Max Lucado Daily: Majority Rules?
May the Lord lead your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s patience. 2 Thessalonians 3:5
Where do we get these ideas? The majority is not always right. In fact, it’s rarely right.
If the majority had ruled, the children of Israel never would have left Egypt. They would have voted to stay in bondage. If the majority had ruled, David never would have fought Goliath. His brothers would have voted for him to stay with the sheep. What’s the point?
You must listen to your own heart.
God says you’re on your way to becoming a disciple when you can keep a clear head and a pure heart.
Do you ever try to do something right and yet nothing seems to turn out like you planned?
Take heart. When you do what is right—God remembers.
Psalm 7
Psalm 7[a]
A shiggaion[b] of David, which he sang to the LORD concerning Cush, a Benjamite.
1 LORD my God, I take refuge in you;
save and deliver me from all who pursue me,
2 or they will tear me apart like a lion
and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me.
3 LORD my God, if I have done this
and there is guilt on my hands—
4 if I have repaid my ally with evil
or without cause have robbed my foe—
5 then let my enemy pursue and overtake me;
let him trample my life to the ground
and make me sleep in the dust.[c]
6 Arise, LORD, in your anger;
rise up against the rage of my enemies.
Awake, my God; decree justice.
7 Let the assembled peoples gather around you,
while you sit enthroned over them on high.
8 Let the LORD judge the peoples.
Vindicate me, LORD, according to my righteousness,
according to my integrity, O Most High.
9 Bring to an end the violence of the wicked
and make the righteous secure—
you, the righteous God
who probes minds and hearts.
10 My shield[d] is God Most High,
who saves the upright in heart.
11 God is a righteous judge,
a God who displays his wrath every day.
12 If he does not relent,
he[e] will sharpen his sword;
he will bend and string his bow.
13 He has prepared his deadly weapons;
he makes ready his flaming arrows.
14 Whoever is pregnant with evil
conceives trouble and gives birth to disillusionment.
15 Whoever digs a hole and scoops it out
falls into the pit they have made.
16 The trouble they cause recoils on them;
their violence comes down on their own heads.
17 I will give thanks to the LORD because of his righteousness;
I will sing the praises of the name of the LORD Most High.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Habakkuk 3:11-19
11 Sun and moon stood still in the heavens
at the glint of your flying arrows,
at the lightning of your flashing spear.
12 In wrath you strode through the earth
and in anger you threshed the nations.
13 You came out to deliver your people,
to save your anointed one.
You crushed the leader of the land of wickedness,
you stripped him from head to foot.
14 With his own spear you pierced his head
when his warriors stormed out to scatter us,
gloating as though about to devour
the wretched who were in hiding.
15 You trampled the sea with your horses,
churning the great waters.
16 I heard and my heart pounded,
my lips quivered at the sound;
decay crept into my bones,
and my legs trembled.
Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity
to come on the nation invading us.
17 Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.
19 The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to tread on the heights.
For the director of music. On my stringed instruments.
Yet I Will Rejoice
December 29, 2011 — by Marvin Williams
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. —Habakkuk 3:18
Life in our world can be difficult. At some point, most of us have wondered, Where is God in my trouble? And we may have thought, It seems like injustice is winning and God is silent. We have a choice as to how we respond to our troubles. The prophet Habakkuk had an attitude worth following: He made the choice to rejoice.
Habakkuk saw the rapid increase in Judah’s moral and spiritual failings, and this disturbed him deeply. But God’s response troubled him even more. God would use the wicked nation of Babylon to punish Judah. Habakkuk did not fully understand this, but he could rejoice because he had learned to rely on the wisdom, justice, and sovereignty of God. He concluded his book with a wonderful affirmation: “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation” (3:18). Though it was not clear how Judah would survive, Habakkuk had learned to trust God amid injustice, suffering, and loss. He would live by his faith in God alone. With this kind of faith came joy in God, despite the circumstances surrounding him.
We too can rejoice in our trials, have surefooted confidence in God, and live on the heights of His sovereignty.
Be this the purpose of my soul
My solemn, my determined choice:
To yield to God’s supreme control,
And in my every trial rejoice. —Anon.
Praising God in our trials turns burdens into blessings.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Deserter or Disciple?
