+DEV+ Messiah, our Firstfruits

Date: November 25, 2014 11:53 PM

Topic: +DEV+  Messiah, our Firstfruits

Messiah, our Firstfruits

"But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep." 1 Corinthians 15:20

Scripture Focus: Leviticus 23:9-14; Deuteronomy 26:1-10

Just days after the Passover, God institutes the offering of firstfruits on His calendar of appointed times. Firstfruits was the first day after the sabbath following Passover. The offering was made in remembrance of Israel's bondage in Egypt, the Lord's deliverance from slavery, and their possession of "a land that flows with milk and honey." The Feast of Firstfruits was also a celebration of the firstfruits of the barley harvest, the first harvest celebration of the year for Israel. 

But like all of God's appointed times, what was given to the nation of Israel was only a temporary "picture" or a "shadow" which had a future fulfillment pointing to the permanent reality of the Jewish Messiah, Jesus Christ. 

Jesus is called "the firstfruits." After His crucifixion and burial, He rose from the grave early Sunday morning, on the first day of the week and exactly on the Feast of Firstfruits. Crucified on Passover; raised on Firstfruits. God pre-ordained His appointed times for great things.

Insight: "According to the laws of legal evidence... there is more evidence for the... resurrection of Jesus than for just about any other event in history." (Dr. Simon Greenleaf)

Please feel free to use this devotional to send on to your friends or share with your church fellowship and Bible study groups.

We are in urgent need of Prayer and financial partners,

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+DEV+ Our Messiah, Our Communion

Date: November 24, 2014 12:12 AM

Topic: +DEV+  Our Messiah, Our Communion

Our Messiah, Our Communion

"...do this in remembrance of me." Luke 22:19

Scripture Focus: Exodus 12:14; Luke 22:1-20

The night before our Messiah Jesus was to endure His suffering on the cross, He assembled Himself with His beloved disciples to share in the Passover. The Passover was part of the Old Testament Law, one of those very special Appointed Times that the Lord gave to Israel on her yearly calendar. "This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD - a lasting ordinance" (Exodus 12:14). 

As they were all enjoying their Passover seder (the holiday ritual meal) in that upper room in Jerusalem almost 2,000 years ago, "...Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, 'Take it; this is my body.' Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they all drank from it. 'This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many...'" (Mark 14:22-24). 

When we observe the Lord's Supper, remember His death upon the cross and the picture God gave us in the Passover of a "lasting ordinance" for all His people.

Insight: Clothe yourselves with meekness and be renewed in faith - that is, the flesh of the Lord. And in love - that is, the blood of Jesus Christ. (Ignatius)

Please feel free to use this devotional to send on to your friends or share with your church fellowship and Bible study groups.

We are in urgent need of Prayer and financial partners,

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Date: November 20, 2014 12:55 AM

Topic: +DEV+  Messiah, Our Passover

Messiah, Our Passover

"Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation." 1 Corinthians 5:7

Scripture Focus: Leviticus 23:4-5; 1 Corinthians 5:6-8

The first of seven "appointed" annual Feast days given by the LORD to Israel was the Passover. But it wasn't all about the food. This was about history - the mighty God of Israel delivering His people from slavery and bondage in a foreign land.

On occasions our family would retell the story of how "the LORD brought the Israelites out of Egypt" (Exodus 12:51), I always wondered why it was the blood of a lamb "on the sides and tops of the door frames of the houses" which saved God's people from certain death. They were saved by the blood of the lamb.

God's people are still saved by the blood of the Lamb today! One day John the Baptizer saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). Jesus is our true Passover Lamb!

Insight: There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.  (William Cowper, 1772)

Please feel free to use this devotional to send on to your friends or share with your church fellowship and Bible study groups.

We are in urgent need of Prayer and financial partners,

If you would like to become a prayer partner and or a financial partner with monthly or one time gifts.

A freewill offering to Restoration Ministry may be made via PayPal at our web site:    http://www.rollanet.org/~restore/donations.htm

+DEV+ Messiah, Our Rest

Date: November 18, 2014 12:45 AM

Topic: +DEV+  Messiah, Our Rest

Messiah, Our Rest

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28

Scripture Focus: Leviticus 23:3; Matthew 11:28-30

The origin of the Sabbath goes back to Creation. After creating the heavens and the earth in six days, God "rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made" (Genesis 2:2). Was God tired after all that creative work of putting together the universe? Did He need a rest? Of course not! 

