April 12, 2010
Max Lucado Daily: Nothing To Fear
“He isn’t here! He has been raised from the dead.” Matthew 28:6, NLT
The crucifixion was marked by sudden darkness, silent angels, and mocking soldiers. At the empty tomb the soldiers are silent, an angel speaks, and light erupts like Vesuvius. The one who was dead is said to be alive, and the soldiers, who are alive, look as if they are dead. The women can tell something is up . . . The angel informs them: “He isn’t here! He has been raised from the dead.”
Heaven unplugged the grave’s power cord, and you and I have nothing to fear. Death is disabled.
Haggai 2
This Temple Will End Up Better Than It Started Out
1-3 On the twenty-first day of the seventh month, the Word of God came through the prophet Haggai: "Tell Governor Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and High Priest Joshua son of Jehozadak and all the people:
'Is there anyone here who saw the Temple the way it used to be, all glorious? And what do you see now? Not much, right?
4-5"'So get to work, Zerubbabel!'—God is speaking.
"'Get to work, Joshua son of Jehozadak—high priest!'
"'Get to work, all you people!'—God is speaking.
"'Yes, get to work! For I am with you.' The God-of-the-Angel-Armies is speaking! 'Put into action the word I covenanted with you when you left Egypt. I'm living and breathing among you right now. Don't be timid. Don't hold back.'
6-7"This is what God-of-the-Angel-Armies said: 'Before you know it, I will shake up sky and earth, ocean and fields. And I'll shake down all the godless nations. They'll bring bushels of wealth and I will fill this Temple with splendor.' God-of-the-Angel-Armies says so.
8'I own the silver,
I own the gold.'
Decree of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
9"'This Temple is going to end up far better than it started out, a glorious beginning but an even more glorious finish: a place in which I will hand out wholeness and holiness.' Decree of God-of-the-Angel-Armies."
10-12On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month (again, this was in the second year of Darius), God's Message came to Haggai: "God-of-the-Angel-Armies speaks: Consult the priests for a ruling. If someone carries a piece of sacred meat in his pocket, meat that is set apart for sacrifice on the altar, and the pocket touches a loaf of bread, a dish of stew, a bottle of wine or oil, or any other food, will these foods be made holy by such contact?"
The priests said, "No."
13Then Haggai said, "How about someone who is contaminated by touching a corpse—if that person touches one of these foods, will it be contaminated?"
The priests said, "Yes, it will be contaminated."
14Then Haggai said, "'So, this people is contaminated. Their nation is contaminated. Everything they do is contaminated. Whatever they do for me is contaminated.' God says so.
15-17"'Think back. Before you set out to lay the first foundation stones for the rebuilding of my Temple, how did it go with you? Isn't it true that your foot-dragging, halfhearted efforts at rebuilding the Temple of God were reflected in a sluggish, halfway return on your crops—half the grain you were used to getting, half the wine? I hit you with drought and blight and hail. Everything you were doing got hit. But it didn't seem to faze you. You continued to ignore me.' God's Decree.
18-19"'Now think ahead from this same date—this twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. Think ahead from when the Temple rebuilding was launched. Has anything in your fields—vine, fig tree, pomegranate, olive tree—failed to flourish? From now on you can count on a blessing.'"
20-21God's Message came a second time to Haggai on that most memorable day, the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month: "Speak to Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah:
21-23"'I am about to shake up everything, to turn everything upside down and start over from top to bottom—overthrow governments, destroy foreign powers, dismantle the world of weapons and armaments, throw armies into confusion, so that they end up killing one another. And on that day'"—this is God's Message—"'I will take you, O Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, as my personal servant and I will set you as a signet ring, the sign of my sovereign presence and authority. I've looked over the field and chosen you for this work.'" The Message of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
John 14
The Road
1-4 "Don't let this throw you. You trust God, don't you? Trust me. There is plenty of room for you in my Father's home. If that weren't so, would I have told you that I'm on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I'm on my way to get your room ready, I'll come back and get you so you can live where I live. And you already know the road I'm taking."
5Thomas said, "Master, we have no idea where you're going. How do you expect us to know the road?"
6-7Jesus said, "I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him. You've even seen him!"
April 12, 2010
The Wrong Stuff
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READ: John 14:1-6
There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. —Acts 4:12
It was a simple task, but I was in over my head. One of the items on the grocery list was soy. Problem was, I didn’t know what kind of soy my wife, Sue, had in mind when she made the list. After searching the aisles and asking the advice of a worker who was stacking soup cans, I grabbed a bottle of soy sauce, placed it in the cart, and went on my way.
Only after I unloaded my bags at home did I discover that Sue didn’t want soy sauce. She wanted soy milk for our granddaughter Eliana. I was sincere in my search. I even asked for help and confidently pulled my selection off the shelf. But it didn’t do me (or Eliana) any good. I had the wrong stuff.
Sadly, some people are walking through the grocery store of life with “heaven” on their list, but they are not getting what they need. Despite their sincerity and the intended help of others, they grab something that won’t get them to heaven because they find a “different gospel” (2 Cor. 11:4).
