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A Prayer about Not Laboring in Vain

by | Apr 12, 2021 | Daily Prayer, Easter

A Prayer about Not Laboring in Vain

Heavenly Father,

This Monday morning, 

draw our eyes from the task lists before us 

to gaze on your heavenly presence.

Help us to frame all of our earthly labor 

in the context of our Lord’s resurrection from the dead. 

The apostle Paul tells us,

Christ’s victory over sin and death changes everything, 

empowering us to “be steadfast, immovable, 

always abounding in the work of the Lord, 

knowing that in the Lord 

your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58).

May we indeed live and love in this hope today and every day. 

In Jesus’ victorious name. Amen. 

Read 1 Corinthians 15.

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A Prayer about Praising God

by | Apr 11, 2021 | Daily Prayer, Easter

A Prayer about Praising God

Mighty and Majestic God,

As we gather together today, whether near or far, 

May we join with voices through the generations making joyful noises, 

proclaiming,

“You are a great King above all gods” (Psalm 95:3).

“The sea is yours because you made it” (Psalm 95:5).

“The Lord reigns! 

Yes, the world is established,

 it shall never be moved; 

you will judge the peoples with equity” (Psalm 96:10).

As we sing your praises, 

may every sorrow and distress 

fade before the brilliance of your glorious presence.

In Jesus’ praiseworthy name. Amen. 

Read Psalm 95-96.

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Holy Week Devotional: Teaching Tuesday

by | Mar 30, 2021 | Easter, Lent, Weekly Gospel Meditation

Holy Week Devotional: Teaching Tuesday

Dear Readers,

I love Holy Week, intentionally setting aside time to remember the week before  Christ died on the cross for our sins. Today I share from the Gospel Day-by-Day Devotional I wrote for my subscribers to celebrate Holy Week. If you don’t already have a copy and would like to follow for the rest of the week, be sure to subscribe now. You’ll also get a new free gospel-centered resource every month.

A few years ago, I realized I knew a lot about Palm Sunday and Good Friday, but I could never remember what Maundy (Thursday) meant, and I had little idea of what Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of Holy Week were all about.

I decided to spend some time with Jesus in the various gospels. With the help of some good resources, I read different accounts of the different days of Jesus’ last week of earthly life as a human.

I learned a lot about funny names of days I’d never heard, but the biggest thing I discovered was the good news of the gospel announced again in this astounding story.

This year I decided to rework and revise all of the devotionals for you, my wonderful Living Story subscribers. I urge you to set aside twenty minutes each day of Holy Week to remember the strange and wonderful events. This guide includes:

  • links to Scripture
  • a very quick devotional with gospel implications
  • a brief prayer

I hope you enjoy using it as much as I enjoyed making it! Please feel free to contact me if I can help you!

Teaching Tuesday

Historically, there is no name assigned to Tuesday, so I chose these names myself (can you tell!?!). Jesus continues teaching—both his disciples and the religious leaders who are trying to trap him.

  1. Jesus teaches the disciples: Mark 11:20-25.

Passing the cursed fig tree on their way back to Jerusalem, the disciples notice it is now withered. Jesus gives a brief but significant lesson on faith, prayer, and forgiveness.

Gospel implication:

The disciples will soon face a task that will seem far more impossible than praying a mountain into the sea. In Jesus’ dark-houred death, they will desperately need faith that hope will rise again.

They will come to know that Jesus’ death and resurrection profoundly changes their story: they are forgiven, freed of sin, guilt, and death; and they are empowered to forgive others.

  1. Jesus teaches the religious authorities trying to trap him: Mark 11:28-12:40; Matthew 23:39.

The religious leaders question Jesus’ authority: who authorized him to take the actions in the temple? In the sections that follow, Jesus pulls out all of his teaching stops: questions, parables, illustrations, and finally, the provocative “woes” of Matthew 23:1-37 (WHOA!). We might say Jesus had a “come-to-Jesus” meeting with them.

