Max Lucado Daily: Saved to Serve
Some people feel so saved they never serve. Some serve at the hope of being saved. Does one of these sentences describe you? Do you feel so saved that you never serve? So content in what God has done that you do nothing? The fact is, we're here to glorify God in our service.
Or is your tendency the opposite? Perhaps you always serve for fear of not being saved. You're worried there is a secret card that exists with your score written on it; and your score is not enough. Is that you? If so, know this: The blood of Jesus is enough to save you. John 1:29 announces that Jesus is "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world."
The blood of Christ doesn't cover your sins, conceal your sins, postpone or diminish your sins. It takes away your sins, once and for all! So…since you are saved, you can serve!
From He Chose the Nails
Judges 13
The Birth of Samson
Again the Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight, so the Lord handed them over to the Philistines, who oppressed them for forty years.
2 In those days a man named Manoah from the tribe of Dan lived in the town of Zorah. His wife was unable to become pregnant, and they had no children. 3 The angel of the Lord appeared to Manoah’s wife and said, “Even though you have been unable to have children, you will soon become pregnant and give birth to a son. 4 So be careful; you must not drink wine or any other alcoholic drink nor eat any forbidden food.[a] 5 You will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and his hair must never be cut. For he will be dedicated to God as a Nazirite from birth. He will begin to rescue Israel from the Philistines.”
6 The woman ran and told her husband, “A man of God appeared to me! He looked like one of God’s angels, terrifying to see. I didn’t ask where he was from, and he didn’t tell me his name. 7 But he told me, ‘You will become pregnant and give birth to a son. You must not drink wine or any other alcoholic drink nor eat any forbidden food. For your son will be dedicated to God as a Nazirite from the moment of his birth until the day of his death.’”
8 Then Manoah prayed to the Lord, saying, “Lord, please let the man of God come back to us again and give us more instructions about this son who is to be born.”
9 God answered Manoah’s prayer, and the angel of God appeared once again to his wife as she was sitting in the field. But her husband, Manoah, was not with her. 10 So she quickly ran and told her husband, “The man who appeared to me the other day is here again!”
11 Manoah ran back with his wife and asked, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife the other day?”
“Yes,” he replied, “I am.”
12 So Manoah asked him, “When your words come true, what kind of rules should govern the boy’s life and work?”
13 The angel of the Lord replied, “Be sure your wife follows the instructions I gave her. 14 She must not eat grapes or raisins, drink wine or any other alcoholic drink, or eat any forbidden food.”
15 Then Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “Please stay here until we can prepare a young goat for you to eat.”
16 “I will stay,” the angel of the Lord replied, “but I will not eat anything. However, you may prepare a burnt offering as a sacrifice to the Lord.” (Manoah didn’t realize it was the angel of the Lord.)
17 Then Manoah asked the angel of the Lord, “What is your name? For when all this comes true, we want to honor you.”
18 “Why do you ask my name?” the angel of the Lord replied. “It is too wonderful for you to understand.”
19 Then Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered it on a rock as a sacrifice to the Lord. And as Manoah and his wife watched, the Lord did an amazing thing. 20 As the flames from the altar shot up toward the sky, the angel of the Lord ascended in the fire. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell with their faces to the ground.
21 The angel did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. Manoah finally realized it was the angel of the Lord, 22 and he said to his wife, “We will certainly die, for we have seen God!”
23 But his wife said, “If the Lord were going to kill us, he wouldn’t have accepted our burnt offering and grain offering. He wouldn’t have appeared to us and told us this wonderful thing and done these miracles.”
24 When her son was born, she named him Samson. And the Lord blessed him as he grew up. 25 And the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him while he lived in Mahaneh-dan, which is located between the towns of Zorah and Eshtaol.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Read: Nehemiah 1:4-11
When I heard this, I sat down and wept. In fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven. 5 Then I said,
“O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of unfailing love with those who love him and obey his commands, 6 listen to my prayer! Look down and see me praying night and day for your people Israel. I confess that we have sinned against you. Yes, even my own family and I have sinned! 7 We have sinned terribly by not obeying the commands, decrees, and regulations that you gave us through your servant Moses.
8 “Please remember what you told your servant Moses: ‘If you are unfaithful to me, I will scatter you among the nations. 9 But if you return to me and obey my commands and live by them, then even if you are exiled to the ends of the earth,[a] I will bring you back to the place I have chosen for my name to be honored.’
10 “The people you rescued by your great power and strong hand are your servants. 11 O Lord, please hear my prayer! Listen to the prayers of those of us who delight in honoring you. Please grant me success today by making the king favorable to me.[b] Put it into his heart to be kind to me.”
In those days I was the king’s cup-bearer.
Footnotes:
1:9 Hebrew of the heavens.
1:11 Hebrew today in the sight of this man.
INSIGHT: Today’s passage contains a beautiful insight into what makes our future in heaven so wonderful. In verse 9, Nehemiah quotes Moses saying that God will bring His people into the place where His name dwells. It is God’s presence that makes our future worth waiting for.
A Place To Be
By Randy Kilgore
In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. —John 14:2
A thousand strands of time, events, and people weave into a tapestry we call place. More than just a house, place is where meaning, belonging, and safety come together under the covering of our best efforts at unconditional love. Place beckons us with memories buried deep in our souls. Even when our place isn’t perfect, its hold on us is dramatic, magnetic.
