Max Lucado Daily: Worry Changes Nothing
Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? Matthew 6:26-27/i>
Let’s make a list—“The Advantages of Anxiety”
Let’s start our list with worry helps our health. Lose sleep and live longer. A nervous stomach is a happy stomach, isn’t it?
We can even plan days of worry.
Monday—stress over the economy
Tuesday—list the reasons we could be unemployed by year end.
Let’s face it! Worry has no advantages. It ruins health, robs joy, and changes nothing! Our days stand no chance against the terrorists of the “Land of Anxiety.” But Christ offers a worry-bazooka.
Remember how he taught us to pray? “Give us this day our daily bread.” Worry doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrows; it empties today of its strength. Live one day at a time. Make it a day changer! God’s Word says: “He will take care of everything you need!”
Choose to make every day a great day!
Psalm 108[a]
A song. A psalm of David.
1 My heart, O God, is steadfast;
I will sing and make music with all my soul.
2 Awake, harp and lyre!
I will awaken the dawn.
3 I will praise you, LORD, among the nations;
I will sing of you among the peoples.
4 For great is your love, higher than the heavens;
your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
5 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens;
let your glory be over all the earth.
6 Save us and help us with your right hand,
that those you love may be delivered.
7 God has spoken from his sanctuary:
“In triumph I will parcel out Shechem
and measure off the Valley of Sukkoth.
8 Gilead is mine, Manasseh is mine;
Ephraim is my helmet,
Judah is my scepter.
9 Moab is my washbasin,
on Edom I toss my sandal;
over Philistia I shout in triumph.”
10 Who will bring me to the fortified city?
Who will lead me to Edom?
11 Is it not you, God, you who have rejected us
and no longer go out with our armies?
12 Give us aid against the enemy,
for human help is worthless.
13 With God we will gain the victory,
and he will trample down our enemies.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Psalm 34:1-10
Of David. When he pretended to be insane before Abimelek, who drove him away, and he left.
1 I will extol the LORD at all times;
his praise will always be on my lips.
2 I will glory in the LORD;
let the afflicted hear and rejoice.
3 Glorify the LORD with me;
let us exalt his name together.
4 I sought the LORD, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.
5 Those who look to him are radiant;
their faces are never covered with shame.
6 This poor man called, and the LORD heard him;
he saved him out of all his troubles.
7 The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him,
and he delivers them.
8 Taste and see that the LORD is good;
blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
9 Fear the LORD, you his holy people,
for those who fear him lack nothing.
10 The lions may grow weak and hungry,
but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.
The Remedy For Fear
February 20, 2012 — by Joe Stowell
I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. —Psalm 34:4
In his first inaugural speech in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the newly elected president of the US, addressed a nation that was still reeling from the Great Depression. Hoping to ignite a more optimistic outlook regarding that economic crisis, he declared, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!”
Fear often shows up in our lives when we are at risk of losing something—our wealth, health, reputation, position, safety, family, friends. It reveals our innate desire to protect the things in life that are important to us, rather than fully entrusting them to God’s care and control. When fear takes over, it cripples us emotionally and saps us spiritually. We’re afraid to tell others about Christ, to extend our lives and resources for the benefit of others, or to venture into new territory. A fearful spirit is more vulnerable to the enemy, who tempts us to compromise biblical convictions and to take matters into our own hands.
The remedy for fear, of course, is trust in our Creator. Only when we trust the reality of God’s presence, power, protection, and provision for our lives can we share the joy of the psalmist, who said, “I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears” (Ps. 34:4).
Day by day and with each passing moment,
Strength I find to meet my trials here;
Trusting in my Father’s wise bestowment,
I’ve no cause for worry or for fear. —Berg
Trust in the Lord is the cure for a fearful spirit.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, February 20, 2012
Taking the Initiative Against Daydreaming
Arise, let us go from here —John 14:31
Daydreaming about something in order to do it properly is right, but daydreaming about it when we should be doing it is wrong. In this passage, after having said these wonderful things to His disciples, we might have expected our Lord to tell them to go away and meditate over them all. But Jesus never allowed idle daydreaming. When our purpose is to seek God and to discover His will for us, daydreaming is right and acceptable. But when our inclination is to spend time daydreaming over what we have already been told to do, it is unacceptable and God’s blessing is never on it. God will take the initiative against this kind of daydreaming by prodding us to action. His instructions to us will be along the lines of this: “Don’t sit or stand there, just go!”
If we are quietly waiting before God after He has said to us, “Come aside by yourselves . . .” then that is meditation before Him to seek His will (Mark 6:31). Beware, however, of giving in to mere daydreaming once God has spoken. Allow Him to be the source of all your dreams, joys, and delights, and be careful to go and obey what He has said. If you are in love with someone, you don’t sit and daydream about that person all the time— you go and do something for him. That is what Jesus Christ expects us to do. Daydreaming after God has spoken is an indication that we do not trust Him.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
A Chill Blows Through the Room - #6551
Monday, February 20, 2012
One of the amazing frustrations about families is that you just can't get everybody to agree on a comfortable temperature. Sometimes you can't even get a husband and wife to agree on it. One likes the room cozy and warm; the other likes it cool and refreshing, shall we say. It's hard even be in agreement on what is hot and what is cold.
Now, actually, when we were driving along with our family on a freezing winter day, and we'd gotten it nice and warm, we could get four out of five members of our family to agree that we were at a comfortable temperature. But then, suddenly we were all aware of this cold air blowing through the car because there was one member of our family, who shall remain nameless, who always wanted some fresh air; who said, "It's hot and stifling!" And you could hear almost in unison four voices turn to this one person and say, "Who opened the window!" Well, one person does have the ability to send a chill through any group.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Chill Blows Through the Room."
Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from Numbers 13. I'll begin reading at verse 26. The spies have just scouted out the Promised Land and they've come back. The Bible says, "There they reported to them unto the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. They gave Moses this account, 'We went into the land to which you sent us and it does flow with milk and honey. Here is its' fruit.'" By the way, it took two men to carry one bunch of grapes back on a pole! That's some fruit! "But the people who live there are powerful and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there (who was a giant)."
Then it says in verse 31, "The men who had gone up with them said, 'We can't attack those people. They are stronger than we are." So, they are disagreeing with the report that Caleb and Joshua had given. They said, "Hey, we could go for it under God's leadership." And it says, "These people spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they'd explored." They said, "The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."
Some years ago there was a movie entitled The Bad News Bears. Well, these guys were the bad news bear-ers and they're still busy today. Oh yeah, the people who bring the bad report! You've always got the people who bring a bad report into every situation.
Now, you know what? It's hard to see it in yourself if it's you. But I wonder how would you evaluate yourself if you played back a tape of this past week? Were there many complaints? Was there a lot of talking about the bad news about people? Maybe a lot about the problems? See, we drift into becoming a negative influence and we don't even know it. But when you're around, do people feel lighter or do they feel heavier? Do they feel motivated or inundated? Do they feel like the sun came out, or that the clouds moved in?
The bad news bearers, oh they see the problems, and there were real giants and there were real walls back then. But the believers see the promises and they choose to focus on the promises of God instead. The negative voice can turn a whole group cold. It did then! In fact it caused a nation's faith to fail and they wandered for years because of people who brought back negative news.
So as a family member, a friend, a church member, a coworker, are you often the bad news bearer too often? Ask the Lord to help you sense the negative before it ever comes out of your mouth - and to talk about the positives.
After all, who wants to be the person who's the chill that freezes everyone in the room?