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MaxLucado.com: Just Believe
Suppose you give me a gift. Let’s say you present me with a new tie. I take it out of the box, examine it and say thank you, and then reach for my wallet. “Now, how much do I owe you?” I ask. You think I’m kidding.
“It’s a gift,” you say. “You don’t need to pay me.”
“I understand,” I respond, but then show I don’t by asking, “Could I write you a check?”
In trying to buy your gift, I’ve degraded your grace. I’ve robbed you of the joy of giving. How often we rob God. Have you considered what an insult it is to God when we try to pay him for his goodness? Sly is the scheme of Satan. He causes us to question grace, to earn it. What is it God wants us to do? Just believe. Believe the One he sent. And receive the gift he gives.
“The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent. John 6:29”
From A Gentle Thunder
1 Corinthians 10:1-18
New International Version (NIV)
Warnings From Israel’s History
10 For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.
6 Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. 7 Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.”[a] 8 We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. 9 We should not test Christ,[b] as some of them did—and were killed by snakes. 10 And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel.
11 These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come. 12 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! 13 No temptation[c] has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted[d] beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted,[e] he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.
Idol Feasts and the Lord’s Supper
14 Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. 15 I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. 16 Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.
18 Consider the people of Israel: Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar?
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Genesis 3:1-7
The Fall
3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You[a] shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise,[b] she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
Did You Say No?
November 13, 2012 — by Cindy Hess Kasper
Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. —Genesis 2:17
“Okay, here are the rules,” Marty said. “You can do whatever you want, wherever you want, whenever you want until someone tells you no.”
Those were our instructions on our first visit to our friends’ lake house. Marty and his wife, Lynn, who enjoy entertaining, give their guests lots of freedom to enjoy themselves. When we noticed the sailboat next to the paddleboat next to the pontoon boat, we knew we were in for a fun afternoon.
Marty told us no only once—when he saw that we were about to feed the swans that swam up next to us. He knew that if the birds were fed once, they would become aggressive if they didn’t get fed the next time.
Adam and Eve lived in the most beautiful locale, and they too had lots of freedom. However, when God said no, they resisted (Gen. 3). He told them not to eat from a certain tree, but they thought they knew better.
Adam and Eve would have kept good company with a lot of us. Sometimes we can’t understand why our heavenly Father says no. When that happens, He can help us to adjust our thinking. We need to realize that even as He denies us, He’s saying to our hearts, “You can trust Me. I know what is best.”
I may not always understand
The way that You may lead,
But, Lord, in faith I’ll clasp Your hand
And trust You for each need. —Dean
God may deny our request,
but He will never disappoint our trust.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
November 13, 2012
Faith or Experience?
. . . the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me —Galatians 2:20
We should battle through our moods, feelings, and emotions into absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus. We must break out of our own little world of experience into abandoned devotion to Him. Think who the New Testament says Jesus Christ is, and then think of the despicable meagerness of the miserable faith we exhibit by saying, “I haven’t had this experience or that experience”! Think what faith in Jesus Christ claims and provides— He can present us faultless before the throne of God, inexpressibly pure, absolutely righteous, and profoundly justified. Stand in absolute adoring faith “in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God— and righteousness and sanctification and redemption . . .” (1 Corinthians 1:30). How dare we talk of making a sacrifice for the Son of God! We are saved from hell and total destruction, and then we talk about making sacrifices!
We must continually focus and firmly place our faith in Jesus Christ— not a “prayer meeting” Jesus Christ, or a “book” Jesus Christ, but the New Testament Jesus Christ, who is God Incarnate, and who ought to strike us dead at His feet. Our faith must be in the One from whom our salvation springs. Jesus Christ wants our absolute, unrestrained devotion to Himself. We can never experience Jesus Christ, or selfishly bind Him in the confines of our own hearts. Our faith must be built on strong determined confidence in Him.
It is because of our trusting in experience that we see the steadfast impatience of the Holy Spirit against unbelief. All of our fears are sinful, and we create our own fears by refusing to nourish ourselves in our faith. How can anyone who is identified with Jesus Christ suffer from doubt or fear! Our lives should be an absolute hymn of praise resulting from perfect, irrepressible, triumphant belief.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Fat Birds - #6742
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Once upon a time, a father and mother bird decided to build a nest in the vent in our kitchen range exhaust fan. We were on vacation, and the nest got so huge it made the fan unworkable. We learned it was there as we saw spiders hanging down from the hood over the stove. We really didn't want to kill a nest full of babies. By the way, we couldn't see them, oh but we could hear them when they were hungry.
So we waited until we saw mom and dad take the babies out one day. A couple of weeks later, after we were sure they were all gone, my wife and I got a long stick and we proceeded to rake out the nest from out of the exhaust fan. As the nest came out, we discovered much to our surprise the fattest baby bird we had ever seen seated in the nest! Well, we got some gloves and got a box. And by the time we got back, he had gotten away. See, the problem was he was so fat; he wasn't able to get out of the nest.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Fat Birds."
Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from 2 Kings 7:9. It's an intriguing story. The capitol city is under siege, and no food has gone into the city for a long time. They're starving to death, people have turned even to cannibalism to stay alive, and God is about to rescue them. Oh, they don't even know it, because He has taken the attacking army and scattered them miraculously. They have even left their camp and all their food behind.
But there were four lepers who lived outside the wall of the city, and they lived on whatever scraps the people threw over the wall, and there weren't any scraps now. They're really starving. So they figure, "Our best chance to survive is to give up to the other army and hope they don't kill us. That's the worst that could happen; we could die either way."
They get to the camp. The camp's empty! They say, "I can't believe it!" And they begin to gorge themselves on the food there. And then they reach this conclusion: "They said to each other, 'We're not doing right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let's go at once.'"
See, they had an abundance of the food that everybody else was starving for, and they just sat around and kept stuffing themselves. Whoa! Could that be a picture of you and me and our Savior? We stuff ourselves with all the Christian stuff: the concerts, the seminars, the sermons, recordings, radio, books, Christian magazines, and Christian meetings. You get fat on the events; you hunker down in the Christian nest and "Let's just keep nesting till Jesus comes."
Okay, let's go back to the story of the lepers. Hearing the cries of dying people coming from the city, how can we sit on all this food?" Well, how can we be focusing most of our Christian effort on just fattening up birds who are already overfed? Isn't it time you get out of this nest and begin flying into the world of your lost neighbors and friends?
It's time we pray for lost friends to know Christ, and lots of other lost people. How do we turn our resources outward to save the dying instead of spending it all inwardly to fatten the living? People are dying. They go to an unthinkable eternity. Can't you hear God saying, "My Son gave His life for these lost people. Will someone leave the Christian nest and start giving their lives for the lost ones?" Hey, maybe you're the one who will say, "Well, Lord, I will."
Ask Him to break your heart for those lost people around you; to take a piece of His heart and put it into yours. There are dying people all around you. Don't be that fat bird just staying in the nest.