Where do we find courage? Movies and motivational speakers tell us to look inside ourselves, but Jesus says, "Look to me!" If you feel discouraged today, this is a timely message of encouragement!

Jesus My Courage

Monday, June 13, 2011

Family fighting, worry over the future, disobedient children, spiritual lukewarmness in yourself. Which one of these issues bothers you the most? Or is there some other great issue that consumes your waking moments?

Swell

Starting a new week together, welcome to HAVEN Today, I’m Charles Morris, sharing the GS that’s all about Jesus. It was a survey we took last week on our Facebook site All About Jesus. We asked 133-thousand members of All About Jesus, which of the following discourages them the most:

Family fighting, worry over the future, disobedient children, spiritual lukewarmness in yourself. If you aren’t part of All About Jesus, you can still answer the survey now. If I could put it this way, which one would be your greatest discouragement today? Well last week, for those on our All About Jesus Facebook site, the greatest discouragement was family fighting, by far. That was followed by worry about the future. Not far behind number two was lukewarmness in yourself and finally disobedient children, way down as number four. In the next few minutes together, I want us to be encouraged as we look back on the discouragement of a 95-year-old Christian. He was the last remaining Apostle and on a Sunday, in prison on a Greek island called Patmos, this man cried out to his savior, Jesus Christ for a new vision of his Lord. And in the midst of John’s Sunday praying, the Lord came to visit. John saw once again – as we all must see – that Jesus was His friend, a friend of sinners.

OPEN SONG - Friend Of Sinners- Laura Story- From her new album "Blessings" INO Records. Just featured a few weeks ago on Haven.

Jesus My Courage here on HAVEN Today. If you don’t remember anything else in the next few minutes, it’s this: Jesus can use even your discouragement to give you courage in Him. The Apostle John was close to 95-years-old and he found his faith tested as the power of Rome crashed on the churches in central Turkey, his churches. A new Emperor arose who demanded that everyone in the Empire, slave or free, acknowledge his divinity. Those who had made Jesus their Lord could never do such a thing, John included. So dark clouds of persecution released a storm of harassment and death upon Jesus’ contented sheep. John was forcefully taken to an island off Turkey’s coast where the weight of persecution fell on his aged shoulders. Now, what? John needed a revival. He needed to have faith and courage to face the present dark night of testing. He cried out to the Living God for help. God did what He always does when a heart grows desperate; He showed John the only thing that can revive the heart of a cisciple. He showed him Jesus, again. That is true revival – to see Jesus and for those of us in Christ, to see Jesus again. As we are buffeted by the icy blast of trials, we are satisfied with nothing less than a new vision of Jesus. Listen to how Revelation opens in the first chapter.




Revelation 1

1 The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near. 4 John, To the seven churches in the province of Asia: Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits[a] before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood.

You and I need to see Jesus again. We need a revival. You and I don’t need a new pexperience, a new insight, a new spiritual gift, a new book. We need to see Jesus, again.

Right in the opening of Revelation, John on the island of Patmos and all of us alive today, are reminded that Jesus, the faithful witness, is our sin-bearer. On the line with us from Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, Dr. Don Jacobs, a Mennonite Bishop and former missionary to Africa, who as a young man was led into the East Africa revival.

Don Jacobs clip

Thanks Don for sharing with us how you learned that Jesus was your sin-bearer. Have you thought how God shows us our sin to lead us to freedom from sin. We pick up on this in the opening lines of Revelation, which we shared a few minutes ago. We hear this theme in other places, like at the last supper in Matthew 26:


26 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”

27 Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 This is my blood of the[a] covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

30 When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

That was an ominous night for the disciples. They didn’t quite understand the cross and it’s power at the time, but they knew something was up and it wasn’t good. But it really was good. Because on a dark night, Jesus was taken their sin to the cross so that they might live in the light of the cross. As Don Jacobs likes to say, “Its been said move beyond the cross into the resurrected life. But the cross is the center of resurrect life. If we want to live with courage and move out of our discouragement, we must never move beyond the cross.

When the disciples had sung hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives and faced what came next and so must we.

Close- Amazing Love- Graham Kendrick- This is a worship song that has been out for over 20 years, written and sung by Graham Kendrick. He has authored many familar tunes, such as "Shine Jesus Shine", "Meekness and Majesty" and "Knowing You Jesus" to name a few. The Maranatha singers recorded a lot of his music. He recently released "The Very Best Of Graham Kendrick, Knowing You Jesus" from which the closing song today comes from. You will need to download. Please make sure the song is from this new album. Kingway Music.

Jesus My Courage is what we are calling this HAVEN Today. A special thanks to Dr. Don Jacobs, a Mennonite Bishop, for joining us on the program from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, WDAC country and sharing with us a sighting of Jesus in Revelation. Don has written this month’s Anchor Devotional Guide. I’d like to send you a copy of this month’s Anchor by Don Jacobs and keep sending it to you for the next twelve months as our thank you for your gift of any amount to HAVEN Today. Somebody told us last week they had been using another daily devotional guide for years and then they just tried Anchor for a month. You know what she said? “This is really good.” So now, this listener is using Anchor every day and keeps it right beside her Bible so both are there together when she gets up ever morning. Why don’t you call us in a moment, make as generous gift as you can to Haven and ask for the special Anchor offer this week. We’ll send you the June Anchor with Don Jacobs and the next 12 months. A baker’s dozen of Anchor. Call us at 1-800-654-2836. That’s 1-800-654-2836. Or go online at haventoday.org. That’s haventoday.org. You’ll see the picture of the June Anchor by Don Jacobs, click on the icon and we’ll walk you through what you need to do.

Now we started the program mentioning a survey we took last week on our Facebook page called All About Jesus. If you are on Facebook – and many of our listeners tell us they are – I’d like your input. In fact, we’re doing a new survey on what causes you discouragement and we’re going to share the results later in the week and we’ll turn to the scripture for help and pray together. Just go to Facebook, type in All About Jesus, and take the survey. And thanks for everyone who has “liked” us and is part of All About Jesus by haventoday.org on Facebook.