Max Lucado Daily: God is For You!
God IS for you! In fact, the Bible says, “God will rejoice over you!” Turn to the sidelines and hear God cheering your run. Look past the finish line; that’s God applauding your steps. Listen for him in the bleachers, shouting your name. Are you too tired to continue? He’ll carry you. Are you too discouraged to fight? He’s picking you up. God is for you!
In Isaiah 49:15 God asks, “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?” Can you imagine a mother feeding her infant and later asking, “What was that baby’s name?” No. Can a mother forget? No way! And neither can God!
From Grace for the Moment
Ecclesiastes 2
The Futility of Pleasure
I said to myself, “Come on, let’s try pleasure. Let’s look for the ‘good things’ in life.” But I found that this, too, was meaningless. 2 So I said, “Laughter is silly. What good does it do to seek pleasure?” 3 After much thought, I decided to cheer myself with wine. And while still seeking wisdom, I clutched at foolishness. In this way, I tried to experience the only happiness most people find during their brief life in this world.
4 I also tried to find meaning by building huge homes for myself and by planting beautiful vineyards. 5 I made gardens and parks, filling them with all kinds of fruit trees. 6 I built reservoirs to collect the water to irrigate my many flourishing groves. 7 I bought slaves, both men and women, and others were born into my household. I also owned large herds and flocks, more than any of the kings who had lived in Jerusalem before me. 8 I collected great sums of silver and gold, the treasure of many kings and provinces. I hired wonderful singers, both men and women, and had many beautiful concubines. I had everything a man could desire!
9 So I became greater than all who had lived in Jerusalem before me, and my wisdom never failed me. 10 Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure. I even found great pleasure in hard work, a reward for all my labors. 11 But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless—like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere.
The Wise and the Foolish
12 So I decided to compare wisdom with foolishness and madness (for who can do this better than I, the king?[b]). 13 I thought, “Wisdom is better than foolishness, just as light is better than darkness. 14 For the wise can see where they are going, but fools walk in the dark.” Yet I saw that the wise and the foolish share the same fate. 15 Both will die. So I said to myself, “Since I will end up the same as the fool, what’s the value of all my wisdom? This is all so meaningless!” 16 For the wise and the foolish both die. The wise will not be remembered any longer than the fool. In the days to come, both will be forgotten.
17 So I came to hate life because everything done here under the sun is so troubling. Everything is meaningless—like chasing the wind.
The Futility of Work
18 I came to hate all my hard work here on earth, for I must leave to others everything I have earned. 19 And who can tell whether my successors will be wise or foolish? Yet they will control everything I have gained by my skill and hard work under the sun. How meaningless! 20 So I gave up in despair, questioning the value of all my hard work in this world.
21 Some people work wisely with knowledge and skill, then must leave the fruit of their efforts to someone who hasn’t worked for it. This, too, is meaningless, a great tragedy. 22 So what do people get in this life for all their hard work and anxiety? 23 Their days of labor are filled with pain and grief; even at night their minds cannot rest. It is all meaningless.
24 So I decided there is nothing better than to enjoy food and drink and to find satisfaction in work. Then I realized that these pleasures are from the hand of God. 25 For who can eat or enjoy anything apart from him?[c] 26 God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy to those who please him. But if a sinner becomes wealthy, God takes the wealth away and gives it to those who please him. This, too, is meaningless—like chasing the wind.
Footnotes:
2:12 The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain.
2:25 As in Greek and Syriac versions; Hebrew reads apart from me?
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, December 02, 2015
Read: 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
Paul’s Final Greetings
23 Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. 24 God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful.
INSIGHT:
Paul wrote the letter of 1 Thessalonians to assure the believers that Jesus is indeed coming back, even though we don’t know when. Everyone who believes in Him—both the living and the dead—will meet Him in the air and be with Him forever. After assuring us of this wonderful truth (see ch. 4), Paul reminds us in today’s reading that while we eagerly wait for Christ’s return, God is working in us to prepare us to be in His presence.
Glass Beach
By David Roper
“On the day when I act,” says the Lord Almighty, “they will be my treasured possession.”
Malachi 3:17
Early 20th-century residents of Fort Bragg, California, disposed of their trash by throwing it over a cliff and onto a nearby beach. Cans, bottles, tableware, and household garbage accumulated in huge, disgusting piles. Even when residents stopped depositing trash on the beach, it remained an embarrassment—a dump seemingly beyond reclamation.
Over the years, however, wave action broke up the glass and pottery and washed the rubbish out to sea. The pounding surf rolled and tumbled the glass fragments in the sand on the ocean floor, frosting and smoothing the surface and creating gemlike “sea glass,” which it then deposited back onto the beach. The surf created a kaleidoscopic beauty at which visitors to Glass Beach now stare in wonder.
Relax in God's #love today.
Perhaps you feel as though your life has become a dump—a mess beyond hope. If so, you need to know that there is someone who loves you and waits to redeem and reclaim you. Give Jesus your heart and ask Him to make you pure and clean. He may tumble you a bit, and it may take time to smooth away the rough edges. But He will never give up on you. He will make you into one of His jewels!
