Max Lucado Daily: National Day of Prayer
I have a question for you on this National Day of Prayer! How bold are your prayers? As John Wesley crossed the Atlantic, he was reading in his cabin, and became aware of heavy winds knocking the ship off course. He responded in prayer and a colleague wrote it down:
"Almighty and everlasting God. . .Thou holdest the winds in thy fists and sittest upon the water floods. . .command those winds and these waves that they obey Thee. Take us speedily and safely to the haven whither we would go."
On deck his colleague found calm winds and the ship on course. Wesley made no mention of the answered prayer. His friend wrote, "So fully did he expect to be heard that he took it for granted he was heard."
How bold are your prayers?
From More to Your Story
Psalm 149
Praise the Lord!
Sing to the Lord a new song.
Sing his praises in the assembly of the faithful.
2 O Israel, rejoice in your Maker.
O people of Jerusalem,[a] exult in your King.
3
Praise his name with dancing,
accompanied by tambourine and harp.
4 For the Lord delights in his people;
he crowns the humble with victory.
5
Let the faithful rejoice that he honors them.
Let them sing for joy as they lie on their beds.
6 Let the praises of God be in their mouths,
and a sharp sword in their hands—
7 to execute vengeance on the nations
and punishment on the peoples,
8
to bind their kings with shackles
and their leaders with iron chains,
9 to execute the judgment written against them.
This is the glorious privilege of his faithful ones.
Praise the Lord!
Footnotes:
149:2 Hebrew Zion.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, May 05, 2016
Read: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-28
16 Always be joyful. 17 Never stop praying. 18 Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
19 Do not stifle the Holy Spirit. 20 Do not scoff at prophecies, 21 but test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good. 22 Stay away from every kind of evil.
Paul’s Final Greetings
23 Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. 24 God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful.
25 Dear brothers and sisters, pray for us.
26 Greet all the brothers and sisters with a sacred kiss.
27 I command you in the name of the Lord to read this letter to all the brothers and sisters.
28 May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
INSIGHT:
The Wycliffe Bible Commentary provides illumination on how Paul’s concluding prayer in 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24 summarizes key points covered in this epistle: “Paul embraces all his exhortations in a prayer for sanctification, and assures the believers that a faithful God will answer it. . . . Though human surrender and obedience are necessary, sanctification is essentially a divine work (cf. Rom. 15:16; Eph. 5:26). Wholly (holoteleis) implies that no part is lacking; the whole person is to be kept blameless.” Every aspect of human nature is to be made whole in Christ.
Prayer Marathon
By Poh Fang Chia
Pray continually. 1 Thessalonians 5:17
Do you struggle to maintain a consistent prayer life? Many of us do. We know that prayer is important, but it can also be downright difficult. We have moments of deep communion with God and then we have times when it feels like we’re just going through the motions. Why do we struggle so in our prayers?
The life of faith is a marathon. The ups, the downs, and the plateaus in our prayer life are a reflection of this race. And just as in a marathon we need to keep running, so we keep praying. The point is: Don’t give up!
There is never a day when we don’t need to pray.
That is God’s encouragement too. The apostle Paul said, “pray continually” (1 Thess. 5:17), “keep on praying” (Rom. 12:12 nlt), and “devote yourselves to prayer” (Col. 4:2). All of these statements carry the idea of remaining steadfast and continuing in the work of prayer.
And because God, our heavenly Father, is a personal being, we can develop a time of close communion with Him, just as we do with our close human relationships. A. W. Tozer writes that as we learn to pray, our prayer life can grow “from the initial most casual brush to the fullest, most intimate communion of which the human soul is capable.” And that’s what we really want—deep communication with God. It happens when we keep praying.
Dear Father, we often struggle to spend time with You. Help us to make the time, and help us sense Your goodness and presence.
There is never a day when we don’t need to pray.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, May 05, 2016
Judgment and the Love of God
The time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God… —1 Peter 4:17
The Christian servant must never forget that salvation is God’s idea, not man’s; therefore, it has an unfathomable depth. Salvation is the great thought of God, not an experience. Experience is simply the door through which salvation comes into the conscious level of our life so that we are aware of what has taken place on a much deeper level. Never preach the experience— preach the great thought of God behind the experience. When we preach, we are not simply proclaiming how people can be saved from hell and be made moral and pure; we are conveying good news about God.
