Max Lucado Daily: He Understands
And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Matthew 10:30
God cares for you! So much so, he’s got the hairs on your head numbered.
Why did he grow weary in Samaria (John 4:6), disturbed in Nazareth (Mark 6:6), and angry in the Temple (John 2:15)? Why was he sleepy in the boat on the Sea of Galilee (Mark 4:38), sad at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:35), and hungry in the wilderness (Matt. 4:2)?
Why? Why did he endure all these feelings? Because he knew you would feel them too.
He knew you would be weary, disturbed, and angry. He knew you’d be sleepy, grief-stricken, and hungry. He knew you’d face pain. If not the pain of the body, the pain of the soul … pain too sharp for any drug. He knew you’d face thirst—a thirst for truth. And the truth we glean from the image of a thirsty Christ is—he understands.
And because he understands, you can come to him.
Psalm 6[f]
For the director of music. With stringed instruments. According to sheminith.[g] A psalm of David.
1 LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger
or discipline me in your wrath.
2 Have mercy on me, LORD, for I am faint;
heal me, LORD, for my bones are in agony.
3 My soul is in deep anguish.
How long, LORD, how long?
4 Turn, LORD, and deliver me;
save me because of your unfailing love.
5 Among the dead no one proclaims your name.
Who praises you from the grave?
6 I am worn out from my groaning.
All night long I flood my bed with weeping
and drench my couch with tears.
7 My eyes grow weak with sorrow;
they fail because of all my foes.
8 Away from me, all you who do evil,
for the LORD has heard my weeping.
9 The LORD has heard my cry for mercy;
the LORD accepts my prayer.
10 All my enemies will be overwhelmed with shame and anguish;
they will turn back and suddenly be put to shame.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: 2 Corinthians 4:7-18
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
13 It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.”[a] Since we have that same spirit of[b] faith, we also believe and therefore speak, 14 because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. 15 All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.
16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
Grace-Filled Waiting
December 27, 2011 — by Anne Cetas
We do not lose heart. —2 Corinthians 4:16
Roger lost his job due to the company being downsized. For months he searched, applied for jobs, prayed, asked others to pray, and trusted God. Roger and his wife Jerrie’s emotions fluctuated though. They saw God provide for them in unexpected ways and experienced His grace, but sometimes they worried that a job would never come. For 15 long months, they waited.
Then Roger had three interviews with a company, and a week later the employment agency called and said, “Have you heard the saying, ‘Sometimes clouds have a silver lining’? Well, you’ve got the job!” Jerrie told me later, “We wouldn’t trade this hard experience for anything. It brought us closer together and closer to the Lord.” Friends who had prayed rejoiced and gave thanks to God.
Paul wanted the Corinthian church to see the grace of God at work in his life, which could cause “thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God” (2 Cor. 4:15). His trials were so severe that he was “hard pressed on every side,” “perplexed,” “persecuted,” and “struck down” (vv.8-9). Yet he encouraged the people not to lose heart in troubles (v.16) but to trust God. During our difficulties, we can be drawn nearer to God and others, as Roger and Jerrie experienced, and praise will go to the Lord for His grace.
Thank the Lord when trouble comes,
His love and grace expressing;
Grateful praise releases faith,
Turns trials into blessing. —Egner
There’s no better time to praise God than right now.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Where the Battle is Won or Lost
’If you will return, O Israel,’ says the Lord . . . —Jeremiah 4:1
Our battles are first won or lost in the secret places of our will in God’s presence, never in full view of the world. The Spirit of God seizes me and I am compelled to get alone with God and fight the battle before Him. Until I do this, I will lose every time. The battle may take one minute or one year, but that will depend on me, not God. However long it takes, I must wrestle with it alone before God, and I must resolve to go through the hell of renunciation or rejection before Him. Nothing has any power over someone who has fought the battle before God and won there.
I should never say, “I will wait until I get into difficult circumstances and then I’ll put God to the test.” Trying to do that will not work. I must first get the issue settled between God and myself in the secret places of my soul, where no one else can interfere. Then I can go ahead, knowing with certainty that the battle is won. Lose it there, and calamity, disaster, and defeat before the world are as sure as the laws of God. The reason the battle is lost is that I fight it first in the external world. Get alone with God, do battle before Him, and settle the matter once and for all.
In dealing with other people, our stance should always be to drive them toward making a decision of their will. That is how surrendering to God begins. Not often, but every once in a while, God brings us to a major turning point— a great crossroads in our life. From that point we either go toward a more and more slow, lazy, and useless Christian life, or we become more and more on fire, giving our utmost for His highest— our best for His glory.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Resigning the Air Band, Joining the Symphony - #6512
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
An air band - that's probably the only kind of band I'll ever play in. Now, if you're around teenagers for a while, you might have the thrill of seeing an air band in action. What will happen is they'll turn on a favorite song, and then they go through all the motions of banging it out of the guitar, beating it out on the drums, belting it out as the lead singer, but there's no guitar, there's no drum. Since they have no instruments, you know what they're playing. They're playing the air - thus air band. It's a lot of activity, but there's nothing coming out.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Resigning the Air Band, Joining the Symphony."
Yeah. We're looking at a life-changing passage out of the Bible today. In fact, if you look at the writings of some of the great spiritual giants of the church, over and over again they will tell you that they read this passage and it changed their lives. The issue in this passage is whether or not your life is bearing fruit; whether anything is really coming out of your life or are you just going through the motions. Remember that air band? It's similar to a lot of Christian activity that just, well, doesn't really produce much result.
Our word for today from the Word of God is in this life-changing passage from John 15. It says, "I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit. While every branch that does bear fruit, He prunes so it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I've spoken to you. Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Well, neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me. If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, well then you will ask what you wish and it will be given you." He goes on to say, "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this that he lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command."
Now, if your life in Christ is a little flat right now, there are four questions that come out of this passage that can help restore the life. Get beyond the spiritual air band of just going through the motions like a branch that is still there looking like part of the vine, but nothing's coming off of it. Why don't you get into the symphony? See, that's where the real music comes out of your life again.
Here are the four questions. Number one: "Am I clean?" If it seems like something's wrong spiritually, first of all He says, "Now you are clean." Am I clean? Have I cooperated with the Lord as He's been trying to cut out that trait in me that's holding back His blessing, that action, that habit of mine, that dark way of thinking, of treating people? Am I clean, or am I holding back?
Question Number two: "Am I clinging?" "Remain in Me," Jesus said. You see, one of the great secrets of spiritual victory is to learn that it's not me working for Him, which I have done for so many years of my life. But it's when you relax, and trust, and you draw on Him, and realize it is Him working through you daily. Moment by moment you rest in His resources or else you run on your own.
The third question is: "Am I asking?" He says, "Ask whatever you wish." Asking in faith. Once you know you're clean and you're depending totally on Him for it to happen, you get beyond your own boundaries and you get into Jesus' power when you ask for something that's so big that only God can do it.
Oh yeah, and finally: "Am I sacrificing?" He says, "Am I loving in a self-sacrificing way?" He talks about laying down your life here. "Am I loving in a self-sacrificing way, or am I serving myself?" See, serving Christ becomes just going through the motions when we start just cranking it out instead of following the four secrets of fruit bearing: staying clean, clinging, asking, and sacrificing for others. That creates a natural flow of Christ through you, not a busy, but empty performance.
So quit trying to act like the music comes from you. Let Christ play His symphony through you.
