Waiting is easier said than done! Waiting doesn't come easy for me. I've been in a hurry all my life. Pedal faster, drive quicker. I used to wear my wristwatch on the inside of my arm so I wouldn't lose the millisecond it took to turn my wrist. What insanity!
I wonder if I could've obeyed God's ancient command to keep the Sabbath holy. To slow life to a crawl for twenty-four hours? The Sabbath was created for frantic souls like me; people who need this weekly reminder: the world will not stop if you do! Isaiah 40:31 promises, "Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint."
Fresh strength. Legs that don't grow weary. Wait on the Lord-He will bring rest to your soul!
From You'll Get Through This
Ezekiel 4
Siege of Jerusalem Symbolized
“Now, son of man, take a block of clay, put it in front of you and draw the city of Jerusalem on it. 2 Then lay siege to it: Erect siege works against it, build a ramp up to it, set up camps against it and put battering rams around it. 3 Then take an iron pan, place it as an iron wall between you and the city and turn your face toward it. It will be under siege, and you shall besiege it. This will be a sign to the people of Israel.
4 “Then lie on your left side and put the sin of the people of Israel upon yourself.[c] You are to bear their sin for the number of days you lie on your side. 5 I have assigned you the same number of days as the years of their sin. So for 390 days you will bear the sin of the people of Israel.
6 “After you have finished this, lie down again, this time on your right side, and bear the sin of the people of Judah. I have assigned you 40 days, a day for each year. 7 Turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem and with bared arm prophesy against her. 8 I will tie you up with ropes so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have finished the days of your siege.
9 “Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself. You are to eat it during the 390 days you lie on your side. 10 Weigh out twenty shekels[d] of food to eat each day and eat it at set times. 11 Also measure out a sixth of a hin[e] of water and drink it at set times. 12 Eat the food as you would a loaf of barley bread; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel.” 13 The Lord said, “In this way the people of Israel will eat defiled food among the nations where I will drive them.”
14 Then I said, “Not so, Sovereign Lord! I have never defiled myself. From my youth until now I have never eaten anything found dead or torn by wild animals. No impure meat has ever entered my mouth.”
15 “Very well,” he said, “I will let you bake your bread over cow dung instead of human excrement.”
16 He then said to me: “Son of man, I am about to cut off the food supply in Jerusalem. The people will eat rationed food in anxiety and drink rationed water in despair, 17 for food and water will be scarce. They will be appalled at the sight of each other and will waste away because of[f] their sin.
Ezekiel 4:4 Or upon your side
Ezekiel 4:10 That is, about 8 ounces or about 230 grams
Ezekiel 4:11 That is, about 2/3 quart or about 0.6 liter
Ezekiel 4:17 Or away in
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Revelation 19:6-9
Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting:
“Hallelujah!
For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
7 Let us rejoice and be glad
and give him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come,
and his bride has made herself ready.
8 Fine linen, bright and clean,
was given her to wear.”
(Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.)
9 Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” And he added, “These are the true words of God.”
Married To Royalty
October 2, 2013 — by Dennis Fisher
The marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready. —Revelation 19:7
The book To Marry an English Lord chronicles the 19th-century phenomenon of rich American heiresses who sought marriages to British aristocracy. Although they were already wealthy, they wanted the social status of royalty. The book begins with Prince Albert, son of Queen Victoria, going to the United States to pay a social call. A mass of wealthy heiresses flood into a ball arranged for Prince Albert, each hoping to become his royal bride.
Believers in Christ don’t have to just hope—they are assured of a royal marriage in heaven. John talks about it in the book of Revelation: “Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready. And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints” (19:7-8). Jesus is the Lamb, who is the Bridegroom talked about in that Scripture, and believers are His bride.
As the bride of Christ, we are to make ourselves “ready” for that day by striving to live close to Him now in anticipation of our future with Him in heaven. There we will “be glad and rejoice and give . . . glory” (v.7) to the King of kings and Lord of lords!
Jesus, we look forward to that day when we will
be with You! We want to be ready, but we know
we can’t live a life that is pure unless You are
in us and help us. Change us and fill us.
