Jesus came to take your hell so He could give you His heaven
Luke 12:16-20
16 And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop.
17 He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'
18 "Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.
19 And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry."'
20 "But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'
Daily Devotional by Max Lucado
“the One who came still comes and the One who spoke still speaks”
February 18
Blessings at God’s Table
You prepare a meal for me in front of my enemies.
Psalm 23:5 (NCV)
Pause and envision the scene in [God's] royal dining room....
Driven not by our beauty but by his promise, he calls us to himself and invites us to take a permanent place at his table.... We take our place next to the other sinners-made-saints and we share in God's glory.
May I share a partial list of what awaits you at his table?
You are beyond condemnation (Rom. 8:1).
You are a member of his kingdom (Col. 1:13).
You have been adopted (Rom. 8:15).
You have access to God at any moment (Eph. 2:18).
You will never be abandoned (Heb. 13:5).
You have an imperishable inheritance (1 Pet. 1:4).
Chronicles 8
Solomon's Other Activities
1 At the end of twenty years, during which Solomon built the temple of the LORD and his own palace, 2 Solomon rebuilt the villages that Hiram [g] had given him, and settled Israelites in them. 3 Solomon then went to Hamath Zobah and captured it. 4 He also built up Tadmor in the desert and all the store cities he had built in Hamath. 5 He rebuilt Upper Beth Horon and Lower Beth Horon as fortified cities, with walls and with gates and bars, 6 as well as Baalath and all his store cities, and all the cities for his chariots and for his horses [h] —whatever he desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon and throughout all the territory he ruled.
7 All the people left from the Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites (these peoples were not Israelites), 8 that is, their descendants remaining in the land, whom the Israelites had not destroyed—these Solomon conscripted for his slave labor force, as it is to this day. 9 But Solomon did not make slaves of the Israelites for his work; they were his fighting men, commanders of his captains, and commanders of his chariots and charioteers. 10 They were also King Solomon's chief officials—two hundred and fifty officials supervising the men.
11 Solomon brought Pharaoh's daughter up from the City of David to the palace he had built for her, for he said, "My wife must not live in the palace of David king of Israel, because the places the ark of the LORD has entered are holy."
12 On the altar of the LORD that he had built in front of the portico, Solomon sacrificed burnt offerings to the LORD, 13 according to the daily requirement for offerings commanded by Moses for Sabbaths, New Moons and the three annual feasts—the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles. 14 In keeping with the ordinance of his father David, he appointed the divisions of the priests for their duties, and the Levites to lead the praise and to assist the priests according to each day's requirement. He also appointed the gatekeepers by divisions for the various gates, because this was what David the man of God had ordered. 15 They did not deviate from the king's commands to the priests or to the Levites in any matter, including that of the treasuries.
16 All Solomon's work was carried out, from the day the foundation of the temple of the LORD was laid until its completion. So the temple of the LORD was finished.
17 Then Solomon went to Ezion Geber and Elath on the coast of Edom. 18 And Hiram sent him ships commanded by his own officers, men who knew the sea. These, with Solomon's men, sailed to Ophir and brought back four hundred and fifty talents [i] of gold, which they delivered to King Solomon.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Psalm 126
A song of ascents.
1 When the LORD brought back the captives to [a] Zion,
we were like men who dreamed. [b]
2 Our mouths were filled with laughter,
our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
"The LORD has done great things for them."
3 The LORD has done great things for us,
and we are filled with joy.
4 Restore our fortunes, [c] O LORD,
like streams in the Negev.
5 Those who sow in tears
will reap with songs of joy.
6 He who goes out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves with him.
February 18, 2009
Making Melody
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READ: Psalm 126
Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. —Ephesians 5:19
Do you know why bees hum? It’s because they can’t remember the words!
Ironically, that old joke reminds me of a serious story I read about a man awaiting heart bypass surgery. He was aware that people die during surgery. As he thought about all that could go wrong, he felt very much alone.
Then an orderly walked into his room to take him to surgery. As the young man began to push his gurney along the corridor, the patient heard him humming an ancient Irish hymn, “Be Thou My Vision.” It prompted his memories of lush green fields and the ancient stone ruins of Ireland, the land of his birth. The hymn flooded his soul like a fresh breath of home. When the orderly finished with that song, he hummed Horatio Spafford’s hymn, “It Is Well With My Soul.”
When they stopped outside the surgical suite, the man thanked him for the hymns. “God has used you this day,” he said, “to remove my fears and restore my soul.” “How so?” the orderly asked in surprise. “Your ‘hums’ brought God to me,” the man replied.
