Mockingbirds at Dawn

By D. Dean Benton

An early reader said that Mockingbirds at Dawn is the ideal name for a morning devotional and each chapter has enough content to cause a daily reflection. The words are reflective, motivational, entertaining, educational stimulants. Mockingbirds at Dawn is not about mockingbirds. It is for people who seek a larger repertoire of responses to God’s lush, lavished grace. This is a collection of bite-sized interactions with God’s revelations around life-matters. This book is a devotional consideration of topics in the biblical book of Ephesians. The writer of Ephesians speaks much about walking in the Spirit, Spiritual gifts and spiritual warfare, therefore Dean confronts these topics in his slightly bent descriptions and interactions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D. Dean Benton
• Release date: May 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310756085

D. Dean Benton

A native Iowan, husband of one, father of two and grandfather of three. A pastor, seminar leader, author of 27 print books and 15 ebooks, singer, songwriter. After 14 years in the pastorate, Dean and his wife Carole, with family, worked in concerts, seminars and conferences for three decades before returning to the pastorate. The Bentons worked in forty states in about 3000 venues.

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Mockingbirds At Dawn

D. Dean Benton

Copyright 2014 D. Dean Benton

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents

PREFACE

YOU ARE CHOSEN

Chapter 1—Identity

Chapter 2—Faithfulness

Chapter 3—Grace

Chapter 4—Peace

Chapter 5—Peace and Grace

Chapter 6—Freedom

Chapter 7—Redemption

Chapter 8—Hope

Chapter 9—Inheritance

Chapter 10—Power

Chapter 11—The One Who Chooses

Chapter 12—When I Say God

Chapter 13—When I Say Father

Chapter 14—When I Say Lord

Chapter 15—When I Say Jesus

Chapter 16—When I Say Christ

GOD USES PEOPLE

Chapter 17—Cliches

Chapter 18—God’s Plan

Chapter 19—Worship

Chapter 20—Humility

Chapter 21—Obedience

Chapter 22—Faith

Chapter 23—Vision

Chapter 24—Love

Chapter 25—Servanthood

Chapter 26—Wholeness

Chapter 27—Privilege

Chapter 28—Captured by the Message

Chapter 29—Mysteries and Ambiguities

Chapter 30—Wisdom

Chapter 31—Confidence

Chapter 32—Focus

Chapter 33—Refreshment

Chapter 34—Rooted

EXPECTING SPIRITUAL GIFTS

Chapter 35—Knowledge

Chapter 36—Baptism of Holy Spirit

Chapter 37—Expectations

Chapter 38—The Kingdom

Chapter 39—The Church

Chapter 40—Personal Ministry

EXPLORING SPIRITUAL GIFTS

Chapter 41—Seeking

Chapter 42—Sharing

Chapter 43—Stirring

Chapter 44—Serving

EXPERIENCING SPIRITUAL GIFTS

Chapter 45—Natural Talents, Abilities, Gifts

Chapter 46—Birthing Spiritual Gifts

Chapter 47—Beneficiaries of Spiritual Gifts

Chapter 48—Balancing Spiritual Gifts

Chapter 49—Boundaries of Spiritual Gifts

Chapter 50—Blending Spiritual Gifts

Chapter 51—Power of Presence

LIVING AND WALKING IN THE SPIRIT

Chapter 52—Pilgrimage

Chapter 53—Principles

Chapter 54—Promises

Chapter 55—Practices

SPIRITUAL WARFARE

Chapter 56—A Battlefield

Chapter 57—Truth and Righteousness

Chapter 58—Stability

Chapter 59—Discernment

Chapter 60—Thinking Straight

Chapter 61—Conquest

Chapter 62—Prayer

ENCOURAGEMENT

Chapter 63—Oxygen of Creativity

Chapter 64—The Healing Chair

POSTLUDE

Notes

About the author

Other Smashwords books by Dean

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Preface

A Natchez, Mississippi realtor, believing that he can locate just the right property for you, advertises, Buy a historic Southern Mansion and become part of Southern Culture.

As much as I would love to own (and afford) an antebellum mansion and fit into the culture, my guess is that I cannot become part of Southern Culture simply by purchasing an old house.

Neither can I grasp what living in God’s Kingdom is like simply by taking a bus tour through the neighborhood. The Apostle Paul wrote the book of Ephesians to help us move into the neighborhood and allow Kingdom culture to move into us.

There is probably no bird in the world that possesses all the musical qualifications of this king of song (Audubon).

Mockingbirds at Dawn is not about mockingbirds. It is about people who seek a larger repertoire of responses to God’s lush, lavished grace. This is a collection of bite-sized interactions with God’s revelations around subjects we confront each day. This is a devotional consideration of topics in the biblical book of Ephesians.

The mockingbird is a versatile vocalist able to mimic birds, frogs and crickets. They are known for vigorous and almost continuous singing. Night singing is prominent. Singing is their job, and they enjoy the work. They are fine mimics, but have a large selection of their own melodies.

It first happened in Cartersville, Georgia. A couple of years later it happened in Lake City, Florida. The next year it was Dothan, Alabama. Last year it was Cullman, Alabama.

I’m always surprised that I am so surprised. You would think I would anticipate it, but it comes unexpectedly. Just about dawn, I am pleasantly awakened by the awesome sound of a mockingbird. In that moment, I realize I have not heard a bird sing for weeks. My world has been shut up by furnace sounds, doors, closed windows, insulation and stale air. Mockingbirds announce to me that I am in the warm again.

Once the surprise is over, I anticipate the mockingbird alarm each morning. When we put on our heavy coats to return to the Midwest in the late winter, I mourn the melody loss.