Gospel implication:

Jesus, knowing his teaching will further enrage them, persists in pointing them (and us) to their/our desperate need for a Savior. God’s grace is the only hope for their/our hardness of heart, self-righteous attitude, and stubborn refusal to see.

Prayer

Lord, forgive us for our lack of faith and forgiveness. Soften our hearts that we may see our sin. When we doubt your strength and might, help us to remember that you are the God who raised Jesus from the dead. Help us to trust you enough to forgive others and to pray with the faith that moves mountains, knowing that you are the Redeemer and Restorer of all things. Amen.

5 Marks of a Servant Leader

by | Mar 23, 2021 | Gospel Coaching, Lent, Weekly Gospel Meditation

5 Marks of a Servant Leader

“Lord, do you wash my feet?” John 13:6

 Our elder son will never forget the words Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-fil-A, Inc., addressed to him after his job interview there. Touring the facility with the vice-president who interviewed him, they arrived at the “treehouse,” the then ninety-one-year-old’s office. After a brief conversation, Mr. Cathy looked at our son and said, “I look forward to serving with you.” Our son had two (inward) responses:

  1. Does that mean I got the job? and
  2. Wait, don’t you mean, “You look forward to me serving you?”

With his words, Mr. Cathy had demonstrated the principle of servant leadership that derives from Chick-fil-A, Inc.’s mission statement.

That story always reminds me of Peter’s response when Jesus approached him to wash his feet (John 13). Peter objects, not wanting Jesus to stoop so low as to serve him in such a menial way. Jesus gently rebukes Peter, instructing his followers about servant leadership in the kingdom of God. Let’s revisit the story.

Jesus: The Ultimate Servant Leader

The time, Jesus knows, has now come, for him to depart this world. Even as he is enjoying his feast with his beloved disciples, he is eager to prepare them for their new life of service. He rises from his place at the table, removes his outer garment, and wraps a towel around his waist. Now dressed as a servant, he begins doing what only a servant, or a wife, or a child, the lowliest in the hierarchy of that culture would do—washing feet. At this point, Peter raises his objection. As we continue the story, we learn five realities about Christ’s servant leaders:

Five Characteristics of Servant Leaders:

  1. Servant leaders must be willing to be weak, even despicably so.In removing his outer garment (John 13:4), kneeling before his friends, and taking their dirty feet into his hands, Jesus performs the role of the weakest and most despised in his culture—a servant. Jesus’ menial act is the basis of Peter’s objection, just as it was the basis of my son’s objection to Mr. Cathy.
  2. Servant leaders serve even in times of travail and turmoil.Jesus washes his disciples’ feet, knowing that he is facing the torment of the Cross and separation from his Father, not to mention separation from his beloved friends. Jesus washes his disciples’ feet, knowing that some will betray him in coming days. Trials do not excuse us from servant leadership.
  3. Servant leaders open themselves to the care of Jesus and others.When Peter objects to Jesus’ washing of him, Jesus responds, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me” (John 13:8, ESV). It is Jesus who empowers us to serve others. Without receiving his care and love, we have no love to share.
  4. Servant leaders serve because Jesus first served us, just as we love because Jesus first loved us (1 John 4:7-8).Jesus washes his disciples’ feet to illustrate a spiritual point—he alone can cleanse them from their sin. Then he instructs them, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14). Jesus’ foot washing is more than an example to the servant leader; it is the empowerment for servant leadership. Because we have the riches of his grace, we pour them out on others.
  5. Servant leaders will get down and dirty, physically, spiritually, and emotionally.Jesus calls his disciples to go into all the world, even the uncomfortable and unfamiliar world. To wash another’s feet may mean sitting on the sidewalk next to the homeless man while he eats the chicken sandwich we brought him; or it may mean enduring the stench of urine in the nursing home as we visit residents there. It may mean entering messy conversations or not exiting miry conflicts.

