Rise! Let us go!
Have you ever felt the weight of despair? That sense that something is beyond repair can make us give up and whisper, “It’s over—why even try anymore?”
We often slip into discouragement or depression because of missed opportunities or choices we wish we could undo. But it’s important to remember that this isn’t unusual—it’s part of the shared human experience. No one goes through life getting every moment exactly right.
The disciples in Matthew 26 must have felt this deeply. They kept falling asleep when Jesus had asked them to stay awake and pray. When Jesus returned and found them sleeping again, that opportunity was gone forever. They couldn’t change it. Yet Jesus, fully understanding their human weakness, didn’t scold them or express frustration. He simply said, “Rise, let us go.” (Matthew 26:45)
In other words: Let’s move forward.
Oswald Chambers, in My Utmost for His Highest, encourages us to “let the past sleep,” but to let it rest in the care of Christ.
We cannot rewrite what has already happened, but we can rest in His love and walk with Him into what comes next. We are works in progress, held by grace. And as Romans 8:28 reminds us, God takes all things—every success, every failure, every misstep—and works them together for our good.
Trust Him
Beyond the Visible
Jesus’ words in Matthew 24 are not just warnings about the distant future; they’re instructions for daily living. In a world flooded with voices—news alerts, social media feeds, apps, and even AI—truth can feel elusive. Technology may have changed, but deception has not.
Behind the visible chaos of earthquakes, wars, and political unrest lies a greater, unseen struggle. Ephesians 6:12 reminds us that our battle is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual forces. The enemy’s tactic is subtle: dulling our hearts and distracting our minds before the trumpet sounds.
Like the wise virgins in Matthew 25, we must keep our lamps filled and burning. This means guarding our hearts against indulgence, anxiety, and spiritual complacency. The noise of Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok can easily consume our time and dim our discernment. Instead, Jesus calls us to wake up (Ephesians 5:14) and stay alert.
None of us want to be among those whose “love grows cold” but rather among those who “stand firm to the end” (Matthew 24:12–13).
What can we do?• Pray: Ask the Holy Spirit for discernment to recognize truth from deception (John 16:13). • Prioritize: Make a concerted effort to spend time in prayer, reading God’s Word, and engaging in fellowship. • Guard your focus: Limit distractions and cultivate conversations and practices that nurture your faith.
My Prayer for us:
Lord Jesus, grant us discernment in a world full of distractions and deception. Keep our eyes fixed on You and our hearts awake to Your truth. Strengthen us to live alert, with our lamps burning brightly, until the day of Your return. Amen
“Watch out that no one deceives you.” — Matthew 24:4 (NIV)m
A May Day Devotion
“… and the woman came and knelt before Him. ‘Lord, help me!'”— Matthew 15:25
As we enter the month of May, my thoughts turned to the international distress signal: “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday!” Repeated three times, this urgent cry for help is rooted in the French word m’aidez which means, “help me.”
In Matthew 15, many profound moments unfold, yet one simple, desperate plea stands out. It comes from a Canaanite woman—descended from a people long at odds with Israel—who, in her anguish, cries out to Jesus, “Lord, help me!”
Joseph Parker, a powerful preacher in 19th-century London and pastor of the City Temple, reflected deeply on this moment. He once wrote of this woman’s desperate appeal:
“Sorrow abbreviates our prayers; sorrow teaches true eloquence. When the heart is in the grip of deadly agony, it knows how to pray. When your child is grievously vexed, when the last hope of your life has been blown out by a sudden and cruel wind—you will know whether prayer is a necessity of life or merely a ritual of convenience.We must feel Christ rather than merely understand Him. He is not the subject of an essay or a topic for debate—He is Christ is the Savior.
“Lord, help me!”…. what a prayer!!
Charles Spurgeon also commented on this cry, calling it:
“A prayer I commend. It is a handy prayer—you can use it when you’re in a hurry,when you’re afraid, when you have no time to kneel. You can pray it as you open your shop or as you rise in the morning. It’s such a handy prayer that I can hardly imagine any circumstance in which it wouldn’t be appropriate.”
So here I am—at the beginning of May—reflecting on these words.
Mayday!
M’aidez!
Lord, help me.
Even so, Lord—help me.
Follow Me
Jesus says two words to the tax collector Matthew (Mtt 9:9), “Follow me.“ I was thinking about life, and when I first realized the Lord wanted me to follow Him.
