Max Lucado Daily: THE HEART SURGEON
Grace is God as heart surgeon, cracking open your chest, removing your heart—poisoned with pride and pain—and replacing it with his own. Rather than tell you to change, he creates the change. Do you clean up so he can accept you? No, God accepts you and begins cleaning you up. His dream isn’t just to get you into heaven but to get heaven into you. What a difference it makes!
Can’t forgive your enemy? Can’t face tomorrow? Can’t forgive your past? Christ can, aggressively budging you from graceless to grace-shaped living. Forgiven people forgiving people…stumbles aplenty but despair seldom. Jesus placed a term limit on sin and danced a victory jig in a graveyard. To be saved by grace is to be saved by Jesus—not by an idea, doctrine, creed, or church membership, but by Jesus himself. Grace is everything Jesus!
From God is With You Every Day
Romans 3
So what difference does it make who’s a Jew and who isn’t, who has been trained in God’s ways and who hasn’t? As it turns out, it makes a lot of difference—but not the difference so many have assumed.
2-6 First, there’s the matter of being put in charge of writing down and caring for God’s revelation, these Holy Scriptures. So, what if, in the course of doing that, some of those Jews abandoned their post? God didn’t abandon them. Do you think their faithlessness cancels out his faithfulness? Not on your life! Depend on it: God keeps his word even when the whole world is lying through its teeth. Scripture says the same:
Your words stand fast and true;
Rejection doesn’t faze you.
But if our wrongdoing only underlines and confirms God’s rightdoing, shouldn’t we be commended for helping out? Since our bad words don’t even make a dent in his good words, isn’t it wrong of God to back us to the wall and hold us to our word? These questions come up. The answer to such questions is no, a most emphatic No! How else would things ever get straightened out if God didn’t do the straightening?
7-8 It’s simply perverse to say, “If my lies serve to show off God’s truth all the more gloriously, why blame me? I’m doing God a favor.” Some people are actually trying to put such words in our mouths, claiming that we go around saying, “The more evil we do, the more good God does, so let’s just do it!” That’s pure slander, as I’m sure you’ll agree.
We’re All in the Same Sinking Boat
9-20 So where does that put us? Do we Jews get a better break than the others? Not really. Basically, all of us, whether insiders or outsiders, start out in identical conditions, which is to say that we all start out as sinners. Scripture leaves no doubt about it:
There’s nobody living right, not even one,
nobody who knows the score, nobody alert for God.
They’ve all taken the wrong turn;
they’ve all wandered down blind alleys.
No one’s living right;
I can’t find a single one.
Their throats are gaping graves,
their tongues slick as mudslides.
Every word they speak is tinged with poison.
They open their mouths and pollute the air.
They race for the honor of sinner-of-the-year,
litter the land with heartbreak and ruin,
Don’t know the first thing about living with others.
They never give God the time of day.
This makes it clear, doesn’t it, that whatever is written in these Scriptures is not what God says about others but to us to whom these Scriptures were addressed in the first place! And it’s clear enough, isn’t it, that we’re sinners, every one of us, in the same sinking boat with everybody else? Our involvement with God’s revelation doesn’t put us right with God. What it does is force us to face our complicity in everyone else’s sin.
God Has Set Things Right
21-24 But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.
25-26 God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in him sets us in the clear. God decided on this course of action in full view of the public—to set the world in the clear with himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured. This is not only clear, but it’s now—this is current history! God sets things right. He also makes it possible for us to live in his rightness.
27-28 So where does that leave our proud Jewish insider claims and counterclaims? Canceled? Yes, canceled. What we’ve learned is this: God does not respond to what we do; we respond to what God does. We’ve finally figured it out. Our lives get in step with God and all others by letting him set the pace, not by proudly or anxiously trying to run the parade.
29-30 And where does that leave our proud Jewish claim of having a corner on God? Also canceled. God is the God of outsider non-Jews as well as insider Jews. How could it be otherwise since there is only one God? God sets right all who welcome his action and enter into it, both those who follow our religious system and those who have never heard of our religion.
