Max Lucado Daily: One Option: God
When you recognize God as Creator, you will admire Him. When you recognize His wisdom, you will learn from Him. When you discover His strength, you will rely on Him. But only when He saves you will you worship Him.
It's a "before and after" scenario. Before your rescue, He was high on your priority list, but He shared the spot with others. Then came the storm, the rage, the fight. Despair fell like a fog. Could you turn to your career for help? Only if you want to hide from the storm, not escape it. Lean on your status for strength? A storm isn't impressed with your title. Suddenly you're left with one option-God. And when you ask, genuinely ask, He will come. And from that moment on, He is not just a deity to admire, or a master to obey. He is the Savior. The Savior to be worshiped!
From In the Eye of the Storm
Exodus 24
The Covenant Confirmed
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. You are to worship at a distance, 2 but Moses alone is to approach the Lord; the others must not come near. And the people may not come up with him.”
3 When Moses went and told the people all the Lord’s words and laws, they responded with one voice, “Everything the Lord has said we will do.” 4 Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had said.
He got up early the next morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel. 5 Then he sent young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord. 6 Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he splashed against the altar. 7 Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, “We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey.”
8 Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”
9 Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up 10 and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky. 11 But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.
12 The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone with the law and commandments I have written for their instruction.”
13 Then Moses set out with Joshua his aide, and Moses went up on the mountain of God. 14 He said to the elders, “Wait here for us until we come back to you. Aaron and Hur are with you, and anyone involved in a dispute can go to them.”
15 When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, 16 and the glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from within the cloud. 17 To the Israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain. 18 Then Moses entered the cloud as he went on up the mountain. And he stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
Footnotes:
Exodus 23:31 Or the Sea of Reeds
Exodus 23:31 Hebrew to the Sea of the Philistines
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Read: 1 Corinthians 3:1-11
The Church and Its Leaders
Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings?
5 What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. 9 For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.
10 By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Insight
In today’s passage, Paul uses both agricultural and architectural metaphors to warn of an overreliance and dependence on church leaders. Using an agricultural metaphor, he reminds us that while human leaders do the planting and watering, God alone can make the church grow (1 Cor. 3:1-9). And with the architectural metaphor of a building, Paul warns that no human leader is the founder of the church (vv.10-11). God alone is the founder and foundation.
Our Foundation
By Dennis Fisher
For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. —1 Corinthians 3:11
The Bavarian city of Nördlingen is unique. It sits in the middle of the Ries Crater, a large circular depression caused by the impact of a huge meteorite a long time ago. The immense pressure of the impact resulted in unusual crystallized rock and millions of microscopic diamonds. In the 13th century, these speckled stones were used to build St. George’s Church. Visitors can see the beautiful crystal deposits in its foundation and walls. Some might say it has a heavenly foundation.
The Bible talks of a different kind of heavenly foundation. The Lord Jesus came to our world from heaven (John 3:13). When He went back into heaven after His death and resurrection, He left His followers who became the “living temple” of God, of which He is the foundation. The apostle Paul says, “For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 3:11).
The church building in Bavaria is built on a foundation from pieces of rock from the physical heavens. But the spiritual church—all believers in Christ—is founded on the ultimate heavenly foundation, Christ Jesus (Isa. 28:16; 1 Cor. 10:3-4). Praise God that because of what Jesus has done our salvation is secure.
On Christ salvation rests secure;
The Rock of Ages will endure;
Nor can that faith be overthrown
Which rests upon the “Living Stone.” —Anon.
Christ, the Rock, is our sure hope.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Christ-Awareness
. . . and I will give you rest —Matthew 11:28
Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once, asking Him to re-establish your rest. Never allow anything to remain in your life that is causing the unrest. Think of every detail of your life that is causing the disintegration as something to fight against, not as something you should allow to remain. Ask the Lord to put awareness of Himself in you, and your self-awareness will disappear. Then He will be your all in all. Beware of allowing your self-awareness to continue, because slowly but surely it will awaken self-pity, and self-pity is satanic. Don’t allow yourself to say, “Well, they have just misunderstood me, and this is something over which they should be apologizing to me; I’m sure I must have this cleared up with them already.” Learn to leave others alone regarding this. Simply ask the Lord to give you Christ-awareness, and He will steady you until your completeness in Him is absolute.
