Hope

 This was taken from a devotional that I delivered on November 28, 2023 to our Care Night groups.

I’d like to open this evening with a true story. A friend of ours have 5 children, and this last week one of the five confessed to running up significant credit card debt to the tune of almost $10,000 on her credit cards. She’s in her 20s and making not enough money, and the economy is horrible — and the weight of this was causing her to consider some even more unhealthy choices to “make it through Christmas.” It has been on her mothers mind to ask her about it because she’s dropped hints that she has credit card bills, but this week, my friend finally just asked her point blank how much she owed. 

When my friend told me how much, it sucked the wind right out of me and reminded me that I was in a pickle seven years ago after a divorce and facing debt to the tune of $90,000. 

That was before Jesus met me. Before I picked up the Bible and used it as a sword. That was before. . . 

Last Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent — the Sunday we lit the candle of Hope, and I figured - “What better way to end this session of bettering ourselves through community by giving you the message of hope.”

See, I am an addict. I was born with a genetic predisposition to addiction, and until I was 41 years old, I was happy to say I had escaped all of it. And then Jesus humbled me and shed light on all that I needed to surrender. Today I am a recovering

• Human addict

• Food addict

• Sugar addict

• Spending addict

• Attention addict

• Pride addict

• Vanity addict . . . . Etc etc etc

But all of that is not me. Because I am a Daughter of the King first and foremost, and He has delivered me through the hope He gave me in His Son. 

Father Richard Rohr wrote a book called Breathing Underwater, Spirituality and the Twelve Steps. At the beginning of my faith journey the church community I had joined read this book as a whole church. In his introduction, Father Richard says that he wondered “whether addiction could be one very helpful metaphor for what the biblical tradition called ‘sin’”. Sin — what separates us from peace with God. Because we turn elsewhere instead of being in perfect union with Him. Yes, this began to make perfect sense to me. 

I do what I want, and I leave God standing there waiting for me to come back because my plan doesn't work. 

Tonight I want to share some insights with you from my first week of my Advent Bible study. In Genesis chapter 3, God tells the serpent who tricked Eve into eating the apple:

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.””

‭‭Genesis‬ ‭3‬:‭15‬ ‭NIV‬‬

I don’t know about you but it kind of sounds like the serpent is going to be the loser in that fight. The father of lies and deceit will have his head crushed. I can’t wait to see it. The first message of Hope was given by God before the first Biblical account of any child even being born. Hope. 

Sometimes it’s hard to pray during difficult times in our lives, so tonight we are going to do some guided prayer. You each have a piece of paper just to jot down some things while we move through this and at the end I’m going to give you a few minutes to spend with the Lord in your own secret prayer to Him.

According to Romans 3:23, ALL have sinned. ALL have chosen our own path instead of God’s. We all still do because if I remember the last time I stood up here none of you could give me a 5 when I asked you to rate yourself on your ability to show love for God and others 100% of the time. But there’s still hope.

There was a girl who was engaged to a guy who ended up pregnant and birthing the Messiah. The Messiah. The redeemer. Boy, that was unexpected. For her and for her fiancé. But not for God. Did you know that from the time of conception until about day eight, literally the ONLY person who knows that a woman is pregnant is God??? What an amazing secret He gets to keep for over a week. God’s people had been waiting for thousands of years for the Messiah. For four hundred years, God’s people heard NOTHING from him. And then, unexpectedly, He appeared. In a barn.

Ok —

#1. Write down a situation in your life where right now you are waiting for something. Is there a need in your life that hasn’t been met? Is there healing you’re desperate for God to bring?

#2. Write down a situation in your life where you are fighting the idea of trusting in God’s plan when you just want to resolve it. This could be related to #1. 

#3. Have you forgotten or How have you forgotten (or maybe just learned today) that our God is the God of the unexpected?

