Max Lucado Daily: God Gets Into Things
God gets into things! Red seas. Big fish. Lions' dens and furnaces. Bankrupt businesses and jail cells. Look and you'll find what everyone from Moses to Martha discovered. God in the middle of our storms.
A young woman missed her station on the subway. By the time she realized her mistake, she didn't know what to do. She prayed for some sign of God's presence. This was no hour or place to be passing through a rough neighborhood alone. At that moment the doors opened and a disheveled man plopped down next to her. God? Are you near? She prayed. The man pulled out a harmonica and played, "Be Thou My Vision"-her mothers' favorite hymn. The song was enough to convince her Christ was there, in the midst of it all. And you? Look closer. He's there. Right in the middle of it all!
From Next Door Savior
Acts 15:1-21
The Council at Jerusalem
Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question. 3 The church sent them on their way, and as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria, they told how the Gentiles had been converted. This news made all the believers very glad. 4 When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done through them.
5 Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.”
6 The apostles and elders met to consider this question. 7 After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. 8 God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. 9 He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. 10 Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? 11 No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”
12 The whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them. 13 When they finished, James spoke up. “Brothers,” he said, “listen to me. 14 Simon[a] has described to us how God first intervened to choose a people for his name from the Gentiles. 15 The words of the prophets are in agreement with this, as it is written:
16 “‘After this I will return
and rebuild David’s fallen tent.
Its ruins I will rebuild,
and I will restore it,
17 that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord,
even all the Gentiles who bear my name,
says the Lord, who does these things’[b]—
18 things known from long ago.[c]
19 “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. 20 Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. 21 For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”
Footnotes:
Acts 15:14 Greek Simeon, a variant of Simon; that is, Peter
Acts 15:17 Amos 9:11,12 (see Septuagint)
Acts 15:18 Some manuscripts things’— / 18 the Lord’s work is known to him from long ago
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, January 25, 2016
Read: James 3:1-12
The Power of the Tongue
My Christian brothers, not many of you should become teachers. If we do wrong, it will be held against us more than other people who are not teachers. 2 We all make many mistakes. If anyone does not make a mistake with his tongue by saying the wrong things, he is a perfect man. It shows he is able to make his body do what he wants it to do. 3 We make a horse go wherever we want it to go by a small bit in its mouth. We turn its whole body by this. 4 Sailing ships are driven by strong winds. But a small rudder turns a large ship whatever way the man at the wheel wants the ship to go.
5 The tongue is also a small part of the body, but it can speak big things. See how a very small fire can set many trees on fire. 6 The tongue is a fire. It is full of wrong. It poisons the whole body. The tongue sets our whole lives on fire with a fire that comes from hell. 7 Men can make all kinds of animals and birds and fish and snakes do what they want them to do. 8 But no man can make his tongue say what he wants it to say. It is sinful and does not rest. It is full of poison that kills. 9 With our tongue we give thanks to our Father in heaven. And with our tongue we speak bad words against men who are made like God. 10 Giving thanks and speaking bad words come from the same mouth. My Christian brothers, this is not right! 11 Does a well of water give good water and bad water from the same place? 12 Can a fig tree give olives or can a grape-vine give figs? A well does not give both good water and bad water.
INSIGHT:
Marion Stroud went to be with the Lord on August 8, 2015. Since 2014 she has been writing devotional articles for Our Daily Bread that have touched the lives of readers around the world. Marion worked as a cross-cultural trainer for Media Associates International, helping writers produce books for their own culture. She has been a role model for writers for many years and is missed by hundreds of friends.
Careless Words
By Marion Stroud
The tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. James 3:5
My daughter has had a lot of ill health recently, and her husband has been wonderfully caring and supportive. “You have a real treasure there!” I said.
“You didn’t think that when I first knew him,” she said with a grin.
She was quite right. When Icilda and Philip got engaged, I was concerned. They were such different personalities. We have a large and noisy family, and Philip is more reserved. And I had shared my misgivings with my daughter quite bluntly.
I was horrified to realize that the critical things I said so casually 15 years ago had stayed in her memory and could possibly have destroyed a relationship that has proved to be so right and happy. It reminded me how much we need to guard what we say to others. So many of us are quick to point out what we consider to be weaknesses in family, friends, or work colleagues, or to focus on their mistakes rather than their successes. “The tongue is a small part of the body,” says James (3:5), yet the words it shapes can either destroy relationships or bring peace and harmony to a situation in the workplace, the church, or the family.