A complete life is the life of a child. When I am fully conscious of my awareness of Christ, there is something wrong. It is the sick person who really knows what health is. A child of God is not aware of the will of God because he is the will of God. When we have deviated even slightly from the will of God, we begin to ask, “Lord, what is your will?” A child of God never prays to be made aware of the fact that God answers prayer, because he is so restfully certain that God always answers prayer.
If we try to overcome our self-awareness through any of our own commonsense methods, we will only serve to strengthen our self-awareness tremendously. Jesus says, “Come to Me . . . and I will give you rest,” that is, Christ-awareness will take the place of self-awareness. Wherever Jesus comes He establishes rest— the rest of the completion of activity in our lives that is never aware of itself.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Build Your Levee High - #7203
The Mississippi River flood of 1993 was a nail-biter if you had a home or business near the river in St. Louis. The flood had already done unprecedented damage up river, and St. Louis was holding their breath as the crest on the Missouri River and Mississippi Rivers rose.
Several years prior to that flood, St. Louis invested a lot of money in a levee. A big one; bigger than any they ever thought they would need. They built it thick and they built it high. They built it 52 feet high, which is many feet above the highest flood crest in the history of the city.
Well, this was the 500 year flood. Who could ever know that it would ever get that high? The tension was mounting. You could hear it in the news reports, because they were coming live from there. The predicted crests were rising through the 40's and now toward the 50-foot mark. And then the moment of truth came, and the river crested at incredibly high record levels, but under 50 feet. Were they glad they had built a wall that was strong and high!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Build Your Levee High."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Malachi 2. Let me tell you, there is a flood out there that is affecting a lot of people; a lot of married people. There is a deluge of forces breaking down the walls around marriage after marriage. You could probably think of some, and maybe you're in one.
Are you ready for Malachi chapter 2, beginning at verse 13? God says, "You flood the Lord's altar with tears. You weep and wail because He no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. And you ask 'Why?' It is because the Lord is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you've broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. Hath not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are His. And why one? Because He was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. 'I hate divorce' says the Lord."
Well, one thing is very obvious from this passage. God is serious about marriage being for life whether we are or not. If your marriage breaks down, it sounds like your relationship with God breaks down and your children, it says here, are affected. They're scarred by it.
Now, the Devil knows that, and he does everything he can to get into your marriage. Right? I mean, there's a flood of forces threatening even the healthiest marriages. Many times both people are working and there's less time and energy left for each other. There's the lure of infidelity. It seems to be more acceptable today, justifiable. It's everywhere around us. There's financial instability. Of course, how common divorce is, which seems to make it easier to get divorced.
The Devil is trying to get over the wall, and he's trying to get into your family. That's why God says here, "Guard yourself. Build a flood wall that's high and strong around your marriage. Anticipate all the places that flood could get in, and then you build a wall against it. Like lack of communication for example. You've got to schedule regular time to catch up with each other. That's got to be a non-negotiable so there's not a hole in the flood wall.
What about that resentment that keeps building up because you don't deal with things when they're small? Ephesians 4:26, "Don't let the sun go down on your anger." Don't stuff your feelings. Those feelings are going to affect your mate. They just won't know why or what's going on. So deal with issues and feelings when they're small. You're building a flood wall.
What about living in two different worlds? You've got to do whatever you have to do to be together more, even if it means sacrificing financially. Sexual temptation is a hole in the wall. Don't be in any private situation with someone from the opposite sex. Focus all your desires and all your needs on your mate and don't even flirt with getting some cheap strokes for your ego from someone of the opposite sex. You've got the idea.
Look for the places the flood's going to get into your home, and you build a high levee there. There might be strain on the levee and a few sandbag nights. But if you've built your wall tall and strong, you're got a marriage that is flood proof.
