“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13”/i>
If you ever see a man walking on the side of the road carrying an empty gas can—give him some respect. He’s dying inside! Women see the empty gas tank as an inconvenience. Men see it as the ultimate failure. Our first set of keys was handed to us with these words: “Make sure you buy some gas.”
Back in the day when I took my girls to school, I looked down to see the gas needle resting on—empty!
I stared at the gauge, hoping it would move. Didn’t work. Denying the problem was my next approach. The car didn’t budge.
You’re going to run out of gas—we all do. Remember the God who’s able to keep you from falling, to help you when tested, and to bring you into great joy in His glorious presence!
Make it a day changer!
Psalm 110
Of David. A psalm.
1 The LORD says to my lord:[b]
“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet.”
2 The LORD will extend your mighty scepter from Zion, saying,
“Rule in the midst of your enemies!”
3 Your troops will be willing
on your day of battle.
Arrayed in holy splendor,
your young men will come to you
like dew from the morning’s womb.[c]
4 The LORD has sworn
and will not change his mind:
“You are a priest forever,
in the order of Melchizedek.”
5 The Lord is at your right hand[d];
he will crush kings on the day of his wrath.
6 He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead
and crushing the rulers of the whole earth.
7 He will drink from a brook along the way,[e]
and so he will lift his head high.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Hebrews 4:9-16
9 There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; 10 for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works,[a] just as God did from his. 11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.
12 For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. 13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
Jesus the Great High Priest
14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven,[b] Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Help Needed
February 23, 2012 — by Bill Crowder
Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. —Hebrews 4:16
During World War II, the British Isles represented the last line of resistance against the sweep of Nazi oppression in Europe. Under relentless attack and in danger of collapse, however, Britain lacked the resources to see the conflict through to victory. For that reason, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill went on BBC radio and appealed to the world: “Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.” He knew that without help from the outside, they could not endure the assault they were facing.
Life is like that. Often, we are inadequate for the troubles life throws at us, and we need help from outside of ourselves. As members of the body of Christ, that help can come at times from our Christian brothers and sisters (Rom. 12:10-13)—and that is a wonderful thing. Ultimately, however, we seek help from our heavenly Father. The good and great news is that our God has invited us to come confidently before Him: “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16).
At such times, our greatest resource is prayer—for it brings us into the very presence of God. There we find, in His mercy and grace, the help we need.
God has given you His promise,
That He hears and answers prayer,
He will heed your supplication
If you cast on Him your care. —Bernstecher
Don’t let prayer be your last recourse in time of need; make it your first.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, February 23, 2012
The Determination to Serve
The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve . . .—Matthew 20:28
Jesus also said, “Yet I am among you as the One who serves” (Luke 22:27). Paul’s idea of service was the same as our Lord’s— “. . . ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Corinthians 4:5). We somehow have the idea that a person called to the ministry is called to be different and above other people. But according to Jesus Christ, he is called to be a “doormat” for others— called to be their spiritual leader, but never their superior. Paul said, “I know how to be abased . . .” (Philippians 4:12). Paul’s idea of service was to pour his life out to the last drop for others. And whether he received praise or blame made no difference. As long as there was one human being who did not know Jesus, Paul felt a debt of service to that person until he did come to know Him. But the chief motivation behind Paul’s service was not love for others but love for his Lord. If our devotion is to the cause of humanity, we will be quickly defeated and broken-hearted, since we will often be confronted with a great deal of ingratitude from other people. But if we are motivated by our love for God, no amount of ingratitude will be able to hinder us from serving one another.
Paul’s understanding of how Christ had dealt with him is the secret behind his determination to serve others. “I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man . . .” (1 Timothy 1:13). In other words, no matter how badly others may have treated Paul, they could never have treated him with the same degree of spite and hatred with which he had treated Jesus Christ. Once we realize that Jesus has served us even to the depths of our meagerness, our selfishness, and our sin, nothing we encounter from others will be able to exhaust our determination to serve others for His sake.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
More Of Us Than Ever - #6554
Thursday, February 23, 2012
I was just doing the math. At one point in time, we had one grandchild. I couldn't believe my wife was old enough to be a grandmother! You know? But then, within a matter of years, that one has become nine grandchildren!
But that's nothin'. In that same period of time, a billion more people have joined us on this planet. And recently, our "global village" just changed the population sign from six billion to seven billion!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "More Of Us Than Ever."
Not just seven billion people - seven billion souls. Mark 8:36 tells us that according to Jesus, each one of them is worth more than "the whole world". And according to the Bible, each one of them will ultimately spend forever in heaven or hell. And 150,000 of them will slip into eternity every single day. I don't know about you, but I find all that more than a little breathtaking.
And the orders of Jesus remain unchanged. Here's our word for today from the Word of God in Mark 16:15, "Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone." Yeah everyone! Each of those seven billion humans deserves a chance to know that "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son" (John 3:16) to take their hell; to give them heaven.
So, with the seven billionth soul born recently, the stakes just got higher. The Final Orders (AKA, the Great Commission) just got more urgent. The Great Commission got greater than ever.
But as the number of lost souls grows exponentially, something strange is happening. Many Western churches are cutting back their missionary budgets, sometimes to spend more on themselves. The percentage of believers' income given to God's work is declining, and the percentage of that which goes to reaching a lost world is shamefully small.
Missionaries who are ready to take that Good News to some needy place in the world can't go yet. It's taking them like three years to find the support to go. And when some Christian young people tell their Christian parents they're sensing God's call to world missions, their parents are telling them to "do something more secure and just give to missionaries." You know, we want our kids to do something important, right? Don't tell God that. His Son was a missionary.
With nearly a billion people more to reach with each decade, how can we possibly be content to do it in the ways we've always done it? At this time of an unprecedented people explosion, we also have within our reach an unprecedented communications explosion. Through technologies like the Internet, social networks like Facebook, mobile systems like iPads and smart phones, and in some parts of the world, the still powerful "old school" technologies of radio and television. Does this population explosion leave us any choice but to, as Paul said, use "all possible means" (1 Corinthians 9:22) to give every soul a chance? To capture the most powerful delivery systems in history to deliver the most powerful Message in the world!
Look, if Jesus wept over a city that was lost (Luke 19:41), how must He weep over a world that is lost, with more lost souls than ever before? As world evangelist, D.L. Moody, said: "The Master's heart is pierced with unutterable grief...not over the world's iniquity, but the Church's indifference." Forget about the Church's indifference; what about yours and mine?
Exponential growth of souls on this planet is not just some fleeting headline; it is a mandate for the people of God. All of us, each of us, to pray differently, give differently, even plan our future differently.
We certainly cannot explain to God "business as usual" because God so loved the world.