Max Lucado Daily: Family Expectations
I will be your father, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. 2 Corinthians 6:18
Many of us have a fantasy that our family will be like the Waltons, an expectation that our friends will be members of our family. Jesus didn’t have that expectation. Look how Jesus defined his family: “My true brother and sister and mother are those who do what God wants” (Mark 3:35).
When Jesus’ brother didn’t share his convictions, he didn’t try to force them. He recognized that his spiritual e way our family responds to us. When it comes to the behavior of others toward us, family could give him what his physical family didn’t.
We can’t control how our family responds to us. Our hands are tied. We have to move beyond that expectation that if we do good, people will treat us right. The fact is they may and they may not.
Let God give you what your family doesn’t.
And don’t lose heart. God still changes families.
1 Samuel 31
Saul Takes His Life
1 Now the Philistines fought against Israel; the Israelites fled before them, and many fell dead on Mount Gilboa. 2 The Philistines were in hot pursuit of Saul and his sons, and they killed his sons Jonathan, Abinadab and Malki-Shua. 3 The fighting grew fierce around Saul, and when the archers overtook him, they wounded him critically.
4 Saul said to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword and run me through, or these uncircumcised fellows will come and run me through and abuse me.”
But his armor-bearer was terrified and would not do it; so Saul took his own sword and fell on it. 5 When the armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his sword and died with him. 6 So Saul and his three sons and his armor-bearer and all his men died together that same day.
7 When the Israelites along the valley and those across the Jordan saw that the Israelite army had fled and that Saul and his sons had died, they abandoned their towns and fled. And the Philistines came and occupied them.
8 The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the dead, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. 9 They cut off his head and stripped off his armor, and they sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to proclaim the news in the temple of their idols and among their people. 10 They put his armor in the temple of the Ashtoreths and fastened his body to the wall of Beth Shan.
11 When the people of Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, 12 all their valiant men marched through the night to Beth Shan. They took down the bodies of Saul and his sons from the wall of Beth Shan and went to Jabesh, where they burned them. 13 Then they took their bones and buried them under a tamarisk tree at Jabesh, and they fasted seven days.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Philippians 3:8-17
8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in[a] Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Following Paul’s Example
15 All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. 16 Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
17 Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do.
Plowing Straight Lines
I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. —Philippians 3:14
It’s my first day on the tractor! A crisp morning breeze brushes across the field. Crickets and country silence yield to the roar of the engine. Dropping the plow into the soil, I head out across the field. I look down at the gauges and gearshift, squeeze the cold steel of the steering wheel, and admire the power at my disposal. Finally, I look back to view the results. Instead of the ramrod straight line I was expecting, I see what looks like a slithering snake, with more bends and curves than the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
We know better. “Plow with your eye on the fence post,” we’ve been told. By staying focused on a point across the field, a person plowing is assured of a straight line. On the return I comply, with telling results: The line is straight. The row was messed up only when I didn’t have a focus point.
Paul had similar wisdom when he wrote of having his focus on Jesus Christ and the impact it had on him. Not only did he ignore distractions (Phil. 3:8,13), he set the focus (vv.8,14), noted the result (vv.9-11), and observed the pattern it sets for others (vv.16-17).
Like Paul, if we focus on Christ, we will plow a straight path and accomplish God’s purpose in our lives.
Lord, help us keep our eyes on You
And focused on the task
Of bringing glory to Your name
By doing what You ask. —Sper
When you keep your eyes on Christ,
everything will come into focus.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, November 07, 2011
The Undetected Sacredness of Circumstances
We know that all things work together for good to those who love God . . . —Romans 8:28
The circumstances of a saint’s life are ordained of God. In the life of a saint there is no such thing as chance. God by His providence brings you into circumstances that you can’t understand at all, but the Spirit of God understands. God brings you to places, among people, and into certain conditions to accomplish a definite purpose through the intercession of the Spirit in you. Never put yourself in front of your circumstances and say, “I’m going to be my own providence here; I will watch this closely, or protect myself from that.” All your circumstances are in the hand of God, and therefore you don’t ever have to think they are unnatural or unique. Your part in intercessory prayer is not to agonize over how to intercede, but to use the everyday circumstances and people God puts around you by His providence to bring them before His throne, and to allow the Spirit in you the opportunity to intercede for them. In this way God is going to touch the whole world with His saints.
Am I making the Holy Spirit’s work difficult by being vague and unsure, or by trying to do His work for Him? I must do the human side of intercession— utilizing the circumstances in which I find myself and the people who surround me. I must keep my conscious life as a sacred place for the Holy Spirit. Then as I lift different ones to God through prayer, the Holy Spirit intercedes for them.
Your intercessions can never be mine, and my intercessions can never be yours, “. . . but the Spirit Himself makes intercession” in each of our lives (Romans 8:26). And without that intercession, the lives of others would be left in poverty and in ruin.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
It Doesn't Take Long to Freeze - #6476
Monday, November 7, 2011
When I spoke at a winter conference in Canada, the word cold took on a whole new meaning to me. It was 40 degrees below--that's Fahrenheit, not wind chill temperature! We added the wind chill in just to make it a little more exciting. It was the coldest, sustained temperature I have ever been in.
Now, I'll tell you, I hate to wear hats. I hate to wear hoods. Oh, but I learned fast. I was talking to a teenager in the dinner line, and he told me that two days before, he had been out for one minute in that weather, he'd come in, tried to warm up his ear and literally broke the cartilage in his ear. It had quick-frozen; freeze dried in one minute. Right after that, I had about a three-minute walk ahead of me. Guess what? Even though I had come in with my parka hood off, after hearing that, I could love a parka hood. Oh, I wore it; you bet I did. I didn't realize that you could do permanent damage like in no time!
Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "It Doesn't Take Long to Freeze."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes right out of the life of King David. It's in 2 Samuel 11:1-4. "In the spring at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. But David remained in Jerusalem. One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful." Now, we know that David sent for her and it says in verse 4, "David sent messengers to get her. She came to him," and then these tragic game-changing words, "and he slept with her."
These are probably some of the sorriest verses in the Bible. Here's David, the man who is described as the man after God's own heart. And up to this point there is one glorious victory after another. And then, suddenly he freezes spiritually, and it didn't take long to freeze--one night. Later David repented; he was forgiven, but the glory of his life would never be the same again. From this moment on his life will be marred by death, and guilt, and a prodigal son, a litany of heartaches, tragedy after tragedy in his family, and it did not take long--one spiritual day off.
Now, if it could happen to David it could happen to me and it could happen to you. Oh, it may or may not be a sexual sin that could capture you, although that's a pretty powerful one. It could be an act of bitterness or revenge, maybe just one dishonest deal that's so tempting right now, a momentary relaxing of your convictions--just once, a harmless flirtation. But a lifetime of honor can be lost in a night time. What took years to build can be torn down in moments. It happened to David; it could happen to you.
The moral is simple: you can't afford one day off spiritually. Begin each day...begin every day in the personal presence of your Savior, Jesus, who is mighty to save and mighty to save you from the sin of that day. A busy day, a boring day, a day you're away from home, a down day, a vacation day, a special day. No matter what the day, begin it in the presence of Jesus whether you feel like it or not. If you don't feel like it, you probably need to even more. Keep your confessed sin up-to-date as of that morning. Anticipate the temptations that you may face that day. Consecrate your weaknesses to Him and then turn on your spiritual radar so it's working that entire day.
Be sure you don't leave without your spiritual armor on, or your spiritual hood up if you prefer, because believe me, it doesn't take long to freeze.