1 Thessalonians 1 bible reading and devotions.

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MaxLucado.com:God’s Best Idea

Your dad makes you come to church, but he can’t make you listen.  At least that’s what you’ve always muttered to yourself.  But this morning you listen because he speaks of a God who loves prodigals, and you feel like the worst sort of one.   You can’t keep the pregnancy a secret much longer.  Soon your parents will know.   The preacher will know.  He says God already knows.  You wonder what God thinks!

Grace is God’s best idea.   Rather than tell us to change, he creates the change.  Do we clean up so he can accept us?  No, he accepts us and begins cleaning us up.  What a difference this makes.

Can’t forgive your past?  Christ can, and he is on the move, aggressively budging you from graceless to grace-shaped living.  Forgiven people forgiving people.  Deep sighs of relief.

Grace is everything Jesus!

Ezekiel 36:26a- “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.”

From GRACE

1 Thessalonians 1
New International Version (NIV)
1 Paul, Silas[a] and Timothy,

To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

Grace and peace to you.

Thanksgiving for the Thessalonians’ Faith

2 We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers. 3 We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

4 For we know, brothers and sisters[b] loved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 because our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake. 6 You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. 7 And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. 8 The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, 9 for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.



Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Read: John 10:1-10

I Am the Good Shepherd

10 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. 2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 5 A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6 This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

7 So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Tuning In

September 6, 2012 — by Joe Stowell

When he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. —John 10:4

I don’t know if this is true in every marriage, but for some reason I have a tendency to tune out everything around me and concentrate on my own thoughts. This is especially frustrating to my wife, Martie, when she is talking to me about something important. When she notices the distant look in my eyes, she often says, “Have you heard anything I’ve said?”

Listening is an important part of any relationship, especially in our relationship with Christ. If we belong to Him, we have the privilege of communing with Him through His Word and the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. We know we are paying attention to the true Shepherd when His voice leads us to righteousness, love, grace, and all that is consistent with His character and will. As Jesus made clear when He identified Himself as the “good Shepherd” in John 10, those who diligently listen to Him become devoted followers of Him (v.4) who are becoming transformed into His likeness.

Just as listening attentively to your spouse or a friend communicates value and worth, paying close attention to the voice of Jesus is one way to affirm His importance in your life. So, let’s cast aside the distractions of life, tune in to His voice, and pray for the grace to do what He says.

I would be prayerful through each busy moment;
I would be constantly in touch with God;
I would be tuned to hear His slightest whisper;
I would have faith to keep the path Christ trod. —Walter
Listening to Jesus is the first step to following Him.


My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
September 6, 2012

The Far-Reaching Rivers of Life

He who believes in Me . . . out of his heart will flow rivers of living water —John 7:38

A river reaches places which its source never knows. And Jesus said that, if we have received His fullness, “rivers of living water” will flow out of us, reaching in blessing even “to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8) regardless of how small the visible effects of our lives may appear to be. We have nothing to do with the outflow— “This is the work of God, that you believe. . .” (John 6:29). God rarely allows a person to see how great a blessing he is to others.

A river is victoriously persistent, overcoming all barriers. For a while it goes steadily on its course, but then comes to an obstacle. And for a while it is blocked, yet it soon makes a pathway around the obstacle. Or a river will drop out of sight for miles, only later to emerge again even broader and greater than ever. Do you see God using the lives of others, but an obstacle has come into your life and you do not seem to be of any use to God? Then keep paying attention to the Source, and God will either take you around the obstacle or remove it. The river of the Spirit of God overcomes all obstacles. Never focus your eyes on the obstacle or the difficulty. The obstacle will be a matter of total indifference to the river that will flow steadily through you if you will simply remember to stay focused on the Source. Never allow anything to come between you and Jesus Christ— not emotion nor experience— nothing must keep you from the one great sovereign Source.

Think of the healing and far-reaching rivers developing and nourishing themselves in our souls! God has been opening up wonderful truths to our minds, and every point He has opened up is another indication of the wider power of the river that He will flow through us. If you believe in Jesus, you will find that God has developed and nourished in you mighty, rushing rivers of blessing for others.


A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Fighting it Early - #6694

Thursday, September 6, 2012

I think I've lost the same five pounds 200 times. That's enough to make about six of me! Actually, I used to weigh 55 pounds more a number of years ago, and I lost it. But that's no great accomplishment. As anybody will tell you who has that same battle, the challenge is to keep it off. So I set 160 pounds as my ceiling, and kind of 155 is an anchor weight. And as my weight creeps up there, which it often does, I yell down to the engine room, "Reverse all engines! It's time to go to work!" Frankly, it's just too hard to fight 20 or 25 pounds. It's much smarter, I've learned, to fight the problem when it's a baby than when it's full grown.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Fighting it Early."

Now, our word for today from the Word of God is in 2 Corinthians 10, and I'm going to begin reading at verse 3. It's a battle briefing for spiritual warfare. It talks about how to fight spiritual fat - well, actually, spiritual enemies - but that which will weigh us down, hold us back, make us spiritually unhealthy. Here's what it says: "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

That's an exciting passage. It talks about God's power to destroy fortresses of sin in our life. Then it goes on to talk, not about immoral behavior or pornography or attacks on people, it talks about our thoughts. It talks about arguments, pretensions, and then every thought. It presents the fantastic prospect of capturing every thought for Christ.

Now, when you're fighting being overweight, you have to fight that early in those first few pounds that you start to put on. When you're fighting sin, you have to fight it early, when it's just a thought. See, your mind is a jungle. Savage animals roam across it all day long, right? Thoughts of revenge, thoughts of lust, sexual impurities, proud thoughts, self-centered "me first" thinking, bitterness is there, anger. Usually we don't start fighting back until this idea animal becomes an action. Well, then it's too late. The Bible spells it out in James 1:15. It says that, "Desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death." Seems like it would be easiest to fight it as a thought, as a desire, doesn't it?

Successful spiritual warfare doesn't wait for sin to become a plan or an action. Successful spiritual warfare has to be fought in the jungle of the mind. It's there we find sin in thought form; a thought that needs to be captured and not allowed to roam free any more. Daily we capture thoughts as soon as they appear, and then immediately, consciously you turn that sin idea over to Jesus Christ.

General Douglas MacArthur said, "The history of failure in war can be summed up in two words - too late. Too late in comprehending the deadly purpose of a potential enemy." Now, think about this in terms of sinful thoughts: Too late in realizing the mortal danger, too late in preparedness, too late in uniting all possible forces to resist it. See, this passage says that sin, even the strongholds of sin, are beatable unless you wait until it's too late.

Capture sin when it's a thought...just a thought. Take it from a former guy battling the weight battles. You can stay spiritually fit if you learn to fight it early.