Daily Devotional by Max Lucado
“the One who came still comes and the One who spoke still speaks”
September 8
One Explanation
After I rise from the dead, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.
Matthew 26:32 (NCV)
Remember [Christ’s] followers’ fear at the crucifixion? They ran. Scared as cats in a dog pound.
But fast-forward forty days. Bankrupt traitors have become a force of life-changing fury. Peter is preaching in the very precinct where Christ was arrested. Followers of Christ defy the enemies of Christ. Whip them and they’ll worship. Lock them up and they’ll launch a jailhouse ministry. As bold after the Resurrection as they were cowardly before it.
Explanation:
Greed? They made no money.
Power? They gave all the credit to Christ.
Popularity? Most were killed for their beliefs.
Only one explanation remains—a resurrected Christ and his Holy Spirit. The courage of these men and women was forged in the fire of the empty tomb.
1 John 3
1How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears,[g]we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.
4Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. 5But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. 6No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
7Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. 9No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. 10This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.
Love one another
11This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous. 13Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. 14We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
16This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 17If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 19This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence 20whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
21Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. 23And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
2 Corinthians 1:3-11 (New International Version)
The God of All Comfort
3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 6If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
8We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. 9Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, 11as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our[a] behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.
September 8, 2009
Comforted To Comfort
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READ: 2 Corinthians 1:3-11
[God] comforts us . . . that we may be able to comfort [others] with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. —2 Corinthians 1:4
While speaking to a group of Christian athletes, I asked them how they normally responded to hardships. Their responses included fear, anger, self-pity, aggression, despair, abusive behavior, apathy, and turning to God. I encouraged them to trust that God would comfort them and then use them to comfort others.
Just as I encouraged those athletes, Paul encouraged a group of believers in a town called Corinth. He reminded them that afflictions were inevitable for the follower of Jesus. Many were being persecuted, imprisoned, and oppressed—all because of their relationship with Jesus. Paul wanted the Corinthians to know that in the midst of their trouble God was their source of help. He would come to their side and help them to have godly responses. Then Paul gave one of the reasons God allowed suffering and brought divine comfort—so that the Corinthians might have the empathy to enter into other people’s sorrow and comfort them (2 Cor. 1:4).
When we suffer, let us remember that God will bring comfort to us through His Word, by the Holy Spirit, and through fellow believers. God does not comfort us so that we’ll be comfortable; we are comforted by God so that we might be comforters. — Marvin Williams
When you receive God’s comfort,
Be sure to pass it on,
Then give to God the glory
From whom the comfort’s drawn. —Hess
When God permits trials, He also provides comfort.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
September 8, 2009
Do It Yourself (1)
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READ:
. . . casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God . . . —2 Corinthians 10:5
Determinedly Demolish Some Things. Deliverance from sin is not the same as deliverance from human nature. There are things in human nature, such as prejudices, that the saint can only destroy through sheer neglect. But there are other things that have to be destroyed through violence, that is, through God’s divine strength imparted by His Spirit. There are some things over which we are not to fight, but only to "stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord . . ." (see Exodus 14:13). But every theory or thought that raises itself up as a fortified barrier "against the knowledge of God" is to be determinedly demolished by drawing on God’s power, not through human effort or by compromise (see 2 Corinthians 10:4).
It is only when God has transformed our nature and we have entered into the experience of sanctification that the fight begins. The warfare is not against sin; we can never fight against sin— Jesus Christ conquered that in His redemption of us. The conflict is waged over turning our natural life into a spiritual life. This is never done easily, nor does God intend that it be so. It is accomplished only through a series of moral choices. God does not make us holy in the sense that He makes our character holy. He makes us holy in the sense that He has made us innocent before Him. And then we have to turn that innocence into holy character through the moral choices we make. These choices are continually opposed and hostile to the things of our natural life which have become so deeply entrenched— the very things that raise themselves up as fortified barriers "against the knowledge of God." We can either turn back, making ourselves of no value to the kingdom of God, or we can determinedly demolish these things, allowing Jesus to bring another son to glory (see Hebrews 2:10).
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
The Amazing View Up Close - #5912
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Your first clue that something unusual ahead is a sign on the Interstate announcing what they call "the biggest cross in the Western Hemisphere." And, sure enough, as you approach that spot in Texas, you begin to see a large white cross on the horizon. Actually, it doesn't look all that large from a distance. Then, as you drive that direction, it looks more and more impressive. Until you are coming up on it; (or especially when you do what I did), you stop and you stand at the foot of it - that cross is huge!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Amazing View Up Close."
When you're far away, that cross is nice but it's not particularly impressive. But the closer you get, the bigger it looks. Sadly, there are people, even good church people, who go through their life never realizing the magnitude of the God they belong to. He's nice, but they never really see how big He is because they never get close enough to Him to experience His amazingness. Their God is too small, so their life is too small.
The Apostle Paul didn't want the believers that he cared about to miss the awesomeness of the God that they had. In Ephesians 3, beginning with verse 17, our word for today from the Word of God, he says, "I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power...to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." (In other words so you can experience everything God's got.) Then Paul, who has paid the price to see God up close, describes what He's like when you see Him up close. He describes God as "Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us."
You don't get to see God that big by just taking your place at church every time the doors are open. You never see the amazingness of your Lord by just reading the Bible when you get around to it; by praying general, predictable prayers; by obeying God's Holy Spirit only when it's not too hard or too risky. It is possible to be around Almighty God for your whole life and just keep a safe distance. You've determined how big God's piece of your life is going to be and that's that. But you will never know what your life could have been if you'd dare to step on the spiritual accelerator and experience God up close. When you do that, nothing else in your life ever needs to be overwhelming to you again except the overwhelming size of your God.
If you want to experience a big, big God, make a daily time with Him in His Word the non-negotiable of your personal schedule. You can't specialize in your Lord unless you specialize in His Word. Throw open the doors of your heart and tell Him, "Lord, I've played it safe long enough. I'm ready to go for everything you've got by surrendering to you everything I've got." Tell Him you're ready to follow Him out of your comfort zone; beyond where it feels safe.
We make serious mistakes because we forget, or we don't know, how very big our God is. We overestimate earth-stuff and underestimate our Almighty God. A safe distance isn't really all that safe is it? Don't just believe in Him, pursue Him with everything you've got. The closer you get, the more amazing He looks.
