Max Lucado Daily: A Better Family
Now we do not live
following our sinful selves,
but we live following the Spirit.
Romans 8:4
Perhaps your childhood memories bring more hurt than inspiration. The voices of your past cursed you, belittled you, ignored you. At the time, you thought such treatment was typical. Now you see it isn’t.
Now you find yourself trying to explain your past. Do you rise above the past and make a difference? Or do you remain controlled by the past and make excuses?
Think about this. Your parents may have given you genes, but God gives you grace. Your parents may be responsible for your body, but God has taken charge of your soul. You may get your looks from your mother, but you get eternity from your Father, your heavenly Father. God will give you what your family could never give you!
Psalm 8[f]
For the director of music. According to gittith.[g] A psalm of David.
1 LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
in the heavens.
2 Through the praise of children and infants
you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.
3 When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?[h]
5 You have made them[i] a little lower than the angels[j]
and crowned them[k] with glory and honor.
6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their[l] feet:
7 all flocks and herds,
and the animals of the wild,
8 the birds in the sky,
and the fish in the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.
9 LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Romans 12:1-8
A Living Sacrifice
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Humble Service in the Body of Christ
3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. 4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your[a] faith; 7 if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; 8 if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead,[b] do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.
Playing Your Part
December 30, 2011 — by Cindy Hess Kasper
We have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function. —Romans 12:4
For the past several years, my daughter Rosie has been the director of drama at a local middle school. Students come to audition and a few are selected to play the lead roles. But there are still many other important supporting roles that must be cast—roles that are vital to the production.
There are other young people who want to be a part of the show but don’t relish being in the spotlight. They are the ones who will change scenery, open and close the curtains, run the lights, and assist with makeup and costume changes. Then there are the parents from the community who provide pizza and cookies for rehearsals, donate goods, build sets, sew costumes, make signs, and hand out programs.
The success of the performances are the culmination of an intense 4- to 5-month process that is dependent on the hard work of a wide range of dedicated volunteers.
Similarly, for the body of Christ to function fully, each of us must play a part. Every believer is uniquely gifted for service. When these gifts are combined in a cooperative relationship, “every part does its share” (Eph. 4:16), and the separate parts make up the whole (Rom. 12:5).
We need each other. What part are you playing in the life of the church?
For the church to function fully,
We must all fulfill our role;
While the Spirit’s gifts are many,
They combine to serve the whole. —Sper
For a church to be healthy,
its members must exercise their spiritual gifts.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, December 30, 2011
"And Every Virtue We Possess"
. . . All my springs are in you —Psalm 87:7
Our Lord never “patches up” our natural virtues, that is, our natural traits, qualities, or characteristics. He completely remakes a person on the inside— “. . . put on the new man . . .” (Ephesians 4:24). In other words, see that your natural human life is putting on all that is in keeping with the new life. The life God places within us develops its own new virtues, not the virtues of the seed of Adam, but of Jesus Christ. Once God has begun the process of sanctification in your life, watch and see how God causes your confidence in your own natural virtues and power to wither away. He will continue until you learn to draw your life from the reservoir of the resurrection life of Jesus. Thank God if you are going through this drying-up experience!
The sign that God is at work in us is that He is destroying our confidence in the natural virtues, because they are not promises of what we are going to be, but only a wasted reminder of what God created man to be. We want to cling to our natural virtues, while all the time God is trying to get us in contact with the life of Jesus Christ— a life that can never be described in terms of natural virtues. It is the saddest thing to see people who are trying to serve God depending on that which the grace of God never gave them. They are depending solely on what they have by virtue of heredity. God does not take our natural virtues and transform them, because our natural virtues could never even come close to what Jesus Christ wants. No natural love, no natural patience, no natural purity can ever come up to His demands. But as we bring every part of our natural bodily life into harmony with the new life God has placed within us, He will exhibit in us the virtues that were characteristic of the Lord Jesus.
And every virtue we possess
Is His alone.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Going Not Knowing - #6515
Friday, December 30, 2011
Mystery rides were part of growing up at our house. Usually it was a Sunday afternoon, and I'd pile our three kids, who were little then and never will be again, into our car for a ride. I think we explored every corner of our area. And as we did, we discovered over the years, a lot of great things. But I've got one son who's a lot like me. He wants to know the plan before we leave.
"Hey, Dad, where are we going? Where are we going to eat? What are we going to eat? What are we going to do while we're there? How long will we be there? What time are we going to get home?" He would pump me with questions; I felt like I was being interrogated by a police sergeant. Sometimes I knew it was better not to explain where we were going. Oh, we've done things that would have sounded boring if I had told about them, but they turned out to be exciting and I knew they would. Plus surprises are fun anyway. So, my kids got used to hearing two words when we were about to begin a mystery trip, "Trust me." I don't think I let them down. It was good training for journeys with their other Father.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Going Not Knowing."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from the life of the Apostle Paul; he's still Saul of Tarsus here. Acts 9 - he's on his way to wipe out Christians. He missed some in Jerusalem. So he said, "I'll get them in Damascus. They all went there; I'll find them in Syria." We begin in verse 3: "As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?' 'Well, who are you, Lord?' Saul asked. 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,' he replied. 'Now, get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.'"
Now, it's interesting that Saul's training for his whole life in Christ began immediately with a mystery trip. Yeah, did you notice that? He has just opened up to Jesus, and the Lord says, "Go into the city and you will be told." "Lord, what do you want me to do there? Who am I going to meet there? How am I even going to be able to see; I'm blind right now?" The Lord says, "Go and you will be told." Well, he spent the rest of his life living like that.
In Acts 20, when he was on his way to Jerusalem as the great Apostle Paul and his friends were trying to discourage him, he said, "Compelled by the Spirit, I am going not knowing." See, you have a heavenly Father who often takes His children on mystery trips. Maybe you're on one of His mystery trips right now. There's a good destination He's got in mind, but right now He's telling you just the next step. In essence, He's saying to you as He did to Saul, "Go, and you will be told as you are on the way."
It may well be that you're in the middle of one of those times right now, and the tendency is to say, "Now, Lord, if you'll just give me all the information, give me all the facts, I'll start going that direction." And the Lord says, "No, you start moving in that direction I've told you to go, and you'll get more information as you go."
Now, maybe you're waiting to have all your questions answered before you move, and right now there are more question marks than there are periods or exclamation points for sure. Can you almost hear your Father saying as He bundles you into His car, "Trust Me, let's start traveling together."
Hey, He died for you. Is He ever going to do you wrong? God's mystery trips always lead to a destination that is selected with you in mind for your good. So, why not settle back, enjoy the trip, and let Him drive. Trust your Father and don't be afraid of going not knowing.