As you ponder Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, do not miss meditating on his sacrificial service to his disciples. Let us serve because he first served us, just as we love because he first loved us!

A Prayer about Servant Leadership

Lord Jesus, you not only showed us the way to servant leadership, you dug the path for us by your death on the Cross. Thank you for lowering yourself that we might be raised to new life. Help us to follow you into the down and dirty places you call us to lead. In your saving name we ask. Amen.

Further Encouragement

Read John 13:1-17; Philippians 2:1-11.

Listen: Take My Life and Let It Be, written by Frances Havergal

For Reflection

  • How do you feel about having your feet washed, literally or spiritually? What encouragement or conviction does this passage bring you?
  • In which of the five areas of servant leadership would you like to grow? Ask God to help you in this area.

Hope for Hard Times: Be of Good Cheer

by | Mar 16, 2021 | Lent, Suffering, Weekly Gospel Meditation

Hope for Hard Times: Be of Good Cheer

Dear Friends,

In this season of Lent/preparation for Easter, it’s a good time to reexamine our reason for hope, even when we are facing disastrous circumstances. Enjoy this excerpt from my devotional, From Recovery to Restoration: 60 Meditations for Finding Peace & Hope in Crisis. 

These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. John 16:33, NKJV

 Here on the Gulf Coast of Florida, hurricane season threatens every year, tossing its mighty winds and roaring waters through our mind’s eye, arousing fears of future devastation and memories of past disaster. It’s been about fifteen years since Hurricane Ivan wreaked its havoc on our hometown, Pensacola, Florida, leaving a swath of blue roofs in its wake.

We’ve recovered. But some never did. Some lost homes, businesses, even marriages to the disaster. They may have found a new home or started a new business, but the heartache of the catastrophe lingers. Maybe you haven’t been hit by a hurricane; maybe it was a divorce, a sudden revelation of a spouse’s affair. Maybe you were slapped with a cancer diagnosis. Or maybe your twenty-three-year-old has just renounced her faith.

The hard reality is that in this life we may never fully recover from some disasters we endure. How can we live with hope in a world in which some losses will never be recouped? Jesus, in his final words to his disciples, anticipated this question. Shortly before his brutal crucifixion for a trumped-up crime, he prepared his followers for the disasters that mark life in a fallen world:

“In the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world” (John 16:33 NKJV).

Jesus’ words confound many of us, because western culture has fed us a lie: “This world is all there is,” it tells us, “and the things in it are here to make us happy.” Jesus contradicted this lie, telling his disciples, “Yes, in this world, you will suffer. I’m teaching you how to live in my world, my kingdom. Not only that, when I die and am raised again, you will have the resurrection power to live a different life, a new life, to begin to recover what was lost in the fall. When you suffer, remember these things I have told you, and you will have peace. Not only that, you can be ‘of good cheer,’ ‘take courage,’ ‘not be afraid,’ ‘take heart’—because ‘I have overcome the world.’”

One day, not yet, but “soon,” Jesus said, “I will return” (Revelation 22:7). In that day, we will live with him in a new world, the world we were really made for. In that day, all of the pain and sorrow of the disasters we have faced will be washed away. All the sin—the clawing to get our own way, the clashing against loved ones over minor differences, the clinging to things we think will satisfy—it will be over. Overcome. Defeated. By him—our King.

Dear friends, let’s take heart. There is something better that awaits. It is beyond recovery. It is restoration. It is renewal. It is reunion. Cheer loudly and long. Jesus has overcome the world.

Prayer

Lord Jesus,

Thank you for setting us straight. We are far too focused on finding joy in the things of this world. Help us to trust you when we suffer, to know that in you alone we will find peace and hope. In your cheering name we pray. Amen.

Further Encouragement

Read John 16.

Listen to “What a Friend” by Sara Groves.

For Reflection

What hope do you find in Jesus’ words to his disciples?

