Psalm 43 bible reading and devotions.

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MaxLucado.com: Acknowledge His Presence

Do you desire power for your life?     It’ll come as Romans 12:18 instructs:  “As you do your part to live in peace with everyone, as much as possible.”

It’ll also come as you pray!

For ten days Jesus’ disciples prayed.  Ten days of prayer plus a few minutes of preaching led to three thousand saved souls.

We’re prone to pray for a few minutes and then preach for ten days! Not the apostles.  They lingered in Jesus’ presence.  They never left the place of prayer.

Sound burdensome? Are you wondering, my business needs attention, my children need dinner, my bills need paying. How can I stay in one place of prayer?

Do this. Change your definition of prayer. Think of it less as an activity for God and more as an awareness of God.

Acknowledge His presence everywhere you go!

From Come Thirsty

Psalm 43[a]

1 Vindicate me, my God,
    and plead my cause
    against an unfaithful nation.
Rescue me from those who are
    deceitful and wicked.
2 You are God my stronghold.
    Why have you rejected me?
Why must I go about mourning,
    oppressed by the enemy?
3 Send me your light and your faithful care,
    let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy mountain,
    to the place where you dwell.
4 Then I will go to the altar of God,
    to God, my joy and my delight.
I will praise you with the lyre,
    O God, my God.
5 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.


Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Read: Hebrews 11:8-16

8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. 11 By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. 12 Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.

13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

It Will Be Worth It All

August 14, 2012 — by C. P. Hia

But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. —Hebrews 11:16

We wondered why a friend of ours kept traveling to Hobart, Tasmania. Recently she invited us to join her there. From the airport we drove over a bridge and through the city and suburbs. Nothing outstanding—but we kept on traveling. After a few difficult hairpin turns that took us slowly and sharply uphill, we saw the outline of the coast below. Still quite ordinary looking.

But as we drove up the steep driveway and arrived at our destination, the spectacular panorama of the city became clear. Even the bridge we had driven over that seemed so drab looked beautiful! Now we knew why she so often traveled there.

The lives of the pioneers of faith in Hebrews 11 had their share of “hairpin turns” and “humdrum” situations. But they pressed on and did not turn back. Their destination? Heaven, “the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (v.10).

Esther Kerr Rusthoi wrote about our journey to heaven in her hymn “When We See Christ”:
It will be worth it all, when we see Jesus;
Life’s trials will seem so small when we see Christ;
One glimpse of His dear face, all sorrow will erase;
So bravely run the race, till we see Christ!

Today, whether life is ordinary or difficult, keep pressing on. At the end of the journey, you will see the amazing place God has prepared for us. And it will be well worth it!

The joys of heaven will more than compensate for the difficulties of earth.



My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
August 14, 2012

The Discipline of the Lord

My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him —Hebrews 12:5

It is very easy to grieve the Spirit of God; we do it by despising the discipline of the Lord, or by becoming discouraged when He rebukes us. If our experience of being set apart from sin and being made holy through the process of sanctification is still very shallow, we tend to mistake the reality of God for something else. And when the Spirit of God gives us a sense of warning or restraint, we are apt to say mistakenly, “Oh, that must be from the devil.”

“Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 5:19), and do not despise Him when He says to you, in effect, “Don’t be blind on this point anymore— you are not as far along spiritually as you thought you were. Until now I have not been able to reveal this to you, but I’m revealing it to you right now.” When the Lord disciplines you like that, let Him have His way with you. Allow Him to put you into a right-standing relationship before God.

“. . . nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him.” We begin to pout, become irritated with God, and then say, “Oh well, I can’t help it. I prayed and things didn’t turn out right anyway. So I’m simply going to give up on everything.” Just think what would happen if we acted like this in any other area of our lives!

Am I fully prepared to allow God to grip me by His power and do a work in me that is truly worthy of Himself? Sanctification is not my idea of what I want God to do for me— sanctification is God’s idea of what He wants to do for me. But He has to get me into the state of mind and spirit where I will allow Him to sanctify me completely, whatever the cost (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).


A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

A Shattered Trophy - #6677

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

I don't talk about it much, because I don't want people putting me on a pedestal or asking for autographs. But the fact is I was the (You ready? Drum roll please) the champion of our county's 8th grade spelling bee. Uh-huh...yep, I got a...I even got a trophy. That's right.

Can't find the trophy though. I think the last time I saw it, it was broken. Of course, that's the problem with trophies. Just ask the University of Alabama football team. They won it all last year, including the national champion trophy. It's a $30,000 Waterford crystal football. Well, it was.

Over one parent's weekend, a player's father somehow knocked it off its stand. It's not a crystal football anymore; a million little pieces. Once again, that's the problem with trophies. They break.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Shattered Trophy."

All of life's prizes ultimately shatter and disappoint us. I remember one player on a past national champion football team saying how depressed he was the day after his sports dream had come true. Here's what he said, "When I saw that front page headline about us winning, all I could think was, 'My god just died.'"

Sounds like Alexander the Great. By the age of 33, he had conquered the then "known" world - a ton of trophies. But instead of being elated, he reportedly was darkly depressed. When an officer asked him why, he just said, "I have no more worlds to conquer."

One way or another, life's trophies seem to shatter on us. If not in this life, then when we stand before Jesus. Oh, before we have our trophies in our hand, they look like they're worth whatever we need to do to have it. But then, they disappoint, they disillusion, they disappear. Like that football trophy, they're just so breakable.

I suspect we all have a "trophy" we have pursued or are pursuing. You have greatness in your career, recognition by some people or group that means a lot to you, a championship, a scholarship, a relationship, financial security, raising 'superkids', a dream home, a dream job, a dream person.

The problem, though, is that trophies tend to become idols; something or someone that pushes God from the center of your life to the margins, that gets the best of your time, your talent, and your treasure.

I've been giving a lot of thought lately to something John Calvin said, that "the human heart is an idol-making factory." Even your work for God can at times, become an idol that usurps God's throne in your life. Your ministry can subtly become your master rather than your vehicle for loving Jesus. And suddenly you've got an idol, all wrapped up in Christian garb.

Trophies shatter because they become too important to us. It's the Demas syndrome. The Apostle Paul described Demas as his "fellow worker," a valued, spiritual soldier (Colossians 4:14). But then, in Paul's greatest hour of need, it says, "Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world" (2 Timothy 4:10).

See, God loves us too much to let our idols stand. When the Old Testament Philistines hijacked God's sacred Ark of the Covenant, "they set it beside (their god) Dagon." When they went to the temple the next day, "there was Dagon fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord." After they had set poor little Dagon up again, the next morning they found him "with his head and hands broken off, lying on the threshold" (1 Samuel 5:1-4). That's got to be really disturbing to find your god without his head! You know?

Well, when something becomes an idol, it's going to break on you. In our word for today from the Word of God, Jonah 2:8, it says it is because "those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs." Looking back, I see the broken pieces of some shattered trophies. And the wonderful discovery I've found in those fragments; that the only real treasure is Christ.

The failure of our other "gods" points the way to the true God that we were made by and made for. The God Jesus died to reunite us with. If you're tired of the disappointment and dissatisfaction, your heart is ready for Jesus; the Savior who died for you, who rose again from the dead, who's ready to come into your life and fill the hole only He can fill.

Which would make this a very good time for you to visit our website, YoursForLife.net. Because the Bible says about Jesus, that we are complete in Him.