The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, United States Grow Pray Study GPS Guide for Friday, 31 May 2019 "The victory that has defeated the world" Daily Scripture: 1 John 5:1-5
The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, United States Grow Pray Study GPS Guide for Friday, 31 May 2019 "The victory that has defeated the world" Daily Scripture: 1 John 5:1-5
Daily Scripture
1 John 5:1-5
1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born from God. Whoever loves someone who is a parent loves the child born to the parent. 2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: when we love God and keep God’s commandments. 3 This is the love of God: we keep God’s commandments. God’s commandments are not difficult, 4 because everyone who is born from God defeats the world. And this is the victory that has defeated the world: our faith. 5 Who defeats the world? Isn’t it the one who believes that Jesus is God’s Son?
1 John 5:1-5
1 Everyone who believes that Yeshua is the Messiah has God as his father, and everyone who loves a father loves his offspring too.
2 Here is how we know that we love God's children: when we love God, we also do what he commands.
3 For loving God means obeying his commands. Moreover, his commands are not burdensome,
4 because everything which has God as its Father overcomes the world. And this is what victoriously overcomes the world: our trust.
5 Who does overcome the world if not the person who believes that Yeshua is the Son of God? (Complete Jewish Bible).
Reflection Questions:
“We are the children of your sacrifice. We are the sons and daughters you saved from tyranny's reach.” (Bill Clinton*)
D-Day was almost 75 years ago. Few of us alive today could have taken part in that battle even if we wanted to—but we all benefit from the soldiers’ defeat of tyranny. The belief in Jesus that John wrote about was not an abstract, sterile belief. It was a living, passionate, active trust that Jesus was and is who he said. That conviction can sustain all of us in building the kind of life that can defeat all the evil, hatred and negativity in our tired old world.
Lord Jesus, I believe in and trust you. (Even when I’m not sure I do, I’m like the man who cried, “I believe—help my unbelief.”) Thank you for using my fragile faith as the basis for a victorious life. Amen.
* On the anniversary of the D-Day landings / 1994 fromhttp://www.greatpersonalities.com/d-day/
Want more reflection on today's GPS?
Read the GPS Insight by Darren Lippe
Darren Lippe helps facilitate Journey 101 “Loving God” classes, guides a 7th-grade Sunday school class, is a member of a small group and a men’s group, and serves on the curriculum team.
The boys are traveling tomorrow with the Blue Valley North High School band to Normandy, France to perform at ceremonies commemorating the 75th Anniversary of D-Day. Much to the boys’ delight, this has encouraged me to share my research & reading about D-Day. [Sarcasm Now Off]
D-Day simply refers to the day of attack. Winston Churchill, who loved code names, dubbed the invasion “Operation Overlord.” D-Day had over 100 code names for various operations: The 5 beaches were given the names Omaha, Utah, Juno, Sword, & Gold, the fake invasion plans, designed to fool the German Military, were called “Operation Fortitude,” & the mannequins that parachuted from planes to distract the Germans from the real raids over Normandy were named “Ruperts.”
With 2 teenaged boys, even the relative calm of Midwest suburbia can have its own operations fraught with risk & peril, which might require code names:
D-Day: Eisenhower & 101st Airborne
A few days later, Oyler’s mother sees this photo while watching a newsreel at a Topeka movie theater. She is shaken to the core. She had no idea of Sherman’s whereabouts. Having read all the horrific headlines of the invasion, she now realizes her boy is right in the middle of all that death & destruction. She immediately leaves the theater to return home. As she waits the next few weeks to hear if her son survived or was missing or was injured or died in the battle, what else can she do but take 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to heart & just pray without end? What else could possibly give her courage to go on?
Interestingly, several years later, Eisenhower noted the power of God on that day: “If there is nothing else in my life to prove the existence of the presence of an almighty & merciful God…those events of that momentous day did.” 2
England’s King George VI awarded Eisenhower the Order of Merit. Ike’s acceptance speech in Guild hall England was marked by humility, as he emphasized the sacrifice of Britain, that the war was not won by generals, but soldiers, & that America & Britain had, together, vanquished tyranny. His speech closed with this memorable charge: “To preserve his freedom of worship, his equality before the law, his liberty to speak & act as he sees fit, subject only to the provision that we trespass not upon similar rights of others – the Londoner will fight. So will the citizen of Abilene!” 3
Perhaps we, too, have felt the weight of the world on our own shoulders. Maybe we need the calming reassurance of God’s presence in our own lives. What if today we paused & prayed with the passion of a Mrs. Oyler &, ala Eisenhower, placed our trust & faith fully in God’s hands & boldly sought to glorify Him? Go get’em Kansas, indeed!
