Max Lucado Daily: Worry is Anti-Trust
What would parents do without worry? It almost seems as if it's in the job description. "Parents Wanted. Must be able to perform sleepless nights and meaningless pacing, wringing their hands and biting their nails."
In Matthew 6:27, Jesus asked, "Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?" Worry has no positive side effects. In fact, it subtracts moments from your life in heart stress and rising blood pressure.
Worry is anti-trust. If you're worried, you don't trust something: your kids, their friends, strangers, the church, even God. Can He take care of your children? Certainly. Jesus says, "I tell you, stop being anxious and worried about your life." Pretty blunt. Stop it! Easier said than done, huh? Worry tests your trust, so hand your children to God and let him babysit your babies when you're not around. He's pretty good at it!
From Max on Life
Joshua 5
When all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings who lived along the Mediterranean coast[d] heard how the Lord had dried up the Jordan River so the people of Israel could cross, they lost heart and were paralyzed with fear because of them.
Israel Reestablishes Covenant Ceremonies
2 At that time the Lord told Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise this second generation of Israelites.[e]” 3 So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the entire male population of Israel at Gibeath-haaraloth.[f]
4 Joshua had to circumcise them because all the men who were old enough to fight in battle when they left Egypt had died in the wilderness. 5 Those who left Egypt had all been circumcised, but none of those born after the Exodus, during the years in the wilderness, had been circumcised. 6 The Israelites had traveled in the wilderness for forty years until all the men who were old enough to fight in battle when they left Egypt had died. For they had disobeyed the Lord, and the Lord vowed he would not let them enter the land he had sworn to give us—a land flowing with milk and honey. 7 So Joshua circumcised their sons—those who had grown up to take their fathers’ places—for they had not been circumcised on the way to the Promised Land. 8 After all the males had been circumcised, they rested in the camp until they were healed.
9 Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the shame of your slavery in Egypt.” So that place has been called Gilgal[g] to this day.
10 While the Israelites were camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, they celebrated Passover on the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month.[h] 11 The very next day they began to eat unleavened bread and roasted grain harvested from the land. 12 No manna appeared on the day they first ate from the crops of the land, and it was never seen again. So from that time on the Israelites ate from the crops of Canaan.
The Lord’s Commander Confronts Joshua
13 When Joshua was near the town of Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with sword in hand. Joshua went up to him and demanded, “Are you friend or foe?”
14 “Neither one,” he replied. “I am the commander of the Lord’s army.”
At this, Joshua fell with his face to the ground in reverence. “I am at your command,” Joshua said. “What do you want your servant to do?”
15 The commander of the Lord’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did as he was told.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, February 06, 2015
Read: Genesis 45:4-8
“Please, come closer,” he said to them. So they came closer. And he said again, “I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into slavery in Egypt. 5 But don’t be upset, and don’t be angry with yourselves for selling me to this place. It was God who sent me here ahead of you to preserve your lives. 6 This famine that has ravaged the land for two years will last five more years, and there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. 7 God has sent me ahead of you to keep you and your families alive and to preserve many survivors.[a] 8 So it was God who sent me here, not you! And he is the one who made me an adviser[b] to Pharaoh—the manager of his entire palace and the governor of all Egypt.
Footnotes:
45:7 Or and to save you with an extraordinary rescue. The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain.
45:8 Hebrew a father.
INSIGHT: Because of severe and widespread famine, Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt to buy grain to take home to feed their families (Gen. 42–45). Though Joseph recognized his brothers, they did not recognize him. It seems that from this point forward he set out to bring reconciliation to his broken family. Eventually, Joseph reveals himself to his brothers (45:4-8), forgives them, and promises to care for them (50:16-21). Joseph’s story is one of the great reconciliation stories of all time.
In Disguise
By Cindy Hess Kasper
Oh, how great is Your goodness, which You have laid up for those who fear You. —Psalm 31:19
In the weeks after my husband survived a heart attack, we often thanked God for sparing his life. I was asked many times during the next few months how I was doing. My answer was often a simple one: “Blessed. I feel blessed.”
Blessings, however, come in different sizes and shapes. In fact, we don’t always recognize them. Even when we are doing everything we think God wants us to do, we may still experience suffering. We are sometimes surprised that God does not answer the way we want or that His timing appears to be tardy.
We see this in Joseph’s life. From a human perspective, we would think that God had forgotten all about him. For more than a decade, Joseph experienced suffering. He was tossed in a pit, sold into slavery, falsely accused, unjustly put in prison. Finally, however, God’s faithfulness to him became evident to all as he was lifted up as a ruler of Egypt and saved many people from famine (Gen. 37–46). C. S. Lewis wrote: “When we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place.”
