Max Lucado Daily: Don’t Leave Feeling Unforgiven
He called you to share in
his glory in Christ, a glory that
will continue forever.
1 Peter 5:10
To believe we are totally and eternally debt free is seldom easy. We doubt. And as a result, many are forgiven only a little, not because the grace of God is limited, but because the faith of the sinner is small. God is willing to forgive all. He’s willing to wipe the slate clean.
He invites you to a pool of mercy and invites you to bathe. Plunge in. Don’t just touch the surface. Don’t leave feeling unforgiven.
Where the grace of God is embraced, forgiveness flourishes.
I Peter 5:10 says, “He called you to share in his glory in Christ, a glory that will continue forever.”
And what you’ll discover is—the more you immerse yourself in grace, the more likely you are to give grace.
2 Samuel 6
The Ark Brought to Jerusalem
1 David again brought together all the able young men of Israel—thirty thousand. 2 He and all his men went to Baalah[a] in Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the Name,[b] the name of the LORD Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim on the ark. 3 They set the ark of God on a new cart and brought it from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, sons of Abinadab, were guiding the new cart 4 with the ark of God on it,[c] and Ahio was walking in front of it. 5 David and all Israel were celebrating with all their might before the LORD, with castanets,[d] harps, lyres, timbrels, sistrums and cymbals.
6 When they came to the threshing floor of Nakon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. 7 The LORD’s anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down, and he died there beside the ark of God.
8 Then David was angry because the LORD’s wrath had broken out against Uzzah, and to this day that place is called Perez Uzzah.[e]
9 David was afraid of the LORD that day and said, “How can the ark of the LORD ever come to me?” 10 He was not willing to take the ark of the LORD to be with him in the City of David. Instead, he took it to the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. 11 The ark of the LORD remained in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite for three months, and the LORD blessed him and his entire household.
12 Now King David was told, “The LORD has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and everything he has, because of the ark of God.” So David went to bring up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David with rejoicing. 13 When those who were carrying the ark of the LORD had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. 14 Wearing a linen ephod, David was dancing before the LORD with all his might, 15 while he and all Israel were bringing up the ark of the LORD with shouts and the sound of trumpets.
16 As the ark of the LORD was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, she despised him in her heart.
17 They brought the ark of the LORD and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it, and David sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings before the LORD. 18 After he had finished sacrificing the burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD Almighty. 19 Then he gave a loaf of bread, a cake of dates and a cake of raisins to each person in the whole crowd of Israelites, both men and women. And all the people went to their homes.
20 When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, “How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, going around half-naked in full view of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!”
21 David said to Michal, “It was before the LORD, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the LORD’s people Israel—I will celebrate before the LORD. 22 I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.”
23 And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: 1 John 2:18-27
Warnings Against Denying the Son
18 Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.
20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.[a] 21 I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. 22 Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
24 As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is what he promised us—eternal life.
26 I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. 27 As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.
Beware!
November 16, 2011 — by Marvin Williams
You have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. —1 John 2:18
When FBI agents train bank tellers to identify counterfeit bills, they show them both fake money and real money, and they study both. To detect a counterfeit problem, they must look for the differences in the genuine bill compared to the counterfeit—and not the similarities.
In 1 John 2, the apostle John helps to protect believers from heresy by showing them examples of counterfeit Christians and teachers. One of the signs of the last days is the coming of antichrists (1 John 2:18). Antichrists are those who claim to have His power and authority but don’t, or those who reject and oppose Him and His teachings.
John gave three marks of false teachers who are controlled by the spirit of the antichrists: They depart from the fellowship (v.19), they deny Jesus as the Messiah (v.22), and they draw the faithful away from Jesus (v.26). He encouraged believers to protect themselves against the spirit of the antichrists by depending on the indwelling presence of the Spirit, knowing the truth, and remaining in fellowship with Jesus.
We can protect ourselves from error and deception by knowing the false but relying on the Truth—Jesus Christ.
For Further Study
Find out how you can identify and protect yourself from
spiritual danger by reading Jude: Recognizing The
Danger Among Us at www.discoveryseries.org/q0909
Beware: The devil may add a few grains of truth to what is false.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Still Human!
. . . whatever you do, do all to the glory of God —1 Corinthians 10:31
In the Scriptures, the great miracle of the incarnation slips into the ordinary life of a child; the great miracle of the transfiguration fades into the demon-possessed valley below; the glory of the resurrection descends into a breakfast on the seashore. This is not an anticlimax, but a great revelation of God.
