Daily Devotional by Max Lucado
“the One who came still comes and the One who spoke still speaks”
November 7
The Standard
We are made holy through the sacrifice Christ made in his body once and for all time.
Hebrews 10:10 (NCV)
Only the holy will see God. Holiness is a prerequisite to heaven. Perfection is a requirement for eternity. We wish it weren't so. We act like it isn't so. We act like those who are "decent" will see God. We suggest that those who try hard will see God. We act as if we're good if we never do any-thing too bad. And that goodness is enough to qualify us for heaven.
Sounds right to us, but it doesn't sound right to God. And he sets the standard. And the standard is high. "You must be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect" (Matt 5:48).
You see, in God's plan, God is the standard for perfection. We don't compare ourselves to others; they are just as fouled up as we are. The goal is to be like him; anything less is inadequate.
Job 41
1 "Can you pull in the leviathan [l] with a fishhook
or tie down his tongue with a rope?
2 Can you put a cord through his nose
or pierce his jaw with a hook?
3 Will he keep begging you for mercy?
Will he speak to you with gentle words?
4 Will he make an agreement with you
for you to take him as your slave for life?
5 Can you make a pet of him like a bird
or put him on a leash for your girls?
6 Will traders barter for him?
Will they divide him up among the merchants?
7 Can you fill his hide with harpoons
or his head with fishing spears?
8 If you lay a hand on him,
you will remember the struggle and never do it again!
9 Any hope of subduing him is false;
the mere sight of him is overpowering.
10 No one is fierce enough to rouse him.
Who then is able to stand against me?
11 Who has a claim against me that I must pay?
Everything under heaven belongs to me.
12 "I will not fail to speak of his limbs,
his strength and his graceful form.
13 Who can strip off his outer coat?
Who would approach him with a bridle?
14 Who dares open the doors of his mouth,
ringed about with his fearsome teeth?
15 His back has [m] rows of shields
tightly sealed together;
16 each is so close to the next
that no air can pass between.
17 They are joined fast to one another;
they cling together and cannot be parted.
18 His snorting throws out flashes of light;
his eyes are like the rays of dawn.
19 Firebrands stream from his mouth;
sparks of fire shoot out.
20 Smoke pours from his nostrils
as from a boiling pot over a fire of reeds.
21 His breath sets coals ablaze,
and flames dart from his mouth.
22 Strength resides in his neck;
dismay goes before him.
23 The folds of his flesh are tightly joined;
they are firm and immovable.
24 His chest is hard as rock,
hard as a lower millstone.
25 When he rises up, the mighty are terrified;
they retreat before his thrashing.
26 The sword that reaches him has no effect,
nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin.
27 Iron he treats like straw
and bronze like rotten wood.
28 Arrows do not make him flee;
slingstones are like chaff to him.
29 A club seems to him but a piece of straw;
he laughs at the rattling of the lance.
30 His undersides are jagged potsherds,
leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge.
31 He makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron
and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment.
32 Behind him he leaves a glistening wake;
one would think the deep had white hair.
33 Nothing on earth is his equal—
a creature without fear.
34 He looks down on all that are haughty;
he is king over all that are proud."
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Psalm 70
For the director of music. Of David. A petition.
1 Hasten, O God, to save me;
O LORD, come quickly to help me.
2 May those who seek my life
be put to shame and confusion;
may all who desire my ruin
be turned back in disgrace.
3 May those who say to me, "Aha! Aha!"
turn back because of their shame.
4 But may all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you;
may those who love your salvation always say,
"Let God be exalted!"
5 Yet I am poor and needy;
come quickly to me, O God.
You are my help and my deliverer;
O LORD, do not delay.
November 7, 2008
Waiting
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READ: Psalm 70
Make haste to help me, O Lord! —Psalm 70:1
Make haste to help me, O Lord!” the psalmist David prayed (Ps. 70:1). Like him, we don’t like to wait. We dislike the long lines at super-market checkout counters, and the traffic jams downtown and around shopping malls. We hate to wait at the bank or at a restaurant.
And then there are the harder waits: a childless couple waiting for a child; a single person waiting for marriage; an addict waiting for deliverance; a spouse waiting for a kind and gentle word; a worried patient waiting for a diagnosis from a doctor.
What we wait for, however, is far less important than what God is doing while we wait. In such times He works in us to develop those hard-to-achieve spiritual virtues of meekness, kindness, and patience with others. But more important, we learn to lean on God alone and to “rejoice and be glad” in Him (v.4).
F. B. Meyer said, “What a chapter might be written of God’s delays! It is the mystery of the art of educating human spirits to the finest temper of which they are capable. What searchings of heart, what analyzings of motives, what testings of the Word of God, what upliftings of soul. . . . All these are associated with those weary days of waiting, which are, nevertheless, big with spiritual destiny.” — David H. Roper
Be still, My child, and know that I am God!
