Max Lucado Daily: God's Claim on You
I have a feeling most people who defy and deny God do so more out of fear than conviction. For all our chest pumping and braggadocio, we are anxious folk-we can't see a step into the future, we can't hear the one who owns us. No wonder we try to bite the hand that feeds us.
But God reaches and touches. If he's touching you, let him. Mark it down-God loves you with an unearthly love. You can't win it by being winsome. You can't lose it by being a loser. But you can be blind enough to resist it. Don't. For heaven's sake, don't. For your sake, don't!
Others demote you. God claims you. Let the definitive voice of the universe say, You are part of my plan!
From 3:16
Psalm 122
A song of ascents. Of David.
I rejoiced with those who said to me,
“Let us go to the house of the Lord.”
2 Our feet are standing
in your gates, Jerusalem.
3 Jerusalem is built like a city
that is closely compacted together.
4 That is where the tribes go up—
the tribes of the Lord—
to praise the name of the Lord
according to the statute given to Israel.
5 There stand the thrones for judgment,
the thrones of the house of David.
6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
“May those who love you be secure.
7 May there be peace within your walls
and security within your citadels.”
8 For the sake of my family and friends,
I will say, “Peace be within you.”
9 For the sake of the house of the Lord our God,
I will seek your prosperity.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Read: Genesis 4:1-8
Cain and Abel
Now Adam[a] had sexual relations with his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant. When she gave birth to Cain, she said, “With the Lord’s help, I have produced[b] a man!” 2 Later she gave birth to his brother and named him Abel.
When they grew up, Abel became a shepherd, while Cain cultivated the ground. 3 When it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord. 4 Abel also brought a gift—the best portions of the firstborn lambs from his flock. The Lord accepted Abel and his gift, 5 but he did not accept Cain and his gift. This made Cain very angry, and he looked dejected.
6 “Why are you so angry?” the Lord asked Cain. “Why do you look so dejected? 7 You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master.”
8 One day Cain suggested to his brother, “Let’s go out into the fields.”[c] And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother, Abel, and killed him.
Footnotes:
4:1a Or the man; also in 4:25.
4:1b Or I have acquired. Cain sounds like a Hebrew term that can mean “produce” or “acquire.”
4:8 As in Samaritan Pentateuch, Greek and Syriac versions, and Latin Vulgate; Masoretic Text lacks “Let’s go out into the fields.”
INSIGHT:
There has been much theological debate as to why God accepted Abel’s sacrifice and rejected Cain’s (Gen. 4:4–5). One popular theory is that Abel’s sacrifice mirrored God’s act in the garden of Eden that provided covering for Adam and Eve—by means of an animal’s death—after they disobeyed God (3:21). Another view is that Cain’s offering of what he had grown by his own efforts pictured works, but Abel’s offering of a lamb pictured God’s ultimate sacrifice of grace. It seems that these brothers must have been given some idea of what was—and was not—considered an acceptable offering. Bill Crowder
Resisting the Trap
By Jennifer Benson Schuldt
Sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it. Genesis 4:7
A Venus flytrap can digest an insect in about 10 days. The process begins when an unsuspecting bug smells nectar on the leaves that form the trap. When the insect investigates, it crawls into the jaws of the plant. The leaves clamp shut within half a second and digestive juices dissolve the bug.
This meat-eating plant reminds me of the way sin can devour us if we are lured into it. Sin is hungry for us. Genesis 4:7 says, “If you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you.” God spoke these words to Cain just before he killed his brother Abel.
Relying on God’s Spirit supplies the power to live for Him and others.
Sin may try to entice us by tempting us with a new experience, convincing us that living right doesn’t matter, or appealing to our physical senses. However, there is a way for us to rule over sin instead of letting it consume our lives. The Bible says, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16). When we face temptation, we don’t face it alone. We have supernatural assistance. Relying on God’s Spirit supplies the power to live for Him and others.
Dear God, at times I let down my guard and indulge in sin. Please help me to listen to Your warnings and obey Your Word. Protect me from my own impulses and conform me to Your image. Thank You for Your work in me.
