Many people stop short of their destiny. They settle for someone else’s story. Grandpa was a butcher, Dad was a butcher, so I guess I’ll be a butcher. Everyone I know is in farming, so I guess I’m supposed to farm. Consequently, they risk leading dull, joyless, and fruitless lives. They never sing the song God wrote for their voices. They never cross a finish line with heavenward-stretched arms and declare, I was made to do this! They fit in, settle in, and blend in. But they never find their call.
Don’t make the same mistake. Ephesians 2:10 says: “It is God himself who has made us what we are and given us new lives from Christ Jesus; and long ages ago planned that we should spend these lives in helping others.” Your existence is not accidental. Your skills are not incidental. God shaped each person in turn!
From Glory Days
Song of Solomon 4
Young Man
You are beautiful, my darling,
beautiful beyond words.
Your eyes are like doves
behind your veil.
Your hair falls in waves,
like a flock of goats winding down the slopes of Gilead.
2 Your teeth are as white as sheep,
recently shorn and freshly washed.
Your smile is flawless,
each tooth matched with its twin.[a]
3 Your lips are like scarlet ribbon;
your mouth is inviting.
Your cheeks are like rosy pomegranates
behind your veil.
4 Your neck is as beautiful as the tower of David,
jeweled with the shields of a thousand heroes.
5 Your breasts are like two fawns,
twin fawns of a gazelle grazing among the lilies.
6 Before the dawn breezes blow
and the night shadows flee,
I will hurry to the mountain of myrrh
and to the hill of frankincense.
7 You are altogether beautiful, my darling,
beautiful in every way.
8 Come with me from Lebanon, my bride,
come with me from Lebanon.
Come down[b] from Mount Amana,
from the peaks of Senir and Hermon,
where the lions have their dens
and leopards live among the hills.
9 You have captured my heart,
my treasure,[c] my bride.
You hold it hostage with one glance of your eyes,
with a single jewel of your necklace.
10 Your love delights me,
my treasure, my bride.
Your love is better than wine,
your perfume more fragrant than spices.
11 Your lips are as sweet as nectar, my bride.
Honey and milk are under your tongue.
Your clothes are scented
like the cedars of Lebanon.
12 You are my private garden, my treasure, my bride,
a secluded spring, a hidden fountain.
13 Your thighs shelter a paradise of pomegranates
with rare spices—
henna with nard,
14 nard and saffron,
fragrant calamus and cinnamon,
with all the trees of frankincense, myrrh, and aloes,
and every other lovely spice.
15 You are a garden fountain,
a well of fresh water
streaming down from Lebanon’s mountains.
Young Woman
16 Awake, north wind!
Rise up, south wind!
Blow on my garden
and spread its fragrance all around.
Come into your garden, my love;
taste its finest fruits.
Footnotes:
4:2 Hebrew Not one is missing; each has a twin.
4:8 Or Look down.
4:9 Hebrew my sister; also in 4:10, 12.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, November 16, 2015
Read: Galatians 6:1-10
We Harvest What We Plant
Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer[a] is overcome by some sin, you who are godly[b] should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. 2 Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. 3 If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important.
4 Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done, and you won’t need to compare yourself to anyone else. 5 For we are each responsible for our own conduct.
6 Those who are taught the word of God should provide for their teachers, sharing all good things with them.
7 Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. 8 Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. 9 So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up. 10 Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone—especially to those in the family of faith.
Footnotes:
6:1a Greek Brothers, if a man.
6:1b Greek spiritual.
INSIGHT:
In Galatians 6:2 Paul instructs the Galatian believers to carry each other’s burdens. However, in verse 5 Paul says that each person should carry his own load. In the case of carrying each other’s burdens, we are to do so in the context of someone caught in sin (v. 1). However, in the case of carrying our own load, it is so that we do not compare ourselves to others and become unduly disheartened by our progress (or lack of it). J.R. Hudberg
Shared Struggles
By Bill Crowder
Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. —nlt
Galatians 6:2
April 25, 2015, marked the 100th commemoration of Anzac Day. It is celebrated each year by both Australia and New Zealand to honor the members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought together during World War I. It marks a time when neither country had to face the dangers of war alone; soldiers from both countries engaged in the struggle together.
Sharing life’s struggles is fundamental to the way followers of Christ are called to live. As Paul challenged us, “Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2 nlt). By working together through life’s challenges we can help to strengthen and support one another when times are hard. By expressing toward one another the care and affections of Christ, the difficulties of life should draw us to Christ and to each other—not isolate us in our suffering.
Difficulties in life can draw us to Christ & to each other.
By sharing in the struggles of another, we are modeling the love of Christ. We read in Isaiah, “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isa. 53:4 nkjv). No matter how great the struggle we face, we never face it alone.
