KICKSTART DEVOTIONAL
EVERY WEEKDAY AT 11 AM CST ON FACEBOOK LIVE
VISIT AND SUBSCRIBE ON YOUTUBE
On every Mission Discovery trip, we begin the morning together in God’s word. One speaker is chosen to give the word of the day so that everyone else can meditate on the Scripture. Our hope is that volunteers engage in group discussions throughout the day and in their small groups.
Since the way ministry is being done has shifted, our goal is to serve by creating resources that will help others focus on God throughout the day, and influence family and small group discussion.
Join us every weekday as we explore God’s word together. We will have speakers from all over the US and the world. Here is today’s Kickstart Devotional.
Video: Maury Buchanan // Thrown Away
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Thrown Away
Hi everybody, Maury Buchanan. I am the founder of Mission Discovery, so that’s my connection to Mission Discovery. I am retired now. Jimmy Rivera is the president of Mission Discovery. My friend of over 27 years is at the helm of this great organization. Thanks for tuning in today. I am in my attic. This is the place where the stuff lives that we use seasonally, like Christmas decorations. It’s kind of cluttered. That’s my Christmas tree right there.
I’m so sad that the Mission Discovery staff is seeing an Igloo cooler. I need to get that back to you. Over there is where I keep my luggage for mission trips. That gray one over there is one I don’t really mind if the customs ding, and it gets all banged up, and it looks rough. Nobody would ever want to steal it. This is the place where stuff lands that’s loved seasonally.
Or it was that stuff that we were going to throw away like this wheel. I I know I can use this. Well someday. We don’t want to throw the wheel away. We just want to put it in the attic, you know, because we could use it someday. I don’t know if you’ve ever felt that way. Thrown away.
There was a lady in the Scripture. She’s mentioned in Mark chapter five starting at verse 21, Jesus is traveling with a man whose daughter is dying. His name is Jairus, and he’s a religious leader. He’s risking his reputation to call on Jesus to heal his daughter, and this great crowd is following Jesus, and a woman in this crowd approaches. She’s been bleeding for 12 years. Scripture calls it an issue of blood.
She’s spent all of her money, all of it, on doctors and she’s not gotten better. The Scripture says she’s only gotten worse. She’s untouchable the culture says they’re not supposed to touch her because she is what they call unclean. So I don’t know where she lives; maybe she lives out of town with people who live in a similar condition as she does. But she’s called unclean. She doesn’t even have a name in this Scripture.
She’s only known by her illness. Have you ever felt like that? That you’re only known by your mistake or what people call you? No one knows your name. You’re thrown away. You’re in the attic. Maybe someone could find value in you someday, but maybe not.
So this lady approaches Jesus.
She must know the Scripture because she knows that he could heal her. And during those times rabbi’s, religious leaders, wore these cloaks and on the very bottom of these cloaks were these little small tassels.
And I wonder if she was just heading for one of the threads of those tassels she believed if she could just touch a little bit of his garment that she would be healed. So she did it. She pressed through the crowd. People probably noticed her and were given her space because they didn’t want to touch her because they didn’t want to be unclean.
She was unclean, and so she got to Jesus’ garment, and she touched the hem of his garment, and immediately she was healed. Immediately she was healed. Jesus felt power go out of him. And he said to his disciples, “Who touched me?”
And they said, “What do you mean who touched you? Look at this crowd. I mean everybody’s pushing in on you.”
And he says, “No, no, I felt power go out of me.”
The lady was so afraid she came on her knees trembling, and she said what she had done. She told the truth. I love those words: she told the truth. Jesus looked at her, and he said, “Ma’am your faith has made you whole.”
We live in a very difficult time right now.
Some of you have lost your jobs and you could call yourself, “I’m not my name. I’m just unemployed, or I’m very sick.” Some of you know friends who have COVID-19 and we’ve begun to identify them as our friend who has the virus. Remember that Jesus, throughout Scripture, would see someone who had called themselves one name, and he changed their name.
Don’t forget that God has a name for you. What is that name that God calls you today that is not your illness? It’s not your shortcoming and it’s not your sin. It’s not the virus. It’s not your unemployment. What does he call you? I want you to call yourself that name today in Jesus’ name.
I want to conclude today with a scripture verse from Joel 2:25: “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm.” Locust chew everything off of trees. And God says he will restore what the locusts have eaten.
So my prayer for you today is that God would restore what the locusts have eaten in Jesus’ name.
