Max Lucado Daily: ALL YOU NEED
Ginger was six years old when she and her Sunday school class made get well cards for church members. Hers was a bright purple card that said “I love you, but most of all God loves you!” She and her mom made the delivery.
My dad was bedfast, the end was near. He could extend his hand, but it was bent to a claw from disease. Ginger asked him a question as only a six year old can, “Are you going to die?” “Yes,” he responded, “but when, I don’t know.” She asked if he was afraid to go away. “Away is heaven,” he told her. “I’ll be with my Father. I’m ready to see Him eye to eye.”
A man near death, winking at the thought of it. Stripped of everything? It only appeared that way. In the end, Dad still had what no one could take—faith. And in the end, that’s all he needed!
From You’ll Get Through This
Isaiah 12
My Strength and Song
And you will say in that day,
“I thank you, God.
You were angry
but your anger wasn’t forever.
You withdrew your anger
and moved in and comforted me.
2 “Yes, indeed—God is my salvation.
I trust, I won’t be afraid.
God—yes God!—is my strength and song,
best of all, my salvation!”
3-4 Joyfully you’ll pull up buckets of water
from the wells of salvation.
And as you do it, you’ll say,
“Give thanks to God.
Call out his name.
Ask him anything!
Shout to the nations, tell them what he’s done,
spread the news of his great reputation!
5-6 “Sing praise-songs to God. He’s done it all!
Let the whole earth know what he’s done!
Raise the roof! Sing your hearts out, O Zion!
The Greatest lives among you: The Holy of Israel.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, September 08, 2016
Read: 1 Chronicles 29:14–19
“But me—who am I, and who are these my people, that we should presume to be giving something to you? Everything comes from you; all we’re doing is giving back what we’ve been given from your generous hand. As far as you’re concerned, we’re homeless, shiftless wanderers like our ancestors, our lives mere shadows, hardly anything to us. God, our God, all these materials—these piles of stuff for building a house of worship for you, honoring your Holy Name—it all came from you! It was all yours in the first place! I know, dear God, that you care nothing for the surface—you want us, our true selves—and so I have given from the heart, honestly and happily. And now see all these people doing the same, giving freely, willingly—what a joy! O God, God of our fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, keep this generous spirit alive forever in these people always, keep their hearts set firmly in you. And give my son Solomon an uncluttered and focused heart so that he can obey what you command, live by your directions and counsel, and carry through with building The Temple for which I have provided.”
INSIGHT:
Today’s reading puts the true object of worship front and center. David’s prayer in 1 Chronicles 29:14–19 appears nowhere else in the biblical account and focuses the reader’s attention on God rather than on the temple or on King David. This makes perfect sense given the timeframe and audience of the book. Although we cannot be certain, Jewish tradition identifies Ezra as the chronicler. And it’s believed he wrote between 450 and 400 bc, with his primary audience being those who had recently returned from exile in Babylonia. The books of 1 and 2 Chronicles are unique in that they are historical accounts written long after the events they describe. About half of Chronicles is material repeated from earlier Old Testament books.
Everything Comes from God
By Keila Ochoa
All of it belongs to you. 1 Chronicles 29:16
I was 18 years old when I got my first fulltime job, and I learned an important lesson about the discipline of saving money. I worked and saved until I had enough money for a year of school. Then my mom had emergency surgery, and I realized I had the money in the bank to pay for her operation.
My love for my mother suddenly took precedence over my plans for the future. These words in the book Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Elliot took on new meaning: “If we hold tightly to anything given to us, unwilling to let it go when the time comes to let it go or unwilling to allow it to be used as the Giver means it to be used, we stunt the growth of the soul. It is easy to make a mistake here, ‘If God gave it to me,’ we say, ‘it's mine. I can do what I want with it.’ No. The truth is that it is ours to thank Him for and ours to offer back to Him, . . . ours to let go of.”
Everything belongs to God.
I realized that the job I had received and the discipline of saving were gifts from God! I could give generously to my family because I was sure God was capable of seeing me through school another way, and He did.
Today, how might God want us to apply David's prayer from 1 Chronicles 29:14, “Everything we have has come from you, and we give you only what you first gave us”? (nlt).
Lord, we know there is nothing that we have that we obtained on our own. It’s all Yours. Help us to have open hands for You
to give and take as You please. Increase our faith.
