Devotion

Happy Holy Week everyone.  I hope you are all ready for the journey to the cross, through the empty tomb, and to ascension where we find our hope for eternal life with our Savior.  I apologize for not writing for a while.  I have been so busy and just so tired lately.  Last night was the first good night's sleep I have gotten in weeks.  However, this Friday I get my C-PAP machine and I am praying that it helps me feel rested each morning.  I have several things I want to share with you, but only have a quick break to write this post.  So I am going to share with you the devotion I gave in Homiletics class yesterday.  We had to pick a text, read it, apply it to our lives, and then close with prayer.  I wrote out the full manuscript but was not allowed to use it because the whole thing had to be done without notes.  I did go back and change a few things that I added on the spot that I thought were good points.  The text I used is the story of Ehud from judges.  Now the devotion has many grammar mistakes because it is written in oral form. Sp please do not judge my writing skills on this devotion, but   try to read it as if you were listening to it being spoken.  Also I used guys from the class as examples and Jim's devotion on God working through us in my devotion.  I think you will be able to follow along.  Jim's devotion was a personal story about when he was a young confident drug rep and a doctor called him for advice for a man who was dying very rapidly.  Jim told her what to do and saved the man's life.  His application was that God saved that man's life, Jim was just the agent God worked through, very powerful.  The class and professor really enjoyed my devotion and I got several compliments from it.  So I hope you enjoy it too, and I will try my hardest to write again soon.

Read Judges 3:15-23; 26

Yesterday we heard a great devotion by our brother Jim.  And the message he gave us about how it’s not really us doing these great things, but God working through us could apply very well to the story of Ehud.  I mean it wasn’t really Ehud doing this, but God working through Ehud.  However, I want to take it one step farther and talk about why God worked through Ehud rather than choosing someone else to free the Israelites from the Moabites.  The text tells us that Ehud was a left-handed man.  Actually the Hebrew says, “not right handed”.  Now we always translate it as left-handed, but there was something serious that prevented Ehud from using his right hand.  Maybe he was crippled, we are not sure.  We just know for a fact he was left handed.  Now I learned the importance of this in my undergrad Hebrew class.  This was the first time I had heard the story of Ehud and I fell in love with it for three reasons.  The first two reasons are what I am going to explain to you today, the third reason is because it talks about the king soiling himself in the Bible.  I find that funny.  Our professor explained to us how any man of the army or any soldier had to be right handed.  Because see when they formed their battle lines, every man would hold his spear in his right hand and his shield in his left hand.  This way they were one unit, all the same.  A left-handed man would have exposed a hole in their line and created a weakness.  So no left handed man was allowed in the army.  So the fact that Ehud was a left-handed man made him special and it just what was needed for this job.  Every soldier would wear his dagger on his left side so he could pull it out like this with his right hand.  However, Ehud wore his on his right side since he would pull it out with his left hand.  So when Ehud went through the guards, the TSA of the Old Testament, they would have patted down his left side, felt no weapon, and let him go through.  They never thought to check his right side.  This was the special talent and gift God have given Ehud that made him the right man for the job. 

So Ehud went into the king and told him he had a secret message from the Lord.  So Eglon kicked everybody out and scooted in real close to hear this secret message from Ehud.  This was Ehud’s chance to pull out his dagger, stab his dagger and whole hand through the fat of the king and pull out his hand leaving the dagger inside the king.  The king fell over dead and soiled himself. 

So now the two important things I want us to look at.  The first is that God gives us our own unique special gifts, talents, and experiences that we are able to use in our ministry as He is working through us.  We are not all just robots spitting out Scripture and doctrine at our church members. We are real humans who have lived lives and have experiences, both good and bad.  Not only do these experiences and gifts help us write sermons, but they help us build relationships and be able to relate to people, they help us explain things in a way that real people can understand.  Look at Jim’s story yesterday, he is the only one in this room who knew those terms of the medicines and diseases because he had gone to school to study them.  He had finished top of his class and had the confidence of a young bright man.  That doctor could have called any drug-rep for advice, but she called Jim knowing that he would know what to do.  So yes God worked through Jim, but God worked through Jim specifically, knowing he had the courage it took to make that right call without doubt.   Look at Jerry and Gary.  If they get called to a church with a school, they are far better equipped than any of us because they have been a teacher and a principal and know how the systems work.  We are all unique and different by the grace of God because He knows those special talents are going to be used for His glory in specific cases where our special gifts help us be better prepared and ready to do His work with His help. 

The final thing we can see from this story is that Ehud and Debra and all of the other judges and Kings of God’s people in the Old Testament could save them from their enemies…. For a short while.  Then they would return right back to their old sinful ways and be taken over again.  God had to send a very special judge, a very special king to us who could defeat sin, death and the devil once and for all.  But that special king that God sent was born in a stable to a virgin, lived a life spending his time with sinners.  He would ride into Jerusalem being praised as a king, but only for a few days of this holy week.   Then he was beaten, spit on, and mocked.  Then they crucified him on a cross.  This Friday we will celebrate the death of our special king that God sent.  Our “special king” who was supposed to be able to free us, was dead just like every other human king or judge.  But then this coming Sunday we will rejoice loudly and boldly with hymns of praise, and the Alleluia’s we haven’t said for six weeks will ring out with gusto.  Because Christ did do it.  He had the special gift to be able to do it.  Then forty days later, as Jerry is preaching his sermon on Ephesians in the pulpit for the very first time, we will celebrate the Ascension of the one who God sent.  Because you see it took this special king who was sent by God to be our Redeemer once and for all. Christ was the only one who had the uniqueness to be our Redeemer for good.  

So in summary while God does indeed give us our own special gifts and talents to use to be servants of Christ, the greatest gift He has ever given us is that so special and so unique King, our Messiah and Redeemer who died, rose and ascended to heaven to defeat sin, death, and the devil once and for all, for us. 

Let us pray. 

Dear Heavenly Father,

We thank you for making us unique and giving us our own special gifts and talents.  And we ask that you would use those gifts and talents for Your glory.  We also thank you for the greatest gift you have ever given us, Your Son, our Redeemer.  Let us celebrate this holy week in remembrance of what He did, the price He paid to be our Redeemer for eternity.  Keep us in the one true faith until, until You call us home to be with Your for the rest of eternity.  In the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ we pray.  Amen.