Max Lucado Daily: The Big Choice
The Big Choice
Posted: 21 Oct 2010 11:01 PM PDT
I have chosen the way of truth; I have set my heart on your laws. Psalm 119:30, NIV
Think about it. There are many things in life we can’t choose. We can’t, for example, choose the weather. We can’t control the economy. We can’t choose whether or not we are born with a big nose or blue eyes or a lot of hair ... but we can choose where we spend eternity.
The big choice, God leaves to us.
Job 25
Bildad
1 Then Bildad the Shuhite replied:
2 "Dominion and awe belong to God;
he establishes order in the heights of heaven.
3 Can his forces be numbered?
Upon whom does his light not rise?
4 How then can a man be righteous before God?
How can one born of woman be pure?
5 If even the moon is not bright
and the stars are not pure in his eyes,
6 how much less man, who is but a maggot—
a son of man, who is only a worm!"
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Isaiah 65:17–66:2
17 "Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.
18 But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy.
19 I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.
20 "Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth; he who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed.
21 They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22 No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the works of their hands.
23 They will not toil in vain or bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the Lord, they and their descendants with them.
24 Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear.
25 The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent's food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain," says the Lord.
Learning From The Redwoods
October 22, 2010 — by Mart De Haan
As the days of a tree, so shall be the days of My people. —Isaiah 65:22
North America’s Pacific Coast Redwoods are some of the biggest trees in the world. The tallest on record, Hyperion, soars 379 feet into the air.
During a visit to California’s Muir Woods National Park, I was surprised and overwhelmed by the enormity of those redwoods. Trees as tall as a 30- story building seemed to press me into the forest floor while drawing my thoughts upward.
The memory of what I felt at the base of some of the tallest and oldest trees in the world has left me with lingering thoughts about their origin. Those redwoods, like the family tree of our own humanity, are rooted in a Creator who is infinitely and eternally greater than His creation.
The prophet Isaiah caught a glimpse of this God. In a vision that mingled the wonders of a Messianic kingdom with the promise of a new heaven and earth, he describes One who makes the skies His throne and the earth His footstool (Isa. 66:1).
Yet Isaiah saw something even more overwhelming. He saw a great God who wants His people to “be glad and rejoice forever in what I create” (65:18). In response, let’s bow before Him in humble adoration (66:2).
How glorious to think ahead
Of blessings yet to be,
Of help from God while life shall last—
Then joys eternally! —Branon
God’s work of creating is done;
our work of praising has only begun.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
October 22nd, 2010
The Witness of the Spirit
The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit . . . —Romans 8:16
We are in danger of getting into a bargaining spirit with God when we come to Him—we want the witness of the Spirit before we have done what God tells us to do.
Why doesn’t God reveal Himself to you? He cannot. It is not that He will not, but He cannot, because you are in the way as long as you won’t abandon yourself to Him in total surrender. Yet once you do, immediately God witnesses to Himself—He cannot witness to you, but He instantly witnesses to His own nature in you. If you received the witness of the Spirit before the reality and truth that comes from obedience, it would simply result in sentimental emotion. But when you act on the basis of redemption, and stop the disrespectfulness of debating with God, He immediately gives His witness. As soon as you abandon your own reasoning and arguing, God witnesses to what He has done, and you are amazed at your total disrespect in having kept Him waiting. If you are debating as to whether or not God can deliver from sin, then either let Him do it or tell Him that He cannot. Do not quote this or that person to Him. Simply obey Matthew 11:28 , “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden . . . .” Come, if you are weary, and ask, if you know you are evil (see Luke 11:9-13).
The Spirit of God witnesses to the redemption of our Lord, and to nothing else. He cannot witness to our reason. We are inclined to mistake the simplicity that comes from our natural commonsense decisions for the witness of the Spirit, but the Spirit witnesses only to His own nature, and to the work of redemption, never to our reason. If we are trying to make Him witness to our reason, it is no wonder that we are in darkness and uncertainty. Throw it all overboard, trust in Him, and He will give you the witness of the Spirit.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Your Permanent in a World of Temporary - #6205
Friday, October 22, 2010
October is beautiful in many parts of the U.S. It's fall; it's the time, as I told my kids, that the angels come out at night and paint the leaves red and yellow and orange. Pray for my kids. Forget the angel part. The trees really do put on a fantastic show of color in the fall, and spring isn't bad either. After the gray and brown, or even barren of winter, I love that fresh green of spring's new life. But in between fall and spring, there's this long stretch where the trees are basically colored "dead." Well, not all the trees. There's life all year long; there's green all year long. They don't lose their color, however dead and barren the rest of the world around them may be. They're evergreens!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Your Permanent in a World of Temporary."
It's not just trees that turn color in our lives - it happens to relationships, too. A relationship that was once blooming beautifully, giving color to our life, starts to turn, to lose its color, to wither, even to die. Sooner or later, every "I love you" seems to include a "goodbye." Some relationships die with a whimper; some with a bang; some slowly, some suddenly; some, not by choice, but by death.
My first realization of that was a night my parents left me alone in our Chicago apartment to go to a funeral. They were gone longer than they had predicted, and that's when I heard the wail of sirens nearby. Well, I have to tell you, a young boy's fears kicked in at that point and I thought, "My parents are late. There's a siren. Maybe they were killed in an accident." They weren't, but that was when I first realized that what you love you can lose. And ultimately, I have buried both my mom and my dad and plenty of other people (some old, some very young) who would never have chosen to leave. Often what hurts even more is the loves that do choose to leave us. Like winter's leaves; they wither and blow away.
What we need is an evergreen relationship - one that cannot be touched by desertion, by divorce, by distance, by death. There is such a relationship, but only one. In order to be our evergreen, it's going to have to be a love that will never turn on us and never die on us. That love is celebrated in our word for today from the Word of God in Romans 8:38-39 . These words literally have the power to lead you to the one anchor relationship your heart has always yearned for.
Here's what it says. "Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present or the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." There it is - evergreen love. It's God's love, found in His Son, Jesus Christ.
Here's why God's love is the love you can't lose. Even though we were made for that love, we're missing that love because we've chosen to take our life into our own hands instead of putting it in God's hands. We've chosen "my way" over God's way in thousands of situations throughout our life. And the Bible says, "Your sins have separated you from your God" (Isaiah 59:2 ). That separation could only be bridged one way; a way that seems unthinkable. That God's Son, the only One without any sin of His own, would come to earth and do what only He could do - do the dying for our sinning against Him. Pay the penalty so the sin could be erased so we could experience the love that our sin has cost us.
And today, the Man who loved you enough to die for you has come looking for you to offer you a life, and an eternity, filled with His evergreen love. But it can't be a one-way love affair. You have to respond to His love by placing your life in His hands and turning your back on the sin that cost Him His life. Your love response might be just three words, "Jesus, I'm Yours." If you want to pursue that love relationship with Him, I want to invite you to check out our website today. It's yoursforlife.net. Or you can call 866-473-2829.
God Himself has said that once you open up to His love, "nothing in all creation will be able to separate" you.
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