Everything belongs to God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, September 08, 2016
Do It Yourself (1)
…casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God… —2 Corinthians 10:5
Determinedly Demolish Some Things. Deliverance from sin is not the same as deliverance from human nature. There are things in human nature, such as prejudices, that the saint can only destroy through sheer neglect. But there are other things that have to be destroyed through violence, that is, through God’s divine strength imparted by His Spirit. There are some things over which we are not to fight, but only to “stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord…” (see Exodus 14:13). But every theory or thought that raises itself up as a fortified barrier “against the knowledge of God” is to be determinedly demolished by drawing on God’s power, not through human effort or by compromise (see 2 Corinthians 10:4).
It is only when God has transformed our nature and we have entered into the experience of sanctification that the fight begins. The warfare is not against sin; we can never fight against sin— Jesus Christ conquered that in His redemption of us. The conflict is waged over turning our natural life into a spiritual life. This is never done easily, nor does God intend that it be so. It is accomplished only through a series of moral choices. God does not make us holy in the sense that He makes our character holy. He makes us holy in the sense that He has made us innocent before Him. And then we have to turn that innocence into holy character through the moral choices we make. These choices are continually opposed and hostile to the things of our natural life which have become so deeply entrenched— the very things that raise themselves up as fortified barriers “against the knowledge of God.” We can either turn back, making ourselves of no value to the kingdom of God, or we can determinedly demolish these things, allowing Jesus to bring another son to glory (see Hebrews 2:10).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ reveals, not an embarrassed God, not a confused God, not a God who stands apart from the problems, but One who stands in the thick of the whole thing with man. Disciples Indeed, 388 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, September 08, 2016
Watching for the Wave - #7739
Boy from Illinois moves to East Coast and develops love affair with ocean. The Illinois boy – me. And I would love to sneak away with my wife to the New Jersey Shore and just let the majesty of the ocean kind of mellow out my spirit. One time, we drove down to a nearby Shore point for a Sunday afternoon and the day was a 10. I mean, blue sky, blue ocean, white puffy clouds, warm temperature. (Wish I was a painter.) After a walk on the beach, we sat down on a pier to watch four surfers who were bobbing around in the water nearby. They were in their wet suits, hugging their surfboards, and staring at the swells out there that were trying to grow up and become big waves. It was close to low tide, but that didn't stop them. And were they focused! They didn't talk to each other, they never looked around. They just kept staring at the waves that might be forming. And when one started to build, they turned toward shore, lay down on their board, and started paddling furiously. And as that wave built under them, they stood on that board, and their waiting and watching suddenly turned to the excitement of riding the surf wherever it would take them.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Watching for the Wave."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from the writings of the Old Testament prophet, Habakkuk. God promised him that there was a mighty spiritual wave coming. Chapter 1, verse 5, "I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told." While that promise, of course, had a specific application for that time, it may very well be that God wants you to be thinking that way. There may be a mighty work He's preparing to do in your life, through your life; something "you would not believe, even if you were told." But just like the prophet, it sure doesn't look like it now. There's not a big wave in sight.
But Habakkuk knew what to do when God promises a big wave is coming. Chapter 2, verse 1, "I will stand at my watch, and station myself on the ramparts." Kind of sounds like those surfers; watching, waiting expectantly. But maybe like your answer, your miracle, it's taking its time coming. Listen to the Lord's words to Habakkuk and I hope to you. Chapter 2, verse 3, "The revelation awaits an appointed time. Though it linger, wait for it, it certainly will come and will not delay."
It's coming! It will come at the perfect time. God has planned this all along. But apparently, it's going to come later than the time you think it should come. I've found that's almost always true. From God's perspective, "it will not delay." From your perspective, the word is "wait for it." That may be why the next verse says, "The righteous will live by his faith." Between the waiting time now and the wave of God's Holy Spirit, your job is to have faith, to watch for the wave, to be dressed for the wave, expecting the wave, ready to move like crazy when it comes. Act as if God's answer is coming, no matter how long it takes to arrive. And don't lose hope.
If you don't wait for the wave, you may just settle for hanging up your surfboard and trying to figure out your own way to make a wave or to get to shore. And you'll ruin what God is working on; this incredible thing He's planning that you wouldn't believe if He told you! But you'll ruin it if you give up, or you lose faith, or you take matters into your own hands, or you start trusting in you instead of in Him.
So, for now, get ready for the great wave of God. You know what the Bible says to do to get ready, "humble yourself, pray, seek God's face, turn from your wicked ways." (2 Chronicles 7:14) And then, like those surfers waiting patiently, expectantly watching for their wave, wait with patient faith for that mighty tide of God that is somewhere out there, moving your way.
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