60 Second Devotional | December 8

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

Isaiah 9 contains one of the most well-known prophecies of the coming Messiah. It offers hope in a broken and often terrifying world. This verse is near the beginning:

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.

Isaiah 9:2

Did you know the Hebrew word translated “deep darkness” here is צַלְמָוֶת [tsalmâveth], the same word translated “shadow of death” in Psalm 23:4?

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Psalm 23:4

The word carries connotations of darkness and terror, danger, and yes, death.

The truth is, our world is filled with darkness, danger, terror, and death. Scripture tells us we are dead in our sins, which is why Jesus came. Because He is fully God, His life is worth far more than any created being. Because He is fully man, His willing death alone can repair the breach between God and man caused by sin.

That’s why He is the only Way to God. He is the Light which came into this world of deep darkness.

60 Second Devotional | December 7

~ Heather Davis ~ 3 Comments

Welcome to my goofy attempts to have Advent devotionals with my busy college students who now live in 3 different cities…

Psalm 22 is a known Messianic prophecy and one Jesus quoted the first few words of from the cross: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? ( see Psalm 22:1, Matthew 27:26).

Keep reading the psalm and you’ll see prophecies that He will be scorned, despised, and mocked (v 6-7). Verse 8 is an accurate prediction of what was said about Jesus while He hung on the cross, which is recorded in Matthew 27:43 where the chief priests and elders mocked, “He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God’ (Matthew 27:43).

The psalm also describes Him as being surrounded by evil men, having His strength dried up, being pierced, having his garments divided and lots cast for His clothing – all of which happened during the crucifixion. You can read the accounts in Matthew 27, Mark 15, Luke 23, and John 19.

But what I love is the way the song ends in hope: They shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it (Psalm 22:30-31).

He has done it. He has come. He will come again.

60 Second Devo | December 6

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

You have said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one;
    I have sworn to David my servant:
I will establish your offspring forever,
    and build your throne for all generations.”

Psalm 89:3-4

There are several places throughout the Scriptures recording God’s promise to David that a ruler would come from his line who would reign forever. That promise was fulfilled in Jesus – the King of kings and Lord of lords who has established God’s eternal Kingdom.

But look around you. It doesn’t yet look like a Kingdom of peace and justice has come yet, does it? That’s because God sent the King first in a sort of covert operation (to borrow from C.S. Lewis), cloaked in humility. His plan was not to coerce or subdue, but to woo because God desires to share genuine love, not to merely conquer and control. Thus, Jesus experienced being human while modeling the humility and trust He wants from us.

The Kingdom begins in breaking the chains of sin, requiring humility and trust. But make no mistake – Jesus will come again, next time in His power to fully establish His Kingdom.

For those of us who love Him enough to be despised for His sake now, just as He once was for our sake, that Day will be the ultimate victory. For those who ignore Him, mistrust Him, mock Him, or reject Him, that day will be a terror. But He waits to give all of us a chance – to give all of us a choice.

Choose wisely.

60 Second Devos | December 5

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

Welcome to my goofy attempts to have Advent devotionals with my busy college students who now live in 3 different cities…

I want to look at anointer pointer from the Old Testament. This time we’re going to jump ahead to Exodus. In Exodus, we find the story of Moses, and a lot of historical things that happened but also spiritually significant things. Today I want to specifically focus on Exodus 12, which is the institution of the Passover.

At the Passover, God had the children of Israel take a lamb without spot or blemish. They slaughtered the lamb and they painted the doorposts and lintels of their houses with the blood. When the Destroyer saw the blood, he passed over their house.

Fast forward to the New Testament. When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one I told you about: ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me, because he existed before me.’

John 1:29-30

You guys, when we are in this world without Jesus, we are enslaved to our sin. Anybody who has had an addiction knows this; we are slaves to sin.

Jesus came to set us free from that, but we have to submit to His blood. We have to cover ourselves with His blood, metaphorically – with His sacrifice – to know that we can be free.