“The Lord has done great things for us” (Ps. 126:3). He has filled our heart with song. He may even use our “hums” to restore someone’s soul. — David H. Roper
Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart—
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art;
Thou my best thought, by day or by night—
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light. —Irish hymn
© Chatto and Windus, Ltd., London.
Praise flows freely from the choir of the redeemed.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
February 18, 2009
Taking the Initiative Against Despair
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READ:
Rise, let us be going —Matthew 26:46
In the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples went to sleep when they should have stayed awake, and once they realized what they had done it produced despair. The sense of having done something irreversible tends to make us despair. We say, "Well, it’s all over and ruined now; what’s the point in trying anymore." If we think this kind of despair is an exception, we are mistaken. It is a very ordinary human experience. Whenever we realize we have not taken advantage of a magnificent opportunity, we are apt to sink into despair. But Jesus comes and lovingly says to us, in essence, "Sleep on now. That opportunity is lost forever and you can’t change that. But get up, and let’s go on to the next thing." In other words, let the past sleep, but let it sleep in the sweet embrace of Christ, and let us go on into the invincible future with Him.
There will be experiences like this in each of our lives. We will have times of despair caused by real events in our lives, and we will be unable to lift ourselves out of them. The disciples, in this instance, had done a downright unthinkable thing— they had gone to sleep instead of watching with Jesus. But our Lord came to them taking the spiritual initiative against their despair and said, in effect, "Get up, and do the next thing." If we are inspired by God, what is the next thing? It is to trust Him absolutely and to pray on the basis of His redemption.
Never let the sense of past failure defeat your next step.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
The Unprepared Nightmare - #5768
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
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It's one nightmare that is sure to either wake me up or ruin my sleep. I'm about to be introduced to speak at some very important gathering and I have nothing to say. I''ve run out of time to prepare anything, and they are introducing a man who has no idea what he's going to talk about. But, you know, I'm not the only one who has nightmares about not being prepared. In fact, it is one of the more common themes of our bad dreams. Now, what you're unprepared for depends on your situation at that point. Some people have nightmares about not being prepared for an exam, or to give a report, or to conduct an important meeting, or to have important guests arrive at your house. Whatever your thing is, that "not ready" thing is real nightmare material.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The 'Unprepared' Nightmare."
For most of us, there's one "not ready" scenario that should be our ultimate nightmare; the nightmare of suddenly having our life end and being unprepared to stand before God; to be unprepared to enter eternity. That nightmare is really going to happen unless we prepare in the only way God says we can.
Jesus portrayed this nightmare scenario in Luke 12:16-20, and it's our word for today from the Word of God. He described a rich man whose business was booming who said, "'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself 'You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.' But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you.'"
Here's a man who's put a lot of time and energy into being prepared for living his life and no preparation into being prepared for losing his life. Maybe like someone who's listening today. For you, for me, there will come a day when God will say, "This very night, this very day your life will be demanded from you." Only He knows when your appointment with Him is. And it can't be rescheduled, it can't be cancelled, or it can't be postponed.
And standing before God at that moment is the worst nightmare of all if we haven't had our sins forgiven by Him. If we're still carrying the sins of our life, we have no hope of entering God's perfect heaven; we have no hope of avoiding hell. But you don't have to be unprepared because Jesus Christ has died to pay for every wrong thing, every selfish thing, every hurting thing you've ever done. And when you reach out to Him to be your personal Rescuer from your sin and from its penalty, you are forgiven of your sin and you're made ready to meet God.
But maybe you've been putting a lot of other things ahead of dealing with Jesus - things that will seem so trivial in light of eternity. Maybe you've never really rejected Jesus, but you've never really accepted Him for yourself either. Well, not to decide is to decide. Not to grab a rescuer's hand is to decide to die. Maybe you've been relying on your Christianity to save you but not on Christ. You're not ready to meet God.
But you can be this very day. Jesus has said, "He that comes to Me, I will never cast out" (John 6:37). And this is your day to come home to Him. Would you tell Him right where you are, "Jesus, I am Yours from this moment on. You went to a cross to pay the penalty for every wrong thing I have ever done against God. You walked out of your grave under your own power. You're alive today, and I want to belong to you from today on. I'm putting all my trust in You."
If you want to get things settled with Him, I would encourage you to check out our website as soon as you could get to it today. You'll find a lot of practical help there in knowing exactly how to belong to Jesus Christ and be sure that you do. Just go to YoursForLife.net.
Jesus came to take your hell so He could give you His heaven