Daily Devotional by Max Lucado
“the One who came still comes and the One who spoke still speaks”
November 4
More than Family
Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body.
Romans 12:5 (MSG)
If similar experiences create friendships, shouldn’t the church overflow with friendships? With whom do you have more in common than fellow believers? Amazed by the same manger, stirred by the same Bible, saved by the same cross, and destined for the same home. Can you not echo the words of the psalmist?
“I am a friend to everyone who fears you, to anyone who obeys your orders” (PS. 119:63).
The church. More than family, we are friends. More than friends, we are family. God’s family of friends.
Job 38
The LORD Speaks
1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm. He said:
2 "Who is this that darkens my counsel
with words without knowledge?
3 Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.
4 "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6 On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone-
7 while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels [a] shouted for joy?
8 "Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
9 when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,
10 when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,
11 when I said, 'This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt'?
12 "Have you ever given orders to the morning,
or shown the dawn its place,
13 that it might take the earth by the edges
and shake the wicked out of it?
14 The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
its features stand out like those of a garment.
15 The wicked are denied their light,
and their upraised arm is broken.
16 "Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
17 Have the gates of death been shown to you?
Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death [b] ?
18 Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
Tell me, if you know all this.
19 "What is the way to the abode of light?
And where does darkness reside?
20 Can you take them to their places?
Do you know the paths to their dwellings?
21 Surely you know, for you were already born!
You have lived so many years!
22 "Have you entered the storehouses of the snow
or seen the storehouses of the hail,
23 which I reserve for times of trouble,
for days of war and battle?
24 What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed,
or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?
25 Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain,
and a path for the thunderstorm,
26 to water a land where no man lives,
a desert with no one in it,
27 to satisfy a desolate wasteland
and make it sprout with grass?
28 Does the rain have a father?
Who fathers the drops of dew?
29 From whose womb comes the ice?
Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens
30 when the waters become hard as stone,
when the surface of the deep is frozen?
31 "Can you bind the beautiful [c] Pleiades?
Can you loose the cords of Orion?
32 Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons [d]
or lead out the Bear [e] with its cubs?
33 Do you know the laws of the heavens?
Can you set up God's [f] dominion over the earth?
34 "Can you raise your voice to the clouds
and cover yourself with a flood of water?
35 Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
Do they report to you, 'Here we are'?
36 Who endowed the heart [g] with wisdom
or gave understanding to the mind [h] ?
37 Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?
Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens
38 when the dust becomes hard
and the clods of earth stick together?
39 "Do you hunt the prey for the lioness
and satisfy the hunger of the lions
40 when they crouch in their dens
or lie in wait in a thicket?
41 Who provides food for the raven
when its young cry out to God
and wander about for lack of food?
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Joshua 24:14-25
14 "Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. 15 But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."
16 Then the people answered, "Far be it from us to forsake the LORD to serve other gods! 17 It was the LORD our God himself who brought us and our fathers up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. 18 And the LORD drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the LORD, because he is our God."
19 Joshua said to the people, "You are not able to serve the LORD. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. 20 If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you."
21 But the people said to Joshua, "No! We will serve the LORD."
22 Then Joshua said, "You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the LORD."
"Yes, we are witnesses," they replied.
23 "Now then," said Joshua, "throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the LORD, the God of Israel."
24 And the people said to Joshua, "We will serve the LORD our God and obey him."
25 On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people, and there at Shechem he drew up for them decrees and laws.
November 4, 2008
Choosing Our Leader
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READ: Joshua 24:14-25
Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve . . . . But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. —Joshua 24:15
Today, millions of people in the United States will cast their votes for a slate of political leaders, including President. After months of campaign speeches, television ads, and debates, each voter has the opportunity to say to one candidate, “I choose you.” Not everyone’s favorite will win, but every voter has a choice.
Unlike a political election in which the majority rules, each of us is given the opportunity to select our personal leader each day. In the spiritual election deep within our hearts, our choice will stand no matter what others may decide.
After many years in the Promised Land of Canaan, the aged Joshua called the people of Israel together and issued this challenge: “If it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:15). In a great collective response, the people said, “We will serve the Lord!” (v.21).
Everyone serves some kind of god. Whom will we choose to have rule in our hearts today? — David C. McCasland
Thy will I choose; I give to Thee
All of the life Thou gavest me;
Thy will I choose, no life I ask
Except to do Thy given task. —Anon.
