Max Lucado Daily: Contentment
Contentment
“Godliness with contentment is great gain.” 1 Timothy 6:6, NKJV
In our world, contentment is a strange street vendor, roaming . . . slowly from house to house . . . offering his wares: an hour of peace, a smile of acceptance, a sigh of relief . . .
When I asked him why so few welcomed him into their homes, his answer left me convicted. “I charge a high price, you know . . . I ask people to trade in their schedules, frustrations, and anxieties . . . You’d think I’d have more buyers . . . but people seem strangely proud of their ulcers and headaches.”
Deuteronomy 7
Driving Out the Nations
1 When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you— 2 and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally.[d] Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. 3 Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, 4 for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. 5 This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles[e] and burn their idols in the fire. 6 For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.
7 The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. 10 But
those who hate him he will repay to their face by destruction;
he will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate him.
11 Therefore, take care to follow the commands, decrees and laws I give you today.
12 If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the LORD your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your ancestors. 13 He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land—your grain, new wine and olive oil—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you. 14 You will be blessed more than any other people; none of your men or women will be childless, nor will any of your livestock be without young. 15 The LORD will keep you free from every disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all who hate you. 16 You must destroy all the peoples the LORD your God gives over to you. Do not look on them with pity and do not serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you.
17 You may say to yourselves, “These nations are stronger than we are. How can we drive them out?” 18 But do not be afraid of them; remember well what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt. 19 You saw with your own eyes the great trials, the signs and wonders, the mighty hand and outstretched arm, with which the LORD your God brought you out. The LORD your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear. 20 Moreover, the LORD your God will send the hornet among them until even the survivors who hide from you have perished. 21 Do not be terrified by them, for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God. 22 The LORD your God will drive out those nations before you, little by little. You will not be allowed to eliminate them all at once, or the wild animals will multiply around you. 23 But the LORD your God will deliver them over to you, throwing them into great confusion until they are destroyed. 24 He will give their kings into your hand, and you will wipe out their names from under heaven. No one will be able to stand up against you; you will destroy them. 25 The images of their gods you are to burn in the fire. Do not covet the silver and gold on them, and do not take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it, for it is detestable to the LORD your God. 26 Do not bring a detestable thing into your house or you, like it, will be set apart for destruction. Regard it as vile and utterly detest it, for it is set apart for destruction.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Malachi 4:1-6
Judgment and Covenant Renewal
1 [a]“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the LORD Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them. 2 But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves. 3 Then you will trample on the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act,” says the LORD Almighty.
4 “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel.
5 “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. 6 He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”
Sonrise!
June 2, 2011 — by David H. Roper
The Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings. —Malachi 4:2
My state’s name, “Idaho,” according to one legend, comes from a Shoshone Indian word, “ee-dah-how.” When translated into English, it means something like, “Behold! The sun rising over the mountain.” I often think of that when the sun breaks over the eastern peaks and spills light and life into our valley.
Also, I think of Malachi’s promise: “The Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings” (Mal. 4:2). This is God’s irrevocable promise that our Lord Jesus will come again and all creation “will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21).
Each new sunrise is a reminder of that eternal morning when “bright heaven’s Sun” will arise with healing in His wings. Then everything that has been made will be made over and made irrevocably right. There will be no throbbing backs or knees, no financial struggles, no losses, no aging. One Bible version says that when Jesus returns we will “go out and leap like calves released from the stall” (Mal. 4:2 NIV). This is my highest imagination and my hope.
Jesus said, “Surely I am coming quickly” (Rev. 22:20). Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
High King of heaven, my victory won,
May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all. —Irish hymn
You have reason for optimism if you’re looking for Christ’s return.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
June 2nd, 2011
Are You Obsessed by Something?
Who is the man that fears the Lord? —Psalm 25:12
Are you obsessed by something? You will probably say, “No, by nothing,” but all of us are obsessed by something— usually by ourselves, or, if we are Christians, by our own experience of the Christian life. But the psalmist says that we are to be obsessed by God. The abiding awareness of the Christian life is to be God Himself, not just thoughts about Him. The total being of our life inside and out is to be absolutely obsessed by the presence of God. A child’s awareness is so absorbed in his mother that although he is not consciously thinking of her, when a problem arises, the abiding relationship is that with the mother. In that same way, we are to “live and move and have our being” in God (Acts 17:28), looking at everything in relation to Him, because our abiding awareness of Him continually pushes itself to the forefront of our lives.
