Daily Devotional by Max Lucado
“the One who came still comes and the One who spoke still speaks”
December 18
A Personal Query
He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"
Mark 8:29 (NCV)
Jesus turns [to his disciples] and asks them the question. The question. "But who do you say that I am?"
He doesn't ask, "What do you think about what I've done." He asks, "Who do you say that I am."...
He doesn't ask, "Who do your friends think?... Who do your parents think?... Who do your peers think?" He poses instead a starkly personal query, "Who do you think I am?"...
You have been asked some important questions in your life:
Will you marry me?
Would you be interested in a transfer?
What would you think if I told you I was pregnant?
You've been asked some important questions. But the grandest of them is an anthill compared to the Everest found in the eighth chapter of Mark.
Who do you say that I am?
From: The Inspirational Study Bible
Copyright (W Publishing Group, 1995)
Max Lucado
1 Chronicles 22
1 Then David said, "The house of the LORD God is to be here, and also the altar of burnt offering for Israel."
Preparations for the Temple
2 So David gave orders to assemble the aliens living in Israel, and from among them he appointed stonecutters to prepare dressed stone for building the house of God. 3 He provided a large amount of iron to make nails for the doors of the gateways and for the fittings, and more bronze than could be weighed. 4 He also provided more cedar logs than could be counted, for the Sidonians and Tyrians had brought large numbers of them to David.
5 David said, "My son Solomon is young and inexperienced, and the house to be built for the LORD should be of great magnificence and fame and splendor in the sight of all the nations. Therefore I will make preparations for it." So David made extensive preparations before his death.
6 Then he called for his son Solomon and charged him to build a house for the LORD, the God of Israel. 7 David said to Solomon: "My son, I had it in my heart to build a house for the Name of the LORD my God. 8 But this word of the LORD came to me: 'You have shed much blood and have fought many wars. You are not to build a house for my Name, because you have shed much blood on the earth in my sight. 9 But you will have a son who will be a man of peace and rest, and I will give him rest from all his enemies on every side. His name will be Solomon, [e] and I will grant Israel peace and quiet during his reign. 10 He is the one who will build a house for my Name. He will be my son, and I will be his father. And I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever.'
11 "Now, my son, the LORD be with you, and may you have success and build the house of the LORD your God, as he said you would. 12 May the LORD give you discretion and understanding when he puts you in command over Israel, so that you may keep the law of the LORD your God. 13 Then you will have success if you are careful to observe the decrees and laws that the LORD gave Moses for Israel. Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged.
14 "I have taken great pains to provide for the temple of the LORD a hundred thousand talents [f] of gold, a million talents [g] of silver, quantities of bronze and iron too great to be weighed, and wood and stone. And you may add to them. 15 You have many workmen: stonecutters, masons and carpenters, as well as men skilled in every kind of work 16 in gold and silver, bronze and iron—craftsmen beyond number. Now begin the work, and the LORD be with you."
17 Then David ordered all the leaders of Israel to help his son Solomon. 18 He said to them, "Is not the LORD your God with you? And has he not granted you rest on every side? For he has handed the inhabitants of the land over to me, and the land is subject to the LORD and to his people. 19 Now devote your heart and soul to seeking the LORD your God. Begin to build the sanctuary of the LORD God, so that you may bring the ark of the covenant of the LORD and the sacred articles belonging to God into the temple that will be built for the Name of the LORD."
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Matthew 6:5-15 (New International Version)
Prayer
5"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
9"This, then, is how you should pray:
" 'Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
11Give us today our daily bread.
12Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.[a]' 14For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
December 18, 2009
Jehovah-Jireh
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READ: Matthew 6:5-15
Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. —Matthew 6:8
In my early years as a pastor, I served in small churches where finances were often tight. Sometimes our family finances felt the weight of that pressure. On one occasion, we were down to the last of our food and payday was still several days away. While my wife and I fretted about how we would feed our kids in the next few days, our doorbell rang. When we opened the door, we discovered two bags of groceries. We had not told anyone of our plight, yet our provider God had led someone to meet that need.
This reminds me of the Old Testament account of Abraham when he was asked to sacrifice his son Isaac. At just the right moment, God provided a ram instead. Abraham called this place Jehovah-Jireh, “The-Lord-Will-Provide” (Gen. 22:14). He is the One who still cares deeply for His children.
