If you are in Christ, your sin is gone. It was last seen on the back of your Sin Bearer as he headed out to Death Valley. When Jesus cried on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"-he entered the wilderness on your behalf. He carried your sin away.
Open yourself to the idea of a guilt-free you. This may be difficult. You have dragged around your past for so long you can't imagine yourself with it. Jesus sees a revision of your script. Give God your guilt! Pray this simple "pocket prayer."
"Father you are good. I need help. Forgive me. Place your guilt on the back of your Sin Bearer!
Before amen-comes the power of a simple prayer! My challenge to you? Every day for 4 weeks, pray 4 minutes-a simple prayer. Join me at BeforeAmen.com-it'll change your life forever!
From Before Amen
Numbers 17
The Budding of Aaron’s Staff
[a]Then the Lord said to Moses, 2 “Tell the people of Israel to bring you twelve wooden staffs, one from each leader of Israel’s ancestral tribes, and inscribe each leader’s name on his staff. 3 Inscribe Aaron’s name on the staff of the tribe of Levi, for there must be one staff for the leader of each ancestral tribe. 4 Place these staffs in the Tabernacle in front of the Ark containing the tablets of the Covenant,[b] where I meet with you. 5 Buds will sprout on the staff belonging to the man I choose. Then I will finally put an end to the people’s murmuring and complaining against you.”
6 So Moses gave the instructions to the people of Israel, and each of the twelve tribal leaders, including Aaron, brought Moses a staff. 7 Moses placed the staffs in the Lord’s presence in the Tabernacle of the Covenant.[c] 8 When he went into the Tabernacle of the Covenant the next day, he found that Aaron’s staff, representing the tribe of Levi, had sprouted, budded, blossomed, and produced ripe almonds!
9 When Moses brought all the staffs out from the Lord’s presence, he showed them to the people. Each man claimed his own staff. 10 And the Lord said to Moses: “Place Aaron’s staff permanently before the Ark of the Covenant[d] to serve as a warning to rebels. This should put an end to their complaints against me and prevent any further deaths.” 11 So Moses did as the Lord commanded him.
12 Then the people of Israel said to Moses, “Look, we are doomed! We are dead! We are ruined! 13 Everyone who even comes close to the Tabernacle of the Lord dies. Are we all doomed to die?”
17:1 Verses 17:1-13 are numbered 17:16-28 in Hebrew text.
17:4 Hebrew in the Tent of Meeting before the Testimony. The Hebrew word for “testimony” refers to the terms of the Lord’s covenant with Israel as written on stone tablets, which were kept in the Ark, and also to the covenant itself.
17:7 Or Tabernacle of the Testimony; also in 17:8.
17:10 Hebrew before the Testimony; see note on 17:4.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Read: Numbers 11:1-10
The People Complain to Moses
Soon the people began to complain about their hardship, and the Lord heard everything they said. Then the Lord’s anger blazed against them, and he sent a fire to rage among them, and he destroyed some of the people in the outskirts of the camp. 2 Then the people screamed to Moses for help, and when he prayed to the Lord, the fire stopped. 3 After that, the area was known as Taberah (which means “the place of burning”), because fire from the Lord had burned among them there.
4 Then the foreign rabble who were traveling with the Israelites began to crave the good things of Egypt. And the people of Israel also began to complain. “Oh, for some meat!” they exclaimed. 5 “We remember the fish we used to eat for free in Egypt. And we had all the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic we wanted. 6 But now our appetites are gone. All we ever see is this manna!”
7 The manna looked like small coriander seeds, and it was pale yellow like gum resin. 8 The people would go out and gather it from the ground. They made flour by grinding it with hand mills or pounding it in mortars. Then they boiled it in a pot and made it into flat cakes. These cakes tasted like pastries baked with olive oil. 9 The manna came down on the camp with the dew during the night.
10 Moses heard all the families standing in the doorways of their tents whining, and the Lord became extremely angry. Moses was also very aggravated.
Insight
When they faced difficulties, the Israelites often complained against Moses (see Ex. 16:2; 17:3; Num. 14:2; 16:41; 20:3). Their first complaint was made just 3 days out of Egypt (Ex. 15:22-24). Paul warned us not to follow their critical spirit (1 Cor. 10:1-10), for they were sinning against the Lord (Ex. 16:8).
Goodbye
By Marvin Williams
When the people complained, it displeased the Lord; for the Lord heard it, and His anger was aroused. —Numbers 11:1
When Max Lucado participated in a half-Ironman triathlon, he experienced the negative power of complaint. He said, “After the 1.2-mile swim and the 56-mile bike ride, I didn’t have much energy left for the 13.1-mile run. Neither did the fellow jogging next to me. He said, ‘This stinks. This race is the dumbest decision I’ve ever made.’ I said, ‘Goodbye.’ ” Max knew that if he listened too long, he would start agreeing with him. So he said goodbye and kept running.
Among the Israelites, too many people listened too long to complaints and began to agree with them. This displeased God, and for good reason. God had delivered the Israelites from slavery, and agreed to live in their midst, but they still complained. Beyond the hardship of the desert, they were dissatisfied with God’s provision of manna. In their complaint, Israel forgot that the manna was a gift to them from God’s loving hand (Num. 11:6). Because complaining poisons the heart with ingratitude and can be a contagion, God had to judge it.