 

Get Hope for Troubling Times

Advance Review for From Recovery to Restoration

“When the storms of life crash into our lives, the devastation left behind is often overwhelming. Recovery and healing is slow and arduous. Elizabeth Turnage’s devotional is for all those laboring toward recovery. From Recovery to Restoration is a hope-filled, gospel-laced, and Christ-exalting book which invites us into God’s story of redemption and helps us see how he is at work to redeem and restore all things, even the aftermath of our personal losses, heartaches, and trials.”

Christina Fox

Writer, Counselor, Speaker

author of A Heart Set Free: A Journey to Hope Through the Psalms of Lament.

Click Here

When Changing Our Minds Is a Good Thing

by | Feb 16, 2021 | Devotional, Lent, Weekly Gospel Meditation

When Changing Our Minds Is a Good Thing

Dear Friends, as Lent begins tomorrow, I wrote this meditation about repentance, a little understood and less embraced essential truth of the Christian life. Remember, if you’d like forty (free) printable Bible verses to help you in your preparation for Easter, you can get yours here.

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near. Matthew 3:2. 

I stared glumly at the stoplight, willing it to turn. I was uneasy under the harsh glare and loud shouting of the slender young street preacher on the corner. With his Bible raised high like a bludgeon, he screamed, “Repent!!! The kingdom of heaven is near!!!!” Is it any wonder many of us cringe at the call to repent?

As kingdom servants, though, we must recapture the message of repentance as a powerful call to change that comes with the enabling power to change. First John commanded it. Then Jesus commanded it (Matthew 3:2, 4:17). We cannot ignore their call. To embrace repentance, we must understand at least five things about repentance.

First, repentance can’t be severed from the gospel, the “good news” that Jesus came to bring. After John was arrested, Jesus came, “proclaiming the good news of God,” telling people, “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:14-15). The good news—our Saving King has come, leads to the bad news—we must repent of our sins, which leads to the good news—trusting our Saving King for salvation.

Second, repentance is a complete and utter change of heart, mind, soul, body, the only logical response for a citizen of the kingdom of God. It is a radical change of mind about the king we serve and the kingdom we inhabit. Repentance turns us away from the kingdom of self we so often seek, the kingdom of security and significance, of houses and cars and kids and followers and likes. 

Third, repentance generates grief, deep sorrow for putting ourselves on the throne. That grief turns us happily toward the king who, because he loves and delights in us, died for our sin. As we return to the king, we seek first the things of the kingdom of heaven.

Fourth, repentance bears fruit as we seek the things that matter to Christ: faith and hope and love; trust and imagination and sacrifice, things that can’t be found in a condo on a beach or a grade on an exam. 

Finally, the most important thing we need to know about repentance is what the young street preacher failed to share—the power to repent comes from the Holy Spirit. While we are too blind to see our allegiance to self-rule, the Spirit graciously (and sometimes painfully) removes those blinders, opening our eyes to our sin. While we are too hardened of heart to change our ways, the Spirit softens our heart, making it pliable. To repent, we must collapse on Christ, and we must do it again and again and again. 

Dear friends, join me in repenting, in collapsing before the true King for all of the things we need for “life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3). In “repentance and rest” is our salvation (Isaiah 30:15).

Holy Spirit,

Use your laser of love to heal the cataracts clouding our vision of the true kingdom. Draw our eyes to gaze on the majesty and mercy of our one true king. Compel us to collapse on Christ every day, every minute, every hour, in repentance, for his kingdom is near. 

In Jesus’ life-changing name we pray. Amen.

Further Encouragement

Read Matthew 3:1-12; Matthew 4:12-17; Mark 1:14-15; 2 Corinthians 7:10.

Listen to “Patient Kingdom” by Sandra McCracken.

For Reflection

Have you ever “cringed” at the call to repentance because of the way it was given? What realities of repentance give you hope to obey Jesus’ command?