Sabbath is the Hebrew word Shabbat which means "to stop or cease from work." Creation was complete and God simply stopped what He was doing. Likewise, in Leviticus 23:3, God sets aside the seventh day Sabbath as one of His appointed times, a day every week when He would have a holy encounter with His people - a day when they, too, would cease from all work. 

But the Sabbath rest given to Israel was, again, only a shadow. If you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ, then you have already "entered into" His Sabbath rest. "There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God" (Hebrews 4:9). 

Are you wearied and burdened? Come to Jesus - His burden is light, and only He will give you complete Sabbath rest.

Insight:  "Rest in God's love. the only work you are required now to do is to give your most intense attention to His still, small voice within."(Madame Jeanne Guyon)

Please feel free to use this devotional to send on to your friends or share with your church fellowship and Bible study groups.

We are in urgent need of Prayer and financial partners,

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A freewill offering to Restoration Ministry may be made via PayPal at our web site:    http://www.rollanet.org/~restore/donations.htm

+DEV+ God's Appointed Times

Date: November 16, 2014 9:54 PM

Topic: +DEV+  God's Appointed Times

God's Appointed Times

"You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me..." John 5:39

Scripture Focus: Leviticus 23; John 5:39-40

Jesus often rebuked the Jewish religious leaders of His day. They should have recognized Him as Israel's long-awaited Messiah. They had the Hebrew Scriptures containing detailed "pictures" painted by God Himself to reveal the identity of the Redeemer. But they missed Him, and God held them accountable, "... because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you" (Luke 19:44). 

Jesus told the Pharisees that the things concerning Him would now be "hidden" from their eyes. But in every generation God has kept a "remnant" of believing Jews for Himself, a fact for which I am eternally grateful. Some of us who are Jewish, by God's grace and sovereign desire, can still see Jesus clearly through those "Scriptures that testify about me..."

And there is no better place to see the Jewish Messiah in the Hebrew Scriptures than in the Holy days given to Israel in Leviticus 23. While the Hebrew Scriptures provided the pictures-the shadows-the New Testament points us to the reality, the fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

Insight: Chasing a shadow is a vain venture: don't chase the shadow; chase the substance.

Please feel free to use this devotional to send on to your friends or share with your church fellowship and Bible study groups.

We are in urgent need of Prayer and financial partners,

If you would like to become a prayer partner and or a financial partner with monthly or one time gifts.

A freewill offering to Restoration Ministry may be made via PayPal at our web site:    http://www.rollanet.org/~restore/donations.htm

+DEV+ The Calendar, By God

Date: November 14, 2014 12:46 AM

Topic: +DEV+  The Calendar, By God

The Calendar, By God

"This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year." Exodus 12:2

Scripture Focus: Exodus 12:1-2; Psalm 104:19

All of God's important dates were written far in advance, even before the foundations of the Earth. When He gave His calendar to Israel, He marked those dates in the stars, kept them by the moon and observed them by the sun. "The moon marks off the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down" (Psalm 104:19). 

But God doesn't only have a calendar for Israel; He has one for each of us! Before you were born, He knew all about you. "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart" (Jeremiah 1:5). He knows when you will die. "...All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be" (Psalm 139:16). Israel's King David wrote, "My times are in your hands" (Psalm 31:15). 

The sovereign Creator of all things has given us His calendar and His appointed times because "For everything there is an appointed time, even a time for every affair under the heavens" (Ecclesiastes 3:1). What is written on God's calendar for you? Each event in your life He has ordained.

Insight: Seek God with a renewed heart and watch His calendar come alive with your own divine destiny.

Please feel free to use this devotional to send on to your friends or share with your church fellowship and Bible study groups.

We are in urgent need of Prayer and financial partners,

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A freewill offering to Restoration Ministry may be made via PayPal at our web site:    http://www.rollanet.org/~restore/donations.htm

+DEV+ The God of The Universe

Date: November 13, 2014 12:28 AM

Topic: +DEV+  The God of The Universe

The God of The Universe

"And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years..." Genesis 1:14

Scripture Focus: Genesis 1:14-19

Sitting at my desk in my home office, I realize it is time to discard October from the wall calendar now filled with handwritten scribbles of history. Appointments completed, birthdays past, holidays enjoyed, reminders reminded-are all just recent memories to me as the new month begins. 

But as I glance over my shoulder towards the joining wall, another calendar stares back at me. This one, still, has all of its pages attached. It is a 2013 calendar, patiently waiting the new year.

The God who created time also created His calendar. And He marked "the seasons and days and years" even before He created any living thing-or any one! He told us that His calendar would serve as "signs" and these "seasons" would be His "Appointed Times." Each of us, created by God who has numbered our days, can approach a new month in celebration of our Maker and His marvelous plan for us.