#4. We believe that God’s unexpected ways can be trusted with things as important as our salvation and eternity, but not with the details and daily burdens of our lives. What part of this situation do you need to surrender to God fully? Is there anything that feels too small and insignificant? Write it down anyway.

#5. Isaiah 55:8 says. ““For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.” Jot down a few notes about how you can apply this verse to your circumstance.

Now for the next 2-3 minutes, I’m going to give you time to have a conversation with God about what you just wrote down. Be honest with Him and throw it all down for Him to pick up and deal with. 

1-2 minutes

Father in your word you spoke to your people, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”” Remind us that you’re always doing hundreds of things in our lives, but we might be so underwater in our grief, anxiety, and life that we may be aware of exactly none of them. We can’t change where we are sitting in our circumstances, God, but we can change who sits with us. You give us hope. We seek a solution to our problem, but what we need is a quiet heart in the midst of this storm. Please draw us nearer to you and give us the hope that only your Son can bring us. We ask this in your Son Jesus Christ’s name. Amen

So let me end tonight with how my friend’s daughter’s situation was resolved. They had been holding a savings account with rent money in it that her daughter had been paying for about five years. God provided just the right amount of money in that savings account to pay off the debt. They worked on a budget this week and came up with a plan to pay the savings account back over the course of two years plus $300/month to continue saving each month. AND my friend got to tell her about Financial Peace University — she’s not a Christ follower currently and always declines invitations to church, but she didn’t decline this time. God is working on her. Praise Him.

The situation didn’t go away, but there is hope in His plan.

Finally, I leave you with three pieces of scripture about hope and peace:

Jesus says in John chapter 16

““I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.””

‭‭John‬ ‭16‬:‭33‬ ‭NIV‬‬

“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.”

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭26‬:‭3‬ ‭NIV‬‬

https://bible.com/bible/111/isa.26.3.NIV

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

‭‭Philippians‬ ‭4‬:‭6‬-‭7‬ ‭NIV‬‬

https://bible.com/bible/111/php.4.6-7.NIV

 

Loved

 This comes from a devotional that I delivered on November 10, 2023 to our Care Night groups.

We live in a broken world. Take a look at the people around you. They’re here due to brokenness. Not one person sitting here tonight can honestly say that brokenness is NOT the reason they’re here. We are either victims of brokenness or guilty of hurting somebody, but oftentimes it’s both, and both create brokenness inside us.

Every time I sat in your seat, I was dealing with either pain I had caused others or pain that others had caused me — and sometimes pain I had caused myself by caving to the temptations of the enemy. And sometimes all three. Attending sessions like this requires bravery — admitting we need support and love from people who are willing to support and love us. I know.

Tonight I want to present the key reason we are here and to give you hope. In the New Testament, Jesus gives us a command:

Mark 12:30-31 says, after a scribe asked Jesus what the greatest commandment of all was: (take volunteers to speak this) “And you shall love the Lord you God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Take about thirty seconds and think about this. I’ll read it again. What would these look like in practice?

“And you shall love the Lord you God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”

**30 seconds**

So? Tell somebody next to you what this would look like. (30 seconds).

So? What would this look like? (Take answers)

Ok, now I want you to give yourself a rating. From 0 to 5, 0 being I never follow these two commands and 5 being 100% of your day you follow these commands. Show me your rating on your hand. 

So we all sin . . . Brokenness. The apostle Paul struggled with this also. In Romans chapter 7 vs 19, Paul writes

“For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.”

I don’t know what y’all know about Paul, but I find him to be one of the most fascinating transformations in the Bible — a murderer of the exact people he converted to because he met Jesus. Right on the road to continuing his quest to rid the empire of Christ-followers. Jesus met him. Right where he was.

Funny — that’s where He met me too. Right where I was. In the middle of my mess. And yet look where Paul went. He went on to be a key component in the spreading of the Gospel. WHY?  I want you to listen to this song — the lyrics — because this is the hope that we have, regardless of where we have to be met.

