“Christ brought us together through his death on the cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of hostility. Eph 2:14-16 MSG”
Fans rooting for the competition? Cheerleaders switching loyalties? What is this?
Kris Hogan skippers a successful Christian high school football program. He has 70 players, 11 coaches, and parents who wouldn’t miss a game! Their upcoming opponent, Gainesville State School was just the opposite. Parents don’t watch them play, but 12 uniformed officers do! Gainesville is a maximum security correctional facility. With no hope of winning, they’d only scored two touchdowns all year.
The whole situation didn’t seem fair. So Coach Hogan asked the fans to step across the field for one night, to cheer for the other side. More than 200 volunteered, including parents and cheerleaders! They formed a spirit line; painted a banner for the team to burst through; and learned the players’ names. A Gainesville team member said, “People are usually a little afraid of us. Most of the time they’re looking at us like we’re criminals. But these people, they were yellin’ for us—- by our names!” After the game, another Gainesville player led a prayer & thanked the Lord for showing them there were people in the world who cared about them.
Christ brings us together through his death on the cross. He creates a new people, not based on a common skin color or family, but based on a common Savior!
Proverbs 2
Moral Benefits of Wisdom
1 My son, if you accept my words
and store up my commands within you,
2 turning your ear to wisdom
and applying your heart to understanding—
3 indeed, if you call out for insight
and cry aloud for understanding,
4 and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,
5 then you will understand the fear of the LORD
and find the knowledge of God.
6 For the LORD gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
7 He holds success in store for the upright,
he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,
8 for he guards the course of the just
and protects the way of his faithful ones.
9 Then you will understand what is right and just
and fair—every good path.
10 For wisdom will enter your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.
11 Discretion will protect you,
and understanding will guard you.
12 Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men,
from men whose words are perverse,
13 who have left the straight paths
to walk in dark ways,
14 who delight in doing wrong
and rejoice in the perverseness of evil,
15 whose paths are crooked
and who are devious in their ways.
16 Wisdom will save you also from the adulterous woman,
from the wayward woman with her seductive words,
17 who has left the partner of her youth
and ignored the covenant she made before God.[a]
18 Surely her house leads down to death
and her paths to the spirits of the dead.
19 None who go to her return
or attain the paths of life.
20 Thus you will walk in the ways of the good
and keep to the paths of the righteous.
21 For the upright will live in the land,
and the blameless will remain in it;
22 but the wicked will be cut off from the land,
and the unfaithful will be torn from it.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Matthew 22:34-40
The Greatest Commandment
34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
The Greatest
March 12, 2012 — by Bill Crowder
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the first and great commandment. —Matthew 22:37-38
What is the greatest thing in sports? Is it championships? Records? Honors? In the Palestra, the University of Pennsylvania basketball arena, a plaque offers a different perspective on the greatest thing in sports. It reads: “To win the game is great. To play the game is greater. But to love the game is the greatest of all.” This is a refreshing reminder that sports are, after all, just the games we played with joy as kids.
A religious leader once asked Jesus about greatness: “Which is the great commandment?” (Matt. 22:36). Jesus responded by challenging that leader to love—love God and love others. Jesus said, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matt. 22:37-39).
Whatever else our faith in Christ compels us to do, there is nothing greater we can do than to show our love—for love reveals the heart of our holy heavenly Father. After all, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). It’s easy to be sidetracked by lesser things, but our focus must remain on the greatest thing—loving our God. That in turn enables us to love one another. There’s nothing greater.
When amazed by His love for me,
To love Him back became my prayer.
