Council Fire

A New Creation

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 I was born as a Cree person, and I am very proud of who I am. I was raised by my mom and dad with values and virtues. There has been a lot of talk lately about “finding yourself” in order to be healed. I was never healed because of who I was, but by the saving grace of God, the Creator, who through His Son Jesus Christ, saved me from eternal separation from God. God gave me a new living hope and transformed me from within. I let go of the old nature, but I didn’t lose my identity as a Native person when I came to Christ. In the Word of God, I am called a new creation. This verse does not say I am no longer a Cree person who must give up his language and identity. God starts dealing with the sin in my life and helps me live according to His design and purpose. This will never stop until the day the Lord returns, or I am called home to be with the Lord forever. 2 Corinthians 5:17 above talks about God giving me a new life because I have put my faith in Jesus Christ. Acts 4:12 says, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” God changed my life, internally and externally, and set me apart for His glory. In becoming a new creation, the Holy Spirit leads, guides and teaches us through the Word of God. We learn to live our lives holy unto the Lord and He sets us apart for His glory to represent Him, and to honor Him with our lives. — Ken Mitsuing   Council Fire is a collaboration with Intertribal Life Ministries [https://intertriballife.org/] and Native Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. [https://nefc.ca/] The Council Fire Daily Devotional Book Set is available on the Intertribal Life Ministries website. Learn more about Council Fire at councilfire365.org [https://councilfire365.org/]

My First 4x4

“So, if you think you are standing fi rm, be careful that you don’t fall! No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” 1 Corinthians 10:12-13 (NIV) 4x4’s are great! I used to think it was sort of a luxury to drive one — now it’s on my “gotta have it” list! I remember my first 4x4 truck. I had parked an old trailer behind my cousin Jack’s place and was heading over to pick it up. Sometime since my last time there, the trail had gotten snowed over and looked kind of impassable — the perfect “power demo” for my newly acquired 4x4 Chevrolet Avalanche. This was going to be fun! So, I shifted the beast into 4x4 and took a good run at it. All went well until about 100 feet into things when my Chevy bottomed out in two and-a-half feet of Alberta’s winter wonderland white stuff. I was so stuck, and my door wouldn’t open because the snow was too deep! I finally crawled out through the window and waded through the drifts to Jack’s house. He wasn’t home, but his shovel was. A bruised ego, two platefuls of humble pie, three tons of shoveled snow, $500 worth of plastic bumper damage, and two hours later I got out. Not my finest hour, but I was out. That reminds me of the above Scripture. It’s easy to get overconfident in our spiritual strength and start thinking we can handle situations that are beyond our limits. God’s Word cautions us to be careful about how we see (and sometimes overestimate) our own spiritual strength, ability, and endurance. God won’t allow temptations we can’t get through, but always provides an “escape route.” That “exit strategy” is usually “put-the-pedal-to-the-metal” to get outta there! — Kene Jackson   Council Fire is a collaboration with Intertribal Life Ministries [https://intertriballife.org/] and Native Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. [https://nefc.ca/] The Council Fire Daily Devotional Book Set is available on the Intertribal Life Ministries website. Learn more about Council Fire at councilfire365.org [https://councilfire365.org/]

