Daily Devotional by Max Lucado
“the One who came still comes and the One who spoke still speaks”
September 15
Applaud Loud and Often
Sing to Him, sing psalms to Him; talk of all His wondrous works!
Psalm 105:2 (NKJV)
God has never taken his eyes off you. Not for a millisecond. He’s always near. He lives to hear your heartbeat. He loves to hear your prayers. He’d die for your sin before he’d let you die in your sin, so he did.
What do you do with such a Savior? Don’t you sing to him? Don’t you declare, confess, and proclaim his name? Don’t you bow a knee, lower a head, hammer a nail, feed the poor, and lift up your gift in worship? Of course you do.
Worship God. Applaud him loud and often. For your sake, you need it. And for heaven’s sake, he deserves it.
James 3
Taming the Tongue
1Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.
3When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. 5Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
7All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, 8but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
9With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. 10Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. 11Can both fresh water and salt[a] water flow from the same spring? 12My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.
Two Kinds of Wisdom
13Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. 14But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. 15Such "wisdom" does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. 16For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.
17But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. 18Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Acts 26:9-18
9"I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 10And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the saints in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. 11Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. In my obsession against them, I even went to foreign cities to persecute them.
12"On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. 13About noon, O king, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. 14We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic,[a] 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.'
15"Then I asked, 'Who are you, Lord?'
" 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,' the Lord replied. 16'Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. 17I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them 18to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.'
September 15, 2008
What’s Your Story?
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READ: Acts 26:9-18
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. —Acts 16:31
Every believer has a unique story of encountering Christ. Ann, a receptionist at RBC Ministries, told me that she has kept a journal for much of her life. She treasures the account she recorded about her conversion when she was 15. Here is an excerpt. “[I] went to see Billy Graham. I got saved! I’m very happy. . . . When I got saved I felt warmth in my heart.”
Years ago, in a personal evangelism course I taught, I asked the students to write out their story of how they came to faith in Christ. It struck me how different each journey was. Some were saved out of a life of drugs and immorality. Others were church attenders who came to Christ after years of biblical instruction.
Conversions vary. The apostle Paul had a crisis encounter with the Savior that turned him from a persecutor into a preacher of the gospel (Acts 26). In contrast, Timothy was quietly nurtured in the Scriptures from early childhood, resulting in his salvation experience (2 Tim. 3:14-15). No two faith journeys are identical. But each has the common element of turning to the Lord Jesus in faith to be saved from sin and to receive a new heart.
Can you retrace the steps that God helped you take in coming to Christ? What’s your story? — Dennis Fisher
We once were held by Satan’s chains,
Imprisoned by our sin;
Then Jesus Christ delivered us
And made us new within. —Sper
We need more than a new start—we need a new heart!
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
September 15, 2008
What To Renounce
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READ:
We have renounced the hidden things of shame . . . —2 Corinthians 4:2
Have you "renounced the hidden things of shame" in your life— the things that your sense of honor or pride will not allow to come into the light? You can easily hide them. Is there a thought in your heart about anyone that you would not like to be brought into the light? Then renounce it as soon as it comes to mind— renounce everything in its entirety until there is no hidden dishonesty or craftiness about you at all. Envy, jealousy, and strife don’t necessarily arise from your old nature of sin, but from the flesh which was used for these kinds of things in the past (see Romans 6:19 and 1 Peter 4:1-3 ). You must maintain continual watchfulness so that nothing arises in your life that would cause you shame.
". . . not walking in craftiness. . ." ( 2 Corinthians 4:2 ). This means not resorting to something simply to make your own point. This is a terrible trap. You know that God will allow you to work in only one way— the way of truth. Then be careful never to catch people through the other way— the way of deceit. If you act deceitfully, God’s blight and ruin will be upon you. What may be craftiness for you, may not be for others— God has called you to a higher standard. Never dull your sense of being your utmost for His highest— your best for His glory. For you, doing certain things would mean craftiness coming into your life for a purpose other than what is the highest and best, and it would dull the motivation that God has given you. Many people have turned back because they are afraid to look at things from God’s perspective. The greatest spiritual crisis comes when a person has to move a little farther on in his faith than the beliefs he has already accepted
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Stuck On the Welcome Mat - #5656 - September 15, 2008
Category: Your Personal Power
Monday, September 15, 2008
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We've always had a wide variety of folks come to our front door. Like salesmen, for example. They get as far as the front step. Then there are the neighborhood kids raising money, they make it inside the door; they get to our welcome mat usually. And there are lots of acquaintances and friends who we invite into the living room to sit down and visit for a while. And sometimes it's a relative or a real close friend. They'll go straight to the fridge, and they feel free to use the telephone and the bathroom. You can tell how close we are to a person by how far that person is allowed to go in our house.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Stuck On the Welcome Mat."
Our word for today from the Word of God describes a healthy, growing relationship with Jesus Christ. And it has a lot to do with how far into the house of your life you allow Jesus to go. Colossians 2:6, "Just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith."
Now, there's a surprising spiritual secret in these words. In a sense, you learned the secret of growing in Christ the day you met Christ! The way you live in Him and get rooted and built up in Him is the way you first began your relationship with Him - you "received" Him, you invited Him in. So, just as you invited Christ Jesus in to be your Lord and Savior, so you keep on inviting Him in to more and more of your life.
Right now your life-house may be a mess. In fact, I've been asked, "I invited Christ in. How come I still feel so lonely? So depressed? So defeated?" Here's one possible reason: Jesus is still just inside the door; He's still on the welcome mat. You've never received Him farther into your life. He's in, but you're not inviting Him into any rooms. Yes, you had a time when you "accepted Christ as your Savior." But maybe your relationship with Him is like a couple that had a great wedding but not much of a marriage. You started with Jesus, but not much has really happened since.
Jesus Christ will only change and improve that which is consciously turned over to Him. He didn't come into your life until you opened the door, right? He won't come into the parts of your life until you open the door. If you let Christ into ten percent of you, then the other 90 percent will probably be as much of a mess as it was B. C. (before Christ). He's been treated like a visitor, a stranger, an acquaintance - not like your closest Friend, not like the most important person in your life. He wants to do so much more in those rooms: your temper, your tongue, your lust, your relationships, your marriage, your loneliness, your depression, or the pain of your past. But He just hasn't been invited.
You may be missing much of the love, the peace or the meaning that you came to Christ hoping to receive because you've never asked Him past the welcome mat, or a couple of rooms. Remember, Jesus only goes where He's invited in your life. So what specific part of you did you invite Him to be the ruler of today? That could be the Lordship question each new day.
Keep on opening doors to your Savior. Keep on inviting Him deeper and deeper into the things that matter to you. You can tell how close you are to Jesus by how far you allow Him to go in that "house" called your life.
You know, it's possible that you've never even opened the door of your life to Jesus Christ. You could be in the church your whole life. You can know the Bible in and out. You can know all the answers. You can know lots of Christian people and still have missed that step that's the difference between heaven and hell. That's opening the door to let Him come in. Have you missed that step? If you don't know you did it, you probably haven't. This could be the day to take care of it and get it settled. Tell Him, "Jesus, I'm Yours."
Go to our website. It's there really to help you to be sure that you belong to Him. It's YoursForLife.net. I hope you'll go there today.
You may have been around Jesus for a long time, but maybe you have never really belonged to Him. Let this be the day that the Jesus who you have known about becomes the Jesus you know.