Max Lucado Daily: WHAT MAKES YOU UNIQUE?
What is your unique assignment in life? The Bible shows us how to answer that question. Galatians 6:4 reads “make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that” (MSG). Try starting with these two questions:
(1) With whom do you feel most fluent? You may be tongue-tied around children but eloquent with executives. This is how God designed you. Scripture reminds us that “God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well” (Romans 12:6 NLT).
(2) For whom do you feel most compassion? God doesn’t burden us equally. He fashions our hearts individually. When does your heart break and pulse race? When you spot the homeless? When you travel to the inner city?
Discover what makes you unique…and use your gifts for God.
From God is With You Every Day
Hosea 4
No One Is Faithful
Attention all Israelites! God’s Message!
God indicts the whole population:
“No one is faithful. No one loves.
No one knows the first thing about God.
All this cussing and lying and killing, theft and loose sex,
sheer anarchy, one murder after another!
And because of all this, the very land itself weeps
and everything in it is grief-stricken—
animals in the fields and birds on the wing,
even the fish in the sea are listless, lifeless.
4-10 “But don’t look for someone to blame.
No finger pointing!
You, priest, are the one in the dock.
You stumble around in broad daylight,
And then the prophets take over and stumble all night.
Your mother is as bad as you.
My people are ruined
because they don’t know what’s right or true.
Because you’ve turned your back on knowledge,
I’ve turned my back on you priests.
Because you refuse to recognize the revelation of God,
I’m no longer recognizing your children.
The more priests, the more sin.
They traded in their glory for shame.
They pig out on my people’s sins.
They can’t wait for the latest in evil.
The result: You can’t tell the people from the priests,
the priests from the people.
I’m on my way to make them both pay
and take the consequences of the bad lives they’ve lived.
They’ll eat and be as hungry as ever,
have sex and get no satisfaction.
They walked out on me, their God,
for a life of rutting with whores.
They Make a Picnic Out of Religion
11-14 “Wine and whiskey
leave my people in a stupor.
They ask questions of a dead tree,
expect answers from a sturdy walking stick.
Drunk on sex, they can’t find their way home.
They’ve replaced their God with their genitals.
They worship on the tops of mountains,
make a picnic out of religion.
Under the oaks and elms on the hills
they stretch out and take it easy.
Before you know it, your daughters are whores
and the wives of your sons are sleeping around.
But I’m not going after your whoring daughters
or the adulterous wives of your sons.
It’s the men who pick up the whores that I’m after,
the men who worship at the holy whorehouses—
a stupid people, ruined by whores!
15-19 “You’ve ruined your own life, Israel—
but don’t drag Judah down with you!
Don’t go to the sex shrine at Gilgal,
don’t go to that sin city Bethel,
Don’t go around saying ‘God bless you’ and not mean it,
taking God’s name in vain.
Israel is stubborn as a mule.
How can God lead him like a lamb to open pasture?
Ephraim is addicted to idols.
Let him go.
When the beer runs out,
it’s sex, sex, and more sex.
Bold and sordid debauchery—
how they love it!
The whirlwind has them in its clutches.
Their sex-worship leaves them finally impotent.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, November 25, 2016
Read: Ecclesiastes 5:10–19
The one who loves money is never satisfied with money,
Nor the one who loves wealth with big profits. More smoke.
11 The more loot you get, the more looters show up.
And what fun is that—to be robbed in broad daylight?
12 Hard and honest work earns a good night’s sleep,
Whether supper is beans or steak.
But a rich man’s belly gives him insomnia.
13-17 Here’s a piece of bad luck I’ve seen happen:
A man hoards far more wealth than is good for him
And then loses it all in a bad business deal.
He fathered a child but hasn’t a cent left to give him.
He arrived naked from the womb of his mother;
He’ll leave in the same condition—with nothing.
This is bad luck, for sure—naked he came, naked he went.
So what was the point of working for a salary of smoke?
All for a miserable life spent in the dark?
Make the Most of What God Gives
18-20 After looking at the way things are on this earth, here’s what I’ve decided is the best way to live: Take care of yourself, have a good time, and make the most of whatever job you have for as long as God gives you life. And that’s about it. That’s the human lot. Yes, we should make the most of what God gives, both the bounty and the capacity to enjoy it, accepting what’s given and delighting in the work. It’s God’s gift! God deals out joy in the present, the now. It’s useless to brood over how long we might live.
INSIGHT:
Without the living God being brought into the picture, Ecclesiastes is one of the most paradoxical books in the Old Testament. For much of this short reflective work, we see life portrayed without God as an active Person in our lives. As a result, much of the text, though inspired by the Spirit, describes secular beliefs. Nonetheless, today’s reading showcases wisdom in various aspects of life.
Best Deal Ever!