60 Second Devo | December 4

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.

Exodus 12:13

Genesis 22 records the time God told Abraham to do something shocking – to sacrifice Isaac, the son of the promise that he had waiting for for so long, and the one through whom all those blessings would come. And yet, Abraham was willing.

We also see Isaac was willing. Genesis 22 tells us that Isaac carried the wood, and if he was strong enough to carry the wood, he

60 Second Devo | Advent | December 3

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

Welcome to my goofy attempts to have Advent devotionals with my busy college students who now live in 3 different cities…

The LORD said to Abram: Go from your land, your relatives, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

Genesis 12:1-3

Today we’re jumping ahead to Genesis 12, where God calls a man named Abram. He tells him to leave behind his father’s house, to go to a land God will show him. He tells him that He will make him a great nation, make his name great; He promises to bless all who bless him and curse those who curse Abram.

And He tells him the coolest thing: “Through you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.” That promise points to Jesus.

Jesus was a descendant of Abraham, and through Him, all the nations of the earth are blessed. But the blessing is a gift that has to be accepted. If it’s rejected, there’s no blessing.

But if we accept the gift, then God calls us out of the pagan nations we live in (This is meant in a metaphorical sense. We don’t literally move out, but we turn our allegiance from worldly practices and cultural norms and turn to God) to follow Him to a Land He will show us someday.

We have to leave behind all the sin that clings so closely and walk in obedience to Jesus. Then through Him, we will be blessed for all eternity!

60 Second Devo | Advent | December 2

~ Heather Davis ~ 2 Comments

I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.

Genesis 3:15

In today’s 60-second devo, we’ll be in Genesis 3.

Genesis 3 records where Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, chose to disobey God’s one command. By doing so, they let sin and death into the world, unleashing a torrent of horrors caused by the ripple effects of all the sins of all the people throughout all the ages. All the evil we see in the world around us today – all the suffering, all the horror – can ultimately be traced back to that one event.

And right there in Genesis 3:15, God records this prophecy. He had a plan.

Now you and I, when we make a mistake, maybe we screw up a drawing or mess up a recipe, we’ll throw it out most of the time. But not God!

Of course the analogy fails because God didn’t make the mistake – people did. He had every right to destroy His rebellious creatures – but He didn’t.

Instead, He put a plan into place that was unbelievable. He Himself would come save the creation; the people He made in His image.

That plan is the hope of Advent.

My second goofy attempt to share daily devotions with my college kids.

60 Second Devo | Advent | December 1

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.

Habakkuk 2:3

Advent is a season of waiting.

We wait on Christmas, and while we do we remember the Jews once waited on their Messiah -though many didn’t recognize Him when He came.

But He did come – as a baby – the miraculous Son of God and Son of Man, born of a virgin with no biological father yet mysteriously fully man and fully God. He came, He fulfilled the OT Law, He died as a sacrifice, and He rose again.

Now we look forward to the Day he will come again. It will surely come; it will not delay.

Wait for it.

❤

Knock, Knock: Introducing Myself

~ Heather Davis ~ 4 Comments

An Open Letter

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Heather Davis, I live in the USA, and I am a Christian.

I know the Christian church has a poor reputation these days. She hasn’t always behaved as she should; a fact which breaks my heart. For my part, I am deeply sorry for it, and I hope and pray you have never suffered genuine hurt at her hands. I have, and so have many of my family members, so I can relate if you’ve been wronged at or by the church.

By now, I’ve walked with the Lord for two decades, and one thing He has taught me is that the people of His church are flawed. This includes me. I have deep flaws and have been guilty of not treating others as I want to be treated, along with a list of other crimes.

If we are honest, I believe we are all guilty of wrongdoing. Yet despite our guilt, God loves us. But because He is both holy and just, He cannot let crime go unpunished, nor should He.

His Word tells us what we earn by our rebellion against Him is death. There is also good news in this Book: death is the wage Jesus accepted on my behalf and on behalf of all who will put their trust in Him and let God once more be in charge. This is how He designed us to live.

