written devotionals
All Devotions by Rev. Crum
1. "Larry’s Forever Guide' (FROM 2018)
Psalm 48:14 KJV For this God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death.
Moment by moment, in sickness and in health; in troubles and exultation, and even in the trials of death, we can be one-hundred percent sure God sees and loves us and does not ask us to bear more than we can bear.
I remember when I first began my service as a pastor that I saw this truth in action. I visited a big strong man who was injured in his fifties in a terrible motor accident. (I will call him Larry, but that is not his real name.) Over the years Larry grew progressively worse. It eventually seemed to his loving wife and caring family that, barring a miracle -- for which we prayed earnestly even while we prayed for his and the family’s comfort and strength -- Larry’s life was beginning to spiral downward.
One summer evening, my regular visit found Larry sitting silently in the front room. When I came in the door, he was confined to his favorite recliner, being cared for hand and foot by his family.
Though still awake, he was now unable even to utter a word . . . a mountain of a man, brought even lower.
Still, on that evening, which turned out to be the last time that I saw Larry alive, he still managed to testify greatly of his faith, which was clearly stronger than ever, and unbowed by his long battle with his grim injuries! As I at the end of my visit I arose to leave his living room/sick room, l looked back at him from the moonlit door to say “God bless you” and that “I would be back” -- in what later I learned was that precious last moment Larry and I had together on earth.
Larry looked me in the eye from his recliner and slowly raised his right arm high. He then wordlessly, tearfully, triumphantly, pointed heavenward!
He pointed to God, and to his Savior, in whom I believe trusted then more than he ever had!
I will never forget it.
Friends – please expect to blossom spiritually, gloriously, in your last days on earth, if you like Larry are called to linger. You will gain an ever-growing faith and clarity, guided nearer and nearer to God while he prepares you for the worldly end and the eternal beginning. Such Christians surely arrive in heaven with “faith muscles” that are bigger and more blessed than otherwise might be achieved!
Faithfully trust the promise of God the Father and God the Son and God the Comforter, The Three in One, to stay by you, always alert to your needs, until you are safely guided home!
Psalm 116:15KJV "Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints".
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2. "Spiritual Endurance"
Titus 2:2 KJV Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance.
This verse ends with three things elderly men should be “sound in” – and they make good goals for women and children too. All of us should be sound in these three things – faith, love, and endurance – to be truly sound in, or “in accord with,” the will of God.
Soundness, Paul is telling his friend Titus, is to be in trusting in God’s Son (faith), in spiritual yearning to serve God and neighbor over yourself (love); and furthermore Titus (and we!) are to do this even when it is hard and requires our best and longest effort (endurance).
You see, without enduring in your soundness, it shows shallowness and a lack of diligence. Without the constancy of effort demanded of you to do your best, the necessary attributes of faith and love are but promises not completely kept.
Let us therefore rededicate ourselves to this goal of endurance, and in doing this, to lean on this additional verse related to Jesus’ divine example:
Hebrews 12:3 KJV Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Prayer: Father, give me a greater spiritual yearning to follow you with true faith and love, in Jesus’s name, amen.
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