SWYC 2018: Abiding in Christ

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GYC Southwest

Morning Devotional

Anthony Czaja

Farmer

I'm actually from a pit full of miry clay.

Today, we're going to climb higher out of that pit by God's grace.

I'm going to start with a word of prayer and then we'll open up the word.

Our Father in heaven, we thank you for hearing our prayer.

We thank you for waking us up this morning and giving us a spirit to be here and to want to hear your voice.

I pray that you will help us to hear that voice today, That you will keep out the other burdens that we have and help us to see a greater image of your lovely Son Jesus today.

When I hear the pages stop, I'll know you're there.

The Bible tells us a story of a young man named Hezekiah, and in verse 2 it says, 25 years old was he when he began to reign.

In verse 3, and he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father did.

He removed the high places and break the images and cut down the groves and break in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made.

For unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it, And he called it Nahushtan.

That is a description of a very good king who did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.

And we see here him breaking a serpent that Moses had made.

Wouldn't you think that that should be off limits?

This was many years after Moses had died.

Do you remember the story of Moses and the serpent?

He made this serpent and he raised it up.

People looking to this serpent, their lives were saved.

If it were still here today, I can't even imagine the monetary value that this serpent would have.

In the margin of the Bible, it's by the way, this is the only place in the Bible that this word is used.

The word Nehushtan means a piece of brass.

So other people were saying this is a holy relic.

He trusted in the Lord, God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.

For he clave to the Lord and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses.

He kept the commandments that the Lord gave Moses, but did away with the piece of brass.

And the Lord was with him, and he prospered, whithersoever he went forth, and he rebelled against the king of Assyria and served him not." Hezekiah is an amazing figure here.

I want to focus back on nehushtan, a piece of brass.

What are the things in your life that we are estimating as being more important and more valuable than they really should be?

Honest, like just brutally honest, the way that Hezekiah did here, and just point them out and call them for what they are.

The enemy is trying to dangle things in front of us.

They may be beautiful, they may be 1 of a kind, but if we can see them for what they really are and just call it by name, piece of brass, we can move on and we can walk in the ways of the Lord.

So today the message is going to be 1 where it may call for us to be honest and to even leave some things that we've treasured behind.

I ask that you go back and read Hezekiah's life.

But Hezekiah had a lot of pressure and a lot of temptation.

The king of Assyria was sending servants to pressure him to point out that there was no way he was going to gain victory against that king.

And there was a messenger who was supposed to give a message to Hezekiah and it says this in verse 10, Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah King of Judah, saying, Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria." Blasphemy, right?

So Hezekiah is being told, God cannot deliver you.

The messenger tells Hezekiah to behold, that means to look at, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by destroying them utterly and shalt thou be delivered?

So the messenger says, you're trusting in God, he cannot deliver you, and if you just look around and remember what you've heard, you will have to agree that the king of Assyria has destroyed every enemy that he's come in contact with.

So he cannot trust his eyes here, but I want you to go to verse 17.

After hearing this message he goes to prayer.

He goes to prayer first, and here's what he says as a part of his prayer in verse 17.

It says, of a truth, Lord, the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands.

Hezekiah did not argue the fact that the king of Assyria was gaining victories.

And it is important if we're gonna gain the victory as Satan brings things to us, that we're going to be able to say, you know what, that's true.

If Eve would have done that in the Garden of Eden, all the things that Satan through the serpent pressed upon her were true except for 1.

And if she would have just acknowledged all the true things, there would have been 1 left standing that she could not acknowledge.

But instead, she kind of took the whole thing as a meal and ate it.

So for you today, I want us this morning, I want us this morning to acknowledge the things that are true, no matter who brings it to you.

No matter who brings it to you, acknowledge the things that are true.

And then if nothing is standing and it's all true, then eat the meal.

But if there's something left that you cannot acknowledge, call it a piece of brass.

So, let's look at the garden of our heart.

Are you willing to do a little heart work with me this morning?

I used to be a manager in 1 of the largest 15th company in America in the corporate world in an office called or in a department called Business Intelligence.

Faithfulness in Daily Duties

How many of you are thankful for the speakers?

How many of you are thankful for the staff that put this together?

How many of you are thankful for the people that made sure there was food in the cafeteria every meal?

How many of you are thankful for the person who pounded the steaks for the tent out there?

Really, the pounding of the steaks had just as much to do with these meetings as the speakers.

Because all things work together for good to those who are called according to his purpose and love God.

So I'm going to share a few experiences today that will help us go forward from here, because this is our last day, go forward from here and not just have a nice, good feeling and this swelling within us of a sense of God's goodness.

But actually to have a plan, or at least to have a sense of what we can do now to make sure that we continue walking to the kingdom.

And So I'm gonna share this with you in a series of stories.

The last 1 is actually just a parable type story that I had in a dream 1 time.

And it wasn't like, you know, it's a normal dream, but it had just a deep meaning and I could remember everything about the dream.

How many of you were here the first time I gave devotion and I shared my testimony about how my daughter and I ate Poison Hemlock, 1 of the most poisonous, yes.

So you'll remember in that story, there came a time when I had to ask a very important question, and that was, am I ready to see God face to face?

And I'm telling you, brothers and sisters, when I had a second chance to live, my purposes, my aims, and even my efforts changed.

OK, my purposes, my aims, and my efforts changed.

Which was evidence, I was an elder in the church.

I had a good family, I was following country living, I had left paradise, we lived in Hawaii to follow country living.

But all those things did not actually answer that question.

Am I preparing to see my Savior face to face?

You know, building a fence is good, But we still need fruit, right?

So through that experience, it was actually just the next spring my wife came to me.

And it was just a normal day like any other day.

And she says to me, I just passed a home pregnancy test.

And so my 2 daughters were very, very excited.

They wanted a little brother or a little sister.

They didn't know if it was a boy or a girl, so they bought green and yellow.

And they just, you know, they were so excited.

They were getting little blankets together.

And it was about a month later that my wife came to me and she said, you know, there's a problem.

And so I do what I normally do, I do a little research.

And I found that it's normal in the first trimester for women to have extra bleeding.

It didn't happen in the first 2 pregnancies, but maybe this is just different.

She's educated to be tough, you know, to just endure no matter what.

She came to me a few weeks later, and she said, I'm still bleeding.

About a week later she says, I'm still bleeding but I'm getting weak.

Let's go get an ultrasound and find out what's going on.

And We're just anticipating what's going on.

And so as the person's there, she breaks the news to our family.

She says, you have what's called a molar pregnancy.

And instead of a baby growing in your uterus, there's just tissue that's never going to become a baby.

Do you remember my youngest daughter who ate that poison?

She was climbing out of that high chair saying, I don't want to die.

She cried 10 times harder when she found out that she lost her brother or sister.

Oh, brothers and sisters, we need to have a heart for our brothers and sisters.

You know, in that day when we meet our Savior face to face, we are going to cry if we lost our brother and sister.

There is gonna be weeping and gnashing of teeth if you read the Old Testament.

It's actually referring to God himself weeping and gnashing his teeth over the children he's losing.

The person says, it's very similar to an abortion procedure.

You go in, we need to clear out that tissue, making sure the uterus doesn't recognize it anymore.

You'll stop bleeding, Your body will recover.

So my wife being from Japan, both of her parents were in the health care field.

So we made a quick plan and we said, maybe the best thing would be that you go to Japan.

Her mother could care for her recovery and She wouldn't be tempted to overwork in our home.

So we basically relieve her of her duties for a little while.

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Morning Devotional

Farmer

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