From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more —John 6:66
When God, by His Spirit through His Word, gives you a clear vision of His will, you must “walk in the light” of that vision (1 John 1:7). Even though your mind and soul may be thrilled by it, if you don’t “walk in the light” of it you will sink to a level of bondage never envisioned by our Lord. Mentally disobeying the “heavenly vision” (Acts 26:19) will make you a slave to ideas and views that are completely foreign to Jesus Christ. Don’t look at someone else and say, “Well, if he can have those views and prosper, why can’t I?” You have to “walk in the light” of the vision that has been given to you. Don’t compare yourself with others or judge them— that is between God and them. When you find that one of your favorite and strongly held views clashes with the “heavenly vision,” do not begin to debate it. If you do, a sense of property and personal right will emerge in you— things on which Jesus placed no value. He was against these things as being the root of everything foreign to Himself— “. . . for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses” (Luke 12:15). If we don’t see and understand this, it is because we are ignoring the underlying principles of our Lord’s teaching.
Our tendency is to lie back and bask in the memory of the wonderful experience we had when God revealed His will to us. But if a New Testament standard is revealed to us by the light of God, and we don’t try to measure up, or even feel inclined to do so, then we begin to backslide. It means your conscience does not respond to the truth. You can never be the same after the unveiling of a truth. That moment marks you as one who either continues on with even more devotion as a disciple of Jesus Christ, or as one who turns to go back as a deserter.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tomorrow's Weather - #6514
Thursday, December 29, 2011
There was a time in my life when I had once a month responsibilities in Chicago, and I was living in New Jersey. So it gave me an opportunity to see what weather was headed for my home in New Jersey. Of course, you know the weather in our country moves from West to East. So, usually, in New Jersey we got Chicago's yesterday - today.
Now, one spectacular, warm and sunny day I left Chicago. I mean, it was a "10" on the scale of beautiful days. When I got home, it was kind of a cool, rainy day, and it had been that way for about three days straight; just kind of everything just gray. I got home and the family's I guess biorhythms were all kind of acting like it had been three rainy days. "It's just been raining and cool." Well, I was a bearer of good news. I said, "Hey, don't be discouraged! I've seen tomorrow's weather."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Tomorrow's Weather."
Our word for today from the Word of God is found in Psalm 30:6. A short statement that says this: "Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning." David, with a sigh here, talks about tears, and weeping, and long nights of grief. He's seen the grief of the moment, but he has also seen tomorrow's weather. And he says, "Rejoicing is coming."
For a Christian, the forecast is always joy in the morning. You see, it isn't the absence of hurt that makes life in Christ unique, because we have as much hurt as everyone else. It's the presence of hope. You may know very personally that being in Christ is no guarantee against grief and pain. You may have just experienced an awful loss. Maybe you're facing physical pain or some frightening medical prospects. Maybe your agony is over the wrong road that a loved one of yours has chosen. For some deeply personal reason right now there are tears; maybe almost unbearable struggle at times. And God cares about those tears.
In fact, Psalm 56:8 says, "He gathers up your tears in a bottle." He feels your pain, but this isn't the end. I don't know why God wants me to talk about this today, but I just feel that someone needs to hear this simple truth today, "This is not the end. There will be joy in the morning. It won't rain forever." I don't know what form that joy's going to take. God may send a person that He has prepared to fill the hole in your life that you're grieving over now. Or maybe He will use your tragedy in such a glorious way that you'll be amazed at the lives that He's going to touch. They'll listen to you because of the trail you have walked.
Or maybe He'll remind you of the heavenly reunion that's going to last so much longer than the separation. He may send you a miracle that will be a miracle that will deliver you from this. Or maybe God will open up to you a depth of knowing Him that you would have never experienced without this loss. And you will be a friend of God as few people around you are, because you have touched Him at a moment of desperation and deep need and found out that when Jesus is all you've got, Jesus is all you need.
Look, I don't know how, but I do know that joy is coming. In the moments of grief, and agony, and insecurity, and when the world collapses around you and everything you've depended on is shaking, I just wonder how people do that without Jesus? Maybe you've been trying to walk through a dark valley without Him. You know, the Bible says, "He bore our sorrows. He was a man of sorrows. He was crushed for our sins. He died so you would never have to walk through life alone again.
This could be the day when you reach out to Him and say, "Jesus, you loved me. You died for me, for my sin. I want to belong to You." The Bible says, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil because You are with me."
You can stand this stormy season if you know it won't rain forever. Oh, you have hurt, but because of Jesus you have hope. So don't be discouraged. I have seen tomorrow's weather.
