The Branch from Jesse

Prayer Practice

Spoken Prayer – Out loud, pray for God to speak to you through your reading. Praise God for giving us His word. Ask the Spirit to help you read with faith, and to live out what you hear from God through the passage.

Daily Reading

Isaiah 11:1-9

REFLECTION

Fragrance of Love

 by Pastor Buff Delcamp

In this passage, one of the great Messianic prophecies of Isaiah, we hear that Messiah will be a God-man. He will be a descendant from Jesse, King David’s father (vs. 1). Yet He will be the Root of Jesse (vs. 10) and will manifest a seven-fold fruit of the Holy Spirit (vss. 2-3).

The beautiful image is one of growth. God has chopped the proud down as if they were mighty trees (10:33-34), and now He looks over the stumps and says a shoot will grow from the stump of Jesse’s line.

We have just come from the Christmas season with some of the most beautiful music. One of the exquisite images of Christ is as The Rose. It is a great sign of His beauty. Let us turn to music as I invite you to follow this link to YouTube where a church choir in Nebraska sings the carol “Lo, How A Rose is Blooming.” The words are included for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz2H1VE7maU

The 3rd stanza says:

     This Flower, whose fragrance tender with sweetness fills the air,

     Dispels with glorious splendor the darkness everywhere.

     True man, yet very God, from sin and death He saves us and lightens every load.

Don’t leave Christmas yet (it’s a 12-day season). Listen to this carol and today let Christ, like a rose, bloom in your home and in your heart. Let His fragrance fill you with joy and beauty and lighten your every load. Enjoy the picture of a blooming rose and how it points to this great miracle: The incarnation of our God who came to save us from sin and death. Here among us!

Father, keep us close to you and fill us with your hope and peace. Remind us to stop and smell the roses along the way and to seek your face in all situations.

Jesus Lifted Up

June 30, 2020

In the New Testament, the bronze serpent becomes a metaphor for Jesus. He too was lifted up in order to deliver the people. And just as the God used a snake to deliver people from snake bites, God would use death to give us victory over death. As you study this short passage, reflect on the connections between the savior and the bronze serpent. 

STUDY THE SCRIPTURE

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REFLECTION

Jesus Lifted Up

By Pastor Buff Delcamp

  

Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

The reference here is to an event in the life of Israel as God was leading them to the Promised Land. If you don’t know it, turn now and read it in Numbers 21:4-9. It’s strange. In judgment for the people’s sin, they were bitten with a venom and were going to die. But all they had to do was look to the snake Moses had made which he put on a pole. Lying on the desert floor, suffering and near death, wouldn’t they need some medicine inside? Or at least on the wound? Just a look and then healing? Yes! We sinners who deserve death are guilty debtors. But Christ became sin, died our death and paid our debts with His own blood. Thank You, God! And our response is a “look”, the look of faith.

Faith is the very key. It is the hand that reaches out and takes the free gift. It is merely looking to Jesus: turning and seeing Him on the cross and believing. Nothing besides faith, nothing except faith, no prayer, no religious activity, no good living… just look, see and say “yes.” Have you? Is pardon and peace yours today?

Finish with the next verse in our reading, John 3:16. The first phrase is the most important and beautiful in all the Bible. The Lord is good to all; He has compassion on all He has made (Psalm 145:9). And the demonstration of this great love is Christ - lifted up on a cross, God’s gracious Gift to the whole world. Thanks be to God.

UALC’S CAMPAIGN OF PRAYER      
Tuesday: TRUTH
In the midst of all the messages being heard, pray for accurate information to drown out false reporting and click-bait tactics.

THE MAGI

Please welcome Pastor Buff Delcamp to the Daily Bible Blast writing team. Merry Christmas.

Matthew 2:1-12

Every year, the mysterious Magi lumber into our manger scenes. In reality they weren’t there the night Christ was born. They may have arrived a year later. But here’s the rub. After hundreds and hundreds of miles in laborious travel, after months and years of searching, studying, contemplating, they made it. 

And their first reaction was “they were overjoyed” – they had JOY that was over the top. Other translations say “exceeding great joy” and another says “they could hardly contain themselves.” 

When they came in, they bowed down and they worshipped. True worship has this aspect of it. It’s not simply ascribing praise and adoration to God, it is being near to God so He is personally, overwhelmingly compelling. I see there a simple wonder in this great encounter. 

Wonder is that which takes over after everything has been explained. It’s something I think I’ve lost at times. Do we try to explain too much? Is there anything in life with God that simply leaves us amazed and speechless? I want to be more and more open to that. And it isn’t simply in worship gatherings, but also when we see the way our God works in our lives. 

The wonder that He can change a heart, that He can turn a life around 180°. The wonder of His ordering of time and circumstances to affect endings we can’t see from the beginning. The wonder of His mercy, His patience year after year. Don’t lose the capacity to see and then to be overjoyed at the wonder of our God with us – Emmanuel.

The Crowned King

At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, He received John’s baptism and the Holy Spirit anointed Him with a visual of a dove descending. Then His Father said, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” The King was here and so the Kingdom of God was breaking in.

Sometimes as parents, we associate praise of our children with what they do. “You got an A” or “You scored that goal” or “You cleaned your room.” Jesus had done nothing yet in His ministry, but His Father said “Son, I love You and I am pleased.”

I took a cue from that when my daughter was little and at random times, out of the blue and not connected with anything she had done, I would say “Molly, I love you and I’m so proud of you.” One time she sat quietly in the car as we were driving and then asked “Dad, why do you always say that?” I then told her how I learned that from my heavenly Father.

That’s called grace. John wrote that Jesus came full of grace and truth. It is the mark of His Kingdom. It is God’s great gift to us from His unconditional love. And we have the privilege of being channels of that grace to a world desperate for it.

                                                                                                                           Pastor Buff Delcamp

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