God had always had His hand of blessing on Joseph, as He does for all who trust Him. “Oh, how great is Your goodness” (Ps. 31:19).
Lord, You love us with an extravagant love,
but so often we don’t trust You in the crisis.
Help us to learn and appreciate that You have
everything we need—and so much more.
True happiness is knowing that God is good.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, February 06, 2015
Are You Ready To Be Poured Out As an Offering? (2)
I am already being poured out as a drink offering… —2 Timothy 4:6
Are you ready to be poured out as an offering? It is an act of your will, not your emotions. Tell God you are ready to be offered as a sacrifice for Him. Then accept the consequences as they come, without any complaints, in spite of what God may send your way. God sends you through a crisis in private, where no other person can help you. From the outside your life may appear to be the same, but the difference is taking place in your will. Once you have experienced the crisis in your will, you will take no thought of the cost when it begins to affect you externally. If you don’t deal with God on the level of your will first, the result will be only to arouse sympathy for yourself.
“Bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar” (Psalm 118:27). You must be willing to be placed on the altar and go through the fire; willing to experience what the altar represents— burning, purification, and separation for only one purpose— the elimination of every desire and affection not grounded in or directed toward God. But you don’t eliminate it, God does. You “bind the sacrifice…to the horns of the altar” and see to it that you don’t wallow in self-pity once the fire begins. After you have gone through the fire, there will be nothing that will be able to trouble or depress you. When another crisis arises, you will realize that things cannot touch you as they used to do. What fire lies ahead in your life?
Tell God you are ready to be poured out as an offering, and God will prove Himself to be all you ever dreamed He would be.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, February 06, 2015
How to Move From Jesus-Highs to a Jesus-Life - #7325
My wife and I have some hummingbird feeders. Because those busy little guys, they're fascinating to watch! You know, they come as back porch visitors. You've probably seen them. Their wings go so fast you can hardly see the wings. They're virtually like God's little helicopters. They hover, they fly backwards, and then they fly away. I love to watch them. And do they like sugar! My wife mixes up this concoction that's basically sugar-water and they flock to it. Then they'll fly off in this burst of acrobatic energy, only to return a few minutes later for a refill.
Now, I've been told that if they go very long without some sugar, whether it's the natural kind they get from flowers or from our backyard potion, they become sort of catatonic or whatever...maybe "birdatonic" is a better word! If only birds could talk human talk, you might hear them say as they come back for their forty-seventh consecutive drink, "Must have sugar! Must have sugar!" See, God has got a lot of spiritual hummingbirds in His family. Here comes one now, "Must have sugar!" Spiritual sugar that is; the kind too many of us Christians actually depend on to keep us flying.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How to Move From Jesus-Highs to a Jesus-Life."
Our word today from the Word of God comes from Luke 6:47-49. Jesus is describing here two different kinds of believers. "I will show you what he is like who comes to Me and hears My words and puts them into practice. He's like a man building a house who digs down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. But the one who hears My words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete."
All right, two believers; one whom the storm cannot shake because his faith is "well built"; another one who falls apart because he is without a foundation-collapsed. What's the difference? What does it say here? You hear, you study the Bible, and then you do what you read. That's the only way to have a storm-proof durable relationship with Jesus Christ. It all has to do, not just with hearing His words. The difference is putting them into practice in these verses. If you're not strong in His Word, you are not going to be an all-weather follower of Christ. And just when you need to be the closest to Jesus - in a storm - you're going to be falling apart.
I guess we could call the Bible God's spiritual protein; the diet that gives you consistent energy and commitment. But a lot of us are like those hummingbirds. We're addicted to sugar; the major fuel for our relationship with Jesus is that next spiritual high. "Must have a retreat! When's the conference! When's the next spiritual speaker? I need the feeling. I need a sign from God."
For some of God's birds, or children, church is a weekly sugar fix where you feel good and you feel God for a little while only to return to the same old spiritually catatonic state the rest of the week. Maybe you're getting tired, maybe even disillusioned with this spiritual roller coaster. Are you tired of that roller coaster?
I've often said to young people, "You don't need to get another high. You need to get a life." That applies to believers of all ages. You're ready for some spiritual consistency aren't you? Some reality? You ready for a life with Jesus? Well, then, it's graduation time! It's time to step up to the discipline that makes the difference: meeting your Lord Jesus one-on-one each new day in His book; getting up early to get into His Word. To anchor your day to a personal "word with you" from the living God, and not just trying to resurrect some faded spiritual high back there.
You've tried the sugar diets, the bursts of energy followed by the collapse. Aren't you ready for the real food? Well, that's a regular time with Jesus. That's the fuel that's going to keep you flying all the time.