Max Lucado Daily: Obedience Leads to Blessing
Obedience leads to blessing. Disobedience leads to trouble. Remember Jesus' parable of two builders who each built a house? One built on cheap, easy-to-access sand. The other built on costly, difficult-to-reach rock. The second construction project demanded more time and expense, but when spring rains turned the creek into a gulley washer, guess which builder enjoyed a blessing and which experienced trouble?
According to Jesus in Matthew 7:24, the wise builder is "whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them." Both builders heard the teachings. The difference between the two wasn't knowledge and ignorance, but obedience and disobedience. Security comes as we put God's precepts into practice. We're only as strong as our obedience.
From Glory Days
Acts 4:23-37
The Believers Pray for Courage
23 As soon as they were freed, Peter and John returned to the other believers and told them what the leading priests and elders had said. 24 When they heard the report, all the believers lifted their voices together in prayer to God: “O Sovereign Lord, Creator of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them— 25 you spoke long ago by the Holy Spirit through our ancestor David, your servant, saying,
‘Why were the nations so angry?
Why did they waste their time with futile plans?
26 The kings of the earth prepared for battle;
the rulers gathered together
against the Lord
and against his Messiah.’[a]
27 “In fact, this has happened here in this very city! For Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate the governor, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel were all united against Jesus, your holy servant, whom you anointed. 28 But everything they did was determined beforehand according to your will. 29 And now, O Lord, hear their threats, and give us, your servants, great boldness in preaching your word. 30 Stretch out your hand with healing power; may miraculous signs and wonders be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
31 After this prayer, the meeting place shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Then they preached the word of God with boldness.
The Believers Share Their Possessions
32 All the believers were united in heart and mind. And they felt that what they owned was not their own, so they shared everything they had. 33 The apostles testified powerfully to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and God’s great blessing was upon them all. 34 There were no needy people among them, because those who owned land or houses would sell them 35 and bring the money to the apostles to give to those in need.
36 For instance, there was Joseph, the one the apostles nicknamed Barnabas (which means “Son of Encouragement”). He was from the tribe of Levi and came from the island of Cyprus. 37 He sold a field he owned and brought the money to the apostles.
Footnotes:
4:25-26 Or his anointed one; or his Christ. Ps 2:1-2.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, November 04, 2015
Read: 2 Corinthians 11:1-4
Paul and the False Apostles
I hope you will put up with a little more of my foolishness. Please bear with me. 2 For I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God himself. I promised you as a pure bride[a] to one husband—Christ. 3 But I fear that somehow your pure and undivided devotion to Christ will be corrupted, just as Eve was deceived by the cunning ways of the serpent. 4 You happily put up with whatever anyone tells you, even if they preach a different Jesus than the one we preach, or a different kind of Spirit than the one you received, or a different kind of gospel than the one you believed.
Footnotes:
11:2 Greek a virgin.
INSIGHT:
Paul’s relationship with the church at Corinth was a turbulent one. Paul founded the Corinthian church and spent 18 months there (Acts 18:1-18). Then he returned for another 3 months at a later time (20:3). In spite of this significant investment of time and energy, the Corinthian believers appear to have struggled with Paul’s authority and position as an apostle, as well as his correction of them. His letters to the church at Corinth are filled with evidence of his disappointment over their testy relationship. Still, Paul’s love for them is evidenced by his desire that they not be led astray by false teachers. Bill Crowder
Our Jealous God
By Mart DeHaan
The Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
Exodus 34:14
In 2014 a University of California researcher used a stuffed dog to show that animals are capable of jealousy. Professor Christine Harris asked dog owners to show affection for a stuffed animal in the presence of their pet. She found that three-fourths of the dogs responded with apparent envy. Some tried to get attention with touch or a gentle nudge. Others tried to push between their owner and the toy. A few went so far as to snap at their stuffed rival.
In a dog, jealousy seems heartwarming. In people, it can lead to less admirable results. Yet, as Moses and Paul remind us, there is also another jealousy—one that beautifully reflects the heart of God.
God made us & rescued us to know & enjoy Him forever.
When Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, he said he was “jealous for you with a godly jealousy” (2 Cor. 11:2). He didn’t want them to be “led astray from [their] sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (v. 3). Such jealousy reflects the heart of God, who told Moses in the Ten Commandments, “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God” (Ex. 20:5).
God’s jealousy is not like our self-centered love. His heart expresses His protective zeal for those who are His by creation and salvation. He made us and rescued us to know and enjoy Him forever. How could we ask for anything more than a God who is so zealous—and jealous—for our happiness?
Father, help me shun anything that distracts me from You, so that I may always find enjoyment in who You are and in Your plan for me.