I sought an answer sincerely—
It was: Love the neighbor who’s there. —Verway
The proof of our love for God is our obedience to the commands of God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, March 12, 2012
Total Surrender
Peter began to say to Him, ’See, we have left all and followed You’ —Mark 10:28
Our Lord replies to this statement of Peter by saying that this surrender is “for My sake and the gospel’s” (10:29). It was not for the purpose of what the disciples themselves would get out of it. Beware of surrender that is motivated by personal benefits that may result. For example, “I’m going to give myself to God because I want to be delivered from sin, because I want to be made holy.” Being delivered from sin and being made holy are the result of being right with God, but surrender resulting from this kind of thinking is certainly not the true nature of Christianity. Our motive for surrender should not be for any personal gain at all. We have become so self-centered that we go to God only for something from Him, and not for God Himself. It is like saying, “No, Lord, I don’t want you; I want myself. But I do want You to clean me and fill me with Your Holy Spirit. I want to be on display in Your showcase so I can say, ’This is what God has done for me.’ ” Gaining heaven, being delivered from sin, and being made useful to God are things that should never even be a consideration in real surrender. Genuine total surrender is a personal sovereign preference for Jesus Christ Himself.
Where does Jesus Christ figure in when we have a concern about our natural relationships? Most of us will desert Him with this excuse—”Yes, Lord, I heard you call me, but my family needs me and I have my own interests. I just can’t go any further” (see Luke 9:57-62). “Then,” Jesus says, “you ’cannot be My disciple’ ” (see Luke 14:26-33).
True surrender will always go beyond natural devotion. If we will only give up, God will surrender Himself to embrace all those around us and will meet their needs, which were created by our surrender. Beware of stopping anywhere short of total surrender to God. Most of us have only a vision of what this really means, but have never truly experienced it.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Deliberate Forgetting - #6566
Monday, March 12, 2012
Forgetting can get you into a lot of trouble. Like forgetting someone's name, or maybe forgetting an appointment, or maybe you forgot your homework. Or, "The dog ate it." Yeah, uh-huh, or you wouldn't want to forget your wedding anniversary. Oh, no... No, that can cause trouble. But forgetting is a basic skill for people who want to be emotionally free and spiritually alive. Oh, some kinds of forgetting really help. No, not the accidental kind. We're talking about the deliberate kind.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Deliberate Forgetting."
Now, our word for today from the Word of God is about deliberate forgetting and it's in Philippians 3:13. Paul is actually using an Olympic runners' example when he says, "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." Did you notice that word forget? He says, "Like a good runner, I'm not looking back. I know when you look back you lose the race. So you keep your eyes on the track; you keep your eyes on the tape; you keep your eyes on the goal. Don't waste any energy looking at the ground you've already covered. "Forget what is behind..."
See, that is actually a fundamental characteristic of a Christian who's going to make daily progress in his relationship with Christ - the ability to forget. Forget what? Well, three things about the past that we tend to keep remembering. First of all, if you're going to grow spiritually you have to forget your past achievements. Earlier in Philippians 3, Paul listed all of his great spiritual achievements, which are greater than anything I think you or I could list. And he said, "None of them really matter. They're like garbage."
There was an airline that said, "We've got to earn our wings every day." Well, that's kind of how it is spiritually. You can't run on spiritual memories. You know, "I'm okay today because of some great yesterdays I had spiritually." You've got to be restless for more progress, so you forget the past achievements.
Secondly, you've got to forget the past failures. You might have said, "Well, I really, really was going real well out there. I was humming for the Lord, and all of a sudden things caved in and I goofed. And I don't know if I can ever get back on track. I think I can't." It's like Peter when he'd fished all night and caught nothing, Jesus said, "Go out there and fish again. You'll catch more than you ever have or ever dreamed." Forget the past failures. Get up! None of those failures have to matter today.
And the other thing then that you're going to have to forget if you're going to make spiritual progress is past damages. You've been hurt, you've been wounded. You know what? Bitterness is a terrible bondage. It's like emotional cancer, and maybe right now it's hard for you to get out from under that person; those incidents that have hurt you. But if you're going to get on with your life spiritually and go for His gold, you've got to forget the past damages. You know, the Bible says, "Forgive as the Lord forgave you." So get God's divine eraser and say, "God, help me to erase this and move on and set both of us free."
See, the enemy loves to have you dwell on the past. I'll tell you why. Because it can't be changed. He wants you to think about those past failures because you can't do anything about them. He wants you to think about those past damages because you can't change those, instead of what you can affect, which is this 24-hour period of time and a future that has yet to be written.
Turn the page on the previous chapters. Forget! Press for the gold and don't look back.