Max Lucado Daily: God Keeps His Promises
God keeps His promises. Shouldn't God's promise-keeping inspire yours?
People can exhaust you. And there are times when all we can do is not enough. When a spouse chooses to leave, we can't force him or her to stay. You're tired. You're angry. You're disappointed. This isn't the marriage you expected or the life you wanted. But looming in your past is a promise you made.
Whatever that is, may I urge you to do all you can to keep it? To give it one more try? Why should you? So you can understand the depth of God's love. When you love the unloving, you get a glimpse of what God does everyday for you and me.
When you keep the porch light on for the prodigal child, you do what God does every single moment. Pay attention, take notes on your struggles. God invites you to understand His love by loving others the way he does.
from Facing Your Giants
Psalm 58
For the choir director: A psalm[a] of David, to be sung to the tune “Do Not Destroy!”
1 Justice—do you rulers[b] know the meaning of the word?
Do you judge the people fairly?
2 No! You plot injustice in your hearts.
You spread violence throughout the land.
3 These wicked people are born sinners;
even from birth they have lied and gone their own way.
4 They spit venom like deadly snakes;
they are like cobras that refuse to listen,
5 ignoring the tunes of the snake charmers,
no matter how skillfully they play.
6 Break off their fangs, O God!
Smash the jaws of these lions, O Lord!
7 May they disappear like water into thirsty ground.
Make their weapons useless in their hands.[c]
8 May they be like snails that dissolve into slime,
like a stillborn child who will never see the sun.
9 God will sweep them away, both young and old,
faster than a pot heats over burning thorns.
10 The godly will rejoice when they see injustice avenged.
They will wash their feet in the blood of the wicked.
11 Then at last everyone will say,
“There truly is a reward for those who live for God;
surely there is a God who judges justly here on earth.”
Footnotes:
58:Title Hebrew miktam. This may be a literary or musical term.
58:1 Or you gods.
58:7 Or Let them be trodden down and wither like grass. The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Read: Acts 17:10-13
Paul and Silas in Berea
10 That very night the believers sent Paul and Silas to Berea. When they arrived there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. 11 And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth. 12 As a result, many Jews believed, as did many of the prominent Greek women and men.
13 But when some Jews in Thessalonica learned that Paul was preaching the word of God in Berea, they went there and stirred up trouble.
INSIGHT:
The book of Acts is largely concerned with the beginnings of the Christian church and specifically with the conversion and subsequent missionary efforts of Paul. Today’s short passage underscores the fact that the gospel is open to all. In verse 12 Luke specifically mentions Greek men and women among those who believed at Berea. Because Paul was teaching in a Jewish synagogue (v. 10), this is a remarkable statement about the universal offer of salvation. J.R. Hudberg
Verify the Truth
By Dave Branon
[The Bereans] searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. Acts 17:11
“A deadly jungle spider has migrated to the US and is killing people.” This was the story sent to me and to others on my friend’s email list. The story sounded plausible—lots of scientific names and real-life situations. But when I checked it out on reliable websites, I found it was not true—it was an Internet hoax. Its truth could only be verified by consulting a trusted source.
A group of first-century believers living in Macedonia understood the importance of confirming what they were hearing. The folks in Berea “received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11). They were listening to Paul, and wanted to make sure what he was saying lined up with the teachings of the Old Testament. Perhaps he was telling them that there was evidence in the Old Testament that the Messiah would suffer and die for sin. They needed to verify that with the source.
When we hear spiritual ideas that disturb us, we need to be cautious. We can search the Scriptures for ourselves, listen to trustworthy sources, and seek wisdom from Jesus, our Lord.
Please give us discernment, Lord, to accept only truth that is rooted in Your Word. We praise You for preserving the inspired Scriptures for us—now help us to use them to seek You.
For help in understanding and applying the Bible, read A Message for All Time at discoveryseries.org/hp142
God’s truth stands any test.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Usefulness or Relationship?
Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven. —Luke 10:20
Jesus Christ is saying here, “Don’t rejoice in your successful service for Me, but rejoice because of your right relationship with Me.” The trap you may fall into in Christian work is to rejoice in successful service— rejoicing in the fact that God has used you. Yet you will never be able to measure fully what God will do through you if you do not have a right-standing relationship with Jesus Christ. If you keep your relationship right with Him, then regardless of your circumstances or whoever you encounter each day, He will continue to pour “rivers of living water” through you (John 7:38). And it is actually by His mercy that He does not let you know it. Once you have the right relationship with God through salvation and sanctification, remember that whatever your circumstances may be, you have been placed in them by God. And God uses the reaction of your life to your circumstances to fulfill His purpose, as long as you continue to “walk in the light as He is in the light” (1 John 1:7).
Our tendency today is to put the emphasis on service. Beware of the people who make their request for help on the basis of someone’s usefulness. If you make usefulness the test, then Jesus Christ was the greatest failure who ever lived. For the saint, direction and guidance come from God Himself, not some measure of that saint’s usefulness. It is the work that God does through us that counts, not what we do for Him. All that our Lord gives His attention to in a person’s life is that person’s relationship with God— something of great value to His Father. Jesus is “bringing many sons to glory…” (Hebrews 2:10).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The attitude of a Christian towards the providential order in which he is placed is to recognize that God is behind it for purposes of His own. Biblical Ethics, 99 R