We have a tendency to look for wonder in our experience, and we mistake heroic actions for real heroes. It’s one thing to go through a crisis grandly, yet quite another to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, and no one paying even the remotest attention to us. If we are not looking for halos, we at least want something that will make people say, “What a wonderful man of prayer he is!” or, “What a great woman of devotion she is!” If you are properly devoted to the Lord Jesus, you have reached the lofty height where no one would ever notice you personally. All that is noticed is the power of God coming through you all the time.
We want to be able to say, “Oh, I have had a wonderful call from God!” But to do even the most humbling tasks to the glory of God takes the Almighty God Incarnate working in us. To be utterly unnoticeable requires God’s Spirit in us making us absolutely humanly His. The true test of a saint’s life is not successfulness but faithfulness on the human level of life. We tend to set up success in Christian work as our purpose, but our purpose should be to display the glory of God in human life, to live a life “hidden with Christ in God” in our everyday human conditions (Colossians 3:3). Our human relationships are the very conditions in which the ideal life of God should be exhibited.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Paper Trunks and Permanent Wardrobe - #6483
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
I think it had to be one of the most like insecure afternoons of my life. Our committee had been meeting for two days at this hotel. Two days straight; I mean two days straight. We had a slave-driving chairman, and finally he said, "All right, guys, how about a couple of hours in the pool?" "All right! The pool! The sauna! We deserve a break today."
There was this one problem. See, he had told most of the fellows, but my best friend and I had come totally unprepared; we had no swimwear whatsoever. And we really didn't want to pass up the pool and the sun and all that good stuff. So I went down to the gift shop and I said, "Do you have any swim trunks here?" And the lady said, "Well, I have some paper trunks." I said, "What?" She said, "Yeah, they're reinforced and they're paper trunks. It's only two dollars." Yeah. Well, it was my only choice, so I went for it. I mean, well, yeah, I guess I would spend two dollars on it.
I want to tell you, it was an insecure afternoon sitting there in those paper trunks in the sauna. Now, I'm happy to report there was... well, there was no modesty crisis... no wardrobe malfunction, but I did not keep them to wear for other occasions. I used them, and believe me, I threw them away. Because I know there's a difference between what you wear for a little while and what you're going to be wearing for a long time. Paper trunks may be worth two dollars, probably not much more.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Paper Trunks and Permanent Wardrobe."
Now, there are a lot of things you can base your identity on, but most of those roles, I would call them "paper trunks." You wear a little while and then you throw them away. There is one identity that is your permanent wardrobe; only one identity that you will always be, that is if you've ever made a commitment of your life to Jesus Christ. Paul talks about it in Ephesians 1, where we find our word for today from the Word of God. I'll begin at verse 11.
Notice the two words that are repeated four times in this passage. "In Christ we were chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will, in order that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be for the praise of His glory and you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth--the gospel of your salvation. Having believed you were marked in Christ with the seal--the promised Holy Spirit."
Okay, unless you dozed off, you probably know where your identity is supposed to be from those two words, "In Christ." Yeah, that's your location. Where are you? You're in Christ. There are a lot of identities where you might say, "I'm in something or other." You're in high school. You could say, "Man, is there life after high school?" You're in college at one period in your life. I know guys who are in professional football and they'll say, "Is there life after football?" Is there life after whatever company or organization you work for, after retirement, after you lose your mate or your parents?
See, life is a series of new starts. What happens after the children are gone? Those new starts last from starting kindergarten, to college, to marriage, the empty nest, job changes, retirement. And we wear those identities for a period of time. But if you're ever going to find personal security, you need a transcendent identity--someone you can be forever. And Paul gave it to us, "In Christ." You will always belong to Jesus Christ, after high school, when college is a memory, when you're single, when you're married, when you're widowed, when you're raising kids, after they leave, beyond that.
But here's the problem: we tend to pay a very high price for our temporary identities; our paper trunks. You'll never see most of your high school friends again, but we compromise or we hide our eternal relationship with Christ because we're scared of them. We play by whatever rules we have to play to be accepted in school, or in the dorm, in our job, and we sacrifice our loyalty to Christ in the process.
Look, you'll belong to Christ forever. Why not really be what you'll always be? Don't waste a lot of your life on paper trunks. Put your best into the permanent wardrobe that you will never risk losing--who you will be for all eternity--"In Christ."