Max Lucado Daily: God at Work
God at Work
Posted: 14 Dec 2010 10:01 PM PST
God is at work within you, helping you want to obey him, and then helping you do what he wants. Philippians 2:13, TLB
As a result of being saved, what do we do? We obey God with deep reverence and shrink back from all that might displease Him. Practically put, we love our neighbor and refrain from gossip. We refuse to cheat on taxes and spouses and do our best to love people who are tough to love. Do we do this in order to be saved? No. These are the good things that result from being saved.
Genesis 42
Joseph’s Brothers Go to Egypt
1 When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why do you just keep looking at each other?” 2 He continued, “I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy some for us, so that we may live and not die.”
3 Then ten of Joseph’s brothers went down to buy grain from Egypt. 4 But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, with the others, because he was afraid that harm might come to him. 5 So Israel’s sons were among those who went to buy grain, for there was famine in the land of Canaan also.
6 Now Joseph was the governor of the land, the person who sold grain to all its people. So when Joseph’s brothers arrived, they bowed down to him with their faces to the ground. 7 As soon as Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he pretended to be a stranger and spoke harshly to them. “Where do you come from?” he asked.
“From the land of Canaan,” they replied, “to buy food.”
8 Although Joseph recognized his brothers, they did not recognize him. 9 Then he remembered his dreams about them and said to them, “You are spies! You have come to see where our land is unprotected.”
10 “No, my lord,” they answered. “Your servants have come to buy food. 11 We are all the sons of one man. Your servants are honest men, not spies.”
12 “No!” he said to them. “You have come to see where our land is unprotected.”
13 But they replied, “Your servants were twelve brothers, the sons of one man, who lives in the land of Canaan. The youngest is now with our father, and one is no more.”
14 Joseph said to them, “It is just as I told you: You are spies! 15 And this is how you will be tested: As surely as Pharaoh lives, you will not leave this place unless your youngest brother comes here. 16 Send one of your number to get your brother; the rest of you will be kept in prison, so that your words may be tested to see if you are telling the truth. If you are not, then as surely as Pharaoh lives, you are spies!” 17 And he put them all in custody for three days.
18 On the third day, Joseph said to them, “Do this and you will live, for I fear God: 19 If you are honest men, let one of your brothers stay here in prison, while the rest of you go and take grain back for your starving households. 20 But you must bring your youngest brother to me, so that your words may be verified and that you may not die.” This they proceeded to do.
21 They said to one another, “Surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life, but we would not listen; that’s why this distress has come on us.”
22 Reuben replied, “Didn’t I tell you not to sin against the boy? But you wouldn’t listen! Now we must give an accounting for his blood.” 23 They did not realize that Joseph could understand them, since he was using an interpreter.
24 He turned away from them and began to weep, but then came back and spoke to them again. He had Simeon taken from them and bound before their eyes.
25 Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain, to put each man’s silver back in his sack, and to give them provisions for their journey. After this was done for them, 26 they loaded their grain on their donkeys and left.
27 At the place where they stopped for the night one of them opened his sack to get feed for his donkey, and he saw his silver in the mouth of his sack. 28 “My silver has been returned,” he said to his brothers. “Here it is in my sack.”
Their hearts sank and they turned to each other trembling and said, “What is this that God has done to us?”
29 When they came to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan, they told him all that had happened to them. They said, 30 “The man who is lord over the land spoke harshly to us and treated us as though we were spying on the land. 31 But we said to him, ‘We are honest men; we are not spies. 32 We were twelve brothers, sons of one father. One is no more, and the youngest is now with our father in Canaan.’
33 “Then the man who is lord over the land said to us, ‘This is how I will know whether you are honest men: Leave one of your brothers here with me, and take food for your starving households and go. 34 But bring your youngest brother to me so I will know that you are not spies but honest men. Then I will give your brother back to you, and you can trade in the land.’”
35 As they were emptying their sacks, there in each man’s sack was his pouch of silver! When they and their father saw the money pouches, they were frightened. 36 Their father Jacob said to them, “You have deprived me of my children. Joseph is no more and Simeon is no more, and now you want to take Benjamin. Everything is against me!”
37 Then Reuben said to his father, “You may put both of my sons to death if I do not bring him back to you. Entrust him to my care, and I will bring him back.”
38 But Jacob said, “My son will not go down there with you; his brother is dead and he is the only one left. If harm comes to him on the journey you are taking, you will bring my gray head down to the grave in sorrow.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: James 4:1-10
James 4:1-10 (NIV)Jas 1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." 7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
A Submission Problem
December 15, 2010 — by Anne Cetas
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up. —James 4:10
During a talk-show interview, a celebrity confessed that she spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours each year on her hair and its styling. She recognized that it had become an addiction and admitted that her problem was “submission to the hair.”
