Max Lucado Daily: Let Him
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Let Him
Posted: 13 Jan 2010 10:01 PM PST
“Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it—because it does.” I Corinthians 14:1 The Message
Loosen up. Don’t you have some people to hug, rocks to skip, or lips to kiss? . . .
It’s time to retire. Not from your job, just retire from your attitude. Honestly, has complaining ever made the day better? Has grumbling ever paid the bills? Has worrying about tomorrow ever changed it?
Let someone else run the world for a while.
Song of Solomon 3
1 All night long on my bed
I looked for the one my heart loves;
I looked for him but did not find him.
2 I will get up now and go about the city,
through its streets and squares;
I will search for the one my heart loves.
So I looked for him but did not find him.
3 The watchmen found me
as they made their rounds in the city.
"Have you seen the one my heart loves?"
4 Scarcely had I passed them
when I found the one my heart loves.
I held him and would not let him go
till I had brought him to my mother's house,
to the room of the one who conceived me.
5 Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you
by the gazelles and by the does of the field:
Do not arouse or awaken love
until it so desires.
6 Who is this coming up from the desert
like a column of smoke,
perfumed with myrrh and incense
made from all the spices of the merchant?
7 Look! It is Solomon's carriage,
escorted by sixty warriors,
the noblest of Israel,
8 all of them wearing the sword,
all experienced in battle,
each with his sword at his side,
prepared for the terrors of the night.
9 King Solomon made for himself the carriage;
he made it of wood from Lebanon.
10 Its posts he made of silver,
its base of gold.
Its seat was upholstered with purple,
its interior lovingly inlaid
by [a] the daughters of Jerusalem.
11 Come out, you daughters of Zion,
and look at King Solomon wearing the crown,
the crown with which his mother crowned him
on the day of his wedding,
the day his heart rejoiced.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
1 John 1:5-10 (New International Version)
Walking in the light
5This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 7But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all[a] sin.
8If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.
January 14, 2010
The Sin Buildup
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READ: 1 John 1:5-10
We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. —2 Corinthians 4:7
For hundreds of years, windmills around the world have been used to pump water and to process grains. But in the last few decades, as wind turbines producing electricity have become more prevalent, a “fly in the ointment” unexpectedly occurred.
Researchers discovered that windpower generators worked fine at slow speeds, but at high-wind velocity, bugs on the blades reduced power output. Operators found that it was necessary to regularly wash off the buildup of dead insects to avoid having them slowly decrease the turbine’s power.
A buildup of sin in a Christian’s life can be a problem as well. God has provided a way to clear the accumulation of sins from our lives. First John 1:9 reminds us: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” But unless we do that often, we’ll be running on diminished power. That’s because the power for living comes from God and not us (2 Cor. 4:7). When we try to live the Christian life in our own strength, we’ll feel defeated—like windmills robbed of their energy.
God’s power can be more easily seen and experienced in our lives when we get rid of sin’s buildup every day. — Cindy Hess Kasper
The power in our Christian life
Will be diminished by our sin;
Confession will restore our strength—
When we’re forgiven, cleansed within. —Sper
Sin drains our spiritual power; confession restores it.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
January 14, 2010
Called By God
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READ:
I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: ’Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?’ Then I said, ’Here am I! Send me’ —Isaiah 6:8
God did not direct His call to Isaiah— Isaiah overheard God saying, ". . . who will go for Us?" The call of God is not just for a select few but for everyone. Whether I hear God’s call or not depends on the condition of my ears, and exactly what I hear depends upon my spiritual attitude. "Many are called, but few are chosen" (Matthew 22:14). That is, few prove that they are the chosen ones. The chosen ones are those who have come into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ and have had their spiritual condition changed and their ears opened. Then they hear "the voice of the Lord" continually asking, ". . . who will go for Us?" However, God doesn’t single out someone and say, "Now, you go." He did not force His will on Isaiah. Isaiah was in the presence of God, and he overheard the call. His response, performed in complete freedom, could only be to say, "Here am I! Send me."
Remove the thought from your mind of expecting God to come to force you or to plead with you. When our Lord called His disciples, He did it without irresistible pressure from the outside. The quiet, yet passionate, insistence of His "Follow Me" was spoken to men whose every sense was receptive (Matthew 4:19). If we will allow the Holy Spirit to bring us face to face with God, we too will hear what Isaiah heard-"the voice of the Lord." In perfect freedom we too will say, "Here am I! Send me."
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Fighting the Cold - #6004
Thursday, January 14, 2010
It's amazing how you can go outside on a brutally cold winter day, and you go from shivering to sweating in a few minutes. If you just stand around in the cold or just move around a little bit, you're not going to stay outside for long. It's just too frigid out there, right! But in a very short time you can get to where you barely even notice the cold. Just start shoveling snow or some other vigorous activity. Not long ago my wife was out in the middle of a snowstorm, working on some outside chores, and she told me, "It is amazing how you can work up a sweat on a day like this!"
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Fighting the Cold."
When you're exercising, the cold just doesn't really affect you that much. That's a very important equation for Christians who are living in times like these, because Jesus said it was going to get really chilly among His children.
In our word for today from the Word of God, Jesus is describing the days that will precede His return to earth. Now, I can't tell when those "last days" are going to be, but I can tell you that the world has never looked so much like the kind of world Jesus said He would return to than our world looks today. As time runs shorter for Planet Earth, Jesus' prediction of how His followers would live seems to be more and more true, and there will be a chill in the air.
Notice: two groups of believers in these important times. Pick your group. You are in one of them. In Matthew 24 beginning in verse 12, Jesus says, "Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most (that's most believers by the way) will grow cold." Alright, there's group one - the cold. That's the group Jesus said most believers would be in. Living in a world where sin is permeating everything, in a world where sin becomes everyday stuff, most Christians will just turn spiritually cold. That's amazing! At the time when Jesus needs them to be fully engaged in the decisive spiritual battles going on around them, they go cold.
But some believers are going to be fighting the cold with some important spiritual exercise, and they are group two. Jesus says that at the same time sin is exploding across the world and into people's lives, "This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." Okay, there they are. The bold! These are the believers who have checked the stadium clock, they can tell it's late in the game and they're going for broke to get the Good News about Jesus to as many people as possible.
So where are you in this picture? Are you getting colder or bolder? Are you pursuing your kingdom or Jesus' Kingdom? Living in a sin-saturated world, it's easy to grow numb, especially numb to the lostness, the dyingness of the people around us. To care only about that which affects your personal world and not much about the world for whom Jesus gave His life.
I believe Jesus is summoning many of us to join Him in an all-out effort to rescue as many dying people as possible in the time we've got left. He's asking you to throw yourself totally; I mean your influence, your money, your home, your talents, and your time into the greatest cause in the universe. It is the cause for which Jesus gave His very life.
If you're not in the bold, you're part of the cold. But your heart and your life will warm up fast with some exercise, fighting for the eternal souls of people that Jesus thought were worth His life.