Thank You, Father, that I don’t have to walk my life’s journey alone. You are near.
Read more about the nearness of God in The Lord Is My Shepherd at discoveryseries.org/hp952
We can go a lot further together than we can alone.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, November 16, 2015
Still Human!
…whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. —1 Corinthians 10:31
In the Scriptures, the great miracle of the incarnation slips into the ordinary life of a child; the great miracle of the transfiguration fades into the demon-possessed valley below; the glory of the resurrection descends into a breakfast on the seashore. This is not an anticlimax, but a great revelation of God.
We have a tendency to look for wonder in our experience, and we mistake heroic actions for real heroes. It’s one thing to go through a crisis grandly, yet quite another to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, and no one paying even the remotest attention to us. If we are not looking for halos, we at least want something that will make people say, “What a wonderful man of prayer he is!” or, “What a great woman of devotion she is!” If you are properly devoted to the Lord Jesus, you have reached the lofty height where no one would ever notice you personally. All that is noticed is the power of God coming through you all the time.
We want to be able to say, “Oh, I have had a wonderful call from God!” But to do even the most humbling tasks to the glory of God takes the Almighty God Incarnate working in us. To be utterly unnoticeable requires God’s Spirit in us making us absolutely humanly His. The true test of a saint’s life is not successfulness but faithfulness on the human level of life. We tend to set up success in Christian work as our purpose, but our purpose should be to display the glory of God in human life, to live a life “hidden with Christ in God” in our everyday human conditions (Colossians 3:3). Our human relationships are the very conditions in which the ideal life of God should be exhibited.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Beware of bartering the Word of God for a more suitable conception of your own. Disciples Indeed, 386 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, November 16, 2015
The Life-Changing Equation For the People You Love - #7526
It was always so much fun when we stuffed all five Hutchcrafts into the car for a long trip. And, of course, we had turf wars in the back seat. You remember that? Especially as our kids became bigger. We had three kids trying to figure out who gets which third or more, of the turf in the back seat. Of course that was only one of our problems.
After we'd been driving for awhile, we'd often hear these unsettling sounds emanating from the back seat. Our daughter was prone to needing some air and space back there, and it happened when she was stuck in the middle. And she began to experience discomfort and started letting out soft moans. Her brothers would imitate those noises, of course more loudly and more obnoxious. She couldn't help it! She had a touch of claustrophobia. "Come on, guys! She needed some space."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Life-Changing Equation For the People You Love."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 2 Timothy 4:2, and Paul talks about different ways we might go about trying to get people to change. Can you think of anybody you want to change? Okay. He says, "Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and careful instruction."
Now what he's talking about here is approaching people who need to change. You've probably got somebody like that in your life. Like somebody you're married to? One of your children? A friend? Somebody at church? "Oh yeah, I've got somebody who needs to change." Well, here's how Paul says to go about it. You give them the truth, you encourage, you exhort, you correct, you rebuke when you need to, but then be prepared to wait. He says to do this with patience. They're not going to change right away.
So, the life-changing equation goes something like this: Truth plus space equals a changed life. Now, our daughter, in that back seat, needed some space. That might be what the person in your life who you want to change, might be what they need. You've been after them a lot, maybe nagging them. You know what? They need some space, and that's the hard part. You told them what's right. You told them what the Bible says about it, but now you've got to give them some space to choose it.
That person you love, maybe they're suffering from emotional or spiritual claustrophobia, because you've chased them too much. See, if they don't respond right away, we're like, "See, they didn't listen!" So we hammer them again and again, and what we're probably doing is making the change take even longer and making their resistance even stronger.
Here's another equation: Truth plus pressure equals rebellion. See, we're afraid we're losing the person and our fear comes out as nagging and pressure, but here's how the life-changing process works. You give the person the truth on that issue, then you allow them the dignity and the space to choose it for themselves. Leave them some room. They're not just going to throw up their hands, raise the white flag and say, "I'm wrong. You're right." Back off, and let them decide. See, maybe you've given them the truth, but no space, and so you're getting rebellion. Paul's words, "do it with great patience."
Here's an even better equation: Truth plus space plus prayer equals a changed life, because while you're giving them space and while you're waiting to see what they do with the truth, (and maybe biting your nails about it) you're on your knees talking to God about them, more than you're talking to them about God. Maybe you could just say to the Lord, "Lord I've done my best, now please do the rest."
I like what Ruth Graham said about Billy Graham, she said, "You know, it's my job to love Billy, it's God's job to change him." Well it's God's job to change that person. You love them, you tell them the truth, and then leave some space for God to do the changing.