One thing I’ve learned is that although the church is flawed and full of failings just as I am, it is important – nay, imperative – to judge Christianity by the Christ and not by the Christian.

The church is nothing more than a group of people Jesus has redeemed who are all in various stages of learning to love Him, obey Him, and deny themselves their selfish tendencies. Some are near pros, others are novices. Some are even fakes.

Although I have been hurt, I have also learned to love the church despite her flaws just as Jesus loves me despite mine.

And so, reader, as one restored by Christ to a right relationship with my Creator, I apologize for any and every actual wrong His church may have done to you. I also offer my time to discuss the amazing ways I’ve seen God at work in my life over the years. Many of these are recorded in the archives of this blog.

I invite you to share in my life and ask your hard questions about God. I don’t have all the answers, but I believe in being a safe place to talk about them. You see, if Christianity is true (as I firmly believe it is), it’s literally a matter of life and death, not just a preference or a coping mechanism.

That is both my conviction and my assurance, and I love to share it with others.

In the love of Jesus,
Heather

Like Trees Walking

~ Heather Davis ~ 2 Comments

And [Jesus] took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when He had spit on His eyes and laid His hands on him, He asked him, “Do you see anything?” And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.”

Mark 8:23-24, ESV

Healing the Blind

I love the Gospel accounts of Yeshua (Jesus) healing the blind because I know He’s in the same business today. For any who are willing, my Lord still heals spiritual blindness – a blindness far more profound than the mere absence of sight. Of all the blind men He healed, the one that resonates most with me is the healing recorded in Mark 8:22-25.

Distorted Vision

Mark’s account is singular in that Yeshua’s healing did not seem to “take” at first. This unnamed fellow’s sight did not immediately return. Instead, he began to see in stages, and his first glimpse of the world offered a distorted image of reality.

I can relate because I also began to see in stages after the Lord first touched me. He did not heal the abysmal spiritual darkness in me all at once. Instead, my first glimpses of the real world remained distorted by the lens of secular humanism I first embraced as a teenager.

The humanist worldview led me to view life as a silly option and death as the more logical choice. The more I saw through this murky lens, the darker life grew until blackness reigned unchallenged.

Worldview Breakdown

Secular humanism provides insufficient answers to questions of mankind’s purpose and meaning. Their efforts to touch these concepts lead in circles, much like Pooh and Piglet following their own tracks in the snow.

In adulthood, questions began to buffet me in the thick darkness of my chosen worldview:

  • If the end justifies the means, then why does my conscience prick me when I cause someone pain? 
  • If mankind sets the standard for right and wrong, what man gets to set it?
  • When others use me and I feel wronged, am I right or are they?
  • When social standards change, does right and wrong change, too?
  • Is life built on such an unstable foundation as all this?
  • If man is the measure of all things, then what’s the point?
  • Why bother with life at all?

Years spent groping in this philosophical darkness brought no peace but only multiplied my confusion. And quite frankly, the longer I groped in this darkness, the less sense the humanist worldview made.

As I rode the fluctuating and unstable tide of humanistic morality, I knew deep inside there must be a true right and a true wrong. Without a changeless absolute truth, life was purposeless, chaotic, and ultimately meaningless.

The moral question became one of life or death for me.

Beginning to See

This is where Yeshua found me.

He began to heal my spiritual blindness, but at first I saw neither Him nor His truth clearly. Instead, I saw a distorted version of reality blurred by drab layers of humanistic philosophy. At the Lord’s first touch, I saw enough to know He was there although I saw Him only dimly.

It took several applications of the Word of Truth before I saw clearly. And what I discovered was the world, seen through the crystal-clear truth of the Maker of all things, =made a startling, stark sense.

What About You?

I don’t know where you stand, friend. I don’t know if you see Yeshua through His Word or if you see an obscure shadow of Him; a man like a tree walking around. But I pray He will heal you fully so you may see the beauty of the Light of the World and all He illuminates.