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Max Lucado Daily: Overflowing with Grace
Do you ever worry that the cup of God’s mercy will run empty? Are you afraid his grace will run out? That your warranty will expire? Are you afraid your mistakes are too great for God’s forgiveness? I wonder if the apostle Paul had the same fear. Before he was Paul the apostle, he was Saul the murderer. Before he encouraged Christians, he murdered Christians. What would it be like to live with that kind of past?
Did Paul ever ask, “Can God forgive a man like me?” The answer is found in a letter Paul wrote to Timothy: “The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.” (I Timothy 1:14)
God is not a miser with His grace. Your cup may be low on cash or clout, but it’s overflowing with mercy. Your cup overflows with grace!
from Traveling Light
Jeremiah 10
God and Idols
10 Hear what the Lord says to you, people of Israel. 2 This is what the Lord says:
“Do not learn the ways of the nations
or be terrified by signs in the heavens,
though the nations are terrified by them.
3 For the practices of the peoples are worthless;
they cut a tree out of the forest,
and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel.
4 They adorn it with silver and gold;
they fasten it with hammer and nails
so it will not totter.
5 Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field,
their idols cannot speak;
they must be carried
because they cannot walk.
Do not fear them;
they can do no harm
nor can they do any good.”
6 No one is like you, Lord;
you are great,
and your name is mighty in power.
7 Who should not fear you,
King of the nations?
This is your due.
Among all the wise leaders of the nations
and in all their kingdoms,
there is no one like you.
8 They are all senseless and foolish;
they are taught by worthless wooden idols.
9 Hammered silver is brought from Tarshish
and gold from Uphaz.
What the craftsman and goldsmith have made
is then dressed in blue and purple—
all made by skilled workers.
10 But the Lord is the true God;
he is the living God, the eternal King.
When he is angry, the earth trembles;
the nations cannot endure his wrath.
11 “Tell them this: ‘These gods, who did not make the heavens and the earth, will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.’”[f]
12 But God made the earth by his power;
he founded the world by his wisdom
and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.
13 When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar;
he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth.
He sends lightning with the rain
and brings out the wind from his storehouses.
14 Everyone is senseless and without knowledge;
every goldsmith is shamed by his idols.
The images he makes are a fraud;
they have no breath in them.
15 They are worthless, the objects of mockery;
when their judgment comes, they will perish.
16 He who is the Portion of Jacob is not like these,
for he is the Maker of all things,
including Israel, the people of his inheritance—
the Lord Almighty is his name.
Coming Destruction
17 Gather up your belongings to leave the land,
you who live under siege.
18 For this is what the Lord says:
“At this time I will hurl out
those who live in this land;
I will bring distress on them
so that they may be captured.”
19 Woe to me because of my injury!
My wound is incurable!
Yet I said to myself,
“This is my sickness, and I must endure it.”
20 My tent is destroyed;
all its ropes are snapped.
My children are gone from me and are no more;
no one is left now to pitch my tent
or to set up my shelter.
21 The shepherds are senseless
and do not inquire of the Lord;
so they do not prosper
and all their flock is scattered.
22 Listen! The report is coming—
a great commotion from the land of the north!
It will make the towns of Judah desolate,
a haunt of jackals.
Jeremiah’s Prayer
23 Lord, I know that people’s lives are not their own;
it is not for them to direct their steps.
24 Discipline me, Lord, but only in due measure—
not in your anger,
or you will reduce me to nothing.
25 Pour out your wrath on the nations
that do not acknowledge you,
on the peoples who do not call on your name.
For they have devoured Jacob;
they have devoured him completely
and destroyed his homeland.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Romans 8:31-39
New International Version (NIV)
More Than Conquerors
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”[a]
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[b] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Jesus Loves Me
July 8, 2013 — by David H. Roper
Keep yourselves in the love of God. —Jude 1:21
On cold days, our old dog moves around the yard, finding a sunny spot to stretch out on the grass to keep herself in the warmth of the sun.
This reminds me that we must “keep” ourselves in the love of God (Jude 1:21). That doesn’t mean we have to act in some special way to make God love us (although our desire is to please Him). Because we are His children we’re loved no matter what we do or fail to do. It means instead that we should think about His love and bask in its radiance and warmth all day long.
“[Nothing] shall be able to separate us from the love of God” (Rom. 8:39). He loved us before we were born, and He loves us now. This is our identity in Christ; it is who we are—God’s beloved children. That’s something to think about throughout the day.
