.
Not one of them is missing.....God knows each star by name. He knows us by name.
Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, "My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God"?
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.
Remember what God has done - who God is - what God's purpose is.
He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
Why did Jesus go the synagogue on the Sabbath Day? Week in and week out?
Why did he worship at the temple with God's people as well as keep the Law of God?
Why did he continually turn aside during his busy days of doing God's work, of preaching, and go to a quiet place and pray?
Why did he withdraw from his disciples and from the crowds to go up on the mountainsides - or into garden groves to wait upon God?
Might I suggest to you that he did this because that is what helped him keep on track? Might I suggest to you that he did this because that is what gave him strength? Might I suggest to you that he did this because without doing it - he could not have done all he did?
God has a purpose for us.
God will redeem us.
God will raise us up.
And when we hope in that. When we feed ourselves with God's word. When we allow God to speak to us - instead just us talking to him all the time. When we take time aside - when we take time to be holy - God moves in us to do what we cannot do on our own. God moves in us to give us the strength and the peace that lasts.
Recall with me the first verse and chorus of Psalm 91 again and think of what it says.
You who dwell in the shelter of our God, who abide in this shadow for life; say to the Lord, "my refuge, my Rock in whom I trust"
And I will raise you up on eagle's wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of my hand.
Praise be to God who raises us up. May his Word - his Gospel - his promises - his direction be heard by you, be loved by you, be clung to by you, day by day. Amen
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