Call it what you wish. A talent…a skill set…a gift. The terms are different, but the truth is the same. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:7, “The Spirit has given each of us a special way of serving others.”
You aren’t the only person with your skill. But you are the only person with your version of your skill. You entered the world uniquely equipped. Psalm 139:13-15 describes it as “knit together, woven together in the dark of the womb, intricately and curiously wrought.”
Each of us! Not some of us, a few of us, or the elite among us. Each of us has a beauty that longs to be revealed and released. It is you at your best! When you stand at the intersection of your skill and God’s call, you are standing at the corner of Promised Land Avenue and Glory Days Boulevard.
From Glory Days
Song of Solomon 2
Young Woman
I am the spring crocus blooming on the Sharon Plain,[c]
the lily of the valley.
Young Man
2 Like a lily among thistles
is my darling among young women.
Young Woman
3 Like the finest apple tree in the orchard
is my lover among other young men.
I sit in his delightful shade
and taste his delicious fruit.
4 He escorts me to the banquet hall;
it’s obvious how much he loves me.
5 Strengthen me with raisin cakes,
refresh me with apples,
for I am weak with love.
6 His left arm is under my head,
and his right arm embraces me.
7 Promise me, O women of Jerusalem,
by the gazelles and wild deer,
not to awaken love until the time is right.[d]
8 Ah, I hear my lover coming!
He is leaping over the mountains,
bounding over the hills.
9 My lover is like a swift gazelle
or a young stag.
Look, there he is behind the wall,
looking through the window,
peering into the room.
10 My lover said to me,
“Rise up, my darling!
Come away with me, my fair one!
11 Look, the winter is past,
and the rains are over and gone.
12 The flowers are springing up,
the season of singing birds[e] has come,
and the cooing of turtledoves fills the air.
13 The fig trees are forming young fruit,
and the fragrant grapevines are blossoming.
Rise up, my darling!
Come away with me, my fair one!”
Young Man
14 My dove is hiding behind the rocks,
behind an outcrop on the cliff.
Let me see your face;
let me hear your voice.
For your voice is pleasant,
and your face is lovely.
Young Women of Jerusalem
15 Catch all the foxes,
those little foxes,
before they ruin the vineyard of love,
for the grapevines are blossoming!
Young Woman
16 My lover is mine, and I am his.
He browses among the lilies.
17 Before the dawn breezes blow
and the night shadows flee,
return to me, my love, like a gazelle
or a young stag on the rugged mountains.[f]
Footnotes
2:1 Traditionally rendered I am the rose of Sharon. Sharon Plain is a region in the coastal plain of Palestine.
2:7 Or not to awaken love until it is ready.
2:12 Or the season of pruning vines.
2:17 Or on the hills of Bether.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, November 13, 2015
Read: Genesis 3:6-13,22-24
The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. 7 At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.
8 When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man[a] and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees. 9 Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He replied, “I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.”
11 “Who told you that you were naked?” the Lord God asked. “Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?”
12 The man replied, “It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.”
13 Then the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?”
“The serpent deceived me,” she replied. “That’s why I ate it.”
Footnotes:
3:8 Or Adam, and so throughout the chapter.
INSIGHT:
Today’s passage records the entrance of sin into an innocent world. But it also records God’s grace in response to sin. Rather than let Adam and Eve eat from the tree of life and live forever in their sin, God graciously blocked the way to that tree (vv. 22-23). J.R. Hudberg
The Big Stink
By Marvin Williams
God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
Genesis 3:5
In August 2013, large crowds gathered at the Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to witness the blooming of the tropical plant known as the corpse flower. Since the flower is native to Indonesia, and may flower only once every several years, its blooming is a spectacle. Once open, the huge spiky, beautiful, red bloom smells like rotten meat. Because of its putrid fragrance, the flower attracts flies and beetles that are looking for rotting meat. But there is no nectar.
Like the corpse flower, sin holds out promises but in the end offers no rewards. Adam and Eve found this out the hard way. Eden was beautiful until they ruined it by doing the one thing God urged them not to do. Tempted to doubt God’s goodness, they ignored their Creator’s loving warning and soon lost their innocence. The God-given beauty of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil became like a corpse flower to them. The reward for their disobedience was alienation, pain, emptiness, toil, and death.
God made us to share in His life & joy.
Sin looks inviting and may feel good, but it doesn’t compare with the wonder, beauty, and fragrance of trusting and obeying God, who has made us to share His life and joy.
What temptations are you facing today? Remember that God promises to help you fight against temptation. Ask Him to help you remember to rely on Him.
God’s commands can overpower Satan’s suggestions.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, November 13, 2015
Faith or Experience?
