Monday, July 28, 2008
Student Choir Devotion for July 28, 2008
Come flood this heart of mine with your great love divine.
Come, Spirit, make your home, my heart is yours alone.
Come flood this heart of mine with your pure joy divine.
My every sin forgive as one with you I live.
Come fill my heart, I am longing for your power.
Your presence and peace will be mine this very hour.
Come fill my heart with your Spirit in this place.
Let my heart overflow with the fullness of your grace.
Make of this heart of mine a vessel wholly thine.
Drive dark and doubt away, O fill me Lord, I pray.
Come flood this heart of mine with your true light divine!
Read: John 10: 7-10
Reflect: What is your definition of the perfect Saturday? How-do you describe absolute, ultimate, losing-track-of-time, as-if-you-were-still-four-years-old fun?
Consider: A true story: When I was young my uncle and two cousins, my dad and my brother would go “grabblin” every chance we got in the summer. That’s where you walk through the water down a creek and catch fish by sticking your hands underneath big rocks or underwater holes in the bank and literally “grab” them out. You can catch everything from hand-sized perch to twenty-inch bass, catfish, “hog-suckers,” even snappin’ turtles and snakes. (I am being totally serious.) Well, one day when we were all on a big trip we came to a large, fairly deep place in the creek where we could see some really big fish swimming. We all got down in the water on our sides and formed a human wall around a big rook in the middle of the creek. On the count of three, we stuck our hands up under the rock, and the fish were everywhere! We were pulling them out as fast as we could, throwing them up on the bank and putting them in a big burlap sack we carried for the “big haul.” All of the sudden my father started screaming like a madman, jumping up and down, shaking’ every part of his body that he had no business shaking. When we finally got him to tell us what the heck the problem was, he pointed to his swimming trunks. What a sight it must have been to see all of us sticking our hands up his trunks to retrieve the two fish and one water snake that had found an interesting escape route from underneath the rock!
Living on this earth is wonderful. There is so much potential for hilarious fun and pure joy. That’s what Jesus meant when he said that He came to give us abundant life. Our hearts can be flooded with joy when we discover the simple gifts God has given. They are found in the enjoyment of the earth’s beauty and the laughter of family; the stimulating high we get from being creative or influential; the fun of touring a new place with Christian friends. These kinds of pleasures never wear off. They do not pass through our blood stream and leave us with a hangover in the morning. They do not fry our brains or result in an unwanted pregnancy. People look for joy in many places, but we need not look beyond the promise of John 10:10.
Pray: Ask God to show you how to discover abundant life, and to live it with people who want the same thing.
(written by Clark Sorrells)
