Max Lucado Daily: Promised-Land Property
Most babies cry, “Mama!” I cried, “Mustang!” I had asked my dad for a car every day of my life! My father’s stock reply was, “You’ll have a car once you earn it, save for it, & pay for it.” But then came that glorious night when dad handed me keys. Not payment vouchers or requirements, but keys! He said, “Take the car I’m giving you.” I had a new car because he declared it.
In Joshua’s day, the Hebrews had a new land because their Father did the same. “Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you.” So Joshua let the people depart, each to their own inheritance.
You have an inheritance! If you’ve given your heart to Christ, the Bible says “God has blessed you with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). Promised Land property—placed in your name!
From Glory Days
Psalm 103
A psalm of David.
1 Let all that I am praise the Lord;
with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name.
2 Let all that I am praise the Lord;
may I never forget the good things he does for me.
3 He forgives all my sins
and heals all my diseases.
4 He redeems me from death
and crowns me with love and tender mercies.
5 He fills my life with good things.
My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!
6 The Lord gives righteousness
and justice to all who are treated unfairly.
7 He revealed his character to Moses
and his deeds to the people of Israel.
8 The Lord is compassionate and merciful,
slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.
9 He will not constantly accuse us,
nor remain angry forever.
10 He does not punish us for all our sins;
he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve.
11 For his unfailing love toward those who fear him
is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.
12 He has removed our sins as far from us
as the east is from the west.
13 The Lord is like a father to his children,
tender and compassionate to those who fear him.
14 For he knows how weak we are;
he remembers we are only dust.
15 Our days on earth are like grass;
like wildflowers, we bloom and die.
16 The wind blows, and we are gone—
as though we had never been here.
17 But the love of the Lord remains forever
with those who fear him.
His salvation extends to the children’s children
18 of those who are faithful to his covenant,
of those who obey his commandments!
19 The Lord has made the heavens his throne;
from there he rules over everything.
20 Praise the Lord, you angels,
you mighty ones who carry out his plans,
listening for each of his commands.
21 Yes, praise the Lord, you armies of angels
who serve him and do his will!
22 Praise the Lord, everything he has created,
everything in all his kingdom.
Let all that I am praise the Lord.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, September 10, 2015
Read: Psalm 34:1-7
A psalm of David, regarding the time he pretended to be insane in front of Abimelech, who sent him away.
1 I will praise the Lord at all times.
I will constantly speak his praises.
2 I will boast only in the Lord;
let all who are helpless take heart.
3 Come, let us tell of the Lord’s greatness;
let us exalt his name together.
4 I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me.
He freed me from all my fears.
5 Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy;
no shadow of shame will darken their faces.
6 In my desperation I prayed, and the Lord listened;
he saved me from all my troubles.
7 For the angel of the Lord is a guard;
he surrounds and defends all who fear him.
Footnotes:
34 This psalm is a Hebrew acrostic poem; each verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
INSIGHT:
The superscription to Psalm 34 gives the occasion for David writing this song of deliverance. While a fugitive from the jealous King Saul, David foolishly took refuge in the Philistine territory of Gath (1 Sam. 21:10-15). This was a dangerous thing to do because Gath was the hometown of Goliath (17:23). When the Philistines realized that David was the Jew who had slain their champion Goliath, they captured him (21:11,13). Aware that his life was now in danger, David feigned insanity and the ploy succeeded for he was released and made his escape. In response to God’s deliverance, David wrote, “I sought the Lord, and he answered me” (Ps. 34:4). Sim Kay Tee
Holding Me Up
By Cindy Hess Kasper
I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you. Isaiah 41:13
After I no longer went on family road trips with my parents, it became a rare occasion to visit my grandparents who lived hundreds of miles away from us. So one year, I decided to fly to visit them in the small town of Land O’Lakes, Wisconsin, for a long weekend. As we drove to the airport for my return flight, Grandma, who had never flown, began to express her fears to me: “That was such a small plane you flew on . . . . There’s nothing really holding you up there, is there? . . . I would be so afraid to go up that high.”
By the time I boarded the small aircraft, I was as fearful as the first time I had flown. What exactly is holding up this plane, anyway?
Irrational fears, or even legitimate ones, don’t need to terrify us. David lived as a fugitive, afraid of King Saul who relentlessly pursued him because he was jealous of David’s popularity with the people. David found true solace and comfort only in his relationship with God. In Psalm 34 he wrote: “I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears” (v. 4).
Our Father in heaven is all-wise and all-loving. When fear starts to overwhelm us, we need to stop and remember that He is our God and He will always hold us up.
My fears sometimes overwhelm me, Father. Yet I know that You are here with me. May Your perfect love cast out my fear and still my troubled heart!