PS: Sherman Oyler safely returned to Topeka, Kansas & became a history teacher at Jardine Junior High School for 35 years. (He would be my brother’s history teacher.) Each year during the WWII section of the class, Oyler would dress in his combat uniform & climb on his desk to re-enact jumping out of a plane. He passed away at the age of 79.
Odds & Ends: Oyler was initially irritated meeting Eisenhower. Ike had interrupted Sherman’s steak dinner - Oyler’s best meal in months. During missions around Normandy, post-invasion, Sherman got in trouble for trying to slide landmines, shuffleboard-style, under a convoy of moving German tanks. After parachuting on a mission in Holland, Oyler dove into a ditch to avoid mortar fire & landed on a war correspondent named Walter Cronkite.
1Stephen Ambrose, D-Day: June 6, 1944 – The Climactic Battle of WWII (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995) 193
2AZ Quotes, www.azquotes.com/author/4403-Dwight_D_Eisenhower/tag/religion
3William I Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America & the World in the 1950s (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018) 44
Like this post? Share it!
If you have a question or comment about today’s GPS or Insights blog, you can send it to GPS@cor.org. We read them all, but because of the number of responses we receive, cannot guarantee replies.
You might also like:
©2017 Church of the Resurrection. All Rights Reserved.
Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Church of the Resurrection
13720 Roe Avenue
Leawood, Kansas 66224, United States
*******
Church of the Resurrection <info@cor.org> for Friday, 31 May 2019 "The victory that has defeated the world" Daily Scripture: 1 John 5:1-5
1 John 5:1-5
1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born from God. Whoever loves someone who is a parent loves the child born to the parent. 2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: when we love God and keep God’s commandments. 3 This is the love of God: we keep God’s commandments. God’s commandments are not difficult, 4 because everyone who is born from God defeats the world. And this is the victory that has defeated the world: our faith. 5 Who defeats the world? Isn’t it the one who believes that Jesus is God’s Son?
1 John 5:1-5
1 Everyone who believes that Yeshua is the Messiah has God as his father, and everyone who loves a father loves his offspring too.
2 Here is how we know that we love God's children: when we love God, we also do what he commands.
3 For loving God means obeying his commands. Moreover, his commands are not burdensome,
4 because everything which has God as its Father overcomes the world. And this is what victoriously overcomes the world: our trust.
5 Who does overcome the world if not the person who believes that Yeshua is the Son of God? (Complete Jewish Bible).
Reflection Questions:
“We are the children of your sacrifice. We are the sons and daughters you saved from tyranny's reach.” (Bill Clinton*)
D-Day was almost 75 years ago. Few of us alive today could have taken part in that battle even if we wanted to—but we all benefit from the soldiers’ defeat of tyranny. The belief in Jesus that John wrote about was not an abstract, sterile belief. It was a living, passionate, active trust that Jesus was and is who he said. That conviction can sustain all of us in building the kind of life that can defeat all the evil, hatred and negativity in our tired old world.
- There’s power in learning lessons from D-day about the Christian life. There’s also a hazard: that we might think it takes a long list of historic human achievements to impress God. 1 John 5:4 stated the basis of spiritual victory clearly: “This is the victory that has defeated the world: our faith.” What helps you, as you train spiritually and work to be God’s hands and voice in the world, to keep your trust in God’s goodness, not your own?
- Of course, if we’re honest at all, we know that too often we suffer spiritual defeats (bad behaviors or attitudes). What if we are losers in God’s eyes? But if it’s true that “this is the victory that has defeated the world: our faith,” then the only thing that could block us being in God’s winning “army” would be to give up. How can a clearer sense of this free you from obsessive, self-destructive guilt and allow you to live joyfully and gratefully in the light of God’s grace?
Lord Jesus, I believe in and trust you. (Even when I’m not sure I do, I’m like the man who cried, “I believe—help my unbelief.”) Thank you for using my fragile faith as the basis for a victorious life. Amen.
* On the anniversary of the D-Day landings / 1994 fromhttp://www.greatpersonalities.com/d-day/
Want more reflection on today's GPS?
Darren Lippe helps facilitate Journey 101 “Loving God” classes, guides a 7th-grade Sunday school class, is a member of a small group and a men’s group, and serves on the curriculum team.