…the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. —Galatians 2:20
We should battle through our moods, feelings, and emotions into absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus. We must break out of our own little world of experience into abandoned devotion to Him. Think who the New Testament says Jesus Christ is, and then think of the despicable meagerness of the miserable faith we exhibit by saying, “I haven’t had this experience or that experience”! Think what faith in Jesus Christ claims and provides— He can present us faultless before the throne of God, inexpressibly pure, absolutely righteous, and profoundly justified. Stand in absolute adoring faith “in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God— and righteousness and sanctification and redemption…” (1 Corinthians 1:30). How dare we talk of making a sacrifice for the Son of God! We are saved from hell and total destruction, and then we talk about making sacrifices!
We must continually focus and firmly place our faith in Jesus Christ— not a “prayer meeting” Jesus Christ, or a “book” Jesus Christ, but the New Testament Jesus Christ, who is God Incarnate, and who ought to strike us dead at His feet. Our faith must be in the One from whom our salvation springs. Jesus Christ wants our absolute, unrestrained devotion to Himself. We can never experience Jesus Christ, or selfishly bind Him in the confines of our own hearts. Our faith must be built on strong determined confidence in Him.
It is because of our trusting in experience that we see the steadfast impatience of the Holy Spirit against unbelief. All of our fears are sinful, and we create our own fears by refusing to nourish ourselves in our faith. How can anyone who is identified with Jesus Christ suffer from doubt or fear! Our lives should be an absolute hymn of praise resulting from perfect, irrepressible, triumphant belief.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
To read the Bible according to God’s providential order in your circumstances is the only way to read it, viz., in the blood and passion of personal life. Disciples Indeed, 387 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, November 13, 2015
Forgiven Means It's Gone - #7525
Okay, if you've always been skinny, you can just give it up. You're not going to understand what I'm about to say. Okay? But if you've ever been overweight, I think you'll understand this. Once you've been overweight, you always tend to think of yourself as overweight even when you're not any more. I used to weigh 210 pounds. That was pretty big for a guy my size, because I'm not really big. Now, thankfully, I've been able to keep a lot of it off for years. It doesn't matter, I still feel overweight. It's crazy! Others may say you're okay, and the scale might even say you're okay. But there's this voice that keeps whispering, "Overweight!"
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Forgiven Means It's Gone."
Our word for today from the Word of God, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. "Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God?" Okay, that's the bad news. "Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, or idolaters, or adulterers, nor men who have sex with men, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, or slanderers, or swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." I'll tell you this, most of us are in there somewhere.
Now the good news, "And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." Now, I'll tell you one of the belittling lies of sin, "You're still dirty. You're still away from God. You're still unworthy. You're still guilty. There's no use. It's hopeless." And God's Word screams to those who've been forgiven by Christ, "No! That is a lie! What God says you are is what you are. And God says that is what you were, it's not what you are any more."
The verb tense makes all the difference in the world. Your guilt has been erased. He uses the word "washed." You've been given a spiritual shower if you've been to Jesus' cross; if you've dropped that sin, however dirty, however ugly, however many times repeated, or however willful. If you've dropped it at that cross and you've trusted Him to forgive it, you are clean. You are washed by God.
Then He says, "You were sanctified." That means you've been made special again. And then He says, "You have been justified." That means you've been made right with God. Of course, the Devil is going, "Hey, you're still spiritually overweight, you know. You're still carrying the weight of the past around." That voice is about what you were. It's like the voice that wrongly says, "You're still overweight" even when the weight is really gone.
The Devil wants you to give up. He wants you to go back to the old you. But Leviticus 26:13 is a wonderful promise I think applies to even us today. God says, "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves of the Egyptians. I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high."
You are new! Why don't you live new? Don't live in that old junk believing that it still has to be you. Don't buy the lie. Because of the power of the blood of Jesus to forgive, because He shed that blood on the cross for those very sins, you are not carrying that weight - that burden - any more.
This could be your day to experience that forgiveness for yourself. Whatever you wish you hadn't done, all the sins, all the mistakes, all the hurts you've inflicted, all the pain of the past can be brought to the cross of Jesus, and He will take that burden as He did on the cross when He died for you and say, "It is now mine. You are forgiven. You are clean. You are new."
It happens when you say, "Jesus, I'm yours and I'm putting all my trust in what You did when You died for me." Please consider making this your day to do that. Go to our website. We'll help you get connected with Jesus there. It's ANewStory.com. Or you can text us at 442-244-WORD.
Remember, if Jesus has forgiven you, walk and talk confidently, because whatever your enemy may say to lie to you, that old weight, that old burden, that sin is gone!