February 2010 Devotionals

February 22, 2010

A Husband’s “Unconditional” Love

A word of encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford

A man and his wife came to Walt and me for marriage counseling.  She was young, perhaps a little immature.  He was impatient with her, and critical of just about every thing she did.  She had just about given up trying to please him, since it seemed so hard.         

“But John,” I said, “you’re taking away her heart for trying.  She needs your love.”         

“I do love her,” he answered.         

“But you need to love her just like she is right now.  God tells a husband to love his wife just like Jesus loves us.  Don’t make her have to earn your love.  Just love her, unconditionally, without reservation.”         

“I do love her unconditionally,” the man answered hotly, “but she sure makes it hard!”         

Somehow that doesn’t sound like unconditional love, at least not the kind of love God talks about in First Corinthians 13:5.  God says that true love is not easily angered and that it keeps no record of wrongs.         

What is unconditional love?  The kind of love Jesus showed us when He died for us when we didn’t even want His love!  Unconditional love, we learn later on in First Corinthians 13 that love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never, ever fails.         

That’s the kind of love God so mercifully shows us.  And that’s the kind of love other people desperately need from us.

February 8, 2010

Thirsting for Truth

A Conversation with Elizabeth Rice Handford

            She certainly stood out on the campus of the conservative Christian college where Walt and I were students.  She was tall, a little older than the average woman student, well dressed; but she primarily stood out because, wherever you saw her, her head was bent over a book.  She wasn’t reclusive exactly; she was just absorbed, completely focused on whatever it was she was reading, and it was always the same book.  One day I realized it was a cloth-bound copy of the Bible.

            As I got to know her, I learned she was a successful actress on Broadway.   But the life of glamour and fame hadn’t satisfied her heart.  She had grown to want to know what life was all about.  Why was she here?  Where was she going? 

            One day she walked into the bookstore of a liberal New York seminary—a place where they didn’t believe the Bible is actually God’s Word, where they denied that Jesus is God.  But when she asked the clerk for a Bible that would explain what life was all about, he sold her a copy of the dependable, reverent Scofield Reference Bible, beloved by conservative Christians for many years.

            In its pages she learned about God’s love for her, His wonderful plan to forgive her for her sin because of Christ’s death on the cross, His personal and intimate concern for her life

            Her hunger for spiritual truth was so great, she decided she had to take time off from her career to learn more.  That had brought her to Wheaton.  Watching her, I learned a new awareness of the precious Word of God.  My father was a preacher who loved God’s Word so much that he often went to sleep with his arms clasped around his Bible.  He taught us the Scriptures with passion and love.  We read a chapter in the Bible every single morning.  I learned dozens of verses through those years.

            But perhaps because the Bible was so familiar to me, as I watched Mina, I realized I didn’t have her longing thirst for every word in God’s Word.  I treasured it, but I didn’t thirst for it as she did.  It was her eternal destiny, her reason for living. . . .

            . . . . as it should be for all of us.

In the last chapter of the last book in the Bible, Jesus says,

"And let him that is at thirst come. 

  And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Revelation 22:17

February 1, 2010

Things That Matter Most

A Word of Rejoicing from Elizabeth Rice Handford

            I think I’ve told you before that Interim HealthCare in Greenville, SC, gives Walt and me the privilege of talking to their patients about Jesus.  Last week a patient was told he had less than a year to live.  Our Interim social worker asked him if Walt could visit him, and he agreed.  He lived far up in the Carolina mountains, in a small cabin.  His world was restricted to a hospital bed, an oxygen canister, a TV control, and a phone.   Oh yes, he had a little dog.  He’d cut a hole in the kitchen door so the dog could go outside when he liked, and then come in to climb up on his bed to comfort him.

            Journalists call our part of the country “the Bible Belt,” because, it seems, there’s a church spire on the horizon, no matter where you live.  But when Walt asked our patient if he knew how much God loved him and wanted to be with him, the man answered, “No—I don’t know anything about God.  When I was six years old, my parents kicked me out of the house, and I have never seen them since, and I thought I didn’t have time for God.”

            “Would you let me tell you the story of God’s love for you?”

            He nodded.

            So Walt told him the story that is so familiar to you, but so new and astonishing to this dying man.  God created him to love Him.  He wanted to have him live with Him forever.  But sin was a huge problem, because God is too holy to ignore sin.  The answer?  Jesus came down to earth to die to pay for this man’s sin.  All he needed to do to receive forgiveness and spend eternity in Heaven with Jesus was to ask Him to forgive him, and God would do it.

            Oh, how he wanted forgiveness!  But he wasn’t sure just how to do this—after all, he’d never prayed before.  So Walt helped him pray, and he received Christ, as Jesus had promised, “The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out” (John 6:37 NKJV ).

            We drove away from the house, so very glad that Interim gives us the opportunity to talk to people about Jesus.  But Walt was deeply burdened for our patient’s welfare.  How could he teach him all he hungered to know?

            Several days later, in spite of the forecast of bad weather, Walt took our son-in-law with him up into the mountains to visit him.  Our patient would certainly identify with our son-in-law: he’s the same age; he too had been abandoned by his parents when he was eight, left to care for three small siblings; he loves the Carolina mountains; and he came to know the Lord just a few years ago.  So he could tell our client: “It’s true.  Jesus is real.  He’s forgiven all your sins.  He’s all you need!”

            Walt decided to personalize Psalm 23 for our patient.  We printed it out in large type and covered it with plastic.  Sure enough, the man wanted it right on his bed, so he could remember every word.  Imagine the comfort of knowing with certainty:

            The Lord Jesus is my Shepherd.  He will walk with me even through the dark valley of the shadow of death!   So I don’t need to be afraid.