Call to me in times of trouble. I will save you, and you will honor me. Psalm 50:15
Want to worry less? Then pray more!
Rather than look forward in fear—in worry—look to God. Jesus taught people that it was necessary for them to pray consistently and never quit.
Paul told believers, “Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.”
James said, “Are any among you suffering? Keep on praying about it!”
Regarding prayer, the Bible never blushes. Rather than worry about anything, “pray about everything!”
Everything? Diaper changes and dates? Business meetings and stopped up bathtubs?
Schedules and flight delays? Procrastinations and prognostications?
Really?
Pray about everything!
John 9:24-41
New International Version (NIV)
24 A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God by telling the truth,” they said. “We know this man is a sinner.”
25 He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”
26 Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”
27 He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?”
28 Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! 29 We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.”
30 The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. 32 Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
34 To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out.
Spiritual Blindness
35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
36 “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.”
37 Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”
38 Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.
39 Jesus said,[a] “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”
40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”
41 Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: John 14:15-24
Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit
15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be[a] in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
22 Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”
23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.
Unhook The Chain
January 13, 2012 — by David C. Egner
If you love Me, keep My commandments. —John 14:15
Jesus made it clear to His disciples that He is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). He is the only way to the Father, and our belief and commitment to Him results in love and obedience—and leads to an eternal home in heaven.
Christina, a Bible student in Minsk, Belarus, wrote this testimony: “Jesus died for everyone, even the most desperate sinner. The worst criminal who comes to Him in faith, the Lord will accept.
“For a very long time, Jesus had been knocking at my door. Figuratively speaking, the door to my heart was open. I was a believer. But I kept the safety chain in place. I would not turn my life over to Him.”
Christina knew this was not right, and she felt that God was compelling her to make a change. “I knelt before Him and opened the door as wide as I could.” She took off the chain.
Committed followers of Jesus will do what He commands—without safety chains or back doors. No reserving little corners of our lives all for ourselves. No secret sins.
If, like Christina, you’ve been holding back from surrendering to God, it’s time to unhook that safety chain. Let go of those reservations. Throw open the doors of your life, and experience the joy of obedient discipleship.
Less of self and more of Jesus,
More and more each day like Thee;
Just to live in full surrender
For my Lord who ransomed me. —Wonder
No life is more secure than a life surrendered to God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, January 13, 2012
Have You Ever Been Alone with God? (2)
When He was alone . . . the twelve asked Him about the parable —Mark 4:10
His Solitude with Us. When God gets us alone through suffering, heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, sickness, or by thwarted desires, a broken friendship, or a new friendship— when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are totally speechless, unable to ask even one question, then He begins to teach us. Notice Jesus Christ’s training of the Twelve. It was the disciples, not the crowd outside, who were confused. His disciples constantly asked Him questions, and He constantly explained things to them, but they didn’t understand until after they received the Holy Spirit (see John 14:26).
As you journey with God, the only thing He intends to be clear is the way He deals with your soul. The sorrows and difficulties in the lives of others will be absolutely confusing to you. We think we understand another person’s struggle until God reveals the same shortcomings in our lives. There are vast areas of stubbornness and ignorance the Holy Spirit has to reveal in each of us, but it can only be done when Jesus gets us alone. Are we alone with Him now? Or are we more concerned with our own ideas, friendships, and cares for our bodies? Jesus cannot teach us anything until we quiet all our intellectual questions and get alone with Him.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Breaking Rules, Saving Lives - #6525
Friday, January 13, 2012
No living Marine has ever received the Congressional Medal of Honor from the war in Afghanistan...until recently. Dakota Meyer's 23 years old, but he has been awarded this nation's highest military honor for saving 36 lives during a vicious, six-hour firefight in the mountains of Afghanistan.
It actually started with an enemy ambush that very quickly pinned down a lot of Meyer's unit. Amazingly, this Kentucky farm boy made a total of five trips into the kill zone to rescue his comrades. And you know what? He had to disobey orders to do it. His superiors told him he couldn't go in. He went in anyway, because people would die if he didn't.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Breaking Rules, Saving Lives."
It hit me as I read this story, sometimes you really do have to kind of go "out-of-bounds" to save dying people; spiritually dying people, that is - people without my Jesus. Our word for today from the Word of God is from Ephesians 2:12. It describes these people as "without hope" and "perishing" (1 Corinthians 1:18). Now with so many so far from the world of the church, so clueless about all this Christian stuff we take for granted, we will never rescue them unless we I guess you might say, "break some of the rules."
I don't mean God's rules, of course. It's never right to do something displeasing to God in order to bring somebody to Him. But I'm talking about the unspoken "rules" of our Christian "cocoon." The fact is, our conventional means of reaching people for Jesus are rescuing less and less. And if we keep on doing what we have been doing, we'll keep on reaching who we have been reaching, and countless souls will be lost forever and we'll be accountable.
Coloring outside the line, going outside the box - call it whatever you want. We'll have to go beyond those methodological boundaries that a lot of God's people have considered acceptable. We won't see the church as the primary place to rescue people, because most lost folks are, and they plan to stay, outside those walls. We'll "seek and save the lost" (Luke 19:10). The new front-lines in spiritual rescue are places like our living rooms...the gym, the golf course, a locker room, the PTA, the restaurant, the carpool, maybe the hospital, school events, the funeral home. How about on our Facebook page, our smartphone, our personal notes?
You know, lost people don't speak "Christianese," which is all those rich religious words that us church folks speak without thinking. We just can't afford for people to miss our Jesus because we won't leave our "safe" vocabulary and explain Jesus in everyday language. It's time to break out of the boundaries of Christianese to say it so they get it.
If we hope to reach the dying folks through an event we're having, we're going to have to go out-of-bounds and make it a non-religious event - Christ-focused, but non-religious, in a non-religious place, with a non-religious program, addressing needs and issues that aren't just "religious."
Paul got in trouble for "disobeying the rules" in order to help people go to heaven. A lot of the religious folks slammed him for becoming "all things to all men that by all possible means I might save some" (1 Corinthians 9:22). But saving the lost was his non-negotiable, not pleasing the found.
And remember, they said, "Jesus, you're a friend of sinners." I imagine He said, "Why, thank you for the compliment." Indeed He was, and He had trouble with the religious folks too. They didn't like the fact that He was going out-of-bounds because that's where the dying people were.
Rescuing? It always means risking, including the misunderstanding, the criticism of people who love the "rules" but aren't reaching the lost. Jesus knows about that. Remember? Yeah, He made the "rules people" very uncomfortable.
So they crucified Him, and we were saved.