Daily Devotional by Max Lucado
“the One who came still comes and the One who spoke still speaks”
November 17
Confident in the Father
The LORD comforts his people and will have pity on those who suffer.
Isaiah 49:13 (NCV)
If you'll celebrate a marriage anniversary alone this year, [God] speaks to you.
If your child made it to heaven before making it to kindergarten, he speaks to you. . . .
If your dreams were buried as they lowered the casket, God speaks to you.
He speaks to all of us who have stood or will stand in the soft dirt near an open grave. And to us he gives this confident word: "I want you to know what happens to a Christian when he dies so that when it happens, you will not be full of sorrow, as those are who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and then came back to life again, we can also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him all the Christians who have died" (1 Thess. 4:13-14 TLB).
From: When Christ Comes
Copyright (Word Publishing, 1999)
Max Lucado
Judges 16
Samson and Delilah
1 One day Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute. He went in to spend the night with her. 2 The people of Gaza were told, "Samson is here!" So they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They made no move during the night, saying, "At dawn we'll kill him."
3 But Samson lay there only until the middle of the night. Then he got up and took hold of the doors of the city gate, together with the two posts, and tore them loose, bar and all. He lifted them to his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron.
4 Some time later, he fell in love with a woman in the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah. 5 The rulers of the Philistines went to her and said, "See if you can lure him into showing you the secret of his great strength and how we can overpower him so we may tie him up and subdue him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels [g] of silver."
6 So Delilah said to Samson, "Tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued."
7 Samson answered her, "If anyone ties me with seven fresh thongs [h] that have not been dried, I'll become as weak as any other man."
8 Then the rulers of the Philistines brought her seven fresh thongs that had not been dried, and she tied him with them. 9 With men hidden in the room, she called to him, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you!" But he snapped the thongs as easily as a piece of string snaps when it comes close to a flame. So the secret of his strength was not discovered.
10 Then Delilah said to Samson, "You have made a fool of me; you lied to me. Come now, tell me how you can be tied."
11 He said, "If anyone ties me securely with new ropes that have never been used, I'll become as weak as any other man."
12 So Delilah took new ropes and tied him with them. Then, with men hidden in the room, she called to him, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you!" But he snapped the ropes off his arms as if they were threads.
13 Delilah then said to Samson, "Until now, you have been making a fool of me and lying to me. Tell me how you can be tied."
He replied, "If you weave the seven braids of my head into the fabric on the loom and tighten it with the pin, I'll become as weak as any other man." So while he was sleeping, Delilah took the seven braids of his head, wove them into the fabric 14 and [i] tightened it with the pin.
Again she called to him, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you!" He awoke from his sleep and pulled up the pin and the loom, with the fabric.
15 Then she said to him, "How can you say, 'I love you,' when you won't confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven't told me the secret of your great strength." 16 With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was tired to death.
17 So he told her everything. "No razor has ever been used on my head," he said, "because I have been a Nazirite set apart to God since birth. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man."
18 When Delilah saw that he had told her everything, she sent word to the rulers of the Philistines, "Come back once more; he has told me everything." So the rulers of the Philistines returned with the silver in their hands. 19 Having put him to sleep on her lap, she called a man to shave off the seven braids of his hair, and so began to subdue him. [j] And his strength left him.
20 Then she called, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you!"
He awoke from his sleep and thought, "I'll go out as before and shake myself free." But he did not know that the LORD had left him.
21 Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding in the prison. 22 But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.
The Death of Samson
23 Now the rulers of the Philistines assembled to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to celebrate, saying, "Our god has delivered Samson, our enemy, into our hands."
24 When the people saw him, they praised their god, saying,
"Our god has delivered our enemy
into our hands,
the one who laid waste our land
and multiplied our slain."
25 While they were in high spirits, they shouted, "Bring out Samson to entertain us." So they called Samson out of the prison, and he performed for them.
When they stood him among the pillars, 26 Samson said to the servant who held his hand, "Put me where I can feel the pillars that support the temple, so that I may lean against them." 27 Now the temple was crowded with men and women; all the rulers of the Philistines were there, and on the roof were about three thousand men and women watching Samson perform. 28 Then Samson prayed to the LORD, "O Sovereign LORD, remember me. O God, please strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes." 29 Then Samson reached toward the two central pillars on which the temple stood. Bracing himself against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other, 30 Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines!" Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived.
31 Then his brothers and his father's whole family went down to get him. They brought him back and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. He had led [k] Israel twenty years.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Mark 12:41-44 (New International Version)
The Widow's Offering
41Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. 42But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins,[a]worth only a fraction of a penny.[b]
43Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. 44They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on."
November 17, 2009
Two Mites
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READ: Mark 12:41-44
She out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood. —Mark 12:44
Jesus sat in the temple near the treasury and watched as people walked by and deposited their gifts for the temple (Mark 12). Some made a show of it, perhaps so others could see how much they had given. Just then a poor woman came by and threw in two “mites.”
A mite was the least valuable coin in circulation. Thus the widow’s gift was very small, amounting to nothing in most folk’s eyes. But our Lord saw what others did not see. She had given “all that she had” (Mark 12:44). The widow wasn’t trying to draw attention to herself. She was simply doing what she was able to do. And Jesus noticed!
