Max Lucado Daily: Everything Needed for Joy
Robert had cerebral palsy. The disease kept him from riding a bike, or going for a walk. But it didn't keep him from graduating from high school or attending university. Having cerebral palsy didn't keep him from teaching at a Junior College or from venturing overseas on five missions trips. And Robert's disease didn't prevent him from becoming a missionary in Portugal.
He moved to Lisbon, alone. He rented a room, found a restaurant owner who fed him after the rush hour and a tutor who instructed him in the language. And daily in the park, he passed out booklets about Christ. Within six years he led seventy people to the Lord. I heard Robert speak. He could've asked for sympathy or pity. He did just the opposite. A Bible in his lap, he held his bent hand up in the air and boasted, "I have everything I need for joy." So do we.
From The Applause of Heaven
Psalm 25
A psalm of David.
1 O Lord, I give my life to you.
2 I trust in you, my God!
Do not let me be disgraced,
or let my enemies rejoice in my defeat.
3 No one who trusts in you will ever be disgraced,
but disgrace comes to those who try to deceive others.
4 Show me the right path, O Lord;
point out the road for me to follow.
5 Lead me by your truth and teach me,
for you are the God who saves me.
All day long I put my hope in you.
6 Remember, O Lord, your compassion and unfailing love,
which you have shown from long ages past.
7 Do not remember the rebellious sins of my youth.
Remember me in the light of your unfailing love,
for you are merciful, O Lord.
8 The Lord is good and does what is right;
he shows the proper path to those who go astray.
9 He leads the humble in doing right,
teaching them his way.
10 The Lord leads with unfailing love and faithfulness
all who keep his covenant and obey his demands.
11 For the honor of your name, O Lord,
forgive my many, many sins.
12 Who are those who fear the Lord?
He will show them the path they should choose.
13 They will live in prosperity,
and their children will inherit the land.
14 The Lord is a friend to those who fear him.
He teaches them his covenant.
15 My eyes are always on the Lord,
for he rescues me from the traps of my enemies.
16 Turn to me and have mercy,
for I am alone and in deep distress.
17 My problems go from bad to worse.
Oh, save me from them all!
18 Feel my pain and see my trouble.
Forgive all my sins.
19 See how many enemies I have
and how viciously they hate me!
20 Protect me! Rescue my life from them!
Do not let me be disgraced, for in you I take refuge.
21 May integrity and honesty protect me,
for I put my hope in you.
22 O God, ransom Israel
from all its troubles.
Footnotes:
25 This psalm is a Hebrew acrostic poem; each verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, August 10, 2015
Read: James 1:19-27
Listening and Doing
19 Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. 20 Human anger[a] does not produce the righteousness[b] God desires. 21 So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.
22 But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. 23 For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. 24 You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. 25 But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.
26 If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. 27 Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.
Footnotes:
1:20a Greek A man’s anger.
1:20b Or the justice.
INSIGHT:
James’s letter was written to people enduring difficult times. In James 1:1 we read, “James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad: Greetings.” The “twelve tribes which are scattered abroad” were Jewish followers of Christ who had been driven from their homes in Jerusalem by persecution. Many of them had lost everything because of their faith in Christ, and they were struggling. Perhaps that is why James spoke so passionately about caring for orphans and widows (1:27) and the poor (ch.2). Because the believers had suffered so much themselves, they should have understood the importance of responding to the needs of others. Bill Crowder
I’ve Come to Help
By Randy Kilgore
Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. —James 1:22
Reporter Jacob Riis’s vivid descriptions of poverty in 19th-century New York City horrified a generally complacent public. His book How the Other Half Lives combined his writing with his own photographs to paint a picture so vivid that the public could not escape the certainty of poverty’s desperate existence. The third of fifteen children himself, Riis wrote so effectively because he had lived in that world of terrible despair.
Shortly after the release of his book, he received a card from a young man just beginning his political career. The note read simply, “I have read your book, and I have come to help. Theodore Roosevelt.” (This politician later became a US President.)
True faith responds to the needs of others.
True faith responds to the needs of others, according to James (1:19-27). May our hearts be moved from inaction to action, from words alone to deeds that back them up. Compassionate action not only aids those mired in life’s difficulties, but it may also make them open to the greater message from our Savior who sees their need and can do so much more for them.