By Amy Boucher Pye
As goods increase, so do those who consume them. And what benefit are they to the owners? Ecclesiastes 5:11
How much is enough? We might ask this simple question on a day that many developed countries increasingly devote to shopping. I speak of Black Friday, the day after the US Thanksgiving holiday, in which many stores open early and offer cut-price deals; a day that has spread from the States to other nations. Some shoppers have limited resources and are trying to purchase something at a price they can afford. But sadly, for others greed is the motivation, and violence erupts as they fight for bargains.
The wisdom of the Old Testament writer known as “the Teacher” (Eccl. 1:1) provides an antidote to the frenzy of consumerism we may face in the shops—and in our hearts. He points out that those who love money never will have enough and will be ruled by their possessions. And yet, they will die with nothing: “As everyone comes, so they depart” (5:15). The apostle Paul echoes the Teacher in his letter to Timothy, when he says that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and that we should strive for “godliness with contentment” (1 Tim. 6:6–10).
True contentment does not depend on anything in this world.
Whether we live in a place of plenty or not, we all can seek unhealthy ways of filling the God-shaped hole in our hearts. But when we look to the Lord for our sense of peace and well-being, He will fill us with His goodness and love.
“You have formed us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in You.” Augustine, The Confessions
True contentment does not depend on anything in this world.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, November 25, 2016
The Secret of Spiritual Consistency
God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ… —Galatians 6:14
When a person is newly born again, he seems inconsistent due to his unrelated emotions and the state of the external things or circumstances in his life. The apostle Paul had a strong and steady underlying consistency in his life. Consequently, he could let his external life change without internal distress because he was rooted and grounded in God. Most of us are not consistent spiritually because we are more concerned about being consistent externally. In the external expression of things, Paul lived in the basement, while his critics lived on the upper level. And these two levels do not begin to touch each other. But Paul’s consistency was down deep in the fundamentals. The great basis of his consistency was the agony of God in the redemption of the world, namely, the Cross of Christ.
State your beliefs to yourself again. Get back to the foundation of the Cross of Christ, doing away with any belief not based on it. In secular history the Cross is an infinitesimally small thing, but from the biblical perspective it is of more importance than all the empires of the world. If we get away from dwelling on the tragedy of God on the Cross in our preaching, our preaching produces nothing. It will not transmit the energy of God to man; it may be interesting, but it will have no power. However, when we preach the Cross, the energy of God is released. “…it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.…we preach Christ crucified…” (1 Corinthians 1:21, 23).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We never enter into the Kingdom of God by having our head questions answered, but only by commitment. The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 565 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, November 25, 2016
Our grandson was just about six months old, but it was obvious even then that he and his Mother had a very close relationship. In fact, I noticed back then an interesting dimension of their connectedness. There will be a sudden loud noise or a rowdy outburst by someone-like me for example-and you could tell that my grandson didn't know how he should respond. So instinctively he looked at his mother. His mother knew that, and she had learned how important it was for her to look calm and unfazed, no matter what was coming down. See, he studied her reaction for a moment and then he just obviously decided to do what she did, respond the same way; no tears, no fear. "Hey, Mom's OK. I'm OK."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Showing Your Child How to Live."
Babies just instinctively look to a parent – have you ever noticed? – to see how they should react, even after those babies aren't babies anymore. In so many ways, our children are the products of how we program them with our responses to life.
God underscores the importance of this parental shaping in our word for today from the Word of God in Deuteronomy 11, "Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the Lord your God: His majesty, His mighty hand, His outstretched arm." So, God says, "Fix these words of Mine in your hearts and minds. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up."
Notice where our children will learn the ways of God in the classroom of everyday life. In the real life experiences and situations, more than in some formal teaching time. They're going to watch and listen to us in those times, and they're going to learn how they should act, for better or for worse. They won't be shaped primarily by all the formal teaching, but by those informal times when they see the real difference a real God makes in real things.
So as your son or daughter looks to you to learn how to respond, what are they learning? When problems come and they look your way, do they see prayer and trusting God, or worrying and complaining? Are they learning to respond to frustrations by seeing patience in you or anger? Is it integrity they see, or do they see cutting corners and compromise when they look at you? Are they learning prejudice or are they learning the unconditional love of Christ?
Looking at you, Mom or Dad, does your child see forgiving grievances or harboring grievances; bringing them back over and over again? Do they see peace or do they see stress? Are they hearing words that encourage people or words that criticize and tear people down?
The fact is, children learn what they live. Old saying/true saying, "They learn what they live." And when we know we're showing them an approach to life that is hurtful and wrong, it can be a pretty powerful incentive to finally let Jesus be the Lord of that weakness in us. You know, when it was just us and we were driving on a bad road, it only affected us. But guess what? Now, as parents, we're taking them with us everywhere we go.
If you can't find any other reason for opening up a sinful part of you to Christ's control, would you do it for your precious son or daughter, "Lord, for his sake, for her sake, I just can't be this way anymore!"
Because like a certain baby I remember and love, your child is looking your direction to decide how to live. And whatever you sow in them, you and they will spend a lifetime reaping.
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