Max Lucado Daily: TOOLS IN SATAN’S TOOL KIT
How do we explain our stubborn hearts and conniving ways? How do we explain Auschwitz, human trafficking, abuse? If I were the devil, I’d want you to feel attacked by an indefinable force. If I were the devil, I’d keep my name out of it.
But God doesn’t let the devil get away with this. He tells us his name: splitter, a divider, a wedge driver. Don’t fault the plunging economy or a raging dictator for your anxiety. They are simply tools in Satan’s tool kit. We can’t understand God’s narrative without understanding Satan’s strategy. Scripture says, “the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).
God calls the devil by name and promises to defeat him. So, be assured, his days are numbered.
From There’s More to Your Story
Psalm 150
Praise the Lord!
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heaven!
2 Praise him for his mighty works;
praise his unequaled greatness!
3 Praise him with a blast of the ram’s horn;
praise him with the lyre and harp!
4 Praise him with the tambourine and dancing;
praise him with strings and flutes!
5 Praise him with a clash of cymbals;
praise him with loud clanging cymbals.
6 Let everything that breathes sing praises to the Lord!
Praise the Lord!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, May 06, 2016
Read: 3 John 1:1-8
Greetings
This letter is from John, the elder.[a]
I am writing to Gaius, my dear friend, whom I love in the truth.
2 Dear friend, I hope all is well with you and that you are as healthy in body as you are strong in spirit. 3 Some of the traveling teachers[b] recently returned and made me very happy by telling me about your faithfulness and that you are living according to the truth. 4 I could have no greater joy than to hear that my children are following the truth.
Caring for the Lord’s Workers
5 Dear friend, you are being faithful to God when you care for the traveling teachers who pass through, even though they are strangers to you. 6 They have told the church here of your loving friendship. Please continue providing for such teachers in a manner that pleases God. 7 For they are traveling for the Lord,[c] and they accept nothing from people who are not believers.[d] 8 So we ourselves should support them so that we can be their partners as they teach the truth.
Footnotes:
1 Greek From the elder.
3 Greek the brothers; also in verses 5 and 10.
7a Greek They went out on behalf of the Name.
7b Greek from Gentiles.
INSIGHT:
Today’s reading is taken from the apostle John’s final letter, written near the end of his life. John is the only one of the twelve apostles who was not martyred for his faith. However, according to tradition John was tortured and later exiled on the Island of Patmos. John kept in touch with those congregations he had nurtured earlier in his ministry. He wisely understood that health can be experienced in mind, body, and soul and so includes this in his prayer (v. 2). His word choice is kind and relational. He writes that his highest joy in ministry is to hear how those he has ministered to are moving on in their faith in Christ (v. 3).
No Greater Joy
By David McCasland
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. 3 John 1:4
Bob and Evon Potter were a fun-loving couple with three young sons when their life took a wonderful new direction. In 1956 they attended a Billy Graham Crusade in Oklahoma City and gave their lives to Christ. Before long, they wanted to reach out to others to share their faith and the truth about Christ, so they opened their home every Saturday night to high school and college students who had a desire to study the Bible. A friend invited me and I became a regular at the Potters’ house.
This was a serious Bible study that included lesson preparation and memorizing Scripture. Surrounded by an atmosphere of friendship, joy, and laughter, we challenged each other and the Lord changed our lives during those days.
Be a voice of encouragement to someone today.
I stayed in touch with the Potters over the years and received many cards and letters from Bob who always signed them with these words: “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth” (3 John 1:4). Like John writing to his “dear friend Gaius” (v. 1), Bob encouraged everyone who crossed his path to keep walking with the Lord.
A few years ago I attended Bob’s memorial service. It was a joyful occasion filled with people still walking the road of faith—all because of a young couple who opened their home and their hearts to help others find the Lord.
Thank You, Lord, for the people who have encouraged me to keep walking in Your truth. May I honor them by helping someone along that road today.
