Years ago a friend gave me this counsel: Make a list of all the lives you would affect by your sexual immorality. I did. The list includes Denalyn, my three daughters, my sons-in-law, and my grandchild. Every so often, I reread it. And the list reminds me that one act of carnality is a poor exchange for a lifetime of lost legacy.
Dads, would you intentionally break the arm of your child? Of course not. Such an action would violate every fiber of your moral being. Yet if you engage in sexual activity outside your marriage, you’ll bring much more pain into the life of your child than would a broken bone.
In 1 Corinthians 6:19, Paul asked the rhetorical question: “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you?”
Actions have consequences. So what do you do? Do what pleases God!
From You’ll Get Through This
2 Samuel 12
Nathan Rebukes David
So the Lord sent Nathan the prophet to tell David this story: “There were two men in a certain town. One was rich, and one was poor. 2 The rich man owned a great many sheep and cattle. 3 The poor man owned nothing but one little lamb he had bought. He raised that little lamb, and it grew up with his children. It ate from the man’s own plate and drank from his cup. He cuddled it in his arms like a baby daughter. 4 One day a guest arrived at the home of the rich man. But instead of killing an animal from his own flock or herd, he took the poor man’s lamb and killed it and prepared it for his guest.”
5 David was furious. “As surely as the Lord lives,” he vowed, “any man who would do such a thing deserves to die! 6 He must repay four lambs to the poor man for the one he stole and for having no pity.”
7 Then Nathan said to David, “You are that man! The Lord, the God of Israel, says: I anointed you king of Israel and saved you from the power of Saul. 8 I gave you your master’s house and his wives and the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. And if that had not been enough, I would have given you much, much more. 9 Why, then, have you despised the word of the Lord and done this horrible deed? For you have murdered Uriah the Hittite with the sword of the Ammonites and stolen his wife. 10 From this time on, your family will live by the sword because you have despised me by taking Uriah’s wife to be your own.
11 “This is what the Lord says: Because of what you have done, I will cause your own household to rebel against you. I will give your wives to another man before your very eyes, and he will go to bed with them in public view. 12 You did it secretly, but I will make this happen to you openly in the sight of all Israel.”
David Confesses His Guilt
13 Then David confessed to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”
Nathan replied, “Yes, but the Lord has forgiven you, and you won’t die for this sin. 14 Nevertheless, because you have shown utter contempt for the word of the Lord[h] by doing this, your child will die.”
15 After Nathan returned to his home, the Lord sent a deadly illness to the child of David and Uriah’s wife. 16 David begged God to spare the child. He went without food and lay all night on the bare ground. 17 The elders of his household pleaded with him to get up and eat with them, but he refused.
18 Then on the seventh day the child died. David’s advisers were afraid to tell him. “He wouldn’t listen to reason while the child was ill,” they said. “What drastic thing will he do when we tell him the child is dead?”
19 When David saw them whispering, he realized what had happened. “Is the child dead?” he asked.
“Yes,” they replied, “he is dead.”
20 Then David got up from the ground, washed himself, put on lotions,[i] and changed his clothes. He went to the Tabernacle and worshiped the Lord. After that, he returned to the palace and was served food and ate.
21 His advisers were amazed. “We don’t understand you,” they told him. “While the child was still living, you wept and refused to eat. But now that the child is dead, you have stopped your mourning and are eating again.”
22 David replied, “I fasted and wept while the child was alive, for I said, ‘Perhaps the Lord will be gracious to me and let the child live.’ 23 But why should I fast when he is dead? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him one day, but he cannot return to me.”
24 Then David comforted Bathsheba, his wife, and slept with her. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son, and David[j] named him Solomon. The Lord loved the child 25 and sent word through Nathan the prophet that they should name him Jedidiah (which means “beloved of the Lord”), as the Lord had commanded.[k]
David Captures Rabbah
26 Meanwhile, Joab was fighting against Rabbah, the capital of Ammon, and he captured the royal fortifications.[l] 27 Joab sent messengers to tell David, “I have fought against Rabbah and captured its water supply.[m] 28 Now bring the rest of the army and capture the city. Otherwise, I will capture it and get credit for the victory.”