We fall into temptation when we don’t flee from it.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Complete and Effective Dominion
Death no longer has dominion over Him.…the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God… —Romans 6:9-11
Co-Eternal Life. Eternal life is the life which Jesus Christ exhibited on the human level. And it is this same life, not simply a copy of it, which is made evident in our mortal flesh when we are born again. Eternal life is not a gift from God; eternal life is the gift of God. The energy and the power which was so very evident in Jesus will be exhibited in us by an act of the absolute sovereign grace of God, once we have made that complete and effective decision about sin.
“You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…” (Acts 1:8)— not power as a gift from the Holy Spirit; the power is the Holy Spirit, not something that He gives us. The life that was in Jesus becomes ours because of His Cross, once we make the decision to be identified with Him. If it is difficult to get right with God, it is because we refuse to make this moral decision about sin. But once we do decide, the full life of God comes in immediately. Jesus came to give us an endless supply of life— “…that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19). Eternal life has nothing to do with time. It is the life which Jesus lived when He was down here, and the only Source of life is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Even the weakest saint can experience the power of the deity of the Son of God, when he is willing to “let go.” But any effort to “hang on” to the least bit of our own power will only diminish the life of Jesus in us. We have to keep letting go, and slowly, but surely, the great full life of God will invade us, penetrating every part. Then Jesus will have complete and effective dominion in us, and people will take notice that we have been with Him.
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
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Before The Roof Caves In - #7632
When we lived in New Jersey, twelve straight days of rain was pretty unusual. But I remember this time when we got to take our turn at almost two weeks without sunshine. For most of us, it was just a soggy nuisance. But for some people across town, it meant trading in their car for a rowboat. I turned on the news one night as they were talking about a roof that had caved in on a store in our town. It was the pharmacy I went to all the time. Apparently, water had collected until it just broke through the ceiling, and it literally washed one customer out the door like a raging river! I was in the pharmacy prior to the roof caving in and I noticed that they had put out a couple of buckets on the floor, catching drips from some leaks in the ceiling. First, some little leaks – then suddenly the roof caved in!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Before the Roof Caves In."
I'm no structural engineer, but I suspect that what happened when the roof came down wasn't really a sudden fluke. Those little leaks were hints that there was trouble up there and the roof must have been gradually weakened. And then one day there was a downpour that no one could stop.
That kind of small leak that can lead to a big collapse doesn't just happen to buildings; it happens to people. It could be in the process of happening to you, as you allow some seemingly small sin-leaks just to continue wearing you down. They don't seem to be causing much trouble right now. But then Satan seldom destroys people by explosion. He does it by erosion. And you may be much closer to the roof caving in on you than you could possibly imagine, with innocent victims being caught in that wreckage.
God very bluntly spells out the inevitable progression of sin in our lives, from the little drips to the deadly collapse. James 1:14-15 is our word for today from the Word of God. "Each one is tempted when, by his own (evil) desire, he is dragged away and enticed. After desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death."
It starts as a temptation that you allow yourself to entertain; a sinful desire, a slow sin-leak into your heart, flirting with telling something other than the truth, or with a relationship that is morally out of bounds, or with trying something that has no place in a walking temple of the Holy Spirit. It might just be lingering to watch what holy eyes should never be polluted with, or listening to something that quietly feeds the dark side of you, or messing with the dark side of the supernatural.
And Satan, who wants to destroy you, has convinced you that just this much won't hurt. You can handle this. You need this. Wanting it; thinking about it. That's just a little leak, right? But desire doesn't stay desire for long. If you let it in, it very quickly turns to sinful actions you never would have imagined. And the little drops of desire become the steady leak of sin which becomes increasingly hard to stop doing.
"And sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death." Gradually weakened by a series of little compromises, you're headed for a cave-in that will bury you and maybe people you love. It is inevitable unless you fix that widening hole that sin is using to come into your life. It's time to do what God tells us to do. "Resist the devil and he will flee from you" (James 4:7). You've been cooperating with the devil and he's slowly wearing you down spiritually with his subtle plan to take you where you never dreamed you'd go, to make you pay a price you never could have imagined.
It's time to get on your knees and ask Jesus to be your Savior from this sin, to give you the desire and the strength to turn and fight the sin that you've been flirting with. Like that rain-weakened roof on a store near us, the total collapse could be much closer than you know. But you can still stop it before it all comes down, if you'll invite the Carpenter of Nazareth to repair the damage that sin has done.