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). And Peter said, “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Trust Jesus. Don’t settle for the wrong gospel. — Dave Branon
Not all roads lead to God,
As many people claim;
There’s only one true way—
Christ Jesus is His name. —Sper
Christ is the only door into heaven.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
April 12, 2010
Complete and Effective Dominion
Death no longer has dominion over Him. . . . the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God . . . —Romans 6:9-11
Co-Eternal Life. Eternal life is the life which Jesus Christ exhibited on the human level. And it is this same life, not simply a copy of it, which is made evident in our mortal flesh when we are born again. Eternal life is not a gift from God; eternal life is the gift of God. The energy and the power which was so very evident in Jesus will be exhibited in us by an act of the absolute sovereign grace of God, once we have made that complete and effective decision about sin.
“You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you . . .” (Acts 1:8)— not power as a gift from the Holy Spirit; the power is the Holy Spirit, not something that He gives us. The life that was in Jesus becomes ours because of His Cross, once we make the decision to be identified with Him. If it is difficult to get right with God, it is because we refuse to make this moral decision about sin. But once we do decide, the full life of God comes in immediately. Jesus came to give us an endless supply of life— “. . . that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” ( Ephesians 3:19 ). Eternal life has nothing to do with time. It is the life which Jesus lived when He was down here, and the only Source of life is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Even the weakest saint can experience the power of the deity of the Son of God, when he is willing to “let go.” But any effort to “hang on” to the least bit of our own power will only diminish the life of Jesus in us. We have to keep letting go, and slowly, but surely, the great full life of God will invade us, penetrating every part. Then Jesus will have complete and effective dominion in us, and people will take notice that we have been with Him.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Free From the Chains of a Lifetime - #6066
A Word With You - Your Mission
Monday, April 12, 2010
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What could be more degrading than to be listed as property - owned by another human being - listed along with his corn and his cotton and his tools? But that's what you were if you were a slave for the first 150 years of America's history. It's no wonder many of those slaves risked their lives to try to be free. Recently, I saw a TV documentary on the people who risked their lives to help those slaves be free; the courageous men and women of that long escape route known as the Underground Railroad. It wasn't a railroad and it wasn't underground, but it was a series of people and places that assisted runaway slaves to finally live liberated lives. Some of those African-Americans who were rescued had just four words on their tombstones, words that powerfully told their whole life story: "Born slave, died free."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Free From the Chains of a Lifetime."
I saw those words and I said to myself, "Hey, that's me. That's my spiritual autobiography: born slave, died free." Because I've been a slave to what one NBA coach called "the disease of me" my whole life. We all have. We've all got this dark side of us that started rearing its ugly head when we were very small.
Babies are cute, but they're also totally self-centered, right? I mean, as they grow, nobody teaches them to lie or demand their own way. It's in the DNA. And I'll be honest, there are parts of me - these ways that I handle things - that I really don't like. The people I love don't like them. I'm sure God doesn't like them. We've all made choices that we're not proud of because of this dark part of us that we really don't want but we really can't change. It's like we're slaves to a darkness the Bible identifies as "sin" - a me-centered life instead of the God-centered life I was created for.
One of the writers of the Bible can feel our pain on this one. He says, "What I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do...I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. What I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing" (Romans 7:15 , 18). Then he cries out like the sin-slave that we all are, "Who will rescue me?" That question is the edge of going free, because you realize you can't get yourself out of this. You need a rescuer. Then this writer finally crosses the river to freedom when he answers his own question, "Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:24-25 )
Our word for today from the Word of God really bottom lines how we are born slave but how we can die and live free. In John 8 , beginning with verse 34, Jesus says: "Everyone who sins is a slave to sin." Amen to that. Then He speaks as the Liberator: "If the Son (of God) sets you free, you will be free indeed." Jesus went to the slave market of sin and He bid for you and me with His life. He said of Himself: "The Son of Man (came)...to give His life as a ransom" (Mark 10:45 ). It took the battering, the beating, and the butchering of God's Son on the cross to pay for my sin and your sin. But His death, followed by His resurrection, broke any power or claim that sin or Satan has ever had over you.
But you can't go free unless you drop what has chained you and you embrace Jesus, the Liberator who paid for you with His life. For many a slave, the Ohio River was the freedom line. For you, the freedom line runs by the cross of Jesus Christ. No religion can set you free. Only the Rescuer from heaven can do that, because only He died to make it possible. He's reaching for you today. You don't have to be what you've always been. You don't have to keep replaying the same hurtful choices, if you'll place your life in Jesus' hands from this day on.
Talk to Him right where you are. Tell Him, "Jesus, I have no hope but what You did for me on the cross. You bought Me. You've got me." If that's what you want, I encourage you to check out our website today and let me show you there exactly how to get started with Jesus. Just go to YoursForLife.net. Or, you can call toll free for my booklet Yours For Life. Just call 877-741-1200.
You may have been born sin's slave, you may have lived as sin's slave, but from this day on, you're going to live, and you're going to die, free!
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