Max Lucado Daily: You are Unique
Each of us is an original. Galatians 5:26, The Message
There are certain things you can do that no one else can. Perhaps it is parenting, or constructing houses, or encouraging the discouraged. There are things that only you can do, and you are alive to do them.
In the great orchestra we call life, you have an instrument and a song, and you owe it to God to play them both sublimely.
Psalm 52
For the director of music. A maskil[b] of David. When Doeg the Edomite had gone to Saul and told him: “David has gone to the house of Ahimelek.”
1 Why do you boast of evil, you mighty hero?
Why do you boast all day long,
you who are a disgrace in the eyes of God?
2 You who practice deceit,
your tongue plots destruction;
it is like a sharpened razor.
3 You love evil rather than good,
falsehood rather than speaking the truth.[c]
4 You love every harmful word,
you deceitful tongue!
5 Surely God will bring you down to everlasting ruin:
He will snatch you up and pluck you from your tent;
he will uproot you from the land of the living.
6 The righteous will see and fear;
they will laugh at you, saying,
7 “Here now is the man
who did not make God his stronghold
but trusted in his great wealth
and grew strong by destroying others!”
8 But I am like an olive tree
flourishing in the house of God;
I trust in God’s unfailing love
for ever and ever.
9 For what you have done I will always praise you
in the presence of your faithful people.
And I will hope in your name,
for your name is good.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Philemon 1:12-22
12 I am sending him—who is my very heart—back to you. 13 I would have liked to keep him with me so that he could take your place in helping me while I am in chains for the gospel. 14 But I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favor you do would not seem forced but would be voluntary. 15 Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back forever— 16 no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord.
17 So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. 18 If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me. 19 I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back—not to mention that you owe me your very self. 20 I do wish, brother, that I may have some benefit from you in the Lord; refresh my heart in Christ. 21 Confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I ask.
22 And one thing more: Prepare a guest room for me, because I hope to be restored to you in answer to your prayers.
One Heart At A Time
October 21, 2011 — by Dennis Fisher
. . . no longer as a slave but more than a slave—a beloved brother. —Philemon 1:16
Quaker John Woolman was an itinerant preacher who waged his own personal campaign to end slavery in colonial America. Woolman met with slave-holders to speak of the injustice of holding other human beings as property. Although Woolman did not eradicate slavery completely, he did persuade many masters to free their slaves. His success was due to individual, personal persuasion.
The book of Philemon contains a similar one-on-one appeal. Onesimus was a runaway slave who had escaped from his Christian master Philemon. Onesimus had come to faith through Paul’s ministry, and now Paul was sending him back to Philemon with these words: “Perhaps he departed for a while for this purpose, that you might receive him forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave—a beloved brother” (vv.15-16). Although we don’t know if Onesimus was set free from slavery, his new faith in Jesus had changed his relationship with his Christian master. He was now also a brother in Christ. Paul was influencing his world one heart at a time.
By the transforming power of the gospel, people and situations can change. Like Woolman and like Paul, let’s seek to influence our world one heart at a time.
If I can help some wounded heart,
If I can by my love impart
Some blessing that will help more now—
Lord, just show me how. —Brandt
The kindest thing you can do for another is to show him the truth.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, October 21, 2011
Impulsiveness or Discipleship?
But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith . . . —Jude 20
There was nothing of the nature of impulsive or thoughtless action about our Lord, but only a calm strength that never got into a panic. Most of us develop our Christianity along the lines of our own nature, not along the lines of God’s nature. Impulsiveness is a trait of the natural life, and our Lord always ignores it, because it hinders the development of the life of a disciple. Watch how the Spirit of God gives a sense of restraint to impulsiveness, suddenly bringing us a feeling of self-conscious foolishness, which makes us instantly want to vindicate ourselves. Impulsiveness is all right in a child, but is disastrous in a man or woman—an impulsive adult is always a spoiled person. Impulsiveness needs to be trained into intuition through discipline.
Discipleship is built entirely on the supernatural grace of God. Walking on water is easy to someone with impulsive boldness, but walking on dry land as a disciple of Jesus Christ is something altogether different. Peter walked on the water to go to Jesus, but he “followed Him at a distance” on dry land (Mark 14:54). We do not need the grace of God to withstand crises—human nature and pride are sufficient for us to face the stress and strain magnificently. But it does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours of every day as a saint, going through drudgery, and living an ordinary, unnoticed, and ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus. It is ingrained in us that we have to do exceptional things for God—but we do not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things of life, and holy on the ordinary streets, among ordinary people—and this is not learned in five minutes.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Watching Him Drown - #6465
Friday, October 21, 2011
It was a 911 call that alerted the first responders. A man was slowly wading out into San Francisco Bay, inching his way to ending his life there. Pretty soon a group of firefighters, along with a crowd of 75 people, were watching as this desperate man went a little deeper and a little deeper, and sadly occasionally glancing back at the shore. They stood there watching for an hour...and they watched him die, without anyone making a move to help him.
I can only imagine this man looking back at those spectators, wondering if anyone cared if he lived or died. And I wonder how life-changing it might have been if someone had been willing to try to save him. It's just kind of sickening.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Watching Him Drown."
You know, understandably, everyone was pretty quick to jump on those firefighters and onlookers who did nothing while a man died in front of them. And you know they all had their reasons; some maybe more valid than others. But I'm seeing something else in this horribly sad incident. I see something of myself and so many of my fellow Jesus-followers in that scene by the bay. Because all too often, we stand idly by as people around us go steadily to their death. Oh, this is an eternal death, forever away from God, because that is the penalty for hijacking the running of our life from Him, and every single human has done that.
God tells us that He has "given us eternal life and this life is in His Son" because His Son did the dying for all our sinning. Now our word for today from the Word of God is in 1 John 5:11-12. Here's what they say: "Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life." In other words, there is no way the people we care about will get into heaven without Jesus. And He has left us with that life-or-death information that their eternity depends on.
So, our orders from God in Proverbs 24:11 are to "rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter." See, to remain silent about my Jesus to someone without Him is the equivalent to watching them slowly die in front of me when I have, hidden in my heart, what could save them.
I'm sure those people on the shore each had their reasons, or excuses, for doing nothing. But is there an excuse for standing by when it is within your power to save someone who's dying--certainly spiritually? We all know the reasons or the excuses that we offer for our silence about the Rescuer who came from heaven.
The fear of offending, or the fear of damaging a relationship, the fear of not being liked, the fear of messing it up. If you notice, those fears all have one thing in common. They're all about me. Isn't it time I had a greater fear than what might happen to me if I go in for the rescue; the fear of what will happen to them if I don't. Because life now without Jesus is hard, and life forever without Him is horrible; it's unthinkable.
I know this: I know that Jesus jumped in to rescue me at the cost of His life. How can I, then, stay on the shore any longer and watch people I know slip away without Him; without a chance to live forever? And I am their chance.