Max Lucado Daily: Press Into God’s Promises
Our God is a promise-keeping God. Others may make a promise and forget it. But if God makes a promise, he keeps it. Does God’s integrity make a difference? When your daughter is on life support, it does. When you are pacing the ER floor, it does. When you are wondering what to do and you have to choose between faith or fear; God’s purpose or random history; a God who knows and cares or a God who isn’t there? We all choose.
Promised Land people choose to trust God’s promises. They choose to believe that God is up to something good even though all we see looks bad. Press into God’s promises. When fears surface, respond with this thought: But God said … And when doubts arise, but God said… And when guilt overwhelms you, but God said... Search the Scriptures like a miner digging for gold and trust the promises you find.
From Glory Days
Acts 8:26-40
Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch
26 As for Philip, an angel of the Lord said to him, “Go south[a] down the desert road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 27 So he started out, and he met the treasurer of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under the Kandake, the queen of Ethiopia. The eunuch had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and he was now returning. Seated in his carriage, he was reading aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah.
29 The Holy Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and walk along beside the carriage.”
30 Philip ran over and heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah. Philip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”
31 The man replied, “How can I, unless someone instructs me?” And he urged Philip to come up into the carriage and sit with him.
32 The passage of Scripture he had been reading was this:
“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter.
And as a lamb is silent before the shearers,
he did not open his mouth.
33 He was humiliated and received no justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.”[b]
34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, was the prophet talking about himself or someone else?” 35 So beginning with this same Scripture, Philip told him the Good News about Jesus.
36 As they rode along, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “Look! There’s some water! Why can’t I be baptized?”[c] 38 He ordered the carriage to stop, and they went down into the water, and Philip baptized him.
39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away. The eunuch never saw him again but went on his way rejoicing. 40 Meanwhile, Philip found himself farther north at the town of Azotus. He preached the Good News there and in every town along the way until he came to Caesarea.
Footnotes:
8:26 Or Go at noon.
8:32-33 Isa 53:7-8 (Greek version).
8:36 Some manuscripts add verse 37, “You can,” Philip answered, “if you believe with all your heart.” And the eunuch replied, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, November 30, 2015
Read: Luke 10:17-24
When the seventy-two disciples returned, they joyfully reported to him, “Lord, even the demons obey us when we use your name!”
18 “Yes,” he told them, “I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning! 19 Look, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy, and you can walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them. Nothing will injure you. 20 But don’t rejoice because evil spirits obey you; rejoice because your names are registered in heaven.”
Jesus’ Prayer of Thanksgiving
21 At that same time Jesus was filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit, and he said, “O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thank you for hiding these things from those who think themselves wise and clever, and for revealing them to the childlike. Yes, Father, it pleased you to do it this way.
22 “My Father has entrusted everything to me. No one truly knows the Son except the Father, and no one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
23 Then when they were alone, he turned to the disciples and said, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you have seen. 24 I tell you, many prophets and kings longed to see what you see, but they didn’t see it. And they longed to hear what you hear, but they didn’t hear it.”
INSIGHT: Two important concepts appear in today’s passage: Jesus is the one who gives us the authority to carry on His work on earth, and God is the one who writes our names “in heaven” (v. 20). Notice that in both cases it is not our doing but God’s. Salvation is a gift of God’s grace; our part is to accept this gift.
Our Daily Bread -- The Heavenly Manifest
Rejoice that your names are written in heaven. —Luke 10:20
At the Kenya Airways check-in counter, I presented my passport for verification. When the agents searched for my name on their manifest—the document that lists names of passengers—my name was missing. The problem? Overbooking and lack of confirmation. My hope of reaching home that day was shattered.
The episode reminded me of another kind of manifest—the Book of Life. In Luke 10, Jesus sent His disciples on an evangelistic mission. On their return, they happily reported their success. But Jesus told them: “Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (v. 20). The focus of our joy is not merely that we are successful but that our names are inscribed in God’s book.
But how can we be sure of that? God’s Word tells us, “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9).
In Revelation 21, John makes a breathtaking description of the Holy City that awaits those who trust Christ. Then he writes, “Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life” (v. 27).
The Book of Life is God’s heavenly manifest. Is your name written in it? —Lawrence Darmani
Father in heaven, thank You for the gift of Your Son, who promised to prepare a place for us. Thank You too, that You are preparing us for that place.
