Devotion 37
The Joy We Share
Christ is risen!
Chris is risen indeed!
I love that Easter greeting. It's a shame we don't use it all year long. It's a joy producer, and there's not one of us that can't use that surge of power within our souls every day.
Even if no one says it to me, I can say it to myself and reap the faith- lifting electricity of this truth.
Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed.
Even when I don't feel like it.
Truth is truth, and this is a glorious one.
All because of Passion Week. All because God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit cooperated in the project to lift me — a single human being — out of the "miry clay" as Psalm 40 puts it.
All because God created us so that He could fellowship with us. In spite of the gift of choice, which we so often use against Him, He wants to enjoy our conversation.
Incredible!
God with me!
And all because of Calvary, Christ's resurrection, His return to Glory, and His promised return!
One of my favorite hymns is "In the Garden." "And He walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own. And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known!"*
I believe that. You cannot know the joy of my relationship with the Lord, but neither can I know yours. Each is one of a kind, designed for us by the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
Such joy!
Because of the Easter season.
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.
Alleluia!
* "In the Garden,"by C. Austin Miles, by The Rodeheaver Co. in 1940
For Further Consideration:
These two passages of the same Scripture.
"I waited and waited and waited for God.
At last he looked; finally he listened.
He lifted me out of the ditch,
pulled me from deep mud.
He stood me up on a solid rock
to make sure I wouldn't slip.
He taught me how to sing the latest God-song,
a praise-song to our God.
More and more people are seeing this:
they enter the mystery,
abandoning themselves to God.
Blessed are you who give yourselves over to God,
turn your back on the world's 'sure thing,'
ignore what the world worships...
And me? I'm a mess. I'm nothing and have nothing:
You can do it; you've got what it takes—
but God, don't put it off.
— Psalm 40:1-4, 17 (The Message)
"I waited patiently for the Lord and He inclined unto me and heard my cry.
"He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and established my goings.
"And He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and trust in the Lord.
"Blessed is the man that maketh the Lord his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies...
"But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me; thou art my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God."
— Psalm 40:1-4, 17 (KJV)
The Crimson Tide
Out of His wounded side there came
Blood and water to drown our shame.
From His pierced side His heart's blood fell
To redeem the world from the depths of Hell.
From His heart that broke for the sin of earth
Came a message new of man's rebirth.
From His bleeding heart and His wounded side
Gushed a power as strong as the moving tide.
It's a power that rises to guard the weak,
To forgive the sinner, to lift the weak.
Christ's mercy streamed in a crimson tide
That poured from His heart and His wounded side.
Dorothy Ruth Harris Teel
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