Jesus said, “Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him” (Matt. 6:8). He is constantly caring for and seeking the best for us—a reminder that in times of hardship, need, and fear, we have Someone who cares. Peter wrote that we can cast all our cares upon Jesus, because He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). We can turn to Him in our time of need. — Bill Crowder
I know not by what methods rare
The Lord provides for me;
I only know that all my needs
He meets so graciously. —Adams
What God promises, God will provide.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
December 18, 2009
Test of Faithfulness
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READ:
We know that all things work together for good to those who love God . . . —Romans 8:28
It is only a faithful person who truly believes that God sovereignly controls his circumstances. We take our circumstances for granted, saying God is in control, but not really believing it. We act as if the things that happen were completely controlled by people. To be faithful in every circumstance means that we have only one loyalty, or object of our faith— the Lord Jesus Christ. God may cause our circumstances to suddenly fall apart, which may bring the realization of our unfaithfulness to Him for not recognizing that He had ordained the situation. We never saw what He was trying to accomplish, and that exact event will never be repeated in our life. This is where the test of our faithfulness comes. If we will just learn to worship God even during the difficult circumstances, He will change them for the better very quickly if He so chooses.
Being faithful to Jesus Christ is the most difficult thing we try to do today. We will be faithful to our work, to serving others, or to anything else; just don’t ask us to be faithful to Jesus Christ. Many Christians become very impatient when we talk about faithfulness to Jesus. Our Lord is dethroned more deliberately by Christian workers than by the world. We treat God as if He were a machine designed only to bless us, and we think of Jesus as just another one of the workers.
The goal of faithfulness is not that we will do work for God, but that He will be free to do His work through us. God calls us to His service and places tremendous responsibilities on us. He expects no complaining on our part and offers no explanation on His part. God wants to use us as He used His own Son.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Dispelling the Fog - #5985
Friday, December 18, 2009
We live in one of the mountainous regions of America. And mountains are beautiful - once you can see them. In areas like this, you can start quite a few mornings with fog and mist. Sometimes it just obscures the mountains in the distance, and sometimes I can't even see the neighbor's yard across the street. If you're the kind of person who lets the weather determine your mood, you could feel pretty "blah" on those foggy days. But there's something you can always be sure of when it's foggy. It's not going to be there all that long. Because even though you cannot see the sun, it's shining out there. It's burning off that fog until you can see the beauty around you again.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Dispelling the Fog."
Amy's a good friend of our family, and one on whom a heavy fog has descended in recent days, not unlike you, maybe. It's been a very sad, a very hurting time. Amy and her husband have been joyfully expecting their first child. They were even talking about names they wanted for a boy or a girl. Until they got the heartbreaking news from the obstetrician, the baby had stopped growing; their baby was gone. What followed was a long two weeks of waiting for the baby to pass; of grappling with the numbing reality that their child's life had ended before they even got to meet him or her. The fog was thick, the sky was pretty dark, and the beautiful view was really hard to see.
I asked Amy what stages she had gone through since they received the news. She told me, of course, there was first a deep sadness. Then the sadness was mixed with confusion - just trying to sort out the "whys" and the "what ifs." But Amy touched me very deeply with what she told me next. She said, "But then I reached a point where God helped me to start praising Him, even if I didn't understand Him." Then she smiled and she said, "When I started praising Him, most of the sadness lifted." The fog had lifted.
That was a secret discovered by the man who has epitomized human suffering for centuries - Job, the man who lost his health, his children, and his fortune. Somehow, he finds some peace as he says in Job 1:21, our word for today from the Word of God, "'The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.' In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing." Job would agree with the peace that Amy found, "I don't always understand You, Lord, but I always trust You."
In Job 2:10, he asks, "Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" And in chapter 13, verse 15, Job says, "Though He slay me, yet I will I hope in Him." That's stubborn faith that still believes that the sun is shining even when you can't see it because of the fog; the kind of faith that looks for things to praise God for at a time when it hurts so bad.
The dark times never leave you the same place in your relationship with God. Either you turn to Him or you turn from Him. When you let your pain turn you from Him, you have just abandoned your only possible source of hope, and healing, and recovery.
But praise acknowledges a sun that is shining even when the fog is the heaviest. If this is a dark time, don't deepen your sadness by ignoring the Lord, or abandoning the Lord, or turning on the Lord. This is a time to throw yourself on His goodness; a time to ask Him for the grace to praise Him for all that He still is, all that He's done, and all that He is going to do. As Amy said, "Praise lifts the sadness." It dispels the fog.