July 14
The Message of God to Man
When Jesus tasted the vinegar, he said, "It is finished." Then he bowed his head and died.
John 19:30 (NCV)
"It is finished"
Stop and listen a moment. Let the words wind through your heart. Imagine the cry from the cross. The sky is dark. The other two victims are moaning. Jeering mouths of the crowd are silent. Perhaps there is thunder. Perhaps there is weeping. Perhaps there is silence. Then Jesus draws in a deep breath, pushes his feet down on that Roman nail, and cries, "It is finished!"
What was finished?
The history-long plan of redeeming man was finished. The message of God to man was finished. The works done by Jesus as a man on earth were finished… The sting of death had been removed. It was over.
From: No Wonder They Call Him the Savior
Copyright (Multnomah Publishers, Inc., 1987)
Max Lucado
2 Corinthians 6
1As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. 2For he says,
"In the time of my favor I heard you,
and in the day of salvation I helped you."[a] I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.
Paul's Hardships
3We put no stumbling block in anyone's path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. 4Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; 5in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; 6in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; 7in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; 8through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; 9known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; 10sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
11We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you. 12We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us. 13As a fair exchange—I speak as to my children—open wide your hearts also.
Do Not Be Yoked With Unbelievers
14Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15What harmony is there between Christ and Belial[b]? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."[c]
17"Therefore come out from them
and be separate, says the Lord.
Touch no unclean thing,
and I will receive you."[d]
18"I will be a Father to you,
and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."[e]
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Romans 12
Living Sacrifices
1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual[a] act of worship. 2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
3For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. 4Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his[b]faith. 7If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.
July 14, 2008
Living Sacrifice
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READ: Romans 12:1-8
Present your bodies a living sacrifice. —Romans 12:1
When my son Steve left home in the summer of 2006 to join the US Navy, he knew the gravity of his decision. He understood that once he walked onto that naval base for boot camp, he was giving up everything a teenager lives for. He was leaving behind his freedom, his guitars, his music, and his girlfriend. He surrendered the right to make his own choices and to do what he wanted to do. He said, in effect, “I am making myself a living sacrifice. I no longer do things for me; I do them for the service of my country.”
The sacrifice Steve and thousands of others make when they enter the military service reminds me of what the apostle Paul taught in Romans 12:1. In that passage, he urged us “to present [our] bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” This means we are to give up our selfish ways and surrender ourselves completely to God. We are to seek to be “holy” in all we do—to have a godly character (1 Peter 1:16), which is acceptable to God.
It wasn’t easy for Steve, who cherished self-determination, to give it all up for the Navy. But he did it. And it isn’t easy for us to completely surrender our will to God. How can you and I be a living sacrifice for God today? — Dave Branon
Here is my heart, Lord Jesus,
I have but one for Thee;
Oh, let my heart be Thine alone,
Thy will be done in me. —Mick
A life given fully to God is at the heart of true sacrifice.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
July 14, 2008
Suffering Afflictions and Going the Second Mile
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READ:
I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also —Matthew 5:39
This verse reveals the humiliation of being a Christian. In the natural realm, if a person does not hit back, it is because he is a coward. But in the spiritual realm, it is the very evidence of the Son of God in him if he does not hit back. When you are insulted, you must not only not resent it, but you must make it an opportunity to exhibit the Son of God in your life. And you cannot imitate the nature of Jesus— it is either in you or it is not. A personal insult becomes an opportunity for a saint to reveal the incredible sweetness of the Lord Jesus.
The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not, "Do your duty," but is, in effect, "Do what is not your duty." It is not your duty to go the second mile, or to turn the other cheek, but Jesus said that if we are His disciples, we will always do these things. We will not say, "Oh well, I just can’t do any more, and I’ve been so misrepresented and misunderstood." Every time I insist on having my own rights, I hurt the Son of God, while in fact I can prevent Jesus from being hurt if I will take the blow myself. That is the real meaning of filling "up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ . . ." ( Colossians 1:24 ). A disciple realizes that it is his Lord’s honor that is at stake in his life, not his own honor.
Never look for righteousness in the other person, but never cease to be righteous yourself. We are always looking for justice, yet the essence of the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is— Never look for justice, but never cease to give it.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Bridges to Nowhere - #5611
Monday, July 14, 2008
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A few summers ago, I went on a river trip with some young people. It was a river that had not been nearly so friendly just three months before. The spring rains had been record breakers and the resulting floods had even redirected parts of the river. Our guide took us down a whole new channel of the river that hadn't even been there three months earlier, and he pointed out this palatial home that was built near the river by a multi-millionaire. The flood had suddenly made his home very vulnerable. It was saved only by a hastily constructed brick wall. A lot of the landscaping around that home could not be saved, like the bridges for example. You see, since this had been just a little stream before the flood, the homeowner built some charming wooden bridges across it at several points. Now the bridges weren't really destroyed, they were just like relocated. As we moved downstream, we saw a charming wooden bridge sitting in the middle of an island of mud in the middle of the river. Later we saw another bridge, pretty intact, just sitting on the riverbank. Oh, they were nice bridges all right, they just didn't go anywhere.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A WORD WITH YOU today about "Bridges to Nowhere."
One of the most defining, most bottom-lining statements in all of the Bible is our word for today from the Word of God. It's Acts 4:12; the disciples of Jesus have just been talking about the name of Jesus Christ. Listen to this. "Salvation is found in no one else. For there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." In our age of pluralism and tolerance, and eclectic spirituality, those are pretty loaded words about Jesus.
Salvation is in no one else. We have to be saved by His name. How can this be? Mankind seems to know instinctively that we need some kind of bridge to get to God. We feel the distance between us and the one who made us, and maybe you do. We're trying to discover what will get us to Him. So, we have the Protestant bridge to God with good works that are supposed to take us to God, and the Catholic bridge with good Catholic things to do, and the Jewish bridge, and the Muslim bridge, and the Buddhist bridge, and the Hindu bridge, and the bridge of New Age spirituality, etc. Our human nature wants to believe that all those bridges end up the same place with God. But Jesus defied our preferences when He made this incredible claim. He said, "I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." In other words, even though all those religious bridges are beautiful, they're bridges to nowhere.
Why? Because of what it is that stands between us and the God that we're desperately trying to get to. In simple words, it's a death penalty. The Bible says, "The wages of sin is death." All of us have missed the way we were created to live with God running things. We've hijacked our lives really from our Creator, we've run our lives our own way, and the penalty is death. You can't pay a death penalty by any amount of doing good.
There's only one way. Someone has to die, and someone did. But not the one who deserved to die for my sin. I should have, but the Bible says, "Christ died for our sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God." Out of His amazing love, Jesus was God's sinless Son - did all the dying for all the sinning we ever did. And while there are many religions, there's only one Savior, and only He can take me across that gap between me and my Creator.
So, everything depends on what you do with Jesus. Maybe you've been on a spiritual bridge trying to find a relationship with God but it's been a bridge to nowhere. But right now, God, who loves you so very much is pointing you to the bridge He built to bring you to Him. It's the cross where His one and only Son paid for you. The bridge God has provided cost Him what mattered most to Him. It cost Him His Son.
This could be your day to begin your relationship; to cross the only bridge that will get you to a relationship with God and to His heaven. If you want to begin that relationship, tell Him right now, "Jesus, I'm Yours." And let me invite you to our website. It's yoursforlife.net, because there you'll find, I think, all the information you need to begin your relationship with Him.
Don't depend on any other bridge; every other bridge is a bridge to nowhere.