In the teachings of Jesus Christ the element of judgment is always brought out— it is the sign of the love of God. Never sympathize with someone who finds it difficult to get to God; God is not to blame. It is not for us to figure out the reason for the difficulty, but only to present the truth of God so that the Spirit of God will reveal what is wrong. The greatest test of the quality of our preaching is whether or not it brings everyone to judgment. When the truth is preached, the Spirit of God brings each person face to face with God Himself.
If Jesus ever commanded us to do something that He was unable to equip us to accomplish, He would be a liar. And if we make our own inability a stumbling block or an excuse not to be obedient, it means that we are telling God that there is something which He has not yet taken into account. Every element of our own self-reliance must be put to death by the power of God. The moment we recognize our complete weakness and our dependence upon Him will be the very moment that the Spirit of God will exhibit His power.
Wisdom From Oswald Chambers
There is no allowance whatever in the New Testament for the man who says he is saved by grace but who does not produce the graceful goods. Jesus Christ by His Redemption can make our actual life in keeping with our religious profession.
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, May 05, 2016
You're Free - #7649
For three months, Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer were prisoners of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, accused along with other aid workers of trying to convert Afghans to Christianity. In October of 2001 their prison cells were suddenly shaken by the thunder of U. S. bombs falling on the city of Kabul. Weeks later, after a cold, sleepless night in a steel shipping container, the girls and their colleagues found themselves in a new prison south of Kabul, with rockets crashing down on the contested town they were in. Suddenly, there were men banging on their prison doors. They thought their Taliban captors were returning, and now their fate was clearly uncertain as the situation around them dissolved into total chaos. Then, to their surprise, an anti-Taliban soldier came in with reams of ammunition around his neck. He was just shouting two wonderful words, "You're free! You're free!"
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "You're Free!"
What a feeling to be imprisoned, to be in great danger, and then to have a liberator suddenly come crashing into your chaos shouting, "You're free!" Well, that's an experience shared by many who have met the ultimate Liberator.
His rescue of folks like you and me is described in the Bible in John 8, beginning with verse 34. It's our word for today from the Word of God. "Jesus replied, 'I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.'" When Jesus talks about "sin," He's talking about something a lot deeper than breaking some religion's rules. He's referring to the fact that we've all decided to run our own lives instead of letting God run them – which has led us to a lot of selfish choices, a lot of hurtful actions, and a lot of accumulated garbage in our lives. There's not one of us who doesn't know the weight of the guilt of our mistakes; the bondage to our dark side that has made it impossible for us to shake some of the junk that we really don't want in our lives.
But Jesus moves from talking about our slavery to our dark side to the promise of something better – freedom! In fact, He goes on to say, "If the Son (that's Him – the Son of God) sets you free, you will be free indeed." Now, Jesus Christ is offering to you and me the promise of being liberated forever from the guilt, the shame, and the slavery of this sin-prison we're in – something no religion could ever do for you.
He wants to remove your guilt with total forgiveness for every wrong thing you have ever done – a total new beginning. He wants to remove the shame and replace it with a new sense of cleanness and worth. He wants to give you the spiritual power to stop doing the things you've never been able to shake.
But for Jesus to be able to rescue you from the prison of your sin, He had to give His life. He went to the cross to pay for and remove your death penalty for every wrong thing you have ever done. There is a death penalty. Sin is a capital crime against the God of the universe. And only paying the death penalty can set us free. And Jesus said, "I'll take it instead of you."
So He stands ready to make this day your Liberation Day if you'll tell Him you're opening your life to Him...that you're going to depend totally on Him to be your personal Rescuer from your personal sin. If you've never done that, you can swing open the door to Him right now. You can tell Him right where you are, "Jesus, I turn from the running of my own life. I believe when You died on the cross You did it for every sin I've ever committed. I believe you're alive, and I am now pinning all my hopes on You. I am yours."
Please go to our website and get this settled. There's all the information there that you will need to know for sure you're forgiven and you belong to Jesus. That's ANewStory.com where your new story could begin right now today.
You know what this day could be for you? This could be the day that Jesus, the great Liberator, comes into your life and makes this awesome announcement, "You're free! You're free!"