O Lord, it is so easy to be overwhelmed, or to judge and therefore to refrain from helping others. Lift our eyes above our own thoughts and circumstances, and let us care as You care.
Others will know what the words “God is love” mean when they see it in our lives.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
August 10, 2015
The Holy Suffering of the Saint
Let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good… —1 Peter 4:19
Choosing to suffer means that there must be something wrong with you, but choosing God’s will— even if it means you will suffer— is something very different. No normal, healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he simply chooses God’s will, just as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not. And no saint should ever dare to interfere with the lesson of suffering being taught in another saint’s life.
The saint who satisfies the heart of Jesus will make other saints strong and mature for God. But the people used to strengthen us are never those who sympathize with us; in fact, we are hindered by those who give us their sympathy, because sympathy only serves to weaken us. No one better understands a saint than the saint who is as close and as intimate with Jesus as possible. If we accept the sympathy of another saint, our spontaneous feeling is, “God is dealing too harshly with me and making my life too difficult.” That is why Jesus said that self-pity was of the devil (see Matthew 16:21-23). We must be merciful to God’s reputation. It is easy for us to tarnish God’s character because He never argues back; He never tries to defend or vindicate Himself. Beware of thinking that Jesus needed sympathy during His life on earth. He refused the sympathy of people because in His great wisdom He knew that no one on earth understood His purpose (see Matthew 16:23). He accepted only the sympathy of His Father and the angels (see Luke 15:10).
Look at God’s incredible waste of His saints, according to the world’s judgment. God seems to plant His saints in the most useless places. And then we say, “God intends for me to be here because I am so useful to Him.” Yet Jesus never measured His life by how or where He was of the greatest use. God places His saints where they will bring the most glory to Him, and we are totally incapable of judging where that may be.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
To read the Bible according to God’s providential order in your circumstances is the only way to read it, viz., in the blood and passion of personal life. Disciples Indeed, 387 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, August 10, 2015
Your Personal Eclipse - #7456
If you've ever seen a total eclipse of the moon, you'd have to agree it's pretty amazing! The moon - the great light of the night - suddenly starts to disappear. That big old moon darkens little by little until finally there appears to be no more moon. But don't panic! The moon has no light of its own of course. It's just light reflected from the sun. So, when something comes between the moon and its light source, something like a little tennis ball called earth, the moon just goes dark.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about 'Your Personal Eclipse.'
Maybe that word eclipse describes the season you're going through right now. It feels like the light has gone out, things aren't working, answers aren't coming, and emotionally it's feeling dark right now. Why are things going into an eclipse? Well, it could be for the same reason the moon goes dark.
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Psalm 32:1-5. David is speaking, 'Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.' Okay, he's talking about being blessed by God. Well, that's the light that comes from the Son of God in your life. This is God's blessing.
But David goes on to talk about his personal eclipse and maybe yours. Here's what he says, 'When I kept silent my bones wasted away and there was my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me.' Have you ever felt like that, like God's hand was heavy on you? Then he says, 'My strength was sapped as if in need of sunlight.' Wow! He's depleted. He's worn out. He's weak. Sound familiar?
David couldn't figure out why he was having physical difficulty and spiritual heaviness and stress and weariness. He just knew that the light that had been there before seemed to have gone out. And then he figured out what caused the eclipse. Here we go, 'Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, 'I will confess my transgression to the Lord, and You forgave the guilt of my sin.''
In the verses that follow, you can tell the eclipse is over. He talks about songs of deliverance, the Lord's unfailing love surrounding him. He says, 'Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, for the light is back.' The reason for the eclipse? Something has come between you and the light. Something is blocking God's blessing on you right now. And David nailed it. He said, 'It's my sin.'
Look, you could have looked everywhere for an explanation of this dark time, but the light's not going to come back until you quit covering up that sinful attitude, that sinful action or relationship or habit. Oh you've been excusing it. But you need to quit doing that and instead confess it and bring it to Jesus' cross in what the Bible calls repentance.
It didn't stay dark that night of the eclipse. No, see, the light came back as soon as that obstruction was removed. Well, I can assure you as David discovered, that the light of God's blessing, which you desperately need in your life right now, could start to return to you this very day if you will deal honestly and repentantly with the sin that is keeping the light from getting through. For you? Good news. The eclipse may finally be over.
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