Surrendering, Obeying and Trusting God

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not more valuable than they?” Matthew 6:26 (NIV) June 18, 1997, I surrendered to Jesus. A month later, I voluntarily cooked at a Youth Dynamics Bush Camp for children. We prepared meals for 60 to 70 people. To get there, we traveled two hours into the high mountains of BC. There was no running water, no electricity, no plumbing, and it was pitch black with chilly temperatures at night. My two-year-old son and I were freezing at night. I was frightened of the dark and the noises coming from the woods. My previous mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual abuse had me in bondage. I had to trust God. To volunteer for that one week had been a tough decision. My nonbelieving husband was not impressed with my decision to volunteer. We had a mortgage, truck payments and other bills, plus feeding our teenage children. We both worried about how we were going to afford to live for the next few weeks after camp. When I got home, I worried about the bills, but I prayed with my sister, asking God to help with this situation. A week later my husband had an eye doctor’s appointment. He needed his first pair of prescription glasses, which cost $400. Oh no! Our bank account was at zero! Then, we discovered that my employer owed me money from my payroll. The money I received was for a full two-week cheque. Wow, God is so faithful in providing for His children! Heavenly Father, please help me when I doubt You, or when I think You do not hear my prayers. Lord, help me to trust in You alone, because You are faithful, and You never change. Remind me how valuable I am to You. In Jesus’ Name I pray, Amen. — Jennifer McEwen   Council Fire is a collaboration with Intertribal Life Ministries [https://intertriballife.org/] and Native Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. [https://nefc.ca/] The Council Fire Daily Devotional Book Set is available on the Intertribal Life Ministries website. Learn more about Council Fire at councilfire365.org [https://councilfire365.org/]

Tough Like a Tree

“For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.” Jeremiah 17:8 (NKJV) Near my house stand very tall spruce trees. These trees have many branches, and the sum of their weight must be incredibly heavy. One evening, as I observed the trees, I marveled. I thought, “To hold all those heavy branches, those tree trunks must be very strong.” On another evening, it was storming very hard. I again thought, “Those tree trunks must be very strong to withstand the wind.” A couple of seasons later, there was a bad blizzard. Still, the trees overcame. I thought again, “Those tree trunks must be very strong!” Jeremiah writes — in the Scripture above — about believers being like trees that spread out their roots and do not fear, are not anxious, nor cease from yielding fruit. When we are pressed every day, are we strong? Do we remain standing if we are pressed by many issues? Do we remain standing? Jeremiah tells us the secret of a tree’s strength: “. . . planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river.” Jesus said to a Samaritan woman, “But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14b, NKJV). The Apostle Paul said, “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving” (Colossians 2:6-7, NKJV). Remember, we know we need God every day, but when those additional challenges come into our lives — sometimes more than one at a time — they can be overwhelming. Let’s remain rooted in Christ. — Ernie McDougall   Council Fire is a collaboration with Intertribal Life Ministries [https://intertriballife.org/] and Native Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. [https://nefc.ca/] The Council Fire Daily Devotional Book Set is available on the Intertribal Life Ministries website. Learn more about Council Fire at councilfire365.org [https://councilfire365.org/]

Faith Like a Child

“Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.’ ” Philippians 2:14,15a (NIV) Don’t you love that innocent, pure feeling when you go to a children’s Christmas event? Doesn’t their singing tug at your heart? Don’t their silly faces looking at the camera bring a smile to your face? There is something about how children view the world — a faith and hope most of us may have forgotten. Anyone can say that they believe, but do we have faith? Do we apply what we believe in our daily lives, or only when it’s working with our plans? At my dad’s life celebration, there was this little girl (she is about eight years old now). During the singing and open mic, she ran up to the front by herself and said, “I remember when Joey used to sing my favourite song, ‘Alive! Alive!’ ” About then the guitar players began to play it, and she started to sing it! It was so special. Nobody had told her to go up front, let alone to sing. And she hadn’t seen my dad at church since he hurt his spine four years prior. So for her to have that memory, to share it, and to sing for him, it was so pure and innocent! It seems that we all start to lose our child-like faith and hope as we let the world’s “magma” cover and crust over God’s wonderful creation with doubt, animosity and fear, among other things. It takes humility, faith and dependence on our Lord and Savior to start to chisel the magma away to become who He made us to be and do the things we were meant to do. Lord, help me to be more like Jesus, and less like me. Amen. — Tayola Brown (L’Hirondelle)   Council Fire is a collaboration with Intertribal Life Ministries [https://intertriballife.org/] and Native Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. [https://nefc.ca/] The Council Fire Daily Devotional Book Set is available on the Intertribal Life Ministries website. Learn more about Council Fire at councilfire365.org [https://councilfire365.org/]