If we are obsessed by God, nothing else can get into our lives— not concerns, nor tribulation, nor worries. And now we understand why our Lord so emphasized the sin of worrying. How can we dare to be so absolutely unbelieving when God totally surrounds us? To be obsessed by God is to have an effective barricade against all the assaults of the enemy.
“He himself shall dwell in prosperity . . .” (Psalm 25:13). God will cause us to “dwell in prosperity,” keeping us at ease, even in the midst of tribulation, misunderstanding, and slander, if our “life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). We rob ourselves of the miraculous, revealed truth of this abiding companionship with God. “God is our refuge . . .” (Psalm 46:1). Nothing can break through His shelter of protection.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
The Way Home - #6364
Thursday, June 2, 2011
When I was in the jungles of Ecuador, I was more than happy to have a guide who knew his way. Even though the jungle was pretty jungley (is that a word?), at least we had a little path to follow. That wasn't the case for a pioneer missionary I heard about. He had a long journey through some very thick jungle ahead of him. When he came to the village on the edge of that jungle, he was happy to find a man who was willing to guide him for the rest of the trip.
He'd been following this guy now for a couple of hours. The guide was literally hacking his way through that dense growth with his machete, and the missionary asked him, "Can't we find a path somewhere?" The guide gave him a pretty simple answer, "Sir, I am the path."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You about "The Way Home."
Two thousand years ago, one of Jesus' main guys asked a spiritual question that has haunted the human race for centuries: "How can we know the way?" Now, that's an important question. How can we know the way to God in the midst of so many competing religions and spiritualities? How can we get the issue of our eternity settled? Look, we've got maybe 70 years on this earth and we've got forever in eternity, so how can we know the way to heaven?
Well, Jesus didn't answer with a set of rules to follow, or a religion to join, or rituals to observe. His answer was simple and straightforward. It's our word for today from the Word of God, John 14:6, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." Now notice, He didn't say He'd come to show the way to God. He came to be the way. Jesus absolutely up-ends one of the most widespread misconceptions on the planet, that getting to God is about a religion. It's not about a religion; it's all about a Person. It's all about Jesus! It's not all about Christianity; it's all about Christ!
Now how could Jesus say He is the way? In short, because only Jesus did the dying for all our sin. In the Bible's words, "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). Because, as the Bible says, "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). Sin can only be paid for by someone dying, and someone did. But only one someone--Jesus. Again, the Bible: "Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous (that's Jesus) for the unrighteous (that's you and me) to bring you to God" (1 Peter 3:18). He literally took our hell so we could have His heaven. Then, three days after He died, Jesus walked out of His grave and blew away death!
Only the Man who paid for your sins can forgive your sins. And only those whose sins have been forgiven--erased from God's book--can enter the perfect home of a perfect God.
So this never has been and never will be about which religion is the right one. It's about the Rescuer, Jesus. When those Chilean miners were trapped deep underground, there was no way they could dig their way out. That's us, in a deep hole because of hijacking our life from the One who gave us our life. It took a massive effort to drill a hole and launch that miner rescue. No one complained that there was only one way out of that mine. They were celebrating that there was one! Yes, there is only one way to God, through Jesus His Son. But, thank God, there's a way!
So your eternity all comes down to what you do with Jesus; whether or not you've made the Savior your Savior. You could get that done this very day. See, it happens when you talk to Jesus something like this, "Jesus, I admit that I have run my own life. I deserve the penalty for that. I believe You paid it when you died on the cross. I believe You're alive today, and I'm pinning all my hopes on You."
Our website really is there to meet you at a moment like this and help you get the rest of the way. I hope you'll go there as soon as you can today--YoursForLife.net.
No religion, no right living is going to get you to heaven. If they could, Jesus wouldn't have died on that cross. He's your hope, and His hand is reaching your direction. Grab Him.
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