God opens the gates of heaven to those who open their hearts to Him.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, November 30, 2015
“By the Grace of God I Am What I Am”
By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain… —1 Corinthians 15:10
The way we continually talk about our own inabilities is an insult to our Creator. To complain over our incompetence is to accuse God falsely of having overlooked us. Get into the habit of examining from God’s perspective those things that sound so humble to men. You will be amazed at how unbelievably inappropriate and disrespectful they are to Him. We say things such as, “Oh, I shouldn’t claim to be sanctified; I’m not a saint.” But to say that before God means, “No, Lord, it is impossible for You to save and sanctify me; there are opportunities I have not had and so many imperfections in my brain and body; no, Lord, it isn’t possible.” That may sound wonderfully humble to others, but before God it is an attitude of defiance.
Conversely, the things that sound humble before God may sound exactly the opposite to people. To say, “Thank God, I know I am saved and sanctified,” is in God’s eyes the purest expression of humility. It means you have so completely surrendered yourself to God that you know He is true. Never worry about whether what you say sounds humble before others or not. But always be humble before God, and allow Him to be your all in all.
There is only one relationship that really matters, and that is your personal relationship to your personal Redeemer and Lord. If you maintain that at all costs, letting everything else go, God will fulfill His purpose through your life. One individual life may be of priceless value to God’s purposes, and yours may be that life.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ is always unyielding to my claim to my right to myself. The one essential element in all our Lord’s teaching about discipleship is abandon, no calculation, no trace of self-interest.
Disciples Indeed
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, November 30, 2015
The Classroom of Everyday Stuff - #7536
If you know teenagers or even pre-teens, you'll hear that word "like" a lot! It's not new. Even when one of my sons was going through those interesting teenage years, he had a case of "like-itis", we'll call it. Typical sentence, "Well, there was like this movie I wanted to like watch, and so I like looked for what time it was supposed to be like – you know." Well, you know what though? There might be some power in that word like.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Classroom of Everyday Stuff."
Our word for today from the Word of God; we are in Proverbs 24:32. Solomon says, "I applied my heart to what I observed and I learned a lesson from what I saw." Here was Solomon, the wisest man in the Old Testament, and he tells us how he learned about life. He says he didn't just look at the things that he saw, or heard, or experienced. He applied them and he tried to see, "Is there a lesson in this somewhere?" Maybe it's like something that I've see or heard or experienced. It's the power of an illustration or an analogy to understand something that otherwise would just kind of just be floating out there.
Well, Jesus did this. Right? How did He teach? By example. I think He probably would have liked the word like. How many times did He look in the eyes of disciples and give them an abstract concept like, "the kingdom of heaven." I'm just... I can see their eyes glazing over. "What's the kingdom of heaven?" He goes, "The kingdom of heaven is... it's like that field over there. It's like this grape vine. It's like this little boy."
Solomon learned, he said, from his own experiences, and God uses them like this program today. You know, a lot of times people will go, "Ron, where do these programs come from? Where do you get all these analogies?" You know what? We all see them every day. It's from everyday life. You have an everyday life, and it's a great way to learn. To say, you know, that is like this. This is something God teaches and it's a lot like that.
There's a great hymn This Is My Father's World. Haven't heard it for a while; it's still a great hymn. Now, if this is my Father's world, doesn't that mean that we're surrounded by things that you could use to help understand what His Word says to us? The Bible says, "The earth is the Lord's and all of its fullness." So start with the premise, "I am surrounded by things that could show me what God is like. I'm going to have something happen to me today or happen around me today that's going to give me a chance to understand what God is like."
Then like Solomon, "I applied my heart to what I observe." Maybe the only difference from me and some other people is I guess I just focus and I look for messages about God in everyday life. You can do that. So as you use God's Word, do that too.
I try even when I'm keeping my Spiritual Journal for my Jesus time, I try to write down what might be an analogy; what this might be like that would help me understand it better. Look at life as a teaching experience. It's the classroom of everyday stuff! You look for connections between spiritual truths and everyday experiences. And let me tell you, if you look for them you'll find them. You'll be able to understand them better and you'll be able to communicate them better to others.
It's the process of taking an important but abstract truth and applying it to something; maybe a child's comment, or just an example. Think about the phrase, "Be filled with the Spirit of God." Be filled with the Spirit. I thought about, "What do we fill up?" We fill up glasses. If I want a glass of water but that glass is currently filled with tea, what do I have to do before I fill it up? I have to empty out what's in it now in order to fill it with what I really want. You've got to empty it to fill it. All of a sudden, being filled with the Spirit makes more sense to me. It's like filling a glass with what you really want. But first you have to empty what it's already filled with.
So the abstract becomes concrete when you begin to look for something that it is like. So, read God's Word, follow it, and then apply it to your life. Look at your Father's world. Each day is exciting when you get up and say, "You know what? I'm going to look for some God-sightings today, because my Father's will is illustrated by my Father's world.