Insight: The creator of time appoints all things; they are planned by his own hand, and formed according to his own timetable.

Please feel free to use this devotional to send on to your friends or share with your church fellowship and Bible study groups.

We are in urgent need of Prayer and financial partners,

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+DEV+ Reflections As In A Mirror

Date: November 11, 2014 2:01 AM

Topic: +DEV+  Reflections As In A Mirror

Reflections As In A Mirror

"Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." 1 Corinthians 13:12

Scripture Focus: John 1:1-18; 1 John 1:1-3

We have spent some time examining the images of our relationship to Christ: being born into His family, being His bride, and being adopted by Him. Unfortunately, those images - ones that He put in place for us to know Him better - in reality stir up great heartache for many. They bring to mind miscarriages and barrenness, horrible parents and abuse, broken marriages and unfaithfulness. They leave us longing for so much more. 

Friend, you may be one who right now is in the shadows of those agonies. You may understand how you are called Christ's bride and His child, but you don't feel like that at all. Please consider that the Lord will use even these longing of your heart and these broken parts of your life to bring you out of the shadows, to show you that the reflection is not clear right now but will be one day when you are face to face with Jesus. Your heartaches are being used to draw you close to Him, to bring you fully into His family where you are known and where you know Jesus Christ as Lord.

Insight: Out of earth's sorrows, into thy balm, out of life's storms and into thy calm, out of distress to jubilant psalm, Jesus, I come to thee. (William Sleeper, 1887)

Please feel free to use this devotional to send on to your friends or share with your church fellowship and Bible study groups.

We are in urgent need of Prayer and financial partners,

If you would like to become a prayer partner and or a financial partner with monthly or one time gifts.

A freewill offering to Restoration Ministry may be made via PayPal at our web site:    http://www.rollanet.org/~restore/donations.htm

+DEV+ Every Tribe, Tongue, Nation

Date: November 10, 2014 12:15 AM

Topic: +DEV+  Every Tribe, Tongue, Nation

Every Tribe, Tongue, Nation

"...there before me was a great multitude... from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb." Revelation 7:9

Scripture Focus: Revelation 5:9-10; 7:9-10

"We believe Jesus in heavenly things - our adoption in Christ; so we follow Him in earthly things - the adoption of children" (Russell Moore, "Adopted for Life," 2009). You probably will not have to look very far - perhaps just to your own dining table! - to see families who have adopted, a young woman who has placed a child in an adoptive home, or an older couple who volunteers at a local crisis pregnancy center. You may be adopted. Adoption brings a whole new unity to mind. It's not like a support group; it's a deeper unity in Christ, and it's all around us. 

God told Abraham from the beginning of his journey that through him all nations would be blessed (Genesis 26:4, Galatians 3:8). God's love would go out with fervency to every tribe tongue and nation. The God who adopts from every corner of this earth brings us together in Jesus. We can marvel at the far reaches of His love that brings children from an orphanage in Haiti or a hospital in middle-America to the same table. That love reaches to you, too.

Insight: Adoption brings a whole kaleidoscope of people together. You and I are among the wide variety that make up God's big and growing family.

Please feel free to use this devotional to send on to your friends or share with your church fellowship and Bible study groups.

We are in urgent need of Prayer and financial partners,

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A freewill offering to Restoration Ministry may be made via PayPal at our web site:    http://www.rollanet.org/~restore/donations.htm

+DEV+ Grace Not Entitlement

Date: November 5, 2014 11:12 PM

Topic: +DEV+  Grace Not Entitlement

Grace Not Entitlement

"In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will - to the praise of his glorious grace..." Ephesians 1:4-6

Scripture Focus: Ephesians 1:3-14

Seeing ourselves as adopted children in Christ reminds us that if we are children, "then heirs - heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ" (Romans 8:17). "Inheritance" isn't really an idea many of us grow up with. You may think it's something reserved for the very wealthy. In the Bible, the idea of inheritance had everything to do with who a person's father was (Russell Moore, "Adopted for Life," 2009). The father's livelihood guaranteed survival through the generations. It was security for a person. 

And for us, it's a picture of the inheritance that the Father gives to His children, even to us as adopted children. When God created man, this entire world was meant to be our inheritance, but sin destroyed that model, leaving us all orphans. It's as if we no longer are entitled to anything. Yet through God's matchless grace in sending His Son, we have everything! "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things" (Romans 8:32)?

