Daily Devotional by Max Lucado
“the One who came still comes and the One who spoke still speaks”
September 10
Store Up the Sweet
Whatever is true, whatever is honorable,…if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
Philippians 4:8 (RSV)
Change the thoughts, and you change the person. If today’s thoughts are tomorrow’s actions, what happens when we fill our minds with thoughts of God’s love? Will standing beneath the downpour of his grace change the way we feel about others?
Paul says absolutely! It’s not enough to keep the bad stuff out. We’ve got to let the good stuff in. It’s not enough to keep no list of wrongs. We have to cultivate a list of blessings: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Thinking conveys the idea of pondering—studying and focusing, allowing what is viewed to have an impact on us.
Rather than store up the sour, store up the sweet.
3 John 1
1The elder,
To my dear friend Gaius, whom I love in the truth.
2Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well. 3It gave me great joy to have some brothers come and tell about your faithfulness to the truth and how you continue to walk in the truth. 4I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.
5Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers, even though they are strangers to you. 6They have told the church about your love. You will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God. 7It was for the sake of the Name that they went out, receiving no help from the pagans. 8We ought therefore to show hospitality to such men so that we may work together for the truth.
9I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will have nothing to do with us. 10So if I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, gossiping maliciously about us. Not satisfied with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church.
11Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God. 12Demetrius is well spoken of by everyone—and even by the truth itself. We also speak well of him, and you know that our testimony is true.
13I have much to write you, but I do not want to do so with pen and ink. 14I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face.
Peace to you. The friends here send their greetings. Greet the friends there by name.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Psalm 119:9-16 (New International Version)
9 How can a young man keep his way pure?
By living according to your word.
10 I seek you with all my heart;
do not let me stray from your commands.
11 I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you.
12 Praise be to you, O LORD;
teach me your decrees.
13 With my lips I recount
all the laws that come from your mouth.
14 I rejoice in following your statutes
as one rejoices in great riches.
15 I meditate on your precepts
and consider your ways.
16 I delight in your decrees;
I will not neglect your word.
September 10, 2009
Untended Places
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READ: Psalm 119:9-16
Your Word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You. —Psalm 119:11
Our family had just arrived at the lake cottage we had rented for a week of much-anticipated vacation when my wife discovered the unmistakable evidence of spiders and mice in the house. It wasn’t that we had never encountered such things, but that we had expected the cottage to be cleaned and prepared for our stay there. Instead, the counters, cabinets, and beds were littered with the residue of infestation, requiring much cleaning before we settled in. It wasn’t a bad house; it had just been left untended.
We might be guilty of dealing with our hearts the way that cottage was managed. Our “untended places” can become breeding grounds for infestations of wrong thinking, poor attitudes, or sinful behavior—creating problems that require significant attention to correct. The wise path is to recognize our need to tend our hearts by staying in God’s Word and embracing its truths.
In Psalm 119:11, King David recognized the danger of not building our lives on the Scriptures. He said, “Your Word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.”
With a focus on the Word, we can build strong spiritual lives that will help us avoid the dangers that inevitably grow in untended places. — Bill Crowder
Give me, O Lord, a strong desire
To look within Your Word each day;
Help me to hide it in my heart,
Lest from its truth my feet would stray. —Branon
To grow spiritually strong, read the Word.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
September 10, 2009
Missionary Weapons (1)
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READ:
When you were under the fig tree, I saw you —John 1:48
Worshiping in Everyday Occasions. We presume that we would be ready for battle if confronted with a great crisis, but it is not the crisis that builds something within us— it simply reveals what we are made of already. Do you find yourself saying, "If God calls me to battle, of course I will rise to the occasion"? Yet you won’t rise to the occasion unless you have done so on God’s training ground. If you are not doing the task that is closest to you now, which God has engineered into your life, when the crisis comes, instead of being fit for battle, you will be revealed as being unfit. Crises always reveal a person’s true character.
A private relationship of worshiping God is the greatest essential element of spiritual fitness. The time will come, as Nathanael experienced in this passage, that a private "fig-tree" life will no longer be possible. Everything will be out in the open, and you will find yourself to be of no value there if you have not been worshiping in everyday occasions in your own home. If your worship is right in your private relationship with God, then when He sets you free, you will be ready. It is in the unseen life, which only God saw, that you have become perfectly fit. And when the strain of the crisis comes, you can be relied upon by God.
Are you saying, "But I can’t be expected to live a sanctified life in my present circumstances; I have no time for prayer or Bible study right now; besides, my opportunity for battle hasn’t come yet, but when it does, of course I will be ready"? No, you will not. If you have not been worshiping in everyday occasions, when you get involved in God’s work, you will not only be useless yourself but also a hindrance to those around you.
God’s training ground, where the missionary weapons are found, is the hidden, personal, worshiping life of the saint.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Living with Someone Else's Heart - #5914
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Some dear friends of ours lost their 19-year-old son. Because of the way it happened, his death was really a sudden, gut-wrenching tragedy. But with Jesus as their anchor, even through this, his mom and dad declared that "God wants life to come from his death." One way that's happened is through their decision to donate his organs to help save and improve some other lives. Not long after their son's death, the word came that someone in a neighboring state had received their son's heart. That's been a source of comfort and encouragement to them. As they say, "Our son's heart is giving life to someone else."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Living with Someone Else's Heart."
In a sense, Jesus wants to give you a new life by giving you a new heart spiritually - His heart. To live your life seeing what He sees in the lives around you, caring about the things He cares about. It's part of the miracle that happens when you turn your life over to Jesus. He fulfills the promise of Ezekiel 36:26-27, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit in you."
When you ask Jesus to put His heart in you, your life can never be the same. Paul talked about what a Jesus-heart does in our word for today from the Word of God. It's in 2 Corinthians 5, beginning with verse 14. "Christ's love compels us." Suddenly the love Jesus has for this world is part of you, and that love drives you to touch as many lives as possible with that love. Paul goes on to describe the dramatic revolution that takes place in what, or who, you live for. "He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again." Our natural bent is to live for ourselves, right? What makes us look good, what makes us comfortable, what fulfills our desires and what advances our agenda. But when Jesus puts His selfless heart in you, it's not all about you anymore. It's all about Him and about the people He died for. Your life is never the same.
A life that's all about your needs and your agenda is a very small life. A life that's all about Jesus, all about the needs of others, all about introducing people to Jesus - that's a super-sized life - one with the satisfaction of knowing you are fulfilling your created destiny. But it takes a new heart, because our heart is, by itself, self-centered and earth-centered. It's not eternity centered.
When Jesus plants His heart in you, you finally realize who you really are and why you are where you are. Paul says, "We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God was making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: be reconciled to God."
Going to work is never the same again; going to school, going to the club or the gym, even going home to your neighborhood, because now you see the people there through Jesus' eyes - future inhabitants of hell - unless someone helps them get to heaven by getting them to Jesus. You now know you are there on Christ's behalf, saying what He would say to them, trying to rescue them as He would rescue them. And your everyday stuff is never everyday again; it's got eternal significance.
If your life has been very full but not very fulfilling, if you want the rest of your life to really count, if you want to live your life for something that will outlast you, then it's time for you to open up your heart to receive the heart of Jesus. It begins when you pray, "Go ahead, God, and break my heart for the things that break Yours. Go ahead and fill my heart with the love and the burden that fills Yours." Then fasten your seatbelt for a life of spiritual greatness. With His heart in you, you will live a life you could have no other way. Don't settle for anything less.