Play “He’s Crazy About You.”

I saved this piece of scripture for last, and I wanted to share it with you in four different translations so that you can fully feel the impact of the words you are about to hear. I still struggle with repeating out loud it because the impact it has one me makes me breathless.

Read each translation.

This is my life verse. No matter who you are. No matter what you have done or what others have done to you — He died to save us from an eternity separated from Him. For those of you who have children — imagine somebody loving you MORE than you love your own kids. That’s God.

Let’s pray.

Father Thank you so much for sending your son Jesus to take the burden of an eternity separated from you. We enter the last four weeks of this session of Care Night on our own road, and tonight we ask you to meet us right where we are. Some of us have embraced the full meaning of what it means to be loved by you and we are leaning in hard, but some of us struggle with leaning in. Some of us keep taking the wheel from you and driving our own struggle bus down this road. Some of us have just pulled over on the side of the road and given up driving, and some of us really just want to let you drive, but the drivers seat is difficult to give up. Please allow your Holy Spirit to move tonight through this place as the healing continues. We thank you for this community of brave participants and servants. And we pray this in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen

The unworthy

This comes from a devotional I delivered and October 10, 2023 for our Care Night groups.

I don’t know if anybody here watched the show The Chosen, but I couldn’t think of anything better to reference tonight than several of my favorite characters. But first let me introduce myself to you, for those of you who don’t know me. My name is Heather Hart, and in the winter of 2016 I was sitting in the same place many of you are tonight. In fact, I actually got into my car and started driving three weeks in a row before I would finally get the guts to walk into my first Divorce Care Group. It was scary. Because walking in meant it was really happening.

Since then God has really done a healing work in my life, and in 2018 I found myself back in your place attending an anxiety and depression group for women. For those of you who don’t know, God can heal anything and change anything. But He has continued to allowed me to wrestle with anxiety and depression since. But He carries me through those valleys a lot better than I could walk through them myself. 

So anyway, back to the Chosen. There are 3 characters I would like to reference tonight.

 In Matthew 8:1-4, scripture says:

When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. 2 A man with leprosy[a] came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

3 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. 4 Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

Jesus healed the Leper, the man that everyone avoided because of his uncleanness and unworthiness. This man simply asked for healing and Jesus gave it.

***I’m going to pause for about 30 seconds and let you consider how that scripture applies to your life right now. Can you relate to this character or somebody watching? How would you fit into this story? If you’d like to speak to God about this, go ahead and do so.***

In Matthew 9:9-13, scripture says:

9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.

10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples.11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’[a] For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Jesus saw the need of Matthew the tax collector and his friends. Matthew had worldly riches, but he was spiritually depleated. They knew they were unworthy, but Jesus knew they needed his love.

***I’m going to pause for about 30 seconds and let you consider how that scripture applies to your life right now. Can you related to a character in this story? And if so how? If you’d like to speak to God about this, go ahead and do so.***

In John chapter 4:5-26, scripture says:

So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a])

10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of waterwelling up to eternal life.”

15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

17 “I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

And skipped down to verses 25, 

25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

Jesus chose to speak to the woman at the well and offer her salvation, she - one who would have been his enemy, was undoubtedly a social outcast, unworthy, and one who also lived in sin. 

***I’m going to pause for about 30 seconds and let you consider how that scripture applies to your life right now. If you’d like to speak to God about this, go ahead and do so.***

***Pray —Heavenly, Father,  We know that alone we are unworthy to sit in your presence, but we also know that the death and resurrection of your son Jesus gives us a free pass to worthiness, and we thank you. Many of us walk through these doors feeling like our lives, our stories don’t matter, but we know that in your eyes, it all matters because the stories are written by the one true creator, the sovereign Lord, the great tapestry weaver. Please wrap us in your loving arms tonight as we tackle the lies the enemy continues to pelt us with so that we can come out victorieous on the other side.  We love you. In Jesus name, Amen***