31 But by shifting our focus from what we do to what God does, don’t we cancel out all our careful keeping of the rules and ways God commanded? Not at all. What happens, in fact, is that by putting that entire way of life in its proper place, we confirm it.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, October 06, 2016
Read: 2 Chronicles 6:12–21
Before the entire congregation of Israel, Solomon took his position at the Altar of God and stretched out his hands. Solomon had made a bronze dais seven and a half feet square and four and a half feet high and placed it inside the court; that’s where he now stood. Then he knelt in full view of the whole congregation, stretched his hands to heaven, and prayed:
God, O God of Israel, there is no God like you in the skies above or on the earth below, who unswervingly keeps covenant with his servants and unfailingly loves them while they sincerely live in obedience to your way. You kept your word to David my father, your promise. You did exactly what you promised—every detail. The proof is before us today!
Keep it up, God, O God of Israel! Continue to keep the promises you made to David my father when you said, “You’ll always have a descendant to represent my rule on Israel’s throne, on the one condition that your sons are as careful to live obediently in my presence as you have.”
17 O God, God of Israel, let this all happen—
confirm and establish it!
18-21 Can it be that God will actually move into our neighborhood? Why, the cosmos itself isn’t large enough to give you breathing room, let alone this Temple I’ve built. Even so, I’m bold to ask: Pay attention to these my prayers, both intercessory and personal, O God, my God. Listen to my prayers, energetic and devout, that I’m setting before you right now. Keep your eyes open to this Temple day and night, this place you promised to dignify with your Name. And listen to the prayers that I pray in this place. And listen to your people Israel when they pray at this place.
Listen from your home in heaven
and when you hear, forgive.
Praising and Asking
By Jennifer Benson Schuldt
The highest heavens . . . cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built! 2 Chronicles 6:18
Teen Challenge, a ministry to at-risk youth that started in New York City, was born from an unusual commitment to prayer. Its founder, David Wilkerson, sold his television set and spent his TV-watching time (two hours each night) praying. In the months that followed, he not only gained clarity about his new endeavor but he also learned about the balance between praising God and asking Him for help.
King Solomon’s temple dedication prayer shows this balance. Solomon began by highlighting God’s holiness and faithfulness. Then he gave God credit for the success of the project and emphasized God’s greatness, declaring, “The heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!” (2 Chron. 6:18).
Prayer helps us see things as God sees them.
After exalting God, Solomon asked Him to pay special attention to everything that happened inside the temple. He asked God to show mercy to the Israelites and to provide for them when they confessed their sin.
Immediately after Solomon’s prayer, “fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple” (7:1). This incredible response reminds us that the mighty One we praise and speak to when we pray is the same One who listens to and cares about our requests.
How would you describe your conversations with God? What might help you grow closer to Him as you pray?
Read more about talking to God at discoveryseries.org/hp135.
Prayer helps us see things as God sees them.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, October 06, 2016
The Nature of Regenerational
When it pleased God…to reveal His Son in me… —Galatians 1:15-16
If Jesus Christ is going to regenerate me, what is the problem He faces? It is simply this— I have a heredity in which I had no say or decision; I am not holy, nor am I likely to be; and if all Jesus Christ can do is tell me that I must be holy, His teaching only causes me to despair. But if Jesus Christ is truly a regenerator, someone who can put His own heredity of holiness into me, then I can begin to see what He means when He says that I have to be holy. Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into anyone the hereditary nature that was in Himself, and all the standards He gives us are based on that nature— His teaching is meant to be applied to the life which He puts within us. The proper action on my part is simply to agree with God’s verdict on sin as judged on the Cross of Christ.
