Olive Tree Ministries

Morning Devotional

The Anchor Holds

By Jack Witte

July 3, 2009

“He who has God and everything has nothing more than he who has God alone.” C. S. Lewis

The above quote from C. S. Lewis puts into perspective the true value of knowing God. The things we accomplish on this earth, the earthly treasures we work so hard to possess, are worth nothing and the only thing that truly matters is whether we know God or whether we don’t know Him. For in God we find all we need and in Him we find the power and the strength to survive in this world. For some of us who are struggling with our businesses or with the loss of a job, it is difficult to hold to this truth and Satan wants us to be discouraged. Satan wants us to put our trust in this world and not in our God. I speak to those who are struggling this morning and remind them that in God is our strength and in God is our hope, and even though the days ahead may look bleak, He will never leave us and we need to remain firm in our trust and in our faith in Him. For one day we will leave this place with the greatest treasure there is, our eternal home will await us, and we will have eternal life with our God who loves us so much.

Father in heaven, we struggle here on earth with many earthly problems and many have business difficulties, or have completely lost their jobs. But you know each of our situations and we have Your assurance that You are with us and that You will help us and that You will bring us through. For You are the Anchor that will never fail.

Song for the week:

No More Nights -- David Phelps

Seeds of Thought . . .

MY RIGHTS
By Janette Stone

In this world of “rights”, we are quick in protecting and keeping what we consider “our rights”. This is the climate we live in and the escalation of civil suits shows this. People quickly defend themselves when anyone takes anything away from them. Christians no longer even question if the courtroom is the appropriate place to play out their private arguments.

We forget that the bible clearly shows God to be our defender (Psalms37;17), that He is the one that watches out for us (Proverbs 6:24). We are busy doing what is not needed, when we defend ourselves. We have forgotten Jesus telling us to give to the one who asks; and even to give to the one who just takes (Matthew 5:38-42). We are fighting for ourselves as if we have no one else to do it for us.

And, because of the struggle, we are missing opportunities to show God to the people around us. This opportunity is given whenever we freely give our rights to another. Whenever we can say, “You go ahead….You take more…Let me serve you..”, we will see the Holy Spirit begin working in the people around us. We are to be taken advantage of, we Christians, by the very people who do not deserve anything we might have to give them! It can not help but remind us of the advantage we have in accepting what Christ gave to us, the free gift of salvation. We do not deserve that either.(Romans 3:24)

We are still expected to follow what Jesus taught in Matthew 5-7. Our ability to live those lessons does not rest on the condition of the people we are around. Our ability to live those lessons does not rest on the condition of this world system. Our ability to live those lessons only rests on our obedience to him who gave them to us. (Romans 6:16)

Obedience to Jesus is what made it possible for God to use our family when a dear neighbor was fighting cancer. We were able to minister to her and help to ready her for the death that took her. It would not have been possible if we had fought for our rights a few months before our neighbor’s illness.

One morning our lovely American Cocker came into the house with blood trickling down her face. Her whimpering told us that she was hurting. We took her to the veterinarian and was told that her eyeball was crushed . Surgery saved her eyeball, but she was blinded in that eye.

We did not know how this had happened. But later that day the neighbor called to see how Buffy was feeling. When told that she had, had surgery, there was silence on the phone. And then we were told that the adult son of the neighbor, who was known for his temper, had thrown a rock at Buffy.

Oh, could we have fought for our rights! Or, as would be done today, our dog’s rights. But, as we went over to talk to our neighbors, God was with us in showing His love to them. The dear mother, who was soon to find herself with cancer, was crying. God put his words into our mouth as we said to her, “don’t you know that we love you more than we love our dog?”(Proverbs 10:12 – love covers all wrong)

Jesus knew what he was doing when he said that the most important commandment for us to follow was to love each other. (John 15:17) It is through loving others as much as we love ourselves that our given job of witnessing can be done. The day will come soon when the gathering of the ones an individual has witnessed to will be counted. When the count of saved souls influenced by a Christian’s love is low, their grief will be shared with many other Christians who also did not freely give love to the people around them.

Each time a “right” of a Christian is allowed to clang shut the door of shown love, the door of missed opportunities opens. If the eyes of our dogs, or something equally un-valuable eternally, continues to take away the “right” of Jesus to have his commandment of love carried out, we Christians will find the gathering of people loved by us a very small group indeed. The groups number will be equal to our faithfulness in carrying out our given job of loving others more than ourselves.

When the time came that our neighbor knew that her time here was short, she felt free to open her home and share a bible study led by myself, that readied her heart to God’s plan for her in eternity. I know it was because God used a cute little cocker named Buffy, sacrificing an eye. Which do you think was the most important? A dog’s eye, or where someone spends eternity. Let’s go through life evaluating the importance of things before we fight for the very things that we need to give up, to win the soul of someone else.

Janette Stone

Janette Stone
Founder & Director

Whole Woman Conference

Every person registered was prayed for individually by someone whose spiritual gift is prayer. Thank you, Sue.

Upcoming Events

Marriage Conference
Summer 2009
Date & Location TBA

Olive Tree Ministries