Max Lucado Daily: Our Forever House
“I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.” Psalm 23:6, NKJV
Where will you live forever? In the house of the Lord. If his house is your “forever house,” what does that make this earthly house? You got it! Short term housing. This is not our home.
This explains the homesickness we feel . . . Deep down you know you are not home yet. So be careful not to act like you are.
Deuteronomy 34
The Death of Moses
1 Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the LORD showed him the whole land—from Gilead to Dan, 2 all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea, 3 the Negev and the whole region from the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar. 4 Then the LORD said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.”
5 And Moses the servant of the LORD died there in Moab, as the LORD had said. 6 He buried him[n] in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is. 7 Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone. 8 The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the time of weeping and mourning was over.
9 Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit[o] of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him. So the Israelites listened to him and did what the LORD had commanded Moses.
10 Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, 11 who did all those signs and wonders the LORD sent him to do in Egypt—to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. 12 For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Psalm 55:1-8
For the director of music. With stringed instruments. A maskil[b] of David.
1 Listen to my prayer, O God,
do not ignore my plea;
2 hear me and answer me.
My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught
3 because of what my enemy is saying,
because of the threats of the wicked;
for they bring down suffering on me
and assail me in their anger.
4 My heart is in anguish within me;
the terrors of death have fallen on me.
5 Fear and trembling have beset me;
horror has overwhelmed me.
6 I said, “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!
I would fly away and be at rest.
7 I would flee far away
and stay in the desert;[c]
8 I would hurry to my place of shelter,
far from the tempest and storm.”
Fusion Man
July 7, 2011 — by Bill Crowder
So I said, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest.” —Psalm 55:6
Yves Rossy accomplished something people have dreamed of since the ancient myth of Icarus. He has flown. Known as the “Fusion Man,” Rossy built a set of wings with an engine pack that uses his body as the fuselage of the aircraft, with the wings fused to the back of his heat-resistant suit. His first flight took place near Geneva, Switzerland, in 2004, and he has since had numerous successful flights.
The psalmist David longed to have wings so he could fly away. In a time when he was being pursued by enemies who were seeking to take his life, Israel’s king cried, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest” (Ps. 55:6).
Like David, when we’re facing pressure, mistreatment, hardship, or grief, we might wish we could sprout wings and fly away. But Jesus offers a better way. Rather than fleeing our struggles, He invites us to flee to Him. He said, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, . . . and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt. 11:28-29). Rather than wishing we could fly away and escape life’s problems, we can bring them to Him.
Escape cannot give us rest, but Jesus can.
O give me a spirit of peace, dear Lord,
Midst the storms and tempests that roll,
That I may find rest and quiet within,
A calm buried deep in my soul. —Dawe
God gives us strength to face our problems, not to flee from them.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
July 7th, 2011
All Efforts of Worth and Excellence Are Difficult
Enter by the narrow gate . . . . Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life . . . —Matthew 7:13-14
If we are going to live as disciples of Jesus, we have to remember that all efforts of worth and excellence are difficult. The Christian life is gloriously difficult, but its difficulty does not make us faint and cave in—it stirs us up to overcome. Do we appreciate the miraculous salvation of Jesus Christ enough to be our utmost for His highest—our best for His glory?
God saves people by His sovereign grace through the atonement of Jesus, and “it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). But we have to “work out” that salvation in our everyday, practical living (Philippians 2:12). If we will only start on the basis of His redemption to do what He commands, then we will find that we can do it. If we fail, it is because we have not yet put into practice what God has placed within us. But a crisis will reveal whether or not we have been putting it into practice. If we will obey the Spirit of God and practice in our physical life what God has placed within us by His Spirit, then when a crisis does come we will find that our own nature, as well as the grace of God, will stand by us.
Thank God that He does give us difficult things to do! His salvation is a joyous thing, but it is also something that requires bravery, courage, and holiness. It tests us for all we are worth. Jesus is “bringing many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:10 , and God will not shield us from the requirements of sonship. God’s grace produces men and women with a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ, not pampered, spoiled weaklings. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline to live the worthy and excellent life of a disciple of Jesus in the realities of life. And it is always necessary for us to make an effort to live a life of worth and excellence.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
The Trouble With Wells - #6389
Thursday, July 7, 2011
It's a miracle my wife ever made it through college. Not because of her grades. You say, "Yeah, probably because she was dating you." No, that's not the reason either - because of finances. You see, halfway through, her parents' financial help suddenly stopped. Now, it wasn't because they didn't want to help her get through college. Suddenly they just didn't have it. Her folks were running a small dairy farm at the time, just a little family farm, and they needed a well desperately. So they sank most of their money into digging a well. A drought came and the well came up dry. Wells have a way of doing that.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Trouble With Wells."
Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from John 4. A great story, one I love, and I'm going to begin reading at verse 13. You'll recognize this as an account of Jesus' trip through Samaria where He met a Samaritan woman who had come to draw water from the well. She had a pretty sordid background; she'd been pretty busy with the men in town, shall we say, and she has a reputation that goes with it.
Now Jesus says to her after offering her living water, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again." I can almost picture Him pointing to the well. "But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.'"
"The woman said to Him, 'Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to come here to draw water.' He told her, 'Go call your husband and come back.' 'Well, I have no husband' she replied. Jesus said to her, 'You're right when you say you have no husband. The fact is you've had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.'"
This lady went to a well that day to meet her need. She'd been doing that for a long time emotionally and spiritually as well as physically. You see, emotionally, I think her well was men. She kept trying to quench her incurable heart thirst with male attention. "Maybe this relationship...maybe it will finally do it." But she always needed one more, and the one more never did it.
Jesus proposed something better. Jesus said, "I want to give you an internal life source that will allow you to finally relax, and end your search, and have peace." You see, we all have wells we depend on for our emotional life. Maybe your well is people's applause, or the approval of the opposite sex. Maybe it's another career conquest, the acceptance of a group of friends, buying things that make you feel secure, or maybe it's really depending on one of your children, or on position, or power, or money.
But there's a problem with wells. First of all, they dry up during droughts and they leave you adrift. Secondly, you always need another shot, so you're always restless, you're never filled, driving for more, always afraid of losing it...always restless...always thirsty again.
The Bible uses this wonderful word to describe the result of beginning a personal relationship with Jesus. In John 4, it says that with Jesus you're "complete in Him." Complete. Not searching anymore. Not always having to look for something to fill me up, make me feel loved, make me feel important or satisfied. The reason only Jesus can do that is, according to the Bible, we are "created by Him and for Him" but we haven't lived for Him. We've lived pretty much for ourselves. So we're chronically restless because there's a missing Person in our life. The Person we were made by and made for. It wasn't His choice that we be away from Him. But it was His choice to do whatever it took to bring us back. It took a Cross. It took Him taking my hell for my sin so I could be with Him for time and for eternity.
And today, He's knocking on the door of your heart, giving you this chance to finally be complete in Him. Tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm Yours." And let me invite you to check out our website. I've tried to lay out there as simply as I could in non-religious language how you can be sure you've begun a relationship with Him. Go to YoursForLife.net, will you? We'd be honored to have you pay us a visit.
Jesus wants to make you secure by putting your life source inside you. He is enough. You're meant to draw your life from inside you, not from around you. The key to peace, the end of roller coaster living, is to depend on the spring of water welling up inside of you. And that's the identity Christ can give you.
So, be sure you know who you are without your wells. They go dry and they're never enough. That's the trouble with wells.