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Max Lucado Daily: What Do You Want?
I like the story about the fellow who went to the pet store for a singing parakeet. The store owner had just the bird and the next day the man came home to a house full of music. When he went to feed the bird he noticed for the first time, the parakeet had only one leg. He called the store and complained. “What do you want,” the store owner responded, “a bird who can sing or a bird who can dance?”
Good question for times of disappointment. What do we want? It’s what Jesus asked the disciples when they complained. And in Luke 24:27, Jesus began to tell them the story of God’s plan for people, “starting with Moses and all the prophets, and everything that had been written about Himself in the Scriptures.” Jesus’ cure for the broken heart is the story of God. So what do you want? If you’re disappointed, turn to the story of God. He’s still in control!
from He Stills Moves Stones
Hebrews 1
New International Version (NIV)
God’s Final Word: His Son
1 In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. 3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. 4 So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.
The Son Superior to Angels
5 For to which of the angels did God ever say,
“You are my Son;
today I have become your Father”[a]?
Or again,
“I will be his Father,
and he will be my Son”[b]?
6 And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says,
“Let all God’s angels worship him.”[c]
7 In speaking of the angels he says,
“He makes his angels spirits,
and his servants flames of fire.”[d]
8 But about the Son he says,
“Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever;
a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom.
9 You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions
by anointing you with the oil of joy.”[e]
10 He also says,
“In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
11 They will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
12 You will roll them up like a robe;
like a garment they will be changed.
But you remain the same,
and your years will never end.”[f]
13 To which of the angels did God ever say,
“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet”[g]?
14 Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: James 3:13-17
New International Version (NIV)
Two Kinds of Wisdom
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. 14 But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. 15 Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.
17 But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.
Where Can Wisdom Be Found?
July 25, 2013 — by David H. Roper
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God. —James 1:5
Wisdom is the beauty of holiness. James says wisdom is reasonable; flexible; forgiving; peaceful; caring; given to friendly visits, small acts of courtesy, and kind words. It is humble, transparent, simple, gentle, and gracious to the core (James 3:17).
Where can wisdom be found? It comes from heaven (1:5). “Wisdom,” wrote Charles Spurgeon, “is a beauty of life that can only be produced by God’s workmanship in us.”
It’s good to ask from time to time: “Am I growing in wisdom?” After all, life is relentlessly dynamic. We’re either growing sweeter and wiser as the days go by, or we’re growing into foolish or even sour-faced curmudgeons. Into what are we growing?
It’s never too late to begin growing in wisdom. God loves us with an ardent, intense affection that can deliver us from our foolishness if we yield ourselves to Him. His love can make the most difficult nature into a miracle of astonishing beauty. It may hurt a little and it may take a while, but God relentlessly seeks our transformation. When we ask, His wisdom will begin to rise in us and pour itself out to others.
We have this promise: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to [you]” (1:5).
Lord, please put an end to our foolishness and
turn our hearts toward the wisdom that comes
only from You. We ask You now to take our
lives and transform them into Your likeness.
True wisdom begins and ends with God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
July 25, 2013
Am I Blessed Like This?
Blessed are . . . —Matthew 5:3-11
When we first read the statements of Jesus, they seem wonderfully simple and unstartling, and they sink unnoticed into our subconscious minds. For instance, the Beatitudes initially seem to be merely soothing and beautiful precepts for overly spiritual and seemingly useless people, but of very little practical use in the rigid, fast-paced workdays of the world in which we live. We soon find, however, that the Beatitudes contain the “dynamite” of the Holy Spirit. And they “explode” when the circumstances of our lives cause them to do so. When the Holy Spirit brings to our remembrance one of the Beatitudes, we say, “What a startling statement that is!” Then we must decide whether or not we will accept the tremendous spiritual upheaval that will be produced in our circumstances if we obey His words. That is the way the Spirit of God works. We do not need to be born again to apply the Sermon on the Mount literally. The literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount is as easy as child’s play. But the interpretation by the Spirit of God as He applies our Lord’s statements to our circumstances is the strict and difficult work of a saint.
The teachings of Jesus are all out of proportion when compared to our natural way of looking at things, and they come to us initially with astonishing discomfort. We gradually have to conform our walk and conversation to the precepts of Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit applies them to our circumstances. The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of rules and regulations— it is a picture of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is having His unhindered way with us.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Cutting You Off to Bring You Down - #6924
Thursday, July 25, 2013
My wife and I took a trip to the mountains and, in a way, to her childhood. We visited an old Smokey Mountain community that the Park Service preserved over the years. It's called Cades Cove. It used to be inhabited by a lot of mountain folk. Now, my wife grew up in a Yankee family who lived in the Ozarks on a farm. So she experienced both.
She recognized a lot of the customs when we went to Cades Cove, and the terminology, and the lifestyle. Oh, they were new to me; they weren't new to her. I kind of chuckled when they talked about clearing farmland by "girdling" the trees. City boy! Now, listen, if you let your imagination run, you could get a pretty humorous image of a girdled tree. But, actually, that process was an example of old mountain wisdom. Here's this huge tree, and the shade is keeping anything from growing around it. It's got to come down if you're going to farm there. But it's so thick it would be very, very difficult to chop down.
The old mountaineers would go around the tree with an ax and chop one line through the bark. Here was this big tree with a ring from chipping all around the trunk with an ax. You'd think, "Oh, that won't hurt the tree." But, they had girdled the tree. That would eventually cause all the leaves to fall off, it would cause the tree to die, and it would be relatively easy then to take it down. That little cut simply cut off the route for the nourishment to get to the rest of the tree. You know, that might be the best way to bring you down too.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Cutting You Off to Bring You Down."
Our word for today from the Word of God; we are in the very first Psalm. I'll begin reading at verse 1. Notice there's a tree in here. "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His Law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers."
This tells us how to be a deeply rooted child of God. Don't you want to be strong and consistent? Don't you want to be (here comes a word) "un-bring-downable?" I want to be un-bring-downable! Now, if the Devil wants you to fall like a big, old tree, and he does, he may know that a direct attack coming at you swinging his ax would fail, because if you saw that coming, you'd fight back. You would see a direct devilish attempt to try to bring you down.
I think what he wants to do is wear you down with little compromises; little nicks in your bark where first of all you just walk around in some wrong stuff. You don't plan to stay in it. And then like the Psalm says, you sort of stand still with it; you get a little more compromised. And finally you're sitting in it. See, he just wants you to think wrong right now, to watch or listen to something that's wrong, to become tolerant of what you once would never have allowed in your life--those little nicks in the bark that are setting you up for a big fall.
Secondly, he wants to cut you off from the nourishment. See, your nourishment is meditating in God's Word day and night. Have you noticed a slow drift lately from being in God's Word? One day becomes two, and three, and maybe your Bible's started getting a little dusty. Jesus is missing you. The time you do have with Him is dry and then less frequent. Prayer has become predictable and flat. Don't you see what's happening? The Devil is trying to cut you off to bring you down. Don't let slow decay take away the life you have in Christ.
See, if you're rooted daily in God's Word; if you don't let anything interrupt that flow of nourishment and if you're fighting the little compromises, you're a rooted tree, and you are not coming down!