The boys are traveling tomorrow with the Blue Valley North High School band to Normandy, France to perform at ceremonies commemorating the 75th Anniversary of D-Day. Much to the boys’ delight, this has encouraged me to share my research & reading about D-Day. [Sarcasm Now Off]
D-Day simply refers to the day of attack. Winston Churchill, who loved code names, dubbed the invasion “Operation Overlord.” D-Day had over 100 code names for various operations: The 5 beaches were given the names Omaha, Utah, Juno, Sword, & Gold, the fake invasion plans, designed to fool the German Military, were called “Operation Fortitude,” & the mannequins that parachuted from planes to distract the Germans from the real raids over Normandy were named “Ruperts.”
With 2 teenaged boys, even the relative calm of Midwest suburbia can have its own operations fraught with risk & peril, which might require code names:
- Operation Bovine Beverage: Objective: Slyly sip milk directly from the jug without the aid of a glass. Historical Footnote: Casualty rates will reach catastrophic levels if one eats Oreos during this mission.
- Operation Deftly Hefty: Objective: Nimbly cram one more item into the kitchen trash can that will still allow you to credibly shut the lid & avoid having to empty the trash.
- Operation T.P.: Objective: Use up all the toilet paper on the roll. Get replacement roll from cabinet. Leave it on the counter for 6 days, never re-placing it on the toilet paper dispenser. Tip: If interrogated, provide only your name, rank, serial number, & wonder aloud why your brother didn’t do it.
D-Day: Eisenhower & 101st Airborne
A few days later, Oyler’s mother sees this photo while watching a newsreel at a Topeka movie theater. She is shaken to the core. She had no idea of Sherman’s whereabouts. Having read all the horrific headlines of the invasion, she now realizes her boy is right in the middle of all that death & destruction. She immediately leaves the theater to return home. As she waits the next few weeks to hear if her son survived or was missing or was injured or died in the battle, what else can she do but take 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to heart & just pray without end? What else could possibly give her courage to go on?
Interestingly, several years later, Eisenhower noted the power of God on that day: “If there is nothing else in my life to prove the existence of the presence of an almighty & merciful God…those events of that momentous day did.” 2
England’s King George VI awarded Eisenhower the Order of Merit. Ike’s acceptance speech in Guild hall England was marked by humility, as he emphasized the sacrifice of Britain, that the war was not won by generals, but soldiers, & that America & Britain had, together, vanquished tyranny. His speech closed with this memorable charge: “To preserve his freedom of worship, his equality before the law, his liberty to speak & act as he sees fit, subject only to the provision that we trespass not upon similar rights of others – the Londoner will fight. So will the citizen of Abilene!” 3
Perhaps we, too, have felt the weight of the world on our own shoulders. Maybe we need the calming reassurance of God’s presence in our own lives. What if today we paused & prayed with the passion of a Mrs. Oyler &, ala Eisenhower, placed our trust & faith fully in God’s hands & boldly sought to glorify Him? Go get’em Kansas, indeed!
PS: Sherman Oyler safely returned to Topeka, Kansas & became a history teacher at Jardine Junior High School for 35 years. (He would be my brother’s history teacher.) Each year during the WWII section of the class, Oyler would dress in his combat uniform & climb on his desk to re-enact jumping out of a plane. He passed away at the age of 79.
Odds & Ends: Oyler was initially irritated meeting Eisenhower. Ike had interrupted Sherman’s steak dinner - Oyler’s best meal in months. During missions around Normandy, post-invasion, Sherman got in trouble for trying to slide landmines, shuffleboard-style, under a convoy of moving German tanks. After parachuting on a mission in Holland, Oyler dove into a ditch to avoid mortar fire & landed on a war correspondent named Walter Cronkite.
1Stephen Ambrose, D-Day: June 6, 1944 – The Climactic Battle of WWII (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995) 193
2AZ Quotes, www.azquotes.com/author/4403-Dwight_D_Eisenhower/tag/religion
3William I Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America & the World in the 1950s (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018) 44
Like this post? Share it!
If you have a question or comment about today’s GPS or Insights blog, you can send it to GPS@cor.org. We read them all, but because of the number of responses we receive, cannot guarantee replies.
You might also like:
- Risking all for a great cause
- God’s great crusade against evil
- In the end, arrogant power loses
- Christ died to save us
- Prayer Tip: Lessons of Faith from D-Day
- Or download this week's printable GPS.
Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Church of the Resurrection
13720 Roe Avenue
Leawood, Kansas 66224, United States
*******
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