My cousin was explaining to me that every one of us could have a personal relationship with Jesus, which was, to me, an unknown phrase, growing up Catholic. I believed in God fervently, but I didn’t know about a personal relationship with Jesus. With that new knowledge, I moved a few weeks later to the University of Tennessee campus to begin my college life. There were so many groups out with booths during freshman orientation, presenting different opportunities to get involved. As I was wandering around, I saw a person with a fish symbol pin and I asked what organization was this and found out it was Campus Crusade for Christ. So I started getting involved with them and learned a lot of the basics of discipleship and following Christ. This was such a pivotal point in my life, and I am so thankful that I found a group (and I know there are many different groups of people who love the Lord) that I could be a part of because I knew no one in this entire state or even the South! But most importantly I found an anchor, an anchor in Jesus, that He has been my tether for all these decades of my life.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to have much of a life or what it would be like because I felt like I was pretty much on my own. Jesus became my everything at that very critical turning point in my life and now I look back over 5 decades later and I have been blessed mightily! I have family, including grandkids, friends, a home and a close fellowship group where I continue to learn about the Lord! Sure, there have been some really hard times and some really big losses over these decades of my life, but what I’ve seen is that God has been faithful and has walked with me through it all.
All because I listened to the words “follow me“.
— Matthew 9:9
Training Ground
The Olympics are on. I love watching the talent of these athletes. It is astounding how in shape they are and how hard they have worked to get to the world’s top athletic stage. They have sacrificed, worked hard and focused on their goals to reach this level of competition. They have trained harder than the average person, found mentors to help them and have to have had a singleness of purpose to get to this place in their lives.
The truth is we should all look at life as a training ground: A journey that builds on all of life’s events, all the ups and downs, and our response to them; to grow us up, mature us; along with opportunities to learn wisdom and character and trust our Creator. A story reflecting this is the life of Joseph. A favorite son of his father, he was hated by his brothers, showing total lack of wisdom by telling them his dream of them bowing down to him, not once but twice. He was young, apparently oblivious to his brothers’ feelings toward him, somewhat spoiled and obviously had yet to learn wisdom.
But look at his life’s journey. Thrown in a pit by his brothers, then sold into slavery, a slave to Potiphar, the king’s captain of the guard, he went from favorite son to lowly slave, but worked hard, rose up the ranks in trust and ability to be the manager of the whole household: tempted by Potiphar’s wife, did the right thing but was thrown in jail anyway and back to square one -it seemed -as a prisoner. But Joseph worked within the circumstances dealt to him. He did what was right, obedient to the teachings of his God, worked hard and rose again to manage the prison and prisoners; made some friends, interpreted dreams for two of the Pharaoh’s staff, asked them to remember him- but they forgot- which had to hurt deeply and he was in that prison two years longer before the cupbearer remembered to tell Pharaoh about Joseph. So essentially, Joseph spent the prime years of his life as a slave and a prisoner, yet it was during this part of his life journey that Joseph developed a stronger faith and trust in the Lord, gained wisdom, and gained the skills necessary for the next part of his journey – he stands before Pharaoh in humility ( a far cry of how he stood before his brothers so many years before) and with the wisdom he gained he respectfully told Pharaoh that it is the Lord and not him that reveals the meaning of dreams. He ends up running the affairs of Egypt, saving that nation and also his family and nation.
Now you are probably saying that you are going through some rough times but that you are pretty sure you won’t end up saving a nation, but the Lord will use you right where you end up and you may be the only light in your family, your work, your neighborhood, or to one hurting person that needs desperately to hear about the hope within you! And who knows what we are all being trained for on the next step or our journey beyond this life??? We are told we will rule and reign with Him. How are you doing with your training?
2 Corinthians 4:16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
2 Timothy 2:12 …if we endure, we will also reign with him
Romans 8:17 … and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
Romans 5:3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Joseph’s Story is in Genesis 37, 39-49
Do We Believe Him?
The Lord may not tell us exactly what He’s doing, or going to do – but He always reveals to us who He is. One thing we can be sure of is that we can trust a known God to an unknown future! This was so evident in John 18 & 19. I was struck at how calmly He answered the soldiers in the Garden when they came to arrest Him and then how He stood before Pilate who said, “Do you refuse to speak to me? Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?” Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.” (Vs.10-11) He knew where He was headed then and He knows where we are headed now!
So we must ask ourselves: do we believe in a miracle working God? Will we go forward with our eyes fixed on Him, surrendered to Him, and not surprised by anything He does?
He is not only the God who saves, but also the God of kindness, gentleness, and mercy. He is the One who shelters us under His wing. He is the God who loves fiercely, who will never leave us, nor leave us where we are! He is the God who transforms and the God who renews.
“Our God is a God who saves! The Sovereign LORD rescues us from death.” Psalm 68:20
Let us continue to trust Him as we move forward.
Awake Sleeper!
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.
John 11:25 KJV
As He stood by the grave of His good friend Lazarus, Jesus spoke these words to a weeping sister. These precious, confident, calming, and hopeful words of blessed assurance that have been repeated millions of times over since their very first utterance. In the zenith of her agony what does Jesus do? He turns Martha’s thoughts to Himself … who He is, what He can do, and what He would do, pointing her to the greater hope.
For all of us, we must remember this….that in our greatest agony our thoughts must turn to Him. He is the all-important One for us to know. He, who in the words of Alexander Maclaren, “is the fountain of life in all possible senses of the word!”