We mustn’t forget that our Lord sees all that we do, though it may seem very small. It may be nothing more than showing a cheerful countenance in difficult times or an unnoticed act of love and kindness to someone who happens to pass by. It may be a brief, silent prayer for a neighbor in need.
Jesus said, “Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. . . . But when you do a charitable deed, . . . may [it] be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly” (Matt. 6:1-4). — David H. Roper
May our gifts be sacrificial,
From our hearts, and full of love;
Secretive and never showy,
Pleasing our great God above. —Sper
God looks at the heart, not the hand; the giver, not the gift.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
November 17, 2009
The Eternal Goal
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READ:
By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing . . . I will bless you . . . —Genesis 22:16-17
Abraham, at this point, has reached where he is in touch with the very nature of God. He now understands the reality of God.
My goal is God Himself . . .
At any cost, dear Lord, by any road.
"At any cost . . . by any road" means submitting to God’s way of bringing us to the goal.
There is no possibility of questioning God when He speaks, if He speaks to His own nature in me. Prompt obedience is the only result. When Jesus says, "Come," I simply come; when He says, "Let go," I let go; when He says, "Trust God in this matter," I trust. This work of obedience is the evidence that the nature of God is in me.
God’s revelation of Himself to me is influenced by my character, not by God’s character.
’Tis because I am ordinary,
Thy ways so often look ordinary to me.
It is through the discipline of obedience that I get to the place where Abraham was and I see who God is. God will never be real to me until I come face to face with Him in Jesus Christ. Then I will know and can boldly proclaim, "In all the world, my God, there is none but Thee, there is none but Thee."
The promises of God are of no value to us until, through obedience, we come to understand the nature of God. We may read some things in the Bible every day for a year and they may mean nothing to us. Then, because we have been obedient to God in some small detail, we suddenly see what God means and His nature is instantly opened up to us. "All the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen . . ." (2 Corinthians 1:20). Our "Yes" must be born of obedience; when by obedience we ratify a promise of God by saying, "Amen," or, "So be it." That promise becomes ours.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Everything You Need - #5962
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Nobody thought Gladys Aylward was good enough. During the 1920s, she had heard about the great spiritual need of China, and she sensed God's strong call on her life to go there. But she was only a chambermaid. When she applied to China Inland Mission in London, they rejected her because she wasn't educated enough and she was probably too old to learn the language they said. But Gladys Aylward made it to China and she made such a difference there that a number of books have been written about her life. Hollywood even based a major movie on her life, "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" with an Academy Award winning actress portraying her.
In her later years, as she told her story to audiences in many places, they were surprised to hear the commanding speech coming from this very tiny lady who had to stand on a box to be seen over the pulpit. She said to them: "As I was growing up, I had two great sorrows. First, as my friends kept getting taller, I stopped growing. Secondly, as my friends grew beautiful blonde curly hair, mine was straight black. Then I went to China. As I looked over the people to whom Jehovah God had sent me, I said to myself, 'These people have hair as black and straight as mine...and they stopped growing when I did.' I bowed my head and I said, 'Lord God, you know what you are doing!" Yes, He does.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Everything You Need."
Much to her surprise, and much to everyone's surprise, little Gladys Aylward had been equipped by God with everything she needed to carry out His plan for her life. And so have you. I know that because He says so in Ephesians 2:10, our word for today from the Word of God: "We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
That's the message I've given to each of my grandchildren on the day they were born. It's the message I hope will grip your heart and help shape the rest of your life. God has created you for a destiny, and whether or not anyone else can see it, whether or not you've seen it, you are God's workmanship. And don't tell me that God makes things with parts missing or with mistakes in them. There are some things God put you on this planet to do for Him. He's had them planned since before there was a you, and He's wired you with everything you need to get it done - everything.
Maybe you're thinking of all the things you're not, all the things you don't have that others have. Stop it! Everything you need for carrying out God's mission for you, you have. And what you don't have, you don't need! Moses argued with God that he wasn't qualified to go to Pharaoh and rescue God's people. But what kind of person did God need? Someone who knew Egypt, who knew the Jews, and who knew the wilderness. Well, let's see, that's three different guys, right? Wrong. Moses was a Jew who had been raised by the Egyptians and who had spent many years in the wilderness. Moses was perfectly equipped to make a difference for the Lord, and so are you. When Moses continued to plead his inadequacy, he asked, "Who am I that I should go?" God's answer was: "I will be with you...go; I will help you" (Exodus 3:11-12, 4:12).
When you ask, "Who am I, Lord?" He answers, "Wrong question. Who am I?" It's not about who you are. It's about who He is. And all your abilities, and your experiences, and your battles, your weaknesses, and your strengths - they're all a divine tapestry to make you everything you need to be to do everything He put you here to do. Maybe you've been under-living! You're His workmanship; you are His masterpiece. This day, open yourself up to Moses' God, to Gladys Aylward's God - the One who loves to use ordinary people to do extraordinary things for Him. Make this the day that you surrender to everything He wants you to be, everything He wants you to do. And let the adventure begin!