29 So David gathered the rest of the army and went to Rabbah, and he fought against it and captured it. 30 David removed the crown from the king’s head,[n] and it was placed on his own head. The crown was made of gold and set with gems, and it weighed seventy-five pounds.[o] David took a vast amount of plunder from the city. 31 He also made slaves of the people of Rabbah and forced them to labor with[p] saws, iron picks, and iron axes, and to work in the brick kilns.[q] That is how he dealt with the people of all the Ammonite towns. Then David and all the army returned to Jerusalem.
Footnotes:
12:14 As in Dead Sea Scrolls; Masoretic Text reads the enemies of the Lord.
12:20 Hebrew anointed himself.
12:24 Hebrew he; an alternate Hebrew reading and some Hebrew manuscripts read she.
12:25 As in Greek version; Hebrew reads because of the Lord.
12:26 Or the royal city.
12:27 Or captured the city of water.
12:30a Or from the head of Milcom (as in Greek version). Milcom, also called Molech, was the god of the Ammonites.
12:30b Hebrew 1 talent [34 kilograms].
12:31a Hebrew He also brought out the people [of Rabbah] and put them under.
12:31b Hebrew and he made them pass through the brick kilns.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Read: Proverbs 10:18-21; 12:17-19
Hiding hatred makes you a liar;
slandering others makes you a fool.
19 Too much talk leads to sin.
Be sensible and keep your mouth shut.
20 The words of the godly are like sterling silver;
the heart of a fool is worthless.
21 The words of the godly encourage many,
but fools are destroyed by their lack of common sense.
Proverbs 12:17-19New Living Translation (NLT)
17 An honest witness tells the truth;
a false witness tells lies.
18 Some people make cutting remarks,
but the words of the wise bring healing.
19 Truthful words stand the test of time,
but lies are soon exposed.
INSIGHT:
Proverbs warns us of the consequences of our words (Prov. 10:20-21; 12:13,18; 13:3; 16:24,27-28; 18:7; 22:5; 25:11-12). Wrong words are likened to a powerful fire (16:27) and weapons of war (12:18; 25:18; 26:18). A wise person is one who is restrained and judicious in his speech. Interestingly, we are reminded that if we keep silent, we will never say the wrong thing (10:19) and we will even be thought to be wise (17:28).
Wise Words
By Dave Branon
The tongue of the wise brings healing. —Proverbs 12:18 NIV
What is the strongest muscle in the human body? Some say it’s the tongue, but it’s hard to determine which muscle is the most powerful because muscles don’t work alone.
But we do know that the tongue is strong. For a small muscle, it can do a lot of damage. This active little muscular organ that helps us eat, swallow, taste, and begin digestion has a tendency to also assist us in saying things we shouldn’t. The tongue is guilty of flattery, cursing, lying, boasting, and harming others. And that’s just the short list.
It sounds like a pretty dangerous muscle, doesn’t it? But here’s the good thing: It doesn’t have to be that way. When we are controlled by the Holy Spirit, our tongues can be turned to great good. We can speak of God’s righteousness (Ps. 35:28) and justice (37:30). We can speak truth (15:2), show love (1 John 3:18), and confess sin (1 John 1:9).
The writer of Proverbs 12:18 spells out one of the best uses of the tongue: “The tongue of the wise brings healing” (niv). Imagine how we could glorify the One who made our tongues when He helps us use it to bring healing—not harm—to everyone we talk to.
Please guard each word we say so we reflect You and Your love. Help our tongues speak words of healing and not harm.
Encourage one another and build each other up. 1 Thessalonians 5:11 niv
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Beware of Criticizing Others
Judge not, that you be not judged. —Matthew 7:1
Jesus’ instructions with regard to judging others is very simply put; He says, “Don’t.” The average Christian is the most piercingly critical individual known. Criticism is one of the ordinary activities of people, but in the spiritual realm nothing is accomplished by it. The effect of criticism is the dividing up of the strengths of the one being criticized. The Holy Spirit is the only one in the proper position to criticize, and He alone is able to show what is wrong without hurting and wounding. It is impossible to enter into fellowship with God when you are in a critical mood. Criticism serves to make you harsh, vindictive, and cruel, and leaves you with the soothing and flattering idea that you are somehow superior to others. Jesus says that as His disciple you should cultivate a temperament that is never critical. This will not happen quickly but must be developed over a span of time. You must constantly beware of anything that causes you to think of yourself as a superior person.