Wait thou patiently—I know the path you trod.
So falter not, nor fear, nor think to run and hide,
For I, thy hope and strength, am waiting by thy side. —Hein
God stretches our patience to enlarge our soul.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
November 7, 2008
The Undetected Sacredness of Circumstances
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READ:
We know that all things work together for good to those who love God . . . —Romans 8:28
The circumstances of a saint’s life are ordained of God. In the life of a saint there is no such thing as chance. God by His providence brings you into circumstances that you can’t understand at all, but the Spirit of God understands. God brings you to places, among people, and into certain conditions to accomplish a definite purpose through the intercession of the Spirit in you. Never put yourself in front of your circumstances and say, "I’m going to be my own providence here; I will watch this closely, or protect myself from that." All your circumstances are in the hand of God, and therefore you don’t ever have to think they are unnatural or unique. Your part in intercessory prayer is not to agonize over how to intercede, but to use the everyday circumstances and people God puts around you by His providence to bring them before His throne, and to allow the Spirit in you the opportunity to intercede for them. In this way God is going to touch the whole world with His saints.
Am I making the Holy Spirit’s work difficult by being vague and unsure, or by trying to do His work for Him? I must do the human side of intercession— utilizing the circumstances in which I find myself and the people who surround me. I must keep my conscious life as a sacred place for the Holy Spirit. Then as I lift different ones to God through prayer, the Holy Spirit intercedes for them.
Your intercessions can never be mine, and my intercessions can never be yours, ". . . but the Spirit Himself makes intercession" in each of our lives ( Romans 8:26 ). And without that intercession, the lives of others would be left in poverty and in ruin.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Treasure in the Trash - #5695 - November 7, 2008
Category: Your Personal Power
Friday, November 7, 2008
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My Mom didn't know it, but man, did she make a mistake! I know that now because of my son's long-time interest in baseball card collecting...actually, baseball card investing. He knows what those cards are worth - especially the rare ones. One card can be worth many hundreds, or even thousands of dollars. I think I had some of those valuable cards when I was a kid. I had players like Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams among them. Cards like that are worth big bucks today! Of course, I don't have them anymore. Sometime when she was moving, my mother threw them away!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Treasure in the Trash."
My mother had no idea of the value of what she was throwing away. A lot of people make that same mistake, because they don't know how much they're worth. When you've been put down, left out, mistreated, or abandoned, you can battle feelings of worthlessness your whole life no matter how successful you may become. Maybe it's a feeling you know all too well. And, tragically, those of us who don't know what we're worth have a tendency to throw ourselves away on bad relationships, low goals and self-destructive choices.
But this very day, the person who created you wants to remind you how much you are worth. In Matthew 13:44, our word for today from the Word of God, Jesus is telling one of His parables. He says, "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field." The parable right before this indicates that the field is this world we live in and the man in the field is Jesus. And the buried treasure? That's you and me.
It's very possible you've been such a buried treasure that you don't even know you're a treasure! But Jesus thinks so! I love one thought that George W. Bush expressed in his Inaugural Address. He said, "No insignificant person was ever born." God would agree with that! He says in Ephesians 2:10 that "we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do." So all those people who have treated you like you're worthless - they don't know who you really are. You're God's workmanship!
And here's the ultimate proof of how much Jesus values you. In the words of His parable, "He went out and sold all He had" so you could belong to Him. The reason we feel like we're worth so little is ultimately because we're away from the One who gave us our worth. The Bible describes us as being "without God" (Ephesians 2:12) because we've taken over the running of our own lives. Notice the middle letter of sin is "I." All of our sinning has put a wall between us and the God who made us for himself.
But when Jesus died on the cross, He was giving "all He had" to pay the price for all the wrong things you have ever done. In your heart, for just a moment, would you walk up that hill the Bible calls Skull Hill and just stand there quietly at the foot of that cross where the Son of God is pouring out His life for you. Look at Him dying for you! You are not worthless!
But you'll never know how valuable you are until you give yourself to the One who died to buy you back; which you could do right now, right where you are. Tell Jesus you want to belong to Him, that the rest of your life is His.
I want to invite you to our website, because you'll find there a lot of practical steps to help you know that you belong to Jesus Christ. It's all about how to begin life's most important relationship. I hope you'll check it out. It's at YoursForLife.net. Or I'd be glad to send you my free booklet Yours For Life if you'll just call and ask us for it at 877-741-1200.
See, Jesus doesn't want to lose you. That's why He paid for you with His life. This could be the day that you finally belong to the One who loves you like you've never been loved before.