Insight: We ought to shudder to think what we're actually entitled to. Yet through God's grace we have everything... We have Jesus!

Please feel free to use this devotional to send on to your friends or share with your church fellowship and Bible study groups.

We are in urgent need of Prayer and financial partners,

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A freewill offering to Restoration Ministry may be made via PayPal at our web site:    http://www.rollanet.org/~restore/donations.htm

+DEV+ Is Jesus Really Yours?

Date: November 5, 2014 12:52 AM

Topic: +DEV+  Is Jesus Really Yours?

Is Jesus Really Yours?

"And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ." Romans 1:6

Scripture Focus: Romans 1:1-6; 8:12-15

"Is she really yours?" and "Do you have any children of your own?" are familiar questions to adoptive parents. Sometimes I have wondered if the inquiries are implying that the “really yours” is not really a family. 

"Am I really in the family?" is an age-old question. Paul often reminded the believers in Rome, Ephesus and Galatia that they were brothers, adopted, and children of God. He told them that the family extended beyond Israel and into the whole Gentile world. They needed to know just as much then as we do now what our identity is in Jesus. We really do belong to Him. 

At times I've been defensive about the "really yours?" question, probably because I have thought that somehow "naturally born" was better than adopted. Does any of us want to admit that in our adoption by Christ we all once were lost, abandoned and enslaved? Yet even Israel was adopted (Romans 9:4), Paul says, and was an abandoned baby (Ezekiel 16:4-6) before the Lord "adopted" her. So are we really His? Yes, and more welcomed than we will ever know!

Insight: "The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children." (Romans 8:16)

Please feel free to use this devotional to send on to your friends or share with your church fellowship and Bible study groups.

We are in urgent need of Prayer and financial partners,

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A freewill offering to Restoration Ministry may be made via PayPal at our web site:    http://www.rollanet.org/~restore/donations.htm

+DEV+ This World Of Sin

Date: November 3, 2014 10:16 PM

Topic: +DEV+  This World Of Sin

This World Of Sin

"...we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies." Romans 8:23

Scripture Focus: Romans 8:18-25

While I love how adoption has made up many families, I realize that the only reason adoption happens at all is because this world is groaning under the weight of and results of sin. Unmarried women get pregnant; parents are killed; "imperfect" children are not wanted; poverty destroys a parent's ability to provide. Out of endless crushing circumstances, people may look to adoption as a solution. 

God put adoption in place to be modeled after the institution He first made: the natural family. But that is modeled after something else: the Kingdom of God in Christ (Russell Moore, "Adopted for Life," 2009). Through the idea of "family," we carry on in a sinful world knowing that we are living out a picture of God's good and just love for us as our Father. He's a Father whose love washes over us no matter what our abilities, deficiencies, skin color, or sex. Our Father's love redeems us and takes us in as His own. So even when earthly families let us down, we eagerly come to Jesus who gave His life to adopt us.

Insight: May you find for yourself, or offer to others, "family" through a family of believers in a local church.

Please feel free to use this devotional to send on to your friends or share with your church fellowship and Bible study groups.

We are in urgent need of Prayer and financial partners,

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A freewill offering to Restoration Ministry may be made via PayPal at our web site:    http://www.rollanet.org/~restore/donations.htm

+DEV+ An Adoptive Picture

Date: November 3, 2014 12:48 AM

Topic: +DEV+  An Adoptive Picture

An Adoptive Picture

"I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." (John 14:18)

Scripture Focus: John 14:15-21

Layered on top of God's birth and marriage pictures of His perfect love for us is another image, that of adoption. I understand being born again; after all, I was born and saw both my daughters when they were born. 

For 38 years of marriage, I have understood more clearly how God is our groom and we are His bride. His assurance to us of comfort through the Holy Spirit carried us through long years of waiting. But when that first baby was placed in our arms and our love was immediate, we grasped deeply what it means to be placed in the family of God, to be wanted and to belong, to be grafted into a new life that we hadn't earned, to have our place in His family finalized and irreversible. 

These facets of our lives as believers in Jesus are made richer through the reality of adoption. Perhaps you know of an adoption story; let it point you to your heavenly Father who has not left you orphaned.

Insight: We have a Father, and he calls us His own!

Please feel free to use this devotional to send on to your friends or share with your church fellowship and Bible study groups.

We are in urgent need of Prayer and financial partners,

If you would like to become a prayer partner and or a financial partner with monthly or one time gifts.

A freewill offering to Restoration Ministry may be made via PayPal at our web site:    http://www.rollanet.org/~restore/donations.htm