Lord, when we have nothing left but You, we are right where You want us. You can use any situation for Your glory and our good. You never give up on us. Help us to relax in Your love.
God loves us too much to let us remain as we are.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, December 02, 2015
Christian Perfection
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfect… —Philippians 3:12
It is a trap to presume that God wants to make us perfect specimens of what He can do— God’s purpose is to make us one with Himself. The emphasis of holiness movements tends to be that God is producing specimens of holiness to put in His museum. If you accept this concept of personal holiness, your life’s determined purpose will not be for God, but for what you call the evidence of God in your life. How can we say, “It could never be God’s will for me to be sick”? If it was God’s will to bruise His own Son (Isaiah 53:10), why shouldn’t He bruise you? What shines forth and reveals God in your life is not your relative consistency to an idea of what a saint should be, but your genuine, living relationship with Jesus Christ, and your unrestrained devotion to Him whether you are well or sick.
Christian perfection is not, and never can be, human perfection. Christian perfection is the perfection of a relationship with God that shows itself to be true even amid the seemingly unimportant aspects of human life. When you obey the call of Jesus Christ, the first thing that hits you is the pointlessness of the things you have to do. The next thought that strikes you is that other people seem to be living perfectly consistent lives. Such lives may leave you with the idea that God is unnecessary— that through your own human effort and devotion you can attain God’s standard for your life. In a fallen world this can never be done. I am called to live in such a perfect relationship with God that my life produces a yearning for God in the lives of others, not admiration for myself. Thoughts about myself hinder my usefulness to God. God’s purpose is not to perfect me to make me a trophy in His showcase; He is getting me to the place where He can use me. Let Him do what He wants.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The main characteristic which is the proof of the indwelling Spirit is an amazing tenderness in personal dealing, and a blazing truthfulness with regard to God’s Word. Disciples Indeed, 386 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, December 02, 2015
A Rockefeller Center Christmas - Ringside Seats at the Tree! - #7538
I always look forward to it as one of the season's great Christmas moments – the lighting of that towering Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. And it's happening tonight.
I remember last year. It was just a tad more exciting, for me anyway, because I had sort of a second-hand personal connection. The tree came from the farm owned by our good friends' daughter and son-in-law. (Did you get that?) They were chauffeured to ringside (actually rink-side) seats for the big show. So, not only did I get to watch the tree and the performers. Hey, I had like friends on the front row!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Rockefeller Center Christmas – Ringside Seats at the Tree."
Apparently, the NBC "tree scouts" look for evergreen candidates year-round. And one of them spotted this one, driving down Interstate 80 in Pennsylvania. It was readily visible from the highway and he liked what he saw.
In the months leading up to the tree being cut down, the "treeologists" (I don't know if that's a word. But it is now). Treeologists would come with a large tractor trailer full of nutrients for Mr. Spruce. They wanted to be sure he was in good health for his moment of glory!
Rachel, our friends' daughter, describes herself as a "big Christmas elf." She said the giant tree was the only thing at her home she didn't decorate for Christmas. (She even decorated her husband I think.) And now it was going to be decorated big time for all the world to see! You could say she was slightly excited.
I suppose our friends have viewed the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree as we always have; a nice Christmas event. But not last year. No, it went from being just an event to an unforgettable personal experience!
And thinking about that just rang a bell suddenly in my heart, because the whole Christmas thing can be much the same; a warm, cuddly event, inspired by the familiar story of that baby born in the Bethlehem manger. But it's a lot more than that for me. The event became a life-changing personal experience. When I realized the ultimate meaning of the events that night in Bethlehem, I saw that it was all about the tree.
In a sense, the shadow of that tree looms over the starlight in the manger. This child is here on a mission – a rescue mission. And that mission will take Him, 33 years later, to the tree. A Roman cross on a skull-shaped hill.
In our Word for today from the Word of God we learn in 1 Peter 2:24, "He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree." Christmas was for a cross; the place where the baby of Bethlehem would become the Savior of the world by taking on Himself the death penalty for human sin. "He bore...on the tree" every hurting thing, every dirty thing, every selfish thing, every angry thing, every wrong thing of every person who ever lived.
For a time, the horrific death of Jesus Christ on a cross was just an event to me. Remembered on Good Friday. A belief to be believed. A religious symbol. But one day it became so much more. It went from an event to the most profound personal experience of my life. When it hit me, "What's happening on that cross is...well, for me. For the sinning I've done. For the punishment I deserve."
And that's the day I was given a ringside seat at the tree, when my heart melted at the love this Jesus has for me – enough to die for me. I enthroned Him that day, not as just the Savior, but as my Savior. And that changed everything. As it has, and as it will, for anyone who makes what happened on that tree "for me."
I wonder if you've ever done that? Have you ever taken this man who loved you enough to die for you, who is your only hope of heaven. He's the only one who can forgive the sin that will keep anybody out of heaven. Have you ever said, "Jesus, I want to make what You did on that cross personal for me, and take the event and make it my personal experience"? Would you tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm Yours."
We can give you more information about this if you'd just go to our website ANewStory.com. Or if you want to talk with someone, text us at 442-244-WORD.
Christmas begins at a stable. Life begins at the tree.
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