Our Lord’s words are not only mighty and powerful but soothing all the same. The mighty Lion of Judah holds us firmly, but safely, in His impenetrable embrace.
“Our friend Lazarus sleeps” were the words Jesus used in explaining to His disciples about His friend’s sickness. He then added, “but I go that I might wake him up.”
I want to be awakened, too.
I want to be awakened to the One who spoke mighty and glorious words about life and light, fulfilling bread and quenchable thirst, unspeakable joy and insurmountable glory!
That’s what I want.
I bet you do, too.
Oh, Lord, send your Holy Spirit so that I, like Lazarus, would be awakened to your mighty presence.
Make it so.
Thank you Larry
Ephesians 5:14
You do not realize…
“You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” How many times have we said that to someone, like a child or family member or friend, who doesn’t understand our motives. How many times has the Lord said that to each one of us when we do not understand what is going on or why some of our prayers are not answered or why someone isn’t healed?
“You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” John 13:7
The verses around this scripture tell of Jesus washing the disciples feet and the example He was showing them: to go and do likewise. But He knew that so much of His teaching would be better understood along their journey and after the Holy Spirit came.
But this verse has spoken to me on numerous occasions. I cannot count the number of times I have literally said, “Okay Lord, what are you doing???” I’m guessing I am not the only one that has raised this question. It could be about family, job, health, the world – you name it. Many, many times the answer has been, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Later. It could be in this lifetime or not.
What I do know, over these many years on the journey, is that He is trustworthy. He is worthy. In the process of living this life, I have learned that if I keep looking towards the Lord, remembering all His mercies toward me and my family and friends, and read His word and reflect on His goodness, that I realize more and more that He is the ultimate answer, no matter the questions that don’t get answered. And “later we will understand”. Trust Him
“Do What He Tells You”
Jesus’s first miracle, turning the water into wine, is a quiet miracle. He didn’t do it in the midst of crowds or in the temple. Even the master of the house didn’t realize what was going on. We know that his mother was there and some servants who, because they listened and did what He asked, actually became co-workers with Jesus. We should be so blessed to be considered coworkers with Christ. We are, as we follow Him faithfully everyday and do all we do as unto the Lord. When we bring our “plain water” or our talents, at His bidding, He can change and multiply what we bring to bless others, whether they are wedding guests or weary and faint of heart. The servants carried only common water from the spring but with Christ’s blessing it became good wine. So it is when we do Jesus’ bidding: our most mundane work leaves redeeming results.
Our day to day journey sometimes feels monotonous or like drudgery and we wonder if we making a difference. It feels like we’re just carrying water every day and that it is nothing special. But if we are using our talents and abilities, faithfully following Him, we are being transformed more and more into the likeness of Jesus. It’s like the story we always hear about the sewing of a beautiful tapestry. If you look on the working side it looks like a huge mess of tangled threads but when you turn it over it’s a beautiful masterpiece. We do not know the real splendor of the things we are doing when we go about our daily life. What seems like only giving a cup of cold water to another human being is actually blessed service to one of God’s children, and it’s noted and will be rewarded by our Father in Heaven.
John 2:1-11
The Scarlet Thread
I am a ‘word’ guy and I found myself intrigued the other day while reading a devotional from ‘Unveiling Mercy’. I was intrigued because the term ‘homograph’ came up. Homographs are words that are spelled the same but have different meanings. You are already familiar with them but here are a few examples:
Agape … mouth wide open, love
Down … a lower place, or soft fluff from a bird
Entrance … the entry to a place, or to be enthralled with something or someone
Fine … of good quality, or a levy
Bear … an animal, or to endure
Lean … thin, or to rest against
Skip … to jump, or miss something
Minute … small, or a measure of time
There are many, many more but you get the picture.
There is a Hebrew word, ‘tiqvah’ that is a homograph. it means ‘hope’ or ‘cord’. The Old Testament uses it as ‘hope’ in every instance except one … with Rahab. And there it refers to a scarlet cord that was used as a sign between her and the spies from Israel that she protected. Here is the scripture that refers to it:
” Behold, when we come into the land, you shall tie this scarlet cord in the window through which you will let us down, and you shall gather in your house your father and mother, your brothers, and all your father’s household” Joshua 2:18
There is a scarlet thread, or cord, that runs throughout both the Old and New Testaments. This word with two meanings meant both to Rahab … it means both to us. Just as this scarlet cord saved Rahab and gave her hope. It does the same for us.
As Chad Birds says in his devotional; ” This Gentile prostitute was mentioned in Hebrews 11:31 as a woman of faith who was not only adopted into God’s family but also formed part of the family tree of the Messiah.”
Yes, you read that correctly —- this gentile prostitute formed part of the family tree of the Messiah. The Messiah, the One and Only, whose blood bled like scarlet so that we all might be saved!
That , my friends, is tiqvah …. the scarlet thread of hope.
” Lord, you alone are my salvation. You, alone, are my hope.”
By Larry May
The Kingdom's Keeper 