Be a voice of encouragement to someone today.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, May 06, 2016
Liberty and the Standards of Jesus
Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free… —Galatians 5:1
A spiritually-minded person will never come to you with the demand— “Believe this and that”; a spiritually-minded person will demand that you align your life with the standards of Jesus. We are not asked to believe the Bible, but to believe the One whom the Bible reveals (see John 5:39-40). We are called to present liberty for the conscience of others, not to bring them liberty for their thoughts and opinions. And if we ourselves are free with the liberty of Christ, others will be brought into that same liberty— the liberty that comes from realizing the absolute control and authority of Jesus Christ.
Always measure your life solely by the standards of Jesus. Submit yourself to His yoke, and His alone; and always be careful never to place a yoke on others that is not of Jesus Christ. It takes God a long time to get us to stop thinking that unless everyone sees things exactly as we do, they must be wrong. That is never God’s view. There is only one true liberty— the liberty of Jesus at work in our conscience enabling us to do what is right.
Don’t get impatient with others. Remember how God dealt with you— with patience and with gentleness. But never water down the truth of God. Let it have its way and never apologize for it. Jesus said, “Go…and make disciples…” (Matthew 28:19), not, “Make converts to your own thoughts and opinions.”
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are only what we are in the dark; all the rest is reputation. What God looks at is what we are in the dark—the imaginations of our minds; the thoughts of our heart; the habits of our bodies; these are the things that mark us in God’s sight. The Love of God—The Ministry of the Unnoticed, 669 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, May 06, 2016
Your Most Important Crop - #7650
While I was growing up in an apartment in Chicago, my wife was growing up in a very different world. She grew up on a small dairy farm. It was her Mom and Dad, and two "sons". Actually, the sons turned out to be daughters. So, those girls had to be the sons who helped their Dad on his meager little farm. My wife says she'll never forget the day the county farm agent came for a visit. He walked around with Dad, inspected his crops, looked at his books, and started lecturing Dad on all the things he could do better – all of which would take money and help that they could never afford.
Unbeknownst to Dad or the farm agent, my wife (then a little girl) was in the kitchen washing dishes, listening to this lopsided conversation out the window. Now, her Dad listened patiently until the agent stopped and then he said, "Are you finished?" The man said he was. Then Dad said something that his daughter would never forget. "Mr. Pendleton, you haven't seen all my crops. You haven't seen my most important crop--my daughters!"
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Your Most Important Crop."
My father-in-law had his values straight – and I will be forever grateful to him for that. Those two daughters, his most important crops, grew up to be strong, competent, Jesus-loving, Jesus-serving women. And I got to marry one of them!
Maybe it's time to remind yourself of what your most important crop is. Our word for today from the Word of God comes in the middle of a passage about a time when things were going to be totally up for grabs. In Isaiah 8:18, we read this values-clarifying statement, "Here am I, and the children the Lord has given me." See, whatever happens to our culture, whatever happens to our economy, whatever rises, whatever falls, what really matters is these children God has given me.
I can't read these words without thinking about a powerful little poem I once saw on a grandmother's wall. "It is my greatest desire that on that Resurrection Day, I may stand before my Savior and say, 'Here am I – and the children You gave me.'" Again, a reminder of what is the most important crop you have. It's not your business, it's not your bank account, it's not even your ministry, it's not your titles or your awards – it's the children God gave you to love and to shape.
In a pressure cooker world like ours, I know there must be a dozen things screaming for the best of your time, the best of your attention. And it's hard to get an "A" in everything. You have to decide where you're going to settle for a "C". You might even have to drop something so you can get an "A" where it really matters. Where it's hardest to get an "A" and where an "A" is the most worth it – at home. You can be a hero at work, a hero in the community, a hero at church – and a zero at home. And that's the one place where you're irreplaceable.
When my friend George was offered a significant promotion – if he would move – he turned it down, much to the company's amazement. Why? Because he knew what that move would do to this family, and he said they come first. Be sure your priorities are in the right place. Arrange your other priorities around being what that son or daughter needs. Remove the weeds in your relationship with them. Then water that relationship with lots of praise, lots of time, and lots of attention.
Your children are, in God's words, and this is in Psalm 127, "a heritage from the Lord...a reward from Him" (Verse 3). More than any other crop in your life, they will be the measure of how well you have lived. Your children really are your most important crop.