Daily Devotional by Max Lucado
“the One who came still comes and the One who spoke still speaks”
September 3
A Passion for Excellence
In Christ Jesus, God made us to do good works, which God planned in advance for us to live our lives doing.
Ephesians 2:10 (NCV)
The push for power has come to shove. And most of us are either pushing or being pushed.
I might point out the difference between a passion for excellence and a passion for power. The desire for excellence is a gift of God, much needed in society. It is characterized by respect for quality and a yearning to use God's gifts in a way that pleases him....
But there is a canyon of difference between doing your best to glorify God and doing whatever it takes to glorify yourself. The quest for excellence is a mark of maturity. The quest for power is childish.
Hebrews 3
Jesus Greater Than Moses
1Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess. 2He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God's house. 3Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. 4For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. 5Moses was faithful as a servant in all God's house, testifying to what would be said in the future. 6But Christ is faithful as a son over God's house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.
Warning Against Unbelief
7So, as the Holy Spirit says:
"Today, if you hear his voice,
8do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
during the time of testing in the desert,
9where your fathers tested and tried me
and for forty years saw what I did.
10That is why I was angry with that generation,
and I said, 'Their hearts are always going astray,
and they have not known my ways.'
11So I declared on oath in my anger,
'They shall never enter my rest.' "[a]
12See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. 14We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. 15As has just been said:
"Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion."[b]
16Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? 17And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? 18And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed[c]? 19So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Haggai 1:2-7
2 This is what the LORD Almighty says: "These people say, 'The time has not yet come for the LORD's house to be built.' "
3 Then the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai: 4 "Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?"
5 Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways. 6 You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it."
7 This is what the LORD Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways.
September 3, 2008
Life Lab
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READ: Haggai 1:2-7
Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Consider your ways!” — Haggai 1:7
Hurricane Andrew struck the US mainland in August 1992. As residents tried to cope with the destruction, scientists turned Florida into a huge laboratory. Teams of researchers descended on the state to measure the storm’s impact on everything from building materials to tropical fish. Psychologists analyzed the hurricane’s influence on children. Geographers mapped sunken boats. Marine scientists cataloged the damage done to reefs, sea grass, and mangroves. Criminologists studied price-gouging and the breakdown of social order.
The prophets of the Bible did a similar evaluation after spiritual disasters. They documented the personal, social, and environmental effects of turning away from the one true God (Isa. 1:1-9; Hag. 1:2-7).
In behalf of a loving God, Haggai urged his neighbors to give careful attention to what had happened. He noted the priority they were giving to their own comforts and wanted them to observe how dissatisfied and empty they still were.
If God didn’t care, He wouldn’t ask us to consider the time and effort we are spending on diminishing returns. If He didn’t love us, He couldn’t remind us of all that He has given us. God sees what has happened to us and knows how much we need to focus on Him today. — Mart De Haan
I would live for Thee, Lord Jesus,
Keep my eyes so turned toward Thee
That the world and all its system
May attract no part of me. —Graves
When Christ is the center of your interests, life will be in focus.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
September 3, 2008
Pouring Out the Water of Satisfaction
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READ:
He would not drink it, but poured it out to the Lord —2 Samuel 23:16
What has been like "water from the well of Bethlehem" to you recently— love, friendship, or maybe some spiritual blessing ( 2 Samuel 23:16 )? Have you taken whatever it may be, even at the risk of damaging your own soul, simply to satisfy yourself? If you have, then you cannot pour it out "to the Lord." You can never set apart for God something that you desire for yourself to achieve your own satisfaction. If you try to satisfy yourself with a blessing from God, it will corrupt you. You must sacrifice it, pouring it out to God— something that your common sense says is an absurd waste.
How can I pour out "to the Lord" natural love and spiritual blessings? There is only one way— I must make a determination in my mind to do so. There are certain things other people do that could never be received by someone who does not know God, because it is humanly impossible to repay them. As soon as I realize that something is too wonderful for me, that I am not worthy to receive it, and that it is not meant for a human being at all, I must pour it out "to the Lord." Then these very things that have come to me will be poured out as "rivers of living water" all around me ( John 7:38 ). And until I pour these things out to God, they actually endanger those I love, as well as myself, because they will be turned into lust. Yes, we can be lustful in things that are not sordid and vile. Even love must be transformed by being poured out "to the Lord."
If you have become bitter and sour, it is because when God gave you a blessing you hoarded it. Yet if you had poured it out to Him, you would have been the sweetest person on earth. If you are always keeping blessings to yourself and never learning to pour out anything "to the Lord," other people will never have their vision of God expanded through you.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
How to Keep Going When Your Tank is Empty - #5648 - September 3, 2008
Category: Your Personal Power
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
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Our friend, Mike, had just started up the pickup truck when the trouble started. Mike was taking the truck out for a test drive for some people who had just bought it. And as he backed it out of the new owner's garage, it suddenly started sputtering and stalling. He couldn't keep it running no matter what he tried. He got to a phone and called the old owner and said, "What's the deal with this truck you just sold?" Well, the man who sold it is an honorable man, and he was really distressed about this suddenly dysfunctional truck. Then suddenly he asked Mike, "Did you happen to mess with the radio at all?" Yes, he had. The previous owner told Mike to go check these two switches that are right next to the radio. This truck has a wonderful feature, especially for the country roads that it travels so much. It has a reserve gas tank. Mike had unknowingly turned off Tank 2, which was full of gas, and turned on Tank 1, which was totally empty. But the good news is that as soon as he switched from the empty tank to the reserve tank, Mr. Pickup Truck ran and ran and ran.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "How to Keep Going When Your Tank is Empty."
I'm assuming that your life runs pretty fast, pretty hard like mine. And there are times when your tank is basically empty. You're totally exhausted, you have nothing left to give, your demands and responsibilities are much greater than the strength you have to meet them. And sometimes you just run out of ideas, you're out of solutions, you're out of motivation, you're out of energy. Now why am I assuming that you know about an empty tank like this? Because I'm assuming you're not that different from me.
But there's good news when your tank has nothing left. Our word for today from the Word of God, Isaiah 40:28, "Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary and His understanding no one can fathom." Now the God you belong to, the God who lives in you, is inexhaustible. He is what the theologians call infinite. His resources and wisdom just never, never run out, but yours do. Mine do.
Here's where the reserve tank kicks in. The passage continues, "He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall." By the way, any words here that sound like you? "Weary, weak, tired, stumble, fall?" Here's what God promises to the totally overwhelmed and depleted person. "Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint" (Isaiah 40:31).
When Mike's Tank 1 on that truck was empty, the fuel in Tank 2 was all the difference. I can't tell you how many times I have reached empty in my tank, and God's never-empty tank has kicked in and it has made all the difference. After an exhausting week, I wake up and say, "God, I'm so tired." He says, "I'm not." I say, "I'm empty, Lord." He says, "I know, but switch on My power, Ron. I'm not empty." It's was I sang about as a little boy and I didn't really understand it until life got a lot more complicated, "Little ones to Him belong, they are weak, but He is strong."
If you dwell on how stressed you are, or how tired, or how sick or overwhelmed, you're done. You're dwelling on your empty tank. But if, on those depleted days, you consciously focus on your Lord's inexhaustible strength, your Lord's unlimited power, you will be able to keep driving when you thought you couldn't go another mile.
The songwriter of one of my favorite songs said it pretty well. "When we have exhausted our store of endurance; when our strength has failed ere the day is half done. When we've reached the end of our hoarded resources, our Father's full giving has only begun."