God loves every one of us as if there were but one of us to love. Augustine
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, November 04, 2015
The Authority of Truth
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. —James 4:8
It is essential that you give people the opportunity to act on the truth of God. The responsibility must be left with the individual— you cannot act for him. It must be his own deliberate act, but the evangelical message should always lead him to action. Refusing to act leaves a person paralyzed, exactly where he was previously. But once he acts, he is never the same. It is the apparent folly of the truth that stands in the way of hundreds who have been convicted by the Spirit of God. Once I press myself into action, I immediately begin to live. Anything less is merely existing. The moments I truly live are the moments when I act with my entire will.
When a truth of God is brought home to your soul, never allow it to pass without acting on it internally in your will, not necessarily externally in your physical life. Record it with ink and with blood— work it into your life. The weakest saint who transacts business with Jesus Christ is liberated the second he acts and God’s almighty power is available on his behalf. We come up to the truth of God, confess we are wrong, but go back again. Then we approach it again and turn back, until we finally learn we have no business going back. When we are confronted with such a word of truth from our redeeming Lord, we must move directly to transact business with Him. “Come to Me…” (Matthew 11:28). His word come means “to act.” Yet the last thing we want to do is come. But everyone who does come knows that, at that very moment, the supernatural power of the life of God invades him. The dominating power of the world, the flesh, and the devil is now paralyzed; not by your act, but because your act has joined you to God and tapped you in to His redemptive power.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
For the past three hundred years men have been pointing out how similar Jesus Christ’s teachings are to other good teachings. We have to remember that Christianity, if it is not a supernatural miracle, is a sham. The Highest Good, 548 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, November 04, 2015
How You End Up Where You Never Thought You'd Go - #7518
During the winter it's nice to think about a beach and all that sun. Of course the easiest way to cook yourself on the beach is to be there on a cloudy day. You say, "I don't feel a thing." But let me tell you by experience, the rays are still burning you.
On a much more serious level, that's what happens when people are exposed to lethal levels of radiation. Places like Chernobyl and Fukushima. People there were invaded by invisible radiation and I'm sure they didn't feel a thing. In the case of Chernobyl where we've had some years to look back, we know the deadly affect on that population. It's still too early to assess the full effect of the nuclear power plant meltdown in Fukushima, Japan. But we know the survivors of these nuclear incidents were gradually destroyed by something they couldn't even feel.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "How You End Up Where You Never Thought You'd Go."
Which brings us to our word for today from the Word of God, 2 Corinthians 7:1, where God says, "Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God." Now the Lord speaks to us here about the danger of being contaminated in our body and in our spirit, and the answer - the antidote - purify yourself. Really work on the holy things in your life. Don't let that contamination in. The devil is too smart to come up and say, "Hey, listen! I really want to poison your life and take you into some really dark stuff. Follow me and I'll take you to hell." No, who's going to go for that?
No, he would rather slowly wear you down, and maybe he's doing that right now and you don't even feel a thing. It's just slow, steady contamination. The devil believes in getting people more through erosion than explosion. There's moral radiation out there. And because you don't feel anything bad happening when it's hitting you, you'll think nothing is happening.
The enemy's strategy for making people what they never thought they would become, getting them to do what they never thought they would do, to think what they never thought they would think goes like this: He just tries to plant a thought. He doesn't try to get you to do anything. It's like think it, then ultimately want it, and then eventually do it and ultimately pay for it. I wonder where you might be in that strategy?
James 1:15 says, "After desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death." The easiest way to radiate you with sinful ideas, I think, is through your entertainment. That's when your guard's down. You know when you're watching T.V. or you're listening to some music, you're not thinking much. You don't want to. It's a time when you are trying to relax; turn off the brain.
God knows that and that's why He says avoid the contamination. So, the devil will wrap sinful values and lifestyles in a package that's popular - everybody's seeing it, it's attractive, it's really entertaining, it's funny, it's catchy. He'll put it in a catchy song. He'll put sin in a very creative, engaging video, in an award-winning movie that everybody's talking about, everybody's seeing, it's getting great reviews - must see. He'll put it into a captivating novel, a popular T.V. program, an amusing T.V. program. The devil's fastest way to wear you down is to enter your heart in an entertaining package. That's when you're not thinking about what's going on, but you are getting radiated by his poison.
That's why it is time to intentionally begin to de-contaminate your life and say, "Where am I letting darkness in? Where are the portals that the enemy is able to exploit? The good rule of thumb is simply: Don't see what you don't want to be. The devil is pumping out moral radiation all the time through the media and we don't feel a thing. But, see, he wants to destroy you quietly. So you wake up one day and you say, "How did I end up here?" The Bible says, "Guard your heart; it is the well spring of life."
Don't find yourself slowly radiated by the invisible death of Satan's propaganda.