The first morning back in our own beds I heard no mockingbird at dawn. I was rousted out of bed at dawn by a woodpecker beating its beak against the chimney’s metal flashing. I prefer the mockingbird sound.

One B. Franklin, Printer wrote, Painters have found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. I have often—in the course of the Session and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issues, looked at the sun on the back of the president’s chair. Now, at length, I have the happiness to know that is a rising sun and not a setting sun.

During one of our tours of Maine, we met a pastor who lives on Campobello Island. When he heard of my interest in presidential biographies, he talked of Franklin Roosevelt’s summer home. When Sunrise Over Campobello was filmed, the crew found the lighting impossible. Only native islanders knew the crucial shots depicting the sunrise were in fact of a sunset.

How do you know if what you are going through is a sunrise or a sunset? Is this a beginning or the end of it all? Because I want to believe that God is never handicapped by what we think are endings,¹ I invite you to be awakened to the possibility that in the midst of what looks, smells and feels like a sunset, God is working on a sunrise.

Welcome to the warm and welcome to the expansion of your repertoire of melodies.

YOU ARE CHOSEN

Chapter 1

YOU ARE CHOSEN

To the Saints…who are…in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 1:1).

While limited to a Greek dictionary, Paul had no choice but to use hagios, to describe the way he saw the faithful, loyal and steadfast followers of Jesus. Saints means set apart for God persons.

In the late 1800s, reporter Henry Morton Stanley introduced himself to David Livingstone with the immortal words, Dr. Livingstone, I presume. Stanley was the first to call Africa The Dark Continent. His four expeditions of Africa built roads and established communities. In 1891, Oxford conferred on him an honorary doctorate. Henry Morton Stanley was widely acclaimed.

One phrase in a recent biography says, Stanley’s illegitimacy seems to have been the central fact of his existence. His biographer comments, …none of his accomplishments were ever great enough to overcome his self-loathing, soften his distrust of others, or slake his thirst for warm approval that had been conspicuously denied him as a boy."

Teens talked to me reluctantly about suicide in their town. At first, they denied it was a problem, or that any of their friends were talking about it. In an awkward, silent moment, a pretty girl blurted, My best friend killed herself last week. Her mother told her she was worthless. She believed her, and killed herself.

Self-esteem defines what we feel about ourselves. Who wouldn’t be shaken by an assessment of worthlessness? Jesus explosively proclaims that our value comes from God—without qualification. Our worth does not shift even when our self-esteem does. Self-worth is based upon what God feels about us; our identity is secure in the lavished grace of God.

The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All when she says, I had become fuzz under the furniture. Her feelings didn’t change the facts. Self-worth is tied to God, not the opinion of peers, antagonists, dearest friends or parents.

Self-worth can’t be propped up by accomplishments. The central fact of your existence—your identity—is that you are a child of God, born into His family. You are a saint (no capital)—set aside for God’s purposes based totally on His grace, mercy and love.

Been feeling like fuzz under the furniture? Rush to the One who values you and likes you. You are a set aside for God person.

Hello, saint.

Chapter 2

YOU ARE CHOSEN

Faithfulness

To the Saints in… (Ephesians 1:1b).

The words in Ephesus are not in the earliest manuscripts. Probably, the letter was not written to the Ephesians. The letter may have been written to the Saints, and just happened to be in Ephesus when Paul’s letters were collected.

William Barclay has an intriguing suggestion. He claims the letter was written to Laodicea which Colossians 4:16 may support. A custom of damnation memoriae—the condemnation of a man’s memory—was practiced in the ancient world. Revelation 3:14f tells us the church at Laodicea was condemned by the Risen Christ. I will spit you out of my mouth, He said.

Is it possible? In spite of her earlier contributions to the Kingdom, Laodicea’s fall was so grievous that, like the ancient practice, Laodicea’s name was chiseled off statues and expunged from books and letters like this one? The memory of the church was obliterated. At Laodicea became, At Ephesus.

We don’t know if that really happened, but it is a probable explanation. It certainly happens to people.

I was reading the autobiography of President George Herbert Walker Bush and a biography of former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill at the same time. They both spoke highly of the legislator and Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Wilbur Mills. I learned that Mills was a competent leader. All I remember was the episode of him being photographed in the Reflecting Pool with a D. C. stripper named Fannie Foxe. That episode forced him out of the Congress in shame.

I have thought of Mills as a joke, perhaps a jerk and a drunk. I didn’t know the quality he brought to the Congress, or that he beat alcoholism after the Foxe incident, then served as a trusted, successful lobbyist. Most remember his drunken escapades, not that he was a fine, honest, hard working advocate for his constituents. That was expunged from people’s memories.

The Ephesian church began with a group of John the Baptist followers. When Paul arrived in the city, he asked, Did you receive the Holy Spirit…? Read the story in Acts 19:6ff. A revival began that lasted two years. All of Asia Minor heard about Jesus through the faithful witness of this church. Half a century later, the Apostle John wrote Jesus’ words to Ephesus, …you have left your first love. Remember…repent…do your first works, or else I will come and remove your lamp stand… (Revelation 2:2-5).

The warning to Ephesus gets my attention. That church had a reputation of being faithfully on the front line. What happened? They had left their first love. Grown cool in their relationship with Jesus. That must have led to behavior dishonoring Jesus.

What happened to Laodicea—damnatio memoria—was a possibility for those who had replaced that church. Ephesus must have responded to Jesus’ call to remember, repent and to return to what they were known for—faithfulness.

You can begin again. Again.

Chapter 3

YOU ARE CHOSEN

Grace

Grace to you (Ephesians 1:2).