The Bible speaks frequently of place. We see an example in Nehemiah’s longing for a restored Jerusalem (Neh. 1:3-4; 2:2). It’s no surprise, then, that Jesus would speak of place when He wants to comfort us. “Let not your heart be troubled,” He began. Then He added: “I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:1-2).
For those who have fond memories of earthly places, this promise links us to something we can easily understand and look forward to. And for those whose places have been anything but comforting and safe, Jesus promises that one day they will hear the sweet song place sings, for they will inhabit it with Him.
Whatever the struggle, whatever the faltering on your faith journey, remember this: There’s a place in heaven already waiting, fitted just for you. Jesus wouldn’t have said so if it weren’t true.
Jesus, I can’t wait to live in the home You have prepared for me. Thank You that no matter what my earthly place holds, comfort or pain, my home with You will be so much better.
May the memory of our earthly place point us with hope to our heavenly place.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, March 19, 2015
He went out, not knowing where he was going. —Hebrews 11:8
In the Old Testament, a person’s relationship with God was seen by the degree of separation in that person’s life. This separation is exhibited in the life of Abraham by his separation from his country and his family. When we think of separation today, we do not mean to be literally separated from those family members who do not have a personal relationship with God, but to be separated mentally and morally from their viewpoints. This is what Jesus Christ was referring to in Luke 14:26.
Living a life of faith means never knowing where you are being led. But it does mean loving and knowing the One who is leading. It is literally a life of faith, not of understanding and reason— a life of knowing Him who calls us to go. Faith is rooted in the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest traps we fall into is the belief that if we have faith, God will surely lead us to success in the world.
The final stage in the life of faith is the attainment of character, and we encounter many changes in the process. We feel the presence of God around us when we pray, yet we are only momentarily changed. We tend to keep going back to our everyday ways and the glory vanishes. A life of faith is not a life of one glorious mountaintop experience after another, like soaring on eagles’ wings, but is a life of day-in and day-out consistency; a life of walking without fainting (see Isaiah 40:31). It is not even a question of the holiness of sanctification, but of something which comes much farther down the road. It is a faith that has been tried and proved and has withstood the test. Abraham is not a type or an example of the holiness of sanctification, but a type of the life of faith— a faith, tested and true, built on the true God. “Abraham believed God…” (Romans 4:3).
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, March 19, 2015
How Your Rough Times Can Help You Help Others - #7354
I was in Georgia when a friend said to me, "Do you know which team is one of the best football teams in our state?" When I said I didn't know, he said, "The Georgia School for the Deaf." I've got to tell you that kind of caught me by surprise. I wasn't expecting a school for the deaf to be like football champions. He said, "Man, we played them when I was in high school and you always had to get up for that game. They were always the toughest."
I began to think, how could you play football if you can't hear the signals being called? You can't hear the plays being called. How would you play football? He said, "Well, they bring their band to every game and the signals are called through the drum beats, and they feel the signals through their face." Well, I couldn't do that. But they can. They've got radar I don't have because they face a challenge I haven't faced.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How Your Rough Times Can Help You Help Others."
Our word for today from the Word of God is in 2 Corinthians 1, beginning in verse 3. "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Father of compassion, the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow into our lives, so also should the comfort of Christ overflow."
Verse 3 here talks about this beautiful side of God. He's the God of all comfort. He's the God of compassion; the healing hugs of God, who brings what only He can bring us; a supernatural comfort deep inside of us where no human being can go. I hope you've experienced that.
There's a comfort cycle here. It says that we're supposed to comfort with the comfort we got from Him. This word comforting is really the Greek word that means "called alongside of to help." It's saying God comes alongside to encourage us so that we then can do that for others. The comfort isn't just for us to get comfortable. It's to fill us up with love and support that we pass on to others.
How does this happen? Well, you go through a deep valley. Maybe you lose someone, you have a season alone, some lingering illness, maybe a financial disaster, or you're abandoned, you're betrayed, and it hurts. But God does something beautiful with that hurt. He turns it into sensitivity; into radar for people who are hurting in that same area.
Joni Eareckson Toda was paralyzed as a teenager in a dive that day, and it was a terrible tragedy. But the worst thing that ever happened to her has given her a worldwide ministry. She knows how disabled and wounded people feel.
My friend, Jean, was abused as a girl. She's got a wonderful ministry to abused girls. My friend, Don, was raised in a broken home. He has an incredible ability to work with kids from troubled backgrounds. When you open up your hurt and your wounds to the God of all comfort, He can use you in ways you never dreamed.
When life's trouble hits you, it can be a tool either for Satan or for God. You dwell on the pain, you dwell on the people who hurt you or on yourself, and you're going to start a downward cycle of depression. That might be where you are right now.
But if you surrender to Jesus all the pain, all those people who hurt you, all the questions, you're on your way to turning a loss into a victory like those football players at the Georgia School for the Deaf. They have special sensitivity because of their loss, because of their handicap. You can too.
It might be that you're going through so many of life's troubles, so much of life's pain without the Great Comforter, without the God of all compassion because you don't have a relationship with Him. You might have a religion, but you don't know Him personally.
I tell you that Jesus came here to walk the most painful road anyone has ever walked, to die on a brutal cross to pay for the sin that keeps us from God, so the wall could come down between you and Him this very day. And all His resources are yours to walk through the pain and the storm. Our website will show you how to get started with Him – AnewStory.com.
God can give you radar from your rough times; radar that will make you the one who can be Jesus' person for another hurting person.