The word submission means “an act of yielding to the authority or control of another.” Because of her desire to look and feel beautiful, this celebrity was allowing her hair to be in control of her life.
This woman’s story could lead us to wonder about our own hearts’ desires and what we’re submitting to. Do we at times want something so badly that we submit to doing anything to get it? Are we submitting to admiration? Possessions? Self? Food? Money? Pleasure?
In his epistle to the Romans, Paul said, “to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves” (6:16). When our desires “war” within us (James 4:1), we are to submit ourselves to God as “slaves of God” (Rom. 6:22).
Humbling ourselves before the Lord (James 4:10) and asking Him to show us our heart will help us to recognize our own submission problems.
Lord, help us to submit to You,
To follow and obey;
And give us strength to fight the urge
To do things our own way. —Sper
True freedom is not in choosing our own way,
but in submitting to God’s way.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
December 15th, 2010
"Approved to God"
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth —2 Timothy 2:15
If you cannot express yourself well on each of your beliefs, work and study until you can. If you don’t, other people may miss out on the blessings that come from knowing the truth. Strive to re-express a truth of God to yourself clearly and understandably, and God will use that same explanation when you share it with someone else. But you must be willing to go through God’s winepress where the grapes are crushed. You must struggle, experiment, and rehearse your words to express God’s truth clearly. Then the time will come when that very expression will become God’s wine of strength to someone else. But if you are not diligent and say, “I’m not going to study and struggle to express this truth in my own words; I’ll just borrow my words from someone else,” then the words will be of no value to you or to others. Try to state to yourself what you believe to be the absolute truth of God, and you will be allowing God the opportunity to pass it on through you to someone else.
Always make it a practice to stir your own mind thoroughly to think through what you have easily believed. Your position is not really yours until you make it yours through suffering and study. The author or speaker from whom you learn the most is not the one who teaches you something you didn’t know before, but the one who helps you take a truth with which you have quietly struggled, give it expression, and speak it clearly and boldly.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Breaking the Cycle of Pain - #6243
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Fill in the blank. Dog collars are for _________. Dogs, that's right. Or, in one case, a not-so-bright nephew. My friend's nephew decided it would be fun to put his dog collar on around his own neck. It wasn't just any dog collar; it was the kind that gives the dog a little shock when he's barking too loud. Doesn't sound like something they should be selling, but you know what, this guy owned one. You want to guess the rest? Without thinking, he yelled something to someone across the yard, which triggered a shocking reaction from the collar, which made the young man of course, scream in pain, which gave him another shock, which caused him to shout "Ow!" again. Which caused...you got the idea.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Breaking the Cycle of Pain."
A bad choice. Pain as a result. Doing something because you're hurting, and causing even more pain - compounding pain. That is a cycle you or someone you know may be trapped in right now, and it's hard to break out of that cycle of pain. Hard, but not impossible.
A lot of our bad choices would come under the Bible heading of "sin" - doing something in our life our way instead of God's way. Oh, maybe it looked like fun. Maybe it looked like it would help you meet a need or get ahead or get out of a jam. Or it could be you were just curious. It seemed like a good idea at the time; like putting on a collar that would ultimately inflict major pain. Our word for today from the Word of God in John 8:34 and 36 says, "Whoever commits sin is a slave of sin." That's what you don't count on. See, first sin captivates you and then it captures you. You thought you could stop. You can't. You thought you could get out any time. Wrong.
Someone has wisely pointed out that sin always takes you farther than you ever thought you'd go, it keeps you longer than you ever thought you'd stay, and it costs you more than you ever thought you'd pay. We really do become slaves to our sinning; whether it's a pattern of lying, of lusting, of losing it when we're angry, of living for ourselves. And there's no freedom until you first admit you're hooked; you're powerless to stop the sinning and the compounding pain that's coming from it.
Like that young man, yelling for help when the dog collar shocked him, we do things to deal with the pain that just cause more pain. We lie, we cover up, we sin even more, we do things to try to sedate the pain, and then we get hooked on the sedative, too.
But here comes the hope, right after the statement about being a slave to sin. It says, "But if the Son shall set you free, you will be free indeed." That son is the Son of God. Jesus Christ died on the cross to break the power of sin. The Bible says, "He carried our sins in His body on the tree so we could die to sin" (1 Peter 2:24 ). And He stands ready to help you break out of the bondage of sin and the cycle of pain that sin causes, if you'll call your sin what it is and pour it all out to Jesus. Admit that you can't do a thing to beat it and then you fall at His feet in total surrender.
If He has the power to walk out of His grave, don't you think He's got the power to beat the sin that keeps beating you? Don't keep trying to deal with it your way. All you're doing is making it worse. There's only one cry that will set you free - a cry to Jesus. You've been sin's slave long enough. This can be the day that you go free!