This is a sure way to say “goodbye” to complaining and ingratitude: Each day, let’s rehearse the faithfulness and goodness of God to us.
Lord, You have given us so much. Forgive us for our
short memories and bad attitudes. Help us to
remember and be grateful for all that You have
provided. And help us to tell others of the good things You have done for us.
Proclaiming God’s faithfulness silences discontentment.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
“When He Has Come”
When He has come, He will convict the world of sin… —John 16:8
Very few of us know anything about conviction of sin. We know the experience of being disturbed because we have done wrong things. But conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit blots out every relationship on earth and makes us aware of only one— “Against You, You only, have I sinned…” (Psalm 51:4). When a person is convicted of sin in this way, he knows with every bit of his conscience that God would not dare to forgive him. If God did forgive him, then this person would have a stronger sense of justice than God. God does forgive, but it cost the breaking of His heart with grief in the death of Christ to enable Him to do so. The great miracle of the grace of God is that He forgives sin, and it is the death of Jesus Christ alone that enables the divine nature to forgive and to remain true to itself in doing so. It is shallow nonsense to say that God forgives us because He is love. Once we have been convicted of sin, we will never say this again. The love of God means Calvary— nothing less! The love of God is spelled out on the Cross and nowhere else. The only basis for which God can forgive me is the Cross of Christ. It is there that His conscience is satisfied.
Forgiveness doesn’t merely mean that I am saved from hell and have been made ready for heaven (no one would accept forgiveness on that level). Forgiveness means that I am forgiven into a newly created relationship which identifies me with God in Christ. The miracle of redemption is that God turns me, the unholy one, into the standard of Himself, the Holy One. He does this by putting into me a new nature, the nature of Jesus Christ.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
The Ticket Will Be There - #7268
If I'm going to fly somewhere I usually have my ticket well before the trip. And of course you get the e-tickets today but years ago there weren't e-tickets and boy I was looking for it in the mail and it hadn't come. I called them and they said, "Well, we have your reservation here. I'm sure everything will be fine." Thank you for that reassurance, but it does take a ticket to get on the plane. I was scheduled to leave on a Friday, Wednesday was a real important day. Well I checked the mail again. No ticket. I called again and they said, "It's on the way." Yeah great. I've had people say, "The check is in the mail" too. And it wasn't. So I wasn't quite sure. Well, I know you're really worried. Good news! It was there, ready for me, on Thursday afternoon. I was worried because I didn't have it in my hand. But the airline assured me I was okay all those days before, and I did get what I needed but I got it just when I needed it and no sooner.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Ticket Will Be There."
Our word for today from the Word of God, we are in Hebrews 4:16. This is such a great verse, I love it. "Let us then approach the Throne of Grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." Okay let's go back through this verse and take it apart a little bit. It talks about, "Let's approach" what do we approach? That's the invitation. We're to approach what? "the Throne of Grace." Well what's grace? Well, I'm not going to give you a big sophisticated seminary definition. Let me give you the working definition out of my own life. God's grace is God's intervening love when you're on empty. Have you ever been there: out of ideas, out of strength, out of any way out of this, out of any means to pay for it, out of money?
Well, when you're on empty, grace, God's intervening love, with His resources. "Let us approach the Throne of Grace for God's intervening love when we're on empty." Now it says to "come with confidence." That word actually means to be outspoken with someone who's in a position of authority. I can go to God in an outspoken way and tell Him my need.
And then it promises grace to help in this particular unique moment of my need. That word "to help" is used only one other time in the Bible; the Greek form of it in the New Testament. It's in Acts 27 where they put supports underneath a ship to hold it together in a storm. So God's grace holds you together in your storm.
I have a friend right now who is facing a storm. His life has changed dramatically because his wife is battling against cancer. He said, "Ron, when I think about what might be ahead, I can't think about it, it's tough." We talked about how God gives His grace in 24-hour installments. See if you try to deal with next month's load before you get next month's grace, you'll sink. You're dealing with today's load, which will be perfectly matched with today's grace.
Corrie ten Boom courageously faced years in a Nazi concentration camp. Well she lost many people she loved and that was all because she helped harbor Jews in her home in Holland. Told her witness around the world for many years thereafter. Corrie said when she was a little girl, her Dad was tucking her into bed, and she said, "Daddy, I'm scared because some day if Jesus asks me to suffer or die for Him, I don't think I'd have the courage." He said, "Corrie, when I ask you to take the train with me from Harlem to Amsterdam, do I give you the ticket three weeks in advance?" And she said, "Well no, Daddy." "Do I give it to you a week in advance?" "No." He said, "Honey, when do I give you the ticket?" She said, "Well Daddy, you give me the ticket just before the train comes. That's when I need it." He said, "Honey, that's when God will give you what you need. You'll always have your ticket when the train comes."
So will you. You may be dreading what's ahead. You will have the Grace you need at the moment you need it. You say, "Well I've never had that much Grace before." You've never needed that much before. And He has it. Because His throne is a Throne of Grace. Because of the love of your savior, you will never have an assignment where the load is greater than His Grace. But you won't get it early. You'll have what you need, when you need it. Guaranteed. The ticket will be there.
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