The New Testament teaching about regeneration is that when a person is hit by his own sense of need, God will put the Holy Spirit into his spirit, and his personal spirit will be energized by the Spirit of the Son of God— “…until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19). The moral miracle of redemption is that God can put a new nature into me through which I can live a totally new life. When I finally reach the edge of my need and know my own limitations, then Jesus says, “Blessed are you…” (Matthew 5:11). But I must get to that point. God cannot put into me, the responsible moral person that I am, the nature that was in Jesus Christ unless I am aware of my need for it.
Just as the nature of sin entered into the human race through one man, the Holy Spirit entered into the human race through another Man (see Romans 5:12-19). And redemption means that I can be delivered from the heredity of sin, and that through Jesus Christ I can receive a pure and spotless heredity, namely, the Holy Spirit.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
“When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” We all have faith in good principles, in good management, in good common sense, but who amongst us has faith in Jesus Christ? Physical courage is grand, moral courage is grander, but the man who trusts Jesus Christ in the face of the terrific problems of life is worth a whole crowd of heroes. The Highest Good, 544 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, October 06, 2016
Peace In Your Raging River - #7759
My friend Don was a wonderful family doctor. But some of the greatest moments of his life were spent, not in a doctor's office, but on the river-preferably a river with some very challenging white water. He's a veteran kayaker and river rafter-with some fascinating tips for us folks who don't have his experience. He told me that, as a teenager, during his first days on the river, he was amazed to see canoes and kayaks just ‘hanging out' in the middle of these raging rapids. Then he learned the secret of this amazing feat, There are quiet eddies behind some of the big rocks in the rapids. And those canoeists and kayakers had found a place to rest in the very turbulent waters-behind a big rock.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Peace In Your Raging River."
Now it could be that the current on your river has picked up recently. Or maybe you've been in turbulent water for quite a while. The stress of the rapids is taking its toll-and peace and rest for your heart have been pretty hard to find. You need to find the quiet place; the safe place you've been looking for your whole life. You need to get behind the Big Rock.
Our word for today from the Word of God begins in Psalm 62. "My soul finds rest (that sounds good, doesn't it?) in God alone; my salvation comes from Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation. He is my fortress, I will never be shaken. He is my mighty rock, my refuge." (Psalm 62:1-2, 6) Wow! David, the king who wrote this psalm, says he has found a rock in the rapids of his life, and it's not a therapist, it's not a religion or any person on earth. The Rock where a turbulent heart finds peace is in a love relationship with an unshakable God. The things that are beyond our control are under His control.
It's this kind of personal peace that Jesus invites us to when He says, "Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28) According to the Bible, peace is a person. You finally find peace when you find Jesus. He takes those who belong to Him and He shelters them with His very personal love and His unlimited power.
If there's been no peace for you in your raging current, it may mean that you've let the strong current pull you away from your rock of refuge. The pull and the pressure have caused you to neglect your time near your Rock; your relationship with Jesus. But it may be there's no peace in your heart because you've never taken shelter in that personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
The current of life actually pulls us away from the God whose love we were made for. We're stubbornly trying to navigate the rapids by ourselves, actually defying God's control, insisting on my control of the life He made. The name of that defiance is sin. The price of that defiance is the eternal death penalty that sin carries. And whether we know it or not, we are moving inexorably toward this deadly waterfall called the judgment of Almighty God unless we take shelter behind the Rock; unless we place our heart and our life in the hands of Jesus, the one who died for the sin that keeps us from God.
You've battled this current long enough and you're too close to the waterfall, maybe closer than you know. Isn't it time to finally rest behind Jesus the Rock in a love relationship with Him? That relationship begins when you tell Him that the self-rule of your life is over and you are humbly putting all your trust in Him because He died for you. The peace of that relationship could finally enter your heart this very day if you tell Him, "Jesus, I am yours."
There's some wonderful information I'd love to give you about this at our website so you can be sure you have begun your relationship with Him. It's ANewStory.com. Would you go there at your first opportunity today?
The best place to finally rest in a fast current is behind a big rock. For you, that Rock is Jesus Christ. Let the struggle end. Let the peace begin.
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