There is no greater privilege than to know the King of kings.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
October 2, 2013
The Place of Humiliation
If You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us —Mark 9:22
After every time of exaltation, we are brought down with a sudden rush into things as they really are, where it is neither beautiful, poetic, nor thrilling. The height of the mountaintop is measured by the dismal drudgery of the valley, but it is in the valley that we have to live for the glory of God. We see His glory on the mountain, but we never live for His glory there. It is in the place of humiliation that we find our true worth to God— that is where our faithfulness is revealed. Most of us can do things if we are always at some heroic level of intensity, simply because of the natural selfishness of our own hearts. But God wants us to be at the drab everyday level, where we live in the valley according to our personal relationship with Him. Peter thought it would be a wonderful thing for them to remain on the mountain, but Jesus Christ took the disciples down from the mountain and into the valley, where the true meaning of the vision was explained (see Mark 9:5-6 , Mark 9:14-23).
“If you can do anything . . . .” It takes the valley of humiliation to remove the skepticism from us. Look back at your own experience and you will find that until you learned who Jesus really was, you were a skillful skeptic about His power. When you were on the mountaintop you could believe anything, but what about when you were faced with the facts of the valley? You may be able to give a testimony regarding your sanctification, but what about the thing that is a humiliation to you right now? The last time you were on the mountain with God, you saw that all the power in heaven and on earth belonged to Jesus— will you be skeptical now, simply because you are in the valley of humiliation?
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Man of Steel - Where's Superman? - #6973
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Okay, I'm admitting it. I wore my Superman t-shirt to sleep in last night. I do some other nights too. That's about as close to being Superman as I'll ever get. See, sometimes these days I have trouble opening a jar, and I doubt I could bend steel with my bare hands. As far as leaping tall buildings in a single bound? Sometimes I have trouble getting off the floor.
But with the new "Man of Steel" movie rocked the box office. See, Superman is popping up or landing all over the place these days. And he's reminding me of the sad reality that there really is no such thing as Superman.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Man of Steel - Where Is Superman?"
Oh, if you're a man, you're supposed to be Superman. Never weak, life's bullets bouncing off you, the fixer, the solver, the answer man, the tower of strength, the conqueror. Above all--the conqueror. Because a man supposedly proves he's a man by conquests, right?. In sports, in business, in the gym, and with women. I'm learning, though, that those aren't the conquests that ultimately prove your manhood. No, the question is this: "Can you conquer yourself?"
What about the volcano temper that erupts briefly but can scar permanently. The chainsaw mouth that rips even the people we love. That selfishness that insists that I'm more important than you are. The passions that cheapen sex, use people, and that imprison our imagination. And those dark feelings that take us to some very bad places. The addiction that's calling the shots.
The Bible presents a man's conquest of himself as decisive in his manhood. In our word for today from the Word of God, Proverbs 16:32, God says, "It is better to be patient than powerful; it is better to have self-control than to conquer a city." And young men are praised for proving that they are strong by the evil they've overcome (1 John 2:14).
Every man has his Kryptonite. Denying our weakness only guarantees it's going to bring us down. Stuffing our pain only hastens explosion. Pretending we've got it all together only sentences us to a very dangerous strain of lonely. So, yes, manhood is conquest - of myself. And that begins with taking off the Superman mask of invulnerability, admitting when I'm hurting, when I'm not sure, when I need someone.
A lot of men had a dad who always had to be tough, and right, and in control. But the son would have given anything to know if his dad was proud of him...to hear him apologize...to hear him say, "I love you." Even today there are scars from a dad's criticism, a dad's anger, a dad's distance.
So I'm seeing now that "man up" may mean something quite different from the macho myths that we were raised on. It means being man enough to say three of the most healing words in the English language "I was wrong" or "I forgive you."
Manhood is saying those words that we thought showed weakness but actually prove strength. "I need help" before the explosion comes, before I hurt more people, before I'm hooked and can't get free. I can't conquer me alone. The man in the mirror is my biggest battle. But maybe if I'll swallow my stubborn pride, it could be my biggest conquest.
I have to agree with that guy in the Bible who said, "I really want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate. Who will free me?" You can't be rescued until you admit you can't save yourself; until you're willing to pin all your hopes on somebody who can rescue you.
And "who will free me?" Well, the Bible's answer is this: "Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ" (Romans 7:15, 24-25). Because the animal inside us - sin, God calls it - can only be tamed by the Man who turned its fury on Himself. Who took on Himself all the darkness and all the penalty that has made sin my master and my eternal destiny. He beat it on the cross.
I am one of an army of men who have surrendered our lives to this amazing Jesus. Who've discovered that a man can finally conquer his darkness by being conquered - by the Son of God. Jesus has the power to conquer what has always conquered us. And we trust Him because He loved us enough to die for us. If you're ready to let Him take the wheel, I invite you to join me to find out how at ANewStory.com, and let a new story begin for you.