There is no escaping the penetrating search of my life by Jesus. If I see the little speck in your eye, it means that I have a plank of timber in my own (see Matthew 7:3-5). Every wrong thing that I see in you, God finds in me. Every time I judge, I condemn myself (see Romans 2:17-24). Stop having a measuring stick for other people. There is always at least one more fact, which we know nothing about, in every person’s situation. The first thing God does is to give us a thorough spiritual cleaning. After that, there is no possibility of pride remaining in us. I have never met a person I could despair of, or lose all hope for, after discerning what lies in me apart from the grace of God.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Discouragement and Your Dirty Window - #7418
I was in Arizona taking the opportunity to spend a little time with my son and our daughter-in-law. And since I'm the early riser of our family, they showed me where all the breakfast food was.
Now, breakfast isn't breakfast without a bagel or an English muffin, right? Well, they had some. So I popped a bagel into their aging toaster oven. And after rounding up the rest of my breakfast, I looked through the oven window to see how my bagel was doing, and I quickly opened the door to save it from burning, only to find out it was nowhere near done. I repeated that exercise two or three times. You know why? The window on that toaster oven had gotten clouded and murky over the years. So everything you looked at through that window looked darker than it really was.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Discouragement and Your Dirty Window."
Jonah - remember him? He was a man of God with a dark window. God had called him to go preach to the most ungodly city of his day, Nineveh. And Jonah took a ship the other way to Tarshish and ended up paying for his disobedience in the belly of a great fish.
He gets his second chance to do what God wants him to do in our word for today from the Word of God, Jonah 3:1, "Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. ‘Go to that great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.'" And so he does. It's a message of God's judgment if they don't repent. Here's the result: "The Ninevites believed God. When God saw how they turned from their evil ways, He had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction He had threatened."
Great news, huh? Not if you're looking at the Ninevites through Jonah's window. No! Chapter 4, verse 1, "Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry." He goes on to tell the Lord, "Listen, I want to check out, man! I'm sick of this." But the Lord answered him with, "Have you any right to be angry?"
What's going on here? Well, God is doing a great and mighty work and Jonah's missing the whole thing. Why? Because he's looking at it through a dark window. He had written off the Ninevites as hopeless sinners that should only get one thing - judgment. And when they finally did the right thing, Jonah couldn't even see it. That is the dark window syndrome.
Maybe you've been looking at some person or some situation through your dirty window. Life is so discouraging, it's so depressing, it's so negative when you're seeing everything through a window of anger, or jealousy, or self-pity, or pessimism. Even when God's doing something good, you may not be able to see it because you've gotten used to seeing only what's wrong.
Maybe there's a relationship in your life right now that's strained, at least partly because you've made up your mind about that person and you interpret everything they do, even the good things, even personal growth in them through your perspective. You can't accept the good. They don't even have a chance to change. It could be a child you've struggled with and they're always the problem child to you, or your mate, a spiritual leader in your life, a friend, maybe a coworker. This is just wrong! It doesn't leave any room for the activity of God in their life. There's only room for bad news. It's pre-judging and it's just wrong.
I know that every time I looked through that dark window everything looked darker than it really was. Maybe you've been making that same mistake with someone around you. Instead of writing them off, or trying to fix them, why don't you clean your window? I'll bet things will look better.
Jesus made a promise. He said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." Something amazing happens when you take what Jesus did on the cross for you, allow Him to take down the wall between you and God and ask Him to come into your life to be your Savior from your sin. It's like the lights go on! And suddenly everything that has looked so dark, now you can see through the eyes of God himself.
The Bible puts it this way, "If anyone's in Christ, he's a new creation. The old is gone; the new life has begun." Truly life looks different when Jesus is driving that life. If you have never surrendered to Him and given Him the wheel, let this be the day that He turns on the lights in your, what may have been too dark soul. You tell Him, "Jesus, I'm yours. Based on what you did for me on the cross."
Visit our website and find out how to be sure you belong to Him - ANewStory.com. This is the day when the lights come on in your heart.
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