Five times in John’s gospel he described himself as the disciple Jesus loved (13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7,20). Jesus loved His other disciples too, but John reveled in the fact that Jesus loved him! We can adopt John’s theme—“I am the disciple Jesus loves!”—and repeat it to ourselves all day long. Or we can sing that familiar children’s song in our hearts, “Jesus loves me, this I know.” As we carry that truth with us throughout the day, we’ll bask in the warmth of His love!
I am so glad that our Father in heaven
Tells of His love in the Book He has given;
Wonderful things in the Bible I see—
This is the dearest, that Jesus loves me. —Bliss
God loves us not because of who we are, but because of who He is.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
July 8, 2013
Will To Be Faithful
. . . choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve . . . —Joshua 24:15
A person’s will is embodied in the actions of the whole person. I cannot give up my will— I must exercise it, putting it into action. I must will to obey, and I must will to receive God’s Spirit. When God gives me a vision of truth, there is never a question of what He will do, but only of what I will do. The Lord has been placing in front of each of us some big proposals and plans. The best thing to do is to remember what you did before when you were touched by God. Recall the moment when you were saved, or first recognized Jesus, or realized some truth. It was easy then to yield your allegiance to God. Immediately recall those moments each time the Spirit of God brings some new proposal before you.
“. . . choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. . . .” Your choice must be a deliberate determination— it is not something into which you will automatically drift. And everything else in your life will be held in temporary suspension until you make a decision. The proposal is between you and God— do not “confer with flesh and blood” about it (Galatians 1:16). With every new proposal, the people around us seem to become more and more isolated, and that is where the tension develops. God allows the opinion of His other saints to matter to you, and yet you become less and less certain that others really understand the step you are taking. You have no business trying to find out where God is leading— the only thing God will explain to you is Himself.
Openly declare to Him, “I will be faithful.” But remember that as soon as you choose to be faithful to Jesus Christ, “You are witnesses against yourselves . . .” (Joshua 24:22). Don’t consult with other Christians, but simply and freely declare before Him, “I will serve You.” Will to be faithful— and give other people credit for being faithful too.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
No Way to Score Points - #6912
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
I used to be undefeated in Scrabble. I'm sure you're real excited about that. Of course I've never heard of an Olympic Scrabble Tournament, or I would have entered it. But you notice what I said...I used to be undefeated? Yeah.
See, a long time ago son broke my winning streak. You say, "Well, it couldn't have been too impressive." Yeah, my son is a smart kid. And near the end of that game that finished my future as the King of Scrabble I was getting desperate! I had a few high-scoring letters left, maybe you've done this. Some of those 8 and 10 point scorers, you know, and some Zs and Qs. So I put down a word that is sort of a word but sort of not a word, and it was sort of debatable. So guess what we did? We debated it. I got out the dictionary, and I got absolutely no support. After arguing my case a little bit more, I finally gave in and lost. I'll tell you, there's no satisfaction winning on words that I probably shouldn't use anyway in Scrabble or in everyday life.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "No Way to Score Points."
Our word for today from the Word of God is about no way to score points. Ephesians 4:29, says this, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." And it says in verse 31, "Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice."
These verses that we've read here are about what you do with your mouth. And it says to us that the easiest thing to do with your mouth is to tear people down. The book of Proverbs says "the tongue has the power of life or death" and you can, with what you say, either make a person feel more alive or more dead inside. You've had it happen to you. You know. It's so easy though, isn't it, to use our mouth to score points on the other person, to defend ourselves, to get out of a jam, to express our anger.
But it's no way to score points. Just think about the people who are most important to you that you spend the most time with; your family, your coworkers, your friends, people at school. You've learned that there are things you can say that help you get your way. Right?
Every married couple knows this, that there are some things you can say to silence your partner. There's a way to make sure you win the argument, right? But usually it's in a way that cuts them down. There's a sarcasm maybe that can leave the people around you quivering.
There's the attack on their weak spot; you know where they're weak, you know how to get at them. If you attack that spot, their physical weak spot, their emotional weak spot, you know you can get your way. You can use guilt to get your way, to manipulate them into whatever you want. Oh, you win for the moment, but you leave them feeling very small. And guess what? You got smaller in the process.
And like Scrabble, there are words; there are kinds of sentences you should never allow. You should never allow to come out of your mouth any words that make someone else feel smaller. The Bible says to only allow words that build people up. That's the test.
What if you listened to a recording of yourself for the last couple of days? Would you hear criticism, attacks, negativity that put the other person on the defensive, names called, put-downs given? Oh, maybe you scored some points for the moment, but you're both smaller as a result of it.
We're told in 1 Peter 2, that Jesus did nothing wrong. It says, "Did no guile and no accusation came out of His mouth." Would you let His lordship reach your mouth? Eliminate the cutting words, the hurting words. They're words you should never use; they're just no way to score points.