Perhaps we should make David’s prayer our own as we start each day: “Set a guard over my mouth, Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips” (Ps. 141:3).
Father, please curb my careless speech and put a guard on my tongue today and every day.
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver. Proverbs 25:11 nkjv
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, January 25, 2016
Leave Room for God
When it pleased God… —Galatians 1:15
As servants of God, we must learn to make room for Him— to give God “elbow room.” We plan and figure and predict that this or that will happen, but we forget to make room for God to come in as He chooses. Would we be surprised if God came into our meeting or into our preaching in a way we had never expected Him to come? Do not look for God to come in a particular way, but do look for Him. The way to make room for Him is to expect Him to come, but not in a certain way. No matter how well we may know God, the great lesson to learn is that He may break in at any minute. We tend to overlook this element of surprise, yet God never works in any other way. Suddenly—God meets our life “…when it pleased God….”
Keep your life so constantly in touch with God that His surprising power can break through at any point. Live in a constant state of expectancy, and leave room for God to come in as He decides.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally. The Moral Foundations of Life, 721 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, January 25, 2016
How Your Rough Times Can Help You Help Others - #7576
I was in Georgia when a friend said to me, "Do you know which team is one of the best football teams in our state?" When I said I didn't know, he said, "The Georgia School for the Deaf." I've got to tell you that kind of caught me by surprise. I wasn't expecting a school for the deaf to be like football champions. He said, "Man, we played them when I was in high school and you always had to get up for that game. They were always the toughest."
I began to think, how could you play football if you can't hear the signals being called? You can't hear the plays being called. How would you play football? He said, "Well, they bring their band to every game and the signals are called through the drum beats, and they feel the signals through their face." Well, I couldn't do that. But they can. They've got radar I don't have because they face a challenge I haven't faced.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How Your Rough Times Can Help You Help Others."
Our word for today from the Word of God is in 2 Corinthians 1, beginning in verse 3. "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Father of compassion, the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow into our lives, so also should the comfort of Christ overflow."
Verse 3 here talks about this beautiful side of God. He's the God of all comfort. He's the God of compassion; the healing hugs of God, who brings what only He can bring us; a supernatural comfort deep inside of us where no human being can go. I hope you've experienced that.
There's a comfort cycle here. It says that we're supposed to comfort with the comfort we got from Him. This word comforting is really the Greek word that means "called alongside of to help." It's saying God comes alongside to encourage us so that we then can do that for others. The comfort isn't just for us to get comfortable. It's to fill us up with love and support that we pass on to others.
How does this happen? Well, you go through a deep valley. Maybe you lose someone, you have a season alone, some lingering illness, maybe a financial disaster, or you're abandoned, you're betrayed, and it hurts. But God does something beautiful with that hurt. He turns it into sensitivity; into radar for people who are hurting in that same area.
Joni Eareckson Toda was paralyzed as a teenager in a dive that day, and it was a terrible tragedy. But the worst thing that ever happened to her has given her a worldwide ministry. She knows how disabled and wounded people feel.
My friend, Jean, was abused as a girl. She's got a wonderful ministry to abused girls. My friend, Don, was raised in a broken home. He has an incredible ability to work with kids from troubled backgrounds. When you open up your hurt and your wounds to the God of all comfort, He can use you in ways you never dreamed.
When life's trouble hits you, it can be a tool either for Satan or for God. You dwell on the pain, you dwell on the people who hurt you or on yourself, and you're going to start a downward cycle of depression. That might be where you are right now.
But if you surrender to Jesus all the pain, all those people who hurt you, all the questions, you're on your way to turning a loss into a victory like those football players at the Georgia School for the Deaf. They have special sensitivity because of their loss, because of their handicap. You can too.
It might be that you're going through so many of life's troubles, so much of life's pain without the Great Comforter, without the God of all compassion because you don't have a relationship with Him. You might have a religion, but you don't know Him personally.
I tell you that Jesus came here to walk the most painful road anyone has ever walked, to die on a brutal cross to pay for the sin that keeps us from God, so the wall could come down between you and Him this very day. And all His resources are yours to walk through the pain and the storm. Our website will show you how to get started with Him - AnewStory.com.
God can give you radar from your rough times; radar that will make you the one who can be Jesus' person for another hurting person.