Each day we choose the one we will follow in life.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
November 4, 2008
The Authority of Truth
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you —James 4:8
It is essential that you give people the opportunity to act on the truth of God. The responsibility must be left with the individual—you cannot act for him. It must be his own deliberate act, but the evangelical message should always lead him to action. Refusing to act leaves a person paralyzed, exactly where he was previously. But once he acts, he is never the same. It is the apparent folly of the truth that stands in the way of hundreds who have been convicted by the Spirit of God. Once I press myself into action, I immediately begin to live. Anything less is merely existing. The moments I truly live are the moments when I act with my entire will.
When a truth of God is brought home to your soul, never allow it to pass without acting on it internally in your will, not necessarily externally in your physical life. Record it with ink and with blood—work it into your life. The weakest saint who transacts business with Jesus Christ is liberated the second he acts and God’s almighty power is available on his behalf. We come up to the truth of God, confess we are wrong, but go back again. Then we approach it again and turn back, until we finally learn we have no business going back. When we are confronted with such a word of truth from our redeeming Lord, we must move directly to transact business with Him. "Come to Me . . ." ( Matthew 11:28 ). His word come means "to act." Yet the last thing we want to do is come. But everyone who does come knows that, at that very moment, the supernatural power of the life of God invades him. The dominating power of the world, the flesh, and the devil is now paralyzed; not by your act, but because your act has joined you to God and tapped you in to His redemptive power.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Knowing the Ending - #5692 - November 4, 2008
Category: Your Most Important Relationship
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
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At a party with some of our ministry staff and volunteers, we had a lot of fun with a common party game. You know, each person brings something they really want to get rid of, beautifully wrapped, of course. Everyone draws a number. When your number comes up, you have the choice of opening one of the unopened gifts and making it yours or taking that unopened package and trading for what someone else has already opened, and then you leave them with whatever is in that still-wrapped package. Somehow, there always ends up being a few items that everyone wants. And depending on how aggressive your people are - and we've had some pretty aggressive ones - they remember who's got the hot item and they go after it with a vengeance. Those few items just keep moving around in trade after trade.
My sister-in-law, who is a wonderful worker in our ministry, actually drew the #1, which meant she didn't get to make a trade at the beginning. But while the trading frenzy for the evening's hot items got more and more intense, she just sat peacefully and quietly through it all, because she remembered the oft-forgotten rule of the game. Since #1 didn't get to make a trade at the beginning of the game, she makes the last trade of the game. So all along, she knew what she wanted. And all along she is sitting there thinking, "I know how this is going to end!"
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Knowing the Ending."
One of the exciting things about what God reveals to us in His Word is that we get to see how things are going to end. The frenzy and chaos may last quite a while, there may be lots of twists and changes, but, like my sister-in-law's perspective on that game, there is no question about how it's going to end up.
Our word for today from the Word of God is the incredible promise of Romans 8:28; the verse that one great writer called "a soft pillow for a long night." Later verses will declare that if God is for us, no one can successfully be against us, that Christ's love makes us conquerors in the worst of life's disasters, that there will never be a life-quake so severe that it will be able to take us out of Jesus' love. But before all that, this promise of how everything in a believer's life will end up. "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose." In the King James, "God works all things together for good."
During the game, it can get really frantic. In fact, it can even hurt a lot. The verse doesn't say everything is good. It says God is working everything together for good - the agony, the ecstasy, the pains, the gains, the losses, even what the devil is doing to you. Paul's thorn in the flesh wasn't good in itself; it hurt him, it frustrated him, and the Bible says it was a "messenger from Satan." But Paul saw the good that came later in the game. The pain had brought him to the end of himself and into an experience of God's power that only the powerless ever touch. The gain was far greater than the pain.
That is the implied guarantee of Romans 8, that God will not allow it in your life unless it can be used for a greater good. No matter how hard this current situation is to understand, no matter how almost unbearable the pain, it's possible for you to keep going with this unexplainable sense of peace and well-being. Because while God never guarantees that all the chapters will be happy, He does guarantee a happy ending.
The outcome - a better family, a better ministry, a better business, a better you if you will stay on the Jesus-path, if you will let the struggle turn you to your Lord, not away from Him. He will do what will bring you the greatest good and Him the greatest glory. Relax in that guarantee, no matter how it looks now.
As the pressure and the frenzy increase around you, you'll be able to sit there with this wonderful inner calm saying because of your Sovereign Lord, "I know how this going to end."