When we believe that God is good, we can learn to release our fears.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, September 10, 2015
Missionary Weapons (1)
When you were under the fig tree, I saw you. —John 1:48
Worshiping in Everyday Occasions. We presume that we would be ready for battle if confronted with a great crisis, but it is not the crisis that builds something within us— it simply reveals what we are made of already. Do you find yourself saying, “If God calls me to battle, of course I will rise to the occasion”? Yet you won’t rise to the occasion unless you have done so on God’s training ground. If you are not doing the task that is closest to you now, which God has engineered into your life, when the crisis comes, instead of being fit for battle, you will be revealed as being unfit. Crises always reveal a person’s true character.
A private relationship of worshiping God is the greatest essential element of spiritual fitness. The time will come, as Nathanael experienced in this passage, that a private “fig-tree” life will no longer be possible. Everything will be out in the open, and you will find yourself to be of no value there if you have not been worshiping in everyday occasions in your own home. If your worship is right in your private relationship with God, then when He sets you free, you will be ready. It is in the unseen life, which only God saw, that you have become perfectly fit. And when the strain of the crisis comes, you can be relied upon by God.
Are you saying, “But I can’t be expected to live a sanctified life in my present circumstances; I have no time for prayer or Bible study right now; besides, my opportunity for battle hasn’t come yet, but when it does, of course I will be ready”? No, you will not. If you have not been worshiping in everyday occasions, when you get involved in God’s work, you will not only be useless yourself but also a hindrance to those around you.
God’s training ground, where the missionary weapons are found, is the hidden, personal, worshiping life of the saint.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The measure of the worth of our public activity for God is the private profound communion we have with Him.… We have to pitch our tents where we shall always have quiet times with God, however noisy our times with the world may be. My Utmost for His Highest, January 6, 736 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, September 10, 2015
Summoned By Name - #7479
I was a pretty little guy, and my dad thought I should meet Paul Bunyan. You know, the legendary giant lumberjack. We were vacationing in Minnesota and there was this tourist attraction there, in Brainerd. Inside was this huge animated figure of Paul Bunyan. I mean, he's massive! He's sitting down with his giant ax and his giant ox next to him and a little log cabin at his feet. My dad paid for our tickets and I walked in unsuspectingly, and suddenly Paul's voice boomed out across the park, "Hellooo, Ronnie!" Man, you talk about unsettling! This guy knew my name. It took me a lot more birthdays to figure out that the man at the ticket booth had gotten my name from my Dad and then relayed it to the Paul guy in the cabin. Yeah, he was hiding in the little log cabin.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Summoned By Name."
Our word for today from the Word of God, Luke 19, beginning in verse 1, "Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zaccheus. He was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not because of the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore fig tree to see Him once Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached the spot, He looked up and said to him, 'Zaccheus, come down immediately! I must stay at your house today.'" So he came down at once and welcomed Him gladly.
This turned out to be the most life-changing day Zaccheus ever lived. He not only invited Jesus into his house, but ultimately into his life that day! A man who had felt small his whole life, and as a greedy tax collector treated other people as if they were small, suddenly became a really "big" man. In verse 8, he says, "Look, Lord, here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I've cheated anybody out of anything I will pay back four times the amount."
That's a changed life! But it all began when Jesus called Zaccheus by name. They'd never met (like a certain lumberjack and me), but although Zaccheus didn't know Jesus, Jesus knew Zaccheus. And He knows you! Jesus has been lovingly pursuing a relationship with you for a long time. 1 John 4:19 in the Bible says, "We love Him because He first loved us." He knows a lot more than your name. He knows your pain, your dreams, your past, all the details of your life. He knows your failures and your sins. He has seen them. He has felt them all.
You say, "Well, He wouldn't be interested in a relationship with me then." Don't you underestimate His love! Romans 5:8 says "God demonstrated His love for us in this way: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Because of His deep, deep love for you, God's Son gave His life as the payment for the death penalty that you and I deserve, and for quite awhile now He's been trying to get your attention.
Today, even as you're listening to my voice, you may be hearing His voice in your heart, and He's calling you by name. He's inviting you to respond to His love, to put all your trust in Him, to have your sins erased from God's Book forever and to receive eternal life in heaven. Look, it's been one-way love long enough?
In your heart, the tug you feel, that might be Jesus calling you by name, as He did "Zaccheus" that day. He says your name, and that means it's your day to finally come to Him. He's saying, "I want you to belong to Me!" The Savior's coming one on one to you today. The day when He calls your name can be your "God" day; the one when you open your life to the greatest love a man or woman can ever experience.
You want that to happen for you today? This can be the pivot point of your life - the turning point. I invite you to say, "Jesus, I'm Yours." And go to our website and let me help you there be sure you've begun that relationship. It's ANewStory.com. Or if you want to talk with someone, text us at 442-244-WORD or 442-244-9673.
The bible gives this sobering advice, "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart." If Jesus is calling, answer Him. You can't afford to miss His call!